Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today’s bike club ride was a trip out to the Flyaway bus terminal at Van Nuys Airport to see the giant neon sculpture by Lili Lakich there. She was the founder of the Museum of Neon Art, and she is still involved in the art scene in downtown Los Angeles. Since it’s the last Sunday of the month, it’s time for the ‘longer’ ride, and a trip to Van Nuys fit the bill nicely.

It was a good day for riding. We headed out by the most direct route across Eagle Rock and Glendale, and then took Moorpark across the Valley to Sherman Oaks. Then we turned north and picked up the Metro Orange Line bike path out to Van Nuys. Along the way there, we thought we’d found Waldo. A short ride up Woodley brought us to the airport. And yes, the piece is big. It would have looked more impressive in the dark, but it was still a nice piece.

When we were leaving the airport, I got a message from Carla that she’d gotten a flat when she was leaving home, and she was going to meet up with us along the route back. As it turned out, we found her on the Orange Line bike path on the way back. We stopped at Panera in North Hollywood for snacks.

After that, we headed home by the straightest route possible from Burbank back to Pasadena. It was a pleasant ride.

58 miles.

Since the Museum of Neon Art is in the process of moving to Glendale, they held a special Neon Cruise on Saturday night, beginning and ending at the Americana there. This was our third time doing a Neon Cruise, and it was fun like always.

The actual cruise route was very similar to the others. There are some neon signs in Glendale, but apparently, not all that many. We headed into downtown Los Angeles by way of Angelino Heights. The cruise is not just neon, but also takes in a lot of local history, so the old Victorian houses on Carroll Avenue were a nice sight. When we got downtown, we had a brief stop at Phillippe’s for snacks, drinks, and neon signs. I think this may have been the only time I’ve ever been to Phillippe’s when I wasn’t on jury duty.

I brought along some cookie’s I’d made and shared them with the other tourists on the bus. It’s a good way to try out new recipes, since I’m doing development now of recipes to enter in this year’s L.A. County Fair.

Heading out of downtown, we went up into Hollywood for a trip down Hollywood Boulevard, and a stop at the Cat and the Fiddle. After that, we headed back to the Americana for the end of the tour.

It was a fun evening.

After stair-climbing practice on Thursday, I got changed and walked over to the Pershing Square Metro station to meet up with Kathleen. She had texted me that she was riding the Red Line in from North Hollywood. On the way over there, I looked back and saw a nice view of Venus and Jupiter, close together, and both right over the Aon building that I’d just climbed.

When Kathleen got there, we walked up the 102 steps (I counted them) to get from the subway platform to street level. And then we headed over on 4th St to go see some art. We met up with Zana there, and we set off in search of the food trucks that are usually at Art Walk night.

It turned out that the food trucks were parked in a lot by Main and 2nd. I decided to try the Rebel Bite this time. I got the Sundried Tomater Melt, and it was quite good. After that, we went to see some actual art. There was a lot of nice art to be had, and the crowds were not too bad this time.

All in all, it made for a fun evening.

Today’s adventure was a trip downtown to see “Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles” at MOCA. Having seen some of his work before, and reading the reviews of this exhibit, we knew we had to see it.

We rode the train downtown from Pasadena, and it felt odd to me to be on the train, going downtown, and not dreading having to run up the stairs at a 60-story building. I guess I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Still, the Civic Center subway station is pretty far underground, so we took the stairs up.

The exhibit was a lot of fun. Weegee sounds like he was a real character. They said that his accent was the inspiration for Peter Sellers in his portrayal of Dr. Strangelove. He also developed methods of distorting photos in strange ways. It was a lot like he invented a physical version of Photoshop. And he said that people think anything is more interesting if you put the word “naked” in front of it.

After Weegee, we wandered around the rest of the museum. It’s kind of a grab bag of all different things, but then we came around the corner and saw a painting by Cy Twombly. We know about him from having read John Waters’ book, Role Models.

