On Vacation

Ok, so it was a brief vacation, but it was badly needed and very refreshing! Thanks to my unofficial sponsor (and so much more!) I got to spend a night in the Biltmore Hotel on Grand Av. I have a vintage postcard of the Biltmore from the Santa Cruz Antique Fair that's traveled with me through at least 2 or more college residences. I will have to upload it as soon as I make it back to the SFV. It's been a long day, and it will be an even longer weekend, but I remain in good spirits due to the sheer amount of creativity and good vibes I have been picking up on lately. As usual, my luck has been at worst absolutely dumb and at best completely awesome. So I'm letting all the stress of too-many-things-too-little-time roll of my shoulders. 

Here are some photos from the past 24 hours. Once again, thank you to my lovely sister Florentina for making all of this possible. 

Left my house in the morning wearing this. Some people did not approve.

Room at the Biltmore. Big bed = heaven

View from our room.

Said lovely sponsor/sister.

Breakfast time. Watch photo sequence of me doing the "hotel-room-to-myself" dance.

Comfiest bed to jump in I swear. 

After making full use of the Biltmore spa and pool, I embarked on a full exploratory tour of the hotel and some of the surroundings.  

Lobby. Architectural details must be witnessed first person. Sorry! 

Piggy carpet? 

Probs costs more than my life.

Probs costs more than all of my previous lives combined.

Let's steal this.

Urban explorer tip: act like you own the place so no one gives you a hard time. Check!

Funny blogger tip: take pix of self in mirror to prove one was actually there. Check!

Across the street from the Biltmore is Pershing Square. I am not sure I should call this a historical landmark of Los Angeles because the only people frequenting this place appeared to be some angry communters, a lot of bums, and some youngsters such as myself armed with cameras. "Historical Landmark" carries the connonotation of actual residents of the city giving a shit about it, but it seems like that is a connonotation the label carries only for me and some select few. Bummer, this could be a really cool place. The super modern/post modern/ post-po-mo architecture is uninviting though. It also reminds me of the modern architectural style of Kresge College (part of UCSC). The '70s style cut outs and the accent colorous, mixed with the giant and somewhat randomly placed red balls look bizzare, not to mention out of place. This square contrasts so harshly with the international style of the buildings around it and the neo-classical style of the Biltmore. So I guess my question is what the fuck were the people who were designing it trying to get at?

Not a full aerial view, but this is about as best as I could do from the hotel room pre-editing. 

Balls. Two Balls. Two big red balls. And a giant blue tower. 

Yellow. A strange choice as an accent color for this weird architectural mish mash. I would like to point out that in contrast with the luxury and wealth of the Biltmore and other surrounding buildings, Pershing Square was filled with what seemed like poverty and destitute persons. The stark contrast between the well dressed business ppl walking around and the permanent residents of Pershing Square (the homeless) was almost surreal. Walking out of the Biltmore and crossing the street into the square shows two different faces of L.A. in a way that no other architectural mish-mash in any other city I've seen has been able to do. The Biltmore and Pershing Square are as fucking different as they look, not just visually but also culturally. I guess this really struck a chord with me because I expected something different when walking out of the neo-classical into the modern. Shame on you Los Angeles for not taking care of some of your citizens as well as you take care of your guests. Bringing EVERYone into the modern era is not as much of a concern as bringing architectural styles up to date. Whatever, Pershing Square is ugly, intriguing and thought-provoking for me. In some ways not much could be better.

Here's what lead me to think about all of this:

Who tried to break into the biltmore by cutting the bars in that window? Or what happened there anyway? I imagined some homeless person got tired of the socially/humanely-unjust bull shit they had to put up with and tried to get a free room for the night. Anyway, that was a small but significant side note to my day. Here are more photos from my trip.

Blue & yellow.

Jenny, a Brooklynite, wearing a lovely fur coat. Style like this is hard to find in L.A., so thank you Jenny for making my day. I wish I would have gotten a better detail photo of the necklace.

Some of my new L.A. style. Don't laugh guys, I make those hammer pants look sexy.

Anyway, my adventure ended in Westwood. In one week I went from being nearly homeless, to staying at the Biltmore in the lap of luxury, to hanging out in Westwood in the lap of latter day saints (Westwood = home of L.A. Mormon Temple)

So here I am, ready for my next adventure, fake gold chains, romanian religious bracelets, phone glued to my face and all. I apologize this post is hectic and disorganized, and maybe not even that well thought out. I have not had enough time to even unpack yet, but I'm about to jump into some clean clothes and stir the Valley shit once again. So hit me up if you and your crew wanna hang! 

Over and out!!!

Yours truly,

Claudia Motherfucking Awesome Craciun. 

P.S. Before I forget...

Doesn't anyone else think that this Biltmore griffin needs a bra? 

hardy har har!

Valley Party Adventure

Although I promised to post more often, I have been out of touch for the past week-end because of this very party I am going to write about. It was so absolutely epic that it put me out of comission for the next couple of days. I'm used to UCSC last minute impromptu dance parties where only my good friends show up, and 1/3 of the play list through everyone is either too fucked up to dance or outside smoking ciggarettes. Shitty, right?

Valley parties are way different though. I've been to a few courtesy of Stefan since moving back to the SFV, but none of them were quite as "off-the-hook" as this one. This party had a full security team with intimidating men in suits standing around and staring down the rowdier party goers, an open bar (serving jungle juice and cheap beer) and even wristbands! 

But let me begin with the beginning... 

