Don't be scared; it's just a puppet!

I know, things are tough all over, but this is a particularly sad story.

WHAT: Emergency Campaign to generate funds to save The Bob Baker Marionette Theater from Foreclosure

DEADLINE: $29,000 needed by December 3 or Bob Baker’s theater and home will be sold

For more that 60 years, puppeteer Bob Baker has brought delight and amazement to children of all ages with his innovative marionette performances. Through shows at his Bob Baker Marionette Theater, located just west of downtown LA, and his huge list of film and TV credits, he has entertained millions of people. Today Bob Baker’s puppet theater continues to operate on a daily basis with a crew of young puppeteers trained by the master.

But unless you help, this magical theater will disappear in a matter of weeks. Bob Baker, a proud man and a humble artisan, has no choice but to reach out to his public for a lifeline.

Two years ago, Bob Baker was the victim in an elaborate mortgage fraud operation bent on stealing his theater and home. This outrageous mortgage, written under threatening and deliberately misleading conditions, has left him owing ever increasing payments that are beyond his ability to pay.

This week the situation has reached crisis point, and Bob quietly reached out for help. Many talented people have responded to his call. A plan for improving the theater’s financial prospects is being formulated by the Valley Economic Development Center and many of Bob’s friends and fans are working behind the scenes to protect Bob and his theater and home from the sharks. The theater has enormous potential, Bob wants everyone to know that he is not going out of business.

But time is of the essence, and right now, Bob Baker needs your donations if he is going to be able to keep up with his mortgage payments long enough to get the loans modified.

As of today, Bob needs $23,000 for past due mortgage payments on the theater, and $6,000 for past due mortgage payments on his home. The deadline for payment in December 3, or the buildings will be sold and Bob and his thousands of puppets will be homeless.

If you have been entertained by Bob Baker’s Marionettes, if you love the spirit of old Hollywood creativity that he embodies, if you want to reach out and help someone wonderful who has been terribly wounded by the mortgage crisis and outright fraud, please open your heart and give to Bob Baker at this difficult time. The children of Los Angeles are not ready to be without this great entertainer, who has many more years of magic before him.

Tax deductible donations can be made to “The Academy of Puppetry and Allied Arts.” Send your check to 1345 West First Street, Los Angeles, CA 90026 or call 213-250-9995 to make a donation by credit card.

Puppeteer Bob Baker is available for interviews. Contact Richard at
bobbakerpuppetmaker@yahoo.com, or call 213-250-9995.

Get Felt!

FELT CLUB: HOLIDAY 2008
Sunday, NOVEMBER 16, 11am-7pm
@ Shrine Auditorium Expo Center
700 W. 32nd St., LA CA 90007
www.feltclub.com

No longer a monthly or even quarterly indulgence, we’ve got to get it all in in one day – which is kind of cooler because the annual FC is the cream of the craft crop.

What’s in store, you ask?

• Nearly 150 amazing vendors, offering the best in indie craft and design
• DIY Workshops with the Urban Craft Center & Quarry Books
• Embroidery 101 with Sublime Stitching‘s Jenny Hart
• Jewelry Workshop with French General‘s Kaari Meng
• Handmade Nation documentary sneak preview screenings
• Recycled Giftwrap Booth with ReForm School
• Special Musical Performance by Leslie Hall
• A snack bar offering sandwiches and salads, pastries and coffee, and a full bar!
• Music Provided by DJ Lance Rock (Yo Gabba Gabba), Dirty Robot & Mr. Cocoon
• Hosted by three-time Martha Stewart guest, L.A. “histotainer” Charles Phoenix!!!

PLUS: Swag bags for the first 250 visitors, door prizes, book signings & more!

Admission is free for kids 13 and under, for everyone else they’re asking a $5 donation at the door. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Handmade Nation , the forthcoming documentary film chronicling the rise of art, craft, and design.

The balcony will also be hosting a second, separate event, Swap-O-Rama-Rama , a recycled clothing extravaganza!

Sean Bonner (our fearless leader) and Tara Brown (fearless leader-adjacent) were married yesterday. Jason DeFillippo took some amazing pictures of the ceremony, including this one.

