Too much rich food and drink for the holidays? We help you recover with more work from outsider photog Vivian Maier, good news about Rubel Castle, and some Coals for your empty stocking.
UPDATE: Glendora's Rubel Castle named National Historic Landmark (Photos)
UPDATE 12/26/2013: Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson got an email recently from Scott Rubel: "We got our official letter last month and I can't believe it's finally happened. We are really a National Historic Landmark now."
Made of leftover bottles, found motorcycles, rocks, concrete and countless other pieces of junk, Glendora's Rubel castle is one of Southern California's oddest buildings — designed by one man with the help of a community, it's now well on its way to becoming a state historic landmark.
In a secluded, residential part of Glendora, Rubel Castle is a triumph in do-it-yourselfness, a paean to go-it-alone outsider architecture: clock towers, cannons, and caves dot the two-acre property.
Rubel Castle is the brain child of Michael Rubel, a beloved and eccentric native Glendoran. Rubel died in 2007, but during his tenure at the castle he was interviewed by California's beloved and eccentric Huell Howser, twice:
Started in 1959, Rubelia — as it's also known — had humble origins. It was originally an orange packing farm that a then 18-year-old Michael Rubel had purchased. Michael and his family soon moved in, converting packing warehouses into sprawling people houses, where Dorothy Rubel, his socialite, actress mother, played hostess constantly, sometimes to hundreds of people.
I went on a tour of the property with Scott Rubel, Michael's nephew. The packing house was one of our first stops. It's a warehouse converted into one of longest living rooms I've ever seen.
"It's just made for storing oranges, basically, and processing them," said Scott. "And on the left side are four big refrigerators which, when my uncle moved in, those became his bedroom."
The Tin Palace, as the home was known back then, entertained guests like Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, even Dwight Eisenhower. While the parties were surely thrilling for Dorothy and her guests, Michael Rubel couldn't sleep. So away from the original houses, he built a house of his own, this one entirely out of used bottles.
"All this bottle stuff started with my grandmother's parties," said Scott Rubel. "Bottles were piling up outside, and when my uncle started to want to build inside the reservoir. He first dug this tunnel and made this wall out of bottles. And the first structure he built was the bottle house, in 1968."
Inside of a huge emptied out concrete reservoir, the house combined Michael's longing for peace and quiet with another passion of his: amateur construction. Even as a child, Rubel would make castles and forts in the junk yard near his home.
The house was just the beginning. Over the decades, Michael Rubel, along with friends and family built one of California's strangest structures. Combining manmade objects collected far and wide with thousands of river rocks and tons of concrete.
Rubel Castle sits inside that reservoir with about 60 rooms, total. We entered the castle through a tunnel made entirely of recycled bottles and concrete. Christmas lights dangled across the ceiling. After peeking inside the print and machine shops, we ended up inside the clock tower — the castle's tallest structure at about seven stories high.
"This clock came from a church in the 1890s," said Scott Rubel. "The bells up on top are 3,000 pounds, the biggest one—and the smallest is about 2,000."
How was he able to do all this?
"Back then it was a lot easier. You couldn't do it now," said Rubel. "It would cost money, for one thing, and picking up rocks is more restricted. We used to be able to go out just about anywhere and find these river rocks. And we had a little convoy of trucks where we'd pick a few truckloads of rock and then come back here and dump them."
Rubel says his uncle was a cheerful man, and did his best not to share with his friends and family the problems he faced with the city.
"The city would bring inspectors up here," said Rubel. "And they'd always go away shaking their heads, not knowing quite what to do."
But for five people on the property, the castle is more than just history — it's also home. The castle includes apartments, artist studios, printing presses, pottery studios. Artist and librarian Sandy Krause lives inside the castle.
"I had been on a tour here many years ago," she said. "And during that tour someone mentioned people lived here."
Krause says she never forgot that. She made friends at the Glendora historical society — the group that oversees the castle — and when she learned there was a vacancy, Krause did what anybody reasonable person would do: move into the castle
The Rubel family expects the castle will receive its official historical status in October. If all goes well, Rubel Castle will become a national historic landmark.
If you'd like to take a look at the castle yourself, visit the Glendora Historical Society to find out information on tours.
More photos by outsider icon Vivian Maier come to LA gallery
UPDATE 12/26/2013: Merry Karnowsky Gallery is bringing in new Vivian Maier prints from the Maloof Collection for an exhibit that runs through Jan. 25. On Jan. 11, for one of the first times ever, one of Vivian Maier's home movies will be shown in public, projected onto an exterior wall next to the gallery.
Vivian Maier (1926-2009) was a nanny for most of her life in Chicago. But on her time off, she took pictures. Of everything. John Maloof stumbled across her work at auction, and now owns 100,000 negatives taken over decades by Maier, who has become one of the world's biggest art stories. Merry Karnowsky Gallery, with support from actor Tim Roth, is hosting LA's biggest showing of Maier's photos. Off-Ramp host John Rabe spoke with Maloof about Vivian Maier, and spoke with her many fans - including director Wim Wenders - at a preview of the exhibit.
