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Pop Culture

Winter Wonderland, SoCal-Style

Life in Angel City

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The return of these tumbleweed snowmen to Stadium Way can only mean one thing: It’s officially Christmas time in the City of Angels.
It’s amusing how ingrained the concept of a White Christmas is in our pop culture. Even here, at the edge of the Mojave Desert, these are the lengths we’ll go to in “recreating” [...]

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The Bricks and Mortar of Feminist Power

Angeleno Sights

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Who says L.A. has no history? Open your eyes (or in this case your camera lens) wide enough, and you’ll literally discover it in the most out-of-the-way corners of town.
While shooting the Broadway viaduct the other day, I parked my Jeep in front of this old brick building on N. Spring Street, thinking little of [...]

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A Tale of Two City Murals

Life in Angel City

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It’s either the best of wall art or it’s the worst of wall art, depending upon your perspective. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But if you ever needed a demonstration of the self-evident principle that murals mirror the life and cultural assumptions of their respective communities, this is it.
This first [...]

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Everything Comes Up Roses With Capt. Sully

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If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s for Tournament of Roses officials to bring a trademark “rosy optimism” to each New Year’s celebration.
For a year overshadowed by malaise like 2010 promises to be, could they have done any better to lift our spirits than naming Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger as the parade’s Grand [...]

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A Halloween Post Mortem

Life in Angel City

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Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. I guess it still is, but I just don’t seem to enjoy it as much nowadays.
The past several years a busy work schedule usually kept me on the road for the holiday. No costume parties, no Day of the Dead processions at Olvera Street, no ghosts, ghouls or [...]

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Forest Lawn, the Ultimate Celebrity Neverland

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This week it was announced that pop-singer Michael Jackson will be laid to rest at Forest Lawn, Glendale, on what would have been his 51st birthday, Aug. 29.
Dateline>City of Angels can’t think of a more appropriate choice of cemetery, given how for nearly a century Forest Lawn has served as a virtual Neverland for [...]

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Blightseeing: Down by the L.A. Riverside

Life in Angel City

Riverside Bike Path

Ride along the Glendale Narrows Bike Path to its southern terminus, and you’ll find these colorful, life-size scribblings “decorating” a Golden State Freeway overpass of the L.A. River.
Similar graffiti graces another bridge approach just beyond the bikeway (left).
So how should we label these taggings? Guerilla art or urban blight?
To me, graffiti is like a paisley [...]

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That’s Our Lady at 6th and Union Drive

Angeleno Sights

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Time now for the second installment in this blog’s occasional That’s Our Lady photo series, bringing you random depictions of Our Lady of the Angels from throughout the region.
Yes, I know that technically this colorful mural at 6th and Union Drive represents Our Lady of Guadalupe, but I don’t mind stretching the series definition to [...]

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L.A. in Quotes: Wigging Out to the Hollywood Plastics

Life in Angel City

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“I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.”
– Andy Warhol (1928-1987).
Thanks to out-of-town guests, I’ve been spending a lot of time around Tinseltown lately. For some reason this dingy wig shop along Hollywood Blvd. struck me as the perfect illustration for Warhol’s quote. [...]

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Driveby Shot: Hollywood’s Celebrity Pawnbrokers

Life in Angel City

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I don’t know why this pawn shop’s tagline amuses me, but it does. Guess everyone’s falling on hard times nowadays, including our Movieland elite.
Located at the corner of Melrose and Cahuenga, Brothers Collateral is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week for all your celebrity liquidation and/or collectible shopping needs.
According to a [...]

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Old News: When Those Freaky Circus People Come to Town

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There’s a certain historical irony in this month’s return of Cirque Berzerk (left) to the Los Angeles State Historic Park with a schedule of weekend performances. Over a century ago, L.A.’s City Fathers faced quite a conundrum over how to prevent such big-top hijinks from disturbing the Sunday peace.
Reporting on City Hall’s daily antics, the [...]

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Running With the RC Crowd

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Whenever there’s a lull here at the ol’ blog, you can bet I’m pouring all my energy into some paid writing gig. One of the great things about being a writer is the opportunity to learn all sorts of interesting stuff about a variety of subjects and then share those discoveries with readers.
Take for instance [...]

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Driveby Shot: Crossroads of the World

Angeleno Sights

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Now an office building, Sunset Blvd.’s Crossroads of the World opened in 1936 as L.A.’s first themed shopping mall. (Many believe it’s America’s first such mall as well.)
The shipshape design was the brainchild of Robert V. Derrah, well known for his Streamline Moderne Coca Cola building across town on Central Avenue.
Here at Crossroads, a twirling [...]

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Do You Blog Like a Girl?

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Well, do you? (Not that it’s a bad thing, especially if you are a woman.)
More importantly, which great writer do you emulate? Jane Austen? Homer? H.G. Wells?
Thanks to computer nerds with way too much time on their hands, the answers to these questions are just a few mouse clicks away.
Enter your blog URL (or any [...]

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Banking on a Dead Horse in Silver Lake

For all Citibank’s Silver Lake customers know, their branch safeguards a mythic lost treasure.
But it’s not in the bank’s vault — at least not the one where the loot is kept.
That’s because the treasure in question isn’t gold or currency, but rather Old Blue, faithful steed of cowboy movie legend Tom Mix. And according to [...]

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Weekend Matinee: Recalling Beverly Park and Ralph Story

Life in Angel City

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For your weekend enjoyment: An excerpt from the PBS program Things That Aren’t Here Anymore, narrated by Ralph Story, a guy who (sadly) isn’t here anymore.

Beverly Park operated at the current site of the Beverly Center from 1945-1974. Having never been there as a kid, your humble blogger lacks any personal recollections of it. However, [...]

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That’s Our Lady: Depictions of L.A.’s Namesake

Angeleno Sights

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Los Angeles is known throughout the world as the City of Angels, a fact reflected in this blog’s title. But as your humble blogger has pointed out before, the city’s founders didn’t really name their pueblo for the angels, but for the Virgin Mary (aka, Our Lady of the Angels).
As a reminder of this oft-forgotten [...]

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L.A. in Quotes: Tax Day Stimulus Edition

“We are taxed for schools — taxed as no people ever were — and the reason our children cannot go to school is because our money has not been properly used.”
–Major Horace Bell (1830-1918).
Major Bell was publisher of The Porcupine, a famous 19th Century weekly L.A. newspaper dedicated to skewering civic corruption and hypocrisy.
The above [...]

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Check It Out: The Original Foxfire Book Series

With the 1970s making their retro-glorious comeback, Dateline>City of Angels readers might want to check into the popular Foxfire book series that debuted during that decade.
I was reminded of these books while making my recent post about Grannie’s breadbox. As those who lived the 1970s will recall, “returning to nature” and “the basics” were prevalent [...]

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Yet Another Ill-Fated Hollywood Dream?

Life in Angel City

Here we go again… Yet another attempt to “bring Hollywood back to Hollywood.”
Ever on the lookout for L.A. stories that might inspire me to blog more, my Atlanta-based writer pal, Hilda, alerted me to this New York Times piece about the new five-star hotel going up at Hollywood and Vine. The article details the plans [...]

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