Congratulations, you two!

So many choices out there for minding the date – but there’s only ONE Barracuda Girl 2009 Pin-Up Calendar!

These are printed in an extremely small run, so be sweet and click this link to order one.

Days and months are in English, Hawaiian, Japanese, French, German and Spanish with many international holidays, plus holidays invented solely for the benefit of Barracuda Readers!

$12.95 and free domestic shipping – wow!

UPDATED BELOW: Looks like the L.A. Times has begun laying off more journalists, as we mentioned it would a few weeks ago.

Blogger Veronique deTurenne Twittered, posted at her HereinMalibu blog at LAObserved, and then just now posted something at the Times blog. In the event the editorial higher-ups yank the post later today in a fit of revisionism, the text follows the jump here. Read the rest of this entry →

BarCampLA 6 is this weekend.  Last minute notice, I know.  I had planned on posting this yesterday, but life & work got in the way.  So here’s some tidbits and hopefully, I can make it out there to meet you!

What is BarCampLA?

BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

All attendees should be prepared to give a demo, run a session, or help with one. All presentations are scheduled the day they happen. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the wall.

Presenters are responsible for making sure that notes/slides/audio/video of their presentations are published on the web for the benefit of all and those who can’t be present.

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.

BarCampLA will be held in Santa Monica and begins at 11am.

Malaho/Causecast HQ
902 Colorado Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90401 [Google Maps]

From the BCLA blog:

Slots for sessions (45 minute talks with a 15 minute passing period) will be open to fill then, and we want you to get to know where everything is laid out in the space. Also, we have a crazy delicious (and totally free) lunch planned for Saturday. We’re planning to eat and do intros (no talking with your mouth full, please) as people finish getting their grub on then roll promptly into sessions. So please get there early, enjoy the food and the company and help us get started on time.

The schedule is as follows:

Saturday October 25, 2008

• 11:00am – Show up, drink coffee (5 Gallons o’ Peets coming), meet your fellow campers, and get your session on the wall.
• 12:00 pm – Lunch is served. Grab some food and head into the main hall for quick intros and opening remarks. get your session on the wall if you haven’t yet.
• 1:00 pm to 1:45 pm – Sessions
• 2:00 pm to 2:45 pm – Sessions
• 3:00 pm to 3:45 pm – Sessions
• Snack
• 4:00 pm to 4:45 pm – Sessions
• 5:00 pm to 5:45 pm – Sessions
• 6:00 pm to 6:45 pm – Sessions
• 7:00 pm – Dinner and Drinks (we have a keg and some other refreshments donated, you are welcome to bring more)
• 8:30 pm to 10:00 pm BarCamp After-Hours
• 8:30 pm Acoustic Music Jam – Douglas E. Welch

Sunday October 26, 2008

• 10:00 am – Roll in and have coffee and breakfast with us
• 11:00 am to 11:45 am – Sessions
• 12:00 pm to 12:45 pm – Sessions
• 1:00 pm – Lunch
• 2:00 pm to 2:45 pm – Sessions
• 3:00 pm to 3:45 pm – Sessions
• 4:00 pm to 4:45 pm – Sessions
• 5:00 pm – Closing Remarks
• 5:30 pm – Clean up and Tear Down (This goes really fast if we have lots of help, so please stay for 15-20 mins, makes a huge difference for us)

Hope to see you there!

This past weekend, I had to go buy a new tennis racquet for Sunday.  We packed the family in the car and headed over to Westfield Shoppingtown Mall (not a generic name at all) to shop at Sports Chalet.  Now, I’m not a fan of shopping in general and malls, specifically, but it was such a nice day, the last thing I expected was to spend 15 minutes driving around looking for parking.  We eventually found a space close to Baldwin Ave. and hiked over to & through the mall to get my racquet.

