Do you remember the movie Airplane?

Remember the two gentlemen who spoke “Jive?” Remember the subtitles at the bottom that translated what they were saying? Remember whenever one of them would say a certain word, the subtitle always translated it as “Golly?”

Such fun.

It’s in this spirit I would like to remind you, one and all, that The Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nothin’ to Trifle With!

(And if you haven’t seen Airplane, get your golly together and watch the trifling thing.)

In Any Case, I’m giving away Tickets to see The Wu on Saturday, Jan 21st! Wanna Go?

Email your Full Legal Name as it appears on your Legal Driver’s Licence or State ID card to blacontests@gmail.com

Winners will be notified and will show said ID at the Will Call booth the night of the show to claim tickets. Protect your neck.

Wu-Tang Featuring All Original Members: RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa
Saturday January 21, 2012
Club Nokia
Los Angeles, California
Show time: 9:00pm
Door time: 8:00pm
Age: All Ages+

Step to the Wu.

A bowl full of awesome.

I was first introduced to Vinh Loi Tofu when I moved here from central Illinois in August 2006, and it has been a staple in my diet ever since. Owner Kevin Tran seems to be there around the clock, and he has both a friendly rapport with his regular customers and a willingness to guide new recruits to the right introductory dish for their tastes. (Noodles or soup? Spicy – not spicy?) Kevin serves up a great variety of Vietnamese-inspired vegan dishes of his own creation, featuring his own special tofu mock meats that this omnivore could happily subsist on for the rest of his days.

While I love the vegan Banh Mi subs Travis Koplow lovingly refers to as “(s)ham sandwiches,” the House Special Soup holds a very special place in my heart. Garnished (as pictured by me, gets bigger with clickage) with sprouts, peppers, and lemon, this rice noodle soup is loaded with chicken, fish, and shrimp in an amazing savory peanut broth that somehow surprises me each and every time with just how damned good it is. This menu item is one that I have a hard time veering away from, even if I do occasionally feel tempted to try out one of Kevin’s newer soups or noodle dishes, some of which he has resorted to simply naming by year – “Soup 2011,” for example. (He’s actually been getting ahead of himself – he’s already serving “Soup 2012.” Or maybe that’s supposed to indicate “end-of-the-world” soup?)

Of course the drawback for many Angelenos is that there seem to be few things worthy of venturing all the way into Reseda for. (As Mike Doughty would remind us, “We are all in some way or another going to Reseda someday to die.”) I tell you, gentle reader, the House Special soup – and Vinh Loi in general – is definitely one thing worth going to Reseda for.

Image from the DubLab

So what are you doing after the upcoming Grilled Cheese Invitational? Why you’re heading downtown to party at the Natural History Museum, duh!

This Saturday, Cinefamily and Cinespia are hosting a FREE ADMISSION museum-wide party at the Natural History Museum, presented as the closing event to the “Art In The Streets” film retrospective. First, they’re showing Cave of Forgotten Dreams directed by Werner Herzog at 5:30pm. (the film-rsvp list is already closed, but there will be some seats held for the standby line) Also, the Herzog Q&A will be projected live in the Museum’s Whale Room at approximately 7PM, for those who are unable to get into the screening. Once the movie is over, then the party starts!

At 8PM, the doors open and guests are invited to wander the Museum’s exhibit halls for FREE! There will be live bands, DJs spinning, food trucks, cash bar & an art installation by Mastodon Mesa.

Live Music Schedule

On the Fin Whale Passage stage:
Live performances by Nite Jewel, Islands, White Magic and Matt Baldwin starting at 8:30pm.

In the African Mammal Hall:
DJs Dntel (aka Jimmy Tamborello of The Postal Service), David Holmes and Carlos Nino will spin records starting at 5pm.

In the Gems & Mineral Hall:
DJ collective Dublab will also host a second set of live performances starting at 5pm.

This whole event is generously sponsored by: First Fridays at The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, in association with History Films, Sundance Selects, Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, Dublab

cave of forgotten dreams: herzog premiere & museum-wide party
Saturday, April 23rd
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
900 Exposition Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA, 90007
5:00-11:00pm
Admission: FREE

JavaJunkee and a GrillemAll Weedeater

Hey everybody – I’m a newbie blogger here at blogging.la, so I wanted to get things started on the right foot by letting you know two things: 1. I love to eat. 2. Nevermind, I guess I already covered that in point 1.

