Ambassador Hotel
The Ambassador Hotel was once the center of Los Angeles style. It was an ode to art deco. In its prime, it housed the fabulous Cocoanut Grove, one of the hippest restaurants in the city. It was the last place where Robert Kennedy walked this earth. Since its closing in 1989, the Ambassdor Hotel has lived the mysterious half-life of a movie set that so many grand buildings in Southern California are reduced to.
Today the Ambassador sits on 24 acres of land on Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown. It's set far back from the street and has the haunted look of old castles. It draws the eye as only someplace ruined, someplace steeped in history can. It is blinded, worn with crumbling at the edges, bound by a perimeter of chain link fences. It is a fabulous ghost and it could have been a fabulous relic.
Now, it is set for demolition so that its owner, the Los Angeles United School District, can build a school there. For years now, they have battled it out with the Los Angeles Conservency and this week they settled. No one denies that LAUSD needs relief for over crowded classrooms, and it's a great location -- in a part of town that hasn't seen a new classroom built in ten years. There was a time where they were going to use the existing Ambassador structure in a school and housing complex. Instead, the Ambassador will be razed and the LAUSD will donate $4.9 million dollars to the conservation of other buildings in the area. A small recompence to be sure.
Things Could be Worse, You Could Be This Guy
Once in a while, you'll see a car with a bullet hole in it. The hole has a nimbus of steel around it, where the force of the bullet has ripped the paint off it as it slammed into the car. It's also worth noting that generally, these cars aren't very nice. one does look upon them with some wonder; where has this person been? What's the story behind it? Obviously, there are tales to be told.
Other times, you'll see a car that appears to have a number of bullet holes in it. Then you get up close and realize -- they're stickers. Worse than big pants, bullet holes stickers seem to be the ultimate indicators of total posers. People who would never be subject to having their cars shot at, have to buy stickers for their cars to imply their transgressive nature. Perhaps this has to to do with action flicks? Frankly, we find it a bit puzzling.
One imagines that people who actually do have their cars shot aren't thrilled, and if they have the money, they get it fixed. If these sticker guys were real badasses, they either a) wouldn't draw attention to themselves or b) they would take their car out to the desert and shoot them themselves. But what would that do to the resale value!
Hurricanes, pt 2
No Los Angeles Content
In listening to additional Katrina coverage today, we've decided that yesterday we handled the situation too light-heartedly. We apologize. Our hearts go out to the victims.
Bureau Season
It's bureau season in Palms! All hail the mighty bureau! As the weather warms up, the well upholstered couches flee in doors, waiting to plot their escape till cooler times. Bureaus, however, are either not so bright, or are unable to distinguish temperature.
This bureau is a particularly pathetic specimen, as all it's drawers are gone. This leaves it utterly defenseless in the face of this particularly grassy corner. It's the equivalent of maiming your dog before you abandon him. You wouldn't do either, would you?
Hurricanes
We'll be honest. We've caught some flack for living in Los Angeles. There's the fakeness, for one. What some people refer to as a "lack of seasons" (we prefer the term "subtle" -- we notice the changes). Not to mention paparazzi -- not a problem for most of us. Also, fires, floods, earthquakes and, occasionally, riots. But every place has its risks. Blizzards, worse floods (Mississippi flood plain, we're looking at you!), twisters and hurricanes. Seems to us that most of LA's natural disasters don't really have a season like hurricanes do. (Some people argue that there is such a thing as "earthquake weather." merely foolishness. Just the human brain doing what it's evolved to do -- find patterns. It's just coincidence.)
Listening to the bombardment of coverage on hurricane Katrina, while we worry about the extent of the damage, and hope that harm is minimal, we can't help to be somewhat relieved that we don't have hurricanes here.
Lost Strangeles
Last week, a minor rucus occurred when Grammy-winning record producer, Christian Julian Irwin disappeared following a 3:45am 911 call that had him running through the creek bed near his Topanga Canyon home. He claimed that he was being chased by people with dogs he believed might kill him. When the police arrived, they found no sign of him except his broken glasses on the hillside behind his house.
During the subsequent investigation, friends and family claimed that he became embroiled in a Nigerian email scam, and had recieved a $50k check from them. (For those of you who haven't had internet access until yesterday, the extreme version of Nigerian email scams involve luring stupid people to Nigeria where they are then held until they can come up with enough money to be released, while lesser forms involve getting you to pony up your bank account number -- by mingling your funds with theirs so they can steal your money.) Though the Nigerian email scheme can lead to frightening situations, it seems strange at this late date that someone would be so uninformed as to be caught up in it.
Speculating while caught in traffic last week, it occurred to one kuaptic-ite that it seemed odd that Irwin would be chased by negligible Nigerians, as they would have to come all the way to the States to pursue him, which seemed an unlikely scenario at best. On Sunday, a neighbor spotted Irwin, who was naked and washing his jeans in a creek, about a quarter mile from where he made the call. Irwin was disoriented, and was subsequently taken to a hospital to be checked out. His sister had to be brought in to calm him down. Police say there's no evidence anyone was pursuing him.
There's a lesson here, kids. Drugs are bad. Don't do drugs. (Also, stay away from Nigerian email scams.)
