I have a personal rule of thumb when it comes to location-based entertainment:
Books set in LA are better than books set in NYC.
Movies set in NYC are better than movies set in LA.
There are a few reasons for my rationale. First is LA is (generally) the land of filmmaking, and NYC is (generally) the land of publishing, so when you’re making art that doesn’t coincide with the prevailing regional medium, the results are going to be more compelling.
Cinematically, New York just looks better on film. It’s compact. You can fit more things in the frame. Movies set in NYC are feasts for the eyeballs, and if you’ve been to the city at any point in your life, you’ll be on the lookout for recognizable spots. LA has plenty of famous film locales, but you often have to search them out; it lacks the exciting visual spontaneity that NYC has.
But NYC is a loud city. It’s not conducive to interiority. People shout their thoughts as they think them. Books set in NYC generally have a sameness to them—a reflection of a city brimming with too much art, fashion, feelings, and people.
LA, though. Who the hell knows what LA people are thinking? It’s an isolating city, so there’s no lack of interiority here. Lots of time to think. Lots of time to twist yourself into something dark and yearning. These qualities are what produce great books.
I think what it comes down to is that books set in NYC are ostensibly about people trying to get away from each other; LA books are about people trying to find each other.
****
Orange County is a liminal space between LA and San Diego Counties, a buffer allowing travelers from one region to become acclimated to the other.
The day before the annual writers conference, AWP, I go to Disneyland with friends/former CityBeat colleagues Jeff, Candice, and Carolyn. I park in the Woody Lot, a vast swath of asphalt which might as well be the Itchy Lot from The Simpsons. It costs $35 to park in the Woody Lot.
I walk the mile to the park, and find Jeff, Candice and Carolyn in the main square by the flagpole. I keep my eyes open for the goth contingency among the bright and joyful Disneyheads, and sure enough, I find my friends, all dressed in shades of black.
Candice—who we’ve all agreed is “park mom” (mainly because she knows how to use the Disney app)—leads us to Thunder Mountain. I’ve never been on this ride, so halfway through the line, I realize it’s the setting for one of my favorite pictures of all time: sad Billy Corgan on a rollercoaster. I hold up the line to make sure we get a selfie at this famous spot. When it’s our turn to ride, I scowl the entire time. Best to let potential onlookers know that the world is, indeed, a vampire, even if you’re riding a rollercoaster.
We go to Trader Sam’s, the exclusive tiki bar in Downtown Disney, and it’s pretty much like being in San Diego’s False Idol. At what point, I wonder, did cosmopolitan bars start using Disneyland as inspiration? We drink super sweet cocktails, and I can’t tell if the buzz is from the booze or the sugar.
We ride Matterhorn (fuck yeah yeti), Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (Mr. Toad going to hell = metal af), Pirates of the Caribbean (I genuinely love the chlorine-y smell of 500-year-old amusement park water).
We eat churros and Dole whips, and then immediately sit in Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room to watch animatronic birds talk with problematic accents. All the while, I’m kind of shaking from sugar, and all I can think about is how much my cats would love this show.
We head over to Star Wars land. Jeff and Candice are Disneyland veterans, but I’m the only person in our group that has ridden any of the Star Wars things and I am stoked to show them Rise of the Resistance. The wait is 90 minutes and I keep saying, “Don’t worry. It’s gonna be worth it.”
We’re at the very front of the line when all the lights turn on. Something has happened and the ride cannot continue. We’re escorted out through a secret door, down brightly lit office hallways, past staff break rooms and cast members shooting the shit. I’ve never had the magic pulled out from under me so quickly. But it’s also kind of cool. I’ve never thought about the entire infrastructure that each ride requires. I wonder what it’s like behind the scenes at Mr. Toad’s. Probably just a stark room with a cigarette vending machine.
Night falls and it’s about time for me to leave. I’m spending the night at some friends’ place in LA and I don’t want to keep them up too late. But first we all have a final meal together at the Star Wars-themed Ronto Roasters, where we each order a Ronto Wrap. I don’t know what a Ronto is in the Star Wars universe, but I figure it can’t be worse than other mysterious foods I put in my body. The Ronto Wrap is essentially a hot dog with slaw and other pieces of pork, wrapped up in a pita. It looks and sounds more disgusting than it is. God bless whatever stoner was in charge of concocting this thing.
