Black Sunday

I went on a picnic today with a friend, since the weather was so nice and surprisingly warm this early December. We met up at Bronson Park, just under the Hollywood sign in a small grassy area off a little road. My friend had quite a spread: some cheeses and hummus and pita and fruit, etc... And, of course, booze. We plowed through a bottle of champagne while making pals with a black pug also visiting the park with his owners, a group of black clad, high laced boots wearin' black metal cholos.

They were so hardcore, even their dog was black. Get it?

Well, the pug, it turned out (a very friendly little thing as pugs seem to be) was named Frankenstein. I was giving him a good backscratch when his mom came up and apologized for his intrusion. "Come on, Frankenstein, let's go." And then Frankenstein let loose a loud rumble that would do Napalm Death proud. I was floored. No wonder they picked this dog. But, obviously, he wanted to hang with us. So he did for a bit, then wandered back to his picnic area.

Then my friend and I were approached by a young couple who wanted to take a picture of our "location." My friend asked what they were talking about, and the guy said, "Well, we're taking stills for a presentation of a film we're doing, and we need a picnic scene, but we didn't bring any picnic stuff, so we wondered if..." "So," I interrupted, "You want us to take pictures of you sitting with our stuff, pretending it's yours?" "Yea." "Oh. Okay." We took some pictures of them pretending to be eating our olives and pouring our wine, and then they were off.

In the meantime, the nice death metal kids were setting up a pinata. It was a stumpy bride, with a bloody wound over her heart and a glow-in-the-dark hockey mask over her face. It was, hands down, the creepiest pinata I've ever seen. My friend and I immediately got up to take pictures and cheer them on. Only the girls were hitting the pinata, and they were doing so with a studded club.

They busted one leg off, then the other (the club kept sticking in the pinata), and finally they tore it down. It was filled with little ziplock snack bags which had tabasco sauce in them. My friend said, "Hey, is that supposed to be blood?" And one of the guys said, "We thought it would break when they hit it." I go, "Maybe next time put it in the lining of the pinata." "Yea! Hey!" Then they strung up the groom equivalent pinata. I didn't feel right intruding on their bridal bash party for anymore pictures, besides... Frankenstein was eating out pita bread.

(I really tried to get a picture of Frankenstein, but he was very wiggly. It just would have been a blur of big googley eyes anyway.)