I’m All Lost In, #87: Los Angeles; Paju; and a clean bathtub
I’m All Lost In…
the 3 things I’m obsessing about THIS week
#87
1) Los Angeles (in the 1960s)
Years from now, when we look back at America’s fall into authoritarianism under Donald Trump, I’m hoping we identify this week in June as the moment when popular resistance to his brutish, undemocratic agenda took hold. The L.A. protests against ICE’s thuggish roundups of immigrants—including immigrants in the middle of the legal process— seems, in this season of dismay about fraying civil rights, a small but undeniable sign of hope: The American spirit may still be alive.
It’s a risky scenario, of course. Bodies in the streets could easily trip into the Reichstag Fire moment that Trump and his creepy attaché Stephen Miller have been scheming for.
With the promise of L.A. action on my mind this week, I returned to an instructive book I started reading, but didn’t get very far into, a few years ago: Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties (2020) by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener. This sweeping near-700-page epic about L.A.’s largely teen driven—and overwhelmingly Chicano and Black teen driven—civil rights, anti-war, and anti-colonialist movements is an inspirational and cautionary template for today as it documents the organizational, tactical, and street specifics of mass political protests that gathered form, crescendoed, and crested from the early 1960s onward through the incendiary early 1970s.
Inspiring history from L.A.
I was originally drawn to this book, which unfortunately prioritizes reams of data and statistics over stories (I want stories!) because of Part V. The Great High School Rebellion, Ch. 21. Riot Nights on the Sunset Strip (1966-1968). This specific section of the book explains the Sunset Strip Curfew Riots, an unsung uprising of L.A. teenagers versus the L.A.P.D. that coupled two seemingly disparate and even oppositional 1960s story lines that had been separately upending American culture during the 1960s in their own right: rock music and woke youth.
The famous 1960s protest anthem, Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth, i.e., “There’s something happening here/what it is ‘aint exactly clear,” is about the Sunset Strip Curfew Riots. (I have a poem about these historic protests in my first book.) Most people likely think the signature sixties song is about Chicago ‘68 or Kent State or some other combustible anti-war protest, but guitarist Stephen Stills wrote the song in December 1966 in the immediate aftermath of the curfew riots after several of his friends in the burgeoning youth counterculture, including Peter Fonda, were beaten and cuffed by the cops as they picketed against a new city-imposed curfew on club going teenagers.
It turned out the standoff with the police was about bigger things. As are today’s L.A. protests.
*I went to the anti-Trump “No Kings” march (good marketing from the left, for once) on Saturday, June 14. Two-and-a-half hours after we reached the final congregating spot near Seattle Center, we got word that the last waves of marchers were just leaving Cal Anderson Park where we’d all started out. I’m gonna say 100,000+.
2) Paju, Fine Korean Dining
Surprise: I love grilled octopus, Paju, 6/12/25
In addition to revisiting that germane book this week, I also returned to Paju, an excellent upscale Korean restaurant that I originally checked out back in 2023. An unassuming sliver of place located in Seattle’s Lower Queen Ann neighborhood when I first visited, Paju is now—on the same #8 bus line—a large, chic South Lake Union spot with a glowing purple front door, a rock-encased wood-fire hearth, and a chef’s table anchoring a sweeping room of high windows and intimate tables.
The Seattle Times review, otherwise a rave, says the service here leaves something to be desired. But the service was charming and cheeky this past Thursday night. It starred a chatty young server who brought each plate—Hama Hama Oysters; a pistachio cream, parmesan, crispy green salad; buttered and smoked octopus; white kimchi, truffle aioli mushrooms; browned veggie pancakes topped with paper-thin slices of dancing fish flakes; and squid ink fried rice—with a knowing playfulness. She seemed to be savoring each dish along with us. And, with each dish dressed in creamy sauces (unusual for Korean cuisine), simmered in spicy seasonings, prepped to perfection, and often topped with piles of finely grated parm, these were all plates worth savoring, particularly the meaty octopus and buttery mushrooms.
Mushrooms, Paju, 6/12/25
Veggie pancake, Paju, 6/12/25
3) My Clean Tub
Something else I returned to this week: running. Once a basic and comforting part of my daily routine circa 2018—2024, I hadn’t suited up, slipped on my New Balance running shoes, nor put on my earbuds for a meditative 5.5-miler for seven months (November 10, 2024, according to Strava).
I was back at it this week. I wasn’t doing 5.5, though; more like 2.7 on average over my five runs through the neighborhood, according to Strava. I’m writing about this mostly as a way to note this week’s final obsession: my newly sparkly clean shower.
Plagued by: an Alien: Resurrection drain clog that barfed up staph infection standing water; a slimy shower curtain and bath mat, each looking as if they were homes to biohazard disasters; and seemingly indelible streaks of grit in the tub, my bachelor pad tub was a ruin.
No longer. Hours of charwoman labor this week transformed the tub into a gleaming operating-room-ready safe space where I’ve been happily retreating for a spacey shower after my daily run.
I’ve even been popping into the bathroom to slide back the shower curtain every so often just to take a peek at the tub for kicks so I can admire my apartment’s spotless new holy place. The vibrant blue bath mat and white acrylic tub are now radiant.