Dodger Stadium

Although Tim and I no longer follow Dodgers baseball, we did adore the team when we were kids and continue to love the stadium as an L.A. icon.  Through Tim’s radio contacts, we’ve been lucky enough to visit parts of Dodger Stadium that others rarely see—like the press area and luxury boxes. But we had never been on an official tour—that is, until today.

Dirt-filled field

The tour, arranged by the “History of Los Angeles” meetup group, started at the top of the stadium and winded its way inside and down. The grass was covered by dirt for a motocross event happening next week (gag!), so we didn’t get to see the Dodgers’ usually immaculately manicured field.  Still, we did get to tour the exclusive Dugout Club restaurant, the Dodgers dugout (very nice) and bullpen (not so nice) and saw lots of terrific photos and historic artifacts (e.g., 1981 and 1988 World Series trophies, old uniforms, etc.).

If you live in Los Angeles and are interested in local history, I highly recommend joining L.A. History meetup.  Friendly folks and more fun events ahead.

Tim in the Vin Scully press box

Coaching from the dugout

Player to be named later

Bullpen phones

Other side of bullpen—totally unglamorous!

Smoke Tree Ranch

Smoke Tree Ranch brand

Have I mentioned lately how much I love being a member of D23, Disney’s official fan club?  Over the past three years, Tim and I have participated in many Disney screenings, conventions and tours courtesy of D23.  They’ve all been fun and special, but nothing could have prepared us for this most recent Disney adventure.

In November, D23 announced a members-only opportunity to spend three days and two nights at the Smoke Tree Ranch, an exclusive resort/residential area in Palm Springs, where Walt and Lillian Disney once lived.  Now I’m not as fascinated by Walt’s biography as other fans are; still, the thought of experiencing a part of Southern California history that remains fairly steeped in the mid-20th-century image of the old West was very appealing.  So we made our reservations as soon as possible.

Quite frankly, we didn’t know what to expect when we arrived in Palm Springs on Monday.  We knew we’d be staying in one of the Ranch cottages and eating three meals with D23ers.  We also knew that we’d get a chance to see where Walt and Lillian lived and learn how to lawn bowl, just like Walt did in the 1950s. But the rest was purposely left a mystery—the better to pleasantly surprise us!

Our cottage

When we checked in, we were handed a map to the compound, an itinerary, keys to our cottage, and a video on the history of the Ranch.  Cocktails were being served in two hours (5:30PM), so we watched the video in our new temporary home.  We learned that Smoke Tree Ranch started as a getaway for Angelenos in the mid-1930s and eventually became a “colony” as people began building homes on the property.  Today residents live on 400 acres of prime (gated) desert land, while the guest ranch covers approximately 20 acres.  Our cottage was next to and across the road from Smoke Tree residents’ homes.  The focal point of all communal activity was the Ranch House, which also included a nearby swimming pool, three-hole practice golf course, bowling green, fitness center, tennis courts, and Walt Disney Hall, built by Walt so he could screen movies at the Ranch.

We moseyed over to the Ranch House a little after 5:30PM.  The living room was already jammed.  Before we could even enter, we had to sign waivers giving permission to film us.  I entered the living room, while Tim made his way to the open bar.

Within seconds, a familiar face came over to greet me.

“Hello, I’m Jeffrey,” a friendly young man said and shook my hand.

“I know you!” I said, immediately recognizing the Disney Geek, who has his own video blog on the D23 website.  “How wonderful to meet you!”

We chatted about the Ranch and then after a few minutes, an older gentleman came over and introduced himself: Bob Gurr, Imagineer and master-mind behind such iconic Disneyland rides as Autopia, the Matterhorn and the Monorail.  He’s also a Disney “Legend,” the highest honor given by the company.  Bob quickly became one of our favorite people.

