Monks on the Go

L. A. is about to be Monked.

Michael Lane and Jim Krotty, co-publishers of Monk, the country’s only mobile magazine, arrived two months ago to chronicle the best, the worst and the weirdest of L.A. for a special Los Angeles edition of Monk.

“Everything you read about L.A. is so negative these days that we wanted to come to town to expose the good side,” says Krotty, who with Lane has spent seven years chronicling the cities of America from a 26-foot motor home and with the aid of a solar-powered Macintosh computer.

Monk has a subscriber base of 40,000 readers.

At a recent reading at Book Soup in West Hollywood to promote their new book, “Mad Monks on the Road,” several of the Angelenos profiled in the Los Angeles issue of the magazine showed up, including the Del Rubio Triplets and scene-maker-around-town Vaginal Creme Davis.

The issue, which includes tales of crashing the Academy Awards and a tour of South-Central Los Angeles, goes on sale at local newsstands this week.

Essentials

What you need to maneuver the L.A. scene: A handshake is not a handshake is not a handshake.

Secret societies have their individual methods. So do Hollywood heavies. (Shake the person’s hand and look over his shoulder for someone more important.)

But the one we really like is the “dude” handshake, utilized by strapping, cool young L. A. men to greet one another.

“Dude!” they yell upon meeting, whereupon Dude No. 1 raises his arm to about shoulder level, angles his hand down at about 45 degrees and propels it into Dude No. 2’s hand, creating the handshake.

Dude No. 2 readies for the shake by placing his arm in an L-shape by his side, hand pointing front.

Among the closest of dude buddies, this is occasionally followed by a “dude hug,” done by grasping the upper arm, shoulder or back of the facing dude and slapping it heartily and loudly a few times.