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Uncovered on Granville Street at Robson, a fairly well-preserved painted ad for the 1922 Harold Lloyd film, "Grandma's Boy," which played at the Capitol Theatre across the street. Hidden for ninety years by another building, the sign's finally a goner. It's coming down along with a few more walls any day now to make way for something shiny and pointy and awful. The Capitol's gone as well, now the Capitol Fucking Condos.
LACMA - The California Modern exhibit. Although a little light on mentioning the European influences that got them there, the exhibit was nevertheless a wonderland of all things mid-century and googie-shaped.
At LAX - Finally got inside of this famous landmark, speaking of all things googie. This very well may be the googie Mecca, in fact. Opened in 1961, the joint got a facelift in the late 90's with the help of Disney "imagineers," bringing it back to its former space-age glory and then some.
Encounter Lounge - Jetsons-a-go-go. There's Esquivel in the elevator, the bathrooms look like something out of Fantastic Voyage, and Miro-esque moon rock designs jut out from the hub, surrounded by curving stained glass evoking swirling galaxies and nebulas. I want to live here.
Buckaroo, aka Bucky - Bucky took great interest in our luggage, working himself up into a feline frenzy of sniffing and digging. Bucky also likes to dig under blankets and snooze. Here he is snoozing some more.
Somewhere - Having Sunday brunch with Billy and Shirley, I'm not sure what part of L.A. we were in, but her house was a real art deco era gem. The walls were riddled with earthquake cracks. Out back, the last tenant's abandoned bowling ball collection looked like weird sun-bleached eggs scattered throughout the overgrown garden.
Outside LACMA - A visit to the L.A. County Museum of Art. Late at night this installation thing, "Urban Light," apparently becomes a haven for hordes of wobbly old time cartoon drunks.
Van Nuys - The car wash of the stars. Where else but L.A. can you get your car scrubbed down by the likes of Donny Most or Charo?
California Winter - Some much needed vitamin D after living in the drippy nostril we call Vancouver.
In Traffic - So what else is new? Always in a car, always going somewhere "pretty close" - which is a fluid concept in the land of insane urban sprawl and traffic jams at midnight.
La Luz de Jesus - Bonni's painting mounted boldly in a place of honour next to a portrait of the legendary Billy Shire. Shire was not only instrumental in propelling lowbrow/pop surrealism into the limelight - some might say mainstream - but is also the very definition of an enigma wrapped in a mystery, albeit a hirsute mystery. He once talked to me.
Black and Whites at Night - The bakery at the fabulous Canter's Deli featuring the elusive black and white cookie - elusive in the decidedly goy Vancouver, at least. We hit this joint as often as possible - eggs and lox in the morning, a little chopped liver or beef brisket in the afternoon, and a little cookie action after a boozy night in the Kibbitz Room.
Off Melrose - One can only hope that this display is some sort of weird time-capsuled holdover from the 70's, but maybe it's operating on levels of manufactured irony that only an Andy Warhol drag queen can hear. Then again, I'm not sure that L.A. really does irony without the irony being a learned behaviour thing not unlike the facade erected by a functioning sociopath.
Cloudburst - Mysteriously, all over town the mannequins were buck naked, even in the window displays that weren't barren and dusty. Tough times indeed. But they will never die.
Off Wilshire - At a store called This is Not Ikea I mulled over the possibility of trying to fit the giant plaster orangutan into my carry-on. But then with the Burt Reynolds pinball machine taking up so much room, it seemed highly unlikely. In the end, a stalemate - I am now both apeless and Burtless.
Fairfax - In the land of great old signs, a beauty from the heyday of great old signs, once a great new sign. Their businesses long kaput, they will still outlast the grim plastic lightboxes hanging crookedly and warped over the more recent victims of the big toilet suck.
West Hollywood - After the rain, the smoggy haze seems to disappear for a while, the city temporarily in crisp focus, the nicotine sepia drained away to the edges of the eyeball field, but already creeping back in to fill the alien void.
The American Dream - Payday advances, alimony, DUI's, budget dentistry, bail bonds and burgers. And amid the creeping dystopia, one last flickering promise of a future free from all the fuck-ups.
This Way - Inside the old George Pal Puppetoons building, now the swank studio digs of a photographer friend who treated us to pre-party drinks and stories of hauling a giant neon "S" down the street, like a Jesus who didn't know his alphabet, just one letter off.
La Luz de Jesus Gallery - Night of the Living Artists. Actually, three nights; an endurance-testing parade of ironic handlebar moustaches, fake truckers, goth girls in corsets, tats and tribal piercings - big names, medium and small names happily mixing and mingling against a backdrop of skulls, creepy waifs, and more skulls.
West Hollywood - L.A. seems a little worse for wear since my last visit three years ago, the recessionary statewide budget cutbacks taking their toll on the city's appearance. The shopping meccas seem to get the only upkeep anymore, while the rest of the city drowns in soot and gum and the millions of stickers plastered all over everything. The sidewalks heave with busted up cement above the clogged gutters and dead palm fronds, and even the ubiquitous "For Lease" signs are as sun-fried and despairing as the human-free streets permanently backed up with traffic.
(Kling klang image to engorge)
The alley behind our building in the charming and serene West End.
I got to spend my day-after-birthday hangover at a no-kill cat sanctuary that was not unlike three-dimensional real life pornography for kitty enthusiasts.
