Lifestyle
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Awkwafina
In Awkwafina’s new movie “Jackpot!” (co-starring John Cena and Simu Liu and directed by Paul Feig; it’s now streaming on Prime Video), the rapper and comedian plays an aspiring actor turned winner of a multi-billion dollar lottery ticket. So when we recently sat down for a Zoom interview about her ideal Sunday, one of the things we talked about was how her perfect weekend might change if she actually won that kind of cash in real life.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
“If I struck the jackpot, I think I would just rent out all those places people usually have to wait in line for — the ones with the lines out the door — just to be annoying,” she said. “Places like Cinespia and Pine & Crane…. And I’d rent Crypto.com Arena and just take to the floor in there and maybe rollerblade around. No, I am not a rollerblader, but I would take it up.”
Until she wins a “Jackpot!”-level lottery, though, her best Sunday ever will look a lot less like a roller derby of one — and a lot more like the one she sketched out below.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
11 a.m.: Start with a smoothie
If it’s my ideal Sunday, I’d be getting up at 10 or 11 [a.m.] — maybe noon if I’m feeling frisky. And the first thing I’d do is go to Jayde’s Market, which is at the Beverly Glen Center in my neighborhood, and I’d get this great smoothie that they have, the [Green & Glowing] one. And maybe a breakfast burrito.
Noon: Motor east to Mohawk General Store
After that, it’s about getting in my car and heading east. I love my neighborhood, but a lot of my friends live on the East Side. Maybe I’d hit Westfield Century City along the way. Century City is my favorite mall — and I bring my dog there sometimes — and then stop by some shops like American Rag [on South La Brea Avenue] or Mohawk General Store in Silver Lake, which is kind of like American Rag but smaller.
1:30 p.m.: A French omelet at Figaro Bistrot
Since I’m over on the East Side, I’d probably make my way to Figaro Bistrot. I like Figaro a lot; it’s this little French cafe, and there are always a ton of people outside all the time. I’d get a glass of wine and maybe an omelet. They make this really good French omelet and serve it with a side salad. I also like this place called Superba.
3:30 p.m.: Hop over to the Los Feliz Flea
After that, I’d probably go to Edendale — just for the ambiance, to be honest — I’ve never eaten there, but I just like to hang out there with my friends. And I sometimes go to the Los Feliz flea market, which recently moved to a new location. I really like [Ads Have Souls]. That’s the booth that has all the framed [vintage magazine art] of cars and things like that. I love that guy and have a couple of his things. I bring them mostly to New York because they’re a little less recognizable there. I have this really awesome framed picture of [Leslie Nielsen] from [“Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult”], the one where he’s pregnant. That’s pretty sick.
5:00 p.m.: Focus on finding furniture
I really like furniture stores and have been trying to check out different ones here and there. So at this point, I’m probably wandering around looking for furniture.
6:30 p.m. Catch dinner in K-town
I think I would end my night in Koreatown, maybe at Hibi. I usually don’t even order [when I go] there. They just bring it out, and it’s all amazing. It was started by a friend, and they just got added to the Michelin Guide last year, so they’re doing really great. But it’s a smaller place that’s harder to get in. So if I couldn’t get in, I would go to a place called Olivia, which is also in Koreatown. They’re all-vegetarian and they do these fried oyster mushrooms and have really good pizza. I like an early dinner, so I’d do that around 6 or 6:30 p.m.
8 p.m.: Kick it in the karaoke lounge
Afterward, I’d head to [the members-only club] Duckbill — it’s in the same building as the restaurant Intercrew in K-town — to do karaoke. I do karaoke all the time. I have a karaoke room in my house that I rehearse in for karaoke. I am obsessed. My go-to songs? I like “Chop Suey!” by System of a Down or “Hey Ma” by Cam’ron or “Take It Easy” by the Eagles. “Walkin’ After Midnight” [by Patsy Cline] is another good karaoke song. The best karaoke song, though, is “Under the Bridge” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers because it’s in everyone’s vocal range.
10 p.m.: Spend the night with “90 Days”
If I was working on Monday, I’d probably try to go home early and watch TV. I like re-watching things a lot and right now I’m watching all the different “90 Day Fiancé” [reality TV shows] and the one that I think is airing right now is the one with the guy named Gino [Palazzolo] called “90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?” I love that, so I’d probably be watching TV until the wee hours of the night.
12 a.m.: Lunchables and lights out
Lights out would probably be around midnight or 1 a.m., and I’ve been eating Lunchables at night lately for some reason. So I’d have a Lunchables snack.
Host Peter Marshall appears at the 45th annual Daytime Emmy Awards at the Pasadena Civic Center on April 29, 2018, in Pasadena, Calif. Marshall, who spent 16 years as host of “The Hollywood Squares,” has died at 98.
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
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Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
LOS ANGELES — Peter Marshall, the actor and singer turned game show host who played straight man to the stars for 16 years on “The Hollywood Squares,” has died. He was 98.
He died Thursday of kidney failure at his home in the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles, publicist Harlan Boll said.
Marshall helped define the form of the smooth, professional, but never-too-serious modern game show host on more than 5,000 episodes of the series that ran on NBC from 1966 to 1981.
