The Movies - In LA, long gone are the days of a spur of the moment trip to the show. You used to decide to see the 10 o'clock movie, call some friends and off you'd go. Today the majority of theaters I have come across in LA (mainly the three or four near my house) all sell seats. Follow me? They don't just sell the tickets, they sell seats. Seats as in the theater, as in a play, as in ushers showing you they way to your numbered seat with a flashlight. All of this now occurs in movie theat
ers. So if Slav and I want to go to movies not only will it likely be sold out (it took us three tries to see Milk), but if we get seats early online we can't later decide we want to invite friends, if we also want to sit with those friends. Between that and a ticket price of nearly $12, it blows my mind.On top of the seat situation, many theaters have bars, lounges, restaurants, cafes and a souvenir shop with all the latest movie paraphernalia (see the picture of the bar in one theater near my house). One particularly high-end theater even offers a concierge. What a movie theater concierge does, other than take tickets, is entirely beyond me.
The Gym - I have lots of 24 Fitness' to choose from near my house. I tried the small one that is closest but it is well...small. It was stuffy and cramped and waayy to sweaty, even for a gym. Then I tried the one in the gayborhood where I was delighted by boys in the smallest shorts I have ever seen and shirts tied into a knot in the back to make a tight crop-top. Unfortunately, it cost $4 to park there and that was just too steep for me. Finally, I tried the true Hollywood gym. Right on Sunset, t
his gym has high ceilings, lots of light, and more cardio machines than I could have dreamed possible. I went there yesterday and had myself a fine time sweatin' away on the eliptical while watching "Meet the Press". I thought I had found the perfect gym.After my heart had slowed to below heart-attack levels and the sweat stopped pouring into my eyes I saw that I was standing in a sea of the most beautiful, fit people I have ever seen in my life. It was like I had stumbled into a secret meeting of models and fitness trainers. Most gyms have their very fit people, and they have a healthy of dose of those trying to become fit. Not this gym. At this gym, they are all extremely fit. My instinct was to never return again but Slav explained to me that for most of the people there (who are models, trainers, actors, etc) being fit is their job. I was crashing their workplace. In my office, I wouldn't expect them to know a thing about law. So I decided that being in their office, they wouldn't expect me to be able to crush a can with my biceps or have a six-pack of abs. Ironic
ally, being models, trainers, actors, ect (and probably mostly aspiring ones) makes them really nice people since they never know if you are a successful producer, photographer, director, ect.So, having made my peace but against my better judgment, I went back to the same gym this morning. It was a hip-hop class where in fact, half the class was made up of professional dancers who understood every step on the first try but were very nice when I spun the wrong way or crashed into them.