“I’m not mad at it,” Candice says, biting into the Ronto.
Carolyn and I walk down Main Street Disney toward the exit. For a moment we don’t say anything, just let the lights and sounds wash over us.
“This is a ridiculous place,” I say.
“So ridiculous,” Carolyn says.
“But also kind of magical.”
And in that way, Disneyland is the perfect warm-up to Los Angeles.
****
I wake up in Glendale, all my Disneyland muscles throbbing. My friends Jake and Sam have let me crash in their guest room because this morning there’s an early reading nearby at Nico’s Bottle House, an event organized by Little Engines lit mag editor Adam Voith. I met Adam last year at AWP Kansas City, where he had thrown a similarly successful morning reading. Usually AWP events happen at night, but there’s something about a morning reading that just makes so much sense. Maybe too much sense. No one is drunk. People are paying attention to the readers. Can we even really call this a literary event?
The basement of Nico‘s bottle house is a sensual, lurid, red-lighted room that reminds me vaguely of Nicholas Winding Refn films. There’s a performance area and a bar area separated by a curved glass window that the readers refer to as the fishbowl. There are so many people crammed into the basement that I have to stand in the fishbowl.
I run into friends, Kevin Maloney—who I bunked with in a haunted house at last year’s Kansas City AWP—and Aaron Burch, who instigated the infamous casino night last year. I send a group chat to those who were at Casino Night (now capitalized), asking what would this year’s Casino Night be? I throw out the option of going to Jumbo’s Clown Room—a supposed clown-themed strip club whose mystery and infamy has lived large in my mind for a while. Nobody responds.
Also at Nico’s is the Icebreakers literary magazine crew (Terri Linn Davis, Aubri Kaufman, M.M. Kaufman and Emily Costa) who were also at Casino Night. It all feels like a wonderful return to summer camp.
I stand behind Kevin M. Kearney, who runs small press night in San Diego, and watch every reader kill it. I’ve been a long-time admirer of Gina Nutt, whose book of essays Night Rooms left an indelible mark on me. I tell her that after she reads, and she gives me an extra copy. I’ll put it in my classroom. High schoolers need more exposure to literary horror.
Kyle Seibel closes the show with an insane rendition of a story from his newest book Hey You Assholes called “Rollercoaster House.” I had seen him perform the story in Kansas City and it made me immediately excited for his book. Near the end of the story, he flips his book to the ground (a cool move) and recites the rest from memory.
The reading ends and everybody heads downtown. I check into my hotel and learn they charge $66 per night for parking, so I spend the next two hours looking for somewhere affordable to store my car. That’s really the story of LA. There should be a Pixar Cars movie that’s just two hours of Lightning McQueen searching for overnight parking in DTLA.
By the time I’m checked in and my luggage dropped off, it’s well into the afternoon. I should probably get my AWP badge. I step out onto the street and notice a pile of Bird scooters on the corner. I hated these things when they were in San Diego—basically just litter on the sidewalk—but my hotel is about a mile away from the convention center and seeing these scooters is like running into an old flame. Hello gorgeouses. I fire up the Bird app and unlock a scooter with oily handlebars and tagged with “GAYASS” on the deck.
I swiftly find myself gliding through the streets of downtown LA. Wind tosses my hair. Stoic and serious, I zip through intersections like a man with health insurance. Never have I felt this carefree in the City of Angels.
I pick up my badge and almost immediately run into San Diego friends Jac Jemc and Jared Larson. I walk the convention floor with them, not really getting anywhere because Jac’s a celebrity and everyone wants to talk to her.
The three of us go to a nearby Yard House for a late lunch, which I vouch for because I was at this exact same Yard House nearly a month prior while meeting up with a Salt Lake City pal to see the new Utah Hockey Club play the LA Kings. It was at this particular Yard House that we saw a man sitting alone, rocking out to Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” with seven little cups of coffee creamer in front of him, opened and lined up as if they were shots.
And since I wrote about finding a Yard House last year in Kansas City, why not make it an AWP tradition?
I order chicken tenders. As expected, they’re perfect.
The three of us play trivia on the little kiosk at the table and then when we’re closing out, it turns out that they charge you $2.99 to play trivia on the little kiosk. I guess not everything about the Yard House can be perfect.
