Hollywood Sunset - Part Two

If you "Wiki" Sunset Boulevard you will find that it is a winding and gently hilly 22 miles (35km),  "following the path of a 1780s cattle trail from the Pueblo de Los Angeles to the ocean".  You will also find fragments of the Camino Real and Route 66 along Sunset, (part of it also renamed Cesar Chavez Boulevard in honor of the Civil Rights and Farm Workers' Leader of the 70's). 

The character of the road changes (sometimes dramatically) every two miles or so according to the neighborhood.  I posted about it here last January where it passes through Silver Lake and retains a very Latino flavor.  The part featured here, (and in Part One) covers a more recent history, of movie and music making, of great migrations, which lately comprise Thai and Armenian populations (this stretch of Sunset abuts both Little Armenia and Thai Town).  Huge film studios are close by, like the Sunset Gower studios (Frank Capra to I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched) and the old Warner Brothers studio (now Sunset Bronson where the Jazz Singer and Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons were made).

With all this going on over so many years, you might not expect to find majestic, surviving California Redwoods plonked right down in the middle of the 'hood.  (I didn't!)  No really, a street full of them!

And maybe not so much (!) miles of aisles of discount shoes!  To some people this might be something close to H-E-A-V-E-N........but.........I don't know.  In the 21st century it sometimes now seems that the most significant thing that the American culture has to offer the world is an endless supply and the widest variety imaginable of complete and utter rubbish.

BIG SIGH.  Moi, personellement.  I could hardly find a single shoe in all this space (of which you're seeing just a small fraction) that I found to be attractive or of good quality.

But let's move on.....

And yet, and yet, remember?  We're in Paradise?  A Meyer lemon tree, anyone?  For all those folks coming out of the Hills requiring a little something special for their gardens?

Or the glories of a shrubby succulent?  In nice little Edens of garden supply stores.  Two to be exact.

I mentioned migrations, did I not?  Sunset Boulevard is also lined, surprisingly perhaps to some, with a bevy of motor hotels.  To welcome, one has to suppose, the endless succeeding generations of wannabes from every corner of America, and ultimately, the world.  Personally, maybe not SUCH an auspicious start to their sojourns in la-La-LAnd?

They DO accommodate, but, in consistent-but-various states of ..... we'll have to say it: decrepitude......

And this one: very much "dans son jus", gave Mr. Paradis to think...(as he has had some experience in this area of study) that its proprietorship might incline to the Chinese........(remember he is married to someone with a Chinese mother).  

I said to him: It's possible you're right.  There's that certain benign, insouciant neglect about it. Attending to the essentials, like plentiful potted plants, and fully functioning vintage soda machines....whilst shrugging off the incidental: like sagging foundations and rooflines, hole-y roofs and abandoned swimming pool refurbishments.  His hunch was somewhat confirmed.....(in the better of ways) by this:

(Yes, Mlle. Paradis, you should have gotten a better picture, but you were just TOOOOO concerned with filling your pockets with fruity booty).  Because allllllllllllllll those golden yellow flecks?  Against the evening sky?

.......Turned out to be this.

And how many German-Irish-Italian-Swedish-Brazilian-Nigerian people DO YOU KNOW?  That have a starfruit tree in their front yard?????  I knew that.

And the only other starfruit tree I'VE KNOWN?  In my own life?  In my own Chinese grandmother's yard. 

Theory perhaps proven. 

So there!  But, moving on - and picking up the pace, cuz I know you don't have all day!

Grau (with an umlaut that my computer is incapable of.)

(Photo from the Grau website here)

An arty creative bolthole with massive makings going on....located, where?  I mean, "WHAT IS IT?"

Wondered Mr. Paradis.

"Why Honey", I said.  "I think it's a strip-mall".   With office spaces.  One of the very first ever.  (In America).   It's called:  CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD.  (You can Wiki it here and learn more about it here.)  Crosby Stills and Nash, F. Scott Fitzgerald and potter, Beatrice Wood, all made art here at times in their careers.

Well I've said it before.  It's a 'Wood of Wonder.

EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING (no, really, everything) in your and your many loved ones' lives of rock'n'roll was recorded here.  Check it out.  Says Mr. P.   Authoritatively.  (Because this is his area of expertise.)

