Marky Ramone getting some California Sun

East Coast vs. West Coast rivals laid down their Glocks and picked up spoons last Saturday, as Marky Ramone, former drummer of the Ramones, flew in from Brooklyn to the Venice Whole Foods to promote his new pasta sauce. The sauce is called Marky Ramone’s Brooklyn’s Own Pasta Sauce, a fittingly complicated name from someone whose job it was to keep time for the rapid Ramones.

Marky sat down while a small line formed to have him autograph each purchased jar (including smiley faces on the lid and bottom). The sauce sells for $6.99 per jar, which isn’t bad considering (a) it’s Whole Foods; (b) Rao’s sauce sells for $8.99 a jar there, and what band was he ever in?; and (c) you could probably sell your autographed jar for quite a bit more on eBay. There were a couple of tasting stations nearby, and this former New Yorker can attest that the sauce is excellent, with a simple list of ingredients, ending with the words “Drums not included.”

Marky was very friendly, down-to-earth, and happy to talk to each of us for as long as we wanted. In fact, there was a young boy on line in front of us who told us that he plays the drums (yes, a little drummer boy), and who had dragged his mom there so he could meet Marky Ramone. Marky engaged the boy in conversation for a few minutes. Who knows, perhaps the boy will become a famous drummer and this cycle will repeat itself in 30 or 40 years.

Bizarre? Sure, but that’s what I call rock ‘n roll.

Chances are, you were a fan of Jane Lynch before she was on Glee, even if you didn’t know her by name.  She has, after all, been in literally hundreds of television shows (Fraiser, NewsRadio, Friends, The X-Files), movies (The Fugitive, Best in Show, Talladega Nights), commercials, parodies, web series, cartoons, and so on and so on and so on, paying her dues for some two decades before finally – finally – earning the recognition she deserves in Glee.  Lynch just published a memoir, Happy Accidents, that follows her journey from thespian to lesbian to comedienne; ultimately, it’s a life lesson on trusting yourself, your decisions, and your life path.  Inspirational, right?

On Sunday, Live Talks LA hosts Lynch in conversation with her former Party Down co-star Adam Scott at 7pm at Club Nokia downtown.  And we have tickets to give away!  To win, leave a comment with your favorite Jane Lynch role.  I’ll choose a winner at random on Thursday morning.  Good luck!!

How can you not trust a hot dog with a halo??

Since 1949, Papoo’s Hot Dog Show has been filling the tummies of Toluca Lake residents and visitors with tasty hamburgers, sandwiches, fries and of course….hot dogs. Countless movie and TV stars have been regulars over the years. Though the owners and recipes have changed, it has always remained a great hole-in-the-wall place for some really good grub. Well today, Sunday August 28, 2011 marks the end of 62 years of Papoo’s Hot Dog Show.

Hot Dog Show holds a special place in my heart as I’ve been going there since….well before I was born! My mom worked there when she was 16, her initials STILL carved into the counter. In fact, I only just found out that my parents met there. If it weren’t for the Hot Dog Show, I wouldn’t exist! Having lived only 1 block away for most of my life, I can remember riding my scooter or bicycle up there on a regular basis. I always ordered 2 plain dogs with ketchup, fries and a Dr. Pepper. While I would wait for my food I would play either Galaga or Ms. Pac Man with the “WOOZ” (upside down “ZOOM”) button. With that “WOOZ” button I could fly through to the banana stage in about 4 minutes flat.

I’ll miss you Hot Dog Show and I’m not looking forward to the rumored Italian restaurant taking your place. At least we still have Dale’s Jr. Money Tree Hampton’s IHOP Copper Penny Bob’s!

Like all gigantic, out of control events, SUPERBALL kind of reached its peak and when the dudes behind it got busy with life, it went away for a while.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and out of the ashes of SUPERBALL came … TwentyWonder! A Carnival of the Mind, and a great cause too.

Plus, TwentyWonder just got featured on GoldStar. Discounted tickets are now $20 for a limited time. Jump on it, and then alert your friends!

Tickets: http://www.goldstar.com/today/los-angeles/2011/7/4

This Saturday! July 9th! From 6pm to Midnight!

21 and older with ID

VIP Tix include a souvenir medallion – very cool!

(hope this image cures the JumboTron effect – was posting from the phone)

The handmade sign on the front door of mobster James “Whitey” Bulger‘s former home on 3rd Street in Santa Monica reads: “Go Away. People Live Here”. That’s the message I’d like to send to mobsters in Los Angeles and across the country. But they seem to keep popping up near where I live, or vice versa.

