OCTOBER: Driving Lessons

My first car in LA was really more of a personal crying machine.  I grew up in Chicago, where driving wasn’t necessary, and learning to drive a stick shift with my mom was not advisable. After many dramatic, emergency break-clutching, teen hormone-laden “driving lessons,” she deemed me unteachable and moved on. I still somehow passed my driving test (shocking everyone), and was immediately advised by my family to give up driving altogether, license or no.

After a few post-college years in Chicago and New York, I landed in LA as a novice driver with a bad attitude. I was not on a death mission, however, so I managed to avoid freeways for months, thanks to the warnings I received from Clueless. I eventually landed a job across town and had to get over my freeway phobia, but I hated driving and resented the hours I wasted in that hunk of metal, bisecting the city (often in tears). Driving felt like LA’s mortal flaw and I tried my best to keep my social and cultural life within a small radius.

This state of affairs didn’t seem likely to change, until one summer when I went to meet my brother and sister-in-law for a backpacking trip in the Eastern Sierras. I started out just hoping to make good time, but midway through the drive, I landed on Route 395 and my sense of urgency vanished as the desert landscape melted into mountains, with Mount Whitney, as the crown jewel. I started to accelerate on this ghost town-littered two-lane highway, turning up my music (Whack World for life), and feeling my shoulders dislodge from my ears. A sense of giddiness rose in my chest. For the first time, I didn’t see the car as my captor, but as a co-conspirator in adventure-seeking.

In New York, I was content rarely leaving town, but in LA I’ve realized I am happiest when I treat it like a home base for exploration. Though there’s no shortage of amazing things to do in this city (see the list below for god sake!), consider busting out every once in a while!! If you’re searching for the elusive fall feeling, hit my beloved 395 and go see the quaking aspens turn a brilliant yellow (or stay local and go have an autumnal beer at the charming new Bia Garden in Echo Park).

I personally find something singularly thrilling about combining a concert with a road trip. My absolute favorite such experience was when Meredith and I headed to Arcosanti in Arizona to go to FORM, which is also happening this month if you’re feeling intrepid. But there are some incredible shows closer to home as well. Thanks to (((folkYEAH!), you can go see the legendary Patti Smith at Pappy and Harriet’s on Oct 1-2 (and maybe she will bless us with another impromptu performance at La Copine), Cat Power bare her soul singing Bob Dylan (!!!) in Santa Barbara on Oct 1, the ethereal Devendra Banhart at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur on Oct 3 (and locally at The Ford on Oct 2), and then head to Ojai mid-month to see the hypnotic family band Etran De L’aïr on Oct 13.

This month, find your reason to conspire with your car for adventure (not errands) and don’t forget to turn up the volume. 

-Betsy Kalven

P.S.: We got a ton of license plate submissions this month. (Keep ‘em coming!) A brief evaluation of the aforementioned plates can be found, fittingly, at the very bottom. 

Cultural Happenings

Plate of The Month

Brashest: THE MOM
Second Most Brash: RACNMOM
Third Most Brash: UFCMOM

I heard about a plate once that just said: JESSICA. Seven letters, one name, one message: JESSICA. (Pretty powerful, honestly.) You don’t see name plates all that often, despite the fact that plates are all about personal branding, and I think the reason is obvious: it takes a lot of guts to be the standard bearer for a given name. Like, sure, I’m a Dan, but I’m not the Dan (Fogelberg), let alone the Danny (Glover) or the Daniel (Day-Lewis). And that challenge – of living up to the name – only increases when you expand to larger groups/identities. Which brings us to today’s theme: MOMPL8S.

I did a little research and discovered that 25% of the US population are moms, and an even more significant percentage either have moms or know of moms. AND YET: there are some people in this self-inflating city of ours who are bold enough to use the seven characters of the California license plate to speak for some or all of those mothers. I am here to honor those people today, in decreasing order of brashness (determined by the relevant population size).   

First up is THE MOM (the mom!!!), driving a Hyundai Tucson, with no other markers as to what sport this mom prefers or what makes this particular mom so mom-ly. (It would be a more interesting plate, perhaps, if the driver were a grizzled, one-eyed former NFL star, but this plate is not about irony; it is about owning momness, and it does that in spades.) Congratulations to this most mom of moms, and kudos on the inclusion of a dark heart at your core. (Do not cross this mom.) Congratulations as well to RACNMOM (3% of the population, per Gallup) and UFCMOM (1% of the population) -- the latter of whom you also do not want to cross. 

(I don’t want to hide the fact that this month also featured a number of submissions that referenced “nuts” (aka NUTZ, often of the “DEZ” variety), but I don’t really have much to say about that/those, beyond noting that “undercarriage” is a horrible word. No dad plates to speak of, however, so get to work on sending those in, please.) Until next month, I remain…

-Daniel Harmon (CRAWDAD)