Blade's Ice Cream Parlor Doesn't Quite Cut It

The cheery facade of a blue-green awning and children's drawings hung in the windows of the new Blade's Ice Cream Parlor near the corner of Pico and Robertson is reminiscent of typical family-friendly food destinations from a time when children looked both ways before crossing the street. But step inside this grotesque mecca for frozen dessert, and you'll immediately see what it is they really want.

Blade's, named so arbitrarily after the Wesley Snipes franchise, opened to great fanfare in May, citing "homemade" concoctions and "the best" ingredients as an essential part of their menu. After ordering a Blade Sundae, you'll soon discover that the "home" in "homemade" was referring to a home for the criminally insane; a place where murderers and cannibals are asked to make treats flavored with strawberry, chocolate, and other flavors. Included among "the best" ingredients are fingernails or what you'll hope were chest hairs. To be sure, no one has yet to find any fingernails or hairs in their sundae, but you will sense the intent to wish it be true.

The surly old men behind the counter will not apologize to you after you make a scene decrying their far-below subpar ice cream establishment in front of the long lines of people spilling out the door waiting patiently for dessert. You won't get your money back, either. Avoid this place like your mother when she has strep throat.

Los Angeles: A Month In Review

Just in case there's any hoopla to be had, let me say it now: palm trees are for the strong.  Like any ordinary kid growing up in the North East, where pea coats run the show and children parade past bunkers and airline hangars repeating the etherial mantra, "Lilah Tov, K'Tanim", here, I have become a complainer.  Up in the cornfields of New York, bodies upon bodies would huddle into bunches to keep the cold from licking off their feet.  Those were hard years for shoe salesmen.  But now, in my own self-imposed internment camp, I try to make the best of the unbearable constant sunshine.  Shielded only by dirt particles in the air, I grow browner with each drive to the supermarket.  The only time when I can take refuge is in the exhaust of the evening.  At night, I like to look at the star.  I pretend it shines for me.  I thank it for showing me the way.  I close one eye and block its light with my thumb -- There.  Now the women are tolerable to look at.

This is what I get for never doing my homework.