They call Los Angeles the land of fruits and nuts, and it's not a nod to our robust agricultural industry. The thing is, a lot of these fruits and nuts come from places that are very...meat and potatoes, the metaphorical opposite. It's like blaming the dog instead of the fleas.
Case in point? An old friend I'll refer to as "Bretta" hailed from the South, loved barbecue and craved the white picket fence. I immediately took to her because of her lurid stories involving Duran Duran in a hotel room in the 90s. Then she slept over, and that changed everything. She drank too much Cabernet and passed out on my bed. She woke to find my cat curled up on her chest, purring. She leaped out of bed, squealed with terror and accused the cat of trying to "suck the soul out of her." This is the part where I should have pointed to the front door, right? She was still too drunk, and I was desperate to make new friends. With spooky blue eyes opened way too wide she explained that cats for centuries have been known to suck the souls out of people's bodies while sleeping.
...crickets...
She was so shaken and adamant about proving it that even I looked at my cat and wondered if his deadpan stare was hiding the evil that lay within. Then I was ashamed of myself. I agreed to take her to The Bodhi Tree, the trendy New Age book shop in Los Angeles. Conveniently located next to celeb-heavy Urth Cafe, it was the chic place to go to seek enlightenment - and watch Salma Hayek drink a latte.
As Bretta hunched on the floor pouring over books about cats, I wondered what her Southern, barbecue-loving friends and family thought of this. I decided it would be the last day I would ever see her again. I skipped out and went next door for a cafe Americana. I would have stayed, but I was sick of watching everyone pretending not to watch Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro eating salad on the sidewalk. I decided to give the infamous Bodhi Tree a chance. As it turns out, it was just another New Age store with a covetous zip code. It has the same standard pitfalls:
~ Weepy middle-aged women in loose clothing
~ Local papers filled with ads of men using intense stares and white ponytails to attract the weepy middle-aged women in loose clothing
~ Goatees, goatees, goatees
~ Beautifully toned, "enlightened" yogi girls who roll their eyes and get impatient in line
~ Self-proclaimed gurus interrupting you to tell you about your energy
Some of my favorite ads:
Some of my favorite ads:
~ A black man with Vulcan eyebrows and a smirk describes himself as "The Master of the Light and Dark, Traveler of the All Worlds"
~ An ad reading,"Would You Like to Become God?"
~ A "Soul Spa" offering an "Aura Video Station"
~ A gourmet brunch and labyrinth walk special
Honestly, I would love to attend most of these events, if only so to write about them. But I won't be taking my old friend Bretta. I've jumped off the Bodhi Tree, and I took my evil, soul-sucking cat with me.
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