But seriously, I’ve been a longtime reader of blogging.la and have always appreciated what the fine authors here have offered in terms of both individual character and LA culture. I’ve tagged along to various events such as the Blog-around-the-clock marathon at Canter’s and the Donut Summit in Griffith Park. (I missed the Hot Dog Death March and have yet to attend an installment of Classic Eats, but it’s going to happen!) Now that blogging.la has given me an opportunity to contribute to what they’ve got going here, I’m certainly hoping that my offerings will be half as valuable to other readers as I’ve found blogging.la to be for me over these past (almost) five years I’ve had the privilege of calling myself an Angeleno.

Anyway, I wanted to take the opportunity in this post to let folks know about a semi-regular event that seems to be gaining steam over in my neck of the woods, North Hollywood. Last Saturday I ventured out with fellow blogging.la author Travis Koplow and a couple other friends to a lot behind The Federal Bar where ten food trucks had gathered for a third installment of “Get FED!” The truck lineup appears to vary from month to month, and the purpose of the event seems to be at least a little bit focused on trying to promote The Federal Bar. The first time through, back in mid-January, Frysmith tried to dissuade one of my companions from swapping out sweet po’ fries for the regulars on whatever special she happened to order, and then tweeted an apology after the fact. This time around, me and my companions tried out one of the Grill Em All Truck‘s specials, the “weedeater,” and left feeling quite satisfied. Probably the highlight of the event, though, was the two homeless men, or homeless-looking men – completely independent of one another – getting down to the music provided by live DJs. I haven’t seen anything that says with certainty that this will be a monthly event; the first took place on the 15th of January, the second on the 12th of March, and the third on the 9th of April. If you’re looking for a chance to catch multiple food trucks in a single location in the east Valley, I’d say keep your eyes peeled around the first or second Saturday of May for your next chance to catch this one.

While it’s definitely nice to have an event like this just down the street on occasion, I do have to temper my excitement with the sense of disappointment I experience when something really cool – like the food truck phenomenon in LA – reaches that point at which it starts to feel like it’s being exploited as another great marketing gimmick. I’m still not sure, though, which is more distasteful to me: businesses shamelessly trying to tap into the zeitgeist to make a quick dollar (which Get FED! may or may not be, but bank billboards definitely are when they say things like “we have ATMs all over for when you happen to cross paths with that gourmet food truck” – no I don’t have a pic for this but I swear I’ve seen it), or the fact that something cool and obscure about the city becomes ubiquitous and pedestrian. Is that hipster-ish of me to say? Oops.

Of course its all contingent on getting a NFL team to plunk in a stadium and for that there are no commitments. Personally I think it would be pretty cool to be Downtown if only because it would be mass transit accessible for more folks as opposed to the transit starved C of I.

Where would you put a stadium?  Sound off in the comments and vote over at the Pasadena Star News HERE.

Perhaps the most recognizable string of letters in the world. A Real Estate Advertising gimmick turned into a Monument and saved by Hugh Hefner, not once but twice. What more fitting tribute to Tinseltown could you ask for? I love The Hollywood Sign.

On Friday the Thirteenth, July 1923, they dedicated The Sign. Thomas Fisk Goff, owner of the Crescent Sign Company, designed it at the behest of real estate developers Woodruff and Shoults. The whole crackpot scheme was the brainchild of H.J Whitley and Harry Chandler, owner of the L.A. Times.

I can almost picture Chandler, with a wild gleam in his eye, exclaiming, “Why, that’s just crazy enough to work!”

The original letters originally read “Hollywoodland,” were five feet taller than the current structure, and festooned with around 4000 light bulbs, plus a giant blinking dot below, 35 foot in diameter, to  ”catch the eye.” Because thirteen, fifty foot tall, white, blinking letters are far too subtle on their own.

They put it there to sell land in the hills. And when they were done, they just left it. Bastards! That’s so “ungreen.” Just leaving your garbage on the hill! What are you thinking!

