It was a low-key, alt-culture spiritual landmark of sorts, proof of the potent power of Hollywood, even when it came to us east coast weirdos back home .

For some, the visual trigger was the staircase at rodeo drive. For others, slow-motion baywatch-esque runners on the beach or palatial mansions you could fit five of their first family homes in.

Me? & this is totally comprehended at a much deeper level in hindsight- Randy’s Donuts.

I’ve written at length in long-gone on the road blogs about its bizarre beckoning of the kookiest, goofiest parts of me. Even about how, for all that it wordlessly stands for IN me, I could never just breach its hole/ walls after decades of build-up.

I wasn’t a tourist clicking pictures. I was called lol. It had To Be Special.

…So I never went. In my heart I was just like

Whatever the fuck this “insert donut here” is really about with me…I get the feeling that everybody else “it’s” about “thaat” with when it comes to being called to root down on the crazy edge of the world in all their weird glory… gets a “story” with Randy’s…Donut –

Even with all my urban hippie waywardness I stuck to it. Chose to let my Randy’s donuts story come to me. & honestly? I’d forgotten about it. Especially with all these sweet arthead &writerhead highs down in the beach cities. The actual mothership is landlocked in a zone that has just not been on my radar as much.

But I knew I was due something. As per the mandates of the sisterhood of Geena Davis & Julie Brown at the altar of the darkly eyebrowed abs one entered the church of Jeff Goldblum through in middle school…

Just never expected it to happen as sweetly as it did.

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One of my favorite things about Southbay LA is that getting to LAX is a cakewalk. Multiple bus lines are quasi-nyc style “Get out of dodge” straight shots right into LAX. It avoids all the traffic & interim uber outpost mess that’s trying to make things better there (without quickly doing the obvious things that would correct the real issues once & for all).

I left Hermosa extra early, intent on a pit-stop (& one of my doctored lattes )at Unità El segundo due to modular mural stuff on my heart to handle before heading to San Francisco/Silicon valley. I am mid-pinch hit for a solo gypsy big sister friend whose other solo gypsy friend surprised her with a 75th birthday trip to the Bahamas.

We glided through still sleepy on Sunday Hermosa beach and Manhattan beach as it glistened, radiating peace under the rising sun. The only other person present was the driver and he was as chill as I was. It was…Just… ” heavenly day in Southbay LA” vibes all around.

Out of nowhere the driver broke me out of my #ontheroadagain revelry.

Hey! Want a donut & a coffee? My treat?

It took me a minute to get it and blushgrin “Sure🤗, ” looking around where we’d stopped on the line I know like the back of my hand (because it drops me at studio), wondering where either of those things could possibly manifest in these parts. “…but where?”

He grinned as we climbed off the carriage, my go-bags locked in.

“I’d grabbed a coffee earlier but it’d tasted like chemicals so I threw it out. I realized that I could go the whole day without , but shouldn’t.”

“Oh,” he beamed, “…and there~”

I looked up. My jaw actually dropped as my entire heart rose up into my face and morphed into the most ridiculous blushgrinning I’ve felt splayed across it in a long while.

I didn’t know if what was afoot was allowed or illegal- a properly caffeinated (read: alert) driver does seem to be something that’d be mandated by any means necessary- But I ambled in there like a child about to get hopped up on sugar she’d dreamt about her whole life.

The Amazonian Angel-nuns of the Geena Davis order on the far side of the veil shook the atmosphere with their song, acid green & hot pink habits swaying in the clouds.

I had no idea what to expect…besides donuts, of course. But because of the air of possible illegality embedded in stopping mid-route for some healthy decadence it didn’t even matter If they were gonna suck or not. The story was Made, maaaan~! Potentially waiting, possibly glaring eyes be damned! Tha day was already made lol.

That being said?

…brains all ova tha place! The mecca’s treasury on display ran the full gamut of donut creativity:

…From the traditional old fashioned and glazed cake 🍩 to the insanely encrusted with rainbow rice crispies, over the top, innerchile heartstring strummers-

…but the one that confirmed the entire arc of the call this place has had on me, the elegantly healthy, yet certainly drenched in decadence(…donut?lol I know, but yeah…f ureaking )DONUT~ totally on offer to satisfy my bohemian bloodlines was the cornerstone of the display case.

Jesus asked them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The [very] Stone which the builders rejected and threw away, Has become the chief Cornerstone; This is the Lord’s doing, And it is marvelous and wonderful in our eyes’?

Matthew 21:42(…but for donuts~🤗)

That’s right! The archetypal church of Jeff Goldblum’s abs got biblical ~ resurrection style… Matcha tea, RAISED.

… right next to the red velvet cake and the cinnamon toast crunch, a true holy trinity.

We made our way back onto the route, & I made it to studio somehow still on time to get done what needed to be done before bouncing.

…and then I was off. Well, almost.

A.