As many of you know, I’ve been working behind closed doors with an awesome team for many months to help roll out the online travel guide The Purple Passport (www.thepurplepassport.com). Well, guess what? The time has come to take the “Do Not Disturb” sign off the door and invite you into this portal to a world well-traveled. The beta site is now live!

You’ll see that “TPP” is a one-stop shop for all your urban travel needs, from researching a trip start to finish to creating an itinerary tool sharable with friends. The TPP team has personally visited all the choicest spots, from restaurants and hotels to spas and shops, in the hottest destinations around the globe. And they never take compensation for covering a venue on the site, which means you’ll get the most honest, unbiased travel information for the world’s most exciting cities.

The first stop? London. While the site will ultimately encompass guides to global hotspots from Los Angeles to Beijing, it’s being tested with all of the London content. That said, please excuse any bugs you encounter while the site’s in this testing phase. The team would love to hear what you think, so click the “Contact Us” link on the site (or simply email us at info@thepurplepassport.com) to send questions, comments, and feedback.

As you peruse the London picks, be sure to try out the site’s super handy dandy “Passport” function. Once you sign up as a user, you can save your favorite picks in your own customized Passport. From there, you can print the lot of them, email them to friends, or use the ultra-convenient mapping tool to plot your sightseeing excursion or night on the town.

On behalf of the whole team, I welcome you to The Purple Passport community and hope you’ll pass the word to fellow travel enthusiasts. Get ready to put your stamp on the world!

It’s been so many years since I’ve been to Gabah, the East Hollywood club that used to host underground hip hop nights like the Chocolate Bar and The Root Down. But still, as I drove by this week and saw that scaffolding had gone up around the building, I felt a tug at my heart. Apparently, the place is being torn down to make way for a strip mall. Seeing it all boarded up sent a wave of nostalgia washing over me for the late Los Angeles nights I found bliss there to an old school beat.  In the heyday of the Chocolate Bar, I could be found at Gabah literally every Saturday night. I even chose my apartment near the intersection of Melrose and Normandie because it was Gabah adjacent! I found love on Gabah’s dance floor, and in many ways, dancing with an abandon I had never before known, found myself.

Since the Chocolate Bar and Root Down moved on, Gabah has never been the same.  It had gone downhill in recent years (in other words, it had become more pop/glam/mainstream), and I suppose its demise was inevitable.  Still, there’s no other spot  that has even come close to the sense of community and the roster of hip hop/soul/rare groove/dancehall DJs I encountered during Gabah’s best years.  I’ve never been one for the Hollywood scene, and Gabah was comfortably off the Hollywood radar–a rare combination of a diverse, hip-but-not-hipster crowd and a sexy yet low-key vibe. The place was real.

In honor of its parting, I’m pulling up one from the vaults: a piece I wrote about the Chocolate Bar at Gabah in 2001.

So, a hearty goodbye to Gabah, and a big thanks for the piece of myself it gave me.

Singular Magazine is running a four-part series I wrote on ethnic neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The second stop is Koreatown, where high-tech billboards and dense high rises collide with soothing tea houses (my favorite is Hwa Sun Ji Tea & Coffee) and mineral spas specializing in ancient healing arts.  The timing of this piece is perfect, because I spent a good part of my weekend in the Koreatown ‘hood.  Friday night, I discovered the Wilshire Spa, which has the most screamingly hot steam room and hot tub you’ll ever experience – talk about detox!  Saturday night I went to see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings kick out the jams at the gorgeous Art Deco theatre The Wiltern (there’s a lot of fabulous classic Art Deco architecture to be seen in Koreatown).  This is a breathtaking venue, and Sharon Jones is a certifiable diva of soul!  So, whether you want to find ultimate relaxation or get super pumped up, Koreatown has so much to offer.