Abandon Ship
Once in a while you go to a bar that makes a difference...the Brig in Venice is not one of those places. Once it was a dive bar, full of toothless, leathery types who played pool. Then it went into its second incarnation where it threw out the bums and lit some candles. It was dark and nice, had a decent juke box -- a good alternative to the total scene at Circle Bar.Then, it closed its doors and when it reopened, it was a brushed metal, unisex bathroom, one pool table kind of joint. We heard someone recently refer to it as being westside home of the bridge and tunnel crowd (read: people from the valley).But we like the valley. There are cool people there. And, like us westsiders visiting Silverlake, they should be allowed into the westside without castigation.The Brig does smack of poser-ism, and not in a Spider Club, Roosevelt Hotel rich, dumb, sluts (you know who you are Lindsay, Paris) kind of way, but in a bunch of people who wish they could get into the Spider Club or the Roosevelt an, in lew of actually doing so, they are going to pretend that the Brig is actually one of those places and misbehave accordingly.The Brig, 1515 Abbott-Kinney Boulevard, Venice, CA
Working through the Weekend
As we draw closer to the arbitrary "end of summer" designation (never mind that here in Los Angeles, we'll be suffering throught the most brutal heat of the year through, approximately, Halloween), everyone seems to have plans, more importantly, they seem to have plans that don't involve you. Well, kuaptic is your friend and we've come up with a bunch of great stuff just for you.
In fact, you'd better get hopping, cause they start a week early.
Sunset Junction -- (this weekend) This yearly bash in Silverlake, features great music and great shopping (also huge crowds, crying children and intense heat.) The atmosphere is like a party for everyone though, and it's usually lots of fun. This year, the Walkmen, Chaka Khan (no -- really!), Rilo Kiley, the New York Dolls and the Gossip are playing, as well as a bunch of people you've never heard of and the Suicide Girls are doing their burlesque thang. Arthur Fest -- Thrown by some arty magazine you've never heard of, Arthur fest has a ton of kick ass bands. Thrown in Los Feliz at the Barnesdale Art Park they advertise trees, grass and shade as well as local food and beverages -- and, puzzlingly, energy drinks. Duh! Like you'd throw a festival without energy drinks. That's like throwing a rave without ecstasy.) Bands include Sonic Youth, The Black Keys, Yoko Ono (headlining day 2!), Spoon (a kuaptic fave) and last, but never, ever least, Sleater-Kinney! Cinespia @ Hollywood Forever -- Showing Sullivan's Travels this weekend and Night of the Hunter on September Third. Though there are a number of ways to indulge your movies-outside-in-the-summertime yen, we can't say enough good things about Cinespia! Sweet and Hot Jazz Festival -- at the LAX Marriott Hotel. We don't know anything about jazz, but maybe this would be a good place to hear some! Labor Day Festival -- Do you like Compton? Then you might like this big street festival complete with games and rides.
The First Annual Art Deco Festival at the Queen Mary -- Lots of lectures, dinners and tours aboard the Queen Mary -- as well as some kind of art deco marketplace. Sounds cool!
Gerbils, Gerbils, Gerbils!
Larry, evil gerbil and top secret ruler of the world is here to tell you that this kuaptic entry is not for the faint of heart. Read on -- if you dare!
One member of kuaptic's staff remembers when her little sister was born at Cedars Sinai, her dad came home and claimed that he had seen Richard Gere there. His hypothesis was that Gere had just had a gerbil removed from his butt. Well. We always knew her dad was a liar.
As anyone who's ever worked in a hospital emergency room knows, people come in with all manner of foreign objects stuck up their butts. Some are even surprised that human kind has devloped higher reasoning, cities, wars and bridges because they seem to spend so much time sticking stuff up there. Snopes (at whose urban legend disproving, chain email debunking feet we worship) have done what appears to be an extensive research on the subject and, though they were met with a number of anecdotal gerbil/small rodent scenarios, none were ever backed up with actual medical evidence. They drew the conclusion that this was not an actual sexual practice.
The story seems to emerge from homophobic feelings in society, the implication being that only gay people would stick something up there (though evidence proves otherwise.) It's been attached to a number of male celebrities but ultimately stuck with Richard Gere some time in the mid-eighties. After Pretty Woman's success, some joker sent around a false press release that only fed rumors. However, when the National Enquirer looked into it, they found no evidence that Gere had anything removed from his butt.
For us, this really puts the final nail in the coffin of this story, as if the National Enquirer could find any shred of evidence, no matter how thin, you know they'd print the story in a hot minute.
Since we're already talking about blogs...
We thought we might as well introduce you to a few of our LA favorites...1947 ProjectWe haven't read too much about this blog yet, but the idea -- studying LA in 1947 (by way of old newspaper clippings for every day from its counterpart in 1947) is SO cool.DefamerGossip, cool stuff around town and straight up industry headlines, go to the original -- defamer.LA ObservedThis is more about happenings and news of note in the LA area.LAistWeird news, sports, various restaurant reviews and interviews.lafoodbloggingIt is what it says it is.LAritzOne LA food bloggers world.Now you can be cool like us!
If Wishes were Fishes
Sometimes you come across a blog that is so much better than yours, it makes you jealous (this happens less often than you might imagine.) To add insult to injury, this guy seems to have, like, actual (read: nonblogging) work. If we were mean, spiteful people...well, basically we would be huffy. But we're not -- we want to share this hilarious and heartwarming (or not) story with you.
For those of you too lazy too actually click away from this site to look at this hysterical story, we'll pull the inspriational quote for you, but you have to go there to read the funny bits.
"If you're gonna do it, do it. Don't creep right up close to it, think about doing it, and then back off just a bit and try to convince yourself you're still doing it. You're not. It's binary. You either have faith or you don't. You're either doing it, or you're not."
