Rich Mintz  

I haven’t written anything here in quite a long while, chiefly because I’ve been busy living (which I think is the point of all this, isn’t it?), but I have been feeling the urge to get back into the swing of things. So I’ll start small, with this short post about my weeklong visit to London earlier this month.

It was a business trip, so many of my expenses were paid, and I was there for seven full days and nights, which gave me the sort of opportunity to experience the city that I’d never had on any of my previous half-dozen or so visits. Indeed, I went into the week with a very, very sketchy mental map of London, and now have a very clear one — at least of the central and eastern parts where I spent the most time, Mayfair to Hackney or thereabouts.

I vastly preferred the bus to the Tube — the Oyster card works the same on both, maps and signage at the stops are exceedingly clear, every stop is clearly announced, and from the top of a London bus you can actually see what you’re passing through. (Only once in the week did I see a single bus stop without a full complement of maps; entertainingly, it was when waiting for the night bus with a group of logic-impaired drunks, who took forever to decide whether to walk in the direction of Old Street or Shoreditch High Street. Shortly after they left, their bus arrived.) And London is proof that clearly marked bus lanes (separated or not), enforced with lane cameras, make the bus an efficient choice even in heavy traffic. Londoners complain about
TfL, but it seems exceptionally well-managed to me. I even got to ride the East London Overground line, which has barely been open six months.

Most of the week I was at our office, in Clerkenwell, with some limited tourist time in the evenings — which I mostly spent shopping and orienting myself with regard to the central landmarks, though I didn’t do much in the way of touristy things — but I spent the Sunday and the Saturday roaming from Soho to Islington to Brixton trying to see things a bit off the tourist path. I spent a lovely afternoon in Stoke Newington with my new friends Graham and Keri, eating gourmet fish and chips and sipping espresso beside a neighborhood high street. And I took myself to Brixton, expecting — well, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but what I got felt more or less like Flatbush, only with a well-stocked Marks & Spencer and vastly better transit connections. Here’s a map of my Saturday adventures.

If you want more of this (God help you), including dozens of photos, take a look at my Twitter feed for the week of 13 September.

In a stroke of great good fortune, I get to go back to London next month, so I’m sure I’ll have more to say.

Although I’ve been away a long time, it’s still true (and will be for at least a little while longer) that I’ve lived more than half my life here in Southern California, where I’m spending the next few days. I lived my entire youth in L.A., and then came back for five years as an adult. I was born right here at UCLA, very close to where I’m writing this — in fact, from the window of my hotel room where I shot the photo at left, if I were a crow, I could fly to the front door of UCLA (oops, “Ronald Reagan UCLA“) Medical Center in four minutes flat. (It might take a bit longer to fly all the way to the delivery room where Dr. Holve brought me into the world, given that the old hospital had 27.5 miles of corridors — that’s over 50% more than the Pentagon, if you’re keeping track.)

My mother was born in Santa Monica, about 5 miles from here. My father came here with his parents in a bassinet, on a long boat ride from Seattle (or was it a train?), before he was old enough to talk. In fact, three of my four grandparents grew up in places that, from the vantage point of some New Yorkers, might as well be suburbs of Los Angeles (those places being Oakland, Seattle, and Spokane).

All of this is to say that, despite a long absence, my roots here are deep. Indeed, I’m part of a small minority in my family who have left the West for any extended period of time, and one of only two or three who have stayed away long enough to establish permanence somewhere else.

And that makes Los Angeles a place I return to with a sense of eager familiarity, even excitement, but also with trepidation. The experience is so thick with memories (most of them happy, or at least ordinary, but still, very, very present), so teeming with people I knew and places I used to go, so colored by choices made that forestalled other choices, overshadowed by alternate lives foregone in favor of the actual life I’m living now, tinctured with family obligations and disappointments and resentments and old scores — you know, so heavy — that, for all my pleasure in returning, it’s hard to stay too long, or to come too often.

Every visit starts the same way:

I walk out of the airport into that bright, bright sunlight, with billowy clouds overhead and the white concrete viaduct along World Way, and palm trees and the Theme Building. And I’m excited! It’s not gray here, it’s bright and the air is dry and clean and, even by the airport, the air carries a bit of honeysuckle and eucalyptus (the fragrances of my high school and elementary school, respectively) and the faint odor of beach sage and the sea, along with the jet fuel and car exhaust. There’s usually a breeze.