As soon as Tim returned, we found seats in the crowded living room and cheered as various Disney dignitaries were introduced: Oscar-winning composer (and Legend) Richard Sherman who, along with his brother Robert, wrote many of the most famous and beloved Disney songs; Tony Anselmo, the voice of Donald Duck for the past 25 years (and another Legend); Bill Farmer, the voice of Goofy since 1987 (and yet another Legend); Pete Renoudet, the voice of Henry, the emcee of Disneyland’s long-gone Bear Country Jamboree; Bill Rogers, the current voice of Disneyland (“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls . . .”); Bret Iwan, the current voice of Mickey Mouse; and Dave Smith, Disney Legend and recently retired company archivist.  We heard later that out of 40 people attending the three-day event, only 24 were D23 members and their guests.  Therefore, the ratio of fans to Disney dignitaries/D23 staff was almost 1:1.  We had no idea we'd be surrounded by so much Disney history and celebrity.

Pete, Bill F., Tony, Bill R., and Bret

We then all headed for the dining room.  Tim and I were joined for dinner by Jeffrey, Bret Iwan, their friend Justin, and two women named Debbie, who ended up being quite the lively companions.  Salad and dessert were “self-serve” at a sumptuous buffet at the front of the room.  The main course, however, was served individually in the kitchen by the chef.  This particular tradition had started during WWII, when most of the wait-staff were off to war, and has remained part of the Ranch's casual dining culture ever since.  There was a bounty of cakes, cookies and fruit for dessert, but we had to return to the kitchen for ice cream, scooped out of containers stored in an ice cream freezer.  Delicious and fun!

After dinner, we went back into the living room, where a large piano had been set-up.  Some of the fans no doubt knew what was coming next, but Tim and I were completely surprised when it was announced that not only were we going to be part of a special Smoke Tree Ranch episode of D23's video blog  "Armchair Archivists,” but Richard Sherman was about to be interviewed and perform!  Richard reminisced about Walt Disney and invited us to join him on some of his songs.  How often do you get to sing along with the composer of “A Spoonful of Sugar” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”?  Hel-lo! Can we say "absolutely once-in-a-lifetime experience"?  

“I already got my money’s worth!” I whispered to Tim as we walked back to our cottage.

The next morning we caravanned to Indian Canyon for an old-fashioned breakfast cookout, just like the Smoke Tree residents did 50 years ago.  The view of Palm Springs from the canyon was spectacular and the food perfect.  We ate family-style with Disneyland publicist and author Tim O’Day, who assured us the new Cars Land attraction at Disney’s California Adventure would be open by the end of June.  Hooray!

Looking down on Palm Springs

Breakfast is served!

Eating family-style

After breakfast, we all met back at the Ranch House for a tour of Walt's former homes.  He sold his first home in 1954 to help finance Disneyland, but as soon as the park started making money, he built a second house only a few tracts away.  His wife Lillian lived at the Ranch after Walt died, but eventually sold the house in 1970.  

The Disneys' first home

House #2

At 2PM several people gathered at the bowling green for lessons on how to lawn bowl.  I am a much better cheerleader than I am a player of any sport, so I just watched from the sidelines.  Tim teamed up with Jeffrey, retired archivist Dave Smith, and the current Disney archivist Becky Cline.  Luckily for everyone, no scores were kept!

Tim lawn bowling with Dave, Jeffrey and Becky

Our final dinner together was an outdoor barbecue, followed by a hilarious magic show by Dana Daniels of Disneyland’s Golden Horseshoe Review.  I warned Tim he might be picked-on if he sat close to the stage and, sure enough, he became the butt of many of Dana’s jokes.  By the end of the evening, though, Tim was everyone’s hero.  As we were leaving the hall, Bill Rogers, the voice of Disneyland, stopped us and talked with Tim at length about radio.

The night ended around a campfire, where Dana and Pete Renoudet told stories about working for Disney.  We did some western dancing (Tim was again a hit!) and sang some cowboy songs.  Then someone spontaneously launched into the Mickey Mouse Club anthem, “M-I-C (See ya real soon!) K-E-Y (Why? Because we love you!) M-O-U-S-E!” followed by Roy Rogers' “Happy Trails.”  And with that, we bid everyone a tearful adieu.  OK, so I was the only one crying; but after spending such an amazing time together, I could barely stand the idea of never seeing these folks again.  What a magical two days it had been.