After spending 20 minutes there, I had to get out.  The lightbulb went off.  The Arboretum is just down the street from the mall.  Imagine my chagrin when I pulled into the parking lot and immediately found parking.  While there were many people there, we kept seeing the same 20 or so people and the other people were there for a wedding.  Read the rest of this entry →

Barely two weeks left to go before this nation decides who should replace the worst president in U.S. history, and L.A.’s top police officer throws an ideological bomb into the room:

Al Quaeda may be planning a terrorist attack to somehow influence the U.S. elections, LAPD Chief William Bratton and co-author R.P. Eddy warned today in an op-ed in the New York Daily News … Read the rest of this entry →

Inspired by a random comment I made in a blog post a few weeks ago, the LA Metblog team decided to plan some Classic Eats Evenings around Los Angeles. The first one is scheduled for Saturday, November 8.

What’s the big idea? Many of us have heard of famous (or infamous) places to eat or drink around LA but have not been to them all. We want to go to them all and we want you to join us.  We have planned the first evening but after that we want your input and ideas. We’ll choose the date, then ask you to suggest places, then we’ll have a vote for each successive evening. Many more details will come along in further posts. For now, save the date on November 8.

The evening will start off at Clifton’s Cafeteria at 5:30pm (they close at 7:30) and then we will meander over to the Bona Vista Lounge in the Bonaventure Hotel for some after dinner drinks. The Bona Vista, in case you didn’t know, revolves 360 degrees in about an hour. That’s some old school Lounge action with a great view.

Looking forward to meeting those of you who didn’t come to walk Western with Will and I.

The Bona Vista Lounge

Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens

The 9th Annual Japanese Food Festival is drawing near.  October 25th, is the day to celebrate the best in local Japanese cuisine.  The all-you-can-eat experience is one of the best ways to be introduced to Japanese cuisine that you may have missed out on if you only eat at sushi restaurants.

Attendees will see a tremendous array of Japanese foods and beverages including sushi, sashimi, yakitori, tempura, curry, noodles, beer, sake, shochu, tea, and much more! Please be sure to bring your picture ID with you for alcohol tasting. Exhibitors will be presenting their finest products and assisting you enjoy Japanese foods and cultures more than your have ever experienced before. You may discover a new taste of genuine Japanese foods or adventure something new during this event.

There is also entertainment. In the previous years we watched various dancers, sumo exhibitions and taiko drummers. It’s a great way to spend a fall afternoon, drinking sake and eating fresh-made yakitori in the gardens of the Kyoto Grand Hotel.

The Japanese Food Festival is Oct. 25th, 11am – 3pm.  You can order your tickets online (deadline Oct.22), or purchase them at the hotel.

Get your moleskin ready! (I said MOLEskin. Sheesh.)

Tomorrow is the day. At 6:30 am, Will and I will be at Fern Dell Park just near where Los Feliz Blvd and Western meet. At 7 am SHARP, we will be on our way. We would love it if you even join us just for a few blocks of sunrise coffee chat as we start off on our 26 (or 28) mile sojourn to the sea.

Read the post with comments from earlier in the week for more details and great tips from Will and others. Follow along on Will’s Twitter feed tomorrow to keep up from afar. I’m sure there will be many “ICME” type posts in the following days from both of us.

If you are walking with us tomorrow, my best piece of advice is HYDRATE. Drink lots and lots of water today, it will help a lot tomorrow.

Off to charge my phone and my camera and pack my advil, power bars and water bottle.

Our friend Darleene at AAJA is helping to get the first ever team of bloggers to compete in the Annual AAJA Trivia Bowl… Team LA.Metblogs.com!

Hey, that’s us!

Trivia Bowl is an ultra-competitive, team quiz-style event that draws hundreds of people including journalists, lawyers, and other members of the Asian American community to go through 5 rounds of 20 trivia questions. Most of the questions, but not all, have some element of “current events” or “news” to it.

The five categories are:
1. Current Events
2. History & Geography
3. Arts & Entertainment
4. Science & Literature
5. Sports & “California Living”

Now normally, the competitors are journalists and lawyers (and also a high school decathlon team, too), but now the bloggers are getting in the fray.

We already have a team of 8 and are looking for 4 more people to round out our team!

Do you want to join our team and test your trivia chops with the best of them???

