I’m one of the “lucky ones” with tickets to Friday’s Dodger game vs the Diamondbacks. Check your tickets, quite a few of them have the wrong game time printed. My set says 7:40pm which is wrong. The correct time, and verifiable on the Dodger’s Web, is 7:05PM.
Just got back from a mind-blowing trip to Northern California, Big Sur and up the coast of California. Unfortunately, on my first night in Berkeley, I parked in a sketchy area and my bag got stolen out of my car with my computer in it. Soooooo, the whole trip was one without access and losing a lot of the work I’ve done in the last three months. (I know, I know, I should back-up every day…..)
To make matters worse, I found out the hard way that car insurance covers very little when it comes to contents. So yeah, a nasty financial hit.
However, back in Los Angeles, I am surprisingly super thankful. One of the gifts of living in Los Angeles is the easy access we have to so many things. And relatively cheaply. Within a day, I’m typing on a brand-new never been out of the box Macbook Pro, which I bought on Craigslist, saving about $800 in the process. I’m betting you can’t do that in so easily in Des Moines.
The clothes, well they can be replaced over time… and the suitcase, well, there’s a slew of luggage stores here. Visiting other cities, towns, even in California, you really get a hit on how much wealth we have here in LA, and much of it is free. Yes, it’s harder to drive, park and buy property, just to name a few of the inconveniences of living in this wonderful city. But in exchange, we get a huge pipeline to ideas, products, services and art that just don’t exist anywhere else.
So even though I lost everything I had with me, I gained a new appreciation for my sweet home-town and all it’s inhabitants. The loss wasn’t the eye opener, but it magnified the ease with which we operate with here in Los Angeles.
Something blew up at LAX just now, the ever-indispensable LAFD Blog is reporting via Twitter.
CBS says it was an errant fire extinguisher on board a Flyaway bus.
The Press-Telegram fingers a “clumsy bus traveler” who bumped the extinguisher with his bag.
And KTLA reports the incident has backed up traffic for “miles.”
Return to your homes, folks. Nothing to see here. You may resume ruminating over whether McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden would have handled such an incident with the appropriate gravitas.
When was the last time you went to a drive in movie?
I don’t know about you but as a kid I loved the drive in. Unfortunately, by the time I was old enough to go to the movies, drive ins were already a dying breed. Before they tore down the drive 
in theater in my hometown I saw The Blues Brothers, Star Trek II (a.k.a. the best Star Trek movie) and E.T there, but the movie I remember most was the last one I ever saw in a drive in, 1985’s god awful (and inaccurately named) Perfect starring John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis. My family and I saw it just before the theater was shut down for good, when it had fallen into disrepair and they stopped enforcing the no alcohol policy. We arrived early with a van full of people and beer and even that didn’t help the movie. Unfortunately, by the time the credits mercifully rolled none of the adults could drive and I was only 11 so we saw Perfect twice that night. It was a terrible way to say goodbye to the drive in. In the years since the Perfect disaster I’ve wanted to have a better drive in experience, with a good movie or at least one that isn’t awful. Of course, drive in’s are hard to come by in LA.
If you would like to experience the fun of the drive in right here in LA I’ve got good news. Hollywood Mobile Movie has teamed up with The Steve Allen Theater to present classic drive in features for only 5 bucks every Friday night through Halloween. You just show up. park your car, tune in your radio and watch the movie. No hassle and no need to give my parents field sobriety tests. The gates open at 8:30 on Friday nights with all screenings starting in the parking lot at 9 with (in case of overflow it will also be shown in the theater).
This Friday’s feature will be The Demon Seed from 1977 starring the always fantastic Julie Christie. A full list of screenings can be found at the Mobile Movie site along with everything you’ll need to know to enjoy the movies.
The Steve Allen Theater is located at 4773 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood (two blocks west of Vermont).
LA Times picks "L.A. Confidential" as the greatest Los Angeles film of the past 25 years.
Besides the glaring absence of “Grand Canyon,” and a few others based an apparent rule disallowing more than one film per director, the LA Times has put together a solid selection of films highlighting Los Angeles.
I can’t argue much with a list that is topped by “L.A. Confidential,” a personal favorite, and also includes “Fletch,” “Training Day,” and “Swingers.” But I do have some minor quibbles:
Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown” is on the list, but “Pulp Fiction” isn’t. Robert Altman’s “The Player” was chosen over “Short Cuts.” Both are arguable decisions, but why choose Michael Mann’s “Collateral” over the far superior, city sprawling “Heat”?
