L.A. Recap/Highlights

It never ceases to amaze me that I grew up in L.A., let alone lived there for so long, because I just don’t like it at all.  And in spite of wide-spread world-wide hatred of the place, in my circle I seem to be alone in this.  My friends who grew up in L.A. and still live there love it (naturally), but so do my L.A.-to-New York transplant friends, who will never leave New York, but still find L.A. and amusing oddity.  I just don’t think I could ever live there.  Between the bad air, the traffic, and the silly airhead population (it could be just the waiters and waitresses, but either way, very unappetizing) I just don’t know how I ever did it.  I managed to enjoy spending time with my family, and doing a few other activities I can share here.

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Woo Lae Oak Beverly Hills

I’ll never get over the loss of the original Western location I grew up with.  That said, Woo Lae Oak still feels a little like going home.  I got a great Chopin dirty martini too.

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Santa Monica Beach

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Hama Sushi Little Tokyo

Everyone seems to love this place.  I think they had an off-night, but it didn’t matter too much because I had great company.  My dear dear friend Noelle and I met up for the hour-long wait, and then happened to run into two of her good friends Cheryl and Elizabeth, who were a total blast.  It made up for the fact that the sushi chef was rude and “doesn’t do omikase.”  What kind of sushi chef doesn’t?

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Redwood Bar featuring C.W. Stoneking

Already covered that (see last post).

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Another Day on Santa Monica Beach

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Palm Trees

I like the seeds.

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Flux Super 8 opening, Culver City

A very fun night.  Great work by all the artists, and a fun crowd.

Terri Timely’s Synesthesia installation

The show features the work of “eight of the most exciting and emerging filmmakers, video artists, and design collectives from around the world.”  The super eight are:

The Blackheart Gang (Cape Town, South Africa); Max Erdenberger (Portland, USA); Saam Farahmand (London, UK); Sophie Gateau (Paris, France); Miwa Matreyek (Los Angeles, USA); Terri Timely (San Francisco, USA); United Visual Artists (UVA) (London, UK); YesYesNo (Amsterdam, NL + New York, NY + London, UK).

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Father’s Office

Open late, and a truly spectacular burger.  But too many rules.  At Hama it’s no omikase, here it’s no vodka?  And you aren’t allowed to put ketchup on your burger.  Still, a great experience–thanks to John and Noelle in large part.

I’m glad to be home…if not for long.

Song of the Day, Artists of the Year: C.W. Stoneking

Last night I had the absolutely unusual experience of watching C.W. Stoneking play music at the Redwood Bar in downtown Los Angeles.

An old and good friend whose initials, AB, fittingly begin the alphabet, and who has led me astray for the eventual betterment of us both (lover of walri*, gambling, and roots music) many times before, brought me to the show.

What you need to know about C.W. Stoneking:  He sings, plays guitar and tenor banjo.  He lived in Trinidad and traveled to West Africa and New Orleans.  He plays pre-war blues, jazz, and early calypso.  He writes his own songs and has a voice that makes your organs shake.  He’s also a young, white, Australian guy.  But don’t let that fool you.

Here is a short clip of one of my favorite numbers of last night:

This is Stoneking performing Robert Johnson’s song “All My Love in Vain” at a culb in Rosendale, New York in 2008:

Here is his music video for the title track from his most recent album “Jungle Blues:”

I suggest you visit him on Myspace here, and check out this Facebook group to learn a little more about him.

*walri: plural of walrus

Los Angeles

And Another Thing

I harvested my first tomatoes of the season this morning.

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They are very sweet–even given their large size.  These are the traditional, organic tomatoes.  Now I can’t wait for the heirlooms (several different varieties) to come it.  They made a delicious snack before heading to the airport for a flight to L.A.

Now at the Oakland Airport about to board for LAX.  Makes me want to sing “Midnight Train to Georgia.”  “L.A., mmm…proved too much for the man…he couldn’t take it!  So he’s leavin’ a life, he’s come to knoooow!”

Except I’m going back to L.A.  Eek!  I’ll have to revisit those Vena Cava recommendations–did any of them mention how to stay sane in that mixed up Southland?

So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
You know the one – Dr. Everything Gonna Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left–
Ask him how much of your mind, baby!

Cause in this life,
Things are much harder than in the afterworld
In this life
You’re on your own!

And if the elevator tries to bring you down
Go crazy!!!

