the best coffee in los angeles

THIS IS THE CITY, Los Angeles. But rather than being down in that sprawl that stretches across the hot desert belly of California, we were up in the impressive heights around Hollywood that somewhere connected via a patchwork of canyons and elevations to Malibu and the waves that smash against the rocks. It was here that we, after disembarking at LAX, stepped onto a train that traveled the heights. The cliffs were astonishingly, breathtakingly steep. In fact, as we were told by the train conductor, accidental falls were a leading cause of mortality throughout Los Angeles, as tipsy aspiring actors and actresses were prone to defenestration. As the train rolled along, we saw a woman tumble out of a condo to her death. I remember her black hair, the way the wind pushed against her, the sparkle of her dress.

Later I went out for a stroll, leaving the rest of our tour group behind. At some intersection downtown, I encountered Jõehobu, the elite Estonian diplomat, whom I was convinced was secretly running the state, though he brushed away all insinuations of being a deep state actor. “Jõehobu?” I said. “But what are you doing in Los Angeles? I didn’t notice you on the plane.” “I arrived yesterday,” he said. Even though it was a hot day, he still had on his sweater and his gray hair was meticulously combed to one side. His gray stubble was at its standard length. His wise blue eyes smarted behind pince nez glasses. He carried a book of Bertolt Brecht’s plays. “Come with me,” he said. “Welcome to LA! I know where we can get the very best espresso!”

So we went to a small café somewhere in the jungle of LA. An older woman was working at the counter when I placed my order in Italian, and she answered me back in a halting way. Then a man arrived, delivering my drink. He was a black-haired fellow in a white chef’s coat. Parli Italiano? I asked him. Un po, he responded. “What the hell do you mean, un po? This is an Italian café! You have the best espresso.” He then began to speak to the woman and to Jõehobu, who was already sipping his coffee at the bar. He was speaking to them in Estonian. “Don’t you know we’re in the Estonian House?” Jõehobu said. He was reading a two-day old edition of The Los Angeles Times. “But you said they have the very best espresso.” “They do,” he said. “Just try it, man.” I stared down into the black liquid and lifted it. “This better be good,” I said. Jõehobu only nodded. “Trust me. Why would I lie? This is the best coffee in Los Angeles.”

‘the bat is in the tree’ by stuart ironside

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. I had the good luck to see the guitarist Stuart Ironside perform at the Pärimusmuusika Ait in Viljandi, Estonia, at the very end of November. This is the one song that I took home with me, or the one that wouldn’t leave me alone. There it was, watching me. It was hovering and flitting around me like …

… like a bat in a tree.

Ironside — yes, that’s his real name — is originally from Oxford and came up playing classical music, Oasis, and Radiohead like a loyal Briton. But he’s since ventured into something that might be called “minimalist ambient meditative guitar.” In particular, he’s drawn, especially in Estonia, to being in the presence of and reacting to nature. He goes out into the woods with his instrument and listens to the trees talk and he talks back at them with his strings. There’s an almost monastic devotion to this experiment, as he communes in his sensitive, musical way. As such, the forest sounds on this recording, available on his new record Music from Somewhere Else: The Enclosure, were recorded in Vääna-Jõesuu, a beachside village to the west of Tallinn. Ironside recorded “The Bat is in the Tree” and other songs in a sauna there. This is not music designed to sound like something. It is that something, captured in the raw.

Ironside made a first attempt at the song in London in 2023. “I had the main riff at the start of the song for a few months, but didn’t know where it would go,” he recalls. “I refined it over a few years and live performances, with an emphasis on trying to ring as much emotion out of as few notes as possible.” Ironside also tried to emulate West African lutes like the xalam and koni for “The Bat is in the Tree,” but also drew upon both British and Estonian folk. The result is a satisfying and pretty listening experience. This is the kind of music you listen to at the start or end of the days, when you put your legs up on the bed, breathe out, stare at the ceiling and close your eyes, trying, perhaps in vain, to forget the tiring agony of the world.

middle america

I TOOK A GREYHOUND, deep into Middle America. Through green hills, corn fields, byways and highways. For whatever reason, I was heading for Wheeling, West Virginia. From there, I was supposed to connect to a bus that would take me to Reading, Pennsylvania. However, I believe my departure point was Portsmouth, Virginia. At least that’s what it said on my ticket.

