The Natural World is a Brutal World at the Page Museum - La Brea Tar Pits

I don't want you to think I'm glib when it comes to the circle of life, especially at the La Brea Tar Pits, where the struggle to survive while stuck in a pool of tar is one of the more distressing life's-end scenarios. But some of the Page Museum's exhibits are inarguably campy. Which is fine—it's in the heart of Los Angeles—America's dream factory after all.

It's been a long time since I've visited the tar pits. Money has poured in from somewhere over the years because the museum now features a lovely garden atrium to stroll through and teams of researchers, pulling up buckets of bones from the surrounding grounds and brushing them under microscopes in fishbowl-like laboratories where you, the public, are invited to witness the archiving of ice-age lifeforms. And that's pretty entertaining.

Enjoy this saber-toothed cat attacking a ground sloth animatronic diorama. At some point they'll both be extinct, so it's not like the saber-tooth "wins" ultimately. He or she was simply hungry. And doesn't hunger drive us all? We are all hungry, hungry animals.



Never underestimate the influence of artist Jeff Koons on our natural history museums, especially for large-scale sculpture exhibits.

Here's saber-tooth and a ground sloth fossils, unearthed from the tar, with the atrium in the background. Time keeps keeping on.

What did a wooly mammoth sound like? Thanks to this footage from the Page Museum, now you know.

How to tell the difference between a song and a jingle

The line between song and commercial jingle is so blurred it's hard to see straight anymore. Songs sound like jingles, are picked up by agencies and used as jingles, and then what are they? And what was the motive for making a song sound that way?

Advertising is one of the last lucrative economic resources for beleaguered bands. It's expensive to be in a band. Here's just a few of the costs of being an independent musician: rehearsal space rental, instrument purchase, parts and repairs, recording, engineering, and production costs, plus time—time to write, rehearse and perfect the craft. If bands are purposefully (or subconsciously) nudging their material into anthemic major-chord peppy jingle territory—who am I to complain?

Because everything sounds like a commercial now.

Fitz And The Tantrums - The Walker



Song or Jingle? Here are your clues:
1.) "City of Angels" reference.
2.) Verse, chorus and bridge are all ear worms.
3.) Song can be easily broken into anthemic 30-second chunks.
4.) There is much whistling.
5.) There is walking in the streets in the official video.

And here we have it: Ellen DeGeneres' Oscars® Trailer.




Brought to you by whatever the hell this is.

Movies You May Have Missed - Dogfight (1991)

When I first saw the trailer to Dogfight in a San Francisco movie theater (most likely closed now), I instantly knew I had to see this film. Not only because it starred River Phoenix and Lili Taylor—enormously talented, artistic actors, even in their early 20s—but because their "meet-cute" was anything but, as you can see in the trailer. I'd never heard of a dogfight in this context, but screenplay-writer Bob Comfort, a former Marine, had partaken in them and director Nancy Savoca says on the commentary track of the DVD that fraternities used to hold them as well. The premise is so sociopathic, regular minds can barely believe it was (hopefully in the past tense) a real thing.



Eddie (Phoenix) and his three fellow Marines are on leave in San Francisco before shipping out to Vietnam. They've pooled funds for a dogfight, a private party where invitees will be judged and given a cash prize for whoever brings the ugliest date. The girls know nothing of this. Eddie strikes out several times before meeting Rose, a shy would-be folk singer. Anyone who has ever felt unattractive and undatable (I'm guessing a large percentage of us) would be intrigued by this in a sick, sinking way. And then, over the course of a night, it becomes a completely believable love story. It shouldn't work, but it does. Here's why:

• Great screenplay by Comfort, featuring realistic people, not caricatures, with a sensitive ear for dialogue and moral character.
• Director, Nancy Savoca, fresh from a Sundance Grand Jury Prize for her first feature, True Love (a clear-eyed, funny slice of Italian-American wedding-planning in the Bronx—see it if you can), knows how to work with fine actors and did much research on San Francisco of 1963. It shows in her choices for costumes, set design, locations (few actually shot in San Francisco, but well-chosen for a low-budget period shoot), and that subtle thing that great directors have for where to place the actors in the frame, especially in a dialogue-heavy story like this one.
• River Phoenix and Lily Taylor—best movie couple ever—just beautiful and perfect throughout. I tear up to this day, thinking about the lost potential in River Phoenix. I very much wanted him to keep acting into his old age. He could flat-out emote on the screen, projecting so much while saying so little. Lily Taylor is one of my favorite actresses—who acts from the heart. She has a confrontation scene in Dogfight that's a master class in direct emotion-to-action. It gives me chills every time. You'll know it when you see it. (Danny Peary, writer of Alternate Oscars, thinks she should have won that year for best actress, and I agree.)