On My Calendar

Exciting things coming up in August both in and around Rockridge and further afield:

• Subculture the East Bay Express’s Best of the East Bay Party:  With something for everyone (and I mean everyone), the East Bay Express will be celebrating everything wonderful about the East Bay at the Oakland Museum this Friday, August 7 from 5pm to midnight.  The party itself is so massive and diverse that it makes summary a futile endeavor.  Download a large copy of the invitation by clicking here (invite) or check the blog the EBE has set up for more information.  (Best of the East Bay 2009 Party Blog)
• FLUX Super 8 Showcase: Sets from the short film Synesthesia by directors Corey Creasey and Ian Kibbey of Terri Timely will be part of this exhibition curated by RESFEST founder Jonathan Wells.  This is the first annual showcase by FLUX, organized to celebrate eight of the most exciting and emerging young artists working in film, video, music and design.  Watch Terri Timely’s film here (Synesthesia via Terri Timely).  Opening: August 15, 7pm  Scion Installation L.A. 3521 Helms Ave (at National) Culver City, CA. 90232 (310) 815-8840.  Through September 8.

from Terri Timely’s Synesthesia

• Oliveto Tomato Dinners: Oliveto’s annual Tomato dinners are the perfect capstone to tomato season, but this year in particular.  Oliveto’s new Community Journal has been tracking the cultivation of this years crop from the time the Early Girls were planted as seeds back in February via Tomato Watch (check out their brilliant Tomato Watch timeline by clicking here).  For those of us who have been watching all along, the Journal has taken the experience of anticipation of eating this prized fruit to new levels.  Whether you’re a regular or an Oliveto virgin, the Tomato Dinners are sure to delight.  Wednesday through Saturday, August 26 through 29, 2009.  (Oliveto Restaurant, Oliveto Community Journal)
• Chalk Hill Clematis’s Mary Toomey Garden Open House:  The eminent clematis cultivators Chalk Hill will open their doors to the public later this month for a tour of the Mary Toomey Garden.  From the Chalk Hill website: The Mary Toomey Garden is adjacent to the nursery and consists of a large pergola planted with roses and clematis and five individual gardens each with a different theme including an eighty foot long perennial bed featuring many herbaceous varieties. Chalk Hill also produces their own Olive Oil and Vinegar, available for sale at the farm.  In addition, cultivator Kaye Heafey’s book A Celebration of Clematis will be available for purchase  Open House Friday August 28th from 9am-4pm.  Chalk Hill Clematis PO Box 1847, Healdsburg, CA 95448 (707) 433-8416 farmmgr@chalkhillclematis.com

Artwork by Martha Kemp

• Os Mutantes LIVE: One of my favorite musical acts of all time will be performing live at the Independent in San Francisco as part of the second annual Outside Lands festival.  Their blend of Tropicalia, Psychedelia, and progressive rock have made them a unique (and we all shudder to use that word, but in this case it’s appropriate) force in 20th century popular music consciousness since their debut in the mid-1960s.  Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see them in action.  Sunday, August 30, 9PM (Os Mutantes Myspace) (Tickets via the Independent) (About Os Mutantes via Wikipedia)

Monday Morning Links

• Vena Cava has amassed a comprehensive to-do list for LA.  I’m homesick. (Viva Vena Cava)
• P.S.: Vena Cava’s Fall 2009 collection just hit stores, see the collection (Style.com) and shop (Barneys)
• UPDATE: how did I miss this?  Am I the last to know about this or what?  Please advise.  (Amazon)
  
• Dylan Fareed makes a video of Santa Monica beach, I’m still homesick. (Dylan Fareed)
• On a separate note: Thankfully, I’m not the only one who is tortured by the issue of pruning lavender. (Gardenweb)
• It’s peach season, and this looks really good.  (The Kitchen Sink)
• But it just makes crave a real old-fashioned cobbler, and there’s no one I can think of I trust more on the subject of peach cobbler than Lee Bailey (NPR)

Image from thekitchensinkrecipes.com

I think I’ll just have to make both.

I Love I Love I Love My Calendar Girl

There are just too many good things going on these days.