After lunch, I say bye to Jac and Jared and head back to my hotel for a quick cat nap before a reading at the Silverlake Lounge on Sunset Boulevard (which I learn is very close to Epitaph Records HQ oi oi oi). Instead of sleeping, I research how I’m going to get to Silver Lake. A Lyft costs $30 to go four miles. I could take the bus, but busses in LA? We’ve all seen the Speed, right?
Really the option for me is Bird scooter.
The journey from downtown LA to Silver Lake is vast and full of treachery. I pass through tent cities, clog up one lane streets, float through intersections not meant for scooter travelers. I consider myself, in some ways, a journeyman. The only thing I missing is a scarf flapping in the wind and a set of aviator goggles.
Make it to Silverlake Lounge and it is appropriately divey for a kind of reading that’s about to take place. It’s the second time today that I’ll see Kevin Maloney read, but I’m also stoked for Aaron Burch, Emily Costa, Brian Alan Ellis, and D.T. Robbins— the editor and founder of Rejection Letters, which put out Emily Costa’s book Girl on Girl, one of my favorites from 2024.
I order a shot and a beer. There are no prices anywhere but really how much could that combo be in a place like this?
Offsite readings are the reason to go to AWP. There’s a huge difference between the vibes at Silverlake Lounge and inside the convention center. Inside, there’s a heavy desperation that permeates everywhere. Whether it’s someone trying to pitch you their book or trying to get you to buy their book or someone who wants advice on publishing their book, so many interactions have a “what can you do for me” angle.
And nobody really has the answers. Just like every other industry, the book industry seems to be in a constant state of catastrophe. Nobody’s getting rich as a writer anymore, and those that do just seem to be writing to a checklist of everything the Internet has deemed appropriate and inoffensive. As a result, popular fiction now is largely simple and obvious, where themes are spelled out for the reader, and characters have to be likeable. People want literature to be moral beacons, and they don’t want anything dangerous (Mesha Maren just wrote an excellent essay about fast fashion media/books that you should read).
But the reading at Silverlake Lounge is the opposite. In a loud bar where half of the clientele isn’t even there for the reading, your work has to be wild. It has to be dangerous, which is what we’re treated to for the rest of the night.
The last three readers are Aaron Burch, Kevin Maloney, DT Robbins, who, in secret, co-authored an AWP exclusive book called Kettlebell Brothers Forever, which follows the three of them—writing as themselves—on a drug infused quest to turn newly-deceased writer Kyle Seibel‘s ashes into a golden kettlebell. Burch, Maloney and Robbins read from their respective sections, all of which feature heavy drug use and a Chili’s parking lot.
It’s not so much the story of Kettlebell Brothers Forever that ensnares me, or the fact that Seibel is in the audience basking in his character’s death like some drunken literary Tom Sawyer—but the sheer joy of watching three writers make everyone in the bar feel like they’re part of something communal, one-of-a-kind, and weird. There’s no posturing or desperation to sell copies—just a reminder that people still make art to impress the people they love.
I find Aaron afterward and he tells me that I make a cameo in the book. He proceeds to show me a part where I talk about “maintenance puke”—a term that I used last year at Casino Night when Aaron got a second wind after barfing. Seeing my name and “maintenance puke” together on the page is so beautiful that I get choked up.
At the end of the night, my tab is over $100. I’m drunk, but not $100 worth of drunk. I quietly curse LA and slip myself a weed gummy.
People talk about going to a second location for karaoke, but Aaron, Jared, Caleb Curtiss and I take a Lyft back to the conference hotel where we have another drink, but by that time the edible is kicking in and I’m beginning to lose the ability to feel normal in public. I walk the mile back to my hotel, rereading the same opening paragraph from Kettlebell Brothers Forever, laughing my ass off. Nobody bothers me because I look absolutely insane.
****
The next morning, I wake up in a panic. It’s 9:30 and my overnight parking expires at 10. I run downstairs, bloodshot, beheaded, and ask what time the continental breakfast closes.
“We’re open until 11,” says the hostess
“Good!” I say, too loud. “I’ll be back!”
