Deep Fried Kool-Aid

If something deep fried that shouldn’t be isn’t a big enough hint its time for the LA County Fair I don’t know what is. This years outrageous deep fried thingy is Kool-aid, and it isn’t as bad as you think it might be. Maybe it was coming off of this years Donut Summit that made it all the more palatable but those Kool-aid flavored donut holes are something to behold. Imagine if you will a cherry flavored donut hole that is dusted with a blend of powdered sugar and cherry Kool-aid and you get the flavor profile of this deep fried treat invented by Chicken Charlie.

Last night was the LA County fair hosted local media types to come and get a tasting of the fare offerings this year. We got to graze through a sampling grazing of the biggies at the fair starting with Bubba’s and Chicken Charlies and into food trucks such as Piaggio’s and Crepes Bonapartes. You have to make the jump to get the deets on what I grazed upon as well as on the fair itself.  Read the rest of this entry →

Courtesy incognito85 via the Blogging LA Flickr pool.

GTD this weekend: the music festival’s called off, but you still can catch the bands around town.  Also: Dolly Parton and pancakes, not necessarily at the same time.

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Arthur Adams at Sunset Junction '08. Courtesy our own Burns!

In the end, even Live Nation couldn’t use its deep pockets to bail a lil’ ol’ community-oriented street festival out: an apparent $100,000 loan from the conglomerate notwithstanding and a ridiculous attempt to raise more money from the community – on top of the $25 it already charges for entry – it looks like Sunset Junction is cancelled.  The organizers apparently failed to solidify their permitting situation before selling tickets to the public, renting space out to the vendors, and booking the bands:  according to the city, some $141,000 in fees were past due, and have been for the past year.  Like that time your parents forgot one too many times to pay the electricity bill, the Board of Public Works finally just turned off the festival’s lights this morning.

But, as this is the Festival That Just Won’t Die Gracefully, the organizer’s attorney told LA Weekly soon after the Board’s decision: “Were gonna go back and review our options.”  That said, the organizers have indicated that there will be refunds (a recent tweet: “Lets not lose our faith, web site is down & Tickets $ will be re inverse to all of fans who supported, please do not panic (vendors,fans etc)”), but still are decrying the injustice of it all on their Facebook page and in a press release.

In spite of the cancellation, there may be a few performances this weekend yet.  LA Weekly also reports that El Cid’s stage will remain open “because they never received – and thus never signed – official contracts from the festival.  They’re also opening another free stage for displaced bands at nearby sister club Los Globos.”

As two of the lucky few to score tickets to participate in the historic and quickly sold-out Paddle The LA River pilot program which is testing boating feasibility along a San Fernando Valley section of the waterway, my wife Susan and I showed up at Balboa Park in the Sepulveda Basin this past Sunday morning ready, willing and able to fulfill what for me has been a long-time dream — and to document the roughly two-mile journey from our launch point from beneath Balboa Boulevard to its end along the river’s banks between Burbank Boulevard and the Sepulveda Dam (GPS’d route is viewable here).

I won’t waste space waxing all word-heavy about what a wonderful time we had other than to say it was an absolutely unique and phenomenal opportunity and a program professionally presented and staffed that I hope will graduate from pilot status to one that becomes an annual and permanent recreation option.

If you’ve seen some of my past posts sharing my biking adventures along/in the river (or certain communal donut consumption events), you know I’m a bit of a timelapsing nut, and of course my plans were to chest mount my cam and similarly capture the length of Sunday’s paddle. Unfortunately, my principal camera’s battery all-too-quietly went kaput literally two-minutes after I started recording, so the only condensed clip I have to show for it is the following as Susan and me and the rest of our group are getting acclimated to our various flotation devices and the amazement of being in so serene and compelling a place so few have been before.

The good news is I didn’t come kayaking without also bearing my point-and-shoot, which I used to grab some stills and real-time video along the way, a few of which are available after the jump (or all together in this Flickr photoset) to give you a more well-rounded sense of what an awesome experience it was.

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"Bridge." Another fantastic photo by East of West LA, courtesy the Blogging LA Flickr pool.

This weekend: Grand performances by Phranc, gyoza chomping eating competitors, and Mr. Hedwig himself.

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View of Culver City & environs from the infamous steps of the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook

If, like me, you desire a small-town feel from our giant metro area every now and then, Culver City‘s Fiesta La Ballona, which takes place August 26-28, may be just the ticket. The Fiesta, which occupies Veteran’s Park at the intersection of Culver Blvd. and Overland Ave., is part cultural heritage festival and part small-town carnival.
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This is the last week to catch the Marco Brambilla exhibit at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Friends raved about the show, so I finally went to see it for myself this past weekend.

The Dark Lining is a collection of seven video installations created by the artist and filmmaker between 1999 and the present. The highlight of the exhibit is the final room of the gallery where two very large video collages are projected on opposite walls and in 3D.  Evolution (Megaplex) is a new work depicting the history of mankind and the 2008 Civilization (Megaplex) takes you on a trip through the afterlife. Both use images from hundreds of film clips and are a feast for the eyes. You might find yourself analyzing the symbolism, thinking about the history of the universe and discussing all things religious and apocalyptic. Whatever the case, I bet you’ll end up playing the same game my friends and I did, which is trying to name every last movie that provided the featured images.

