it hit me that i've lived at 1205 Westerly Terrace in Silverlake for 10 years now, 8 of which with Brian & Nikki, co-founding members of the Silversun Pickups , who would rehearse or have shows in the living room & introduced me to their whole indie rock scene when i was much more of a drum'n bass head, going mostly to electronic music shows... i was still a senior in college when i moved in... we had many barbecues leaving the whole property drenched in beer, whisky & other substances. we've had trippy 4th of July parties, one of them dividing the guests in a team tripping on mushrooms, while the other team of guests was rolling on e... we still refer to that night as the "shrooms versus e" night. that was such a long time ago; there was no stopping us back then. yikes! it felt like we would party hardy for the rest of our lives. then one day, we just got bored with it, or it stopped being fun. so we moved on to other ways... anyhew, we've had insane parties at this address, reaching well over 300 guests, with other local indie bands such as Earlimart , Midnight Movies , Kennedy (who was a member of the Silversn Pickups for a bit), Irving,... setting up in the living room with members of the Strokes in attendance. we got Dublab & friends involved, mixing it up with deejays playing house, jungle, hip-hop till the whole house was shaking, litterally. once, the deck in the back of the house collapsed. every time, at least 3 drunks would fall down the stairs on their way out. cops would usually show up between 3 & 5 am to shut things down, sometimes to our relief. we haven't had one of those since 2005 i think. we mellowed out, and it became too much a chore to clean the whole mess the day after, when all we wanted to do is nurse our hangovers... today i took a few pix to remember the house i will soon be leaving...
for the past 10 years, this has been the first thing i see each time i walk out of the front door:
for the past 10 years, this has been the first thing i see each time i walk out of the front door:
for the past 10 years i've gone up & down these steps a million times:
Chicho's favorite spot on the steps:
we share lemons, herbs, lettuce, tomatoes & chili peppers:
for the past 10 years this is how i first see the house coming up Westerly Terrace from Sunset Blvd, or coming down Hamilton Way:
woaaaah, 10 whole years in one place. who knew that could ever happen! 10 eventful years that have shaped my life in many diverse ways, and have made me who i am today... now i know what it's like to be in one place for this long, and i'm ready to make a move to change things up!
my friend Liza, Californian by birth, never has tired of LA by moving from neighborhood to neighborhood every 2 or 3 years. now that she's a wife & mother, she seems to have settled in more serene Mount Washington, a 5 to 10 minute drive North of Silverlake. Liza once lived in Silverlake, way before it was hip. she lived at the Gaylord in Koreatown way before it was cool. we'd go down to the first floor for drinks at the HMS Bounty. our waitress was this little lady in her 70s, maybe even 80s, who used to be Kim Novack's double. she had many entertaining stories about Hollywood's golden age. actually, she's the girl painted in gold in the opening credits of the James Bond movie "Goldfinger." anyhew, Liza then moved to the hills of Echo Park, alongside Elysian park, when it was still considered too dangerous due to gang related activities in the area. she moved into a downtown loft with the man who has become her husband. and she's lived closer to the ocean too, before i knew her, when the west side wasn't so lame... i settled in Silverlake when it was still untapped & only 2 of my friends lived in the area. now all my friends live on this side of town. i love Silverlake, even as it has become "so cool" i'm not so sure it's cool anymore. but i love it. i'm comfortable here, maybe too comfortable. i just need a change. i'm not tired of LA in any way, but i have become a full blown Angeleno. i'd like to start moving around in the same way, from town to town. try a different town or neighorhood every other year or so... after all, might as well take full advantage of LA being not one central city, but several towns clumped together, some similar & others drastically different... i want know every corner of this vast & inexhaustibly rich metropolis.
my friend Liza, Californian by birth, never has tired of LA by moving from neighborhood to neighborhood every 2 or 3 years. now that she's a wife & mother, she seems to have settled in more serene Mount Washington, a 5 to 10 minute drive North of Silverlake. Liza once lived in Silverlake, way before it was hip. she lived at the Gaylord in Koreatown way before it was cool. we'd go down to the first floor for drinks at the HMS Bounty. our waitress was this little lady in her 70s, maybe even 80s, who used to be Kim Novack's double. she had many entertaining stories about Hollywood's golden age. actually, she's the girl painted in gold in the opening credits of the James Bond movie "Goldfinger." anyhew, Liza then moved to the hills of Echo Park, alongside Elysian park, when it was still considered too dangerous due to gang related activities in the area. she moved into a downtown loft with the man who has become her husband. and she's lived closer to the ocean too, before i knew her, when the west side wasn't so lame... i settled in Silverlake when it was still untapped & only 2 of my friends lived in the area. now all my friends live on this side of town. i love Silverlake, even as it has become "so cool" i'm not so sure it's cool anymore. but i love it. i'm comfortable here, maybe too comfortable. i just need a change. i'm not tired of LA in any way, but i have become a full blown Angeleno. i'd like to start moving around in the same way, from town to town. try a different town or neighorhood every other year or so... after all, might as well take full advantage of LA being not one central city, but several towns clumped together, some similar & others drastically different... i want know every corner of this vast & inexhaustibly rich metropolis.
