Blogging leads one on many adventures, Brett Lemick and Ross Everett of Los Angeles are about to partake on a new one.  Fresh off  digitour that they served as hosts, these Los Angelenos are 1 of 6 Teams that will race from L.A. to New York (save your boos) and back home again in a NBC reality show that starts March 31st.  The show will pit the teams in challenges as they road trip across the country.  The teams will have home audience fans that will help them with their challenges.  In the end the winning team and one of their “fans” will win a new 2013 Ford Escape.

As a couple of YouTubers they have already vlogged as much as they can about the show in the opening video in this post.  They are looking forward to the trip and have been promised by the producers that they will be “terrified” by the tasks they will need to complete along the way.  Brett and Ross did their due diligence in preparing for this race.  They watched last years Focus Rally that included teams of Los Angelenos for clues as to what sort of challenges they can expect.  To even better hedge their chances they have been working with personal trainers to be in best shape possible for those challenges. Read the rest of this entry →

Click to embiggen..its the gallery invitation

This should be interesting.  7 local news photographers, 1 photographer/artist and one Disney artist are getting together to put on a show and reception this Saturday night.

Two of my favorite artists will be there.  Stephen Coleman a photographer and the Disney Artist, Rick Kess…pretty much ensures I’ll be in attendance.  Free food and booze doesn’t hurt either…sorta stimulating all your senses at once.

Deets: Saturday 7PM – 10PM, Paint n Play Art Studio and Art Gallery,  418 S Myrtle Avenue, Monrovia CA 91016  MAP HERE.

In the waning months of the last year of the last century spent toiling as the editor of a weekly newspaper in Pasadena a press packet landed on my desk detailing an exhibit at the Mendenhall Gallery and from it I discovered and become enthralled with the art of Richard Bunkall, a resident of the city and long-time instructor at Arts Center College of Design.

Little more than a week later, at the age of 45, Bunkall died after a five-year struggle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. In shock as I read the perfunctory obituary in the Pasadena Star-News, I mourned his passing somewhat selfishly in that I’d just found his heroic art. As such I wanted both to know more and share that with my readers, and thanks to the grace of his widow Sally during what had to be such a difficult time, she allowed myself and writer Kathleen August to intrude upon the Bunkall home, and access his studio, where he created his amazing works, and where surrounded by family and friends he passed in May 1999.

It was a deeply emotional experience and privilege, to say the least.

Q&A: Curator Peter Frank (center) is flanked by artists Kenton Nelson (left) and Ray Turner (right) as they discuss Bunkall's life and his art.

It was equally emotional to visit the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) last night for a standing-room-only event surrounded by some of his most profound and moving creations, to remember the man and his art and to celebrate the launch of a new book devoted to both, the first publication of the artist’s remarkable 25-year career as a painter and sculptor.

If this is your first time hearing about Richard Bunkall or it’s been a long time since you last thought about him, I’d encourage you to make a trip out to the PMCA to introduce or reacquaint yourself with his remarkable imagery before the exhibit, “Richard Bunkall: A Portrait” closes April 22.

Where: Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 E. Union Street, Pasadena, 91101
When: Wednesday – Sunday, 12 – 5 p.m., through April 22.
Cost: $7 adults; $5 seniors and students; free the first Friday of the month

The 2012 edition of my Watts Happening Ride took place this past picture-perfect Saturday, and it was my complete pleasure to share the following landmark people, places and events I’ve discovered there with the 28 cyclists who joined me:

1. The last residence of jazz great Jelly Roll Morton
2. The childhood home of Nobel Prize Winner Ralph Bunche
3. The location of the 1969 Black Panthers shootout
4. The Hotel Dunbar, centerpiece of the Historic Central Avenue Jazz Corridor
5. The location of the 1974 SLA shootout
6. The actual fictional location of the Sanford and Son Salvage Yard
7. The Watts Towers of Simon Rodia
8. The location of the incident setting off the 1965 Watts Riots
9. The home of Eula Love, killed by police in 1979 as a result of a past-due gas bill dispute
10. The motel where legendary singer Sam Cooke was killed
11. The flashpoint of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots
12. The location of Wrigley Field, demolished in 1966.

Unfortunately, the above annotated timelapse video abruptly ends at the third-to-last location we visited, leaving me to discover that I need to get a bigger memory card if I want to capture the entire 33-mile, six-hour tour on camera the next time — and there will be a next time. I hope you’ll join me.

