The World Has Ended. Let's Party.

I'm not one to resort to hyperbole, but the party I'm throwing on Saturday night is going to be the greatest thing ever to happen to anyone in America. 

Let me break it down for you.

It's called ATOMIKA. It's a all-night post-apocalyptic  dance rager. Everyone is going to get dressed up like sexy Mad Max motherfuckers. It'll be held at a secret location in west LA, that we're decking out with 3-D mushroom clouds, lasers, and insane lighting. We're brewing our own beer for it -- Blitzkrieg Hop IPA and Lord Humungous Hefeweizen. We'll be having adorable ladies (some of whom will be on rollerskates, because safety third) roaming around, offering test-tube shots of declious nuclear waste. There will be a room-sized art installation featuring massive prints of nuclear blasts, courtesy of artist Tiger Phino. We'll have aerial performers (behold, the mighty Emily Pennington!!!), fire spinners, cage dancers, and eye-frying visuals from HaiJak. It's going until 6 AM, so tell your mom you're sleeping over at a friend's house.

I haven't even talked about the music yet, have I?

You know how in Bollywood movies, they have the whole cast come out and do a big musical number at the very end, so you get to hang out with all your favorite characters one last time? To me, our lineup is kind of like that -- an absolute who's-who of every DJ I've loved over the past few years, all together at once.

We've got Solovox, a Portland-based producer whom this blog has a well-documented boner for, bringing his turbo-charged funk to bear. (Seriously, check out the height-of-subtlety that is "Kill You With My Sex"; just don't do it at work.) We've got divaDanielle, aka intrepidLA's fairy godmother, who's new track "Funky Sheriff" sounds like a gang of Burners kicking open the door to Eric Clapton's studio in 1974; Wolfie, the Steampunk Saloon badass responsible for blowing the roof of the Mystikal Misfits party last year, as well as the upcoming Boomtown; breakbeat maestro Loomer, who'll be tearing it up at Lightning In A Bottle later this summer; and Nick The Neck, the mesmerizing tech-house alter-ego of Pumpkin (whom we've written one or two things about.) Also coming to bring joy to the wasteland are Fleetwood Smack (supremely ass-shakey); Squachek (oh-my-god-my-face-what-is-happening); Hippiechick (try not bopping your head, I dare you); and The Fuzz ("sir, please come down off that table and stop rocking so hard.") 

Forget feeling "fine" -- it's the end of the world as we know it, and you're gonna feel awwwesome.

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• WHAT: Atomika
  
• WHERE: West LA -- RSVP to receive address
• WHEN: Saturday, May 18th, 9 PM - 6 AM
  
• $$$: $20 in advance, $25 day of -- get tickets here
  

Petting Sloths At The Wildlife Learning Center: A Guide To Happiness

Photo courtesy of Makaela TrussellAmerica, you've been having a piece-of-shit week. I mean, really. You've got swarthy assholes with giant eyebrows blowing up marathon runners in Boston. You've got a Texas town getting wiped off the map by an exploding fertilizer plant. You've got the NRA and their proffesional fluffers political allies making everyone take it in the face on that gun control bill. You've got Daft Punk releasing a new single that turns out sound like an Earth, Wind, And Fire cover band (j/k I love that song and so do you.) To paraphrase the words of Dave Chapelle, I wish I had more hands so I could give this week FOUR THUMBS DOWN.

What I'm saying is, it wouldn't hurt to have something nice happen for a change.

Like going and petting a friendly sloth.

Lucky for you, the Wildlife Learning Center exists. Tucked away in a beautiful olive grove in Sylmar, the WLC is a haven for wounded/abandoned animals who need professional human help to live out their lives. Like a zoo, but more intimate and educational, and with way less of the icky "exploiting animals for entertainment" factor. For a sliding-scale fee, you can hire a biologist to take you on a walk through the park and introduce you to its many inhabitants. Prepare to squee.

They have, amongst many other creatures, an extremely cuddly-looking fennec fox; a serval wildcat who projects an air of dangerous glamour, like a 1940s starlet about to go off on her agent; a reptile house full of creepy things I will never, ever touch; and sugar gliders, which seem genetically engineered to set off that weird human impulse where you want to smash-squeeze cute things. They also have a family of porcupines, from whom I learned that porcupines are some seriously entitled little shits. I fed a carrot to this one fat bastard named Walter, who took one nibble and then dropped it on the ground and waddled away. Fuck you too, Walter.

And yes, they have a sloth. Her name is Lola, and I love her more than my family. She enjoys sleeping,  lounging, sniffing you, and generally acting like a mildly inquisitive stoner. And she will bring light to the darkest of days.

As this week has shown, it's a big, bad world out there. But the WLC is a reminder that it's also one brimming with fuzzy, soft, good things. You won't want to leave.

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• WHAT: The Wildlife Learning Center
  
• WHERE: 16027 Yarnell St, Sylmar, CA
• WHEN: Every day, 11-5
  
• $$$: $7 to visit; private tours range from $25 to a four-person-group rate of $190 (do that one)
  

Intrepid Road Trips: Willett Creek Hot Springs

First step: get to Ojai.