The Dark Lining by Marco Brambilla runs through August 20, 2011 at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, which is located in Bergamot Station at 2525 Michigan Avenue in Santa Monica. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11am to 6pm. Suggested donation is $5, parking is free.

Courtesy Lord Jim via the Blogging LA Flickr pool.

It’s yet another beer-y weekend, with not one, but two, craft beer-focused events.  Also: grunions.

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The 99 Cent Chef, one of our celebrity judges, videoed the whole thing and crunched down a few hours into a nice documentary of the day.  Fun crowd, fun times.

More picks of the day in my flickr set.  If you have images of the day you want folks to see sound off in the comments with a link to them.

Joker Beethoven, Jesus, and Justin Bieber all showed up

How awesome was yesterday’s Blogging.la 2nd Annual Donut Summit? A picture is worth a thousand words, so you can look at the pics after the jump and judge for yourself.

We had enthusiastic attendees (I estimate at least 100). We had the creative Blogging.la crew, especially Alexandra and Lucinda whose production and organization were off the charts. We had expert celebrity judges. And we washed it all down with stellar Intelligentsia Coffee. Yeah, it was something special.
More pics after the jump

So a Chowhounder whose screename is “kauma” posted a topic earnestly titled “Donut Summit: Who’s Going?” yesterday. It and the ensuing short if surprisingly snarky and dismissive comment thread was discovered and passed on by one of my fellow B.la contributors.

When I checked it out I found the first commenter, “Mattapoisett in LA” who decided to get critical equating a few typos found in one of our posts as somehow indicative of a lack of organizing skills. His skills at spotting mistakes was promptly applauded by “kauma.” Then commenter “sushigirlie” responded to that saying it seemed “pretty telling that they couldn’t get the donuts shops to donate donuts.”

In defense of the awesomeness of tomorrow’s event and the triple-deckered phenomenality of everyone here at Blogging.la who’s chipped in and pitched in to put this thing on, I posted what I considered to be a fair and untrollish rebuttal, replete with wink at the end in the form of a typo-laden twist on a biblical reference, because, yeah, that’s how I roll. Sometimes.

Checking back awhile later to see if anyone responded I found something magical must have happened because my comment was nowhere to be found in the thread. A dubious poof: had it been a posting failure on my part or had someone in that thread closed to opposing points of view (and/or snarkily cliché’d twists on bible quotes) intentionally deleted it?

So I decided to re-post, trying to get as close as I could to my original thoughts. After it, too, successfully posted, I took a screencap (after the jump; click it for enhanced readability).

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Last year's Donut Summit.

This weekend: Donut Summit 2011.  Yaris and I are hauling all the way to Glendora to bring y’all Donut Man’s fresh peach donuts.  If that’s not reason enough to attend, I don’t what is.

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National Watergun Fight Poster click to embiggen

The poster says it all, National Water Gun Fight is Saturday July 30.  Should be fun and I doubt that any governing or policing body has sanctioned this event so do be forewarned.  4 hours seems like a long time for a water fight and nothing is said regarding where one can refill their gun when its been exhausted…pesky details.  Regardless break out your super-soaker and go to town downtown.

Deets:11AM-3PM July 30, 2011.  Pershing Square, Downtown Los Angeles Map HERE.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I love Miranda July. I’ve loved her since I saw Me And You And Everyone We Know.

I’ve read her book, No one belongs here more than you. I’m looking forward to seeing her Eleven Heavy Things installation at PDC. I read her blog, and I can hardly wait for her new movie, The Future, to screen in LA. And so, when I saw that she was appearing at Cinefamily to kick off their new show-and-tell series, I bought a ticket right away.  According to Cinefamily, their show-and-tell series

invites artists, filmmakers, musicians and other cultural heroes to divulge their deepest, darkest media obsessions by opening their closets, digging through their attic and plundering their garages to curate an evening of…whatever they want to share! From thrift store finds to late-night Tivo, from foreign film bootlegs to home movies, from the popular to the perverse –- all media will be presented live by the honored guests, as they take us on a personal tour of the material that has inspired them, delighted them, or just plain freaked them out.

If you know Miranda July’s work at all, you know that this is a slow pitch right to her. Read the rest of this entry →

"Everywhere 'Cheerio' came a cheer erupted in cheers." (Courtesy Google Translate)

The good news is, I won. The bad news is, I won. (Groan.)

Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it might be. I was definitely full, but still managed to go out and visit the Los Feliz Street Fair Tien tipped us off to in last week’s GTD This Weekend, which was a perfect way to walk off the beating I’d just given myself.

The short version is this: I showed up in Koreatown, mingled with the super-friendly variety of competitors and spectators from various parts of LA, I ate delicious Kalbi burgers until I could hardly tell that they were delicious anymore, and I won the contest in a 0.8 oz scale finish. Click through for the long (disgusting) version and some pics after the jump. Read the rest of this entry →