I’m guilty of more than a few.  You?  I particularly like the dig about moving to the West Side…a place I barely know as there is simply no easy way to get there from where I live and there is never any parking.  There, I said it.

I just learned that on the ninth day into the fourth month of his thirty-ninth year as a pressman at the Los Angeles Times, Ed Padgett was fired. Fired as a result of some sort of clandestine investigation conducted by human resources for reasons he’s not at liberty to divulge at this point. Fired over the fucking phone.

I was unsuccessful in an attempt to leave a comment of support or of use on his blog. I was swinging too severely between outrage and sadness. Still am. So I came here. To tell you a little something about Ed — which isn’t much, but it’s better than me cursing or crying.

Probably about five or six or so years ago we first met online here at Blogging.la. In January 2007  I posted an open invite for any and all fellow lunatics to join me in making good on a long-time resolution to walk the entire 24-mile length of Sunset Boulevard from Union Station to the sea. Ed commented that he was interested but had other plans. When the fateful day came in February I was joined by another B.la reader Don Hosek and USC grad student Lisl Walsh and off we went.

After the jump, Ed magically appears around Mile No. 23.

Read the rest of this entry →

Cadillac ELR formerly known as the Converj coming to us soon.

Wednesday I got to meet up with GM exec Jim Federico, Executive Director of Engineering, Electric Vehicles at the L.A. Auto Show. I got to ask some of my own questions as well as those you readers posed as part of the ticket contest I was able to run. It was an interesting visit, certainly a lot of information with some answers as well. Where to start with the questions and answers is my big dilemma.

Al Pavangkanan posed the question regarding new battery technology. Jim couldn’t give specifics of what they have in store but did say that they are working with the battery suppliers to develop new technologies that will give us more power for the size compared to what we have now. The problem all the manufacturers have run into is that there isn’t a rush to develop batteries as there isn’t really a market demand for them yet in quantities to offset their costs. Those costs affect what we pay for an EV now, but as demand increases, production increases there will be more incentive to develop new battery technology and help lower costs.  Read the rest of this entry →

Did ya know that  near Union Station was the village of Yangna back in the days of the Tongva Nation?  That name means “Place of the Poison Oak” and fortunately the settlers of the area saw fit to rename us to Los Angeles.  Need more history this month?  You just need to simply meander over to the Militant Angeleno blog where he is celebrating 230 years of Los Angeles city-hood with a giant history lesson on the native peoples who first inhabited the area.

He has several posts, the one I found most fascinating was the map of Tongva Villages overlaid onto a map of the L.A. area.  Militant Angeleno went as far as to take that map and list the villages by name and the modern city built over them.  I just wish I lived in one of those cities that had a Tongva name, I’d go as far as using it as my official city of residence instead of the current name…mail would still get to me using the zip code but how fun would that be to pay homage the natives that were here first and confusing stalkers at the same time.

Coming back from the Hollywood Home Depot yesterday afternoon, my wife Susan and I opted for surface streets back to Silver Lake instead of the backed-up southbound 101, and boy am I glad we did. Heading east on Fountain I looked south as we passed Kingsley Drive to find none other than renowned and prolific muralist Kent Twitchell doing some touch-up refreshment work to his 1971 Strother Martin Monument mural. With Susan understanding my OMG as we went around the block to pull up across the street from him, I got out and went pretty much total fanboy, interrupting him apologetically to gush about what an honor it was for me to see him in action, and get a picture of him:

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.

Read the rest of this entry →

I’m just a bit melancholy this morning. My youngest is finishing up middle school where it seems like I’ve spent an eternity already. Both of my boys were in Drama as their elective. Their fall and spring plays were always punctuated with some corny jokes by their teacher Randy Medina during the intermission.  Last night was my final “Spring Performance” by the Clifton Middle School Drama class and am going to miss those corny, punny jokes of his.

Meet Evan Cook, the Monrovia Association of Fine Art’s Student Artist of the Year.  I have to admit the funnest part of being in MAFA is to find young talent and help recognize them and foster their interest in creating art.  Watching Evan grow into his art the last few years has been fun and certainly he has grown tremendously under the mentoring of his teacher at MHS, Sal Perez, and his employer Lisa Barrios of the Paint n Play Art Studio and Gallery.  At Paint n Play Evan both shows his work and gives lessons on the potters wheel and ceramics.