But he was often closer to a talk show host, and the tic-tac-toe game the contestants played, while real, was all an excuse for a good time. The questions Marshall posed to regulars like Paul Lynde, George Gobel and Joan Rivers were designed to be set-ups for joke answers before the real ones followed.
“It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done in show business,” Marshall said in a 2010 interview for the Archive of American Television. “I walked in, said ‘Hello stars,’ I read questions and laughed. And it paid very well.”
“The Hollywood Squares” would become an American cultural institution and make Marshall a household name. It would win four Daytime Emmys for outstanding game show during his run and spawned dozens of international versions and several U.S. reboots. Not only was it a forum for such character actors as Charlie Weaver (the stage name of Cliff Arquette) and Wally Cox, but the show attracted a range of top stars as occasional guests, including Aretha Franklin, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Ed Asner and Janet Leigh.
Marshall had a warm rapport with Weaver, Lynde and others, but said that Gobel, the wry comedian, actor and variety show host, held a special place, tweeting in 2021 that it’s “no secret he was my closest friend on Hollywood Squares and my absolute all-time favorite Square!”
Marshall had lived nearly an entire show business life before he took the “Squares” podium at age 40.
“I am a singer first I am not a game show host”
He had toured with big bands starting as a teenager, had been a part of two comedy teams that appeared in nightclubs and on television, appeared in movies as a contract player for Twentieth Century Fox, and had sung in several Broadway musicals when the opportunity came up after Bert Parks, who hosted the pilot, bowed out.
“I am a singer first I am not a game show host,” Marshall told his hometown paper, the Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, West Virginia in 2013, “that was just a freak opportunity. I had been on Broadway with Julie Harris and was going back to Broadway when I did the audition, and I thought it was a few weeks but that turned into 16 years.”
“The Hollywood Squares” was more strait-laced when it began, but early in its run a producer suggested they write jokes for Lynde, the ever-snarky comic actor who occupied the center square and would become as identified as Marshall with the show.
The first joke would set the template for the years that followed:
Marshall: “Paul, why do motorcyclists wear leather?”
Lynde: “Because chiffon wrinkles.”
“That changed the whole thing,” Marshall told the TV archive. “I had been a straight man. So working with comics was easy for me.”
From West Virginia to Broadway
Born Ralph Pierre LaCock in Clarksburg, West Virginia, Marshall would move around the state as a child, living in Wheeling and Huntington.
His father died when Marshall was 10, and he would live with his grandparents as his mother and sister, the actress Joanne Dru, moved to New York to pursue her career in show business. Marshall would soon join them.
At 15, he toured as a singer with the Bob Chester Orchestra. He also worked as an NBC Radio page and an usher at the Paramount Theater. He was drafted during World War II and stationed in Italy, where he made his first forays onto the airways as a DJ for Armed Forces Radio. In 1949 he formed a comedy duo with Tommy Noonan, appearing in nightclubs, in theaters and on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
He became a movie contract player in the 1950s at Twentieth Century Fox, appearing in films including 1959’s “The Rookie” and 1961’s “Swingin’ Along.”
Major starring roles eluded him in Hollywood, but he would find them in musical theater.
He starred opposite Chita Rivera in “Bye Bye Birdie” in London’s West End in 1962 — Lynde had played a major role in the Broadway version that he would reprise in the film — and played his first starring role on Broadway in “Skyscraper” with Julie Harris in 1965.
He would also appear in Broadway versions of “High Button Shoes,” “The Music Man” and “42nd Street.”
After “The Hollywood Squares,” Marshall would host a few other short-lived game shows, but mostly resumed his career as a singing actor, starring in more than 800 performances of “La Cage Aux Folles” on Broadway and on tour, and singing in the 1983 film version of “Annie.”
He was married three times, the last to Laurie Stewart in 1989.
The couple survived a bout with COVID-19 early in 2021. He was hospitalized for several weeks.
His four kids include son Pete LaCock, a professional baseball player for the Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals. Marshall is also survived by daughters Suzanne and Jaime, son David, 12 grandchildren, and nine great-great grandchildren.
9 a.m. Dig into diner classics
Comfort food is the specialty at Chach, located just northwest of the town’s center. A classic diner vibe is in full effect here, and tables of close friends pick up on the previous day’s conversations without missing a beat. Fuel yourself with vanilla-infused French toast topped with fresh fruit ($15) or eggs Benedict with applewood-smoked bacon, tomato and avocado ($17). You’ll find that same inviting atmosphere — and more brunch favorites — at the West End’s Liz’s Cafe, Anybody’s Bar, which also offers outdoor dining. Go for the chicken and waffles ($15) and order a plate of Portuguese flippers — sugar-dusted hole-less doughnuts ($11) — for the group.
