Musical and other weirdness in Southern California

Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los
Angeles. All photos by Peter Rozovsky,
your formerly humble blog keeper.

I dined with a friend Wednesday evening at Berri's Cafe in Los Angeles, which had the exquisitely awful idea of piping in throbbing, droning club music during the earlyish dinner hour. Not only were we subjected to the worst music ever created, but at a time that not even lovers of that music could like. This is music for 3 a.m., not 8 p.m.  The food was not bad, though.

Did I say the worst music ever created? That's the New Age trance music that a Marina Del Rey-area Starbucks pumped in during yesterday's coffee. For all its top-down corporate paternalism and its mangling of the English and Italian languages, Starbucks generally offers good music to drink one's mispronounced doppio macchiatos by. But not here. There are many great things about Southern California, but the music offered for public consumption is not one of them.

Sunset off Malibu Beach

Then I landed in Philadelphia, where a television in the baggage claim area blared a  breathless news story about arrangements for the White House Christmas party. You expect that sort of thing from entertainment channels like Fox or MSNBC, but this was CNN. I understand that "serious" and "American television news" are mutually contradictory, but CNN was once considered serious, wasn't it?

Wigwam Inn, Rialto, Calif.

Lying Los Angeles bus-shelter sign

And then I went to wait for my train into the city, where loudspeakers lent an Orwellian/Kim Il Sungian aspect by blaring, indoors and out — the worst music ever created.

Also from the Page Museum

© Peter Rozovsky 2014