Let's Go
The Westside is a little...how to put this...sushi schizophrenic. You've got your big names -- Roku, Nobu, fashionable and fantastic, but with a price tag to match. There's Sawtelle - but Sawtelle has problems. Sushi Tenn is pricey, Hide is lackluster. And Sasabune, we just don't get why everyone's aflutter about that one -- all the sushi seems pre-cut! Even Santa Monica's Noma has fallen out of favor, as the sushi has become sub-par.But then there's Echigo. What some people refer to as "minimalist," is merely standard sushi-in-a-mini-mall style (hey wait -- could people mean minimalist as mini-mall-ist?) but that's okay. They're putting the money where our mouth is. They don't even serve miso soup, but the sushi is the best yet on the west side -- they serve salmon with clear seaweed, fabulous crab rolls, succulant freshwater eel. They seem less consistent on the quality of their albacore and yellowtail, but even when they're off, they're definitely passable. They have a small saki menu, but the carafes are huge! Absolutely worth the dough.We know where to go for sushi. We go to Echigo.Sushi Echigo, 12217 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
Santa Monica Couch
Generally, we only display wild couches of Palms on kuaptic, but when we saw this rarity, we couldn't resist. Santa Monica, often predated by the wiley "Salvation Army truck," has a dearth of couches and other detritus on their streets, but this couch managed to escape and hide in an alley, and in case you haven't noticed, couches in Santa Monica have it good!
This couch has a name, displayed as though this place is his office. It also has a view of some gorgeous bougainvilla, and apparently some offering of sodas (no one mistakes couches for gods in Palms -- we know couches are dumb!)
The day after this picture was taken, this couch vanished. Alas, SM couch, we hardly knew ye!
Save the Derby!
Your city drifts and crumbles under the feet of progress. Gone are the streetcars, the original Schawb's, such hangouts at the Coconut Grove and Chasen's. The Brown Derby was once one of the crown jewels in the LA restaurant scene. There were a number of locations, but the most famous were the one located across the street from the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard (this was the shape of an actual derby) and the original Los Feliz location.
The first brown Derby restaurant was built in 1928 as Willard's Chicken Inn retaurant. It was financed by Cecil B. DeMille and designed by Wayne McAllister. Though an influential architect, (he created many of the drive-ins and car hops so popular in the mid-century, including Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake) few remain. Its curious dome shape made it possible to pump water up through the building and out the the roof so that it ran down the sides. This effectively cooled the interior, making it one of the first "air conditioned" restaurants.
In 1940, its name changed to the Brown Derby and for twenty years, it was a hub of Hollywood glitterati. In 1945, the Derby was featured in the film Mildred Pierce. Joan Crawford tended its bar, famously claiming, "People have to drink somewhere. Why not here?" In 1960, it became Michael's and more recently, the car hop area has been a Louise's Trattatoria and the dome has been called the Derby, a vintage club for swing dancing. In June 2004, the site was bought by Richard Hadler of Los Feliz/Hillhurst LLC who wants to demolish this gem of Hollywood history, in some ways the last of its kind to erect a huge condo/retail complex (certainly no boon to small, village-y Los Feliz).
Shake your tailfeather and write 4th District councilman Tom LaBonge and tell him what you think of people who are out to blot out our city's history. Or visit the Save the Derby peeps to see what else you can do.
Oral History, pt. 2
After a few years, a psychiatrist decided that the art that was up in the house should be "saved." He gathered some guys together and they robbed the house. They couldn't get it all the first time, so they had to go back. This time the police were ready for them. But the burglars set the house on fire, creating the distraction that allowed them to escape. (They were eventually caught.)
The house was demolished. There were plans to build an apartment building, but financing never came through. The property sat, vacant and overgrown, green with grass in the spring until it turned yellow in the summer, surrounded by an ornate fence. The river stones were scavenged until the wall was no more. They even took some of the spikes off the iron work of the fence. Now there are tractors and permits up, piles of dirt everywhere.
In New Orleans, it's never surprising to find a dilapidated house, a vacant lot in the middle of the nicest neighborhoods, but in Beverly Hills it was always as though it would be in bad taste to mar the smooth lawns, empty sidewalks and perfect (in some cases, perfectly ugly) houses. So the site at 9755 Sunset Boulevard always drew attention.
The world needs its mysteries and soon it will have one less.
9755 Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA
Oral History, pt 1
kuaptic strives to provide the most accurate information in our posts. We like to back up the things we've heard through web and newspaper searches. Todays entry, however, brought up nothing. So we'll have to indulge in one of the world's oldest forms of information -- oral history.The piece of property at 9755 Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills has long sat empty. We have some vague memory of a pale green house boarded up for years before it was condemned and destroyed. At one time, the house was a massive Italian villa, sitting on a fairly sizeable piece of property, as is common on the north side of Sunset Boulevard before Beverly Hills turns into West Hollywood just after North Sierra Drive (you can tell when the buttery smooth pavement of BH hits the ruts and potholes of West Hollywood -- the sound of money vanishing.)At some point, it was bought by a newly married Arabian couple. They commissioned a number of area artisans to do a huge amount of elaborate and costly work -- gold plated fixtures were to be put into the bathrooms, along with a huge amount of tile work, expensive marbles and an outer wall made of riverstone.There were a number of statues on the property -- nudes -- which were painted in true to life hues, causing quite a scandal. The city insisted that the paint be removed.Near the end of the construction, they threw a huge party and everyone in Beverly Hills was invited, including everyone who had worked on the house. Afterward, one of the dads of the couple came and whisked them back to Saudi Arabia. The debts for the work that the had done on the house were never paid.
Careful What you Wish For
Ah, August. We languish in your eighty degree weather, knowing that we have another two months of heat! There are days when all we can think about is ice -- ice in our drinks, ice skating, sculptures, luge, glaciers, the greenhouse effect, which will only lead to more summer!