I kid, of course, I love the thing, but that’s kinda what happened. It was never meant to be permanent, at all, let alone to stand up to decades of weather. And I’m sure many, many people felt that way about it as it started to deteriorate over the years. In the early Forties, the signs official caretaker got drunk, drove into the “H” and destroyed it. By 1949 the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the City of L.A. parks Department had come to a deal to repair the sign. The eliminated the last four letters and removed the lightbulbs. The Chamber of Commerce would have had to foot the bill for lighting the thing, so, yeah; no.

But it was still the original letters and they continued to deteriorate into a complete eyesore. By the 1970′s it was determined that it needed a complete overhaul, costing a quarter of a million dollars. To raise the money, the band Fleetwood Mac pledged to do a charity concert on the hill in 1977, but local residents put a stop to it. So, the following year, Hugh Hefner stepped in and held a charity auction at the Playboy Mansion, auctioning off individual letters at $27,777 each.

Thus, in August of 1978 they tore down the old sign and put up the one that stands today, this time on purpose. The letters are 45 foot tall and from 31 to 39 feet wide. No light bulbs. Hugh Hefner owns the “Y,” Andy Williams spotted for the “W,” and Alice Cooper bought the third “O” in honor of Groucho Marx. Warner Brothers owns the second “O,” and I suspect they currently keep The Warner Kids trapped in there, instead of in their old water tower.

Recently, a proposal to develop the surrounding land prompted the “Save the Peak” campaign. $12.5 Million dollars was needed to keep 138 acres adjacent to the sign. Donations came from all over, but at the eleventh hour, the Hollywood Sign’s Number One Fan, Hugh Hefner stepped in again, this time donating the final $900,000 dollars to save it.

Thanks, Hef. I really, really appreciate it.

I would respectfully like to dedicate this post to the Memory of Peg Entwistle. Rest in Peace, Star.

This post is part of the L.A.’s Greatest Landmarks series – click here for the rest of the series!

On June 18th, start your politically incorrect internal combustion engines for the 2010  Rental Car Rally (RCR), a 36-hour competitive road trip from Los Angeles to Tombstone, AZ.

RCR is a single leg competitive road trip in which teams of costumed players compete for cash and prizes. There is no set route, but each team must hit pre-defined checkpoints, the locations of which will be revealed in the rally booklet provided at the starting line. Each team must furnish photographic evidence of each checkpoint. Teams are scored by a combination of odometer reading, team style and hijinks (details on the RCR web site).

The event is organized by Supreme Commander, the co-founder of a huge, ludicrous water gun tournament, StreetWars, which I personally participated in a few years ago, and The Pants, who throws big video game parties.

The race begins Friday, June 18 and ends Sunday, June 20. A “Basic Team Ticket” will cost you $179 and includes entrance to the rally, admission to the rally pre-party, with drink specials and a briefcase stocked with mischief-making swag (which you can use to mess with the other teams). Each ticket covers one vehicle and unlimited teammates.

To register for the race or for more information, visit the RCR web site at rentalcarrally.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s included in the price of my ticket?
The ticket includes admission to the rally, the rally briefcase for your team (the rally booklet w/ rules and coordinates for checkpoints, the rally contact sheet with info on other drivers, bottle rockets, smoke bombs, condoms, cigarettes, chaw), a rally pre-party and drink specials before the rally begins, a post-rally party at the destination, and the chance to win money, the respect of your competitors, and a golden gas pump.

Can I use my own car? Yes.

How many people to a team? As many as you want.

How long is the drive?
Route times vary from rally to rally, but total drive time is usually around 12 hours.

What are the checkpoints?
The checkpoints will be printed in each rally driving booklet given to each team at the rally starting line.

Is GPS necessary? No, but it helps.

Where are the starting and finish lines?
The starting line will be revealed one week prior to the rally start. The finish line will be revealed in the rally booklet each team gets at the starting line.

Are accommodations included in the ticket? No.

How much will all this cost?
After your ticket, you’re looking at about $100 in gas plus food and your hotel room.

The film that spawned one of the most overused Vegas quotes of our time isn’t about Las Vegas at all. Swingers is so L.A.

