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Arts & Entertainment

Five Echo Park Things: Classical Geek Theater Blog

Classical Geek Theatre's Ben McShane gives us a tour of his go-to neighborhood haunts.

Amongst other things Echo Park's Classical Geek Theatre is self-described as "a love letter to the LA indie rock scene." Here, the site's curator, Ben McShane, gives us a run-down of five of his go-to neighborhood haunts. McShane, in his own words, below.

Best Late-Night Hangout: You should do your laundry here, and you should do it after 10:00pm on a weeknight. It’s the best people watching in LA. The noise is almost unbearable. A Spanish soap opera and a soccer rebroadcast compete against a terrible pop radio station, a row of sub-par arcade machines, and a gaggle screaming underling spawn unchecked by tired, overworked parents. The mentally ill like to scream here. This is the ideal environment to read a book. You’ll have to exert a lot of cognitive resource to tune-out the noise, but once you do, you’ll focus on the text with laser accuracy. It’s like some kind of Zen exercise. I’ve achieved great learning at Lucy’s.  

Best Place to Keep Your Stuff: If you’re living in a tiny Echo Park studio, you’re gonna need a place to keep you comic book collection. Have I got the place for you! Thriftee Storage is straight from a William Gibson novel. It’s the sparest of spare storage rental facilities. It’s made of concrete and rotting wood. And there’s a guy living here. No, really! He’s a really sweet, older homeless man who rents a couple storage closets packed to the door with detritus. Every morning when Thriftee opens he goes up to his closets, plugs in a coffee maker, listens to baseball on the radio, and does crossword puzzles. He’s a really nice guy. Thriftee looks sketchy, but the staff are helpful and very serious about the facility’s security. And in a town where storage space is expensive, the price is right.  

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Best Garage – (1344 W Sunset Blvd): Jack Burnside from the Mezzanine Owls turned me on to this one. Radi’s isn’t the cheapest mechanic in LA, and you’ll never decipher the ancient runes scrawled-out on the carbon copy of your invoice, but I’ve taken two different beaters into Radi’s over the years and always felt like I got my money’s worth. More importantly, Radis respects you as a customer. They always give you options, they talk-out your repairs with you until you’re satisfied, and they make wrongs right. Raymond and Eileen, who own the joint, are just lovely people. Ask Raymond to show you the photo of his first car. It’s got a great story.  

Best Bank – Bank of America: Just kidding! What a bunch of economy-crashing jerks! Ugh!  

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Best Place for a Lost Weekend – : Echo Park veterans bemoan the Gold Room’s “fancy” restoration, neon lights and all, but I still dig it. The patronage is a great mix of blue collar locals and gentrifying parasites like yours truly. And it’s a fun gameday crowd if you’re one of those horrible human beings who roots for the Lakers. The Gold Room makes a fine pre-drink before a show at the Echo or a game at Dodger Stadium, but it makes a better inky black hole to crawl into at noon on a Saturday, only to emerge in the glimmering twilight before the moon’s rise. Free tacos as good as any local truck, and just four bucks for a pint of beer and a shot of rubbing alcohol? Five of those, please.

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