I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday For A Hamburger Today......

Why, you may ask, am I quoting the great J. Wellington Wimpy?  Well kiddies, it's because I'm hear to talk about hamburgers.....sort of.


But first, a confession.  It is possible to live in a land like Hollywood and, even though a fiend for the history of the place, let certain historical landmarks slip through the fingers.  So my confession:  I've never been to the legendary Barney's Beanery.....until yesterday.

Early 70s looking much the same as today.

What a fool I've been and why, oh why, have I waited so long!  Maybe it was a hangover of feelings regarding 'the infamous sign' (though that was taken down before I even moved to town), but I'd like to think I'm not that shallow.

"Barney", 1964.

And besides, the story goes, Barney put up the sign in the late 40s to appease the LA Sheriff's Dept. and the Alcohol Beverage Control Board who where cracking down on certain 'behaviors' that were happening in certain restrooms of certain establishments all around town.  As there was a gay clientele that frequented the place between then and the mid 80s when the sign was removed, it's clear that nobody paid much attention to the thing.

What folks did pay attention to was great comfort food and drinks served up in an atmosphere of democracy that allowed no more special treatment to Lana Turner than was given to a local milk man.  Here (now as then) all customers are customers; and customers are king.

Okay, now that we've gotten the stupid sign thing out of the way, let's get into the wonders of this burger stand/road house/gin joint/billiard parlor/rock and roll paradise.  This calamitous cacophony of color!

Courtesy of Barney's website.

I was invited over by Barney's very own Historian (and part owner), Sheri Hellard.  Sheri and longtime server Dominique Kadison were my guides through this magical history tour.

Dominique and Sheri.

The first thing I was shown was the endless collection of license plates over the bar.

Back when this place opened in 1927, it was on the last leg of Route 66 and folks who were seeking a new and better life in the golden west began to rip the plate off their flivver and give 'em to Barney, symbolically claiming their arrival.  The gesture has continued over the years.

Along about this point of my visit, lunch was ordered.  Here's a little tip:  arrive hungry.  There are over 1000 items on the menu and you anti-gluten and anti-meat types will be just as satisfyingly stuffed as the rest of us.

For me, double cheeseburger with fries and a small side of chili please.

In this world of 're-imagined classics' it's really nice to scarf a plate of chow that tastes the same as it would have when it was made in the 30s!

I'm not going to go into a long accounting of the history of Barney's because I couldn't write anything better than Domenic Priore.  His article is on Barney's own website here, but I will share a couple of my favorite things from the place.  And I will also tell you that I'll be going back because, even though I was there for 90 minutes, I think I saw about 6% of what there is to see.


Favorite thing No. 1:  Morrison Plaque

The 'here sat Morrison' plaque on the bar tells only half of the story.  Jim left more DNA than just sweaty palm prints.  One night, in what I'm sure was performance art, Morrison relieved himself of the last half-dozen drinks on this spot.  Yes, The Lizard King peed on the top of the bar.


Favorite thing No. 2:  The not-quite-all-seeing-eye

Yup, it's an eyeball.  And, yes, it's nailed to the ceiling over one of the pool tables where, as legend has it, it was surrendered to the victor of a pool game when it was discovered that the One-Eyed Jack, didn't have enough jack to payoff the bet he'd just lost.

Favorite thing No. 3:  Table top Goddess

Once again, direct your eyes to the heavens.  Nailed to the ceiling to protect it from any further molestation is a former tabletop where is carved, "Janis Lyn 70"!  Anyone who knows me knows that Joplin has always been my forever number one.  And on the evening of Oct 3rd, 1970, Barney's was her last stop before boarding the train bound to Fabulon at the Landmark Hotel.

One last thing.  All things being in cosmic synchronicity in a place like Hollywood, at the same moment I was snapping the above picture, Janis Lyn Joplin was posthumously receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Barney's rules.....peace out.

1949

Feliz Navi.......Nada!

In 1928, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce came up with a brilliant idea to drive up shopping traffic along their big commercial corridor of Hollywood Blvd.  A Christmas Parade!!!

So they got America's Sweetheart to do a little advance press and Viola!  Hollywood Blvd. magically became Santa Claus Lane.

Decorations festooned the corridor and crowds gathered for what, as it turned out, wasn't much of a parade.

That first year, aside from the lovely decorations, the 'parade' consisted of what you see above, one sleigh pulled by a couple of union reindeers from the Screen Reindeers Guild and the loot in the sleigh was a little known starlet named Jeanette Loff and.......Santa Claus.