Start Time: Friday, October 17 at 6:00pm
End Time: Friday, October 17 at 10:00pm
Where: ABC7 Broadcast Center (Glendale)

Free food catered by Wahoo’s Fish Taco!

You must be: a reader of LA.Metblogs.com and be able to commit to arriving on time at the event.

To see more details: http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=30105322035

If you’d like to be part of this historic team, please leave a comment or email me at jozjozjoz (aaaat) gmail (doot) com by Monday, October 13.

Photo courtesy: Darleeneisms

Equality California and Love Honor Cherish are having a fund-raiser this Sunday October 12th aimed at defeating the anti-gay Proposition 8, a ballot measure this November that, if it were to pass, would deny same sex couples the right to marry in California by actually writing discrimination and bigotry into the California constitution.

The event will happen at the Mondrian Hotel’s Skybar in West Hollywood on Sunday from 6 PM to 9 PM. Tickets can be had for $100 and 100% of the ticket price goes to defeating Prop 8 on November 4th.

Money is urgently needed NOW. “Religious” conservative-backed Prop 8 supporters have far surpassed Equality California and other opponents of Prop 8 in fund-raising, pouring it into TV ads filled with outright lies and distortions aimed at appealing to ignorance and bigotry. ( Take a look at one of the ads.)

You can buy tickets here. And you can download a PDF of the invite here and see the long list of Angelenos, celebrated (you know, celebrities) and otherwise, who will be there.

If it’s at all within your means, it is a very worthwhile cause. I’m not saying everyone can afford it; but if you can afford $200 jeans and a $300 iPhone, then you can afford a donation to fight bigotry in California.

If a C-note is outside your budget, please give whatever you can at Equality California’s site or at No On Prop 8. We can’t allow victory to embolden backward zealots.

But whatever you do, VOTE NO on Prop 8 on November 4th.

Proposition 8 was placed on the ballot by the anti-gay “Protect Marriage” group, an affiliation of so called “religious” conservatives which claims to be seeking to “restore marriage” and “protect children,” according to the scant information on their web site explaining who they are. (There is no “about” link. Pretty telling, no?)

Their real intent is to deny basic rights to gay people. Marriage and children have nothing to do with the goal of these bigots.

Equality California is a civil rights organization that advocates for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in California.

Love, Honor and Cherish is an independent, grassroots organization whose purpose is to defeat Proposition 8.

Standing up to bigots isn’t always cheap or easy (like me.) I’ll be there with the boyfriend in tow. Look for us and say “hello.” (He’s the cute redhead; I’m the silver-haired Slavic fox.)

Vote NO on Prop 8 Gala; Sunday, October 12, 2008, 6 to 10 p.m.; Skybar, Mondrian Hotel, 8440 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. Tickets $100.

Philippe’s, which has been family owned and operated since 1927, is celebrating its centennial tonight. The restaurant will be celebrating by serving up their famous french dip sandwiches for only 10 cents, along with 5 cent coffee… but only until 8pm tonight!

They estimate that they’ll sell 6,000 sandwiches today. Expect long lines, so you might still have time to get your butt over there.

Random Facts:

• 1,000 lbs of meat is used each day = 300,000 lbs per year

• 3,000-4,000 sandwiches served daily

• 40 gallons of mustard is consumed weekly

h/t: Christina O at Yelp

flyer about tonight's meeting

Do you hate those obnoxious digital billboards as much as I do?

Seeing them on Sunset Boulevard is kind of Bladerunner and okay, but seeing them pop up in neighborhoods is really disgusting to me.

And after being hammered daily with all this Flex Your Power/Reduce Your Carbon Footprint bullshit, am I the only one who’s outraged by this vulgar and wasteful new trend? You tell me to leave the bathroom light off when I pee but you’re running a million candle-power billboard 24/7?

Residents of Silver Lake MAY have the chance to get rid of the eyesore on Silver Lake Blvd. by attending a City Council meeting TONIGHT at 7pm at the Michetorena School on Sunset. Sorry for the short notice but I only just now saw the flyer.

You can also call or email Eric Garcetti’s office (323-957-4500), not that I have any idea how much good that will do.

Please do what you can though – this digital billboard trend needs to be stopped.