The view across the street from our cottage

A smoke tree

P.S.  Disney has now posted a recap of our "round-up" on its D23 website, including a video of much of what we all experienced.  That's me grabbing a taste of bacon on the breakfast line and you can see us in the middle of the audience watching Dana Daniels.  Makes me want to return to the Ranch!

Museum Sunday

One of my absolute favorite L.A. places to visit when I was a kid was the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park.  In those days, every fourth-grader in public school took a field trip to the museum to see the dinosaur bones, followed on the same day by a visit to the La Brea Tarpits, where many an ancient animal lost their lives.

With the state’s budget the way it is, I highly doubt kids get to take field trips to the museum or tarpits any longer.  Nevertheless, the county recently renovated the entire Natural History Museum, including three new rooms dedicated to prehistoric animals.  In a definite mood for more exhibits (see yesterday’s post about the Huntington Library below), we finally made our way over to Exposition Park to spend Sunday afternoon in the fabulous new Dinosaur Hall.  To say that this is every six-year-old’s idea of heaven would be a huge understatement!  Here’s just a taste of some of the amazing fossils on display:

P.S.  While we were out-and-about, we also stopped by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) to see two more Pacific Standard Time exhibits: “Kenneth Anger: Icons” and “Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles.” Anger, of course, is the underground filmmaker who also gave us the original celebrity gossip books Babylon Hollywood and Babylon Hollywood II.  But even more notorious, in his time, was tabloid photographer Weegee, who loved to capture the less glamorous side of post-WWII L.A.  Both exhibits are highly recommended if you’re into a slightly twisted view of fame in early- to mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles.

Huntington Library

Maloof chair

With the holidays—and a rather grueling fall academic quarter—now over, we can once again turn our attention to Pacific Standard Time, the phenomenal regionwide show of postwar Southern California art.  To make up for lost time, Tim, Karen and I schlepped out to the Huntington Library on Saturday to see two fabulous exhibits: “The House that Sam Built: Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley, 1945-1985” and the chronologically-related “Blue Sky Metropolis: The Aerospace Century in Southern California.” 

Born in Chino, CA, in 1916, Sam Maloof was the first craftsperson ever to receive a MacArthur Foundation genius grant.  Although not as influential as his contemporaries Ray and Charles Eames, Maloof’s furniture is nonetheless world renowned and very emblematic of mid-century artistry.  The Huntington exhibit brings together 116 Maloof pieces, plus the complementary art of colleagues and friends who lived and worked nearby.  A sampling of the items shown follow below.  I highly recommend the exhibit, which ends January 30th, for anyone who loves mid-twentieth-century pottery, woodworking and art.

Maloof chair

Painting by Millard Sheets

Maloof loveseat

Painting by Jean Ames

Just as impressive (for me, at least) was the aerospace exhibit which, unfortunately, ended this past weekend.  Though small, “Blue Sky Metropolis” packed a lot of fascinating info into one room.  Included were several historic photos of Lockheed and its notoriously secret Skunk Works, located just a few miles from where I grew-up in Burbank.  Historic aeronautical events that took place in Downey, close to where I worked in 1994, and, of course, Culver City, which we now call home, were also featured.  A companion book is due to be released later this year.

And, naturally, no trip to the Huntington would be complete without visiting its magnificent cactus and succulent garden.  Not much in bloom yet, but outstanding anyway.

Disneyland Hotel

My sister, who lives north of Seattle, and her extended family are in Southern California for the holidays.  It's been wonderful having them so close for Christmas.  The most fun, though, was when 19 of us, including three toddlers, descended on Disneyland.  The last time I went to Anaheim with young ones was when my sister's kids were little. Now here I was with my niece and her two-year-old son!  Time certainly flies when you're not looking. 

Since everyone lives out-of-state, we arrived when the park opened at 8AM and stayed almost till closing.  Tim and I wisely reserved a room that night at the recently renovated Disneyland Hotel.  And lucky, too, because my pedometer (I've been trying to maintain a daily 10,000 steps regimen) clocked over 24,000 steps—more than 13 miles that day! An even bigger surprise was when our room was upgraded to a suite on the eleventh floor of the hotel's Frontier building.  As you can see below, the view was absolutely phenomenal.  

