PUTTING IT ALL ON THE TABLE
PUTTING IT ALL ON THE TABLE
By Arty Nelson
Every once in a while the heavens part, and the sky, shrouded in a neon glow, offers a glimpse of something semi-magical, nonrefundable, and well worth the price of admission. Some call it a God-shot, some call it just plain good luck, and still others are way too self-absorbed to see it as anything but an extension of themselves or their influence. There are so many obtuse categories under which such an event could fall, or even just cute phrases that might better describe the phenomenon. But what one could absolutely say about it in the end – what really matters, if anything matters at all beyond health, money, and regular sex – is that the notion of a day well lived among the city's bounteous travelways is forever strengthened by the knowledge that there are places where, for not a lot of cash money, we the great and elegantly unwashed can go to get a little something to munch on that will curb the otherwise undefined natural arc of the standard long day's journey into night.
Recently, my friend John – a man sometimes but not excessively brimming with stellar suggestions, yet still definitely committed to a better POV in his dark and vague but ultimately optimistic way – told me of a place, a little chunk of Valhalla in the western Pico corridor. Then he took me there, which is saying quite a bit, since it's not often that John clears the cable-TV drool off his chin, rises up from his couch-lair, and heads out into the world. All of which is to say that, I soon found myself at Label's Table Deli, a place with décor that kind of resembles the snack bar at the roller rink of my youth, and I mean that in the best of ways.
It's worth the trek, even for us East Hollywood types. There's something happening here that only the best sandwich parlors get going on, an oasis amply dressed in mustard, onion, cheddar, and mayo. Not so much a place to eat as a channel into some kind of out-of-this-world culinary corner, where small, gorgeous creatures languish in sweet pools of dappled light and energy. A journey, lovingly enhanced by quick and friendly service, in which, for a stealth assembly of meta moments, one can confidently battle the darkest forces with a light saber quite capable of smiting even the smarmiest of evil neme-sisters. In short (but almost never in a curt way), beyond carrying a formidable selection of Dr. Brown's sodas – always a hopeful totem, to be sure – Label's has thinly sliced meats, succulent salad items, and just generally all the things one might relish when pondering what it would take to joyously venture to a place strongly recommended by a source of dubious but arguably sincere intent.
In the end, it's so hard to really keep the villains at bay on a moment-to-moment basis, despite how much money you've allotted for pay-per-view. On any given day, even a little bit of attitude from a local convenience-store clerk can take a man down if he didn't get the appropriate amount of sleep the evening before. But that doesn't mean, despite what a lot of the doomed will try to tell you, that throwing in the towel is a way of winning. Not one bit. Sometimes even your run-of-the-mill tree-hugger needs to fight the good fight, take a few shots on the chin and get back up for more, just to show the attacker that it's going to take more than that. Even in those not-all-that-rare moments when the actual “fight” is hard to identify.
But, hey, when you really get down to it, isn't the undying quest to identify the truly nondefinable grayness of nuance what keeps so many of us cruising up and down the freeways of the everyday? And beyond all that, wouldn't total clarity be kind of a drag? Where's the fun in that? That's all so third act, frankly, and when's the last time you saw a third act that surprised you in the slightest and made you glad you stayed for the last half hour of the feature? The Deli that has a table owned by Label is a place full of yes-ness. Ciao.Published: 04/07/2005
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