The Pioneer #53

Dear Diary...

Group Dinner

Generally, I try to write each piece about a specific subject. Maybe even pair said subject with a prescient theme that subtly catches a vibe below the surface. If God is with me on a writing night, I can even land the plane with a McConaughesque motivational conclusion. This is all instead of far more personal writing. I try to avoid it because I don’t think my life is all that interesting. While I do believe I have taste, this taste surely isn’t refined enough (and funded sufficiently) to journal about regularly for aspirational reading pleasure. I eat and drink where many of you might, listen and watch most of what you have or eventually will, and I am not above an Abercrombie purchase off Instagram Ads. I do not gatekeep my life for the sake of gatekeeping. I do so because at the end of the day…I’m just like y’all. But this week’s different. I’m going to free-write a couple Friday nights ago. Highly self-edited, for reputation purposes obviously. But nonetheless, authentic. Why? Well maybe I’m selling myself short. Or maybe I just can’t think up anything else. Admittedly I have no biting think pieces with chewy titles. Did The Bear Ruin The Bear? Nope. Kinda liking the new season. Summer of Wrap Around Shades? Well yes, but you don’t need to hear that from me. Did Brad Pitt Just Pioneer Racecar Foul-Baiting in F1? This would force me to speak ill-will on Jalen Brunson. Not going to happen here. So yeah, here’s what happened Friday.

The afternoon…productive in all the wrong ways. With a two year old laptop newly fried to absolute shit, I ventured over to my club. I love belonging to a club. The gym. Tennis courts. The convenient computer amenities. Joining was the best decision I ever made. If you’ve been reading for a while, you must know about my club. It’s my old college gym. The computer lab is just around the corner. Took advantage of Summer vacation and parked myself there for a few hours of editing.

I recorded an audio version of last week’s newsletter, first. That was fun. But then a software update limited my ability to work on a dank short film I’ve been crafting from marble, stone, and Black Magic RAW camera files. So I made a different video instead. After all, Group Dinner was tonight. Capitalized that for good reason. A regular dinner with four friends and one alternating seat. Group Dinner is not actually called Group Dinner but as I mentioned earlier, for reputational purposes…it’s Group Dinner to you. It was Group Dinner 3 and the penultimate Group Dinner for one of our founding members. Mert will soon depart Los Angeles for the far away lands of New Zealand where I’m told dinner does not exist. So I could sense a heavier weight brought onto Group Diner 3. Pressure after two previously successful editions. What started with plans made to kill time had become an institution unto itself. In fact, that morning, I woke up to a video of Mert in a suit without pants on, reciting a prepared monologue about the conversation to be had and the chum to be laid that night. I knew these plans would be some of our last for a while. No more killing time. Tom Hanks was speaking to us from the battlefields of France and with his dying breath…tellin’ us to earn it.

So the video…Quick side track but there’s this editor, Jordan Stone. His videos are compilations of other internet videos woven together with long bleeding crossfades and a somewhat vague but effective theme. He collabed with Nick Kroll on one. Did another with Nolita Dirtbag. The pieces are surely ridiculous but also sorta profound. I’ve tried and failed to copy the madness for Pioneer video essays on multiple occasions. But within the safe confines of our Group Dinner 3 chat, I knew Mert’s stirring monologue was near-perfect fuel for another stab. After all, due to my software update follies and lack of personal computing, I could do nothing else at the club that afternoon. So I took Mert’s speech and cross-faded it with pieces of cinema us dinnergoers could potentially channel…Emile Hirsch going into the wild. Pre-cheekfiller Gosling putting up 37 in the third quarter of Crazy Stupid Love. Mads Mikkelsen taking a rope to D Craig’s fruitbowl in Casino Royal (as we must never forget our demons). And obviously two moments from Oceans Twelve - Pitt and Zeta Jones splitting a gelato and The Nightfox taking on some lasers. Needless to say…I was onto something. Three hours later, that video was exported and sent. It ain’t perfect but it fired up the GD3 discourse as I hoped. By 5 PM there was energy in the air. Energy summoned from Mert’s words of wisdom, The Nightfox, and once back at the cribbo…a reason to put on an absolute FIT.

