It is great to be in L.A. for the second Sunday of the month when they hold the Rose Bowl flea market. Luckily, my last few trips to the West Coast have coincided with the Rose Bowl Flea weekend and I have been able to shop all of the vintage goodness. This past weekend I knew Steven Alan was in town and I asked him if he would mind letting me tag along with him at the Rose Bowl. Being the nice guy that he is Steven agreed, so we got up early on Sunday morning, grabbed a couple giant duffel bags and headed to Pasadena.

Steven is a soft spoken, introspective and polite guy. He’s someone I very much admire for his great style and ability to make something as simple as a button down shirt interesting and cool. No one in menswear is as multidimensional and talented as Steven, which makes spending the morning shopping vintage with him an awesome experience for someone like me who is a big fan of his work.

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One morning a few months ago I was thinking about donuts. That seems normal right? Thinking about donuts in the morning. Especially if you consider it was me doing the thinking. Well anyway, I was wondering who has better donuts, New York or Los Angeles? So I did what anyone would do, I took to twitter to conduct an impromptu (and non-scientific) poll of the best spots in their respective cities. One place that numerous people called-out in the Greater Los Angeles area (I just like how that sounds, Greater Los Angeles) was Randy’s Donuts in Inglewood. And man, I have to agree. Randy’s makes some tasty donuts. After a long flight in LAX, nothing is better than stopping at Randy’s for a cup of coffee and a donut.

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When I was in L.A. a few weeks ago I stopped by to see the gents from Baxter of California at their then unfinished barber shop on LaCienega. Well today the veil has been lifted, and the new spot dubbed Baxter Finley, Barber & Shop, looks even better than I had anticipated. It is opening officially tomorrow, if you want to stop in for L.A.’s newest (and possibly best?) wet shave.

Baxter Finley, Barber & Shop | 515 N. LaCienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA.

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An unscientific survey of some of L.A.’s best burgers. Jonah and Palmer — the gents from Aether (who are friends, clients and advertisers on ACL) — and I decided to visit five (or so) burger destinations while I am on my left coast tour. The first stop, Umami Burger, was a place many had highly recommended. We met up at the outpost on La Brea for lunch and Umami did not disappoint.

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The Taschen New York store is directly across the street from my office and sometimes when I need to clear my head I’ll trot over there to flip through some of their beautiful books and drift off into another world. After I posted the old Kodachromes of L.A., a few people pointed me in the direction of Los Angeles, Portrait of a City and I was immediately sucked in to the amazing photography of an amazing city.

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There are only a handful of places that I would want to live in the United States. As it happens, Los Angeles is near the top of that list. I have a bunch of friends that have departed for Southern Calif., which coupled with the easy living continue to make the idea of living on the West Coast that much more enticing. I came across these vintage shots of L.A. and I thought they would be worth a post here. All photos are from the Neat Stuff Blog, who’s author is someone I share a philosophy about vintage images with.

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I went to Disneyland long before my family ever made it to Florida’s Disneyworld. In fact, for some reason I have more memories of going to Knotts Berry Farm as a kid than either of the massive Disney parks. No matter where you went as a kid, nothing is better than going to a theme park. My friend Sean sent me these beautiful 16mm Kodachrome home movies shot at Disneyland soon after the opening in 1956 and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to share them here. It is amazing to see the clarity and the color of the footage — a cinematic quality that disappeared into the 1970s and 1980s. Take a moment and escape into the good clean fun of Disney in the 1950s.

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It’s a fake. A replica, an impostor and I don’t care, it’s fucking cool. So is Nick.

Mr. Maggio aka Mr. A Time to Get stopped by my office in Beverly Hills (it’s actually my business partner Ali’s office) while I was working out that way last week. Eventually the conversation turned to cars and Nick told me about his Speedster. Growing up in Ohio there was a guy down the street from me that had a white Porsche 356 replica built on a Volkswagen chassis that I always loved. Nick’s car was custom built on an original 1956 VW frame by the guys at Automotive Legends in California, who also make reproduction versions of the Porsche 550 Spyder and a 550 Coupe. Speaking of the 550 Mr. Maggio says, “[I] test drove the 550 Spyder and it was crazy FAST.”

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