Tag Archives: 1990s

Books

Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn Is a Touching Memoir Set in Early ’90s Hollywood

Photo of Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn by Jeff Copeland
Reading Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn on the L.A. Metro (Pic: Liz O.)

In 1991, Holly Woodlawn released her autobiography, A Low Life in High Heels, written with Jeff Copeland. I haven’t read the book, but it’s high at the top of my list now that I have read Copeland’s recently-released Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn.  The writer’s own memoir is a funny, sweet and engaging story about an unexpected, and sometimes tumultuous, L.A. friendship at the turn of the 1990s. What I loved about this memoir is how Copeland deftly intertwines a story about HOLLYWOOD, as in the movie world, with Hollywood, as in the place. 

Woodlawn, who died a decade ago, was best known as the Holly in Lou Reed’s hit, “Walk on the Wild Side.” She was an Andy Warhol superstar who appeared in films like Trash and Women in Revolt. By the late ‘80s, she was living on the West Coast and not exactly in the best place in her life. Copeland was a young writer from Missouri who had moved to L.A. with hopes of breaking into the film industry. Their friendship resulted in A Low Life in High Heels and would be strained, in part, as a result of attempts to turn Woodlawn’s autobiography into a film, which never happened. That’s the HOLLYWOOD part of the story. 

Continue reading Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn Is a Touching Memoir Set in Early ’90s Hollywood →
Adventures in L.A.

The Death of the 1990s Coffee House and the Third Place

Mike Meyers So I Married an Axe Murderer coffee House screenshot
Mike Myers in So I Married an Axe Murderer ordering a ’90s coffee house cappuccino

There’s no shortage of irony in the news, but I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read a New York Times piece about how Starbucks wants to bring back the “third place.” A third place is not a corporate imitation of a coffee house that serves the same menu at every location. It is not a carefully cultivated vibe of Brand Safe Boredom that extends from its forgettable decor to the inoffensive playlists played at a volume that ensures you will never actually remember what you heard. 

If you’re on the chattier social apps, then you’ve probably seen people describe the third places they wish they had, which, for some reason, always seem to sound like the public libraries they clearly don’t patronize. But, third places were a real thing. Once upon a time, people did have their own, local versions of the DoubleR or the Central Perk. Technically, they still exist. Underground, where I often guest DJ, happens every week. If you’re a regular there, it is a third place. Last year, I wrote a story about the pinball tournaments at Revenge Of.  For pinball players, that absolutely falls into the category of “the third place.”

The whole concept of the third place, though, began its death spiral well before the pandemic. I suspect that there are multiple reasons for that, but let’s start with Corporate Coffee. 

Continue reading The Death of the 1990s Coffee House and the Third Place →