When I got to Wheeling, I disembarked and decided to go for a stroll. We had about a two-hour layover in West Virginia. I came up the main drag, there were small crowds of men and women standing around, as if they were all unemployed. They were dressed as if it was still the 1930s, and the place had a Great Depression feel. Their trousers and skirts flapped in the wind.

Walking along those streets, I remembered that there was a mass shooting in America almost every day now, and that it was best not to get too close to large crowds of people. Instead, I walked by the facades of buildings, always thinking of where I could hide myself if there was an active shooter. The First National Bank had wide columns that would make a fine hiding place.

Somewhere up ahead, I turned left, along an old river canal. Here the bridge was badly in need of repair. There were clumps of dark weeds sprouting up through the cracks in the sidewalk. There were some old garages and shanties along the canal, and when I peaked inside one, I could see Americans sleeping on the dirty floor, maybe half a dozen to a dark room, in sleeping bags and old cots with their mouths ajar. They all had those rosy Normal Rockwell cheeks.

I came back to the bus station, thought I might get a bite to eat before the long bus ride to Reading. A woman came out of the station at that moment, heavy set with short brown hair and said, “Hey, I know you. We bought your book when we were in Tallinn last summer on a cruise!” “You did?” I said. I was suspicious. How could it be that people in Middle America knew who I was? “We all know you,” she said. “We’re all fans of Estonia. It’s a lovely little country.”

mca’s 61st birthday

THE SCENE, an industrial area, a dump, maybe both. Rory Lapp, the acclaimed Estonian writer and poet drives in first, then I follow him, our automobiles follow a set course. It’s almost like we’re rally racing. Yet there are no competitive drivers, just rusting manufacturing waste that brings to mind a mineral processing plant. At some point, Rory leaves his vehicle with a sort of industrial plant valet and I do the same. Then we head into an old building, vast and obviously post-war, with a peeling façade. It’s an auditorium. Light wooden floors. Burgundy curtains.

Inside, everything has been renovated. I can see that we’re in something like a basketball court set up for a party. This is one of those multipurpose halls. There are long tables on both sides, and on stage, an unfamiliar hip hop trio is performing. They are pacing with microphones, trading rhymes, and a DJ spins records in the corner, cutting back and forth. At the head of the tables, I see a familiar-looking man, clean shaven, with a full head of wavy hair. He wears a red button down shirt, open at the top, and looks somehow lost in thought or just unimpressed.

“Who is that?” I ask from one of the partygoers, who is loading his plate from a bowl of potato salad. “He looks just like …” “That’s MCA,” the partygoer responds. “Today is his 61st birthday. Weren’t you invited?” “I guess so,” I say. Now I can see that MCA, also known as Adam Yauch, also known as Nathaniel Hornblower, is at the gifts table, and guests are hovering around him as he unties every last big package. I look down and see I have a gift bag in hand too. It’s full of my own books. “Yauch loved Minu Viljandi,” somebody says. “He’s a great fan of your work.” “He is?” I answer. “I have to say, he looks great for 61,” someone says. “Sixty-one?” another answers. “And I thought he was dead!” “Isn’t he though?” I ask them. But nobody answers.

Slowly I make my way to the busy gift table. MCA is seated there. He still looks like he’s part alien or something. Did the Beastie Boys really smoke so much dope back in the day? Or was it all that Tibetan Buddhism that did that to him? MCA is functioning on some other plane of consciousness. He’s floating around in the Third Bardo. I am afraid to even say hi to him. He’s a big superstar, one of the greatest emcees ever. I’m just … But how did MCA even find out about me? MCA looks up as I hand over my gift. He nods in his good-natured, all knowing way. Kind, sympathetic, brotherly. The man looks as if he’s about to speak. MCA looks up and says …

pärnu police

AN ARREST WARRANT was issued for me due to an unpaid parking ticket in the Pärnu Beach area. I went to the police headquarters and turned myself in to await the outcome, and was told to head downstairs. The punishment would be about a night’s incarceration, and I figured there were worse fates than to spend a night in a Pärnu jail in December. While not a deluxe Danish facility, they had comfortable bunk beds, and surely I could get some reading done.

