#4: Keith Haring: Art Is For Everybody
Friday, July 21, 2023
Thursday, July 20, 2023
Laguna At Last!
Long before I ever summered in the Pines, I fantasized about another community where attractive, tanned men like Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter and Sal Mineo would be as plentiful as the sun and sand: Laguna Beach.
Trouble was before the internet, I never knew exactly where to go, though god knows I searched in both '77 and '79, when California still exerted a strong pull on my psyche. But Google solved that problem this time, at least partially. We parked on the Pacific Coast Highway @ West Street and descended a steep concrete staircase, just as the fog was about to roll off the ocean. Look for Thom midway down.
Right or left at the bottom for homos? We couldn't tell. The gorgeous but mostly empty beach offered no initial clues. Not that it really mattered when you're enjoying natural beauty like this.
Only after we'd spread my checkerboard sheet slightly to the left and I'd taken a walk after a quick dunk in the frigid water did I spot a telltale landmark: the rainbow-wrapped lifeguard station practically screamed "gather here." By then, Thom had fallen asleep so we stayed put and I napped too. When we awoke, we found ourselves miscast in a reboot of Beach Blanket Bingo. No shit! We literally were surrounded by dozens of hunky and nubile California teens tossing footballs and chatting about college plans. I didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to lift our cloak of invisibility and turn into a dirty old man, although I can tell you I felt like one. Somehow, we completely missed a scene that has its own Instagram page! Sigh.
Instead, we headed to The Deck for an oceanfront meal, quickly making the transition from DOM to alcohol-free ladies who lunch quite deliciously. Extraordinary shrimp tacos were buried under these sprouts.
I devoured my crab louie, too, while Thom struggled to finish his enormous Cobb salad. Meanwhile, some solo asshole at a better table did nothing but complain about the service after ordering a bottle of wine and a seafood tower, as if this somehow entitled him to special treatment. His behavior probably wouldn't have stood out so much in New York, but it was certainly at odds with the mellow vibe we'd been experiencing all day long.
It's hard to capture the charm of Laguna's hilly residential neighborhoods, most of which have expansive views of the Pacific.
Apparently the town has yielded its once gay vibe to surfing Republicans.
Dogs, however, remain EXTREMELY welcome and pampered.
The lucky pooches even have an art gallery.
Our West Coast getaway ended just as it had begun almost two weeks earlier for Thom: under glorious blue skies.
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Wednesday, July 19, 2023
City of Lights
"This isn't about the sunset," I told Thom as we shopped for picnic food at the Whole Foods in West Hollywood, where the men are as ripe and luscious as the overpriced produce. "It's about watching the lights come on in the valley, something I've always wanted to see."
But the sunset was pretty spectacular. We arrived at the Mulholland Drive scenic outlook just in time to find a parking space and open our remaining bottle of cabernet from Trader Joe's.
The best things in life really are free. And I enjoyed the drive down Benedict Canyon with Chiffon's 2023 dance tunes blaring.
If only we'd had Delia!
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90210
A guidebook left behind at our Airbnb included Beverly Hills' Greystone Mansion as one of the top 10 things to do in LA. I'd never heard of it, but Thom loves house tours.
That's an alley of Italian cypress trees above Thom. But it seems the gorgeous property, owned by the Doheny family, one of LA's richest, was cursed. Ned Doheny, who built the mansion for his wife and five children in 1928, was killed by his once boyhood friend from and now personal aide in a murder-suicide just four months after they took occupancy. Some say Doheny was about to implicated in a financial scandal; others say they were lovers. None other than Raymond Chandler fictionalized the scandal in his novel The High Window.
You can rent both the house and the grounds for special events but the public is only allowed to visit the mansion's interior on the first weekend of the month. Still, the grounds are totally worth touring.
When Ned's father purchased the land with the money he made from his discovery of oil in the area, Sunset Boulevard was a bridal path.
Next, Thom announced he wanted to check out "the Bird streets," which he knew about from Bravo's "Million Dollar Listing." Apparently, it's an exclusive West Hollywood neighborhood with old homes, great views and rare vacancies. Google got us there easily enough but the narrow streets--with names like Bluebird, Skylark and Thrush--were so steep, narrow and twisty that I couldn't wait to ditch the uninsured rental car. We found free, two-hour parking just off Rodeo Drive.
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| Loro Piana |
The "Walk of Style" commemorates fashion industry legends, including Edith Head, the Versace siblings (dead and alive) and Herb Ritts, with bronze plaques that lack the historic glamor and sheer number of stars on Hollywood Boulevard.
The torso on top of the "Walk of Style" plaque represents the silver statue on the right of this photo, a connection that would be almost impossible to make without the internet.
Speaking of torsos, the buff black guy on the right turned his back when I tried to photograph his. Really, what did he expect, jumping rope shirtless on a busy corner in one of the world's most exclusive shopping areas? A screen test?
You've heard of Cocaine Bear? Here's Molly Llama (thank you Sam Sanders and Jon Lovett).
Statues of a photographer and a peace sign--maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.
Los Angeles County--with a population larger than that of 40 individual states--comprises 88 different incorporated cities. I'll bet few have seats of government as grand as this one.
But I liked the swoopy 76 gas station even better. Has a fossil ever looked so modern?
There's even something called the Mr. Brainwash Art Museum. I wish we'd gone inside.
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Death Stars
Jared Leto, David Spade and Adam Goldberg were among the boldface names we spotted during my last visit to Los Angeles. Two decades later, we headed to Forest Lawn, desperate for a celebrity fix, even deceased ones.
En route, we tried to take a peek at the Hollywood Bowl which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. I recall it vividly from the cover of a 78 rpm recording in my parents' LP collection. Here's the entrance.
Believe it or not, the Bowl seats 18,000 people. We couldn't get any closer than this because stagehands were loading in Diana Krall's show. Just across from the parking lot, up a couple of flights of stairs, you'll find a lovely first-come, first-served picnic area where the outdoor concerts can be heard, if not seen.
I had a list of the graves I hoped to see but the dour woman at the Forest Lawn gates told us we'd have to use Google maps to find them. Fortunately, Bette Davis came right up. She's buried with her mother and sister. They have a great view of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Somehow I expected Bette's final resting place to be more campy than this tasteful mausoleum, although I did love her epitaph: She did it the hard way.
Google maps had no time for Liberace (or Brad Davis or Paul Monette or Richard Pryor); we found his grave quite by accident., another joint burial under a classical statue. I was beginning to detect a pattern, or perhaps a cemetery prohibition against marking your tomb with a little of the personality that made you a star.
Of course there IS Liberace's over-the-top signature. And "SHELTERED LOVE" could be an allusion to the closet he inhabited until HIV killed him in 1986.
At least some pilgrim had the wit to leave behind a modest candelabrum.
Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher died within a day of each other and were buried together here. We stumbled upon them, too. From a distance, I thought the entwined statues might be lesbians, not mother and daughter. Although come to think of it, my mother did come back from the beauty parlor once claiming to have read in a movie magazine (probably the notorious Confidential) that Eddie (Carrie's father) left Debbie for Liz because Debbie, by then married to Harry, a shoe magnate, liked girls. The gossip we retain from a starstruck childhood!
There were more deer than mourners (or other dead celebrity stalkers) while I searched for Buster Keaton.
It's hard to believe that Stan Laurel gets more attention.
We did a drive-by of the Capitol Records Building, too. It's almost as old as I am--do kids today even recognize the significance of its shape?
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