Well Santa Claus was the star of this show, and he delivered the shoppers, and so the Santa Claus Lane Parade became an annual tradition.  Santa's appearance was always the climax of the parade that sent the crowds into paroxysms of glee.  It grew every year until it included big-named stars by the score.  And there is the famous story of Cowboy Star Gene Autry riding in the parade just in front of Santa in 1946.  After a couple of blocks of hearing children shrieking "Here Comes Santa Claus! Here Comes Santa Claus", Autry gets a notion and, a new Holiday Carol is born.

So the parade is only one night but for almost a month each year, Hollywood residents and visitors alike have been treated to a sweet and magical "Santa Claus Lane"


Just Look!:

No matter how seedy and downtrodden Hollywood ultimately became, the old girl still got tarted up and stirred a little sparkle.  By the mid 1980s, when Hollywood and the Boulevard were little more than an open air drug bazaar, and looked like Beirut on a rough day, from Thanksgiving on at least, there was still a little shiny-shiny going on:

At the beginning of the new century, the word was: Hollywood is experiencing a rebirth!  And Santa Claus Lane jumped on board tying together Holidays and the Cinema!:

So by 2012, you must be thinking, it's got to be STUPENDOUS!  Well, brother, would you ever be wrong.  I took this picture today from the northeast corner of Hollywood and Cahuenga looking west and, as you can see, zilch!

It could be any ol' day of the year, but certainly not smack in the middle of the Holiday Shopping Season!  Why even the sky looks like it's going to cry.

So Hollywood Chamber Of Commerce, what are you doing with aaaaallll that money you charge folks to be members, that you can't string up a few damn lights and a strand or two of tinsel?  Huh?

Get Thee To The Thommery!!!

He took you to Fabulon

And Back

He gave you shelter you in 

Chateau Thombeau

Both You and Your Little Dog Too

And now our Thom (the craftiest, naughtiest 

boy in school) has a programming note.  

Grab the remote and change the channel because

"The Redundant Variety Hour"

just click and go

Is On!!!

Your favorites Mitzi, Joey, Liza, Petula and Dusty are already there.  

Who can guess who'll show up next?  

Personally, I'm hoping for Shields and Yarnell....

Something To Know.....

There was a time before the interwebs, before television actually, that magazines were a major and constant source of entertainment and information.  Everybody subscribed, read and discussed the latest issues.

Magazines themselves were larger, heavier, more substantial than they are now.  None of this People or Us crap!  And many contained extraordinary cover art.

One of the best examples of this was a magazine from out here on the Left Coast.  It was generated by the American Automobile Association or, more specifically, the Automobile Club of Southern California.  It's name.......

Westways

1939

1953

1955

1969

1978

Nothing lasts forever.  Westways went to cover photography in 1981.  And while the Great Magazine golden era has passed, the venerable Westways  still  enjoys the 10 largest circulation in the US - larger in fact than People, Time and Newsweek!

Current Jan/Feb 2012 Issue

Why, you ask, the sudden interest in Westways.  Well I'll tell ya kiddies, for starters it's not sudden.  I've been a fan for years.  Oh, and also, the just called The Felix In Hollywood Tour  "The Real Scoop"!  Thank you Westways.

The Mystery Gets Revealed!!!

Well, get me!!  I stumped you all.  So without further delay:


It's hard to believe that in only 37 short years this handsome young devil of 19:

Would become:

Theodore J. Mooney!!!

A few other fun facts about wonderful character actor Gale Gordon:

**He was the first actor (albeit on radio) to play the role of Flash Gordon. (take that Buster Crabbe!)

** He was the original choice to play the role of Fred Mertz but had to decline owing to his commitment on the "Our Miss Brooks" show.

** He is the only actor to have either guest-starred or was a series regular on every weekly series that Lucille Ball ever did starting in the 40s with her radio series "My Favorite Husband" and ending in the 80s with "Life With Lucy".

**He had a ranch in Borrego Springs, CA some 160 miles from L.A. and commuted to work.

** The output of his ranch made him one of the few commercial growers of Carob in the US.


Okay everybody, all together now:

"MISSEZ  CAAAAHHRMICHAEL!!!"

The Young And The Old And The Restless.

Young Bogart

Old Lucy - maybe she thinks it's a glass of gin.

A very restless Baby Frances.

Lost.

I join Jason, Ayem8y and millions of others in grieving the loss of Teena Marie.  And of all her songs that I love and play, this is the one.  Her bio in three and a half minutes:  her ups, her downs, her devotion and her courage.  It's helped me through many a rough day.

Singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, soul sister and Lady.  RIP.

Johnny, We're Sorry

Loved this band.

