How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Paul Scheer
(Illustration by Lindsey Made This; photo from Luke Dellorso & Andrew Levy)
Paul Scheer’s memoir, “Joyful Recollections of Trauma,” is not just a collection of harrowing — and often humorous — confessions but also a reminder that to persevere, we must strive to maintain our passions. Scheer’s first loves come through in prose, and also on his pair of podcasts — “How Did This Get Made?” with his wife, June Diane Raphael, and friend Jason Mantzoukas, and “Unspooled” with film critic Amy Nicholson. Both explore Scheer’s appreciation of Hollywood.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
“As a kid, my escapes were movies and TV shows,” Scheer says. “I wanted to be in scenes with those characters. I don’t even know if I wanted to be actor as much as I wanted to live in those worlds. I wanted to be in the ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ apartment. I wanted to ride that train on ‘Silver Spoons.’”
The former New Yorker, whose credits include “The League,” “Black Monday” and “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” gushes about a recent appearance on “Night Court” as a “full-circle moment,” noting the original series was one he watched ardently as a child.
Today, film figures heavily into Scheer’s downtime. While the Los Feliz resident notes that his Sundays are primarily focused on his children, who are 10 and 7, they are also an opportunity to share other aspects of his fandom with his family, particularly sports.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
7 a.m.: A cold plunge and pancakes
No coffee will treat me as well as a nice cold plunge. I have an inflatable cold plunge. The first thing I do is I pop that chiller on and get that water down to 50 degrees. I get in there for about six minutes.
Sunday is also a day I get to enjoy take-in from my favorite restaurants. If I have my druthers, I would love to order in pancakes from Du-par’s. I think they’re the best. Even though I live far away from them, I will get them and pop them in the oven and get them back to their deliciousness.
7:30 a.m.: Double-check the kids’ sporting schedules
My weekends are devoted to my kids. I am going nonstop from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. but it’s nothing anyone else can be doing. I’m at an AAU tournament in Seal Beach, then I’m driving to Beverly Hills for a soccer thing. I’m coaching that team. It’s great, but it’s not relaxed. It’s not like we get a bagel from Courage Bagels and then figure things out.
8:30 a.m.: Take the family for a ‘street hike’
We don’t go in the fashionable places. We’re not going to go up to Runyon Canyon. We hike in our neighborhood — an urban hike, a street hike. We have our dog Bingo and go for a street hike.
9:30 a.m.: Pickleball on the driveway or bike to a tennis court
Normally, what we’ve been doing on Sundays — it’s one of my favorite things — my family has really gotten into pickleball. We play that at our house, or we go to Vermont Canyon, which is right by the Greek Theatre, and we will play tennis. We ride our bikes over to the Vermont Canyon tennis courts after we’ve navigated the impossible parks and recreation website to reserve those courts, and we will play for about an hour.
11 a.m.: Hit a driving range
We are an active family. Neither June nor I are golfers, but we do have drivers and clubs and we’ll go to a driving range with the kids and hit balls around. As a parent, this day is longer than you think. You need to have a Swiss Army tool of things to do. We’re lucky to live near Griffith Park, which gives us a multitude of options. We’ve become active because the kids want to be active, so that translates to finding yourself at Dave & Buster’s on a Sunday afternoon because June has gotten really into football and the kids can be playing games.
Sip wine at Barnsdall Art Park. Catch a movie at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Paddle a swan boat in Echo Park Lake. See free Shakespeare in Griffith Park. And more ideas to bookmark ASAP.
12:30 p.m.: Hope there’s a Clippers game
If it’s a perfect Sunday, it means there’s a 12:30 p.m. Clippers game; however, this [was] the last year of the 12:30 p.m. games. [Editor’s note: The Clippers are moving into their own venue, and therefore likely will no longer need to schedule the early afternoon games that were a necessity when sharing an arena.] If you know anything about the Clippers, 12:30 p.m. games are probably some of our worst outings as a team, but it’s also the only time I can bring the entire family to a Clippers game.
So I would change my season tickets to get these Sunday tickets, and my family would head down to Crypto.com — I have a hard time saying that name — and stock up on snacks and supplies. I’d hit a LudoBird. My kids do Blaze Pizza. Then, we either watch a two-hour amazing game, or we leave disheartened, but no matter what, we will come out with some sort of merch that we didn’t quite need.
3 p.m.: Treat the kids to a movie
I’m always trying to get the family out to see a movie. The New Beverly often has really fun weekend family programming, and the Vista also does interesting weekend programming. I try to convince the family — “Let’s go see Fred MacMurray in ‘The Absent Minded Professor.’” Sometimes it works really great. I showed them “Raiders of the Lost Ark” for the first time on an afternoon at the New Bev, and it was amazing. I showed them “Jason and the Argonauts” and it didn’t go as great, even for me.
If we want to see a new movie, we go to the Alamo Drafthouse. That’s where my kids fall in love with movies because they get to eat like pigs for 90 minutes straight. As long as they have a shake in front of them, they’re having a great time, but I try to upgrade their interests. I love the programming at Vidiots. They show amazing afternoon films that are geared toward families. They’re fun movies you wouldn’t necessarily think about. It’s not necessarily “School of Rock.” It’s a little more left of center. I like to get my kids’ minds open by seeing older movies.
Surviving multiple eras of ups and downs, DTLA remains a neighborhood in constant transformation — and a place that never stops dreaming.
3 p.m. Have an alternate plan: trampolines
If it’s a rainy day, or my kids are in a bad mood, there’s one place we can go. One place that turns a frown upside down that’s affordable to all families. It’s called Sky Zone. It’s a trampoline park. It is basically a world of trampolines. Trampoline basketball. Trampolines on the wall. You go over foam pits. You battle with these swords that look like they’re from “American Gladiators.” Sky Zone is our go-to Sunday Funday spot. It is an accident waiting to happen. My pediatrician is like, “Don’t go there.” I once went and tore a glute muscle. But I keep going back.
5:30 p.m. Hunt down fresh takes on chain-restaurant staples
The next big plan of the day is dinner, and I like to take my dinner seriously. I have to pick something that everyone is going to like. I can’t go to a cool restaurant. I have to get the full family on board. I love this [pop-up] restaurant called Chain. It’s a celebrity chef making your favorite fast-food items in a way that’s extremely delicious. They’ll do a re-creation of a Taco Bell taco with Wagyu. They just had this thing where they made old-school McDonald’s fries.
One of the best nights I ever had there they re-created Pizza Hut pizza. They rebuilt the entire place to look like an old Pizza Hut, with a salad bar and sneeze guard. Chain is a hit with the family because you get great food but you also get food your kids want to eat. It makes me feel like a kid all over again. I love that vibe. It’s like, to me, when my parents brought me to Bennigan’s.
8 p.m. Wind down with pie
There will often be a call for ice cream, some stop on the way home. The kids dictate it. But I’m lactose intolerant so I’m going to hit up Magpies. I love their pies. They make these amazing slices. We are all eating our own slice of these frozen yogurt pies. The strawberry one is unbelievable. We often just sit in the car and all eat a slice of our pie.
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