…Unrelated sidenote: I just noticed that the original poster for L.A. Confidential prominently features Kim Basinger and Kevin Spacey, with Guy Pearce, and way in the background, Russell Crowe…
Following up on Sean’s Monday post about the in-progress return of a Caché and EyeOne collaborative mural back to its rightful place where it had been so muzzafuzzingly painted out a few weeks ago, I got a chance to cycle by the famed Bicycle QuadrantLand yesterday afternoon and check out the finished project:
The rest of the small Flickr set is here.
A lot of people have been talking about Michelle Obama’s speech to the DNC last night, and our local crew at CBS2, as always, had their finger on the pulse of Los Angeles, challenging their viewers (and website readers) to really think deeply about the event:
For fuck’s sake. You know what’s even worse? People are actually casting votes on the goddamn thing. “She didn’t” is currently leading with 56%, in this crucial test for the Democratic party.
Photo by Flickr user imagebysp, used under Creative Commons license.
An event like no other, the Surfrider Foundation’s Celebrity Expression Session allows celebrities to show off their surfing skills and moves in a free surf format. In addition, celebrities can win prizes for every wave they catch and ride courtesy of Project Blue, a collective between six of the surf industry’s top brands to raise funds aimed at supporting the Surfrider Foundation. Celebrities taking part in the surf session include Jason Mraz, Flea, Sal Masekela, Peter DiStefano, Chad Lowe, Richard Burgi, Brandon Cruz and David Chokachi.
They may be playing a little loose with the definition of “celebrity,” but I’d love to see Flea in the water. The MSA Classic takes place at Surfrider Beach and events are free of charge and open to the public. Early rounds begin on Saturday, September 6th and run through Sunday, September 7th.
Omega Men: Charlton Heston and Vincent Price
Raymond Chandler. Charles Bukowski. Walter Mosley. Meh.
Los Angeles’ true literary legacy is the zombie/vampire/supervirus/apocalypse genre, which novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson kick-started with his 1954 novel I Am Legend. Matheson’s story, set in 1970’s Los Angeles, follows the trials and tribulations of the seemingly sole survivor of a plague that transforms humans into vampires. The protagonist spends his days devising new and inventive ways to keep the blood-sucking masses at bay. Is it any coincidence Matheson wrote this novel just a few short years after moving to California?
Matheson’s novel has been turned into a film thrice so far, two iterations of which are screening at a triple feature at the Aero Theater on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. as part of the American Cinematheque’s Post-Apocalyptic Film Festival. On the triple bill is The Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price and The Omega Man (1971) starring Charlton Heston. And no, the third film is not the Will Smith version of I Am Legend but rather Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys. Cool movie, but go figure!
Of the two interpretations of Matheson’s novel screening on Saturday, Last Man on Earth is arguably the more accomplished adaptation, but Omega Man is not to be missed. Why? Well, for starters, it’s actually set in Los Angeles and was filmed in the then-desolate wasteland of Bunker Hill. But even more compellingly, the film features a swaggering, heavily-armed Heston in a me-versus-the-world performance that foreshadows his later years as the head honcho of the NRA.
Watch for the scene where Heston starts up a projector in an abandonded movie theater and then sadly mouths the dialogue to Woodstock. It’s a particularly tender and surreal moment in cinematic history, and well worth the price of admission.
You may not know the name Kliph Nesterhoff but I’d like to change that because I want you to love his work as much as I do. Mr. Kliph (pronounced Cliff) Nesterhoff is a historian, not of wars and politics but of comedy and classic showbiz. You may not think the world needs a comedy/showbiz historian but try reading some his work before you make up your mind on that point.
Imagine Herodotus with a stack of comedy albums, a library of obscure films and an insatiable passion for research and you have Kliph Nesterhoff. For a while now, over at WFMU’s site, he’s written some of the best stuff you’ll find about the history of comedy and old time Hollywood Maybe I’m just a geek for showbiz history but I have the same thought every time I read one of his exhaustively researched and exquisitely written pieces: “I wish I wrote that”.
His most recent work is a piece on George Carlin’s early years. The article focuses on Carlin in the early 60’s when he was working coffee shops and small clubs in Los Angeles as part of the largely forgotten duo of Burns and Carlin. and then on his time as part of the Hollywood system as a writer and actor. If you’re a fan of George Carlin’s work or Hollywood history in general I highly recommend checking it out. It features long lost clips of a very young Carlin and includes lots of things you probably never knew about the late American icon.
From WFMU: The Early George Carlin 1956-1970 by Kliph Nesterhoff
Once you’re ready for some advanced comedy studies check out Mr. Nesterhoff’s other pieces for WFMU, you’ll be glad you did.