I find most movie romances rushed and unrealistic because of the truncated time frame of feature-length storytelling. Dogfight is one of the few where the emotions seem to come naturally, because of the (often very awkward) circumstances of the characters, the time period, and location. And it's resolved in a way that respects the characters and you, the audience. You can fall for somebody in one night, especially in San Francisco, but it's not easy to show that. It's a perfect little film, packed with humor, sorrow, and other universal emotions.

Eddie and Rose are about to meet. River Phoenix is excellent as a 19-year-old, immersed in an all-male world of training, fighting and defending, but seriously out of touch with the more sensitive issues of life. Glimmers of a potentially "nice boy" who got lost in a macho environment keep peeking throughout his performance. A lesser actor couldn't make us believe that Eddie would truly appreciate Rose.

Rose is naive and idealistic, but stands up for herself and others, and has a good sense of humor. You can see the mischievous little girl beneath her awkward late adolescence. She's coming of age in a brutal way, but she faces it and makes the most of her chances. She's a humanitarian and a true mensch.

Rose learns an ugly truth from fellow dogfight attendee, Marcie (Elizabeth Daily). Savoca excels in showing women communicating with each other, especially in public restrooms. The way of the artist is mysterious.

A reference to long-gone Playland at the Beach. There was enough in the budget to imply San Francisco in the 60s, but it's San Francisco in close-up.

Rose's folksinger-hall-of-fame. Odetta is one of her very favorites. Rose has great taste in music. So does Savoca, whose soundtrack picks are pristine choices for every scene.

I heart Rose. How could I not?

Minor quibbles: It's not easy portraying San Francisco when most exteriors were shot in Seattle. No place on Earth looks like San Francisco, but unfortunately it's very expensive to shoot there. Because I was born and lived in the city for many years, these little location glitches jar me a smidgen. How I wish I could have been hired as "City-by-the-Bay Consultant" in 1990. I could have used the money too. It won't ruin any aspect of the film for others, but allow me to share.

Rose's address doesn't exist, but if it did, it would be on top of a hill between the Noe Valley/Diamond Heights neighborhoods, off of Market Street (and would be a multi-million-dollar property today). I lived five blocks away from this imaginary place from 1964 through 1968. True, I was only four, but I remember San Francisco of the 60s very clearly. I had family there, so after we moved away, we came back to the city all the time. This area is very hilly. The street where I lived was on such a sharp angle that I still have marks on my knees from all the times I fell down it. Falling down my street was an almost-daily occurrence and lots of band-aids on skinned knees were part of my early childhood.

But as you can see here, Rose's street is as flat as a pancake.

The cultural and political changes in the U.S. caused by the Vietnam War are a major plot point but the army of hippies in Rose's neighborhood is overkill, in my opinion. This neighborhood was, at the time, working class, full of families, and not a counter-culture meeting spot. It's very subtly shown in the film, mostly with sound cues (that I just discovered after multiple viewings), but this scene is the after-math of a music festival, hence all the long-hairs. But this real-life neighborhood is too hilly and congested to hold a festival, plus the nearest park (Dolores) is too far away to make geographic sense. The majority of musical events in the 60s took place in the panhandle in the Haight, and in Golden Gate Park, a few miles from here.

Personal aside: I used to beg my Dad to drive us over the hill to see the hippies, and he often would. I just loved them—like giant muppets—so colorful and free. Remember, I was just a toddler.

Hippies galore!

Here's some San Francisco. Pretty distinct—the crammed-together architecture, the weird hill-top angle, the feeling of "how did this get here—it was technically all sand dunes and swamp and earthquake faults." It's a true gold rush town, even today with the invasion of the techies, who I would never have begged my Dad to see. No offense, but San Francisco isn't doing it for me lately.

The most jarring (to me), yet visually arresting shot: Eddie running toward the Bay Bridge, which is nowhere near Rose's place, but that's not my issue. The pretty lights on the cables weren't installed until 1986—23 years after this scene takes place. But I don't care—Savoca reports that her DP noticed the beautiful view and suggested they take advantage of it at that moment during production. And she made the correct artistic decision and did so, shouting "Run, River, run!" as they filmed. It's a perfect shot to depict San Francisco and I'm glad it's there.