One Fontana man last Sunday had a large chunk of ice crash through his house, obliterating one of the chairs at his kitchen table. He was washing dishes nearby. His daughter claimed it sounded like two trucks had hit each other in the street. When his wife arrived home, seeing the hole, the debris everywhere, she laughed, relieved that no one had been in the chair.
It may be the result of megacyometeors, large blocks of ice that form in the atmosphere and then fall to earth, there will have to be more tests before they get to the bottom of this.
Perhaps, we've had enough of ice...maybe we should think of rain instead!
Driving by Braille
In the 1950s, there were just lines seperating the lanes on the freeway. Often, these weren't refelctive enough; they virtually disappeared in the rain and the paint wore thin every few months, having to be repainted and risking the lives of Caltrans workers.
Elbert Botts was in charge of the department that was to come up with solutions for this probelm. He came up with a round or square shape in plastic, polyester or ceramic domes that come in several colors. The most common is white, but they also come in amber, blue and red.
Botts always claimed that coming up with the "dots" (as they came to be called) was the easy part. The challenge was coming up with a way to attach them to the road. At first, Botts favored secring them with metal spikes. Unfortunately, the domes quickly wore off, leaving the dangerous spikes behind. Eventually, they settled on a powerful glue.
By 1966, drivers were being saved from drifting in their lanes by the rat-tat-tat of hitting the dots. Elbert Botts, howeverm was already driving on that big highway in the sky, having passed on in 1962. The markers however, are still referred to as "Botts' Dots."
Le Petit Bistro
Feel like a little trip to France? What? Don't have the money? Well, stop in at Le Petit Bistro in Santa Monica. It has the authentic feeling of France with fresh delicious food, meat dishes served with vegetables and a starch (your mom would be so happy!) You can also choose a side salad, which are very pleasant.The menu comes on chalkboards that they prop near your table.The food is served a little hot, as in after you finish eating the food is still hot and our sauteed fish was a little dry, but all in all a very satifying meal. Here's the thing though -- we liked it, but we didn't love it. Definitely worth checking out but it remains to be seen whether it'll make our favorite restaurant list.Le Petit Bistro, 2842 Colorado Avenue, Santa Monica, CA
White Oleander
The plants that are the most fascinating when you're a kid are inevitably the ones your mother tells you are poisonous. You look on them with such fascination. Their jewel-like berries -- will they kill ants? They go into old soda bottles with water and leaves -- a poison elixer. But you did what your mom told you to do and never ate them. But oleander -- common along roadways and gardens in Southern California -- you stayed away from that one.
Oleander is a plant with a storied history. Originally of Mediterranean origin (though it was found as far afield as China), it figures prominantly in both Greek and Judeo-Christian mythologies (making a notable appearance as the wood that was the staff of St. Joseph, husband to the Virgin Mary.) It came over to the New World as part of a movement by the Spaniards to turn the West Indies into a Paradise of old world plants and fruit trees.
Though there are a bunch of stories of hapless groups of people roasting hot dogs on or making fires of oleander wood and dying, (and in fact the wood and smoke are supposed to be poisonous) there are no actual records of such accidents. Children appear to be particularly susceptable to the poison because of their small size and proclivity to ingest inadvisable things. Pets and horses often perish after chewing oleander bark or leaves, which they find sweet. Apparently, the taste is bitter and nauseating, causing people to gag. As little as four ounces of leaves can kill an adult human. To date, only one person has ever been recorded to die from oleander poisoning -- his wife whipped up a concoction of oleander leaves and anti-freeze (you'd think the anti-freeze would have been enough!)
Sacrificed Couch
This couch is in a sad state, having obviously given up. It lies face up, spread eagled on the grass, and has no seat cushions anymore. Though it has friends -- the other cast-off furniture to the right, the whole crew seems desolate and is obviously not long for this world.
Mystery Parrots
Cities breed strange and often legendary animals. New York has its sewers, rife with mole people, rodents of unusual size and lost alligators. Los Angeles (so far) has less of a subterranean population. We have timid deer, brazen coyotes, rattle snakes, all interesting, but none really have the same flair as say, mole people.
But look a little deeper and you'll discover parrots. In the Hollywood Hills, there are flocks of wild parrots eeking out their living in the exotic trees of people back yards, exploding, when startled, into a riot of color. No one knows where they really came from, but there are a number of stories -- from the menagerie of some rich recluse, a burned down pet store in Glendale or just people's pets that escaped. Perhaps (as we're sad to report often happens in the hills) they were unwanted pets, abandoned by owners, who, cruelly, think it's more humane to subject their once beloved animals to heartbrak, starvation and coyotes rather than take them to the pound. (Something of a digression, we know, but there's little that makes us as mad as people who abandon pets!)
The parrots have faired better than most (we imagine flying helps) and have taken up their chatty residence, as yet another marvel in one of LA's most storied neighborhoods.
Sig Alerts
Some think that the "Sig" in Sig Alerts stands for "stay in the garage." In fact, it's a reference to the inventor of the Sig Alert, Lloyd Sigmon. As a co-owner of AM radio station KMPC, Sigmon felt that if the Police cooperated with the radio station, they would be able to broadcast traffic problems, hopefully reducing the amount of traffic flowing into the area. The Police Chief was not thrilled with the idea of diverting his resources to something as insignificant as getting in touch with a radio station so Sigmon, having worked as a radio engineer in World War II, set up a system so that when the police dispatcher was transmitting traffic calls, he could just press a button, activating a reciever in the radio station. The Police chief liked this idea so much that he implemented it in all radio stations by October 1955.