...and don't forget to call in your requests at 271-2600

Tick Tock Sweetie.

Thanksgiving night of 1985 was the night I found out that Cyndi was a whole lot more than just some girl who wanted to have fun!

Tales Of The Village

**Title made with apologies to Armistead Maupin.

Not unlike Mary Ann Singleton's entry through the golden gates into a wild 1970s San Francisco, I was launched into an equally mad Los Angeles in 1986.  And I was just as naive, excited and green as she was.

A few weeks in I had first tricked with, and then become friends with a guy named Gene.  He was a fast talking wheeler-dealer on the periphery of the music business.  He and a friend Darryl (an absolute sweetheart, who owned the L.A. Deejay's record pool) cooked up an idea to launch the comeback (?) of a minor 70s disco singer.  They were going to produce a dance track written by a third friend.  Gene finagled a few days of studio time (to be paid on the back end) with the proviso that they work at night when the studio was free.  I was invited to tag along as a mascot of sorts and, for the first time, walked through a green door into a magical land called The Village Recorder.

 

  

I entered my first recording session to quite a disappointing surprise:  a small room with one guy and a computer.  Where where the horns!  Where were the strings!  Where were the three black chicks!  There was the engineer (who Gene talked into working at half rate) mixing synthesized instrumental tracks.  The next night was show time.  The singer was coming in to do the vocals.  Now we're talking, I thought. I was very excited, that is until about 3:30 in the morning.  The glamorous singing part was long done and they had been editing and mixing for about three hours now, which seemed to be a process of playing about 5 seconds of tape at a time about a hundred times in a row.  I walked out into the hallway and into the main lobby.  Dead.  We were the only people in the building.  I walked back into the studio and before I got to the control booth, the big leather couch in the lounge caught my eye.  I stretched out on it.  The TV was on but muted and the sounds from the booth were faint.  All of the sudden I was aware that I had never before (or since)  felt so enveloped, safe and cradled as I did in that moment.  There is a vibe in that building that is like nowhere else, and I fell into a deep delicious sleep.

I suppose I don't need to tell you that the project went nowhere quick.  But 'never say die' Gene had another idea up his sleeve.  He managed to talk himself into a sales job at the studio, with me as his assistant.  We were given a couple of desks and phones.  He would bring music acts into the studio and get a commission off the booking, and the Village would give us a salary draw against those commissions.  Well they paid the salaries alright and the also paid the expenses for all our lunch meetings, but after 3 months when no bookings materialized, Gene was given the gate and I stayed on.  For the next year and a half.  I was given a newly created position as the manager of digital recording equipment rentals.  

The Village Recorder was started in 1968 by Geordie Hormel, heir to the Hormel Meat Company.  It was lovingly referred to as "The House That Spam Built".  Geordie was the musical prodigy black sheep of the family.  In the early 50s he was married to Leslie Caron for a few years and he composed incidental cue music for the TV shows, The Fugitive, Lassie, Naked City, Rin Tin Tin, Wanted Dead or Alive, Ozzie & Harriet and The Untouchables and others.  By the mid sixties he had tuned in and turned on and so, logically, he bought a 22,000 sq. ft. former Masonic Temple in West LA to do his music projects in.  And he really did intend it just to be his own big playhouse. 

On the second floor there was a huge auditorium with a red velvet curtained stage.  On Saturdays he let the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi use it and the Los Angeles Transcendental Meditation movement was born there. (When I first worked there with Gene our desks were thrown haphazardly into the back of that auditorium.)  As he was building the place out he had, I am told, roughly a dozen secret doors and hallways honeycombed through the place.  I only ever found two.

Slowly but surely, musician friends of his began to hang out and a rock and roll salon was formed.  Takin' drugs, talkin' rock and playin' music.  They also asked if they could bring work there, and finally in '72 when a group of top flight studio musicians decided to do a group project there under the name Steely Dan, it was on.  Geordie gave in to the realization that he owned a commercial recording facility.

I don't care who you are or what kind of music you like, you have owned albums that were born in that building.

STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO.....

Glorious Scarves!

This recently appeared on my friend Jim's blog Pretty Pictures, but I'm including it here as it is my fervent belief that it should be watched by everyone in the world at least once a day.  You won't find such a valuable education anywhere else. 

You know, I'll bet  TJB had a hand in the making of this video.

Art? Or Bust.

And It's Over

One of my favorite voices from 80's pop and one of my favorite songs, the lyrics of which I wish I'd thought of first!  The Motels' Martha Davis is 59 today!

The Motels & Martha Davis - Take The L...
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Okay can't talk about The Motels and not include this:

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