Tonal Blur

 

French Cafe Life

 

Sax On The Mall

 

Cineplex Odeon

 

For Teachers

 

Guitarists

 

Boredom

 

Time Capsule

 

Pocket Change at Cafe Cordiale (now closed)

 

MLK

 

The Shape of the Wind

 

Hand Prints

 

Getty At Dusk

 

Getty Blue

 

Getty Blue 2

 

Getty Blue 3

 

The Fire and Rain Have Left Town

Only in Los Angeles can one go from summer on Monday to winter on Wednesday.  In November.

The fires have died for the most part, as we all must someday, but we are still displaced from our offices until, tentatively, mid-January due to the Getty Fire.  At least we still have our home.  That is the disaster mentality of L.A.:  “only a few out buildings burned, but people and animals are safe and the house still stands.”  A few news outlets confused “out buildings” with “outhouses,” which, of course, means something completely different to those of us who remember the implication.

We learned several weeks ago that the fire was caused by a tree branch falling on power lines along Sepulveda Boulevard in the pass just north of the Getty Center.  This according to the LAFD Arson-Counterterrorism Section.  Our office and buildings withstood the fire thanks to the hard working fire fighters, but the place needs some clean-up to remove ash, debris and burned foliage.  The air quality also needs to improve because it still smells like an ash tray outside.

And now we have the rain which rolled in with tremendous, thunderous aplomb yesterday.  Rains after fires can create some additional problems with mudslides, but rain also freshens the air, and the cool breezes were a welcomed relief from the stagnant 90 degree temps of Monday.

The traffic to and from work was a slog before the fire.  Now that we are commuting to our temporary work space downtown, each day we realize how lucky we were before the fires.  Vermont Avenue, one of the main north-south thoroughfares around the clogged 101/110/10 freeway interchange, is slow but colorful:  sit in comatose traffic while inching along through Little Bangladesh; Wilshire Center and the Metro Station; Koreatown; Pico-Union; West Adams; University Park.  Vermont offers a measure of real down-to-earth life we do not see in Brentwood on our former commute every morning and evening.  Sprinkled along the Vermont sidewalks are stands with street food and fruit and homeless denizens wandering up and down seemingly stunned and confused or just plain angry.  One person in a stuffed black bra and underwear screamed “Give me my money!” at the passing traffic.  A nearby restaurant shouted in neon “Pick your chicken, we kill it, cook it and serve it hot to your table!” Through it all, USC students bike to class with laptop bags slung over their shoulders.

Los Angeles:  where every commute is an adventure through several countries and social strata.

For now, no fires; no floods; and a city very much alive.

Vermont Avenue in the old days: still too much traffic

A Friday Night In Hollywood With Miss Saigon

I have never thought of Los Angeles as a theatre town.  Most performances I have attended featured actors hoping that their stars would rise and actors who had some success and were doing a play between projects.  This is called stretching the acting chops, this theatre work; it is definitely not a money-making endeavor for Hollywood actors.  Whatever the circumstances, when attending a theatre performance in Los Angeles, I am always aware that the people on stage in front of me are acting.  And that often makes the experience unsatisfactory.

So I did not prepare myself to be enthralled by the touring production of Miss Saigon my wife and I recently attended at the Pantages Theatre to celebrate our 32^nd wedding anniversary.  I was transported, mesmerized, mind-blown.  I did not expect the opening number with the scantily-clad prostitutes nor did I anticipate the language—I am not a prude, but the last major musical I saw at the Pantages was The Lion King; enough said.  The lighting, the sets, the special effects, all exquisite and only added to the performances.

Emily Bautista’s Kim is a revelation.  She is in almost all the scenes in the first half of the show and much of the second half as well, and since the entire play is more of an opera with everything—plot points, dialogue, etc.—sung, I marveled at her ability to belt out the difficult score from nearly every position, including prone on her back and crouched cradling a child.  Red Concepcion as the Engineer is also impressive as a sort of ring master to the circus that was the final days of Saigon and the Vietnam War.

Of course, the piece de resistance is the landing of the helicopter on stage for the evacuation of the U.S. embassy, an image from history that most people of a certain age remember clearly.  The aircraft starts as a hologram from the back of the theatre, floats down over the audience’s heads with a thundering shudder and hiss of rotors to disappear at the back of the stage only to turn around and float back into view over the actors and chaotic scene.  At that point, it appeared to be a very real aircraft with spinning rotor and pilots in the cockpit.  It was nothing less than astounding.

