Meghan Cleary is an author and TV personality who lives in the Fairfax district of Hollywood. This is her take on four places she likes, and one place she doesn't.

You may not have known this, but there's a huge number of Brits in Los Angeles. Apparently, the first chance they get, they flee the overcast and rainy climes of their home country for the most opposite climate they can find. Since Australia is usually ruled out, they end up here. Such was the case with Englishman Brendan Collins. The chef at the Palihouse Holloway, he's been curing his homesickness by cooking himself a Brit Sunday Roast every week from 11am to 4pm in the Hall, the hotel's outdoor dining area.

For those of us who grew up during the eighties, this has been a particularly hard summer. First, Michael Jackson leaves the building, and then, perhaps more shockingly, John Hughes left us too. You've read every conceivable essay and blog and opinion piece written by the famous and non-famous about their Hughes memory, so I'll give you mine: When I was about 11, I went to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off with my father, who's also no longer with us. My father had a pretty crude sense of humor, which was passed along in bits to me, and I distinctly remember that our favorite part was the scene when Jennifer Grey thinks she's got a house intruder and kicks the snooping principal Mr. Rooney in the face three times. Because we were immature, we giggled every time Rooney was shown on screen with Kleenex stuffed up his nose. I bring all this up because last night we went with two friends, both MSO PR publicists, Libby and Alex, for Donovan Leitch's John Hughes tribute at the Palihouse. On the screen: Ferris Bueller.

Unlike New York, where socializing slows to a crawl because everyone's in the Hampton's or it's just too plain hot, in Los Angeles, the social scene picks up during the summertime. In your immediate foreseeable future, you will be very busy taking in art, dancing, weird circuses, and getting a visit from everyone's favorite comedy uncle (Murray Hill!) while ogling half-naked women.

I find the Fourth of July in Los Angeles, or really any major party holiday, kind of terrifying. When you add driving to the equation of barbeques and all-day beer drinking, you end up with a mess. This is why last year, I spent the evening in Venice and biked to the beach and the parties we attended, as did all the people in the area. It was fun. That said, if you insist on driving around to Fourth events, we have a few:

Summer is basically here (well, in Los Angeles, it's here all year long), and party season is kicking into high gear. There's a couple of regular nights over in Hollywood that seem worthwhile. The first is a repudiation of all things digital: Vinyl Lover's Lounge. Held at the swanky Palihouse Holloway every Friday in June. Hosted by Daisy O'Dell, the event is an open call to vinyl collectors to bring down their records and spin some sugar for their friends and unsuspecting hotel guests. Friday at 8:30 to 12:30 a.m.

If Rufus Wainwright were more absurd, more foppish, and more melodramatic, he would be Adam Dugas. I ventured to West Hollywood's elegant hotel Palihouse to see Adam play his special brand of cabaret with harpist Mia Theodoratus. Adam is a New Yorker who does an annual Christmas-on-acid extravaganza called Chaos and Candy that was one of my favorite things to do every year in NYC. He was also the mastermind behind the Weimar-inspired vaudeville/cabaret performance troupe, the Citizen's Band.

Having made a name for himself as a developer, Avi Brosh found a hole to fill in hospitality, responding with his hyper-cool West Hollywood hotel Palihouse and succeeding where none had before in making LAX-adjacent Westchester hop with his Custom Hotel. This creative spirit expands on his years of hard work, present trials and travels, and dreams for the future.