Lifestyle
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to J.B. Smoove
Over the course of J.B. Smoove’s decades-long career as a comedian, actor and writer, he’s become known for many things. His fast-paced, New Yorker cadence and quick-witted comebacks. His wide-brim hats and dapper suits. And of course, his most beloved character, Leon Black, on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which catapulted him into superstardom.
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.
The improvisation-based comedy came to an end earlier this year after 12 seasons (six of which Smoove starred in), but Smoove, whose credits include “Saturday Night Live,” “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” “Spider-Man: Far From Home” and “Mapleworth Murders,” is showing no signs of slowing down. Smoove is set to host “Buy It Now,” a competition series where entrepreneurs pitch their products in front of a live audience and esteemed judges in hopes of being featured on Amazon.com and winning a cash prize. It premieres Oct. 30 on Amazon Prime Video.
Smoove knew he was perfect for the job when he got the call to host the show. “I’m not on the level of Jamie Siminoff or Tabitha [Brown] or Gwyneth [Paltrow],” says the Emmy winner, who recently launched a production company. “But I understand the animal that it is because I am still on my journey to be a great entrepreneur. It takes time and patience.”
We recently caught up with Smoove to ask him how he’d spend the perfect Sunday in Los Angeles, where he’s lived since 2007. Ideally, he and his wife, Shahidah Omar, wouldn’t leave their house, which they call the “777 Resort,” a nickname that commemorates their wedding date and contains everything they could possibly want. But he indulged us by crafting an action-packed day filled with hiking, jet skiing to Catalina Island, drinking an “Herb Your Enthusiasm” cocktail at one of his favorite vegan restaurants and catching up on “Love is Blind.”
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6:30 a.m.: Wake up and walk my dogs
I wake up every morning at 6:30 a.m. All of my family is on New York time, so my phone starts ringing at 6 a.m. I’m three hours behind them and they’re already up and kicking. When my alarm goes off in the morning, my dogs want to come to the side of the bed. Their names are Hustle and Flo like the movie “Hustle and Flow.” Hustle has a habit of touching my arm over and over again with his big paw when he’s ready to go out. So I get those guys out, walk the neighborhood a little bit and let them say hi to their [dog] friends.
8:00 a.m.: Cook my special vegan breakfast
Then I’ll bring them back home and now I need to get some breakfast. My wife and I are vegan, but she is a raw vegan right now, so she doesn’t eat what I eat in the morning. On a good day like Sunday Funday, I would make my vegan chicken fried mushrooms and waffles. Sometimes they’re blueberry, sometimes they’re banana. Sometimes they are blueberry-banana. I pick and choose depending on how my taste buds go. A lot of people have a sweet tooth, I have sweet teeth. I also love a little sausage and a little Just Egg, which is one of my favorite egg substitutes.
9:00 a.m.: Crank up my 1968 Lincoln Continental
I crank up the old school. I got a 1968 Lincoln Continental. So I crank the engine up, get it warm, get the bags pumping up and hit the little button in the car that raises it off the ground because I let it take a nap at nighttime. “Old School Sunday” should be an unofficial holiday.
10:00 a.m.: Hike at Fryman Canyon
Next, my wife and I would hike at Fryman Canyon. One lap because we don’t want to wear ourselves out. The heat starts to build up a little bit especially in the summertime. A lot of people are out there early because they don’t want to get hot. It’s an amazing walk. There’s Runyon up the block and then there’s Fryman. Now, Fryman has more trees and shaded areas where you can stop to look at the view. Then the last quarter of it, you walk through a neighborhood with beautiful homes. It’s a beautiful area of town. And sometimes you’ll get lucky and you’ll catch an open house on a Sunday, which I recommend.
12 p.m.: Ride a jet ski to Catalina Island
We’ll finish our walk at Fryman around 11 a.m., then a great thing to do is to go jet skiing in Catalina. A lot of people don’t know about this. You can jet ski to Catalina with this company called Jetski2Catalina and I’m telling you right now, it’s a trip. You go down to Long Beach and you can hop on a jet ski and ride all the way to Catalina. It’s about two hours, but it’s well worth it. Do the one-way trip because your arms are going to get tired if you’re not used to working out or your body vibrating for a long period of time. Ride to Avalon on the island.