And I wait for the rental car bus, and it takes me to Budget, which has been in the same place, in the same configuration, for at least the 25 years I’ve been renting cars at LAX. I’ve been renting there forever because of some faint vestigial memory that, at some point decades ago, Budget was cheaper and had better cars, neither of which is true anymore — although it’s still a quick exit onto 96th Place, and a quick drop-off from Airport Boulevard when you’re dashing for a flight, so that’s something. The bus takes me around a ramp that was built in the 1980s but that I still think of as “new,” past the Radisson (which used to be the Hyatt, back when I used to know people who worked there and answered the phone “It’s a beautiful evening at the Hyatt at Los Angeles Airport, [name] at your service” on penalty of being written up if they diverged from the script), past Lot C where my father parked for every business trip he ever took.

So I wait in the Budget line, and get my car, and head up Airport Boulevard (past the Sheraton Four Points, which used to be the Renaissance, where I attended a memorable party in 1992), and I slow down for the dip at Manchester because in 1981, my taxicab-yellow 1971 Mercury Cougar XR7 bottomed out in the dip and a crack appeared in the windshield, from top to bottom, that I couldn’t afford to fix for a year. We called that car “the Beast,” both because its license plate had 666 in it and because the passenger-side door wouldn’t close right and because, really, who would paint a car aftermarket taxicab yellow? I bought the Beast out of a classified ad, after my mother’s transmission caught on fire climbing the Masonic Avenue hill in San Francisco and she took her old car back from me, from a guy who had an office in the same building in Encino where Councilman Marvin Braude kept his district office. He’s the same councilman I wrote a letter to in the second grade, in 1973, telling him that the “walk” cycles of the traffic lights on Ventura Boulevard were too short for old people and children to cross. And he actually answered me, establishing my faith in citizen action to change the world. (That letter he sent me, on the ornate letterhead with the embossed Los Angeles City Hall on it, is probably at the bottom of some plastic tub in my storage unit in Jersey City).

So I take the right onto La Tijera, passing 98th Street (where, in 1993, my friend Annie and I met every morning at 8:30, and one of us left our car in front of a random house and piled in with the other, so we could shave half an hour off our commutes by riding the carpool lane down to Costa Mesa where we were learning the fundamentals of direct response marketing), passing the new post office on the left (built on the grave of the Marie Callender’s, where my father and I used to stop for pie on the way to drop me at the airport to visit my mother in San Francisco), passing Pann’s, the Googie diner at the edge of Inglewood, still run by the same Greek family (and I can confirm that it’s the same family, four months ago the Boon Companion and I were eating at the counter at Pann’s and the elderly matriarch was puttering around behind the counter and we talked to her) after, what, sixty years, which opened around the time my father decided that being an optometrist in Inglewood wasn’t doing it for him and he wanted to go to medical school. And Pann’s is still there, and it still serves excellent burgers and milkshakes (not to mention coffee and pie), and I still stop there on the way to the airport, almost every time.

And I turn left onto La Cienega, pass Slauson and the oil wells and hit the downhill straightaway where I got a speeding ticket in 1990, and suddenly there it is in front of you as you go down the hill, the whole city, with the towers spread out right to left along the Olympic-Wilshire-Santa Monica corridor, from downtown to the sea, with the mountains behind. Right at the bottom of the hill, on the left, there’s a Target, which used to be Fedco, where we shopped back when you actually had to be a public employee or union member to get in — a little rattier than the Fedco in Van Nuys, but also bigger and more authentic. That was the place to get a deal on a TV, or cheap but well-made underpants, back in 1975.

See what I mean?

We’re now barely 15 minutes from the airport and I’ve typed a zillion words and I’m already exhausted, and you’re probably exhausted from reading it. And we’re nowhere near the parts of the city I actually lived and worked in yet. I grew up 15 miles away — imagine how loud the memories get once we cross over Sepulveda Pass! And it’s like this the whole time I’m here. It never stops, the rambling monologue in my head, until I get on the plane and go home. And, if I can, I spend the first 48 hours back in New York in my apartment, just reading, or listening to music — doing something quiet.

No wonder I’m spending tonight shut up in my hotel room (admittedly a nice room, in a nice hotel, the kind I like, not too expensive but with some personality and a very good restaurant, and where the valet brings the car out in 90 seconds if you call down), reading news from home (by which I mean New York). There’ll be time for more L.A. in the morning, and I have a long day ahead; I’d better rest up.

Here are my counties visited in these states, up to this point. (More info) I’m embarrassed about California — I lived there half my life, and yet there are Shameful Gaps in my county coverage.

Here are my Alabama counties visited, up to this point. (More info) Not positive about Cherokee, so I’m leaving it out, but when I update Georgia I might decide to tag it.

Because I have a geeky side (shh, don’t tell), I’m a subscriber to various roadgeek email lists, where I was recently reminded that there exists a longstanding web site to keep track of which US counties you’ve visited, and people actually do this. And are competitive about it.