 

"Kung Fu" - A Play About Bruce Lee Features Dance, Drama

A new play called Kunt Fu, about the early career of Bruce Lee and featuring dance and martial arts has opened off-Broadway at New York City's Signature Theater. Written by David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly, Golden Child), this has been a 20-years-in-the-making production. Dance, martial arts, Bruce Lee - I would pay top dollar for this (if I had top dollars to spend, that is).



- New York Times review

Cole Horibe stars as Bruce Lee and may be familiar to viewers of So You Think You Can Dance, season nine .

Fresh Stereotypes for Athletic Mascots - Get 'em Here

It's time for Native American mascots to be retired. There's no excuse in the 21st century for athletic organizations to insist that due to tradition and other bullshit reasons, their racist naming and logo practices can't be updated and improved. They can and they should. Because stereotypes are crude, derogatory and disrespectful. Nobody wants to be a cartoon character, or referred to as a group by an insulting misnomer from the 19th century when death and destruction were sanctioned by the U.S. government.

A simple rule of thumb: don't appropriate tribal imagery for your franchise. It's actually easy to be decent about this, and much more difficult to go out of your way to carry on this disgusting practice. Still not sold? What if I offer up some fresh, new stereotypes for teams? That way I'm providing a solution—not just taking away a "tradition."

Who's first? How about Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland Indians' cartoon mascot who looks like he's about to be bonked by an anvil at any given moment? What if we replaced him with, I don't know... a cartoon white guy, perhaps? How about a stereotypical kind of guy, but one who means business? I'm talking about Waldo Weatherbee, principal of Riverdale High in Archie Comics. True, Mr. Weatherbee is obese, bald and fairly grouchy at times, but he's also helpful to students and a former Marine. He's sure to make a great mascot for the newly named Cleveland Anglos!

Before and after: what do you think? I like Mr. Bee's pink skin tones, don't you?

Next: The Washington Redskins. It's hard for me to even type that name—makes me feel dirty.

Perhaps a more current white-man image might help balance the scales on this one. How about an ode to office jockeys who toil from nine to five, then spend evenings and weekends cheering their team? I give you, The Washington Whiteskins. Thumb's up, Biff! (I call him Biff.) He means business!

What about the Atlanta Braves? Their fans just love to Tomahawk Chop the game away, waving their giant sponge movie-stereotype weapons and chanting like they're in an early-50s' John Wayne shoot-em-up. Am I going to take away their right to behave like insensitive assholes on national TV? No way! I'm solutions-based, and then some.

I give you: The Wine-spritzer Toast, modeled here by Ted Turner. I bet he loves a good wine spritzer. Imagine a full stadium, toasting their team in the most encouraging fashion: Tally-Ho! Pip pip!

Paula Deen's ready to promote some fresh new stereotypes.

If you like [insert band], you'll LOVE [insert other band]!

I know the pain and suffering of trying to keep up with today's go-go high-speed Internet pop-culture landscape. You can't. C'mon, admit it. Even if you're 22 years old and an on-call substitute bowling-alley lounge DJ on Tuesday nights, you don't have enough hours in the day to figure out all the new stuff coming down the pike from cyberlandia.

And neither do I. I'm old now, almost 50. So old that going to a live show is a major coup for me and can only occur on weekends with plenty of pre-planning (no more Tuesday-night club-hopping for me!). And the drug-taking involves allergy medication to help me sleep afterward just so I can somewhat function the next day. That's how old I am. And I'm not sitting around listening to Pandora suggestions because I looked up a Lydia Lunch song in a fit of nostalgia. Life's too short. Especially for me.

At one point, I was briefly hired to post a bunch of new songs by new bands who released MP3s of their offerings for publicity purposes. These were legal downloads sent out to the world and in some cases, the world took notice, but as is often the case, y'know... Hey, music's hard, son.

But I say: bully for new bands, Bully, I say! And now you can too. I'm gong to slap some on here. Though most of these were released in 2011, music is timeless, I think you'll agree. And so, my recommendations—new music from bands who probably aren't even together any more. It doesn't get any up-to-the-moment than that (around here, anyway).

Enjoy my algorithms.

