I’ve posted in the past about my encounters with stray animals being on the increase across the city, and how I elected to carry a ziplock full of kibble when — not if — I find myself biking past an abandoned dog. Sadly my attempts to provide these discarded creatures with something as trivial as a snack are almost always rejected because the animals are either afraid or disoriented or hurt or because I’m just a scary looking dude in my black helmet, shades and clickity-clackity bike shoes. Whatever the reason, it is heartbreaking and I usually end up depositing the food and clearing the area in the hope that they might come back and get it later.

Disappointment aside, I refill the empty baggy the first chance I get because it’s not about getting love, it’s about reaching out with some. But still, there are those rare occasions when I find myself recharged from being on the receiving end of some canine appreciation, such as with today’s streetworn pit bull found scrounging the gutter for some food on Jefferson Boulevard just west of Redondo Boulevard:

More after the jump.

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Okay, so the headline is only half true.

Blogger Fightin’ Mad Mary writes that she took a co-worker, a dead ringer for Miley Cyrus, to Hollywood Blvd. over the new Hannah Montana movie’s opening weekend. She was immediately welcomed into the inner circle of other costumed characters, complimented by Superman, given tips by Spider-Man on how to get tips, and learned:

Finding a place to hang out as a character is sort of like finding a spot on the beach to claim for the day. You don’t want to be too close to the other characters, so you just kind of find a spot that feels right.

Good advice. Before hitting the Chinese Theatre side of the street, however, they were encountered by less friendly staff at the El Capitan Theatre:

We started on the side of the street in front of the El Capitan theater. Security came out and like a mad hornet they wouldn’t stop buzzing around us until we crossed the street. They claim that the sidewalk in front of the theater is private property and they would call the cops because we were trespassing. That’s a pretty ridiculous claim if you ask me, a public sidewalk is “private” property??? It wasn’t worth arguing with the security guy since the bigger crowd was across the street so we left without incident. 

Mary didn’t disclose how much money Miley made that day, but I’m more curious to know how much the El Capitan Theatre has to pay to own a public sidewalk?

The first time I heard “Straight Outta Compton” was one day after highschool in late ’88. One of my friends who had a car was giving me a ride home from school in his van. He was spared the embarrassment of driving a van because he was also one of my friends who engaged in, let’s say less than legal methods of obtaining items, and this van had one of the most insane sound systems I’ve ever heard to this day. Of course what the hell did I really know about sound systems, it had giant speakers, lots of blinky lights and was loud as hell.

It instantly clicked with me and I got a copy and listened to it hundreds of times over the next weeks and still I’d doubt if a month has gone by since where I haven’t listened to at least one of the songs off that album. There have been lengthy diatribes written about the importance of this album and how it changed hip hop and basically gave birth to the gangster rap sub-genre, but for me it was the first song on the album of the same name that kicked down the doors of my imagination that day and and left me dreaming of a world very different, but yet very much the same. Compton was about as far away from Bradenton as you could get, but something about Ice Cube’s lyrics and Eazy-E’s delivery came across like a friend relaying a story to me. It was scary but at the same time exciting. It was almost more like reporting than music. And then I saw the video… Read the rest of this entry →

Artisan cheese rockers the Hot Knives prep their winning sammiches, 2008.

The 1st 7th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational is two weekends from now. Is your sammy ready for the smackdown?

Many enter. Few leave. Well, ok, everyone leaves but not everyone wins. I’ve compiled a few tips for those interested in entering this bracing competition. I’ve seen enough of these wild cheesy orgies to know what works & what doesn’t.

Register your sandwich here, and click through for the tips…I’m also hoping other folks will share tips in the comments. Wanna go without competing? Great! They’ll announce the location shortly.

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Click on the photo to see great big eyeballs!

In spite of my extreme eyeball aversion, I’ve been fascinated by this Echo Park billboard located on Glendale Boulevard just north of Alvarado. I think it speaks for itself. I did call the number at the bottom, which is for Lamar Advertising. So, if you want to rent this space, you have the contact info.

If you didn’t know before, I’m an unrepentant fan of a whole ark of creatures people are predisposed to despise. Be it coyotes, vultures, hyenas, potato bugs, opossums… among the legions of their haters I stand loud and proud with a defender’s respect and fascination.

And that goes double for members of the highly aggressive, terrifically agile and ridiculously fearless family of arachnids known commonly as jumping spiders. So despite being late to work this morning, when I went outside to give our tortoise Buster her breakfast and passed this fine specimen dangling from the backyard bouganvilea by a self-spun tether I had to grab the cam and go macrotastic on it (non-arachniphobes click to enormify):

The coolest thing was this jumper wasn’t just playing tree ornament for nothing. It was actually employing a hunting tactic far less familiar to me than the far more typical stalk-and-pounce method I’d long known them for. Ignoring my intrusions, this spider hung there twisting in the light breeze, occasionally stretching its eight legs and patiently waiting for me to leave and for something winged to come within its deadly reach.

Via @LATimesCityDesk.  Also of atrociously bad hair.

OK, so Compton isn’t actually Los Angeles, but then neither is Beverly Hills which is widely featured in other songs of this series. Perhaps the series title refers to the county rather than the city. In any case, there is a striking lacuna of songs south of I-10, let alone south of I-105.  And South Central is even in the city proper.

Police brutality and police corruption is certainly not a distinguishing feature of Los Angeles, per se.  Other American, and worldwide, cities have more than their share of it.  But few other places can match the breadth, scope, or duration of persistent abuse, and its incendiary results, that our city has managed, from the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots, to the 1965 Watts Riots, to the 1992 Rodney King uprising, to the long-standing, systematically brutal Rampart Division, to the 2007 Police riot in McArthur park.  Sure, Hollywood’s culture industry is venal, and the plastic people of Melrose and Ventura Avenues are trite and foolish; but it is the century long culture of official violence that has shaped the city more fundamentally.