I walk the five blocks to where my car rests, only to realize I left the keys in the hotel room. I curse LA. I run back, grab the keys, and check the clock. The Speed theme plays in my head. It’s five minutes to 10 a.m., so I jump on a scooter and zip back up to the parking lot. Make it just in time, feed money to the electronic parking god, and it spits out a faded piece of paper as a token for my sacrifice. Good for another 24 hours.
“You made it,” says the hostess when I return, and, yes, that is pity I detect.
After my continental breakfast, I text Kevin Kearney to see how karaoke was last night.
“Total bust,” he responds, and then asks if I want to meet him for lunch.
We meet at the Redwood Bar and Grill. I suck down Pacificos while he eats a chicken salad. He has enough credits for the digital jukebox that we could spend all day listening to whatever comes to us on a whim. We put on Collective Soul (“I’m a Soul man” Kevin says), The Replacements, REM—each band stoking a new turn in the conversation. I wish I could sit with him all day in this bar and listen to music, but having spent nearly $400 on a convention pass makes me feel like I had to get at least some use out of it. Kevin is a smart guy because he didn’t buy a convention pass, just came to LA to hang out with writers and go to offsite readings.
“Wheee,” I say, in monotone, Birding down to the convention center.
Outside the convention center, I run into Kyle Seibel. I’m reminded of the previous night when I drunkenly asked him if his dick was hard, which I said in regards to listening to three great writers read from the Seibel-centric Kettlebell Brothers Forever. I mean, if I had an entire bar doting on me, I for sure would be erect, but in hindsight it just seems kind of petty and mean, so I apologize.
Perhaps as an act of cosmic karma, a stranger recognizes my name because we have a mutual friend in San Diego. He asks to join my wandering and I don’t have the heart to say no. He seems nice, but making conversation with strangers is the last thing I want to do at the moment. We slowly traverse the large conference floor together, eventually falling into the dreaded “so, what do you write?” conversation, which is the entry point to most of the worst conversations I’ve ever had.
After about an hour, I tell him that I’m going to go back to my hotel to get ready for a 5 p.m. reading. He asks if he can join, and I slowly say nooooo. Maybe there’s an epidemic of male loneliness going on right now, but it’s not my job to fix it.
I take a Lyft to the reading at Reverie Bookstand in Echo Park. Five readers, all women, all of them are excellent. It’s small, intimate; the stories are funny, scary, and sad. Less than an hour long. Best reading of the conference.
I know I’ve said this before, but even for lit nerds, a reading that goes more than an ninety minutes begins to strain. I’ve seen flyers for events featuring 12 readers, and, like, what are they thinking? I feel that if you’re organizing a reading and it goes on for longer than ninety minutes, it actually becomes a disservice to the authors you’re trying to showcase.
After the readers finish, there’s a large contingent of the Casino Night Crew standing around, discussing where to go next. Again, I float the idea of Jumbo’s Clown Room. “Jummmmbo’s” I whisper, trying to incept it into people’s brains via the power of suggestion. I can tell people are intrigued but also vaguely put off (except Emily Costa, who is a fellow freak and all in for Jumbo’s)
“It’s a clown strip club?” they ask.
“I don’t really know,” I say.
I approach the Icebreakers ladies because I know that wherever they go, the party goes, but after maybe the second or third plea, I think I’m coming off like a guy who has brought cocaine to a weed party.
I leave Echo Park with friends Jake Arky and Sam DiSalvo (who let me crash at their place on Wednesday night). They take me to some of their local favorite spots in Highland Park. When I bring up Jumbo’s to them, they are more than happy to take me.
“Is it cool? Or like sad and gross?” I ask.
“It’s amazing,” they say.
After dinner, Jake drives us to East Hollywood, and pulls into a nondescript strip mall where Jumbo’s is located—its font on the sign looks strangely austere next to those of the boba shop and beauty salon.
“This used to be where we took our dog to get groomed,” Sam says, pointing at the shop a few doors down from Jumbo’s.
Turns out Jumbo’s is not really a strip club, but more of a bar with a perpetual burlesque show. It’s not nude, but scantily-clad women (and I must add: super tall women) take turns pole dancing for dollar bills. Not to sound like a guy who insists he reads Playboy for the articles, but at Jumbo’s you can just admire the artistry and the physical prowess without pretending that you’re not staring at a butt hole.