Bulger’s apartment in the Princess Eugenia building (3 blocks from palisades overlooking the beach and rent-controlled at $ 1,145 per month) was in the same neighborhood as a family member of mine. I walk her dogs in that neighborhood every week. For all I know, the dogs have sniffed Whitey Bulger’s legs. I walked by the Princess Eugenia with the dogs again yesterday, and a bunch of people were milling about in front, including one man with two copies of “Hitman”, a just-released book about Bulger’s Boston crew (conspiracy theorists, are you listening?) that he had purchased down the street at Barnes and Noble on the Third Street Promenade.

Back in the late 80s, I lived in Boston, where I first heard about Whitey Bulger. I remember thinking, only in Boston could the (allegedly) most notorious, most vicious mobster have a brother who was a very prominent local politician, a state Senator and then president of the  Massachusetts Senate.

Before Boston, I grew up in the New York City suburbs, where I knew some (allegedly) “connected” guys and their wives, sons, and daughters. Contrary to the stereotypes and the portrayals in movies and on tv, including Jack Nicholson‘s psycopathic Bulger-based Frank Costello in the above clip from “The Departed” (warning: NSFW language), these folks weren’t necessarily doing violence. Often, if you read the indictments, they operated like the OPEC cartel, allegedly controlling particular industries or unions, fixing prices, doling out contracts, and skimming profits.

But even if you are not a direct victim of Whitey Bulger (allegedly) or other mobsters, they’re not exactly harmless entertainment. In many cases, their activities cause prices of goods and services, such as building construction, to be higher than they would be in the free market. In New York, it is called the “Mafia Tax”. And, needless to say, these folks don’t pay too many taxes on their ill-gotten gains. “This ain’t reality tv”, indeed. Only now there is a reality tv show called “Mob Wives”, but I’m not watching.

Instead, I’m glad Whitey Bulger was apprehended and sent back to Boston, and I would be happy if the rest of the mobsters would just go away. Because people live here.

I asked him if there was any hope of restoring the Ed Ruscha mural that had been despicably painted out in 2006 (and for which he ultimately settled a lawsuit in 2008 for a reported $1.1 million). He said he hoped for its return but that it would be put up in a different location.

The one mural of his also unceremoniously destroyed whose return I’ve long hoped for is his two-story cool-as-ice-blue Steve McQueen Monument, painted the same year as the one above.

I first found it during the inaugural LA Marathon Bike Tour in 1995 when I looked up while pedaling hard south on Union Avenue approaching 12th Street and did a double-take at something so awesome and unexpected. Sometime around 2001, it was accidentally painted out and I’ve mourned its loss since.

So when I asked if it might ever be revived you can perhaps understand how ecstatic I became when he matter-of-factly told me that it was already back and only needed a “day or two more” until it was complete.

So of course, after enjoying the thrilltastic rollercoasticiousness that is “Super 8″ at the Regal Cinemas this morning, Susan and I drove over to Union and 12th and boy was Steve’s brand new piercing gaze (as seen at right) a site for sore eyes (click to enlargify).

The inimitable Ori (aka Ashley Blue aka GIRLVERT aka Oriana Small) has written a memoir that will twist your brain better than any Terence Malick movie ever could.

And guess what? She’s reading excerpts (and doing who knows what else) tonight at Largo at the Coronet!

Not sure if scanning the doo-dah in this image will work or not but do please find a way to attend. Knowing what I know, you’ll be talking about this for a while.

He’s talking about Hollywood screenwriter Irv Brecher and I’m guessing a lot of this stuff is from his great book, The Wicked Wit of the West.

You should check it out -

(Main page for “The Story” is here.)

((ooh, so linky! I’m actually writing a post NOT from my phone ~))

Whether there’s an unsaid rule against tweeting and whatnot, I don’t know, because I’ve never been to the Chateau – my LA moments involve being stuck in traffic – but what say you?  How do you even enforce a rule like that?  If celebrities and marginally famous people and not-famous people can’t have a Twitter-free moment at the Chateau, where will they go?  Shouldn’t people over the age of 10 try to act not-crazy in public places anyway, because Twitter or not, they will be judged and ridiculed and that’s really the price you pay for acting like so in front of others?  So many ethical questions.

– the reality show celebrity/mom telling her little kids about the “lady with a face like plastic”;

– the actor from “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”;

– the music producer-looking guy with the very long grey pouffy hair and dark sunglasses (yeah, that guy);

– the flight attendant asking you if you’re a particular actor, and then threatening to check the passenger manifest when you say “no”; and

– the Lady with the Face like Plastic.  It really was, and I guess I’m really back home.