The ending was a little predictable but moving.  The story of Amerasian children born of American G.I. fathers and Vietnamese mothers has always been part of the discussion of the Vietnam War.  Yet, the subject has not gotten the treatment that the war and all of its consequences has.  Certainly this aspect makes for a unique story for musical theatre.  Miss Saigon stands alone for this reason, and a revival was a welcomed return for a great show.

We exited the theatre to a wonderful balmy night in Hollywood.  The sidewalks overflowed with tourists, theatre-goers, and residents who occupy the surrounding mixed use buildings.  Hot dog and sausage vendors lined the streets and the smell of onions and grilling filled the air.

Theatre in Los Angeles does not really have its Times Square, mainly because the city has such a sprawl but the Pantages is the heart of the theatre scene in L.A., as I have written before.  In a town that puts everything into its film industry, good theatre does take place if one is willing to venture out and look for it.  That night, 32 years after our special day, we had an unforgettable experience on a beautiful night in Hollywood.

Back at the Baked Potato

Thomas Wolfe said, famously, you can’t go home again.  Nonsense!  Saturday night, I went home, and for once, I found nothing had changed.

A huge chunk of my high school years was spent at the Baked Potato in North Hollywood.  My friends and I generously thought of ourselves as musicians.  We were too cool for school.  In reality, we were dateless and desperate.  Rather than admit our inability to get laid or be accepted into the cool group, we formed our own allegedly suave clique and spent our time at the Baked Potato, music nerds to the core.

The band we went to see with religious devotion was Don Randi and Quest; the name alone smells like the 1970s.  Randi was the keyboardist for a group of studio musicians in the 60s and 70s known as the Wrecking Crew.  A lot of their work became part of producer-turned-murderer Phil Spector’s legendary Wall of Sound.

In 1970, Randi opened the club in North Hollywood and Quest became the house band.  The place was a hangout for L.A.’s best studio musicians—Jeff Porcaro, Steve Lukather, Lee Ritenour and Alex Acuna.  So many others.  The posters from those gigs are tacked up on the walls, faded and torn, a kind of Los Angeles musical history wallpaper.

When I arrived Saturday night, I was surprised to find nothing had changed.  Well, almost nothing.  Don Randi’s seven-foot grand piano and Rhodes electric keyboard/synthesizer combo have been replaced by a single Yamaha digital keyboard.  Better sound.  Only a little more room in the tiny space.  Randi’s son, Justin, now runs the place and tends bar.  He also sings, stepping into his father’s set for a few Neil Diamond numbers.  The air inside the club is historical, musty and warm, cozy on an end-of-summer, first-days-of-fall evening.

Not a single musician remains from my high school era Quest, except for Don Randi himself.  This didn’t surprise me.  The personnel was never set in stone, but subject to who was available on a particular night.  The line-up on Saturday was Larry Klimas on Woodwinds, Frank Fabio on guitar, Chris Roy on bass, Peter Korpela on percussion, and Todd Wolf on drums.  Halfway through the first set, drummer Miles Robinson of the Fifth Dimension sat in.  He was the one we all idolized back in high school.  He is an incredible, energetic performer whose presence on this night seemed to revitalize Don Randi as they ran through the chord changes of the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.”

The music was as dated as the ruffled tuxedo shirts we didn’t wear to prom (dateless, remember), but it was a nice trip down memory lane.  And actually, after my fellow musicians graduated high school and went off to college, I did take a few young ladies there, including my future wife who on this recent Saturday night also found the music a little too middle-of-the-road smooth jazz.

Don Randi, himself, was in fine form.  He talks more now than I remembered.  Maybe it’s because he has a book coming out:  You’ve Heard These Hands:  From the Wall of Sound to the Wrecking Crew and Other Incredible Stories (Hal Leonard Books, 2015).  The stories he offered up between songs were interesting and added to the historical vibe of the club.

On a more pedestrian level, the drinks were small and expensive, but strong, and the food was terrific:  all kinds of stuffed baked potatoes the size of footballs.  I had the excellent chicken salad (yes, they do also offer salads) and my wife and I split a chicken parmesan potato—more than enough for two.

I enjoyed my sojourn in the past and I’d definitely go back.  The Baked Potato is part of L.A. music history.  Unlike my high school days, I’d go in for one of the other fine groups on the schedule.  Don Randi and Quest are a treasured memory for me now, but like a favorite childhood toy one has outgrown, it is time to move on to other experiences.