Blacktress is meeting Nirvana, her flakey, hippie friend (everybody has one), at a house party in Koreatown. Blacktress has circled the block about 10 times already looking for parking. And this is her # 10 reason why LA is complete bullshit. Looking for parking is all too often a nightmare, she thinks. But just before Blacktress is about to get pissy about having to make her 11th rotation, she remembers something…
Like most actors in LA, Blacktress subscribes to The Secret, some of the newest of the new age thinking, which peddles, the power of positive thinking. Ordinarily she would forget to remember that she believes in The Secret, but the song playing on the car radio is either Secret Garden or Secret Lover or something that repeats the word “secret” a bunch of times. This jogs her memory. So instead of getting pissy, she pulls over into a red zone, and takes a minute to visualize an open parking spot. And ten minutes later… nothing. Blacktress begins her 11th rotation.
She finally finds a parking spot 7 ½ blocks away from where she is actually going. Perhaps I should have been more specific in my visualization, she thinks. In New York hoofing it 7 ½ blocks is considered a walk in the park. But she is a Lost Angelino now. In Lost Angeles, hoofing it roughly 8 blocks is considered a re-enactment of The Trail of Tears.
She decides to take the spot anyway… And 5 minutes later she’s still trying to wedge her car inside of it.
“I have my own method of parallel parking.” Blacktress always told her ex, every time he offered to teach her the correct technique. “Let me do my thing.”
Her thing never worked then and it isn’t working now. She more than nicks, the gas guzzler in front of her. The gas guzzler apparently belongs to the man across the street smoking a cigarette.
“ Hey! What the fuck?” He yells out through a puff of smoke.
Both Blacktress’ patience and car insurance are expired. She speeds off.
The next morning Nirvana calls.
“The energy in that place was off the charts. Very chill but electric. It must have been the full moon. What the hell happened to you?”
“I couldn’t find a fucking park,” Blacktress says in a pre-coffee grumble.
“Yeah it was really bad last night.”
“How’d you find one?”
“I drove up on Spoke as he was leaving and got his.”
Spoken Word was Nirvana’s sometimes soul-mate, a semi-famous MC/poet/Kundalini yoga instructor, who lived in Echo Park.
“Was it awkward seeing him?”
“No it was cool. My yin was doing its yin thing and his yang was doing its yang thing. So we meshed.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I double parked for a minute and we 69ed.”
Blacktress is now officially awake.
“In your car?!”
“ It must have been the full moon.”
“It must have been uncomfortable.”
Coffee is no longer necessary to give Blacktress her morning jolt; she reaches for herb tea instead.
“So the only way to get a good parking spot in Koreatown, is to blow a guy?!” She says her mind incredulously connecting the dots.
“Yeah, sometimes blowing a guy will get you a good spot.” Nirvana says plainly. “It’s not trigonometry. It’s LA.”
April 11, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Blacktress World wants to know your parking horror stories…
April 11, 2010 at 11:40 pm
I had one today, in downtown LA. I had to drop of an item and it was impossible to find a spot for the 3 minutes it took to deliver the item. I ended up parking in the red zone, zooming into the building and zooming back all the while praying not to get a ticket. I have a problem most with the cost for parking. I still can’t get use to paying to park everywhere I go.
April 12, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Soooooo….I was working at this restaurant in West Hollywood off Sunset, Caffe Primo, and the parking near the sunset plaza is basically non exsistent. You have a couple opitions….1) pay to park 2) park in a lot behind one of the stores and sneak off without being seen by the parking attedant, or park in the hills and read the signs.
One day, running late to work I decided to park in the hills…not too far up because that shit can be a hike on the way down. The area which I was circling did not allow parking after a certain time, but I said fuck it and parked my car anyway…It was a busy saturday night and I told myself, ” I be damn if my car gets towed”….so using my education and street knowledge, I decided to parallel park between two cars in a residential area and put on my parking break…thinking to myself…” There is no way in the hell a tow truck can get to my car if its parallel parked between two cars….went to work…came back…whip was still there. Doing the running man in place. The next week….same situation…different day…Wednesday…did the exact same thing…came back happy from work using my keyless entry to unlock my car…to my suprise…no fucking car…some how…the shit had been towed…between two cars…fuckkkkkk..I hate LA
April 12, 2010 at 3:48 pm
I live in K-Town. Everyday is a parking horror story.
But street cleaning days are especially brutal…I’ve spent entire mornings circling the block.
April 12, 2010 at 5:24 pm
I don’t park. I walk everywhere or take the train.
April 16, 2010 at 9:55 pm
I JUST finished paying all my parking violations from my time in LaLaLand. Blacktress has some awesome and bold friends! You write very well – I can see this world so vividly. And the pictures are awesome too. And…I admit I was anxiously awaiting the update!
April 18, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I’m so excited to continue following the many adventures of Blacktress! You are stunning and so is your writing!