10 a.m. Explore the dunes
Provincetown’s dunes occupy a prominent position within local lore; as the philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote of them in 1865, one can look out “and put all America behind him.” Now part of the federally protected Cape Cod National Seashore, the dunes stretch out behind the length of the town like an unspoiled and uninhabited sandy backyard — with the exception of 19 shacks originally built for ocean rescuers that became off-the-grid getaways for writers and artists including Jack Kerouac and Jackson Pollock. The National Park Service provides free ranger-led walks into the dunes. Experienced hikers can explore on their own by following the Dune Shacks Trail for about two miles north from where Snail Road meets Route 6. For a less strenuous hourlong journey, hop into one of Art’s Dune Tours’ S.U.V.s ($41), driven by guides well versed in the terrain and its tales.
1:30 p.m. Picnic on the beach
Since you’re now a bit sweaty, return to the center of town to pick up sandwiches and drinks at Far Land Provisions or Pop+Dutch and then head to one of Provincetown’s two marquee beaches ($15 per entry on foot or bicycle, or $25 per car, during the summer). Herring Cove Beach is a bit more social, with a snack bar, a summer concert series, and separate areas favored by gay men, lesbians and those who prefer to sunbathe au naturel. Race Point Beach offers bigger waves, as well as more striking visuals with steep dunes behind you and the expanse of the Atlantic stretching out endlessly ahead. It’s also frequently a lounging area for a horde of seals — as well as the great white sharks that cruise the shoreline to feast on them. Keep your distance.
4:30 p.m. Shop Commercial Street
Provincetown’s legal ban on national chain stores isn’t airtight, but it has helped usher in an array of quirky shops that line Commercial Street in the heart of town. Book lovers have several winning options, including Womencrafts’ unabashedly feminist-themed stock (look for its “48 Years Grateful for My Abortion” street sign), East End Books’ carefully curated new titles, and Tim’s Used Books’ selection of Cape authors and out-of-print art catalogs. Yesterday’s Treasures is packed with all manner of town ephemera, vintage postcards and unique gifts (a copy of “The Ethel Merman Disco Album,” anyone?). Mauclère Leather features handcrafted belts, bags and sandals; the Old Baby offers locally themed clothing with a wry edge; Respoke repurposes haute couture into no-less-haute hats and footwear (its motto, “I once was an Hermès scarf,” says it all).
8 p.m. Grab a lobster roll
Stay on Commercial Street for dinner in an invitingly casual setting at the Irish-pub-style Squealing Pig, where you can order the lightly battered fish and chips ($23) and pair it with a glass of Guinness stout ($9). The Nepali chicken curry ($19) is a less obvious, but no less savory, option (thanks to its Nepal-born chef). Or grab a seat in the Canteen’s backyard, where the beach party atmosphere draws a lively cross section of Provincetown — townie and tourist, young and old, gay and straight alike. Start with the crispy brussels sprouts ($10) and then settle in for a classic New England lobster roll ($28). The outdoor bar makes it easy to linger over drinks and bask in the harbor view as the sun sets behind you.
10 p.m.. Take in a drag show
Thespians love to cite Provincetown’s role as the birthplace of modern American theater thanks to the playwright Eugene O’Neill’s legendary productions here in 1916. (The cultural buzz from those stagings followed him back to New York, where he soon went from unemployable to Pulitzer Prize winning.) Such emotionally wrenching plays are a bit thin on the ground in Provincetown these days, but drama — at least in the form of over-the-top drag — is alive and well. There are plenty of performers paying dutiful tribute to divas past and present, but more interesting are the drag queens pointedly — and hilariously — taking aim at all manner of sacred cows, both gay and straight, in venues like the Art House and the sprawling Crown & Anchor complex (most tickets $35 to $45). You can’t go wrong with anything featuring Dina Martina, Varla Jean Merman or the Little Rascals-meet-Russ Meyer ensembles directed by Ryan Landry. (Needless to say, don’t bring the kids.)
1 a.m. Get in your last licks
Once the bars close at 1 a.m., Provincetown quickly goes dark. One of the few exceptions is Spiritus, started in 1971 by two visiting hippie entrepreneurs who were astonished to discover the town was without a single pizzeria. Over five decades later, Spiritus is still owned by the co-founder John Yingling, though you are more likely to find his grandchildren behind the counter, slinging pizza slices ($4) and scoops of locally made Lewis Brothers ice cream ($4.25) to hungry late-night revelers until 2 a.m. A fun crowd tends to gather out front in the wee hours, but the benches facing the street are prime people-watching real estate day or night.
Kevin Durant is in the company of some new gold AND some stunning acquaintances … ’cause the NBA superstar is celebrating his Olympic win surrounded by a ton of attractive women — and he enlisted his teammate, Devin Booker, for the party!!
TMZ Sports has obtained some pics of the Slim Reaper’s post-Paris escapades … and it’s clear he’s on Cloud 9 after Team USA handled business and defeated France in the final round on Saturday.
K.D. — who became the all-time leading scorer in international play during the latest run for the Red, White and Blue — made his way to St. Tropez to keep the vibes high after the big win … and it’s clear he wasn’t mad one bit about his surroundings.
Durant — rocking an all-black ‘fit — was cheesing from cheek-to-cheek throughout the rendezvous … and D-Book, who went with some super baggy jeans, Chuck Taylors and a Team USA hoops hat, seemed to be having a ball as well.
Enjoy the dub while you can, boys — October will be here before you know it.
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