Customer Reviews

The Underground Guide To Los Angeles, 2nd Edition

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Whether one loves or hates Los Angeles, most people agree that it's an interesting place. The remarkable achievement of this book is that it makes L.A. sound boring.

The book consists of chapters written by different authors, all of whom consider themselves to be knowledgeable insiders but who are generally clueless.

There are a lot of good insider guides available for L.A. This is not one of them.

UPDATE: Check out the comments to this review, one of which was written by Suzy Beal, who turns out to be one of the authors of this book. Then note that all of the positive reviews are written by undisclosed readers, which suggests ballot stuffing.

A few unpleasant facts for Pleasant (the editor): Gathering together a bunch of your buddies and asking them to write a chapter for your book does not constitute good journalism and does not result in a good book. Omissions: I was looking for info. on the early punk clubs (The Masque, etc.) in this "underground " guide. Nothing. I also saw a listing for Jerry's Famous Deli in the book, but the writer failed to mention that Andy Kaufman had worked there as a waiter at the height of his Taxi fame. Errors: Too many to spell out, but one that made me slap my forehead was a writer's contention that Hawaii Five-O had been filmed at CBS Studio City with "ocean footage edited-in". In fact, that was probably the first television show to be shot entirely on-location, with interior scenes shot in their own studio in Hawaii.