8/27/16
I usually hate kitsch. I guess I am not adept enough to see past the schtick and into the humor. It’s not like I have good taste or anything or I am a snob. Becasuse I don’t and I’m not. I just like things to fit. And kitsch is usually too far outside of the navigational beacons for the fit to work for me. Pam, on the other hand, is not too offended by kitsch. She can just accept it for what it is.
Saturday morning started normally for me. I got up while it was dark, went to the market while they were still restocking the shelves, washed my Cayman before 7:30 and was at theSpitfire Grill for breakfast with my Porsche cronies by 7:45.
The afternoon was abnormal. Pam and 
I took the Metro downtown becasue she had to return a bracelet that kept breaking. While I see the need for mass transportation, I am not the biggest of fans. Too much planning. Too easy to make a mistake. Too many people. Too much randomness. Too many germs, despite the disinfectant small that permeates the cars, masking odors of things I just don’t want to think about. Too much weirdness. Too much plastic. In short, too much kitsch. But Pam hates the thought of traffic more than I dislike mass transit. And on top of that her vote counts more than mine. So we were taking the Metro downtown. After the trip to the jewelry store, the plan was to hang out downtown and make a blue haired evening out of it, with drinks at five and dinner at six, meaning each activity started about an hour earlier than I wouild like and about an hour and a half earlier than Pam would like.
Speaking of kitsch, we went to Clifton’s Cafeteria for our drinks and dinner. Clifton’s was an LA landmark for decades. I grew up eating in the one in Centrury City. Once when I was in elementary school, my friend Mark and I took the bus, as we had no other option at the time, to where it ended in downtown and ate at Clifton’s. My detailed memories of the place are spotty. My memories of the décor at the downtown location are non-existent. So when we walked into the recently reopened and remodeled Clifton’s on Broadway, I almost lost my mind.
The place just felt old, a feeling I am experiencing on just about a daily basis. The ground floor was dark and somewhat musty. Pam and I went upstairs to one of three levels of bars, picking the floor with the trunk of the fake tree surrounding a fireplace. There were stuffed animals of various species and the bar tender was pouring a $.35 happy hour drink that was psychedelic blue. In short, way too much kitsch.
Pam and I decided to sit on a couch right in front of the fireplace that was nestled inside the fake tree. We ordered some drinks and just sat there wondering why, why, why. We googled the backstory about the remodel. We kept wondering why, why, why. Then we noticed something. Other people came over to the area we were in and took pictures of themselves sitting in front of the fireplace in the tree. Pam even took some group pictures for them. We kept wondering why
, why, why. Whether it was the alcohol, it’s always easy to blame things on alcohol, just listen to a Brad Paisley or a Pat Green song, or our observation of others truly enjoying the décor, eventually we stopped wondering why, why, why. We just relaxed and had a great time. Shockingly, I felt myself getting into the kitsch.
Soon it was time to eat. I have very specific memories of Clinton’s Cafeteria food. Not because I have a good memory, but because I always ordered the same thing. Not because it was good, but because I was too afraid to order anything else.
Despite the fact that I work for a food company, I am not a foodie. I never have been, and I never will be. When I was really young, I drove my mom nuts w
hen it came to dinner. I’m sure I drove her nuts other times, too, but those are not germane to this post. I grew up in a family of carnivores. They loved meat, rare, blood dripping meat. I, on the other hand, liked salad and vegetables and mashed potatoes, especially mashed potatoes. I could barely eat meat when my mom made it, not because it was made poorly, but because she made it rare. I could never eat it that way. I would make her make mine my way, which meant it had to be really well done. I mean it had to be killed. And of course it had to be devoid of all fat and gristle. I understand I am not normal, and I understand that meat cooked that way is not necessarily good, it’s just the way I need it to be cooked.
Which brings me back to Clifton’s. As much as I hated when my mom made meat, at least I could more or less eat it. I would never, repeat never, order it out, mainly because I could not affect how it would be cooked. One day, I learned that I could order turkey breast when eating out. And so I did. Over and over again. So when I first saw the turkey breast being carved at the Clifton’s of my youth, I was ecstatic. I always ordered it with the normal complement of cranberries and, of course, mashed potatoes. It was my go to meal. And as P
am and I walked into the cafeteria portion of Clifton’s, all I could see and smell was turkey. Pam saw updated food items like caprese and pizza. I saw turkey.
We got our food, sat a table, and ate. I was grinning from ear to ear. Not because the turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberries were that good, but because I was chewing my way down memory lane. It could have been the alcohol, but I am convinced it was the memories that made our Clifton’s experience delightful.
By the time I was done eating, the kitsch faded so far into the background that I stopped thinking about it. That lasted until we walked back to the Metro station and boarded a train.