AM I EARNING IT YET, CAP?

Who are those five men in J Crew button-ups over wifebeaters? Group Dinner 3, I guess.

I decided to throw on my new pair of denim. Acquired them during another coordinated workwear assault on the Military Surplus store that past weekend. I’ve never owned jeans with a hammer loop for reasons I’ve written about prior. But nonetheless I went in on these 35 buck Carhartts ‘cause goddamn they hugged my hips RIGHT. And yes. I did throw on a J Crew Giant Oxford over the wifebeater. Two buttons up and oops…guess I’ll tuck it in as well. I was on my Pinterest bullshit. Probably looked ridiculous. But this is what needs to be done for GD3. My fellow diners, all in seemingly the same fit (sans hammer loop), knew it as well.

Roommate of the newslett Parad and I rolled up to meet Mert and Dwayne at the restaurant. Mark was running late. We decided on Casablanca. An old but charming Margarita joint on Lincoln with a propensity for preposterous pours. Casablanca is a Mexican restaurant inspired by a Moroccan movie that was shot in Burbank. If that’s not the beauty of Los Angeles, I don’t know what is. Also, is Casablanca having a moment? We dined there last week. Russillo broke down the script on-pod last Sunday. I drank a cup of Moroccan Mint this morning. Who knows what’s next for the 85 year old film. Maybe a 4K re-release. Oh that already happened? Then how ‘bout an audio commentary from Russillo, David Fincher, and uh…post-Armageddon Affleck. Yeah I’ll settle for that. Someone get the Time Machine. Let’s make it happen.

Pre-table margs were taken down at the bar where the scene was just bursting from the seams. The crowd at Casa has elevated itself over the years. Of all of marg joints, SHE could just walk into this one. So once seated at the table, we began to wonder where the hell chum artist Mark was. Mert and Parad took a look at the location. He was at Glen Powell’s known westside spot, Gran Blanco. We put the dots together…Blanca, Blanco? Mark thought Group Dinner 3 was thataway. A disastrous error that warranted consequence. We called over the waiter and ordered a teqnology shot that’d make a grown horse quiver. Mark arrived 15 minutes later. Took down a little immediately then sipped the rest like a Pimms Cup at The All-England. All’s fair in love and pour so we didn’t mind.

The conversation wasn’t too nuanced. That’s not really our brand. Chum lay mostly. We did think up the term lay option. That was good fun. Similarly to the play option, the lay option is a night time strategy for both guys and gals with situational opportunity and looking for a potential change in company by the end of the evening. If it’s just dinner time and you’re not just ready to commit to said change in company later on, call a lay-option. Send a friendly watchu on tn, take a look at the Cover-2, and decide around 11:45 whether you’d like to take a shot downfield or well…keep it yourself. If you’re ready for more of a commitment, possibly to the detriment of plans with friends prior, call up a lay action. A lay action, you say? Simply show up to dinner with full intention to Irish at 10.

Still reading? Incredible.

As the check came around and our next stop of the night was debated, the art of John Doe’ing came to the dais. Exactly what it sounds like. Anonymous travels in a place where absolutely nobody knows your name. It’s become hard for us here on the Westside. Too much time spent in too many places. So we felt a change of location was needed. Luckily the passports ain’t expired. Time to head to East.

