i scored a dream job at a record store

and in this store – besides all the great records cassettes and cds – were all these amazing people, all of whom taught me priceless things about the music we were selling.

the two most famous employees from Licorice Pizza in West LA at the time that i worked there were probably Gary Calamar who rocks the mic at KCRW on Sunday Nights and he also is the music supervisor for some of your favorite shows like Dexter, True Blood, and House where he picks the sweet tunes.

the other was Gunnar Nelson, the long haired blonde drummer and guitarist of Nelson, who i remember clearly asked for some time off so his band could perform as the musical act on Saturday Night Live. (to the chagrin of the many struggling musicians who also worked at the store.)

but one of the more interesting characters i’d ever met was one Tosh Berman who exuded class. not snobby class, just the opposite. class like he’d been somewhere and he wanted to share his badass exotic discoveries with you.

some people make you feel dumb when they teach you stuff, tosh made you want to just listen and listen and listen.

turns out Tosh went on to bigger and better after Licorice Pizza – as many of us have. and who knew he was the longtime book buyer for one of the best book stores in all of LA – Book Soup?

thanks to the magic of video + facebook + a cool blog named SinningInLA i got to see and hear Tosh exactly as I remembered him, just a tad grayer around the temples, giving a nice tour of the best book store on the Sunset Strip.

heres a photo of tosh and i with our coworker kara way back in the day.

i believe im tapping along to the dulcet tunes probably being played live by the ridiculously talented Willie Aaron of the Balancing Act.

it was Willie who turned me on to The Replacements, Lou Reed, and John Coltrane among others.

and yes i do believe thats a wine cooler in front of me. i told you it was back in the day!

how can the busblog be the first LA blog to notice this?

where’s LAist? Where’s Curbed LA? EaterLA?

how is it that the lowly granpa of an LA blog has this meltdown of a scoop?

thats the way Google Street View saw the old gal. Now theres a For Lease sign on it?

Not even the hyperactive UGC-powered Yelp has the news!?! Or Pinkberry.com itself?

How can this be??? I thought it was Crackberry and all the ladies and hipsters used it as rocket fuel while bloggers loooooved to write about its openings, closings, and copycat competitors?

Or the sweet pad the Pinkberry owners were able to buy from the Froyo.

The closing of the Abbot-Kinney Pinkberry gets blogged but not the Los Feliz locale? Someone’s gonna pull yr Eastside card, bloggers.

Oh well, guess you had to hear it here first.

see that soup? that delicious looking spicy coconut milk chicken soup with mushrooms?

only thing in the world that could make karisa hurl eases my upset stomach and soothes my soul.

the truest yesterday asked me if she could bring me anything and i said Palms Thai.

but because i love her so much i didnt want her to catch my deliberating bug. so i said no never mind.

then she asked dont they deliver? and i said no. sadly no. unfortunately no.

so i said i’ll order from an inferior place, dont worry. i live minutes from Thai Town for god sake and this is exactly what delivery is all about.

i go to palms thai anyways just to see if things have changed. and bam look at it, no better words could i have seen: Now Deliver.

ordered up my food, threw the wastebasket filling over with used kleenex into the dumpster, washed my hands, and when the next fine lady asked what she could do for me i said, just send me a nude.

your boy had turned the corner and was making a recovery.

yes ive been blogging while sick:

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