Here's how and why I have sworn off alcohol for the next 30 days (I'm dead serious). 

Kami and I decided to start off with a little pre-gaming. So we took swigs from the bottle of raspberry vodka Kami keeps in the trunk of her car, just in case...

x2

x2

Once pre-gaming was over, we went in. What we discovered was a fully decked out frat-house

hosting a glow in the dark Alice in Wonderland themed party. It kinda blew my mind....

A glow in the dark Wonderland filled with scantily clad and extremely intoxicated rabbits, jokers, playing cards, and just your average Valley guy and girl. The word "son" was flying around like nobody's business. 

The decor was awesome. Notice little glow in the dark Alice in between Kami's shoulder and shirtless dude. 

Frat dude in obligatory "pussy" hat. Where do I get one of those?

Kami's childhood friend who now belongs to the fraternity that hosted the event. 

Said CSUN Fraternity

I swear I was the only one wearing long-sleeves in the entire house. Hey, I dressed for the weather, not for the all the shirtless guys walking around trying to pick up chicks. Notice the two empty party cups in our hands. So, as soon as we get there, Kami suggested we chug the jungle juice before they run out. Three or four refills later, they weren't running out of booze any time soon and I was so completly blitzed I ended up taking off my shirt! Don't worry, I'm all about layering, so I had an undershirt on. Fortunatelly, there are no photos to document the rest of the night's events. Seriously though, I woke up with the meanest fucking hangover in hangover history. I really thought I was dying of something similar but much more vicious than the stomach-flu. My hangover symptons lasted through this morning (the chills, nausea, more nausea at the thought of drinking any type of alcohol). That's an entire 52 hours cursing the moment I thought it was a good idea to keep up with Kami's drinking while wondering what I could eat or drink in order to make me feel better. The only things that have worked so far have been Peptobismol and veggie subs from Quickie's Pizza on the corner of Laurel Canyon and Moorpark. Seriously, Im not drinking again for 30 days and even then I doubt I will have more than a couple of drinks. For the next month, I'll just have to resort to being the DD or the sober person that remembers every embarasssing thing said the night before. Suh-weet! 

Anyway, enough about my epic hang over. Here's more pics from the night. 

Kami - always the trooper- getting reading for her CSUN dance debut.

Dude in bright pink briefs dancing all up in my homegirl's grill.

Kami, you fucking rock!

So the rest of the night played out something like that, but I wouldn't have ever guessed since I was completely sauced. Thank god for digital photos. This was an epic night and an epic party, certainly one that does justice to Valley Parties in general and North of The Blvd's desire for endless fun/boozing/adventures. Fuck yeah! 

And one more thing,

I completely adore this girl, but never again will I try to keep up with her drinking pace.

Oh well, I learn something new every day! 

Until next time, where you will hear from whilst at the Biltmore Hotel in L.A., or possibly while I am on set again trying to kill time.

Where have I been?

I know that there have not been any updates in a while. I blame this on Jordan Menashe's failed promise to update (calling you out sister because you really need to post asap). Also, the truth is the crew and I have way more fun than we can blog about. So don't be worried if I go a few days without posting. It just means I'm out and about joy riding through the SFV with my windows down, blasting 97.1 fm (commercial free Mondays, fuck yeah!) and heading out to the next dive or whatever. Just kidding, I have real responsibilities too.

Here's a brief run through of events since the last time I updated. In the past week my experiences in the San Fernando Valley and beyond have called for photo-shoots, a sturdy umbrella, and potentially a trip to the eye doctor for me. Seriously, check this out. 

Jesse and I stumbled on this bad boy as we were leaving our friend Emily's house in the valley. This was in the early hours of the morning, so when I first laid eyes on this giant...rooster, I honestly thought I was tripping out, or that I needed a serious pair of glasses. I was startled but mostly amused to see a giant cock in someone's front yard.  The best part is that there's also a cow and other various but equally creepy items scattered around in this yard. Although the owners still had their christmas decorations up (like many other SFV residents, tsk tsk) I'm guessing this is permanent decor. This might have been the oddest discovery we made during our trip that night, but our adventures did not stop there. Jordan, Jesse and I decided to stay up and see the sunrise over the valley. We drove to a park at the top of Reseda Blvd at about 5 am-ish ready with warm coats and a blanket. In between the hours of about 4 to 6 am, before everyone starts going to work, Reseda Blvd is almost completely empty. It's very quiet and pretty eerie. So Jesse and I decided to enjoy this street while we had it all to ourselves. It felt post-apocalyptic, in the sense that all of those fucking cars and cops and people yapping away on their cellphones were absent.  

So what would I do if all Valley residents suddenly disappearred in the middle of the night? Let me play it out for you this way. 

Here's a very empty Reseda Blvd. So...

...I would obviously have a seat in the middle of the street and bring my camera.....

.....and invite Jesse Durkin so we can sit around and talk about profound shit.

Eventually we met up with Jordan. The sun came up over the mountains and the rest is history - the kind of history captured through my small digital cam. Excuse the low quality, but enjoy the view. 

Post sunrise, park antics ensued.

Co-northoftheblvd-blogger.

Co-northoftheblvd-adventurer and potential blogger.

Future Indie Band Photos start now.

But seriously guys, lets go home cuz its freezing!

Go team.

To come: special romanian food edition, new amazing cafe I tried in the valley, and more adventures in the 'burbs. 

See you on the flip side, oh and for god's sake! Jordan Menashe - get on the blogging train right now!