Once I got downstairs though, I discovered that there was no one there and nobody came. After about half an hour of waiting, I decided to leave the building. Again, nobody was watching me as I walked off toward the Port Artur shopping center, where I ordered some Hawaiian food from a very complex menu. “Did you want the spam with plain rice or with fried rice?” the woman at the counter asked me there. For reasons unknown, my parents were with me and they also wanted some Hawaiian food. My father was glum about the whole police situation. “You know you’re going to have to go back to jail,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Later, I went with my family to a new adventure park that had drawn upon East Coast maritime themes. There was an old whaler’s church, for example, and a series of Algonquian wigwams made of fresh birch. My wife and I went into the picnic area with our children and had something to eat. By this time, I had forgotten all about the Pärnu police and that they wanted me to do hard time for the parking infraction. But then a police officer turned up at the adventure park and announced my name through a bullhorn. He said that I had to return to Pärnu police headquarters at once, that I still needed to serve out my one-day sentence.

Not knowing what to do, I kissed my family goodbye and headed toward the tip of the peninsula, where I found my old friend Annikki selling crafts at a fair. She was there and her mother Liivika was there, and her three children were climbing all over her. I bought a coffee from a vendor and complained loudly of my plight to some Estonian journalists I knew, one of whom had been just recently posted to Kyiv, and so had seen far more in his time than I had in mine. Here was a man who has seen the charred bodies of drone attack victims, and I was crying about spending a night in the Pärnu police station. “Your father was right,” he said, while biting into a powdered donut in the concessions area. “You have to go back to jail.”

Just then I noticed some police officers approaching, and I took Annikki by the hand. We hid beneath a blanket, and I watched her breasts rise and fall with her breath. She was wearing a skirt and a black top. Annikki smelled quite nice, maybe of lavender, and I was surprised that I had never noticed her scent before. Her mother Liivika came walking by and noticed our legs sticking out from beneath the blanket. “What do we have here?” she said. “We’re just talking about Annikki’s handicrafts business,” I told her. Annikki was happy to hold my hand, but just that. She wasn’t ready for any below-blanket hanky-panky. “I expect much more from a man than holding hands below a blanket,” said Annikki. She had very blue eyes and very platinum hair and was very beautiful. “Especially a man who is being pursued by the Pärnu police.”

They started to pack up their wares from the festival and Annikki was loading boxes of goods into the back of her car. They were set to go to Tallinn to another festival. Her children were climbing all over a nearby playground like happy woodland squirrels. I kissed Annikki on the cheek and began walking along the bluffs overlooking the seashore toward the bus station. I came down long, sandy lanes dotted with pines and hedges. At the intersection of two streets, a young man was out selling a whole house full of handwoven traditional baskets. It was really just the bones of the house filled out by long shelves, stacked up with his goods. I tried to take a picture of it, but by the time I got my phone out, he had begun putting the baskets away.

I looked down at the sea and noticed how strange the coastline looked. There were large underwater knolls in the water, and I could see how vegetation had grown up and down the sides of these features, and how little whirlpools had formed between them. Down the way, I came into a seaside tavern, and then was ushered into a back room, where a group of Estonians had assembled to sing traditional songs. They began to sing together and as they did, I looked through my bag, only to realize I had left my journal with Annikki! My prized journal, full of all of my darkest secrets, brimming with compromising material. I left the singing room and called her at once. Annikki picked up. “I know everything now,” she said.

“For your own sake, please don’t read any more,” I told her. “I’ll come up to Tallinn to retrieve it. Just don’t read any more of my journal.” “I saw what you wrote about that girl,” she said. “You said you wanted to …” “Oh, this is just horrible!” I said and hung up. What a day, pursued by the Pärnu police and now a missing journal? At the tavern I was approached by some Indian students, three or four of them. “Don’t you recognize us?” one of them said. “No,” I answered. “We’re studying at TalTech, you wrote an article about us last year.” “I did?” “Yes, it was about our new steam apparatus.” “It was?” They all looked at each other. How could this journalist have forgotten everything in so short a time? “Are you okay, man?” one asked. “You don’t look so good. Let us buy you a beer!” “It’s the Pärnu police,” I said. “They’re after me.” “Even more reason to start drinking,” one of the students said. The singing room was just letting out and one could hear the lovely chiming sounds of kannel music playing gently in the background.

