Rats on Tour 🚍🐀🎸
October 16-31
Writing to you in the pitch black from the top bunk in the back of my friends’ tour bus, somewhere between Cleveland and Boston. All the band/crew keeps asking how I’m sleeping, and the answer is: like I’m back in the womb! I’ve never felt more peaceful than in this 6x4 cave where I’ll occasionally wake up mid-air after the bus driver speeds over a particularly fucked up piece of road.
In many ways, tour life brings this rat back to her roots: living nocturnally; adapting to new environments; nesting in dark, cold spaces; scavenging against all odds for good food (this was…a Cleveland issue).
Though I’m away, I still live to serve the Ratplayers in LA. We’re sticking only to events this issue due to a crazy schedule, but we’ll be back to normal with communities and people to know for November.
We’re talking immersive dinner parties, laughing meditations, backgammon meetups, halloween costume contests (for dogs), and more!
Rat Traps 🪤
(Events/Experiences)
Backyard Backgammon and Persian Bites
October 19, 6-9:30PM (cal link here)
Club TeeGee
$35, tickets here
I love Persians for many reasons–their generosity, their love for Tahdig (think the crispy rice at the bottom of a dish), and for their 5,000 year backgammon addiction. You’ll get to enjoy (mostly) all of this at the Silverlake Backgammon x Homa LA event where you can learn how to play Backgammon and eat delicious (and bottomless) Persian delights. Homa is on food duty, serving bowls of A’ash Reshta (Persian stew), homemade flatbread and an autumn shirazi salad. I’d be hard-pressed to find a cozier way to welcome in the fall (don’t fight me on this one PSL girls…). Find me in the back of the room hoarding dates, sipping on mint tea, and vibing to the sounds of rare records curators Jacknife.
Heavy Market: Filipino American History Month Market
10/21 @ 11-4PM (cal link here)
Heavy Water Coffee Shop (Echo Park)
Free
Echo Park’s newest coffee shop Heavy Water is throwing its hat into the Sunset Blvd. pop-up ring, following the lead of community favorites like Género Neutral and Sunset Shop. Their first event is a Filipino American History Month celebration, so naturally, the food will be deluxe. Consider it a one-stop shop for Saturday activities– they’ll have vendors selling vintage clothing, flowers, lumpia from Lumpia by Tita (father, son, holy spirit…amen!), baked goods from San and Wolves, and tattoos. If you need an excuse to drink, proceeds from their Calamansi Tonic will go to the Filipino Migrant Center, directly aiding Filipino families in So-Cal. If you STILL need another reason to go, Perilla shares a sweet backyard space with Heavy Water, so you can finally go and experience banchan paradise.
October 19-23
Prices vary (free option available) , tickets here
Prolific American new age and ambient musician Laraaji is pulling up to LA for not one, but four live shows celebrating his 80th year on earth. There’s different programming for each, but if you don’t like a commute, consider attending based on location: he has shows in Glendale, West Hollywood, Studio City, and Mount Washington. Pro-tip: the Mt. Washington one is at Greenstone Farm, the BIPOC urban garden farm where you can also grab a tour of indigenous plants and crops, or take a date for a cute picnic. Or if Tiktok comedians have fried your brains and you’re down to brave WeHo, reset with some grandpa jokes at the Schindler House Laughing Meditation.
Songs of Earth: A Sound Tasting Series with Botanical Sound
10/21, 6PM (cal link here)
Casa Padma (Highland Park)
$150 (oop), tickets here
Songs of Earth is an “immersive and interactive multi-sensory dining experience inviting guests to feel and experience food and community through sound.” I love events that genre-bend like this and hit on the senses in unexpected ways. The invite encourages guests to “play and make music with their food”, and I’ll use that as a cue to a) drop that I ✨ am ✨ in therapy and b) share an example “response vs. reaction”: my reaction to hearing this was “why would I play with my food, I’m not 5 years old”, but my response was to be open-minded to incorporating play into my life in unconventional ways and to stop being such a grinch :)
Sandita’s Fried Chicken Sandwich Pop-up
10/21, 12-3PM (cal link here)
Open Market (Koreatown)
Pre-order here
Throwing this one in right before publishing because I can’t help myself. There’s something ominous about the way that the curry sauce consumes the hulking Ginza Nishikawa shokupan sandwich before our very eyes, a dark shadow in its wake, warning of undertaking to await. The thin, teasing curls of squash peaking delicately out of the sides, asking us to pay her a visit…if we dare!! And dare I do. As always, Sandita’s donates a portion of their sales each month to organizations that help support the community via food sovereignty work, sustainability, education and community outreach. Eat good, feel good. (S/o to my friend and Ratplayer @traderjoe_y for the flyer of dreams, hit her up if you need one).
Cosmic, Spiritual Harp Music: A Listening Party
10/22, 7-10PM (cal link here)
JACCC & James Irvine Japanese Garden (Little Tokyo)
$12 , tickets here
Another In Sheep’s Clothing Collab for you, this time a listening party with the JACCC in a Japanese Garden with Japanese whiskey, beer, and wine to help you melt into the music. Imagine you, in this garden ^, surrounded by those bonsai ^, listening to those string instruments ^. IMMACULATE vibes. As an aside: if I didn’t find events with names such as Cosmic, Spiritual Harp Music and earnestly share them with you, would I really be writing an LA newsletter?
10/29; 3PM (cal link here)
Lowboy (Echo Park)
Free
I always turn to Lowboy when the going gets tough…in my eyes, it’s the perfect neighborhood bar. You can sit out front and people watch with a beer and a fresh burger (literally order the “fresh burger” and pretend the giant chunk of lettuce makes it healthy), grab a table inside and listen to live music with a stiff cocktail, or on Halloween, watch the very best east side dogs strut around the bar in Jack the Ripper costumes. BIG seratonin boost right here. Once you’re finished, come to Ratoween at my house where rats will be dressed as barbies and cocaine bears. Menu: sewer water cocktails and large chunks of cheese. If a “friend” tells you I’m allergic to dairy…slander!!!
Rat Sightings 🕵️
This is y’all at Fluffy McCloud’s buying lactaid pills from the gumball machine for a lil ice cream 😩.
Submit Rat Sightings (digital or IRL) to @ratplayla 💋
That’s it for now! Time to go process the nightmares I’m having about girl rat #3 above (from left to right), more specifically about her feet.
Go play,
CK