Since The Secret Machines played in Los Angeles last night as part of a Global Inheritance event to encourage more people to use public transportation, I thought I would take the MTA all the way from the Valley to Downtown. Here is what happened:

4:00 p.m. I'm getting ready to leave the house. "Maybe you should just drive down to North Hollywood instead of catching the Orange Line," my dad suggested. "But, it's 4:00 p.m. Traffic will be horrible," I answered.

4:10 p.m. I reach the Orange Line station in Tarzana. For those of you who don't know, the Orange Line is actually a bus that runs on a former train track because people in the Valley are too stupid to lobby for an actual subway or train and the powers that be would never consider giving the Valley something convenient. The bus is leaving as I park my car. In the time that it takes me to find exact change to get a day pass, another bus has come and gone. I have to wait twenty minutes to board a bus with standing room only.

4:40 p.m. We hit the Sepulveda station and the bus is now so cramped that people have to wait to board another ride. The girl next to me is talking very loudly into her cell phone with one arm grabbing onto the upper railing of our car. She hasn't shaved in a week and hasn't used deodorant in at least as long. The bus smells foul, so much so that I think reapplying my own deodorant before I left the house was a waste of time.

5:00 p.m. I have been trying to ignore everyone pushing and shoving on the bus by reading the news briefs on the television. I learn that the news is inane in both Spanish and English. My brother calls me. He and his friend are done with school and wanted to know if they had time to eat before we meet at Union Station. I tell him go ahead, I will be a while.

5:10 pm. We reach the North Hollywood terminal. I stand outside for a few minutes and rush downstairs to catch the Red Line. The train departs as soon as I step off the staircase.


5:50 pm. I finally make it down to Union Station and exit through the east portal, where I call my brother. "Well, we aren't there right now," he says. "We went to Philippe's." I start calling him names. How dare he go to Philippe's without me! "Well, if you want, we can always go down there again later," he suggests. "No, it's okay."

6:10 p.m. I find my way to the front entrance of Union Station and meet my brother and his friend. We go to Traxx, where my dinner consists of a vodka tonic.

7:00 p.m. We decide to get into line before it grows too long.

7:45 p.m. We enter the portion of Union Station sectioned off for the show. There is a guy from Indie 103.1 on the decks. I didn't catch his name, but he was really good. It looked like he was using Serato to play all the Indie hits like they were techno jams.

8:45 p.m. We are still waiting for something resembling The Secret Machines. Instead, the DJs rotate and my brother's friend tells us that he has to run, as the last train to Riverside leaves in 15 minutes.

9:15 p.m. Shepard Fairey is on the decks. How someone who doesn't even seem to understand the letters EQ manages to book high-profile DJ gigs is beyond me. It's as confounding a notion as the fact that people really seem to view the Cobrasnake as an artist.
What's more perplexing is being inside a show at a train station where only those with MTA passes can enter and not being able to find a single person who knows when the last Red Line train departs. We actually had to call someone to look it up online for us. And, still, we were utterly confused with the VIP section and $30 preferred seating (they had a bar) for a free show.

9:30 p.m. The Secret Machines finally hit the stage, opening with "Alone, Jealous and Stoned." The sound inside the train station is excellent, better than most nightclubs.

10:00 p.m. We run to catch a Red Line. Inside, this lady walks up and down the aisles. She is maybe 300 pounds and is wearing a white t-shirt with no bra, a towel wrapped around her bottom half and socks without shoes.

10:30 p.m. We look at the Orange Line schedule. The "next train" should have left fifteen minutes ago. Instead, it is waiting on the other side of the track as the driver chats it up with another guy. The other guy pokes his head into the door of an office and shouts, "They only have donuts!" Ten minutes after this, we leave.

11:00 p.m. We get off the train at Reseda, noticing that someone inside the Frisky Kitty must be performing to Neil Diamond. Then we head home.