‘let’s go together’ by paul kantner and jefferson starship

IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING, no, this is not the Starship that put out “We Built This City.” Blows Against the Empire (1970) was a collaborative record arranged and composed mostly by Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner with lots of Woodstock Nation friends, including Grace Slick, Jorma and Peter Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and many more. It’s very similar to Crosby’s solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name from around the same time. (Kantner and Crosby, before there ever were Byrds or Airplane, used to play guitars in Los Angeles on the beach and smoke pot).

I like the piano on this track, played by Grace Slick, which gives its sparse, almost hollow sound. Her vocals are also great, at times, with her voice, you can’t tell if it’s her or a guitar hovering in the back. Paul Kantner plays guitar, sings, and also helps out with some kind of “bass synthesizer,” whatever that was. Jerry Garcia plays the banjo and Kreutzmann is the drummer. And that’s it for this one. What a weird lineup. Kantner/Slick/Garcia/Kreutzmann? Who knew that such musical combinations even existed. Slick is now 86 and Kreutzmann is 79. The others, Paul and Jerry, are up on that big starship in the sky.

Lyrically, it picks up where they left off with “Wooden Ships,” a Kantner co-creation. “Say goodbye to America, say hello to the garden.” Utopian fantasies about sailing off into space with hippies. Imagine a world of David Crosbys and Grace Slicks. What a world that would be. Like, all our problems would be solved, man!

an old classmate

IT HAD BEEN YEARS since the name Cody Brigham even passed my lips, or flickered across the deck of my mind. To be honest, he had been relegated to dust, like everyone else I went to school with. I could never understand why people thought that school ties were the ties that couldn’t be undone. Sure, I knew them, by face and name, and maybe I knew a little about their personal lives — I think Cody’s parents were divorced and he was spending a lot of time at his grandmother’s house on Beach Street. But other than that, like most New York things, indeed, American things, they could have all been serial killers. Yet Cody Brigham hadn’t, in all of those decades since LL Cool J ruled the airwaves with “Mama Said Knock You Out,” forgotten me.

This I found out in an unusual way, as I walked the rainy December streets of Helsinki near the Kamppi shopping center, passing by shadowy Finns in raincoats and winter jackets who always looked away or down. Trams and buses rocked past me, and I trudged on carrying a parcel of books to be sold at an engagement in a local Finnish casino, as my career as a regional celebrity writer took on new, ‘Elvis in Vegas’ undertones. There I was coming up the street, when a man shouted down to me from one of the balconies. “Hey,” he said. “Come on up!” Then, to make it clear who he was, he said, “It’s me, Cody Brigham, from Sconset Elementary!”

He had been, all this time, aware of my movements and even was aware of my coming to Helsinki because of social media, and even knew the precise moment when I would pass under his balcony. Because of this knack for timing, he had managed to record video of me coming up that street. There I was, my hair slicked wet from the rain, with my big satchel of books. He showed me the film in his finely furnished apartment, which was situated in a large hotel.

“But why are you here?” I asked Cody. He looked more or less the same, of stocky build and of Northern European ancestry, with straight blond hair that was mostly intact, a solid, friendly countenance. It was him. Random weird things were my speciality, but this one took the cake. Or the karjalanpiirakat, as they say. “After I graduated from the University of Rhode Island, I went into hospitality,” Cody Brigham told me. “Do you want something to drink, eat? Lapin Kulta? Koskenkorva? Leipäjuusto?” “No thanks,” I told him. “Suit yourself.” He opened a bottle of Lapin Kulta beer and took a swig from it. “I worked in hotels all over the world, and eventually I was offered a job here in Helsinki, Finland, so I took it. And so here I am, man.”