If you like demented folk-psychedelia, such as The Olivia Tremor Control, Brian Jonestown Massacre, whatever happened during the 60s, and then again in the 80s with the Paisley Underground, you'll love Mercy Mercy by Extra Happy Ghost!!! I don't recommend placing three exclamation points at the end of your band name, but remember, I'm old and cranky, so don't listen to me.




Gee, I miss the Buzzcocks, The Television Personalities, The Soft Boys, and all their pals in the British 80s-explosion of manic, sardonic punk-pop. I'll listen to Comet Game's Working Circle Explosion until the reunion shows come around. Sorry—no studio recording of this one on YouTube yet. But plenty to choose from otherwise. And this one has such a driven sound to it. It's Brit-pop so go for it!




Remember all those cool jazz samples from Arrested Development, Digable Planets, De La Soul, and Guru (among others)? Odjbox remembers on Sepia Sky.




All-girl garage rock rules! If you're craving sassy snarling female bravado, (The Donnas, The Runaways, The Pandoras, The 5.6.7.8's, The Slits, uh, She Mob...?), give The Gore Gore Girls your attention. Fox In A Box will start you out.




I just can't get enough of that Arcade Fire, Decemberists, Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys bouncy ironic folk sing-along style! I just can't! Although they appear to be on permanent hiatus (2011 was a big year for this musical style), Jared Meese & The Grown Children's Hungry Like A Tiger fits right in there. And they even made a video every self-loathing bohemian can get behind. Don't ask me to explain. I'm just an algorithm.

Magical Leaf is Magical

I've been neglecting my posting duties, but only because I'm writing a lot (short stories and a screenplay) and it's so challenging. It's taking all my creative brain powers to think of "storytelling" as a form of writing. I used to write stories many years ago but gave it up for Lent. Or something. I gave it up because, while not the hardest thing in the world to do, certainly it's difficult to do well. I'm still learning. But I'm enjoying the process and I feel lucky I have some time per day to work on it.

Also, I'm watching too much Winter Olympics.

Meanwhile, here's a magical leaf. These photos were taken for an art class. I believe the assignment was to photograph an object several different ways. I'll spare you the one where I'm holding it in my hand because it was too lyrical.

I've found a lot of cool-looking leaves in my time, but this was the coolest. I had it propped up near my desk for a long time and it kept falling down behind the furniture. I'd find it and prop it up again—never learning from my mistake to put a pushpin through it, or frame it or at least save it in a book. No. It fell down one day and I haven't found it since. I know when we finally move from this townhouse, I'll find it again. It's here, in the leaf-colored shag rug somewhere, just deteriorating in a cool, artistic way. Magical Leaf.

 

She Mob - Luge

From She Mob's album, "Cancel the Wedding," comes Luge. The 1998 Winter Olympics were happening, Joy had a riff, and I suggested we sing a chorus of "LUGE!" and not much else. Joy came up with the nonsensical words for the verses. I told her to try and make them sound Norwegian. I was really into the Winter Olympics. She did that. I backed her up with a bunch of Yeah Yeah Yeah's, and here it is. It's one minute long: Luge.



Footage from the Prelinger Archives.

Johanna Magdalena Beyer wrote some cool tunes (1889-1944)

Johanna Beyer, mystery woman, German immigrant to the U.S., nearly forgotten experimental composer who worked with Henry Cowell, Percy Grainger and Ruth Crawford. Introduced to me by a 19-year-old college student with impeccable musical taste on her Tumblr site, This is Hanging Rock Comics. Take a moment to discover the Sticky Melodies of Johanna Beyer.

Music of the Spheres (1938, recorded in 1977) from An Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music - Vol. 2 (Disc 1), 2002




Waltz (1939)




Percussion Suite (1933)




Percussion, opus 14 (1939)



Beyer scores are available at Frog Peak Collective.

Movies You May Have Missed - Soapdish (1991)

I hadn't seen Soapdish since its release, but I remember finding it fun and colorful and refreshingly harebrained—a glossy, big-production world of soap opera within a daytime soap opera. While saavy about TV production and particularly daytime (and nighttime) drama of the era, director Michael Hoffman and his production team were hellbent on wowing us with incredible set design and a super-solid cast of comedy players.