At first the Sig Alert was used to report a number of different types of accidents, in cluding boat collisions in Long beach Harbor, a train derailment (which caused a traffic jame of emergency vehicles rushing to the scene), rabid dogs and dam failures. Though it never made him any money, Lloyd Sigmond was memorialized in the name of these alerts. He died in 2004 at the age of 95.
Helms Bakery
The Helms Bakery was built by Paul Helms, who moved out to Culver City, CA from New York for health reasons in 1926 and opened the bakery in 1931. Never sold in stores, Helms Bakery delivered fresh bread and donuts to homes all around Southern California on a daily basis. The bakery sent trucks to such distant locations as Fresno, San Bernadino, San Diego and even the Moon (where Helms sent the first loaf of bread on Apollo 11 in 1969.) Featuring the company motto, "Daily to your door," apparently the trucks had a distinctive whistle, which echoed though neighborhoods in Southern California for thirty-eight years. They gave regular tours to school children, giving each one a paper replica of the Helms Coach and a small loaf of bread.
Helms was an avid supporter of sports. The field at Culver High still bears the Helms name. They were the official bread of the Olympics in 1932, when they were first held in Los Angeles, which accounts for the Olympic rings still promenantly displayed all over the bakery.
Paul Helms believed in being good to his workers, greeting all by name on the floor of the bakery. To date, former Helms employees still gather for company picnics, many of which are held on site, though the company closed its doors in 1969 (twelve years after Paul Helms' death), due to competition from supermarkets and other cultural changes.
The Helms Bakery still straddles the line between Culver City and Los Angeles, it's "zig-zag Moderne" style bringing sophistication to the urban sprawl. It has been declared a landmark of Culver City, and remade into a center for decorative arts. It features two fine restaurants, Beacon and La Dijonaise, a number of furniture companies, including H.D. Buttercup, and La Bella Cosa and the Jazz Bakery, where they feature jazz greats and occasionally theatrical performances. They also have a museum on site where bread making implenments and even a Helms Coach can be viewed.
Helms Bakery, 8800 Venice Boulevard, at Helms Avenue, Culver City, CA
Urban Legends isn't just the name of a couple of crappy movies
You know whenever you get a forwarded email that reads "Forward this to EVERYONE you know," that the contents are of dubious veracity and that it's time to check out the situation at Snopes.
In the wake of a number of random freeway shootings in Los Angeles in May 2005, an email started circulating that the violence was the result of some kind of gang war. The email specifically stated that the Mexican Mafia was retaliating against the Rolling 60's for stealing a large amount of cocaine. The story further adds that these shootings were perpetrated against random people wearing white t-shirts.
Snopes asserts that police officials denounce this tale, saying there is no evidence that the freeway shootings conform to any such pattern. Furthermore, the Rolling 60's are a subdivision of the Crips gang and since their colors are blue, not white, it would be unlikely that the Mexican Mafia would not only perpetrate these crimes against innocent bystanders, but also those wearing colors that have nothing to do with the gang itself.
The human brain is programmed to look for patterns, it's why we're so susceptable to stories of alien abductions and other conspiracy theories. In the face of something so random and terrifiying, it's easy to see how this story would rise in the tide of fear.
Though the panic over freeway shootings has largely come to a halt, people still get shot on freeways, and the police are asserting that the incidents, though suspected to be a result of gang violence, are unrelated.
Troubadour 8-11-05
So you're at the Troubadour, with a Wednesday night crowd of wannabees, girls-night-out types, guys hoping to get lucky and lesbians. You're in the bathroom, waiting for a stall, checking out the vending machine, Tylenol, Advil and two types of condoms. Chocolate fudge and "fruity." Tasty.On the way out you run into the girl who you've seen so often that you're allowing the possibility that she may be stalking you. Though she's in the bathroom, she's busy whining about how yucky it is. She's shallow-faced, too much make-up, too much time on her hands. She hasn't yet picked up her drink boy, a guy who's wearing a Banana Republic shirt his gay friend made him buy, who closes out his tab after he buys their drinks and then reopens it two minutes later when her shrill friend shows up. Do they even know who's playing tonight?You suck down a beer. Time passes. The chanteuse comes on. She's like that girl you know in high school who was so cool and talked so dirty. She seemed to know things no one else did. The sound of acoustic guitars crystalize everything, like soft late afternoons of the past.A couple in the corner, sit quietly touching. Sometimes the girl leans in, whispers and they giggle. At one point, she takes her boy's glasses off and cleans them. It takes awhile.You're working on your second beer, eyeing people around the bar. One guy has an eyepatch. Ploy to get girls? Nah. Girls don't like possible deformities. Pirate in his spare time? Too heavy. Who wears eyepatches anyway?[pirate] Arrr! [/pirate]When the show ends (as denoted by big ugly guys hitting the stage) you make your exit, the shallow faced girl still trailing behind her, vetting the options for the rest of the evening.
The Happy Ones
Los Feliz, now an enclave of the hip and savvy, was once the very first exclusive area in LA, the Beverly Hills, if you will. The word itself means "the happy ones," though its name comes from the surname of the Spanish family that originally owned the preperty. In the 1930s, the moneyed movie-types shifted to Beverly Hills and the area fell into a slump until the 1980s, when it began to experience gentrification.
While home to many young hipsters, Los Feliz also has many of the finer old manisions in Los Angeles, including the Ennis-Brown House.
H is for Suicide
This is something of a rerun; we know. But our viewership has expanded, and well, we liked this posting quite a bit.