And have arguments about what kinds of visits count. Some people say it only counts if you step into the county courthouse. Some people say you have to see the county courthouse, or set foot in the zip code where the main post office for the county seat is located. Some people say it doesn’t count unless your feet touch the bare earth of the county, so changing planes doesn’t count unless you step out of the airport. (Note: That rule is patent lunacy. Oh, and on an unrelated note, I count myself as having set foot in France due to stepping out through border control and back in while changing planes at Charles de Gaulle on the way from Hamburg to Atlanta. I never left the airport, but my passport says I was in France, so I was in France!)

But most people, myself included, respect a looser standard that permits what someone on the list recently referred to as “bipping,” which means taking a detour on a road trip to drive just over the county line of a new county, and then turning right back around and going on your way. (That is how I first set foot in Vermont, back in about 1984, by making a side trip from Keene, New Hampshire, and getting out of the car in the parking lot of a place called Basketville, no joke. It’s also how I first visited Alabama, and I remember finding it funny that the road I was on, in northwest Georgia — in Chattooga County, if you want me to be precise — turned to a dirt track at the Alabama state line. But I digress)

Many years ago I started keeping track of my Georgia counties visited (which, I see, are far out of date at this point — the ones I bothered to tag comprise mostly metro Atlanta and the road to Savannah). I just now filled in my Arkansas counties visited, which you can see by clicking the image above. To fill in the whole US, it’s going to take some time and some reconstruction with a good map that shows county lines in front of me, but I’ll get there. And then I’ll be able to show you a gigantic US map of every place I’ve ever been.

Because my train is sold out (who knew?), I’m having a bite at America, the tarted-up diner/tourist trap inflicted upon the Union Station concourse (photo at left). Verdict: You’ll neither get food poisoning nor go home hungry. (Yes, that’s the best I can do.)

Bonus photos below of the grand public monument that is the Union Station great hall, and of the inside of the “Wireless Freedom Dome” that is currently occupying a portion of that hall, where you can email in a photo to see it whirl around on the ceiling.

Click through to see all the photos from my Baltimore adventure.

So my Baltimore adventure is over — I’m back on a train. This one is the Amtrak Regional from Baltimore Penn for the princely sum of $21, which (given the supplement over the MARC fare) seems like it ought to come with a double cappuccino and a backrub — although, to be fair, it comes with carpeted floors and smiling uniformed Amtrak employees, so there’s something.

My photos will have to wait until later, since I’m typing on the pad, but here’s a brief summary of events:

I arrived at the spanking new outdoor Camden terminal, hard by the back side of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, bought a ticket out of the machine, and crossed the tracks to the light rail platform.

Light rail trip 4 or so stops north into Mount Vernon was uneventful — the system works and the train was clean and efficient, if a little drab (although the signage and street furniture along the route was impressive). It’s clear that there is a lot going on in terms of redevelopment in downtown, and that the light rail line has been a catalyst for it along the western edge of downtown, which looks much more hopeful than it did 20 years ago when I first visited Baltimore, but there’s still way too much abandoned-looking historic building stock.

About 7:30 I walked east along Monument Street, and at this point my phone rang. It was my brother, so I sat down on the steps of a building to talk to him, and I realized I was sitting in front of the Enoch Pratt House, surrounded by gorgeous historic buildings at an intersection that seemed frozen in time in, what, 1820? We finished our conversation in the yellow light of a fading day, with neighbors drinking beer on a nearby stoop and the occasional passing European tourist checking out the buildings, and I continued into the heart of Mount Vernon.

When I’m in the mood for a dense clump of historic architecture evoking the spirit of a time that’s passed, there are few places in the United States I enjoy more than Mount Vernon Place, with the Washington Monument in the middle surrounded by cobblestones and the four greens, and gorgeous mansions and institutions on the surrounding blocks. This would be unremarkable in New York, but it would also be overrun by vendors selling George Washington souvenirs, and there would probably be a Starbucks in the base of the obelisk. Here it’s just pretty and peaceful and exceptionally well preserved by a city that is overflowing with pride in its grand past. And you can hear the clip-clop of imaginary horses as you walk past the doors of these imposing old homes.

The Mount Vernon business district along Charles Street is doing better than I remember. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s thriving, but there are plenty of healthy-looking businesses and there were probably half a dozen restaurants open late, which is better than I can say for my own neighborhood. I opted for sushi (based primarily on proximity to the front door of my hotel), and I ate very well, in a friendly room with a nice late-evening buzz of activity, for noticeably less than I would have spent in Washington or New York.

The hotel itself was so unremarkable that I won’t name it. I would consider staying there again if I found myself in the same situation (quick overnight, by myself, atmosphere counts for nothing, planning to stay in and work), but otherwise I’d trade up. Still, it was clean, adequate, friendly, and one block from George Washington’s obelisk; try that in New York for 89 bucks.