Released in '91, this is a movie that celebrates the big-screen possibilities and excesses of the 80s. It should be brought back for revival screenings because everything about it is absurd and gigantic—from the hair and makeup, to the multi-layered set designs and frantic background movement that recalls 30s-era screwball comedy, to the histrionic swings of emotions. And what a cast—Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Cathy Moriarty (always so great on the big screen), Robert Downey Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Elizabeth Shue,with smaller roles filled by Carrie Fisher (the great Carrie Fisher in a small role!), Teri Hatcher, Garry Marshall, Kathy Najimy, and Paul Johansson in teeny tank-top, oiled and muscular for his every scene. A DREAM CAST with big hair, freaked out mannerisms, conniving ways, and life-altering secrets that wreak havoc on all.

Sally Field is Celeste Talbert—America's favorite daytime-drama queen. She's been playing the role as Maggie on The Sun Also Sets for so long that younger, ambitious cast members Montana Moorehead (Moriarty, seethingly vicious in every scene) and Ariel Maloney (Hatcher), can't wait to get her kicked off the show. To that end, Montana sexually strings along producer David Barnes (Downey Jr., who's too young to be a producer, yet so funny and perfect as a spoiled, frustrated boy-man). David will only get Montana's goods if he gets rid of Celeste, which is difficult to do, since she keeps winning awards for her role. Their machinations result in real-life drama's intrusion into their glossy hyper-emotional television world,.

The Sun Also Sets is hitting a ratings slump. David's idea of moving the entire setup to (indoor, obviously phony) Jamaica and setting the drama within a soup kitchen full of island homeless extras hasn't helped. Some drastic casting decisions will be made, resulting in turning Celeste's professional and personal life inside out. Much sobbing and scheming ensues. Sally Field is such a good sport throughout the film. She's not afraid to let her emotions gush forth, making herself farcical to great effect. I'm not sure many actresses could have succeeded with this blend of unsullied clowning, alongside genuine ability to express realistic emotional-upset, which burbles out of her squinched-up face, scene after scene.

Then there's Kevin Kline. Who is better at playing handsome, arrogant, and hapless all at once? The guy's a national treasure. Here he's Jeffrey Anderson, stuck playing Willy Loman in a Miami dinner theater full of retirees in the midst of dementia. Add to this mix Whoopi Goldberg as Rose Schwartz, Celeste's exasperated longtime friend and head writer on the show, and Carrie Fisher as a man-hungry casting director, reversing the casting-couch gender stereotype with aplomb, and you got yourself a perfect Saturday-afternoon fun-time movie experience.

And now:

From the opening credits—pop-art, color-block cartoons, you get the proper setting for screwball daytime-drama comedy. You also think you're back in the 80s in a big way, and you might as well be with all the big hair, power suits and big-production values on display.

Celeste is having a bad day. The mirroring of her master-bedroom Boston ferns with her hairstyle is a clue to the fun set-design to come. 

Celeste's reactions to bad news are always funny yet heartfelt. That's why she's America's favorite tragedy queen.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey is doing Arthur Miller dinner theater, shouting his lines over breaking plates and near-deaf patrons.

Yes, we're in Florida now, in case you were wondering

More great set design. "Jamaica" exterior/interior set with rolling wave (mesmerizing to watch and used to great effect). Sparkly sand and endless sunset complete the look.

Down the halls of television they go. Lots of walking and talking in this film, with background "crew members" cleaning, setting lights, plugging things in, fixing hair, all manner of production shenanigans to keep the pace frantic and screwy.

Love Moriarty's "villain wear" - Downey Jr. may have ad-libbed some dialogue to great deadpan effect

Ratings are down—time for a creative meeting! An overhead shot conveys the true heart at the center of daytime drama—a surprisingly large number of men murmuring and glad-handing among one another.

Fisher plays one of the few women in power, whose elaborate office-set leads me to believe her role may have been bigger initially.

Somebody appreciates the male form

Elizabeth Shue makes her entrance. This set is completely insane, and bigger than most New York apartments.

Kevin Kline enthusiastically portrays self-centeredness sans dignity—that's what makes him great.

Set-design shorthand for deal-making in Florida.

Montana reacts to Celeste's heartbreak. Cathy Moriarty can do it all—farce and drama. She starred in Raging Bull for Crissakes... Here we see some of the fantastical two-storied glass-walled set in the palatial television studio where everyone works. Through these windows, production never stops so there's always background action, not only in the deep background, but going up and down lifts and cranes as well.

An anonymous worker on a lift going down, watches Celeste trying not to have her own breakdown while dealing with her nonplussed wardrobe assistant, Tawny (Najimy). A running theme, Celeste's age, and how this is reflected in her wardrobe and storylines, makes this a comedy of manners of being middle-aged in a youth-obsessed medium (and society).