IN ROCKRIDGE:

Craft Fair at Pretty Penny, Saturday July 25, 11am-7pm

Pretty Penny, recent winner of not one, but three East Bay Express Best of the Bay 2009 Reader’s Poll Awards (Best Vintage Clothing, Best Women’s Clothing, and Best New Business) (and my favorite vintage shop to boot) will be hosting a craft fair all day this Saturday featuring Oakland and San Francisco’s finest artisans.  Come enjoy beverages and hors d’oeuvres gratis while browsing their wares–plus the hottest vintage styles around.

A soothing spot to sit in Pretty Penny

Open Opera presents Figaro, Saturday July 25 and Sunday July 26, 3pm

Open Opera is a new organization with a mission–to bring more opera to the world to new and wider audiences (starting with the Bay Area)–and all for free.  In order to do this Open Opera’s performances are staged in our beautiful public parks.  This Saturday and Sunday Open Opera will be performing the Marriage of Figaro at John Hinkel park in North Berkeley.  Peko Peko will be on hand in case sopranos make you hungry.  Sylvan Mishima Brackett says, “Intermit with our summer katsu-sando bento, American-size king salmon onigiri, luxury melon drink, and strawberry ice cream sandwiches!”  You know I will Sylvan, you know I will.

August Closing Oakland Location Clearance Sale, July 24, 25, and 26 11am-6pm

I report with a heavy heart that I returned to Rockridge to learn that we are losing one of our inveterate retailers, August.  I could always rely on August to bring me a tiny bit of Brooklyn via Refinery29-style faves like Vena Cava and Loomstate, but no longer.  Thankfully their Mill Valley location will stay open, but their loss will be felt in Rockridge.  Stop by to say goodbye and pick up some of their gorgeous wares at painfully low prices.

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FURTHER AFIELD (TONIGHT! TONIGHT! TONIGHT!)

Inara George and Van Dyke Parks, Friday July 24, McCabes Guitar Shop

On her most recent solo album Inara George (the multi-talented member of various and diverse acts such as the Bird and the Bee and the Living Sisters) collaborated with longtime friend Van Dyke Parks, famed composer, songwriter, lyricist, arranger, and producer.  The results are intoxicating.  The New York Times says “Ms. George muses on love, yearning and separation in lyrics that can be ingenuous or surreal…meanwhile Mr. Parks surrounds her ballads and waltzes with a nonstop counterpoint of melodies and of allusions…”  And to see these two characters on a stage together (and one as intimate as McCabes at that) is a real treat.

Not events but worth mentioning…

Oliveto Community Journal reports via their Twitter: “Rumor has it Catalan Farms has the first EXCELLENT slicer tomatoes of the season! @ [Berkeley Farmer’s Market Thursday and Saturday].”  Tomato season is on the verge of beginning in earnest.  See more on Catalan Farms here.

and

Commis Restaurant opened while I was away and I can’t wait to try it…if anyone has any early reviews let me know.

Fanzine Publishes Parks on Strawberry

In the late summer of 2005 I met Casey McKinney, a quietly bruised character at Maxfield’s coffee house on Dolores in San Francisco.  We drove up to Muir Woods in a 1990 325i and stood in the fog and talked about my moving to the Bay Area and his potential escape to Europe and possibly New York City.  I wasn’t sure what to think.  But McKinney did it, and in doing so created the Fanzine; an everything and everyman culture magazine, which allows, or rather encourages, longer form writing that blurs the boundaries of fiction/non-fiction and every other genre encapsulation to which we might confine prose.

Today on the Fanzine, McKinney published a piece of writing that perfectly fits the bill of the Fanzine’s mission.  In “Strawberry Jamming: Darryl’s Dodger Days, Memories of a Young Fan,” Richard Parks laces together the narrative of Darryl Strawberry’s self-destruction with urban malaise and tragedy of Los Angeles in the early 1990’s, all told (both) through the large innocent eyes of a nine-year-old fan and a 20-something’s hindsight.

It would behoove you to read it, in toto.  You can let me know what you think.

Image from dingedcorners.com

Like all great arts organizations, the Fanzine is struggling right now.  You can help by sponsoring them.  Click here for more information.

NYC Part 1

After throwing on some curls and pearls we headed over the Brooklyn Bridge down to the Financial district to the Forever Young Party.  It was the perfect New York night.  Not too cold and the Empire State was in my favorite decor: all white lights.  So classic.  The city got dressed for the Jans that night.  

We stopped at a Citibank on Broadway for some cash and in perfect NYC style I got hit on by a bum.  Men in New York.  Honestly.  Even the bums think they can get the hot chick.  