How strange that a former classmate would be working in Helsinki and I would have known nothing of it. The whole situation seemed weird. After we spent some time talking about the old days, I continued on to my casino destination. It was then that I looked up at Cody’s building and realized that his “hotel” was also a sex club. There were images of Finnish women with whips licking whipped cream off each other. So this was Cody’s line of work? Funny how he hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe because it was so obvious? Or maybe because he was ashamed.

klaudia’s home improvement

AFTER I ELOPED with Klaudia, I was thrust into a home improvement job. I knew it was coming, it was all too expected, but at that glowing, early moment in the relationship, I was in a tender, giving mood indeed, and felt fine about sawing some wood or painting some windows. We went to a home improvement store in Estonia, which could have been Bauhof or Decora, to get some supplies, and Klaudia engaged in some friendly banter with the cashier, another woman who, like us, was inarguably middle aged. Klaudia was in a swell mood that day and she looked quite beautiful with her plume of blonde hair and red winter outfit. One could say there was an irrepressible five year old locked inside. I did admire this childlike side of her.

“And he’s going to renovate it all!” I remember her regaling the cashier, who typed all her orders up hotly with freshly manicured nails. Klaudia was standing on a chair, gesturing wildly. Someone had given her a mug of Decora coffee and she was taking tasty sips from it. At this moment, I said, “Stand right there, just like that!” I lifted up Klaudia’s red sweater and licked both of her breasts. This was done in plain sight of all the other shoppers. There was something wonderful about the contrast of Klaudia’s warm pink nipples and the harsh light of Decora. Or wherever we happened to be. Rather than feeling exposed or humiliated, Klaudia’s mood only soared. She laughed like a child and her blue eyes smarted with breast-licking joy.

“Men are wonderful,” said the cashier, typing away. “They lick your breasts and work for free!”

After we picked up our supplies from the back of the home improvement store, we went home, and Klaudia disappeared behind a door to discuss something important with her mother with whom she consulted on all important things. I looked around the room I was set to renovate. It looked as if it hadn’t been touched in 40 years. There were even old posters for Return of the Jedi on the walls. Dust on the windows, on the walls, strangling out the air. “Klaudia,” I called out to her. “Is it okay if I open the windows in here? I can’t breathe.” No response. They were still on the other side of the door. I only heard muffled voices. What were they talking about?

I began to move things out into the hallway to make room for the renovation. Slowly, devotedly. The first was a long plank of wood which might come in handy for a shelf later. I moved it out into the hallway, unfortunately scratching the old 1980s vintage wallpaper in the process. But when I set it down in the corridor, Köler, an old Viljandi dissident, turned up in his work clothes and snatched it at once. He wanted to use it for his own renovation project! Old Man Köler has been working on that pizza parlor on Tallinn Street for a decade now. I watched him disappear down the hall with Klaudia’s wood. I called out to her again, but she was behind the door, discussing something passionately with her mom. Would they ever stop?

childe harold revisited

HAROLD AWOKE IN BED. He was naked and there was another man beside him. The man was young and thin and vaguely resembled a young Rob Lowe. He was kissing his arm. “So glad you finally came,” he said, nibbling away. A sense of dread and unease passed over Harold, for he could not recall how he wound up in bed with Rob Lowe and was even more put off by the idea of staying there in those sheets. “But I can’t have sex with you,” Harold told the man. “Why not?” he said, kissing his forearm. That’s what we’re here for.” Harold glanced at the man’s tight, hairy chest. Just the sight of it disgusted him. There was an utter revulsion at the chest and Harold cried aloud, “But you don’t have any breasts!” The man looked up at him suggestively and smiled. “I have a very lovely chest,” the man said. “What are you on about?”

After that, Harold fled. He collected his clothing from the floor and put on his shoes in the entrance way. Just looking at the man’s enormous, canoe-like masculine shoes made vomit inch its way up his throat. He did not like that he felt such disgust at the idea of it but, alas, the life of a young Lord Byron was not his. The man called out after him as he slammed the door.

***

The sick feeling haunted him all through the city, where he had strange encounters. He could not especially say what city it was, but it was hot and there were palm trees. It reminded him vaguely of Bangkok, for people were making food right on the street. Mango vendors, coconut vendors, fish soup vendors. One man, an American expat in a Hawaiian shirt, was stirring a cauldron of linguine, but washing his trousers in it at the same time. “It’s really too bad,” he told Harold, stirring. “The pants have been clean for a while, but the pasta still isn’t al dente!” Harold tried the trouser pasta but the American was right. The linguine still wasn’t ready.