Now.  You might have been living under a rock if you never heard about Tom Cruise's couch-leaping rant on Oprah about the evils of Psychiatry (fine print reads: "Industry of Death").  This charming place will fill you in on the official Scientology position thereto.  In case Tom missed any salient points. 

(Note: Views Expressed by the Museum do not necessarily reflect Those of this Writer or Anyone Else associated with this Web Publication.)

In a dusty window on Sunset Blvd.

Got a few minutes for more bizarre Hollywood?  This pink suitcase was in her trunk on the day that blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield met her (career already failing) demise at age 34 in Biloxi, Mississippi.  Why anyone (including my Mom) cares particularly about this tragic star is beyond me.  (Or specifically, her suitcase????  Huh?)  But apparently, they do.  

The now vacant and available for lease stunning former premises of the Hollywood Athletic Club.  Once the tallest building in Hollywood and counting among its members Walt Disney, Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin.  As you would expect.

OK we're almost done here, guys.

Finally:  This little sign right here?   Points "THIS WAY" to a "medicinal" marijuana dispensary.

But that's a whole other Blog Post!

Hollywood Sunset?  Been there.  Done that.

Now for the other 21 miles!

Best Buddies

I don't often do this.

but I found these over at Cizlou and how could I resist?  I know you think I'm one of those cat ladies.  But if I were home more I would definitely have one of these.

I hear it's snowing where some of you are.  If it's not putting a smile on your faces....I'm hoping one of these will.

xoxo!  Happy Weekend!

Hollywood Sunset; Part One

So.  As I've mentioned, it's been c-c-c-c-co-co-cold!  

In L.A. lately.  But that notwithstanding, I asked Mr. Paradis, "How's about a walk?"

Remember here, where I mentioned that I needed a really good soul-cleansing walk?

So Mr. Paradis said "Yes".  And off we went.  On a long one.  Around Hollywood.

Mr. Paradis remarked, "We've never done this part of the neighborhood before!"  Yes, that was true.  

As for the walk: "Soul Cleansing"?   MAYBE NOT SO MUCH!

Hollywood?  Tacky, Tawdry, Over-The-Top!  (For similar LA themes see also:  Wood of Wonder also here, and Venice Beach) And so has it been for a very long time, my native So-Cal friends will have told me.

The  City Fathers are trying to remedy this situation.  It's a project far from being achieved.  And I will let you decide for yourselves, whether or not a worthy or desirable one.

Where ARE we?  In the immediate vicinity of the Hollywood-and-Highland (Shopping) Center and Theater.  (Formerly known as the Kodak Theater - where the Oscar ceremonies usually are held)

The good news?  You might run into some characters that you are familiar with!

The bad news?  They might not be all that they seem. 

Add to that "tawdry tacky" description of Hollywood: "fraudulent"?

No-no-no....let's just go back to that old Disney chestnut:  A Wonderful World of Make-Believe.

On less chilly days, it might not seem like such a terrible idea to be standing all day on a sidewalk only half-clothed.  There are worse ways to earn a living in Hollywood.  (Like Porn movies?)  (Could we "make-believe" it's 80 degrees out?  A spray-on tan could help?)

A lot of these people would prefer you did not take their pictures.  No, they are not afraid you're from their hometown in Nebraska and will show these pictures to their Mom.......no,......they do WANT you to take their picture.  BUT ONLY with..... their camera.  And only, AFTER YOU PAY.  (Please.)

But maybe you knew all this already.  (You did not just fall off a potato truck from the provinces.)

Meanwhile, BLESS! THAT GUY who invented cellphones and texting!  Time passes so much more quickly in between pictures taken.

No explanations needed here.  Except - aren't their hands and feet tiny?

Nor here.  (Commerce!)

All this within one L.A. block.  So very many contrasts.  From hustle to hush.......

But still so much the same.  This noble beast?  Fiberglass.  What was I saying about "Make-Believe"?

And in the midst of it all.....Hollywood High.  Wedged in right between Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset.  (They run parallel to each other.)  Immediately South of the Hollywood and Highland "Complex".  And....also quiet on a Sunday afternoon in January.  