“Isn’t Cy Twombly beyond a doubt still the most cutting-edge artist working today, even if he is over eighty years old? According to my close friend and former museum curator Brenda Richardson, he can make even the most seasoned art collectors and accessions committees seethe in skepticism and rage over his work.”

And we could see why.

Also, there was a painting by Roy Lichtenstein that included a note for him to call. I don’t recall if he ever did.

After the museum, we walked around Bunker Hill a bit. It’s very quiet on weekends there, but I got some nice photos of buildings reflecting each other in the late-afternoon sun. Then we rode Angel’s Flight down the hill and got on the subway to come home.

It was a fun afternoon.

Since today is a holiday, Kathleen and I went over to LACMA to see “California Design, 1930–1965: Living in a Modern Way“. We’d seen a little bit of this last fall when we saw the Tim Burton exhibit, and we’d been meaning to come back to see it.

We went there a bit early, just on general principles, and that turned out to be a good thing. Today was a Target Free Holiday Monday, so the museum was free, and it was packed. Still, we had a good time looking at all the odd objects in the exhibit, from the Airstream trailer that looked like an aluminum lucha libre mask, to a 1938 digital clock. We also saw a propaganda poster that looks just like things we see today, an original 1959 Barbie doll, and a video with Walt Disney demonstrating how a nuclear bomb works with mouse traps and ping-pong balls. It was a weird assemblage of stuff.

After that, we wandered around the rest of the museum. We went looking for Magritte, since I like surrealism. We also saw the big “Metropolis II” installation. That had little cars and trains zooming around the giant model city. It was kind of hypnotizing to watch, although it was kind of loud.

It was a fun afternoon.

On Friday, the L.A. Times had an article about “Three Weeks in January“, which is an art installation on the wall outside LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. It’s the brainchild of Suzanne Lacy, who originally created it in 1977 to raise awareness of rape in Los Angeles. The installation features a map of the city, with reported rape cases plotted, as well as a continuous storytelling soundtrack with people telling their rape stories. It’s all rather disturbing and haunting, which I guess is the point. So of course, when I saw this, I thought it would make for an interesting riding destination for Sunday morning.

It was kind of cold and cloudy, with the forecast saying there was a slight chance of rain. But the route we were taking is one that is never more than about 2 miles from the nearest Metro Rail station, so we had a bailout plan, if it became necessary.

We took the direct way downtown, down Huntington Drive and Main St. We stopped off to look at the art project for a bit before continuing on through downtown. Looking back, we got a good view of all the skyscrapers, and Jeff and I both took a moment to remember all the pain of climbing the stairs in all those buildings. Then we turned on Adams to head west for a bit. It started to rain a bit then, but it was very light, and it only went on for about 10 minutes. So we just kept on going.

I found a little back way from West Adams up to Larchmont. It was a little roundabout, but the streets were quiet, and we had lights to cross all of the major streets, so it worked well. Our snack stop was at Noah’s Bagels in Larchmont.

The route home went up Benton Way in Silver Lake, which is a nice, steep little hill. Always fun. Then we rode across the L.A. River and up Eagle Rock Blvd. That was when Silvio started having trouble with his chain skipping. We stopped to try to adjust it a bit, but in the end, it turned out that one of the pins was coming loose, and the chain was about to break. So he had to ride very carefully the rest of the way. He managed to make it up the Colorado hill, and after that, he turned off to go visit a bike shop.

It was a pleasant ride.

41 miles.

On Saturday afternoon, Kathleen and I went over to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to see the exhibit on Tim Burton.

The exhibit was great fun. They had examples of all his artwork, all the way back to notebook sketches from his high school days in Burbank back in the ’70s. And I’m sure he enjoys having his old artwork on display along with the teacher comments and rejection letters that it got back then. That sort of thing is always fun.

