Who's on Third?

Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica is a monument to commercialization that seems to have found a quasi-natural rhythm of its own. For all the retail frenzy that assaults the senses, it has a certain appeal if you just let it come to you.

Don’t set foot in this bodacious bazaar with a bad attitude, however, or you’ll quickly grow annoyed by the fortune tellers and street performers. Not to mention the restaurant hostesses who accost you if you make eye contact. I once had words with a college-age kid who wanted me to sign a petition. I’m offended by their guile; they sidle up to you and initiate a conversation like you’ve known each other for years, calling you “dude” or something. I don’t know you, I thought. You’re being presumptuous if you think I want to discuss saving the children or saving the whales. Am I cold and heartless, I wonder?

If you’re already having a bad day you’ll grow quickly irritated by the self-absorbed who don’t look where they’re walking or think the rest of the world wants to hear their story, told in a voice of self-importance and accompanied by exaggerated gestures and raucous laughter.

Most Santa Monicans will tell you they try to avoid Third Street. It’s for tourists, after all. Amateurs. I was once one of them. But, walking to the gym, it started to grow on me, precisely for the reason I would normally avoid it: the people. I’ve found I become energized in a crowd of strangers. It’s probably my Midwestern upbringing, from years of opening the front door to nothing but the song of birds and crickets.

Even the animal topiaries say "Look at me, look at me!"

Stroll down Wilshire toward the ocean and turn left at the Barnes and Noble, past Banana Republic, Monsoon (Asian fusion cuisine) and Chipotle Grill and prepare to experience a slice of southern California that’s not exactly the traditional Santa Monica.

The first sensory experience that greets me is the big bearded guy in a stocking cap, playing guitar with a portable amp. He seems affable, almost approachable. He’s perched just beyond the imaginary border of the Promenade so he doesn’t have to obtain a performer’s license. This guy seems to live in that grey area between homeless and mainstream. You just can’t tell. He has a plastic cup for tips but I never see him overtly begging. His guitar clashes with the voice of the elderly man sporting an Amish beard singing Tony Bennett karaoke style only a few hundred feet away. Don’t these people have to audition first? 

If it’s spring or summer you see and hear tourists from everywhere – San Antonio or Santa Ana, Birmingham or Burbank. Personal style is paramount; everyone has a look. Swarthy young men in aviators and tight shirts, a couple days’ growth of beard, sipping a glass of wine with their girlfriends in leggings, flipflops and oversized sunglasses. The Latino with gelled hair and an Angels jersey hanging with his hermanos. The mother-daughter pair weighted down with bags from Kitson, Anthropologie and, God forbid, Abercrombie & Fitch, striding purposefully to their car so they can retreat to the leafy havens of Brentwood or Pacific Palisades.

One day I encountered a protest march. It was a Sunday in early June, a good time to play to a large audience. They were shouting about genocide in Turkey, although as a group they didn’t look particularly oppressed. Some people stopped and observed the spectacle, others walked by in a hurry to get to their cars and beat the traffic. I went home, did some research and learned more of the citizen unrest in Turkey and its oppressive government. You can learn something useful here, and I’ll bet you won’t find that claim on the chamber’s web site.

Just the names of the stores are a delight for the imagination: Pink Ice, Hard Tail, All Saints, Journeys, Rip Curl. And then there are the more traditional names: Apple, American Eagle, Kenneth Cole, Tiffany and Tumi. Around the corner on Arizona, attracting anything but misfits is The Misfit –a nightclub that is unabashedly hip with its beguiling, even intimidating dark interior.

My sense of smell is always rewarded and it adds to the experience: That athletic store smell of shoe rubber that greets my nostrils as I approach the Adidas store, the marvelous array of scents from perfume vendors and the more earthy flavors from the kiosks bearing incense and other spiritual products.

What June gloom? The Farmers Market is happenin'.

 

A trio of athletic and gregarious black men attracts an impromptu audience with acrobatics and dance moves, set to a throbbing beat from a rather sophisticated sound system. They’ve plucked two people from the audience for a demonstration – a spry grandmother and an attractive blonde twentysomething, of course. I keep walking because I’ve seen this show before on Venice Beach.

Approaching The Coffee Bean I find myself involuntarily taking deep abdomen breaths in anticipation of the pleasant, rich aroma of coffee. I note the patrons – more leisurely than the crowd on foot – sipping and chatting, fiddling with their iPhones or staring absently into space. That’s the life, I tell myself.