Everyone has heard the whisperings that someone once killed themselves jumping from one of the letters from the Hollywood sign. The letters and the stories change. The swirl of ghoulishness and cocktails involved in these conversations give way to boundless speculation. Only one person has thrown herself off the Hollywood sign, and into notariaty she never would have had otherwise.Lillian Millicent "Peg" Entwistle was born in 1908 in Wales. Her mother died when she was young and she and her father emigrated to New York City. She had some small parts in Broadway plays, but they dried up when the Depression hit. She heard about a new industry for actors out on the West Coast, in Los Angeles.From there, her story plays out like so many others. Though she had a small part in David O. Selznick's Thirteen Women, she fell on tough times after that. Within five months, she was resorting to posing topless for a small fee.She was staying with her uncle, in his house in Beechwood Canyon, beneath the sign (which then read "Hollywoodland"). On the night of September 18, 1932, she said she was going for a walk and wandered up through the winding streets and paths to the sign, where she folded her coat, placed it on the ground, scaled the "H" and jumped to her death. She left a note which read: "I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E." She was 24.In a cruel twist, the next week her uncle received a letter explaining that she had gotten a part in a play at the Beverly Hills playhouse. She would have played the part of a woman driven to suicide.If you're thinking of exiting stage left like Peg, you'll find it much tougher going, as the letters are surrounded with motion detectors, rendering it nearly impossible to get close to the sign.They say Peg's ghost still walks the streets of Beechwood Canyon. If you believe in that sort of thing, she wears her favorite gardenia scented perfume, so you'll know if you ever cross her path.
Camoflage Couch
This couch is clearly a coward; it's tried to cover itself with assorted pillows and other debris in a vain attempt at hiding itself. This behavior is indicative of the couch not being very bright. Though it could by the result of lack of experience. Either way, the couch was gone within twenty-four hours, taken, we presume, to that great living room in the sky.
Sing the Absurd
If you're like us you dig weird stuff. Art in surprising places, people wearing wrestling masks in the street, that weird person who claims -- on the side of their van -- that they've given birth to Val Kilmer's love child, and if you see him, will you let him know? Yeah. It's all good.
Which makes it worth the trip down to the Museum of Jurassic Technology. The Museum is situated unobtrusively in the middle of Venice Boulevard. Once inside, it's windowless and stuffy (so the trip might have to wait till things cool off a little), and full of exhibits that may not be true or even work correctly. This bump and whir and lights don't on. Things howl when you get too close to them and recite boring litanies in monotonous voices. It's all quite puzzling if you're actually trying to make sense out of it. Once you realize that it's not supposed to make sense, it becomes a wonderful place, full of secrets and surprises.
You think, oh a fake museum in a city of false fronts and lawns piped in from Colorado. No surprise there. But the Museum is about as far away from the slick nature of Los Angeles facades as you can get. While Los Angeles is all about obscuring the ugly truth with something pretty, the Museum is about a kind of weirdness that makes you turn inward and examine your own mind.
The museum is placed in a historical context in Lawrence Wechsler's Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Curiosities, a book that characterizes it as being part of a long tradition of false oddities, dating back to medieval times.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology may not be the place to go to honor history or art per se, but it is a place unique in its ability to illuminate the curious nature of the human imagination.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology, 9341 Venice Boulevard, Culver City, CA
Counter Point
We like our burgers here at kuaptic and we know you do too. Beef is a classic, and there's always the veggie, a new classic, then there's turkey, chicken (breast or burger) , salmon, gosh, the list just goes on and on. Then of course there are types -- the fast food burger, perfected by In-n-Out, the totally huge burger, a Mo's specialty, and then there's The Counter in Santa Monica.
The Counter specializes in build-you-own-burger. Instead of a menu, you're handed a clipboard, where you choose meat (or non-meat) types, poundage, bun type, and from about a billion different types oftoppings -- cheeses, dressings, sauces. You could have black olives, guacamole, dried cranberries, marinara sauce, goat cheese, apricot sauce...maybe not on the same burger, but you could if you wanted. Or if you're feeling uninspired, you can choose from a few specialty burgers. You can even have your protein served in a bowl with lettuce, if you're still clinging to your Atkins illusions.
The restaurant space itself is clean and modern, decorated in cool tones of grey and aqua, nd just a tad of a diner sort of feeling. There's a rotating cast of different paintings by local artists, which are usually pretty interesting. Often there's a wait for tables, so budget your time accordingly. It's not too bad and it's well worth it.
We knew that it was the place for us when we noticed that on the table was the King of Mustards -- Grey Poupon, ah, your sophistication and horseradish-like heat...no pale yellow French's, runny and bland for us! Grey Poupon, we bow before you!
But back the the Counter. It rocks.
The Counter, 2901 Ocean Park Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA
Silent But Deadly
It seems fitting that a city like Los Angeles would have a place like the Silent Movie Theater, one of two such theaters in the world that still show silent films. But like everything else in this town, it's drenched in blood. Or at least splattered. The Silent Movie Theater was opened in 1942 by John and Dorothy Hampton. The talkies had taken over by then, and the theater was dedicated to preserving these classics.
The couple continued to eek out a living there, living in an upstairs apartment until 1979. John Hampton kept on in his apartment until his death in 199o. The property was left to Laurence Austin, a family friend. Austin reopened the theater in 1991, contracting James Van Sickle to help with renovations. Van Sickle became Austin's lover and the theater's projectionist.
One night in January 1997, a screening of Sunrise was about to begin when a teenager walked in and shot Austin dead. in the ensuing investigation, it came to light that Van Sickle had hired the young man to kill his partner, as he stood to inherit the theater. As the two repsonible went to serve their life sentences, the theater closed again.