Of course David's hobby is building remote-controlled vehicles, to emphasize his childishness.

Rose has had enough, dealing with the soap opera conspiracies and diva-ish behavior on a daily basis. This is another angle on David's office, which looks like a rich-kid's idea of a cool supper-club of the time.

More of David's lair. In the background—marionettes of the show's cast (never explained). In the foreground, sacks of mail, reflecting a huge ratings boost, back when mail could convey this. Now I suppose it would be shown in tweets, which wouldn't be very cinematic.

A glimpse of the elaborate set for a day's filming. On the left, Ariel adjusts her dress for maximum cleavage, Celeste's on-screen husband, Bolt, does pushups before his scene while Tawny oils him down. On the right, Celeste and Jeffrey rehearse while the foreground crew gets ready to roll. I wouldn't be surprised if the makers of "30 Rock" viewed Soapdish at some point during pre-production.

And we're rolling! Teri Hatcher as Ariel Maloney, playing Dr. Monica Demonico—neurosurgeon.

Rose's fishbowl of an office. Immediately before this scene, David conducts an interview with Leeza Gibbons (playing herself) on an automatic lift that glides down in the foreground before this scene between Celeste and Rose. A great use of set-design as scene-transition! Those light sconces are pretty great too.

Soapdish has it all...

Drama!

Heh

Pathos.

Conniving!

And most of all, television!

Northern Soul - The Lost R&B Sound That was Made in the US, Appreciated in the UK

KALW San Francisco, is streaming Northern Soul radio (don't know for how long—catch it before it's gone) on their NPR channel. This was a genre of dance music that came on the tail of Motown, but never grew a sizable audience in the U.S. For some reason, Northern England took to it (because they were smarter), and DJs would play these singles in clubs all night long—from dusk to dawn. There might have been some drugs involved, I don't know. Anyway, Northern Soul was a big hit in Northern UK and rightly so.

Northern soul is generally faster tempo'd than its Motown-sound cousin. The keys tend to run minor, sentiments are darker—more emotional suffering is involved. And the bands are mostly unknown in the U.S.—that's a shame. Some people claim these all-night dance clubs were the dawn of the rave scene, but I think people have been dancing all night for longer than that even. When the rhythm is right...

Here's some hand-picked singles from my listening sessions on NPR. They're GROOVING. This is still truly an underground scene that deserves much more play, so rejoice.

The Contours - Can You Do It? I am dancing while I'm typing right now and I can't always claim that to be true.




Marlena Shaw - Let's Wade in the Water. Soul music, plain and simple.




The Profonix - Ain't No Sun. This is groovin'! Are you groovin'? Then this is your jam.




Pat Lundy - Play it Again. One of those please, Mr. DJ sentiments. Doesn't work in the YouTube age. Her urgency is sadly missing in this "click on this link" world.




Wendy Rene - Young Man. Full-on female sexuality on display here because that exists.




Dorothy Williams - The Well's Gone Dry. When the well's gone dry, the hope is gone. Hopeless dance songs—it's a genre.




Richard Temple - That Beatin' Rhythm. "Now there's that beat, and I must dance." Yes.




Patrice Holloway - Those DJ Shows. The pressure on DJs to not only play the favorites, but the favorites that will bring back lost love. Powerful stuff.




Jackie Ross - Jerk and Twine. "Pop your fingers, bend your back, you got the right idea, I like it like that." This song manages to rhyme "finger poppin'" with "hip rockin'"—greatness.




Alvin Cash and The Crawlers - Twine Time. Does this count as Northern Soul? I don't care. I heard it on the radio not too long ago and fell in love. It works for me.

The Weirdness That is Hearst Castle

I had such a lovely, penetrating write-up about visiting Hearst Castle. There were pithy accounts of Hearst moving centuries-old oak trees to make way for construction—dug up and encased in cement for replanting, at tremendous cost. There was praise for architect Julia Morgan's clever ability to work around any design challenge thrown her way, including hanging 14th-century hand-carved ceilings weighing several tons in rooms that she designed around those ceilings at the whim of her employer, William Randolph Hearst. There was a description of the world's largest private zoo, the zebra descendants of which still roam the grounds of this continuously working ranch (I saw one, grazing among the cows).