However, there are no clowns, or strippers dressed as clowns, which still confuses me to this day. I suppose I could look up why it’s called Jumbo’s Clown Room, but life without mystery is not a life I want to live.
Jake leaves for a moment and comes back with singles. He gives both me and Sam $10 in ones. Cool Strip Club Uncle, I think. I sidle up to the bar and stand next to a guy wearing an Alkaline Trio. I nod at him, point to his shirt, and give a thumbs-up. He holds his fist out and I bump it, my knuckles touching his ornate Dave Navarro-style ring. This bar rules.
A dancer named Kitty—who must be at least six-foot-seven in her heels—emerges on stage, and the opening riff from “Bad to the Bone” blares from the speakers. There’s a Pavlovian effect where everyone shoves to the stage. Jake bolts out from the bathroom just to see what the Thorogood hath bestowed.
Kitty flings herself around on the pole, defying the physics of what a 6-foot-plus body should be able to do. We all quickly agree that Kitty is our favorite. This opinion is only reinforced when the next song she dances to is Alice In Chains’ “Rooster”, which is the most bizarre song I’ve ever seen anyone dance to. But if anyone can, Kitty can, and she does. I throw all my dollars on the stage.
Next up, Jake and Sam take me to a bar in Glendale called Verduga. Before entering, the doorman waves the metal detector wand around us.
“This is because someone got shot outside a few months ago,” Jake says.
The inside of Verduga reminds me of the lobby of the laser tag arena i.e. very cool.
I stand up to use the restroom and find the men’s bathroom is locked. I wait and it’s not long before two bros line up behind me. One of them asks if I’m sure someone inside. To give all of us peace of mind, I push on the door again, and a voice screams from inside: “Hold the fuck up! I’m taking a shit!” The door opens, revealing a huge, bald, tattooed guy who’s riled himself up into some drunken rage. “Fuck you,” he says to me, “I was taking a shit! Enjoy the smell!” I just slide past and hear him berate the people behind me.
****
The next morning, I scoot to the convention center one last time. There’s a panel about anthropomorphism I’m interested in seeing, largely because Henry Hoke is one of the panelists. Hoke’s book Open Throat was recently a finalist for the Pen Faulkner Award, but I know him from a few years ago when I got to publish him in my little literary horror journal, Black Candies.
I rarely go to panels at AWP anymore—I’ve seen enough to know that many writers aren’t good at speaking into a mic, or treat the panel as if delivering their dissertation on pedagogy to a graduate level course, or become dominated by self-involved questions from the audience. But all the writers on this panel are funny and charming, and they’re all talking about animals. How can you go wrong?
After the panel, I say hi to Henry, who’s wearing an amazing Sopranos jacket. I ask where he got it, and he says the name of some designer which he clarifies as “a designer” when he sees my dumb blank stare. This is probably the perfect encapsulation of an interaction between someone from LA and someone from San Diego.
It’s time for me to go home. There’s one more night of off-site parties, but I’m ditching out early. Moths are building a home in my wallet. Plus, I have tickets to see Refused in San Diego later—nothing like a vicious hardcore show to get the stench of literati off me. But I need to get home in time to take a pre-show nap, because that’s what age I am now.
On my way out, I buy a copy of Shelby Hinte’s Howling Women. Throughout the adventures over the past few days, Shelby has been there—a generous new friend who I’d previously known from the Internet, but who’s proven to be even more delightful in person. And the excerpt she read from Howling Women the night before had floored me.
A zip up back to my car, Shelby‘s book in my hand. I say goodbye to the parking meter, my deity. I’ve given my soul to this city. It has bled me dry. It’s been a lot of fun, but I also imagine hell being kind of fun too. I feel a tightness loosen in my chest when I hit the southbound freeway.
I make it home, I get my nap, and around 8 p.m. I get my ass back into the car and drive north again. As I enter the parking lot of the Del Mar Fairgrounds, the parking lot attendant asks for $20.
“You mean parking is not included with the ticket?” I ask.
“Nope.”
“Goddamnit,” I say, reaching for my wallet.
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"Books set in LA are better than books set in NYC." As an author of a book set in L.A. that's currently on submission to publishers, this quote gave me life today. Thank you.
I love everything about this
except that wrap