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?  They call themselves "The Sheiks".  After Rudolph Valentino?  (Since well before Osama Bin Laden was a twinkle in his Daddy's eye, I guess.  When Americans were having very different conversations about men with white draped heads.)

Hollywood High is now listed on the National Parks Service's "National Register of Historic Places".  As of last January 2012.  And if you follow the link to the Wikipedia entry, you might be surprised by the range of famous names who found education here - from Carol Burnett to Marcel Ophuls with Lon Chaney and Judy Garland in between.  

So ends Part One of our last Sunday's walk.  Part Two to come soon.

So what do you think?  Should Hollywood be modernized?  Sanitized?  Genericized?  Properly GLAM-O-RIZED??????  Or should it be allowed to ebb and flow in it's tacky human way and allowed to evolve just as it has?   

And while you're considering all that......maybe this could help:

Time for a hot toddy to take the shivery edges off.  Isn't it?

Green Shoots

Sorry guys.

I hear it's still murky and may be snowing there where you are.........we've had our share of inclement weather. Well, for L.A.  But so far, my lobelia and alyssum aren't complaining.

  The cold has kept my Xmas tree very very happy.  No needle drop STILL!

The pelargoniums seem indestructible.

I worried about my (Canary Island) cactus (Aeonium) when the weather people predicted 30-degree temps.

All that said, I'm still also looking for green shoots.  Hang in there guys - the cold can't last forever!  

XO!

Choice Chairs

What do you think?  Are you the kind of person who is inclined to fetishize inert, inanimate objects?

However sensible and wholesome you might consider yourself to be.....

could you too participate in this seemingly increasingly popular pastime?

Because yes, really.  There are those who do do it.  Make chairs into fetish objects.

Why?  Because maybe chairs lend themselves so well to being anthropomorphized.  Avatars of some part of our inner other ideas of ourselves.

OK, where are you, those people????

  Who secretly see yourselves as shiny great green lumpy things????

Where might you be found this weekend?

  Hope you're staying warm at least!

 Happy Weekend!

(Pics: top, Mlle Paradis others...sorry I've had these lying around so long, I know longer have any idea where they came from.  If any of your pictures are here - come right over and claim them!  Please!)

Return to NYC - Last Spring's Market Color

That's better!!!!!  Oh yes.  I needed a couple more days of mental refreshing.

Now I'm back!  It has helped that we have had two mild days here in L.A.  With temps

creeping up on 70 degrees in the afternoons.  What I've really needed is a long good walk to blow out the cobwebs. Have any of you had one?  I've had a few brief sidewalk scoots to the post office and library, and several games of bracing tennis but not one of those soul cleansing walks.    (Putting it on the list!  Alongside the otherwise wearying must-do's that have crept back into the day parades.  Laundry again, refill the frig, bank, vet appointments, vacuum....... AGAIN!)

We've had a chilly holiday season.  Some years we fall off the plane from London on New Year's Day to find ourselves plunged into sultry 80 degree heat!  DEEEEELISH!  But this year we've had a solid 6-8 weeks of crispish weather.  Good thing I bit the bullet in late November and bought myself a warmer waterproof coat and lumpy sweater.  I need them! This year has also brought an inauguration of tall boots and thick tights.  Something it apparently took awhile for my brain to come to grips with after several years in tropical Hawaii.

I would be happy for spring......ANY.  MINUTE.  NOW.

Till then, guess I'll have to settle for these beguiling pics

from last spring's wanderings around NYCs Union Square Market.

It's strange.  I no longer feel much connection at all to that city.  I lived there a long time!  Have you ever had that feeling about someplace you once lived?  It seems such a foreign world to me now.  

Anyway, borrowing that Oscar Wilde line....."I love talking about nothing.  It's the only thing I know anything about."  

Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah................you know!  Sometimes, it's just like that.  Cheers!  It's almost the weekend again!

New Year........ Still Paradise

hi everybody.  how were your holidays?  good i hope.

did you rest up?

do anything special-special?

are you ready for the new year?

i have to admit that i'm not quite there yet.

we were busier than i'd wanted to be.

i still feel like i need to be quiet.  and still.

so i won't say much more.  except, hope you like the pics!  new year's kisses to you!