When we arrived at China Chalet it wasn’t yet 10.  My people had already been in place, decorating and setting up for the fete.  It was a beautiful reunion.  We all had time to hang out and get drinks in the relative quiet before the storm.  I got to meet the sassy and sexy proprietess of Beach House, the fabulous Miss Vicky B.  She soothes to insane levels and WAS FUCKING WEARING SADDLE SHOES.  HELLO!  It was love at first sight.

Things got rolling quickly though.  Before I knew it guests were pouring in.  I saw my Marlborough girls, Soph, Ash, Remy, Camille, Michelle, Lauren, Christina.  Damn.  They were looking great.  I swear the most grounded people I know in NYC are those who transplanted there from LA. 

One of the Jan’s mom was there, and the other Jan’s bro was on site.  It was a total family affair.  There was the fabulous Gelardi clan in all its glory, and looking sharp.  

There was a photo booth, photographers, and props.  Here are our hosts and the honorees of the evening; on the left, Jan Philippe and P, on the right Jan Edward in the glasses and tie:

Double

There were so many people there I saw people I haven’t seen in three, four, five years.  Wade, Justin, Ken, Noah, Kate.  Damn.  Amazing that I’ve gotten to the age where I can say that I saw people I haven’t seen in five years.  

The space was huge.  There was a huge bar/lounge area, a dining room with banquettes, a long hallway with mini booths along the side, and a big dance floor in the back with a second bar.

My best man Devotion was there with Kiss Me I’m Polish and I set up fort at one end of the main bar in the front.  We laughed and drank beers that we had to order four and five at a time since the bartenders were so damn old and slow, doublefisting at a double birthday party was the only way to go.

Double

Trouble

The music was the best I’ve ever heard in NYC–honestly.   Courtesy of DJs Tim Sweeney (DFA) & Scott Anderson.  I didn’t dance as much as I usually would because I was too busy screaming and yelling catching up in the front bar but I did hit it for a little and all I remember was dancing to Tony Toni Tone “Let’s Get Down” and never loving anything more.  

There were so many beautiful people there.  It was as if the world was glittery and shining that night and someone had sprinkled fairy dust over the whole evening. There was even a second girl wearing saddle shoes–Red ones!!!  The only thing that brought anyone back (or further from) Earth was the ghostly image of Michael Stipe(!) waiting outside the double glass doors for a late entrance when the club was at capacity.  

I was running around telling everyone how good they looked.  Handing out compliments like it was my job.  Sorry Bay, NYC makes you look ugly!  You need to sharpen up and learn how to dress!  People in NYC are tight!  Even the uglies are looking good over there. 

We closed the place down around 4 or so and a big group of us headed down Wall Street to a deli to grab a bite.  We got egg and cheese sandwiches and slices and nothing ever tasted so good.  A good, generic NYC deli.  Dime a dozen in the city, impossible to get anywhere else.  The big cases of prepared food, neon lights, guys in blue and white aprons, and unbelievably flawless slices and bagels.  [You don’t understand the issue I had Tuesday morning in Rockridge when I was craving a bagel.  OY VE!  Problem.  The craving was so intense.  My husband went and got me Noah’s.  I protested, but ultimately gave in.  He didn’t want to drive all the way to Manhattan Bagels on 4th Street, which I haven’t tried but is supposed to be great.  When he brought it to me and asked me how it was I didn’t even have the heart to tell him how incredibly bland that thing was.]

We moved the after hours party to Brooklyn where I ended my night–just tearing myself away knowing I really didn’t want to see sunrise all that much–dancing to Biggie rap “Juicy.”  Very symbolic as I had left the West Coast years before, abandoned the riotous streets of L.A. and its segregation and its fearless leader Pac for the in-your-face East Coast where I converted wholeheartedly to Biggie:

I live out there, so don’t go there, but that don’t mean a — can’t rest in the West, see some nice breasts in the West, smoke some nice cess in the West, y’all — is a mess thinking I’m gon stop givin LA props, all I got is beef with those who violate me, I shall annihilate thee…

Dinwiddie Pearl, Hang Ten

Van Dyke Parks, Sunset Boulevard, 1976

Fashion: “Sandman” airbrushed tank designed by Sara Rightor Parks for Harry Nilsson’s album of the same name

I just couldn’t resist.

The original context.