Last week I was chillin’ in Philadelphia celebrating my friends birthday, holidays and eating a mediocre omelette at Mugshots diner. Most of my commentary was on how lame the collection of mugshots was, and if you’re gonna seriously call yourself Mugshots, you damn well better get your restaurant to be adorned wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with some major vibings. It’s like when there was an LA bar called Stinkers, and yes, the entire place was covered in skunk tails and asses. I’m not sure why they closed down. But in one week, I went from eating that shitty omelette in the city of Brotherly Love, to being held up point blank by a semi automatic with a friend in Los Angeles. Of course I had also just finished eating at about 3 different spots in Los Feliz, all of which topped the previously mentioned omelette. What’s surreal is after over 10 years of living in LA, I’ve never even come close to that, or if I did I was oblivious. And in Philly, I’ve definitely come pretty close to those situations but have been fortunate enough to evade them. When seeing a car creep around the corner with no lights on down what has always been an extremely safe residential neighborhood, my first inclination is “Oh, this person is either drunk or just left their driveway and hasn’t turned their damn headlights on yet.” So I move my friend closer to the curb out of natural reaction. And then boom, it’s like a Chinese fire drill in the middle of Boyz in the Hood. Fortunately, the losses were minimal and no one was physically hurt. And by some weird moment of shock, instead of fleeing into the house immediately after, I stood in the street to memorize the license plate while the shit-mobile drove away. Then there’s the post thought process of “should I have handed over the other half of my falafel sandwich?” along with other scenarios you can’t help to analyze or ponder. But I think I’d rather go back to accessing why Mugshots diner still only has like 12 photos. Maybe if the LAPD catches the little thieves, I can print out their mughsot and donate it. Now that’s the best of both worlds. Mugshot omelettes to Armed Baba Ghanoush muggings. Next up – the blizzard of 2014.