Location. Location. Location. For me, the thrill of watching Swingers is noticing all of the familiar locations around town. The characters in this film never stay in one spot for long, always on the move from one bar to another bar, to a Hollywood Hills party, then to a coffee shop for a late night breakfast. All in their own separate cars of course. It’s laughable, but even today I notice that most of my friends in L.A. drive separately, despite that we all live in close proximity of each other and are meeting at the same place.

When I relocated to L.A. in 2003, the very first bar a friend took me to was The Dresden Restaurant to see Marty and Elayne perform. Immortalized by the film, The Dresden remains one of my favorite lounges in L.A. Located at 1760 North Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz, The Dresden makes its appearance in the scene where Mike (Jon Favreau) hits on the Starbucks waitress at the bar.

The Dresden Restaurant

By-the-way, Marty and Elayne, who are featured in the film, have been performing at The Dresden for 18 years and you can still catch their show nightly.

Los Feliz Municipal Golf Course

Also in Los Feliz, Mike and Rob (Ron Livingston) hit the links at the Loz Feliz Municipal Golf Course, a 9-hole 3-par course located just east of I-5 at 3207 Los Feliz Boulevard.

Another famous Hollywood location used in Swingers is the 101 Coffee Shop, adjacent to the Best Western at 6145 Franklin Avenue. According to movie-locations.com, this is also where the filmmakers devised much of the script. I have spent many late nights in the 101 Coffee Shop, with its mid-century rock walls and retro brown booths, feeling like a member of Sinatra’s crew after a long night of boozing and broads.

Back in Los Feliz, the crew enters through the back entrance of The Derby in the scene where Director Doug Liman pays homage to Martin Scorsese’s famous tracking shot from Goodfellas. Now closed down, The Derby (formerly located at 4500 Los Feliz Boulevard) was hugely popular during the swing revival in the 1990s, which was central to the mood of the film. This is also where Mike meets and dances with Lorraine (Heather Graham).

After the crew departs the Hollywood Hills party scene, they pass a few other familiar locations such as Canter’s Delicatessen, located at 419 N. Fairfax Avenue (also seen in Enemy of the State), and Hollywood Star Lanes (torn down in 2002), the bowling alley best known for its role in the Coen brothers’ film, The Big Lebowski.

The Derby

If you’re still hungry for more Swingers trivia, check out the list below, swiped from IMDB:

• Trent’s license plate reads “THX1138″, a reference to George Lucas’s THX 1138 (1971).
• Vince Vaughn’s father plays the lucky gambler at the $100-minimum blackjack table.
• Jon Favreau’s grandmother, Joan Favreau, is the lucky gambler at the $5 minimum blackjack table.
• Some of the film’s casino scenes were filmed without a permit. At one point, they were asked to leave the casino by a police officer, who let them finish filming the scene before they left. If you look at the left side of the screen during the scene where Mike is betting on the $100 table, a police officer can be seen in the distance watching the filming taking place.
• 

  101 Coffee Shop

  The 1964 Convertible Mercury Comet Caliente driven by Vince Vaughn was actually owned by co-star Jon Favreau.