My overall impression of Baltimore: good bones, local pride, great strides in 20 years, incredible potential not quite being unlocked to the degree it might. In other words, same as always. I’ll be back in 10 days for a whole weekend, for the Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit, so more then.

And so I’m back on the train, this time from Penn Station so I could compare. Bonus Baltimore Penn Station photo below.

There are no hotel rooms in Washington tonight — certainly none at a price I feel comfortable paying. Given the choice between staying in extra-Beltway territory (seriously, not happening) and an adventure, I’ve chosen adventure: I’m on the MARC Camden Line to Baltimore ($7), where I’m going to have a microvacation tonight.

A microvacation consists of: having dinner in a nice restaurant in Mount Vernon, coming back to a nice tourist-class hotel (“good value for the money,” say the reviews on Hotels.com) where I’ll sit in the room and do the same work and watch the same TV I’d do in a DC hotel for double the room rate, and having a Commuter Adventure back to DC in the morning.

So far my review of MARC is: crowded, dirty, unromantic. The conductor (a CSX employee) threw the ticket stub on the floor — you won’t find that happening on Amtrak — and the guy next to me is on his second can of beer.

But seven bucks — I’m not sure you could get from Staten Island to Manhattan on the express bus for that. And I’m going to Baltimore, ancestral home of diner waitresses and Pecker … and … and Bromo-Seltzer! And other stuff too. I forget. All I know is Mount Vernon is pretty and I get to have coffee there in the morning before I run to Catch My Train.

Last night I said I thought Henrietta’s Table in Cambridge, Massachusetts was my favorite restaurant in America, because I couldn’t think of another restaurant I’d gladly eat in four times a week for the rest of my life. And I still can’t. (I’ve already eaten there again since I wrote that, and I’m having breakfast there in the morning.) But I do want to call out one other place that I like, on its best days, for some of the same reasons: Fairway Cafe and Steakhouse, upstairs from the flabbergastingly superb Fairway supermarket at 74th and Broadway in New York City.

This isn’t really the time or place to talk about Fairway the supermarket, other than to say that this small local supermarket chain — the chain is small, not the stores — carries the best combination I know of fresh produce and meat and cheese and baked goods, affordably priced and creatively sourced gourmet and specialty products, and ordinary groceries. I think after a particularly difficult case of weekend shopping exhaustion I once described the Red Hook Fairway (the Brooklyn outpost, full of Park Slope stroller families in their Zipcars on “big weekend shop” excursions) as “imagine that Trader Joe’s had a baby with Ikea,” but that isn’t quite sufficient, because the raison d’être of Fairway is its produce and meat and cheese, which are truly spectacular.

But I digress. Today’s topic is Fairway’s upstairs restaurant, which (like Henrietta’s) aspires to a cuisine that might be called “fresh and honest,” although with the look-how-fresh-and-honest-I-am brassiness of a New York place. And I have to say I’ve consumed plenty of excellence at Fairway Cafe, which shares some of the traits I like about Henrietta’s (starting with the open kitchen, which I neglected to mention about Henrietta’s last night). It makes a steak that is very good indeed, along with great cafe dishes like chicken schnitzel; traditional sandwiches (like egg salad on black bread) are exceptionally sharp and good; the by-the-glass wine list is extensive; the desserts are classics, and much less snooty than the ones at Henrietta’s. Salads are well composed; vegetables are always fresh. It won’t do for everything Henrietta’s will do for (I wouldn’t take a client there, for instance), but it’s the sort of place that I want to want to eat in four times a week.

The food itself, in other words, is steady, in the best sense. The sourcing is not as fastidious as Henrietta’s, but it’s quite good (hello! it’s inside of Fairway — there is no better retail source for consistent fresh food in New York City). And the prices are reasonable.

The problem with Fairway Cafe is that the service is irregular. The staff have their friendly and competent moments, and everyone means well, but there are times when it takes forever to get someone’s attention and another forever to get what you wanted. (At Henrietta’s, all I have to do is look in the general direction of “up” and someone is at my side asking what I need.) Plating at Fairway can be slapdash; I’ve had orders go in a little wrong; and generally the experience just doesn’t feel tight.

I am endlessly giving Fairway Cafe second chances, because when it is good it is very good indeed, and I like the setting (looking out on Broadway from a big second-floor window, left alone to read a good book while I eat a delicious and reasonably priced meal). I keep bringing friends there in the hope that they’ll have a one-of-its-best-days experience and see the magic that I see. They rarely do. Maybe with a little pressure from my millions of readers they’ll tighten up the ship just a bit and it will become the place it deserves to be.