Earth to Echo

The day I moved to LA was a bit of a shit show. I took a boat out on Geist one last time and the boat promptly died in the middle of the lake. Instead of spending my last day of living in the midwest motoring around and getting drunk; I had to be towed in by a fisherman. Then I broke up with a chick, then I sat in the back of a car with my mom while she cried the whole way to the airport. Then I got drunk at the airport and then I cried.

It sucked.

When I arrived at LAX, my ride informed me that he had gotten drunk during the day and passed out. He would meet me in Hollywood in an hour. Armed with an iPhone 4 and about 90% of my belongings jammed into an overstuffed suitcase, I boarded a bus that took me to union station, a train that took me to Hollywood and Vine and then rolled my 120 pound bag of a hill to 2049 Vista Del Mar, a Spanish Style bungalow at the base of the Hollywood Hills.

I dropped my bag and was immediately handed a Camel Crush and a bottle of vodka.

"Catch up, you have 10 minutes."

This actually was not my 'arrival party.' One of the UTA clan was having her going away party, she was New York bound in the morning. I was merely a coincidence, but juxtaposed with the absolute loneliness I had felt an hour before when I stepped off the airplane and realized I was in over my head, I was happy to even be invited somewhere.

Crammed in the back of a minivan cab, we jaunted east down the 101. People I didn't know handed me water bottles full of foreign substances. I drank it all without asking.

"Where are we going?"

-Funky Soul.

I walked into some giant dive of a bar called The Echo. Old soul train videos from 70's era WGN played on all the TVs, PBR was on special for $4 (not much of a special I remember thinking) and everyone was dancing like a lunatic.

I hung out rather anonymously with this merry band of agency assistants, smoking cigarettes and trying to explain my place in the world.

"I'm working for a start up."

"No, I don't have a place to live yet."

"I don't know what a Silverlake or a Brentwood is."

"Yes, I'll have another beer and a cigarette."

That was August 31st 2011. (I think) The beginning of my new life after I took a buy out from my old company and had a summer of sin in Chicago.

It's May 16, 2016 and I had not returned to Echo Park or the Echo since. In the nearly 5 years that have passed I've transitioned into a life in entertainment and a hopeful career as a writer. I have also carved myself out a pretty nice existence in Venice, about as far west as you can get. Echo Park is about as far East as white people go, for those unfamiliar with LA geography, it would be equivalent to driving to Lake Forest from downtown Chicago.

That all changed Saturday night.

I was on day three of a pretty aggressive bender with two high school buddies that I hadn't seen in a while. We had been out until 4am the previous two evenings and my body was starting to break down. After watching three movies on the couch on Saturday, I got the text...

"Funky soul tonight."

The idea has floated around plenty of times in recent years, but everyone always bails because quite frankly it's easier to walk to our usual neighborhood haunts, get fucked up and walk home.

But this time felt different, I had two friends that wanted to see LA. Often people come here wanting to see LA and I show them Venice and Santa Monica, because it is my comfort zone. But there is another world out there and I felt obligated to show it.

We were all so hungover that I wasn't sure we could make the journey, but I at least committed us to the pregame, which was in Santa Monica: a BYOB dinner followed by a brief stop at a house to pound shots and order ubers.

My Trojan horse tactic paid off as once I had gotten my friends a little tipsy at dinner, they were more that willing to go do something outside the box. We piled in an UberXL with a 12 pack of beer and started the hour long journey east down the 10. When we finally arrived, we were so excited to be there that we blew past the bouncer without showing ID and past the cashier without paying cover.

The set-up seemed to have changed since I had been some 5 years ago, nothing too crazy, still divey, but bigger? Kilroy's changed after I left, I felt like the Echo had naturally expanded in recent years.

But also gone were the giant TVs playing roller disco funk of the late 70's instead there was a live stage show going on. Beautiful women dancing and also...wait, some of those chicks are men.

Is this a drag show?

All over the walls I see posters and allusions to Studio 54, people on the dance floor around me are openly doing cocaine. I was drunk and deeply confused, but I was loving the vibe, so I just rolled with it.

About an hour and a half went by before we realized we were in the wrong bar.

"This is not funky soul at the Echo, this is Studio 54 at the Echoplex."

I had heard about this 'Echoplex' but just assumed it was the full more formal name of the Echo, not a completely separate venue.

I argue that we should stay at the bar because the trans community apparently parties hard AF, but since the birthday is upstairs, we acquiesce and a bartender leads us up a secret staircase upstairs to the proper venue.

Unfortunately we are tossed into a line and told that we will need to pay an additional cover. While standing in line to get back in a girl notices I'm wearing a Member's Only jacket.

"Cool jacket, are you guys coming in?"

Eh, these guys have early flights in the morning, we may try to get a few hours of sleep in before the airport.

"Well, I'm just saying, we have vaginas AND we will pay your cover if you want to come in."

Never have I been so aggressively pursued by a member of the opposite sex. Let it be known, the east side goes hard.

My friends made their flights at 8 am (barely) and I imagine they are having a rough day at work today, but with some fond memories. After all, the end game is to get everyone I know to move here.