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LACMA’s Pavilion for Japanese Art opened in 1988 and has always had a curious relationship with the rest of the museum’s campus. Set at the eastern edge of the LACMA complex, it’s the furthest point from the new Broad Museum as is possible, in distance as well as temperament. While the Broad oozes late 20th century ego and brash, artist-as-star iconoclasm, the Japanese Pavilion is a humble setting that allows for nuance and subtlety; it honors the viewer as much as the artist.

Designed by architect Bruce Goff, it is a weird fusion of Art Deco and early 1980s shopping mall with a nod to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in NYC. A clear plexiglass-walled catwalk spirals up through the interior atrium to different levels of seemingly secluded small galleries where examples from the Edo, Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods, as well as more recent pieces, are displayed in small alcove settings. The top level has sculpture, ceramics and decorative objects in an open space with a high ceiling, the center of which has an opening letting in natural light. The interior perimeter is lined with Shoji screens that bathe the interior in soft diffused light.

On Easter Sunday, the entire building seemed like the quietest. most peaceful place in Los Angeles.

Interior photos: CP; exterior photo: Chad K/Wikipedia Commons

Classic Eats #5 is coming up quick – Saturday May 2. I will put a poll up in a day or two so the voting can commence. I’m feeling a bit Cinco De Mayo so perhaps Lucy’s El Adobe or El Cholo will win?  But I can’t command the will of the people.  

Please also don’t forget to mark your calendars for the Hot Dog Death March on June 13th. This is a Classic Eats Special Event and it’s going to be huge. Just like my belly will be after the event!

As a kid growing up in the landlocked mid-west the whole “surfer” thing was mystifying and amazing at once.  Jan and Dean were right at the start of the whole “surfer sound” in LA while attending University High.  

It was the Beach Boys that made this uniquely LA sound a world wide phenomenona.  It was one more thing to put LA on the world map in the 1960′s.  Fun songs, fun melody and you could cruise all day to the tunes.

I’ve always loved the “Little Old Lady” for the visuals of the lyrics.  Of course everyone knew a “little old lady racer” type as made famous in “Little Old Lady from Pasadena”.  My Aunt was one, we tease my mother that she’s another (ask her to powerslide the Town Car into a garage sale sometime if you think I’m kidding).  But I digress.  Jan and Dean issued the first version of “Little Old Lady from Pasadena” in 1964 and the Beach Boys played it many years later as part of a superbowl promo that gave it a whole new audience and popularity.  (To see that one you need to make the jump). Read the rest of this entry →

Victory Or Death!

As you’ve been voting for each Classic Eats event, the Hot Dog Death March has come a tantalizing 2nd or 3rd in each poll. You know you want it, but are just a little bit afraid of it.

Man up people! No more pussyfooting around!

We are going to make this happen: the Hot Dog Death March is now a stand alone event.

In the midst of remodeling/renovation of our 102-year-old Silver Lake craftsman, my wife and I were tasked yesterday with clearing out the dungeon basement to make room for work and machinery that will ultimately be oh-so-glorious central air and heating.

During the course of that fun and dust-choked chore, I happened upon a crumpled-up and very yellowed section of newspaper wedged for reasons unknown between a support beam and the concrete floor of the home’s original front porch. Excavating it tore the aging classified pages up, but afterward I found a fragment that showed it was the Los Angeles Times of Sunday,  Sepember 2, 1945 and later on I sat down with my camera on macro and snapped some of the amazing real estate ads, along with some interesting employment opps, as well as the news that famed conductor Leopold Stokowsi would be twirling the baton that evening at the Hollywood Bowl joined by legendary violinist Isaac Stern in a program of Wagner, Tchaikovsky and more:

Anyway, if you’re in need of a diversion this Monday that’ll take you back 68 63 years or so to the Los Angeles of a couple months after the end of World War II, feel free to browse my Flickr photoset.

Around 8PM there was a shooting at 1101 Ocean Front Walk and right now several blocks around there are taped off and around 15 officers still there. According to the police on scene and a few residents of the area one vendor shot another and the victim is in critical condition and probably won’t live. Witnesses said police officers handcuffed one “scraggly druggy homelessy looking guy in his 20″ about an hour ago and drove him off. There’s no official word about what the dispute was over but according to the vendors and residents I spoke with there’s been a fairly noticable uptick in violent crime over the past month or two with people suspecting the economy has something to do with it and most altercations between vendors are cash related. One resident told me they think it’s on the rise because these are “people on the edge getting pushed over edge.”

While many of the vendors are legit, there’s also a pretty widely known drug dealing atmosphere as well which has been growing and leading to the problems. One vendor said “our days are numbered because they (authorities) will shut vending down altogether if crackheads/violence continues.” On the positive side people who live nearby said police were on the scene right away said they know about the problems and there’s a fairly major crackdown underway. That’s all the info I have at the moment, lots of news crews around now too so I’m sure there will be more details soon.

Update: According to KTLA the suspect is still at large.

Mustache, goatees, you name it. Click for full details.

The first time I saw a girl with a mustache was at a great club in San Francisco called TrannyShack (before certain peoples get their panties in a bunch, this was actually the name of the club, not something I made up).  Tonight, rekindle drag king memories with Tits N Stache, a fundraiser for LifeCycle at the Airliner in Lincoln Heights.  There will be girls, mustaches, burlesque performances by troupes likely more interesting than the stuff they have over at The Edison, and DJs spinning all night.  Festivities start at 9pm, and, sorry kiddies, it’s 18 and over.  Isn’t it a school night anyway?

Tits N Stache
Airliner
2419 N. Broadway