I put on Headache’s Thank You for Almost Everything on my way over to the art show at the abandoned Sizzler on Wilshire. It’s been my go-to album for most of this year and some of last. I’ve been trying to enjoy things first and analyze second recently. I want to stop trying to understand why I might like something before deciding whether I like it.

The gauzy synths and tight breakbeats kick up, and before long, Headache’s AI-assisted vocal drone is letting me know:

When I was young, the moon used to walk me to school / And I would eat my cereal with a spoon / But now that I’m older, I like to eat it with a fork / Do I have to? No / Do I want to? No / Sometimеs life is just hard for no reason

I was distraught to learn, after becoming quite invested in the music, that the public-facing half of Headache, Vegyn, had described the album as coming from the voice of the most annoying person imaginable and as mostly a joke. What did that say about me for having enjoyed it? But I kept listening anyway – and if I don’t take the lyrics that seriously, I think I can see what he means. You try to be profound, understanding that what you say will likely be a bit shit, but whatever, what else is there to do?

I knew nothing about the work coming into the show and was mostly attracted by the opportunity to explore an abandoned Sizzler – a perfect object of decaying Americana. To be honest with you, I’ve never been to a Sizzler. My parents didn’t go to that kind of place, so I grew up with an image of Sizzler and similar family-friendly casual dining chains entirely based on television commercials. Maybe by combining this spectral ideal with the skeleton of the restaurant, I’d be able to piece together some understanding.

I walked in and saw a couple of abstract pieces hung on the walls of booths in a way that made me think of cafe art. Did that cheapen it? What was the work intended to be in conversation with the space? My mind raced, and I had trouble settling on any of the pieces, as usually happens at first. I fall back on my art school training and go into my checklist: what is the medium? What are the technical aspects of the piece’s creation? How does the subject matter relate to the rendering strategies?

There’s a pink statue of what appears to be the Western Exterminator mascot, Mr. Little, strung from the ceiling with lights, chains, wires, and a picture of a house on fire. Every couple of minutes, a mournful vocal track from a pop song plays over a speaker sitting at the booth below. Mr. Little looks like an angel, ascending to heaven. The whole thing feels a bit Richard Kelly in its theatricality. Is this Buñuel’s exterminating angel? Have we been left behind, ghost of the American Dream?

Near the pass is a collage of painting and sculpture broken into halves – the top focused on a passage about English romantic literature. On the bottom, a painted medicine bottle leans on an overturned cup with screws on top. The screws on the cup feel like they might have fallen from the caved-in ceiling. Is literature an intoxicant?

In the kitchen, a computer monitor loops a person swinging in front of a bleak apartment building set to an ominous drone. The video loop is shorter than the music, and the disjunction robs both of an ending, making the whole thing eternal. Is this a commentary on the repetitive tasks of the chefs who labored in this very kitchen?

In a back room, confetti is strewn about the floor, and a large helium tank lurks in the corner. On a big screen, excerpts play from a live stream on a cryptocurrency website designed to promote Meme Coins through stunts. ‘Devs’ – the creators behind the coins – could use the livestreams to attract attention for their currency before ‘rug pulling’ – selling their stock and crashing the price. Users could try to get in early and rug before they got rugged. This live stream featured a performer making music, sculpture, and paintings. Was this a meditation on how artists are incentivized to monetize process rather than product in a modern economy?

In the freezer, a painted silhouette of a figure wearing a fur-lined jacket, pants tucked into military boots, and a rifle wandered through a snowy landscape that was all on tromp l’oeil lined paper with the words Since I’ve Left You scrawled near the bottom. Was this a reference to the notoriously tropical The Avalanches album of the same name? Is it about how embarking on life alone feels like a battle with the wilderness?

I was starting to lose the plot, too many lines of flight. I saw a dogperson and didn’t know what to make of it, but I liked it.

On my way back, I stopped at the Farmer’s Market and got some fresh juice. It’s like Headache says, “There are mad different types of fruit, which are somehow basically all delicious”.