Matterhorn and Downtown Disney in the foreground

California Adventure's Bear Mountain and Tower of Terror

and Grand Californian hotel in foreground

California Adventure between Grand Californian

and Paradise Pier hotels (click on image to see new

Cars Land under construction in the background)

Looking west to downtown L.A. (!)

New hotel carpeting

Breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen

Merry Christmas!

It's a Wonderful Life

The Geffen Playhouse held a fun holiday-themed fundraiser last night: a live radio-reading of It’s a Wonderful Life, starring four-time Oscar-nominee Annette Bening.  Tim, Karen and I are big fans of Bening’s stage as well as film work, so bought tickets on her name alone; but were even more thrilled when the rest of the cast was announced: Peter Gallagher, Bryan Cranston, Glenne Headly, Marty Ingels, Gregory Itzin, Shirley Jones, Leslie Jordan, Josh Stamberg, and Lorraine Toussaint.  We also knew there was a good chance Annette’s husband Warren Beatty would be in the audience, making the event doubly exciting.

Tim and I are Geffen season ticket-holders this year, so I called the subscriber hotline to get tickets.  I scored third-row seats!  I called Karen with the good news.

“Maybe we’ll sit next to Warren!” I exclaimed.

The play started at 8PM, but an email from the Geffen encouraged us to arrive early to celebrate the holidays.  Sure enough, 1940s carolers were singing in the lobby when we arrived, as people chatted and milled around.  Tim headed straight for the bar.  A woman walked by holding a plate piled high with cookies.

“They’re serving Christmas cookies!” I whispered to Karen before heading off to the right.  There I found a table displaying an assortment of baked goods, including cookies that we could decorate with four types of frosting.  We had, of course, eaten dinner before leaving for the theater, but that didn’t stop us from loading up.  Everyone else had the same idea, because soon the table was mobbed.  We stepped aside and watched as the locusts descended.  We were also on alert for celebrity sightings.

I knew that Warren Beatty would appear as soon as I went to the restroom and, indeed, the first thing Tim said, when I returned, was, “You just missed Warren Beatty!”

“WHAT!!?” I asked incredulously.

“He was standing two feet away,” Tim insisted.  A woman standing next to us confirmed.

“You and my husband,” she said, shaking her head.  Her husband was also in the bathroom.

“Did Karen see him?” I then asked.

“Nope.  She was at the bar getting a soda.”  

I broke the news to her when she returned and then sent Tim off to find Mr. Beatty.  He came back a few minutes later.

“Warren’s on the other side of the lobby!”  

The ten-minute warning lights were flashing as people started pouring into the theater.  Luckily, Warren Beatty is tall, so we could see him above the crowd.  He looked exactly as he looked the last two times I’d seen him: handsome.  We could now find our seats.

We never did see where Warren Beatty sat, but our seats were very good.  Since the play was a live radio-reading, five old-style microphones were setup at the foot of the stage.  The sound effects station was to the left.  Small bistro tables and chairs were arranged in the center for the actors to sit when they weren’t delivering lines.  The rest of the stage was tastefully decorated with huge one-dimensional Christmas trees.  The actors strolled out one-by-one and quietly took their seats while the audience continued to pour in.  At one point, Bryan Cranston walked to the front of the stage, looked at everybody and thoughtfully said, “What a good-looking crowd,” then sat back down.

Like everyone else, we are completely familiar with the 1946 Jimmy Stewart movie It’s a Wonderful Life and so tried to guess, beforehand, who was going to play which role.  We had even speculated that Annette Bening would play a female version of George Bailey, but then abandoned that idea when we saw the lineup of male actors.  Annette ended up playing Mary to Peter Gallagher’s George.  Leslie Jordan was Clarence and everyone else played all the other characters.  There was no intermission, but the acts were broken-up by vintage-sounding radio commercials read by the various actors.

The show was terrific—great performances and it was lots of fun watching the foley artist creating dozens of different sound effects.  We were hoping for more cookies on the way out, but the table was gone.  So instead we left humming “Auld Lang Syne” and looking forward to Christmas with our families.

Snow White in North Hollywood

Let the holidays begin!  Last night, Karen and I previewed our first Christmas event of the season: A Snow White Christmas, playing at the El Portal theater in North Hollywood.

