Well...last full day here. I tried to fill it up as much as I could. I hit a few museums in the city today, so plenty of walking. First I visited the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA). I read a few things about it, and thought if I had the chance, that I'd take a look. It was a beautiful museum. It was set up like the Getty in a way. There were a few buildings that you would walk outside to enter each one. The major differences here were that the grounds weren't sculpted and lush and that the collection of the museum was much more rich, with work all the way up to the present. There was an unbelievable Tony Smith sculpture that I tried to draw for a while.
After LACMA, I walked around the La Brea Tar Pits. I had heard about them, read about them, etc. But you can't really understand what they are until you view them for yourself. I took a quick stroll through the Page Museum that is connected to the tar pits. However, you can walk through the whole park with the tar pits without paying for the museum. I figured the best place to get something for my kids would be there. I can't wait to show them their loot and explain to them what the tar pits are, etc. The end of my museum mile tour was the Petersen Automotive Museum. This was just a block away or so from the other two museums I went to, plus I had some time left before closing. Admission was a tad high, and the museum wasn't as big as I thought. However, they had some nice cars in the collection. They actually had a car that was in one of the Laurel & Hardy movies. As an art teacher, the two coolest things for me was that they had a gallery of cars from movies (and owned by actors/actresses) and one of the molds to every Hot Wheels car ever made. Our night was supposed to be full of merriment as well. Notice I said supposed to be. A friend I went to high school with lives in San Diego, and her friend (another friend from high school) was visiting her. They were to come to LA to visit for the evening, take the 10 cent tour of LA (provided by Brandy), dinner, and catching up. Well one of their children got sick and they had to cancel. Instead, Bran and I went to get barbecue for dinner, and then met back up with my friend Jolie for some laughs. I think I've made good use of my time in LA. Regardless of my friend Brandy having to work, I stayed pretty busy, seeing and doing lots of cool stuff. Thanks Bran for the hospitality, I truly appreciate it. On to San Diego tomorrow...
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Well...had the chance today to do something I never thought would have been possible. It's also probably something that my wife will be kind of upset about, considering she would have wanted to be there as well. I had some email/work stuff to complete this morning. Afterward, I really didn't know what to get myself into. Additionally, I didn't know if I wanted to do something by myself either. My friend Brandy has been stuck working most of the time I've been here, so except for my friend Jolie, my weekdays have been spent flying solo.
As you may (or may not) know, I'm a huge fan of Ben Harper. Well, he grew up in Claremont, CA. Prior to arriving in LA, I didn't have any clue where Claremont was located. As it turns out, it's about an hour north or so from LA. Luckily for me, I've had my friend's car at my disposal during the day. So I decided to take the drive. Ben Harper owns a music store in Claremont. It belonged to his grandfather, and Ben grew up in the midst of the store with his Mom, learning music and how to work on instruments. Prior to his grandfather passing, he purchased the store from him in order to make sure it stayed in the family. My mission was to find and visit the Claremont Folk Music Center. Traffic was light, and with the wind at my back I made it in a little less than an hour. This place was great. Although I dreamed of it, but knew realistically it wouldn't happen, neither Ben or his mom were here. But the place was still fantastic. It had almost any string instrument you could think of, plus many others, etc. They give lessons in the back, as well as work/repair instruments there too. I walked around for about an hour. I also had the chance to talk a bit to a few of the employees there, swapping stories, etc. Afterward I just walked around the town for a while checking it out. It's a beautiful little place. I would love living there... In the evening, I had a similar conundrum in regards of what to do. This time, there were three things to choose from. I could've seen another band I like, Candlebox, perform at the Roxy in LA. However, I just saw them in concert at the Ram's Head in Annapolis, the first week of June. Another option was seeing a female vocalist I like, Holly Conlan, perform in West Hollywood. A college friend of mine played on tour with her a year and a half ago. But there were four acts playing that night, and my friend didn't get off of work until 7 (so we would've missed the beginning or more). Lastly, the actor Jeff Goldblum, was playing piano at a club called The Rockwell. Well, that was the winner. However, the 8pm show was sold out, and they were no longer selling tickets to the 10 o'clock set. So if we made it there, there'd be standing room only, or if anyone left from the previous set, we could squeak into a table. Prior to going, we were able to meet up with Ms. Douglass of all people. Yep, that's right, Ms. Douglass, our CCES music guru was in LA visiting her brother. She just got in today and they were going out to dinner. She was nice enough to invite us, so we met in Sherman Oaks at the Spitting Chicken. Dinner was delicious and Ms. Douglass is always a hoot! And Jeff Goldblum...there aren't enough words. Simply stunning! Another fine, cool, sunny, not humid day in LA. I was very fortunate that my friend Bran let me borrow her car today. I've been keeping a list since I've been away from home of things that I wanted to see, do, accomplish or so while here. Today I had the chance to knock three things off of that list.
