Los Angeles, I'm Yours

I'm not exactly "wretched, retching on all fours," but I am working on 4 hours sleep and facing more than 8 hours of work to crank out today (hmm, maybe that's why they call it work), so sorry for the dearth of posts. In the meantime, let's go to bullet format for a quick review:

• The Decemberists are truly terrific live, managing to encompass everything from sweet epic sweep to a charming acoustic ditty about a red right ankle to claiming in a song intro that Dick Cheney insists he's just a "chimbley sweep."
• You know a concert is really cooking when they bring out the second accordionist.
• Especially when the second accordionist is from the Pogues.
• It's not everyday you get to join 600 other people in pretending you're being swallowed by a whale. (The secret is to moan a bit along with your screaming.)
• If you thought Petra Haden doing The Who Sell Out a cappella was just some stunt, you should see/hear her do it live with 9 other women. The end of "I Can See for Miles" will raise the top of your skull. In that good way.
• The Hungry Cat is still yummy.
• In LA you really can sit at a restaurant table and have the actress at the table next to you chat with the waiter/stand-up comic. (The screenwriters don't speak to anyone else, afraid to have their ideas stolen.)
• Etiquette tip: Even if you're an actress, when you go to a restaurant and sit relatively close to someone else on a banquette along a wall, don't take off your shoe and curl your foot not-quite-underneath yourself (although that's mostly because your butt's too small to cover anything). Even actress feet are gross when they get to close to peel-and-eat shrimp.
• Thanks to the LAPD for flying that helicopter around the blocks where we parked. It was just the right touch of ambience.