More Snow White than Santa (I think Christmas was mentioned only twice!), this kid-friendly musical stuck pretty close to the Disney version of the fairy tale with a few contemporary songs (Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” and Katy Perry’s “Firework”) thrown in.  The performance was staged as a panto, encouraging lots of interaction between the audience and the actors.  We sat in the first row, so plenty of opportunity to have our voices heard. 

An extremely talented Lindsay Pearce (contestant on last summer’s Glee Project) was the ever-optimistic Snow White.  The evil queen was played by Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi from the still lamented Star Trek: The Next Generation).  But we were there, of course, for Neil Patrick Harris, who played the magic Mirror.  He was great, even though he was just a (pre-recorded) disembodied face in a frame.  Marina was terrific, too, appropriately over-reacting to audience boos every time she walked onstage.  Lots of allusions to Star Trek, which I just loved.

Performances are scheduled through December 18, so if you like Glee, Star Trek, Neil Patrick Harris, or even Snow White, I highly recommend taking a trip out to  North Hollywood.

Loving Lucy

Tim likes telling the story about how, during a long holiday weekend in the late 1970s, he taped one of the first I Love Lucy marathons at a friend’s house and then had to go out and buy a machine so he could watch the shows at home!  That’s how he got stuck with a Betamax—superior technology, but not long for this world—instead of a VHS recorder.

Betamax is now gone, of course, but Tim continues to love Lucy.  No wonder then that he bought tickets to I Love Lucy: Live on Stage as soon as he heard about it.  Performed at the Greenway Court Theatre in L.A.’s Fairfax district, the show faithfully recreates the filming of two I Love Lucy episodes—The Benefit, the one where Lucy insists on singing with Ricky at Ethel’s fundraiser, and Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined, which features a funny dance number as well as Desi’s theme song “Babalu.” Seeing actors perform the episodes as Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley was a real hoot.

It was a wonderful evening—we truly got the flavor of what it must have been like to see I Love Lucy (including 1950s commercials!) performed live.  The audience was thrilled to pretend that we were still living in a black-and-white TV world.  Plus the actors never once broke character, not even during the curtain call.  Standing ovations were much deserved.

The show is playing Wednesday through Sunday every week till the end of the year.  If you love Lucy, seeing this live stage performance is an absolute must!

L.A. Olympics

Tim and I aren’t architects nor are we architectural scholars.  We are, however, members of the Southern California chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH-SCC), which celebrates the fabulous architecture of L.A. and its surrounding environs.   Unlike, say, the L.A. Conservancy, SAH-SCC is not an advocacy group.  But its tours and other educational events do a terrific job of bringing together two of our favorite things: architecture and the history of Los Angeles.

Yesterday the Society sponsored a lecture on the continuing impact of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, both of which, of course, were held here in Los Angeles. The program was presented at LA84, a local foundation created with profits from the 1984 games.  The speaker was Wayne Wilson, an Olympics expert and director of the LA84 sports library.

Regretfully, Tim and I didn't go to the 1984 Olympics—we were both living in San Diego at the time—but we avidly watched the games and collected and read everything we could about the various events.  So even though we weren’t there, we do know a lot about the 1984 games.

The 1932 games, on the other hand, are a relatively recent fascination, especially since the Olympic Village—the first housing ever built for the athletes—was located in the Baldwin Hills, not far from our home.  The male athletes had rooms in the Village, while the women stayed at the Chapman Park Hotel near downtown L.A.  The 1932 Olympics also marked the first time the staggered dais was used to honor the medal winners—a tradition that lives on till today.

Map of the 1932 venues

Although very few new venues were built for either the 1932 or 1984 games, daily reminders of the Olympics still very much remain.  Tenth Street, for instance, was renamed Olympic Blvd. in honor of the tenth Olympiad held in 1932.   Then, in 1984, all the streets downtown were changed from two- to one-way to help facilitate traffic to and from the games.  Most interesting, though, was learning that approximately 20,000 palm trees were planted in Los Angeles in the late 1920s/early 1930s to make the city more attractive to Olympic games visitors.  Like Olympic Blvd. and downtown's one-way streets, the palm trees are here to stay.