Let's back up -- the first step, for me, when I decided to join some friends on a 20-mile round-trip trek to the amazing Willet Creek Hot Springs in the Sespe Wilderness, was to put together two days of bare essentials in my trekking pack. If you're anything like me, the list of what you normally bring camping will get cut by a few items. My list wound up looking like this:

Tent

Sleeping bag

Change of clothes

Food

Hula hoops

Boombox

Fire poi

Panda suit

Giant bag of mushrooms

Eleven 40's of Panther Malt Liquor

Violet Wand

Net for catching sloths (do not hide from me, sloths)

Hardcover copy of "Infinite Jest"

Be ruthless with your packing, your back will thank you later. Now about this hike: the 9-mile trek in gives you a little of everything -- vast desert expanses, glistening river-and-stream vistas, treacherous river crossings, bracing shadow-groves of snow and pine, and in the last four miles, ALL THE HILLS. Hills that make you think "Who put this thing here? I'll kill that motherfucker," and "How am I actually seeing my future descendents making their way to the top of this thing ahead of me?" and "Why are my future descendents Chinese?"

Finally, you crest a ridge, and below you opens up a valley of rock gardens and sandy riverside beaches shaded by sycamore trees. This is Willet Creek Campground, where you drop your backpack and go up one last face-kicking 3/4 mile slope to the springs. By this point in the hike, if presented with a choice between trudging up one more hill and nibbling Dan Rather's balls, you'd probably have to sit down and think about it. But you go anyway. Because up top is a treasure.

Nestled inside a verdant canyon is a tub big enough to fit ten (or more, depending on cozy you and your friends are) redolent of sulfur and wet rock, soundtracked by the whisper of the running springs. You're technically not allowed to get naked, but if Johnny Law wants to schlep into the middle of nowhere just to write you an ass-ticket, se la vie; it'll be worth it, just to float unencumbered in that toasty warm tub, letting the water ease your weary spirits back to life. Beyond the hills, the sun goes down; later the sky will become a riot of stars. You know, in the back of your mind, that you still have to trek another 10 miles to return home tomorrow, but as Lou Reed once said, "that's just some other time."

For now, you've got nothing to do but sit and soak and lay your burdens down. 

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• WHAT: Willet Creek Hot Springs Trek
  
• WHERE: Start at the Piedra Blanca Trailhead
• WHEN: Good year round, best when it's not too hot
  
• $$$: $10 for parking
  

Drink With The Fishes

Here's the most basic way I can describe Bahooka Ribs and Grog: imagine a restaurant that has somehow manifested itself inside a sunken pirate ship.

A Polynesian-themed tikki joint that first opened up in the mid-1960's, Bahooka is the kind of place that could've saved Terry Gilliam a bundle on location fees when he was shooting Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas -- it's 100% immersive, hallucinatory and anabashedly chintzy. Eveywhere you look, tropical fish swim through glowing blue water of the 100 fish tanks installed in the walls. The deep, dark booths have tables supported by giant black chains hanging from the ceiling. There's a massive vegan Pacu fish named Rufus, who will snack on carrots and then instantly regurgitate them, because Rufus is bullimic and doesn't see the same handsome fish that we see when he looks in the mirror.

Here's a few do's and don'ts to keep in mind when venturing into Bahooka...

DO: order an irradiated-looking cocktail from a giant bowl. They are delicious.

DON'T: drink this whole thing unless you're sharing it with at least two friends. You still have to drive home afterward. This restaurant is in Rosemead, and I don't care who's reading this, you don't live near Rosemead.

DO: light that bowl-drink on fire. All things are better with fire!

DON'T: order off the food menu. The cuisine here is enough to make you wonder if the captain of this sunken ship purposefully crashed his vessel into a reef as revenge against his galley staff. You'd think it'd be impossible to screw up something as delicious as Hawaiian BBQ ribs, but somehow, Bahooka decided that they were going to wage war on the odds by creating a plate of ribs that tastes like it was once part of late-career Mickey Rourke's body. (Seriously, don't get the ribs.)

DO: feed Rufus a carrot and remind him he's beautiful.

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• WHAT: Bahooka Ribs and Grog
  
• WHERE: 4501 Rosemead Blvd, Rosemead, CA
• WHEN: Mon-Sun, noon-10 PM
  
• $$$: $20 per bowl drink
  

Your Inner 16-Year-Old Wants To Ride The Secret Gravity Hill Of Pasadena

The more I learn about Pasadena, the more I'm convinced it's secretly just the set of an Eerie Indiana-type TV show. There is, quite simply, a gobsmacking amount of vaguely spooky shit going on up there.

There's the infamous Suicide Bridge, which is actually quite fun to go strolling on (and judging by the name, even more fun to go jumping off.) Suicide Bridge is apparently right down the street from an abandoned insane asylum, which probably came in very handy when Reagan decided to let all the mental patients loose on the streets in the 80s. There's the ruins of the White City Resort perched in the mountains above, its tennis courts scorched by fire, swimming pool now a cauldron of dirt and dead leaves. There's the Haunted Forest below, with its secret trails leading to claustrophobic tunnels and caves. (A hiker made a video of his Haunted Forest exploration, complete with helpful tips like "Do not go into this cave on your left; a man lives in there and he does not like to be disturbed."

My favorite amongst these eerie treasures is the Gravity Hill. Situated on a winding mountain street in Altadena, it's a section of road wherein a driver can put their car in neutral and then start traveling "up" the hill. Science tells us it's just an optical illusion, but I prefer to approach this with a "teach the controversy" mindframe and say that the forces pushing your car up that hill could just as easily be the ghosts of children killed in a spectacular schoolbus accident. (Science, after all, is just its own form of faith.)

Remember in high school, when you'd first gotten your drivers license, and your heart would flood with giddiness just at the prospect of going aimlessly exploring in your car? Gravity Hill will take you back to that space in your mind, free of charge.*

*The ghost-kids may request a 10% tip for pushing your car up the hill.

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• WHAT: Pasadena's Gravity Hill
  
• WHERE: Directions are here
• WHEN: The neighborhood frowns on loitering, but do your thing
  
• $$$: Free