• The exterior and interior of Mike Peter’s apartment was the actual building and room that Jon Favreau lived in at the time the film was filmed. Favreau’s downstairs neighbor was actor Adam Scott.
• Nicole LaLoggia, the film’s line producer, also plays two roles in the film: she plays Michelle’s voice on the phone, and she appears as one of the bar patrons at the Derby (the brunette sitting to the right of Trent when Mike leaves the table).
• When asked to approve use of the theme music for Jaws (1975) in a scene, Spielberg saw footage of Vince Vaughn, whom he hired for The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997).
• The Word “Fuck” is used 95 times, “Bitch” is used 31 times and “Asshole” 13 times.
• The movie is loosely based on the experiences writer Jon Favreau had when he first moved to L.A. He had just broken up with a long term girlfriend and counted on his friends Vince Vaughn and Ron Livingston to cheer him up. The characters they play in the film are based on themselves.
• The “Bear” monologue that Trent delivers to Mike is almost verbatim something actor Vince Vaughn told Jon Favreau one night at a bar. Favreau liked it a lot and incorporated it into the script.
• When director Doug Liman first sent the script to studios, they were interested in financing it. When Liman said he wanted to cast the writer and his friends as actors, the studios backed off. The money to shoot the film was raised independently and Liman cast who he liked.
• Some of the bar scenes were shot in actual bars during business hours. A sign was posted near where they were shooting warning patrons that if they came any closer, they would be unpaid extras in the film.
• The sequence where Trent, Mike, and Sue enter the club through a side entrance closely resembles the way Henry and Karen enters a club in Goodfellas (1990), which the group refers to earlier in the film, calling it one of the best shots ever.
• The scene with Mike and Trent talking in the car on the side of the road was also filmed without a permit (not only could the production not afford one, it is actually impossible for any film production to acquire one to film on that particular highway). Originally they had planned to film just an establishing shot of the two of them in the car, and a shot of them driving away, and then film the dialog shots later. But director Doug Liman decided instead to film the entire scene on the actual side of the road. During filming, several police showed up, and demanded to see a permit. The assistant director held up the police by telling them that they had a permit, but it was in the office across town, several miles away. To get away with the rest of the scene being filmed, Liman had to pretend he was not filming, and didn’t look in the viewfinder, and used a microphone inside of the car instead of a boom. Most of the scene was filmed like this, with the police waiting just out of shot, and the two actors and the director pretending they were in fact not shooting.
• Since the filmmakers couldn’t afford to pay extras, the scenes filmed at parties were filmed at actual parties that were taking place, with many Hollywood up-and-comers in attendance. Among the people in the crowd of the first party (who turn and look at the group as they enter): screenwriters Stephen Gaghan and Mike White.
• The band in the film are retro swing jazz band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.
• There is a reference to Reservoir Dogs (1992) while the actors are playing poker. They refer to the scene in the beginning when they walk in slow motion as “a great scene”. As the characters in Swingers leave the poker game to go to a party, they are shown walking in slow motion in a similar fashion to the scene in Reservoir Dogs.
• A Reservoir Dogs (1992) poster can also be seen in one of the scenes.
• The scene in which Trent angrily yells at Sue, after Sue insulted Mike, was written specifically at Vince Vaughn’s request. Vaughn wanted to show that beneath Trent’s bravado and swagger, he truly cared for Mike as a friend.
• Trent, Mikey, Sue, Rob, and Charles represent the five members of the original Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, and Sammy Davis Jr..

(This post is part of the “LA Plays Itself in the Movies” series).

Turturro’s Barton Fink, like the real-life Clifford Odetts on which Barton is based, is an acclaimed, politically liberal New York playwright whose new socially conscious play champions “the common man,” and who is lured to Los Angeles to be a screenwriter in late 1941.  The movie is partially about Fink’s case of writer’s block when assigned to write a “wrestling picture,” which reportedly mirrors the Coen Brothers’ own difficulties completing the script for “Miller’s Crossing.” As Fink states in the film, “I’ve always found that writing comes from a great inner pain.”

Arriving in Los Angeles, Fink lives in isolation in the creepy Hotel Earle.  While trying to write, he is distracted by strange noises, including a pesky mosquito.  His room’s wallpaper keeps peeling from heat and humidity (the latter of which would seem unusual for Los Angeles).  When Fink meets his gregarious yet off-kilter neighbor Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), Charlie’s profuse sweating mirrors the sweating of the hotel itself.  Fink then tells Charlie, “the life of the mind, there’s no road map for that territory.”

As in many other films (“The Godfather” comes to mind), Los Angeles is portrayed in “Barton Fink” as a sun-drenched utopia of shimmering swimming pools and green vegetation.  Inside his art deco Capitol Pictures office, manic studio head Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner), a despot in the tradition of early Hollywood studio chiefs such as Louis B. Mayer, at first fawns over Barton, telling him, “we need more heart in motion pictures.”  Lipnick’s producer, Ben Geisler (Tony Shaloub) is a rapid-talking aneurism waiting to happen, who becomes Barton’s reluctant supervisor.

On the job at Capitol Pictures, Fink meets fellow studio writer and famous Southern author William Mayhew (John Mahoney).  Mayhew, who is based on William Faulkner, is now a barely functional drunk.  His assistant, lover, and dutiful caretaker, Audrey (Judy Davis), a Southern belle who could make a New Yorker like Barton weak in the knees, turns out to be responsible for much of Mayhew’s work.