2 p.m.: Grab lunch at Maggie’s Blue Rose
By the time you get there, you’re going to be hungry again so grab some lunch to replenish your energy. A place with some good, authentic Mexican food is Maggie’s Blue Rose. I recommend the street corn, but we don’t get cheese on ours because we’re vegan. We’d maybe get a vegan burrito with some beans, rice and sauteed vegetables rolled up nice. A good burrito should be rolled as tight as a cigar if you know what you’re doing.
3:30 p.m.: Rent a golf cart and go zip lining
Then you gotta rent a golf cart to ride around the island and look at the houses. People don’t know that there aren’t many cars on Catalina Island, that’s why everyone has golf carts. So some of the golf carts are tricked out and look cool because people who live there want to have the nicest one. They also have zip lining on the island — this is a must do. The zip lining is sickening because you can hear the people screaming. [Imitates zip line and screams] I recommend tying your shoes tight because you don’t want to lose a shoe halfway down. You’ll be very upset. Also, don’t ever wear flip flops on a zip line.
7 p.m.: Catch a boat back to Long Beach
By the time you finish zip lining, you’ll want to take the ferry back to Long Beach. Get there early and get a good seat by the window, preferably in the front of the boat so you can see where you’re going. Or some people like to see where they’ve been and watch the island get further and further from them. It’s up to you. It’s a shorter trip going back. You get back in about an hour.
9 p.m.: Enjoy an “Herb Your Enthusiasm” cocktail at Planta
Now, you want to get back into your vehicle and head to Planta in Marina Del Rey. This is a straight vegan spot, but the food is excellent. They have a cocktail there called the “Herb Your Enthusiasm,” a play on words to “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” So every time I go there, the bartender recognizes me and says, “Hey man. I see what the hell you’re doing, the ‘Herb Your Enthusiasm.’” That’s my favorite cocktail. My wife and I will kick it at the bar. We might order something light since it’s getting late like some avocado cucumber sushi.
11 p.m.: Drive home in the classic whip
We’ll get back into the old school and head back to the crib. Now, this car has suicide doors. All the doors open from the middle outward. So we’ll roll all the windows down and play some good, old school R&B music. Sometimes I’ll light up a cigar.
11:30 p.m.: Binge watch our favorite shows
Once we get home, we’ll watch our favorite shows. We’re zombie fanatics. We’ll watch “Walking Dead,” “The Last of Us,” something in that genre. Or we’ll watch something silly. Have you seen this new pop the balloon dating show? It’s a mess, but it’s hilarious to us because people stand up there trying to find somebody. It’s just funny to see them struggle. It’s always funny when someone walks out there and all the balloons pop before they even open their mouth. I’m like, “Let the dude speak! Give him a chance.” We like “Love is Blind” too. My wife and I bet money on who’s going to say yes at the altar and who’s going to say no. We’re not big on comedies. You would think a comedian would like comedies. I never watch comedies. My favorite genre are James Bond movies. I just love James Bond and Daniel Craig. If he needs a replacement, I’ll put my name in the hat. I got two O’s in my name. [Laughs]
1 a.m.: Debate about “Love is Blind” before bed
Then we’re going from the living room to the bedroom and we’ll say, “One more episode” before we go to bed and we never make it through that episode. We always get halfway through it and our heads start nodding. Then we’ll turn the lights on and talk about who we think is still going to be together on “Love is Blind” and that will keep us up for another 30 minutes. We’ll go to bed around 2 a.m., then I’ll have four and a half hours of sleep before I gotta get up at 6:30 a.m. again.
Lifestyle
N.F.L. Style Will Never Beat N.B.A. Style
You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.
I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?
On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.
I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.
Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.
During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.
The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.
Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.
The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?
The Japanese designers changing fashion
Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.
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Lifestyle
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Tig Notaro
Thirty years ago, comedian and actor Tig Notaro didn’t have a clear direction in life, so she followed some childhood friends who wanted to get into entertainment to Los Angeles. Secretly wanting to do stand-up, Notaro decided to try her luck at various outlets in town, which became the start of her successful career.
“I stayed on my friends’ couch near the Hollywood Improv on Melrose, and a couple months later, got my own studio apartment in the Miracle Mile area,” Notaro says. “I love all the options for everything in L.A. — the entertainment, the restaurants. I like to stay active. So many people love the hiking options in Los Angeles, and I’m one of them.”
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.
