For the fourth, my roommate Mischelle generously drove Morten and I across town to Culver City in her new mini. I will never voluntarily ride in one again, I decided, after unfolding myself after exiting the toy and several concussions later.
In Culver City, we didn’t see much evidence of holiday spirt or even living beings, aside from the BBQ and a neighborhood child named Alex who rode around on his bike trying to get really long skid marks and telling me about various species of dinosaur. We flimsily erected a badminton set and played most of the day while most of the other “revellers” sat in the driveway and talked in bored tones about topics too dull to speculate. After an aborted rematch of FIFA 2005, we headed up to Baldwin Hills to watch the spectacular fireworks display of the entire westside from Playa del Rey to Malibu. The view was fairly nice and lit up with street lights. The fireworks were depressingly pathetic. Apparently they hate freedom on the Westside. We figured we could still salvage the night if we headed out of there without delay so we ran back to the car, headed south, took Florence east and were happy to see Angelenos partying, shooting tons of fireworks and filling the air with delicious smoke instead of quiet, fog.
We headed north on Normandie and found that in Koreatown, they also don’t celebrate the fourth, unless you count nighttime tennis.
Back in Echo Park, the ground was littered with the remains of the day and felt like smoldering gravel under the car’s tires.
Eric Brightwell 