According to Tom Waits, all the winos refer to downtown Los Angeles on 5th street (skid row) as the nickel. His hobo's lullaby 'On the Nickel' was recorded for the Ralph Waite film On the Nickel and also appears on his 1980 album Heartattack and Vine.

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Thomas Pynchon worked on Gravity's Rainbow while living in this small downstairs apartment in Manhattan Beach in the late '60s and early '70s. He could reportedly be seen in the neighborhood carrying around a pig piñata named Claude. Manhattan Beach became the fictionalized Gordita Beach in his 2009 novel Inherent Vice.

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Featured in the cover art of Pure Guava, the hippie house/commune/hillbilly mansion known as Brookridge Farm was a clubhouse for Ween as they developed as musicians and as a band.

Gene Ween used to live here, and Deaner would often visit him and other friends, including Mean Ween and Guy Heller (aka "Dickey Moist" of the Moistboyz).

Deaner played in a band named Echoes with some of the Brookridge residents. Their only material was an extended version of Pink Floyd's 1971 song "Echoes."

Note: Not sure if this is the precise spot, but I think it's pretty close. If anybody has more definitive info, much appreciated.

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Opened on May 15, 1927, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel has been featured in many TV shows, films, songs, and general Hollywood history.

The first Academy Awards were held in the Blossom Ballroom here in 1929.

Marilyn Monroe was a resident at the Hollywood Roosevelt for two years when her modeling career took off. Her first magazine shoot was taken on the diving board on the pool behind the hotel, which was recently removed. The hotel's remodeled pool contains an underwater mural painted by David Hockney. Her ghost is supposed to haunt Cabana Suite 229.

The hotel underwent a major renovation in 2005 and a nightclub named Teddy's in the main lobby.

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Singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson was walking back to his hotel room on August 12, 1973, when he saw a 19-year-old girl working in Rumpelmayer's ice cream parlor.

Una O'Keefe was working in NYC on a summer exchange program from Ireland with a friend. Nilsson walked up to the two of them, and told Una, "You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Will you marry me?"

Una and her friend demured, and Nilsson asked them how he could prove that he had good intentions. They said they liked flowers and melons (they had never had a honeydew melon).

Nilsson went back to his hotel room, sobered up, bought the melons, and then found a florist down at the docks who was preparing for a funeral. Nilsson returned to the ice cream parlor in a limousine, and lined up rows of flowers and melons on the street outside of the limo.

The two were married later, and Ringo Starr was the best man at their wedding.

*From the documentary Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talking About Him)?

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