Maier is considered an "outsider artist." That can mean the artist is mentally disturbed, like Henry Darger, or it can mean that they're simply not accepted by the mainstream art world, like Simon Rodia, creator of the Watts Towers.
In Maier's case, it doesn't seem like she ever tried to get acceptance for her art, which was street photography. Instead, she traveled the world, then worked as a domestic, all the while amassing roomfuls of negatives. John Maloof, who discovered her work when he was looking for photos to illustrate a local history book, says maybe she wasn't secure enough in her work - like so many artists - to subject it to public or critical scrutiny.
Her work can stand the strain. Maier's photos have now been shown and printed in the U.S. and Europe, and are gathered in the book, "Vivian Maier: Street Photographer." The book is good, but can't match seeing more than 100 full-size prints at Karnowsky's gallery. They give you a sense of Maier's biggest gift, her acceptance by her subjects. At a preview for the exhibit, director Wim Wenders, who calls them "gorgeous," told us Maier has a loving eye. "She loves people, you sense that."
Scott Hicks, director of "Shine" and "Snow Falling on Cedars," was buying a copy of Maier's book for his production designer, and finds it hard to believe a "nanny on her time off" had such an educated eye. "It's a feast," he says. He says he does have a certain amount of ambivalence about someone making money from Maier's work after her death.
In our Off-Ramp interview, Maloof says he he's not "making money," that he's spent $200,000 in scanning, archiving, and printing so far, costs that haven't been recouped. He says he feels a little guilty that he's selling prints, "knowing she could have some level of success while she was alive." But, he says, "What do you want me to do? I could just leave it in my basement and let it collect dust? I could do nothing, or get money to get this out there."
Looking at Maier's work, it's hard to argue that it shouldn't be accessible, and it's tantalizing to fantasize about what's on the 90,000+ negatives Maloof hasn't even looked at yet.
"Vivian Maier - A Life Discovered," is at Merry Karnowsky Gallery through January 28, at 170 S. LaBrea Ave, LA CA 90036.
Comic Eddie Pepitone's big heart goes bitter-patter
Most comics use the F-word in their live acts like it's an article. But when Eddie Pepitone uses it, it comes from the heart, or maybe his ample gut.
The 54-year old actor (Law and Order: Criminal Intent, The Beat, Now and Again) and comedian, who lives in North Hollywood, is finally seeing a glimpse of the fame his friends and colleagues have wished for him for years. He's a regular on the club circuit, gained fame through appearances on Marc Maron's WTF podcast, and is the star of the documentary Eddie Pepitone: The Bitter Buddha, by Steven Feinartz, which is now out on DVD.
I sat on a blanket with him at his favorite park in North Hollywood where he meditates and feeds the squirrels with his wife Karen. "And we're a little pedantic to other people in the park," he says, "because we see them feeding squirrels things like bread and even peanuts, and we're like 'No, no, no! Walnuts are the best for them because the shell works their teeth.' So we've gotten this reputation for being the squirrel pains in the asses."
A minute later, as he's explaining why his reputation for being an angry guy is inaccurate, he breaks off to yell at an imaginary person, "Get the f--- away from that squirrel!" I have no idea what the joggers thought; maybe they're used to him.
Pepitone's comedy stems from what he describes as an ever present feeling of unease, and a deep sensitivity to how horrible the world is for many people. One of his signature bits is to tell how he failed an audition for a laundry softener ad because he kept prefacing the line "Honey, how do you get these shirts so fresh" with variations of, "When the world is falling apart ..."
"I've never been a comedian who can say things like, 'Oh, isn't it crazy where socks go?!' I find it appalling that people want their comedians to be tepid morons." Yes, that means he's not into Seinfeld. "I feel like, hey, Jerry, how about you say something relevant!?"
Listen to our interview for much more of the Bitter Buddha - including his relationship with the famously crazy New York Yankee Joey Pepitone, whose name, in Japan, means "goof off."
If you want smaller bites, check out Pepitone's Twitter feed: @eddiepepitone.
PHOTOS: Pioneering Chicano artist Frank Romero now spends half the year in the South of France
Almost 40 years ago, with his compatriots in the art collective Los Four, Frank Romero became the first Chicano artist to show at LACMA. In fact, it was the first Chicano art show in any big American museum. With his broad brush strokes and bright colors, Romero has continued to document life in LA -- the cars, the freeways, the tragedies -- on murals and smaller canvases.
For years, Romero lived and worked in the working-class Frogtown neighborhood by the LA River, but for the past eight years now, he's been spending more and more time in France, inspired by Diego Rivera's autobiography, other painters' works, and his French-speaking wife Sharon.