Dwayne called our ride to the first Silverlake spot I could think up. 4100 Bar. Hadn’t been in years. I once saw a man light a palm tree on fire across the street at the Jiffy Lube but not much else to say about that. We got to 4100 and it was crowded. Business as usual for a joint that friend of the newslett Spango once coined The Brig of the East. The crowd though, wasn’t as I remembered. Dare I say…less it? I had recalled a real sense of originality in the vintage fits, brazen ixts, and tasty licks. But now, it all felt quite recycled. Almost as if Charli and Father Time lured enough Big 10 grads to buy the same thrifted Frye boots, head to the same neighborhood, and absolutely cook a joint I once thought was happening. And the fellas? Not a true skater in sight. Only posers like yours truly (tonight only with the hammer loop) and of course Mert, a real head, running the pool table. There were a few exceptions though. Parad and I struck up conversation with roommates who were new to the area from West Hollywood. The woman I was talking to, let’s call her Ingrid Bergman (sticking with the Casablanca theme, why tf not), surely wasn’t a closeted regular. Ingrid Bergman was a Norwegian-American rap producer who seemingly had no interest in being out that night. “I’m wearing my pajamas under this” she told me. Couldn’t tell if that was chum or not but I could sense she’d been in rooms I’ll never see the Nest cam of. Eventually, Ingrid Bergman let it slip that her dad discovered Rihanna. My dad saw some guard minutes at Queens College in 1971 so I could tell the conversation was about to wrap up. I learned later on, she had a boyfriend. Didn’t bother me. After all, she subscribed to The Pioneer. As a small newsletter owner, work email beats digits any day of the week. Ingrid Bergman, if you’re reading this, I appreciate your commitment to the arts. Also write to me when things go south.

We dipped 4100 for the next spot that popped into our heads. Ye Rustic Inn. Thought this would be popping. It was not. Great dive nonetheless. A low key joint where townies rub shoulders with Kaia Gerber and Lewis Pullman out on a second date. Unlike our locally cooked dive Tiny’s, Ye Rustic still employs the full sized Guinness glass, so we went Dua Lipa mode and split the G like our brohemian outfits called for. By the way, what happened to Guinness Golf? Let’s get that back in the mix.

Next up was the inevitable conclusion to our Yelp-inspired Eastside night. Zebulon. Hadn’t stepped foot in the Colosseum of Carhartt since friend of the newslett Kenzie’s birthday a couple years back. I’ve always been fond of Zebby, though. Anywhere with that much outdoor action deserves repeat business. We vacillated from the inside to the out. Dwayne managed to piss off an entire table of UCLA Doctorate candidates in about 25 seconds. He made a second go at the table but was hit with a piercing line. “You can sit here but we’re not gonna talk to you.” Goddamn. Some middle school witchcraft if you ask me. Elsewhere Mert was discussing important business with a stranger. So I ventured over and asked how they became acquainted. "Hinge” she said.

Tony Romo: JIM, I THINK HE RAN A LAY OPTION.

Elsewhere, Mark was dueling swords. Parad as well. I warred between a chat with the friends of Mert’s lay option and the urge to dip on out. But just before my exfill, I met Summer (real name, did not subscribe). Electricity to say the least. Unfortunately, she was only here for the weekend. A Boston-based medical student in town for her friend's DJ set tomorrow night. I know….A real Venn diagram of tell me more. Even though the odds were stacked against us, numbers were exchanged. I texted her the next day. Thought I’d take a leap and write something poetic. Told her we had an unspeakable connection and if I’m ever in need of medical assistance in greater the Boston area, we should meet up for a drink after. Turns out, our connection was too unspeakable. She never replied.

Once it was officially time to leave, Mark, Parad, and I met up at the burrito truck out front. A Lyft was on the way but Mark had some plans of his own. He snuck out a couple Dos Equis, ordered a torta (the sandwich), and called himself a Waymo. What awaited him was a 20 minute solo pièce de résistance. Mark might’ve started the night at the wrong location but dammit if he didn’t end up where we all wanna be. Way to blaze your own trail, Mark. And with that…Group Dinner 3 had officially come to a close.

No McConaughesque conclusionary takeaways. Simply the night how it was. Maybe I’ll do this more often. After all, I don’t write to remember. I write to forget. Bang. Snuck in one McConaughey