This is a very popular exhibit, so they had separate tickets for it. It was very crowded, and took quite a while to get through, since there were so many people there. But it was fun time.

This Thursday was time for the monthly downtown Los Angeles Artwalk. So after work, I got on the train to meet up with Kathleen downtown.

The food trucks were out in force again. Kathleen got a lobster roll from Lobsta Truck, and I got Korean BBQ cheese steak sandwich from the Kogi truck. Odd, but quite tasty.

After that, we headed out to make the rounds of the galleries. I took a few pictures, but not many, as the lighting is not really conducive to that sort of thing. Still, we saw lots of art of all kinds, as well as the insides of a lot of ornate old buildings downtown. As always, it was a fun time.

It’s the end of summer, so it’s time once again for the Los Angeles County Fair.

I didn’t win a ribbon this year. But if you want to try, here are the recipes I entered:

Blueberry Muffins
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

In any case, they didn’t get a ribbon, unlike last year’s entry.

It was a nice day for the fair. It’s usually very hot there, but today was nice. We went there with Lucinda and her friend London. Being the age that they are, Kathleen and I figured we’d send them off with some money, and we’d only hear from them when they needed more.

Right inside the gate, we were assaulted with the stands offering Everything! Totally! Fried! Yick.

First off, Kathleen and I headed over to the Culinary Styles area. I wanted to see if I’d won a ribbon, since they don’t publish the results. I didn’t win anything, so we moved on. We stopped in to see the garden model railroad. It was amusing to see that they had a lot of familiar Los Angeles sights rendered in miniature there. After that, we wandered over to get some Dr Bob’s Ice Cream. Then, we went into the pet area, since they had a pen with some wallabies in it. Not your usual pets, but interesting and cute.

Next, we found the arts building, so we could go see the Museum of Neon Art exhibit there. It was a small exhibit, mostly of old neon signs from their collection. At that point, I got a message from Lucinda. They’d gone on some rides, and they were out of money. And they wanted to buy themselves tails. So I told them to meet us outside, and I gave them some more money. We followed along to see the tails, and they were cute.

For lunch, we went to King Taco. Then, after having the pork carnitas, we went into the barn to see some baby pigs. We looked at all the animals, and ended up at the far end just in time for the pig races. That was amusing, and at the end, they gave us all coupons for a pound of bacon. Made from the losers, presumably.

The final act was to walk through all the exhibit halls and marvel at the endless rows of booths selling all manner of crap. In the end, I bought a hat, which was a fairly modest thing, compared to some of the stuff they were selling there.

It was a fun day.

Last December, we took the Museum of Neon Art’s Holiday Lights tour. And as it turned out, that was the night it was pouring rain in Los Angeles, which is not so good if you’re riding in an open-top sightseeing bus. So tonight, we went to do the summer version of the neon tour, and it seemed like a pretty good bet that it wasn’t going to rain.

The museum has moved out of the old bank building on 4th St in preparation for their move to Glendale next year. So the tour began in Chinatown. There is a lot of nice neon dating back to the 1930s there, and it was always a stop on the tour, so it seemed like a good place to start. While we were waiting to go, we wandered around and took pictures of the neon as the sun went down.

When it got dark, we all loaded up the bus and headed out. They took us downtown to see all the old theaters on Broadway, as well as a number of other old neon signs in the area. Then we had our first stop of the tour, at The Golden Gopher. Word is that Gopher has the oldest liquor license in L.A., and it’s apparently one of very few that allow for take-out. And the little gophers inside were cute.

Leaving downtown, we headed up across Echo Park and Silver Lake into Hollywood. There is a lot of neon and other electric signage in Hollywood, so that was a natural for the tour. Eric was our guide for the tour, and he was very entertaining, telling us stories about the different signs along the way, as well as maintaining a constant patter about which historic buildings have been converted to loft housing. There’s a little video excerpt you can see there that will give a taste of what the tour is like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhA6D6DzZh0

It was a very fun evening.