Because the Great Depression was in full force by 1932, city leaders feared that few people would trek to Los Angeles for the summer games.  So a media blitz was launched nationwide, emphasizing the more romantic aspects of L.A.’s history.  One brochure even claimed that a group of Franciscan monks had, in their early travels, blessed the area as “Holywood”—an inspiring explanation for how Hollywood got its name, but complete fiction!  Hollywood royalty, like Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, did do a lot to promote the Olympics, however, entertaining the athletes in their home and participating in public events.

Another map of the 1932 vanues

Finally, as a librarian, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention LA84’s phenomenal sports library.  Containing some 40,000 sports-related items, the library is open weekdays and by appointment.  Their digital archive of over 100,000 PDF files is also available online for free.  Happy reading!

From our own library at home

L.A. as Subject Archives Bazaar

Looking north to downtown L.A. from USC

With both a master’s degree and doctorate from UCLA, I am a Bruin through and through.  Still, once a year Tim and I venture east to spend the day at UCLA’s rival university USC for the annual L.A. as Subject Archives Bazaar. Dedicated to improving the visibility, access, and preservation of archives that document Los Angeles’s rich history, L.A. as Subject is a group of archival institutions that make their holdings available through the web and other outreach efforts, like the Bazaar.  More than 80 local agencies promoted their collections last Saturday at USC.  Tim and I were completely in our element.

Crowds enjoying the Bazaar

The Bazaar is always a glorious event for me, chatting with former and  current students working in various exhibit booths.  But Tim loves it, too.  A couple of years ago he found a photo of his childhood Little League team on CSU Northridge’s San Fernando Valley History Digital Library website.  This year we connected with the Museum of the San Fernando Valley and talked about possibly helping collect baby-boomer memories of the area when it was still dairy farms and remote subdivisions.  The Culver City Historical Society was also there, selling note cards and umbrellas decorated with images of Culver City.

In addition to the exhibits, the Bazaar offers guest speakers, documentary film screenings and panel discussions of local historical relevance.  We heard Christopher Hawthorne, the L.A. Times architecture critic, discuss 27 essential books about Los Angeles and were fascinated as author John Bengston showed then-and-now photos of downtown L.A., where many early silent films were shot.  Finally, we attended a session with award-winning TV producer Dan Guerrero, who reminisced about his father Lalo Guerrero, the world-famous Chicano songwriter and musician.

It was a wonderful day.  And, oh, did I mention that the Bazaar was completely free?  Yay!

The old card catalog at the Doheny Library

where the Bazaar was held

George Harrison: Living in the Material World

Tim was the one who called, ten years ago, to tell me George Harrison had died.  Although not completely unexpected—he had been fighting cancer for several years—the news was nonetheless devestating, especially since George was the youngest Beatle. 

To celebrate George’s life and highly successful career, the Grammy Museum is currently presenting a four-month exhibition, called “George Harrision: Living in the Material World.”  It complements the fabulous Martin Scorsese-directed HBO documentary  of the same name that aired earlier this month.  The exhibit features everything from handwritten song lyrics to the jacket George wore during the famous Beatles Shea Stadium appearance in 1965, as well as postcards from the Beatles’ first trip to Germany, guitars of various shapes and colors, photos, and footage of his more notable performances, including the groundbreaking concert for Bangladesh—the first ever rock-n-roll all-star benefit—and a Traveling Wilburys video.

The Museum had mounted a similar exhibit last year, celebrating what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday, but somehow “Living in the Material World” is more gratifying, even though John has always been my “favorite” Beatle.  Perhaps it’s because George lived two decades longer than John and so was able to accomplish much more in his short 58 years.  Or maybe it’s because George was so spiritual.  Regardless, it’s a joyous exhibition that anyone interested in the Beatles—and/or George Harrison specifically—should see.

As we were leaving, an out-of-town couple and their young adult son stopped Tim to ask if the Museum was worth visiting.

“Are you a musician?” Tim asked the young man.  He said, yes, he plays guitar.  

“Then you should absolutely go inside,” Tim advised.  “You don’t want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

With that, we headed home to watch the DVD of George’s concert for Bangladesh.