interlude: día de los muertos.

It's that time of year again. Well, it was. As always, I am desperately trying to catch up with time. But I finished out the Halloween season by attending Día de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever.

I'd love to say I relished my time-honored tradition once again, but I hate to say this...Day of the Dead may have jumped the shark.

Not the actual holiday, mind you, but this particular celebration. I've had some friends who have felt the same thing in the past couple of years, roll their eyes and say that it's become too trendy. I would just roll my eyes back, and tell them it doesn't matter. The more the merrier, I say. Sometimes trendy is a good thing.

I like to go around 4 p.m., since it's still usually scorching hot here in L.A. this time of year, so it's just before sunset but still well before nighttime, when the celebration turns into a huge drunkfest. Seriously, I have no problem with partying and imbibing, but it just gets so dang crowded. It becomes panic-attack time.

I did enjoy the Eyes Wide Shut take on Día de los Muertos--giving me ideas for next year's costume. Hmmm...

Mostly I go to see the altars. They are always spectacular and so moving. But this year...less spectacular. It seemed the emphasis was on getting your face all made up and having everyone take your picture.

And usually there are interesting and offbeat altars, ones dedicated to historical figures. This year's "historical figures" included Bob Guccione and Johnny Ramone.

I think next year I want to venture out and experience some other Día de los Muertos celebrations in the city. I do like the one thrown by Self Help Graphics and Art in Boyle Heights.

This was one of those years when work totally took over, and the month and Halloween all flew by. Next year, I really want to do it up right--the LACMA Costume Ball, the Haunted Hayride, Lucha Va Voom and Día de los Muertos.

You heard it here first.

día de los muertos.

So, last Monday, I started a blog article that I just couldn't finish. The words wouldn't come out (this is unusual). I ended up just scrapping the article, because I felt that if it was so uninspiring, why was I writing it in the first place?

This fashionable gal was a hit! Striking a pose for the Día de los Muertos paps!

The topic was the Sunset Tower Hotel and super fancy massage I received at the Argyle Salon & Spa there. Courtesy of Groupon, of course. I don't do things like that every day.

Mostly this blog has been about unearthing the Los Angeles from the stereotypical image people associate with it. That's the theme. That's what the title, "Toy Tanks & Chinese Firecrackers" is all about. It's from an Aldous Huxley essay about L.A., where he took a tour of a movie studio and noted they were creating these huge, fancy effects with wee, little things like toy tanks and Chinese firecrackers.

But my trip to the Hotel and the Spa was curious to me, because it actually reflected that stereotypical way Los Angeles is (often mis-) perceived. I wanted to investigate this side of the story.

And I thought it would be fun to wrap myself in a little glamour for the day, Old Hollywood style. The Sunset Tower is a landmark of Deco architecture right in the heart of the Sunset. It screams--well, ok it doesn't scream, but rather demurely purrs--exclusivity and swankiness.

I have a friend who insists this is the place where "true Hollywood insiders" hang out, and she's a PR gal, so she would know. Here's what I know about the Sunset Tower Hotel: like everything else on the Strip, it's ridiculously inconvenient to get to. Last year's Vanity Fair Oscars party was here. And when I moved to L.A., one of my first girlfriends told me she turned her last trick here while working for one of Heidi Fleiss's rivals, before nearly killing herself.

It's L.A. People drop these tidbits a lot.

An altar celebrating DeeDee Ramone, who is buried at Hollywood Forever

So, I had this super long massage and my own private suite and a bubble bath, and it was all...fine.

The I thought I would go for the full experience and have lunch out on the terrace. I had the huevos rancheros and a juice, and it was...fine. The terrace was pretty much empty. Not a Hollywood insider in sight. Just a teenager with retro-80's hair, who drank a smoothie and then jumped into the biggest Escalade I have ever seen. And another man who told his waiter the best chicken and waffles are to be found at Gladys Knight's place in Atlanta. Take that, Roscoe's.

And the thing was...it was all so goddamned dull. I seriously have no desire to go back there again. I'm starting to understand why rich people all go batshit crazy. They're bored out of their fucking minds. Really, the few times I've experienced what qualifies as "glamour" or "luxury," I'm always like, "meh."

I'd much rather hit Pho Siam and have some 98-pound Thai lady stomp all over my back for $40 bucks an hour and then get huevos rancheros in Lincoln Heights.

I know I sound all "ooohhh, look how real and street I am. I'm an L.A. insider. I use the word meh." But somehow I was able to write the article I was stuck on all last week when I accompanied it with photos from the Día de los Muertos party at Hollywood Forever Cemetery this weekend.

Be prepared for a week-long, sugar skull-inspired extravaganza, because I took about 250 photos while I was there. And you better believe they're all going up on the blog.