1. Dancing With Myself  [A Club Called Rhonda; CLINIC AT Couture]Los Globos has a massive footprint on Sunset Boulevard, but A Club Called Rhonda makes it feel almost cozy. Couture, on Cahuenga just below Hollywood Boulevard, actually does manage to draw a bit of fashion, but like Rhonda, it’s really all about the music, the vibe, the dancing. I gravitate (predictably?) to the Wednesday night “Clinic” sessions which, with their dystopian electronica beats, are like future shock therapy for my chronic word-weary malaise.
A Club Called Rhonda (monthly), Los Globos, 3040 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Clinic (Wednesdays), Couture, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028

2. Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
Not too long ago, I began noticing endless throngs queuing up outside a little storefront on Franklin directly across from the Scientology Celebrity Centre. And then I realized I could actually disappear into this throng and—who knows?—maybe grab a giggle or two into the bargain. And I did. But the best part of it was simply this escape into what seemed like a parallel universe—a comedy world bearing only the most teeteringly tendentious and tangential relationship to the world outside, and galaxies removed from the high culture precincts of the art world; a world where only comedy existed and I could safely pretend that I didn’t.
5919 Franklin Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90028

3. Figaro Bistrot
Okay, you’re not going to escape from the Los Angeles art world here. You may even run into art world people here. But the great thing is that if you see them here, they’ll know better than to bother you about it, or even breathe the word, ‘art.’ We’re all here to get lost in a bottomless café au lait (or fill in the espresso or wine/cocktail/boisson of your choice), good French bistro food or boulangerie, and our personal (non-art) agendas.
1802 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027

4. Griffith Park Observatory
In Griffith Park, you see the present eliding into a swiftly disappearing past; and if you extend your hike past the top of Vermont and down East Observatory Road to the Observatory, you can even feel it slip away into eternity. Between the incomparable view of the Los Angeles cityscape in all its splendid insignificance and (on a clear night) the stars, you can recover some perspective on what lies immediately ahead and the cosmos that will soon swallow your dust.
2800 E Observatory Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90027

5. Circle K Riding Stables
Horses (unlike some dogs) don’t give a flying fuck about the art world. What they do like is running and walking, eating grass and hay and oats. They will tolerate human interaction, and if sufficiently pampered and trained, will suffer our recreational cantering. But you will never have to discuss problematizing the interspace between the mimetic and the metaphorical with a horse. As long as you focus on the trail in front of you and guide the reins calmly and securely, the horse will never give you any grief about your disaffection with Olafur Eliasson or your nagging doubts about mid-career Elliott Carter. On the other hand, the horse may actually tolerate your weak interpretation of Missy Elliott and even fall into the rhythm of your fractured “beats.” En route home, you’ll suddenly realize that Susan Rothenberg really does have it all figured out.
910 S Mariposa St, Burbank, CA 91506

6. Morrissey-OKE at Eastside Luv
The art world is scarcely a mile away from Eastside Luv in Boyle Heights, but on the odd Thursday evening, you can feel thousands of miles away. We all have different reasons to feel bleak, lonely, angry and alienated in Los Angeles, but at Eastside Luv you can feel a cultural resonance most of your compatriots for the evening here were born to, and bask in their camaraderie. No—your love isn’t accepted here, either; but you are.
Monthly, 3rd Thursday, 1835 E. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90033

7. Newcomb’s Ranch, Angeles Crest
When the mood turns menacing (a bad group show will do that to you), grab your new best (read, “the one with the Harley”) friend and roll up to Newcomb’s Ranch at the top of Angeles Crest Highway, just up the 2 from La Canada-Flintridge. The roadhouse is as renowned for its bikers as for its burgers, but yours can be veggie. The meat on the menu may not be your thrill; but the view will leave you breathless—in a good way.
CA-2/Angeles Crest Highway, Los Angeles 91011

8. Skylight Gardens, Westwood
Hard to believe that escape from the LA art world can be had mere steps away from its Westside magnetic pole, but it’s amazing how ‘problematizing’ your palate with a deliriously creative cocktail or re-conceptualizing or just grounding it with a great whiskey can help you set aside the conundrums you’ve been wrestling with from one exhibition or another or just help you find the poetry of it all at the tip of your tongue.
1139 Glendon Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024

9. Union Station
Union Station is perfect not just for those moments when you can’t take another art opening, but when you just can’t take anything at all. When you want to leave Los Angeles, but know that what’s in your pocket will only take you as far as San Diego or buy you a couple of stiff drinks, you can just sit there in the waiting room and have your breakdown in perfect anonymity, comfortable in the assurance that as the tears stream down from behind your dark glasses, no one will pay the slightest bit of attention.
800 N Alameda St, Los Angeles, CA 90012

10. Surf & Sand Resort, Laguna Beach
It’s a bit easier to set the art world aside outside the LA city limits. But at the Surf & Sand in Laguna Beach, with the ocean’s edge just steps away, that world is simply an extended sand castle about to be obliterated beneath the crashing waves. On a cool gray morning, looking out on what seems like a wall of water, you feel as if you could walk straight into oblivion.
1555 S Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach, CA 92651