The pizza joint next to the AMC theaters now has gluten-free pizza, and I promise myself I’ll give it a try sometime. You poor fools, I tsk-tsk to myself as I pass Johnny Rocket’s with the patrons shoveling cheeseburgers and downing milkshakes. You’ll regret it later. (I’ve turned into a nutrition snob.) On the southeast corner of Third and Arizona the people who brought you Chipotle are opening their third Shophouse Asian Kitchen here – the only others are in Washington DC. Yeah, it’s trendy like that here.

Tourists from Germany, Japan, Australia throng Third Street. They seem less casual than the Americans – more earnest and observational. Often it’s difficult to tell if someone is from another country or a person of non-US lineage living in Los Angeles, this city has become a kaleidoscope of nationalities. Whatever. The diversity inspires me and feeds my energy.


   

What? No Wi-fi?

A quiet counterculture is building in the world of coffee shops. You probably don’t even notice it in your neighborhood. It’s starting very modestly, and I doubt it will supplant the Starbucks model we’ve come to know and, in my case, grudgingly accept.

One afternoon my wife and I set out with our laptops, looking forward to a couple of quiet and productive hours at a nearby, locally-owned coffee purveyor on trendy Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. We had noticed this store on the corner for some time. It looked very attractive from the outside – giant, plate-glass windows that let in an abundance of sunlight, bright interior, a spare, clean look. The kind of place where you can sit quietly, clear your mind and get creative.

Approaching the door, however, we noticed very few places to sit – only benches around the walls and tiny, low, round-topped wooden tables. None of the overstuffed, comfy chairs we’d come to expect in more traditional coffee houses.
 
“It looks like they really don’t want us to come in,” said my wife, and I agreed. Cold and sterile came to mind. 

We peeked inside the Starbucks across the street, but all the seats and chairs were filled. So popular was it was this mid-afternoon that we decided to return to the local place and give it a try. After all, I reasoned, we have each other. Do our surroundings really matter? (You come to recognize what’s enduring and fulfilling versus the fleeting and unsatisfying. Your wife is your best friend and you relish your time together.)

When we walked in, we were greeted by the type of funereal silence that always makes me uncomfortable and self-conscious. I almost turned around and walked out. Music played softly, and the energy level was low or nonexistent. If you speak, you appear foolish. Intimidating sums up the experience so far.

At first I thought maybe this is the kind of place where you get your coffee to go – so paltry was the available seating. But no, there were a few customers, occupying a long table with high stools in the back. 

The clerk was cheerful in a quirky way, although I felt as if she was thinking “these people don’t know or appreciate our sophisticated blends of coffee and tea. Watch the guy order a plain drip coffee.” Which I did, with room for milk. I have no pretension about these things and refuse to order something overly gilded or contrived just to fit in with the crowd. I think my wife ordered an iced chai tea.

My wife noticed the barista, who didn’t crack a smile the entire time. Made several coffees before she poured the iced tea. (I mean, all she had to do was pour the tea. Simple.) I usually don’t let the attitudes of others – especially strangers – affect my mood, but ms. barista’s vibe was palpable. It cast a pall over the place. Sulk much?

My coffee was good, but not worth the four bucks I paid for it. I guess when we overpay for the coffee we are paying for the privilege of sitting in a coffee house for hours, sucking up the wi-fi.

About the wi-fi. We opened our laptops, searched for available networks and found they were all encrypted. I asked the clerk if they have a wi-fi network. “No, we don’t,” she replied, probably sick of answering the question for the 60th time that day, displaying little compassion. No apologies. The whole premise of this coffee format is “unapologetic.”  

As Americans, don’t we have the right to free wi-fi?

“That’s okay,” I said to my wife. “We can do other things.” And she showed me the photos from her writer’s retreat in Whitefish, Montana. 

I’ve since noticed this no computer policy at other coffee houses. There’s a spot on Pico near Fairfax that segregates the laptop users. Polite little placards adorn each table explaining the policy. At least laptop use is somewhat acceptable. And the place is buzzing with energy, unlike the aforementioned tomb near our apartment.

We stayed for about 45 minutes, not sucking up their wi-fi but sucking up the oxygen in the room and taking up space. I guess I got my $4 worth. And don’t bother asking for a cup to go. No paper is consumed here.

This is a classic coffee experience, accentuated by large, white porcelain mugs. 

Maybe this is a new model, I thought. High-concept coffee. The anti-Starbucks. I’m clearly in the minority because most of the Yelp reviews were gushing. Do these people derive some perverse satisfaction from being surrounded by smugness and sterility? 

It led me to revisit a question I’ve always pondered about the attitudes of the help and the clientele. It’s a chicken and egg thing. Does the help turn hostile from dealing with arrogant clients all day, or do clients become arrogant from being waited on by hostile help?

So many questions, which I think I’ll consider as I sip my $1.95 grande at Coffee Bean.