It was purchased by Charlie Lustman in 1999, who raised the million dollars necessary to restore it properly. Now the space is used for movies and for special events -- wrap parties, weddings and even birthdays. They also show a selection of classic films, oftening devoting entire weekends to themes -- horror, 3D, and weekends devoted to single actors and directors. The theater remains not completely without controversy though, as Lustman occasionally shows inappropriate films. Such instances include showing Birth of a Nation during the Democratic National Convention (which was subsequently boycotted by the NAACP) and showing Sunrise on the anniversary of the death of Laurence Austin in 2000.
The Silent Movie Theater is really a must-do for people interested in Los Angeles or film history, and really should be for everyone. It's so seldom where you can walk into a place and have it feel like you're walking into a different century without feeling at all condescding or artificial -- no Disney Castles or teenagers lisping away at "olde Englysh" here. The Silent Movie Theater is a real treasure.
Silent Movie Theater, 611 North Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles is the Fire
On June 25th, 2005, The Arcade Fire played the Hollywood Bowl as one of a long line-up of a show titled "David Burn and friends." As one can imagine, casts of hipster thousands showed up, with their funny fifties glasses and carefully messy hair, kids and picnic baskets in tow. As the sun went down, an apricot moon rose over the blood colored hills.It was during this time that the Arcade Fire was playing over the typical crowd buzzing and inattention that opening bands have to contend with. Then they played "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" which had been getting some airplay and the everyone turned, the familiar music bringing everything into focus. A group of about nine people on the back edge of Promenade Three, a group who just had folding chairs as seats, were all standing. They were obviously big fans, dancing and spinning, singing along with every word of the wistful songs about a town of snowed in children whose parents had all died. They were having the time of their lives. Presently, there were more of them. People from the rows above, in Promenade Four, plunged down the stairs to join the growing throng. Soon they were filling nearly the entire aisle, pogo-ing and celebrating as the music rolled on.No security ever came to break them up. Instead, it just seemed like a swollen party, people taking pictures with their cell phones and getting up on the shoulders of their friends throughout the violet dusk. The tone was struck by the band -- people wore their real faces.When the set ended, the party vanished, all the people joined by music as raw and undiluted as childhood, dissipated. Except for the orginal ten or so, who kept dancing right on through David Byrne, undaunted.
He was all right. He wore pink velvet and he never sang "Once in a Lifetime."
The Zero Effect
Note: You cannot "search inside"Just short of Bruce Lee, whoever you are, Nina Zero will beat you up. Once a pigtailed, pink-nailed good girl, Nina Zero accidentally blew up a terminal at LAX and, in her mission to discover who set her up, she unleashes her inner punk rock superhero. When she gets released from jail (in the second book, Killing Paparazzi) she becomes the eponymous and despised celeb photographer. She prowls the streets of L.A. looking for justice, finding who's responsible, though she is constantly sidetracked by untrusting cops. She claims not to be a sadist, she doesn't like to inflict pain, but it doesn't really seem to bother her that much either. Her time in prison wasn't wasted, she comes out the other side well read and extremely competent in a number of criminal enterprises, which she uses to her best advantage. Los Angeles plays a huge part in these books, vividly describing the bright cleanliness of the desert, the shining ocean, the noir streets of Hollywood and the Hills. As Nina cruises the whirling ribbons of freeway, she muses on the nature of celebrity, her past and stays carefully away from any thoughts of the future. More than anything, LA is Nina's partner, her only friend in the world, it accepts her as she is, a woman made hard by her childhood, by her tough breaks, someone who accepts that she may not be a good person, though she always hopes to gain a purity that is ephemeral in her world -- perhaps nonexistent.
Not for the faint of heart, (in the first book is an aggressively graphic torture scene), these books, with their easy voice and shocking brutality really bring forward one of the first heroines to be the kind of vigilante usually limited to comics and the silver screen. Though having no evident super powers, Nina still gets the upper hand with guys many times her size. She may be too masculine in some ways (as penned by author Robert Eversz), but she remains an original. Nina Zero is such a hard-ass, she could make Clint Eastwood cry like a girl.
Shooting Elvis, Killing Paparazzi, Digging James Dean and Burning Garbo by Robert Eversz
Eastern Columbia
Art Deco architecture is one of Los Angeles' touchstones to a glamorous past. Once you start looking for deco buildings, you start seeing them everywhere -- mid-Wilshire, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills. One of the best places to see these rare animals is downtown. Generally, they're not in great shape, but the density of them makes you feel the past even in the gritty present. One building that's pretty hard to miss is the Eastern Columbia.
Built in just nine months in 1929 by architect Claude Beelman, the outiside is fronted in green terra cotta. It may seem like an unusual choice, but it was more common in the twenties because there was a lack of local marble and other strong soon. Few terra cotta buildings persist. Even the sidewalks around the building are decorated with terrazo designs and the opening vestibule has a fantastic starburst ceiling.
Originally built as retail space for the Eastern and Columbia Outfitting companies, the Eastern Columbia building fell, as much of downtown had, into disrepair. To date, the clock still doesn't work, and the neon feature only shows up during the day. Now, with the rejuvenation of downtown, it's been turned into loft style condos, replete with a pool and a number of modern conviniences.
The Eastern Columbia Building, 849 South Broadway, Los Angeles, CA
Incinerator Man
In the fifties and sixties, instead of having a garbage service like we have now, they burned their trash in the back yard. Los Angeles was in the throws of the post-war boom. By 1955, we had nearly a million people and were the largest city in the west. New suburban neighborhood were popping up all over. Every one of them burning garbage on a daily basis. Makes this picture (see the incinerator right next to this guy's elbow) just a little creepy, doesn't it?