Notaro appears in Season 3 of Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” and is a series regular on Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” as she was on “Star Trek: Discovery.” She’s also a touring stand-up comic and hosts “Handsome,” a comedy podcast, with Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin. The trio will be taping a live show May 4 at the Wiltern with the cast of Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives.” The live shows include interviews, but also “incorporate some ridiculous things,” she says. For example, upon hearing that some of the hosts always wanted to learn to tap dance, Notaro “hired a tap instructor to come to our live show in Austin and teach us how to tap dance in front of the audience.”
Notaro lives near Hollywood with her wife, actor Stephanie Allynne, their 9-year-old fraternal twin boys, Max and Finn, and three cats, Fluff, Linus and Skip. When she’s not touring, her ideal Sundays include sampling vegan restaurants, wandering through bookstores or museums, and doing something physically active with the family.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6 a.m.: Up with the kids
Because we have active children, we still wake up at 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, but there’s not as much of a rush to get going. Stephanie and I will often have coffee and chat in the living room together. I love that part of the day. Stephanie may cook breakfast, but Max and Finn are pretty self-sufficient and can make certain little meals for themselves. Max is really starting to take an interest in cooking, so he’d make breakfast for himself. Our family is vegan, but he eats eggs, so he makes himself an egg sandwich with avocado a lot of times.
9 a.m.: Daily morning walk
After breakfast, we usually have a morning walk around our neighborhood. That’s a daily thing I like to do, regardless of what’s going on. Now that I’m not touring as much, tennis is back on the schedule. So I’d go to Plummer Park in West Hollywood and play for a while, then join the family for lunch.
11:30 a.m.: Hike with a side of chickpea sandwich
I love Trails, a cafe in Griffith Park, where you can eat outdoors. It serves simple food, and has good vegan options. I usually get their chickpea salad sandwich. The food there is great. Afterward, we’d visit Griffith Observatory, where there’s lots to see. There are lots of great trails in the park, so we’d go for an hour hike before leaving.
3 p.m.: Browse the shelves for rock biographies
Bookstores are fun, so we’d head downtown for the Last Bookstore, which is in a historic building with lots of vintage books. I really love all things plant-based, and I’m a very big music fanatic. So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies. It’s just fun to browse around the stacks.
If we didn’t go to the bookstore, we’d probably go to LACMA. Our sons are huge fans of art and want to go for each new exhibit. They love Hockney, Basquiat and Picasso, to name a few.
4 p.m.: Cuddle with cuties at a cat cafe
We’d then make a quick stop at [Crumbs & Whiskers], a kitten and cat cafe on Melrose for coffee, snacks and to pet the cats. It’s best to make reservations in advance. There’s cats all around the place that need to be adopted. You can visit and pet them, or find a new roommate. I’d love to take some home, but we already have three.
5:30 p.m. Italian or sushi, but make it vegan
We’re an early dinner family. One restaurant we like is Pura Vita in West Hollywood. It’s the greatest vegan Italian food, and for non-vegans, nobody ever knows the difference. It’s the first 100% plant-based Italian restaurant in the United States. They make an incredible kale salad and I love the San Gennaro pizza. It’s got cashew mozzarella, tomato sauce, Italian sausage crumble and more.
Then there’s Planta in Marina del Rey. It’s right on the harbor and you can sit outside and look at the boats coming in and out. They have sushi, salads and other plant-based entrees. They’ve got a really great spicy tuna roll that’s made out of watermelon. They are magicians.
Or there’s Crossroads Kitchen in West Hollywood. They play the best classic rock, and the atmosphere is upscale, fine dining. The appetizers that we always get are called Moroccan Cigars, which are vegan meat substitutes fried in a rolled batter. I really like the grilled lion’s mane steak, their mushroom steak with truffle potatoes, or the scallopini Milanese, that has a chicken or tofu option. I get the chicken with arugula on top. I always love to have a decaf espresso with dessert, which is either a brownie sundae or banana pudding.
7:30 p.m.: Comfort watch or word games
After dinner, the kids often like to watch an episode of “Friends,” a show that all ages enjoy, sports or “The Simpsons.” Or we’d play a game where each of us will add a word to a sentence and create a weird or funny long sentence until one of our sons says period. Then they’ll try and remember the whole sentence and repeat it back.
