[I told you I'd finish this post eventually. Never doubt me again. The big day in question was Saturday, the 29th of August. -edb]
L. and I agreed, while stuck in southbound traffic on the way home, on what the problem is: getting up to Los Angeles is just enough of a hassle, for those of us living down in Orange County, that we’re compelled to make full days of trips there, packing as much as we can into a journey north–which is precisely not the way to enjoy the UnCity. L.A. should be sampled in small bites. To engage it otherwise exhausts. The problem is exacerbated when the temperature is pushing 100 and one’s vehicle doesn’t feature working air conditioning, which requires open windows, which at 60 miles per hour make music and conversation inaudible, and which don’t help much against the heat anyhow. Shō ga nai, as the Japanese say.
At least the drive up was oddly light on traffic; we made our first destination almost a half hour early, which is rare for L. and me. We’d learned about Stan’s Donuts, in Westwood Village, from an episode of one of local public television host Huell Howser’s programs on KCET, about which I should, but won’t now, write more, except to observe that they should be required viewing for anyone who wants to really get to know this city and this state, or who can appreciate charmingly low-budget and inept-but-oddly-compelling television in general. The episode in question we’d seen over three months ago, before I went to Alaska, so this visit to Stan’s was a long-anticipated pilgrimage.
Joining us for the experience were my old friend J., a classmate from Bible college days to whom I hadn’t spoken since 1996 before we ran into each other very recently on Facebook, and her cousin. We met in Westwood Village and decided to precede donuts with coffee, which we ended up getting at a Whole Foods Market, where another customer, alarmingly chatty, asked if I worked at Trader Joe’s, because I was wearing an aloha shirt.
With caffeine in hand, we made our way over to Stan’s, a tiny 40 year-old corner shop with just a few tables between the door and a little glass case of fried dough confections. Behind the counter worked a pleasant employee and, to our delight, Stan himself, overseeing the operation with obvious pleasure. Before we’d gotten around to ordering a thing, he was asking us where we’d come from; telling us what a joy it’s been to meet so many interesting people from so many interesting places. This is a man doing precisely what he was born to do, absolutely content–more than content–with life.
Ordering was a breeze; we’d come for one very specific donut–the one profiled so lovingly by Huell on his broadcast. It had then been called the peanut butter pocket. Now it’s just called “The Huell.” L. and I ordered one apiece. “Just one?” asked Stan. We would, in fact, later regret not having bought more to take home.
The Huell is probably the best donut I’ve ever had–and I fancy myself a donut-lover with a reasonably sophisticated palate. I was thrilled not to be disappointed. The Huell is a raised donut filled with a generous measure of peanut butter, topped with a chocolate glaze and a sprinkling of chocolate chips. It is rich and filling and wonderful, worth every penny of its $2.50 price–especially considering that it substitutes handily for one of the day’s meals.
But it was Stan who made the experience so memorable. While J. and I no doubt bored our companions with our extended catch-up session, Stan wandered out from behind the counter from time to time to check on us and make small talk. He wanted to know how the donuts were. “Miraculous,” I told him. “I’ve never heard that word used for my donuts,” he chuckled. “No–putting a man on the moon: that’s miraculous.”
On our way out the door after an hour, we thanked Stan. “It’s me who should be thanking you!” he countered, observing that his customers’ loyalty has kept him in business these four decades. Then he followed us out to the street to chat with us for a while more, telling us about the watch he’d just bought himself as a birthday present (his wife hates it) and about the yearly trips he takes across the Atlantic to drive around France. Stan is 80 or so years old, healthy, humble, and happy. He’s so charming that I can’t even be bitter about my own relative lack of contentment.
Riding high on a sugar-and-caffeine buzz, L. and I said goodbye to the ladies and drove ten or fifteen minutes southeast to meet Dan, another old friend of mine: one I met in junior high and have been in touch with on and off in all the years since. He’s recently relocated to L.A., where he does marketing work for a Santa Monica architecture firm while moonlighting with his band Super Duper. We took his (air conditioned) car up to the Valley for lunch at a gyros and shish kabob place with Super Duper’s bassist, Aaron–a friend of Dan’s since they played in a band together in college, and a friend of mine since our introduction probably close to a decade ago.
Then Dan and L. and I shot back down the 405 toward the Getty Center, which L., having lived in greater Los Angeles for eight or nine years, had somehow managed to not yet visit. Everyone should stop by at least once if possible for the striking architecture and views of the city: in today’s bright heat, the only cloud in the sky was the apocalyptic billow on the horizon from the wildfire in Angeles National Forest. The common wisdom–true in my experience–is that the galleries are not the Getty’s strong suit, but we enjoyed an exhibit on bronze casting technique nonetheless, and felt that the $5 each that parking had cost us had been well spent.
We returned to Westwood as the shadows lengthened for a cold caffeinated pick-me-up before settling into the evening’s entertainment: a screening of a 1967 Mexican sci-fi film starring lucha libre legend Santo at UCLA’s Hammer Museum. Santo el enmascardo de plata vs la invasión de los marcianos (Santo the Silver-Mask vs. the Martian Invasion) was a hoot–literally; the audience laughed aloud heartily throughout–but of a sort that I don’t think I could sit through again. The wooden acting, Ed Wood-grade effects, paint-by-numbers plot, and laughable costumes only served as excuses for literally dozens of interminable scenes of beefy men grappling.
Despite the mystifying late-night traffic on the southbound I-5 that prompted the reflection opening this post, L. and I managed to find our way back to Anaheim by around 10:00 or so, tired but pleased with our day on the town.
And kicking ourselves for not having brought home some peanut butter pockets for the following morning.
;)
;)