Harold also encountered some urban DJ types perched around the fire escape to an apartment building. There followed some friendly banter about Radiohead and the Pharcyde, and how 1990s hip hop and alternative rock were actually two prongs of the same musical movement. “Which is why if you play ‘Passin’ Me By’ followed by ‘Creep,’ you’ll notice they’re absolutely seamless,” Harold said. The weird scenarios and discussions of the city were nice. They took his mind off the Rob Lowe Incident. But the trail of disgust followed him everywhere, a sad ominous cloud. He searched through the floors of his own subconscious. But on the topic of Byron’s Greek love, Harold could only find an innate distaste for the taste of his own kind.

***

Eventually his wandering brought him to an old windmill on the edge of town. Perched among the reeds of an inlet, he knew he was somewhere along the Atlantic coast, whether it was on Long Island or Massachusetts, or perhaps somewhere even farther north. He went into the old mill and was at once blinded by a warm, sun-like light. In its center, on the floor, sat a nude blonde woman. Her skin was a natural tawny color. At once, he fell into her big-bosomed embrace, and began to feel, for the first time since he was a small boy, a large and complete love, a love that was in harmony with the twirling spheres of the cosmos. He was naturally aroused, but again felt ashamed, for he did not know the voluptuous windmill lady. Or did he?

“Everything is wonderful,” she whispered to him, in a silky, almost inhuman voice. “Everything is fine, Harold Childe.” Harold then began to kiss the woman’s enormous breasts which, to his surprise, were tender and swollen. A delicious sweet milk began to run from her nipples, like birch juice runs from a springtime tap, and he lapped it. But how could she have milk? Was the woman pregnant? Or had she recently given birth? Again anxiety swirled around him. “I sincerely hope,” Harold whispered to the woman, “that you are not my mother.” The woman kissed him and said, “But I am the mother of everyone and everything. For I am fertility itself.”

‘robert f. kennedy’ by the ethiopians

I HAVE DECIDED to create a new series that I call New Track. I was going to call it New Track of the Week, but I am not sure if I will write about a new track every week. What if I want to write about one every two weeks? Or if I want to write about two new tracks in one week? New Track of the Week would be limiting. That’s why this series is just called New Track.

New Track features a new track. It’s a new song I have discovered that I would like to write about and share with the world. In this way, I can feature all kinds of music. In particular, I would like to write about local artists in Estonia who are connected to Viljandi in some way, but not exclusively. Rather, I’d just like to write about whatever I happen to be listening to. And today’s new (inaugural) track is ‘Robert F. Kennedy ‘ by a Jamaican outfit called The Ethiopians.

How did I discover this track? I was in a record store in Amsterdam and was looking at a Don Drummond record. Don Drummond was a Jamaican ska trombonist and integral member of the famous group The Skatalites. A lot of great Jamaican recordings from the 1960s were released as 45s, and so many are now available in various compilations. So, it was through exploring these compilations that I came upon this breezy recording, “Robert F. Kennedy.”

Learning about Jamaican groups can be complex. Often I try to find out who the bass player was on some sessions only to be led down the rabbit hole. This 2:04 song was recorded about a year after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (who would have been 100 years old on November 20, which also happens to be my birthday). The song is also credited to the Sir JJ All Stars. The Ethiopians were a popular vocal harmony group in Jamaica and in 1969 released an album called Reggae Power on the Sir JJ label run by producer Karl Johannes “J.J.” Johnson. “Robert F. Kennedy” is an instrumental track off that record.

But who was in the Sir JJ house band? It consisted of Bobby Aitken (guitar), Winston Richards (drums), Vincent White (bass), Alphonso Henry (alto sax), Val Bennett (tenor sax), Dave Parks (trombone), Mark Lewis (trumpet), Bobby Kalphat (keyboards), and someone called “Iron Sprat” (bongos). At least I think it did. Of the group, at least Vincent White is still around and playing. Here’s an interview with him recorded in July.