9:30 p.m.: Bubble bath then bed
The boys usually go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and bedtime for us is 9:30 p.m. Stephanie and I would read or chat. I like to take a bubble bath, if people must know. The best Sundays for me mean finding a good balance of relaxing and being active. I feel very lucky that my family and I can do those things together.
Lifestyle
It Started with a Midnight Swim and a Kiss Under the Stars
When Marian Sherry Lurio and Jonathan Buffington Nguyen met at a mutual friend’s wedding at Higgins Lake, Mich., in July 2022, both felt an immediate chemistry. As the evening progressed, they sat on the shore of the lake in Adirondack chairs under the stars, where they had their first kiss before joining others for a midnight plunge.
The two learned that the following weekend Ms. Lurio planned to attend a wedding in Philadelphia, where Mr. Nguyen lives, and before they had even exchanged numbers, they already had a first date on the books.
“I have a vivid memory of after we first met,” Mr. Nguyen said, “just feeling like I really better not screw this up.”
Before long, they were commuting between Philadelphia and New York City, where Ms. Lurio lives, spending weekends and the odd remote work days in one another’s apartments in Philadelphia and Manhattan. Within the first six months of dating, Mr. Nguyen joined Ms. Lurio’s family for Thanksgiving in Villanova, Pa., and, the following month, she met his family in Beavercreek, Ohio, at a surprise birthday party for Mr. Nguyen’s mother.
Ms. Lurio, 32, who grew up in Merion Station outside Philadelphia, works in investor relations administration at Flexpoint Ford, a private equity firm. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology.
Mr. Nguyen, also 32, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in Beavercreek, Ohio, from the age of 7. He graduated from Haverford College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and is now a director at Doyle Real Estate Advisors in Philadelphia.
Their long-distance relationship continued for the next few years. There were dates in Manhattan, vacations and beach trips to the Jersey Shore. They attended sporting events and discovered their shared appreciation of the 2003 film, “Love Actually.”
One evening, Mr. Nguyen recalled looking around Ms. Lurio’s small New York studio — strewed with clothes and the takeout meal they had ordered — and feeling “so comfortable and safe.” “I knew that this was something different than just sort of a fling,” he said.
It was an open question when they would move in together. In 2024, Ms. Lurio began the process of moving into Mr. Nguyen’s home in Philadelphia — even bringing her cat, Scott — but her plans changed midway when an opportunity arose to expand her role with her current employer.
Mr. Nguyen was on board with her decision. “It almost feels like stolen valor to call it ‘long distance,’ because it’s so easy from Philadelphia to New York,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The joke is, it’s easier to get to Philly from New York than to get to some parts of Brooklyn from Manhattan, right?”
In January 2025, Mr. Nguyen visited Ms. Lurio in New York with more up his sleeve than spending the weekend. Together they had discussed marriage and bespoke rings, but when Mr. Nguyen left Ms. Lurio and an unfinished cheese plate at the bar of the Chelsea Hotel that Friday evening, she had no idea what was coming next.
“I remember texting Jonathan,” Ms. Lurio said, bewildered: “‘You didn’t go toward the bathroom!’” When a Lobby Bar server came and asked her to come outside, Ms. Lurio still didn’t realize what was happening until she was standing in the hallway, where Mr. Nguyen stood recreating a key moment from the film “Love Actually,” in which one character silently professes his love for another in writing by flashing a series of cue cards. There, in the storied Chelsea Hotel hallway still festooned with Christmas decorations, Mr. Nguyen shared his last card that said, “Will you marry me?”
They wed on April 11 in front of 200 guests at the Pump House, a covered space on the banks of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Mr. Nguyen’s sister, the Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, who is ordained through the Unitarian Universalist Association, officiated.
Although formal attire was suggested, Ms. Lurio said that the ceremony was “pretty casual.” She and Jonathan got ready together, and their families served as their wedding parties.
“I said I wanted a five-minute wedding,” Ms. Lurio recalled, though the ceremony ended up lasting a little longer than that. During the ceremony, Ms. Nguyen read a homily and jokingly added that guests should not ask the bride and groom about their living arrangements, which will remain separate for the foreseeable future.
While watching Ms. Lurio walk down the aisle, flanked by her parents, Mr. Nguyen said he remembered feeling at once grounded in the moment and also a sense of dazed joy: “Like, is this real? I felt very lucky in that moment — and also just excited for the party to start!”
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