Bill is a painter, a teacher, a great reader
and all in all a savvy dude—the savviest
of dudes. I own 3 paintings one of which
can be seen to the right.

We get together once every couple months
for lunch, usually at the Brite Spot on
Sunset/Alvarado or Langers on
7th/Alvarado—home of the 88—pastrami
and chopped liver on rye with Russian
dressing. Its awesome. My first 88
occurred in 1972 for $4.50. now they are
$10.50 and still worth the money. We
eat and speak of this, that and the other
and at some point the subject is movies
with the good ones seeming to occur at
longer intervals—another function of the
aging process.

But about the Brite Spot. The Brite Spot is—
or was—a classic neighborhood LA coffee
shop by which I mean it clung tenaciously
to a menu of deliciously larded items and
resisted with a vengeance the current
repulsive trend towards the low fat entry—
or entree.

The waitresses were also classic—not an
actress wannabe type in the bunch
including Barbara our favorite—and we
hers because we could be counted on to
leave an excessive tip (my mother was a
waitress)

Then a horrible thing happened. The
restaurant was sold and something called a
move to the upscale transpired. The
change was gradual but nonsubtle.

New customers appeared—young,
tattooed, dangling hardware, chains and so
forth, also the: earring, the nosering, the
eyering, the tongue stud, etc. You get the
picture--not an edifying picture. But the
decline in morale of thy brethren doesnt
bother me. What bothers me is a decline in
service. On our last visit we discovered to
our horror that Barbara was gone. We
took a booth and there we sat for 10
minutes, to study a new menu featuring a
20% price increase across the board and
now another 5 minutes passes, in a
restaurant the size, or perhaps less than, a
high school classroom and we continue to
go unnoticed and it was either bill or
myself who said: fuck this place. We split
for Langers

Thats the story—one more story to add to
a growing list—of the continued descent
into wretchedness, quality of life-wise in
Los Angeles. What can I tell you.