Lipnick’s and Geisler’s frenetic desire to crank out low culture, formulaic “B” wrestling pictures in a machine-like manner, and their treatment of Hollywood studio writers like Mayhew and Fink as slaves whose opinions do not count, contrasts greatly with Fink’s proletariat-oriented sensibilities.  Indeed, Mayhew is writing a movie entitled “Slave Ship,” while Lipnick tells Barton, “the contents of your head are the property of Capitol Pictures.”  Not surprisingly, Fink, with the wrong clothes, hair style, and attitude, never fits into Los Angeles.  In one scene at a USO dance, the bespectacled, dark-suited Fink, who feels free just for a moment, is soon called out as the only man on the dance floor not in (a Navy white or Army khaki) uniform, and a brawl results.

In another theme common to many movies about this city, “Barton Fink” depicts Los Angeles as a place where dishonesty and false fronts prevail, not just in the movie making process itself, but in the studio offices and elsewhere.  A number of the characters in Barton’s Los Angeles have put up false fronts.  Lipnick tells Fink from the poolside of his opulent home, “if I had been totally honest, I wouldn’t be within a mile of this pool unless I was cleaning it.”  Then, toward the end of “Barton Fink,” Lipnick, who is from Minsk, appears in a military uniform, telling Barton that he has been asked by his adopted country to join World War II as a colonel.  However, Lipnick’s military garb is from Capitol Pictures’ wardrobe department.  This contrast between the “real” New York City and the “phony” Los Angeles, represented visually by the sepia tones of the former and the lightness of the latter (except for the prison-like Hotel Earle), is reminiscent of Woody Allen‘s treatment of New York City and Los Angeles in “Annie Hall.”

A mysterious picture on Fink’s putrid-colored hotel wall of a woman on a beach, looking out at the ocean, her back turned toward the viewer, feeds this contrast.  Fink is captivated by the picture.  What does she represent?  A non-Californian’s romanticization of Los Angeles, with its essential elements — the sun, the sand, and the pretty girl?  When the picture is imitated by a “real” woman on a “real” beach at the end of the movie, viewers might question whether it was just a vision in Barton’s mind, and, therefore, what was supposed to be “real” in the film all along.  Was the Hotel Earle really just the interior of Barton’s — or Charlie’s — mind?

Near the end of “Barton Fink,” in a near-biblical apocalypse that is by now a Coen Brothers signature, Charlie, whom detectives have identified as serial killer Karl “Madman” Mundt, reveals his madness.  As he shoots his way down the hotel’s flame-engulfed hallway, Mundt shouts, “I’ll show you the life of the mind!”  And that is perhaps just what the Coen Brothers have done.

(See the rest of the L.A. movie series here)

From across the noisy Saturday traffic on Sunset Blvd., I could hear early R&B music being piped from the truck, bands like The Ink Spots and other Decca favorites. Speaking of The Ink Spots, Tennessee Williams said that he listened to The Ink Spots’ tune, “If I Didn’t Care” over and over while he penned “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Anyway, back to the Patty Wagon. As I crossed the street, the music put me in the mood for a good old timey hamburger, the kind you imagine they served in a 1940′s, small town diner. However, Patty Wagon may have an old-fashioned look and sound, but their menu is quite modern. They don’t serve full-sized burgers, they are actually sliders, or mini-burgers, and their french fries are more like potato ribbons, very thin and a bit awkward to dip into ketchup using your fingers.

One mini cheeseburger, fries and a soda: $7.50

They offer a variety of gourmet mini burgers, one featuring bleu cheese, bacon and caramelized onions. I decided to go with the basic mini cheeseburger and fries with rosemary and garlic (you can also choose sea salt for the fries). For one mini-cheeseburger, an order of fries, and one can of Hansen’s soda, I paid $7.50. This seemed like a lot for a tiny cheeseburger and whisper thin fries, but considering the quality, I got over it. The meal didn’t blow me away, but it was nice to have a fresh, organic lunch that wasn’t too filling. Overall, I give them a B+, mostly for quality, sustainability and use of local produce.

For more information and to see the complete menu, visit Patty Wagon at pattywagonburgers.com.

Patty Wagon's Menu