More about him in the Fine Art Trekkin’ Monrovia blog post by Ginger Van Hook.  (She also made this interview video with Evan). Read the rest of this entry →

This particular bear is “Samson the Tourist Bear” and is done by local Artist Rick Kess. Rick is an artist that works at Disney making the floats for the parade. His bear took nearly 2 weeks to complete. Like all of the artists Rick started with a basic fiberglass bear which he embellished, a lot, before applying paint. The complete embellishment process can be found in my flickr set. All these images get bigger with a click.

Happy Good Friday/Earth Day. For all of you Jaded City Dwellers, here’s to let you know there’s still some simple human kindness amid the concrete.

So, in the midst of my running around today, I opted to stop at Trader Joe’s. I swung into the one on 3rd and LaBrea on my way back across town.

On a Side Note – Had I not needed a few items, I’d have avoided the area entirely, and I’d advise you do the same; there is crazy construction going on near there that will tie up traffic for the next month or so. Through May 23rd, I believe.

Anyway, I circle my way through the store, gather my few things, drink a dixie cup of coffee, try out a Latka with applesauce, and I come across that rare and beautiful thing: an open checker with no line. Awesome. (It always makes me a little suspicious, like ample free parking – I always think there must be some mistake.)

The checker and I are having a nice banter, trading ideas on making quick dinners out of the things in my basket, and he rings me up for a total of about 18 bucks. I reach for my wallet and … I don’t have my debit card on me. Oh, Crap. I have all of about two bucks in cash.

“OK, I’m sorry, but we have a problem,” I say, “I’m embarrassed, really. I don’t have my card on me for some reason. I so sorry, man. I must have taken it out at home, or something.” The clerk’s totally cool about it, I check my other pockets, kinda shrug sheepishly, apologize again, and make to leave, when I hear a voice.

“You don’t have any dough?” I hadn’t even seen the guy get in line behind me. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll cover you.”

What?

The thought went through my mind in the kind of stunned silence before I found the wherewithal to speak. “What? No. That’s ridiculous, thank you, but I just forgot my card, I can come back. That’s very nice, but … Thank You, I’m okay…”

He would not be dissuaded, “No, it’s fine, it’ll come back around to me, it’s Good Friday, it’s no problem, I insist. Pay it back down the road, it’s all good…”

He walked over to grab some paper products, past the clerk, told him to add it to his stuff and then started giving him his things to ring up. I protested again, but he would not relent.

The clerk and I were stunned. Should I have protested a bit more and ultimately refused? Possibly. Frankly, and I mean this, it really kind of dazed me. So, still stunned, I thanked him profusely, shook both their hands and walked out the door. Outside was a woman collecting for a Homeless Charity, I stuffed that last two bucks of mine into the collection box and asked her to have a nice weekend. I drove home slack jawed, and started writing this post.

So, Hey Man, where ever you are, Thank You. I hope to not only pay your kindness forward, at some point, or whatever the phrase is, but I hope in so doing I can truly brighten and astound someone’s day in the way you did mine. I’m not even sure entirely what Good Friday is, or is meant to be about, but you’ve certainly made an impression on me about it. Lord knows my history with it is slightly checkered.

Here’s to keeping that Spirit of Kindness alive no matter the date, time or reason. (or denomination.)

Thanks Again, Man.

Permit me, with a photo my wife Susan took of him a couple months before he passed,  to recall one of Silver Lake’s beloved cast of street characters — El Circo Loco (né Antonio Ruiz) — whose death was five years ago today.

What I wrote on the one-year anniversary still covers how I feel:

Every time I’ve since passed the corners of Golden Gate and Sunset Boulevard where I most often saw him living his life out loud and leading his one-man parades, I still look for him and I still can’t believe he and his colorful extravagance now live only in the hearts and memories of those who miss him so, like me.

Viva El Circo Loco! Viva Antonio Ruiz!

Epoxy and fiberglass time for Rick's Art Bear.

My little corner of LA had “Samson the Hot Tub Bear” visiting us for a few years back in the mid-90′s.  Even the national news picked up on this bear.  Most saw him as an endearing critter and rather than kill him for being a pest he was captured and set off to a zoo to live off his remaining years.

To celebrate the legacy of Samson and the coming 125th Birthday of Monrovia (which some of us affectionately refer to as the Art City) there will be Art Bears.  There will be about a dozen of these bears in various styles produced by Monrovia artists.  These bears are sponsored by the locals as well.  These bears will be placed about Old Town Monrovia after the big birthday celebration parade in May.

This particular bear is being done by local artist Rick Kess who also happens to work for Disney in their visual arts department.  This bear so far is just getting some additional decoration on him prior to painting.  The next step is to sand him and down and prep for painting over next weekend. Read the rest of this entry →