Why can you see a cross from the Bowl?
Christine Wetherill Stevenson was the heiress the the Pittsburgh Paint fortune. She helped to sponsor the Hollywood Bowl, as a place for performances and religious services. When supporters of the Bowl split over the nature and frequency of those services, she withdrew her patronage and moved to a piece of property across the Cahuenga Pass, where she opened the The Pilgrimage Theater in 1920 as the permanent home of her work, The Pilgrimage Play, which was performed there for 44 years until it was shut down in 1964 for religious reasons. In 1941, Stevenson died and the theater errected a forty foot cross in her memory, which can now be seen from the Hollywood Bowl lit by neon. After her death, the county still used the location for plays and musical events, but it began to fall into disrepair. When County Superintendent John Anson Ford raised money for refurbishing, they named the theater after him.
Senor Sucky
You know what restaurant we don't like? Senor Fred on Ventura Boulevard in the valley. It seems like it's recommended all over the place -- citysearch, LA Weekly, people we don't usually associate with being insane. Maybe they were hypnotized!You know when you get to Senor Fred because there's a big black hole in the cheerful busy beige-white continuum of shops on Ventura. On entering, it's dark, and decorated with a deliberate fakeness remanecent of Disneyland. The various tables and booths are busy, buzzing with the young and the fashionable. House margaritas are too sweet -- they taste like lemonade. The food is grease, and not in a good way as a number of us spent the rest of the evening feeling vaguely ill. It was so bad, we felt like we should have known better, but how could we?For better margaritas, travel up the street to Casa Vega. For better food go...anywhere!Senor Fred, 13730 Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, CACasa Vega, 13301 Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, CA
Bowled Over
In 1919, construction began in a corner of the Cahuenga Pass called Daisy Dell. In 1922, it opened as the Hollywood Bowl, with a music under the stars program featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 1929, a concert shell was constructed, . One of the largest natural amphitheaters in the world, the Bowl quickly became a prime attraction.
The original shell, with its trademark concentric circles was designed by Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) in 1929. Ultimately, designed two shells for the Bowl. In the 1970s, the material on the outter shell began to harden which made the structure begin to fail. Last year, a new shell was built, redesigned by Frank Gehry and an acoustician. There were a number of people who objected to the rebuilding of the shall. Perhaps they were right. Though Gehry incorperated many of of Wright's ideas, his shell is still known as the third best in the Bowl's history.
It appeared in a number of Warner Brothers cartoons, in addition to inspiring the circular background behind Porky Pig when he says, "That's all folks!" Like most places in Los Angeles, the Bowl was in several movies, perhaps most notably in the film Olly, Olly Oxenfree where Katherine Hepburn lands a hot air balloon in front of the stage while the 1812 Overature was playing.
The Bowl has a well known history of famous concerts, including The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and Radiohead. Today, along with standard singers, classical evenings and rock bands, they also have more unusual musical offerings, like electronic and video game music. The Hollywood Bowl
2301 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
Wild Barcalounger of Palms
Who knew that the barcalounger would be such a survivor? kuaptic asked reknowned scientist, Ben Bourealis what, if any evolutionary advantages the barc (as it is affectionately known around the offices) has that kept it out on the sidewalk for upwards of 2 months. "You can tell it uses it's size both to remain less visable from a distance, yet can turn full faced to more immediate predators to appear larger and more threatening.
"The wild barcalounger is more flexible, easily able to be turned on its back, with its foot rest turned out (its mating behavior -- a pose assumed more often than one might think by the randy barcalounger) which, conicidentally, keeps it well hidden from the street behind parked cars."
Well, there you have it. The experts have spoken.
Odds and Ends
Just as Friday is partly spent planning the weekend, Monday is spent wrapping things up. Loading photos to online photo albums, cleaning up the home, going over the weekend post-mortem with friends and co-workers and crawling out from under the bed, figuring out where you are (and more importantly -- where are your underpants??) all have to be safely negotiated before returning to the productive nature of the work week.Here's are a few things we're cleaning out of our crawlspaces today: - "Stealth was a big bombaramba! What a surprise. The entertainment dorks says that maybe Action is over. Perhaps they should say that ill-conceived Actions films with b-level celebrities and bad trailers don't do well."
- New industry term surfaced. According to urbandictionary.com, "Jump the Couch" refers to the moment when someone does something so crazy you realize they're actually nuts. The term was invented when Tom Cruise jumped up on the couch on Oprah.
- "I believe in evolution. After all, my feet have changed within my lifetime."
- Wedding Crashers is going to be the new film all the guys in your office will quote ad naseum. ("Grow up, Count Chocula!")
- Now that Atkins is out of the picture, we're going to wip up a whole meal of spaghetti and garlic bread with bagels and cereal on the side.
Tomorrow we'll be all serious again -- we promise!
Hey! You Got some Alien in my Pottery!
As regular kuaptic readers know, we don't much cover celebrity news. There are hundreds of blogs across the internet who do that, who are we to say that we can do it better? But once in awhile, we'll come across a little celebrity silliness that's just too good not to share. Some may be familiar with Lance Henriksen from his turn as leather faced anti-hero, Frank Black on Millenium, a Chris Carter series from the mid-nineties, others from his work as the android in the Alien films, but before he was an actor he was a potter. (No, really!) He made an appearance at the most recent Comic Con in San Diego to talk about about his work and to hawk his pottery that depicts creatures from the Aliens and Predator films. Is he merely obsessed with career high points such as his performance in Alien vs. Predator, or is he just trying to make a quick buck? Either way, it's awesome!