And infused throughout was my underlying confusion and dismay when confronted with conspicuous consumption on a level that short-circuited my brain within moments of our arrival. So brain-damaged am I from my visit, that I inadvertently deleted the entire post by somehow hitting some ctrl-command key combination sent from hell to torment me on Blogger until I finally learn to back up my work. Which I will never do, because I'm like Groundhog Day when it comes to blog backup.

Hey, that reminds me, did you know Twitter wasn't backed up or archived until sometime in 2010? It's true. I read about it in Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal, by Nick Bilton. So if Twitter could fail daily (remember the Fail Whale?—those were the days) and potentially lose all its data through mismanagement and hubris, I can suffer through a lost Hearst-Castle post and come out the other side a better person. A brighter day is just around the corner, especially during Northern California's unprecedented drought this winter.

Let's have a look-see at what new money and a bottomless desire for prestige and power can do to warp a landscape for all time, until the California State Park Department stops running it. Welcome to La Cuesta Encantada (The Enchanted Hill)—Hearst's name for what we call the castle. Designed as a cathedral to the god of material goods, Hearst stuffed it with his ever-growing art collection, which included Roman temples and Spanish palace interior walls. He thought big and he thought non-cohesively and it shows.

I forgot to ask our knowledgeable guide what the deal is with these hairy sentinels on either side of the entrance. Why are they so hairy? Were they purchased or commissioned? Hearst installed ancient statuary alongside 20s-era sculpture throughout the grounds, so who knows? Internet, help me out here.

Hairy sentinel #1

His Sasquatch-like compatriot with club

Apologies for any blurry photos. No flash allowed within the castle, so I just tried to stand really still. Jackson took this photo which nicely contrasts the weirdness of mixing centuries of architectural interiors and decor. If you were eating your meal here, doted on by one of 80 live-in servants, you'd be regaled by the likes of anyone from Charlie Chaplin to crooked politicians buying up water rights throughout the Eastern Sierras. Fun.

I can't concentrate on my duck confit with that 14th-century ceiling overhead.

This has nothing to do with California or ranching, but it's on the ceiling, so enjoy.

Hearst and his longtime mistress, Marion Davies, sat in the middle, across from each other with guests seated in order of importance fanning out all the way to the ends of the table.

Here's our guide. He knew everything. He let us know that W.R. Hearst was no saint, having abandoned his wife and children. She wouldn't give him a divorce, so what was his choice, I guess. Tough times for human relationships among the rich and powerful.

More artistic mish-mash. The griffin statuary may be 1,500 years old. The torso, from the fourth century—who knows? Anyway, it was the holiday season, so you get that too.

Hearst, like Paul Allen, had a private movie theater, the better to see Davies' films that he produced. There are several of these caryatids in the theater. Hearst was very much into caryatids. Who isn't?

See?

Globe-lamp poolside caryatids

Who's up for a swim in the Neptune pool? Apparently the castle's two extravagant pools were heated up until the 1970s. Hearst's granddaughter, Patty, and her family would secretly visit the house even during public tours. That means she could have been hiding behind a statue (she claims she did that) when I first saw this pool at age five. Maybe we made eye contact! We could have been star-crossed friends—me from the mean streets of Diamond Heights in San Francisco. She from the sheltered caryatid-enforced Hearst compound, wherever that was.

I love the idea of Charlie Chaplin and Louise Brooks hanging out here, sneaking alcohol into their guest cabins when Hearst wasn't looking. That Roman temple is authentic, by the way, reassembled for poolside splendor.


As you leave the pool in your damp 20s-era wool bathing costume, you spy some more statuary in a sheltered grotto. How...intriguing.

A saucy wood nymph alongside...

...Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden.

Enjoying your stay at La Cuesta Encantada?

I can understand if guests were desperate for more alcohol at this point.


Anything else? I took a wrong turn and led us to a dead-end (actually Hearst's bedroom balcony, which wasn't on our tour). The brochure said one of the fountains—maybe this one—featured statuary from Ancient Egypt that was over 1,200 years old. I can't fact-check because I threw the brochure away. I'm trying not to to be a hoarder like William Randolph Hearst, who eventually spent himself into a hole more than $100 million deep.

Tiles throughout the grounds were designed by Julia Morgan herself

And finally the Roman pool, part of a gym that was never completed, so it didn't get used much. Too bad because it's got atmosphere galore. Don't you wish a movie could be filmed here? It's very Gatsby-ish. If anyone can get financing for a Louise Brooks biopic, and this location, you're golden.