This morning and early afternoon, I drove to Griffith Park to the Gene Autry Museum. For those that don't know Gene Autry was a famous actor during the 30's through the 50's. He was known for being in westerns, other wise known as cowboy movies, particular a genre called B-Westerns. He also had a TV show I believe. Later he was an owner of the California Angels, now called the LA Angels major league baseball team. He even has his number retired by the team. Well, my Dad is a huge fan and wanted me to check the gift shop for something. So I drove over to check out the museum. It was a pretty neat museum to check out. Unfortunately though, they didn't have the dvd's in stock that my Dad wanted from the gift shop. From there I drove over to east LA to check out an art museum. Another famous actor, Vincent Price, was known for playing villains, creepy characters, and the like. He was a major collector of art and a huge donor as well. Prior to his death, he donated the majority of his art collection to East LA College. So not long after a museum was established to house the collection. It was great! It wasn't as big as I thought it was going to be, but what a nice collection. He had some great pieces by David Alfaro Siqueiros, a Mexican muralist, and his contemporaries. And many more. A fine collection! We capped off the day by ironically heading to an Angels game (since Autry once owned them). It was a great game against the Twins, until the Angels completely fell apart in the 10th inning. One of the coolest things was they had a special promotion for folks who were attending their first Angels game. If you went to the guest services office, they handed you a special certificate, a hat, and you placed a sticker on a map in their office on where you came from. It was a wonderful day capped off by a great night! Another great day in the city of angels. I had the wonderful opportunity to hang out with my teacher friend, Jolie. We first met in 2011 when we both attended the NEH session in Conn. on Duke Ellington. We got along just great, and still do. I had the good fortune of hanging with her for a day last summer while in LA. I'm glad that I was able to do it again.
We started the day off at Homeboy Industries. This was a deep experience to say the least. Straight from the website, "Homeboy Industries serves high-risk, formerly gang-involved men and women with a continuum of free services and programs, and operates seven social enterprises that serve as job-training sites." We were able to get a tour of the facilities and had an awesome conversation with our tour guide, Boris. Boris served 25 years in prison for murder. He became a gang member after being terribly bullied just because he was studious. The gang was his backup for when he was bullied and it just got worse from there. He saw the error of his ways, and after seven tries for parole, finally got out of prison and went immediately to Homeboy to turn his life around. There were several times during his tour that I just wanted to cry and/or hug him. This is a situation so foreign to me. I didn't grow up that way, and didn't have to deal with those issues. It was a truly eye opening two hours that I will never forget. Homeboy offers a variety of services to the people that come for help. There is free tattoo removal so that former gang members can get their tattoos removed and start fresh. There's classes to finish your high school diploma (GED). They also have parenting classes for young mothers and fathers. Counseling and therapy is offered as well as job training. As part of the job training, Homeboy runs an offsite printing/embroidery studio for t-shirts, etc. And on site bakery and cafe services are used for the same purposes. (We even had a delicious lunch at the Homegirl Cafe.) There's even more that they do in order to elevate ex-convicts and get them into a better life, making better decisions. After such a powerful experience, we took a trip to do something a bit lighter. We headed over to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). We were able to go through both buildings (they were only 8 blocks away from one another). It was a little more uber contemporary than my personal tastes, but I had the chance to see some things that I wouldn't have normally. Plus, they had some pieces from their collection that really resonated with me. Of course I'm talking about Pollock, Krasner, Frankenthaler, etc. It was a great day, topped off some Italian food for dinner with Brandy. Woke this morning and had the pleasure to go out on a great 4.5 mile hike through downtown LA. A friend of Brandy's has been planning hikes through downtown LA based on a series of books called Secret Stairs. It was great! We were out for a few hours and then concluded the hike with breakfast at The Nickel Diner. Even had the chance to walk through a farmer's market as well. Picked up some delicious trail mix! We hung out with other friends of Brandy's for the rest of the day and ended with a movie night watching old campy horror/sci-fi flicks.
I arrived in Los Angeles today. My great friend/little sister Brandy picked me up from the airport and we headed straight to Santa Monica. She had tickets to see Coming to America as part of an outdoor movie festival sponsored by the Showtime cable channel. It was great! They had food trucks lined up. I had some delicious mac & cheese provided by Macalicous and some yummy sliders from Uncle Lau's Island BBQ. It was great weather, even needed a hoodie because it came a little cool. A wonderful night.
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B.D.SchmittHusband, Father, Archives
November 2015
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