For seven months of the year, they live in a narrow but spacious home in the hilltop village of Mirmande in Southeastern France - population 486 - with a breathtaking view of the Rhone and the Valley of the Ardeche.
Here, instead of low-riders, he paints Citroen cars. He paints the horses in the fields. The flowers and the fruit. The light, he says, is very much like Northern California, and, he says, once the sun starts coming out (it's been a gray spring), he feels a rebirth coming on.
"It's a new opportunity to express myself," he says. "And yeah, I've spent my life developing a Chicano sensibility, with Los Four, and developed a style you could call Chicano. I thought I'd take that to a different environment."
Has his painting changed, I ask?
"In subtle ways," he says, but can't give me an example. "No, because I just started painting again. I'm experiencing a lot of things I enjoyed doing in the past, but they're put together in a new way, and what happens this summer when the sun comes out ... I think you'll see a whole new aspect of my work."
By the way, Frank, now in his 70s and battling the diabetes that runs in his family, says the combination of the walking required in a hillside village, the good food and wine, and a new drug, is keeping the disease in check, and his blood sugar levels are almost normal.
Jason Mandell on The Coals' new album 'A Happy Animal,' unashamed LA country music
"Så gör även detta countryfolkiga band som på sin andra platta A Happy Animal ger lyssnaren tjugotvå behagliga minuters lyssning." Ikon Magazine (Sweden), 2013
That's the understatement of the year. Yes, A Happy Animal, the new record from the LA-based country band The Coals, is only 22 minutes long, but the music is much better than "pleasant," Ikon. It's inventive, catchy, genuine, and moving.
The very tall Jason Mandell, lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist, says The Coals derives its name from Cole's PE Buffet, the downtown restaurant and bar that's allegedly the originator of the French Dip sandwich. "A much earlier version of this band used to play there, back when it was a total dive and everyone was afraid to go in. We just had to change (the spelling of the name) for legal reasons."
Southland Serenade: Jason, are you one of these guys who can write anywhere? Some guys need to be on a mountainside in total quiet. Where do you fit on that scale?
Jason Mandell: It's very simple. On one side I have a woman fanning me, and on the other a woman feeding me grapes.
You'll understand why the ladies would agree to fanning and grapery if you listen to our interview with Mandell, in which he gives us an exclusive rendition of Kris Kristofferson's 1970 tune Help Me Make It Through the Night. Kristofferson, Mandell says, along with Townes Van Zandt and Gene Clark, taught him a lot about songwriting: keeping the soul of country music, but using unexpected and more complex chord changes to keep it interesting.
Why country? Mandell says, "I think when I started writing songs, it felt like the only style I could comfortably write in, because it's about lyrics and stories, and every song needs a reason to be."
Over on the left, you'll see exclusive web audio in which Mandell explains the origins of the song Dirt Road, and hints that he'd wished he'd gotten his shoes dusty that day. In our main interview, you'll hear us talk about Sally Dworsky, who sings with Mandell on "Baseline Blues," and whom Garrison Keillor says has "the voice of an angel."
Want to go see The Coals play? Here are their next two gigs:
- Sept 9 at Witz End, 1717 Lincoln Blvd, Venice CA 90291
- Sept 14 at 701 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica, in the parking lot under the building (Jason writes: "It's much cooler than it sounds.")
New LACMA exhibit reveals French filmmaker Agnès Varda in 1968 LA
The installation "Agnès Varda in Californialand" is on view through June 22 at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA and is part of LACMA’s Art+Film initiative, which considers "the place of film within a museum context."
When filmmaker Agnès Varda accompanied her husband, director Jacques Demy ("the wonderful Jacques Demy," she calls him), to Los Angeles in the late 1960s, she didn't realize she'd miss Paris' most turbulent time since the Revolution.
So Varda she missed the 1968 Paris student protests. "You cannot get everything," she says with a shrug. But it was a fair trade-off.
"The minute I came to Los Angeles, I liked it very much. The space. The way it is constructed. The palm trees, the ocean and downtown. I liked it very much, and I noticed in the '60s how different it was. What was happening here in '67 was incredible, with Peace and Love, the Vietnam war, marijuana, everybody naked. ... All this was very strong and different from what I knew."
So instead of filming the unrest that brought down French President Charles de Gaulle, she made a groundbreaking film here about the Black Panthers and captured much of the rest of our turbulent '60s.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/HiJ2xpWmmZI
Except for the raccoon-striped hairdo, Varda's appearance is disarming. She looks like a little French grandma, but, at 85, her voice is strong and her memory acute. Yes, that's Varda with the camera on her shoulder, nonplussed, shooting a menage-a-trois back in the day.
We came with our French classical tune, you know, and we got totally overwhelmed by surprise, pleasure, understanding.
Her photos and quotes fill the walls, and in the middle of "Agnès Varda in Californialand" stands a little metal frame house whose walls and ceiling are strips of 35mm film, a positive print of Varda's film "Lions Love" (1969).
"I have the idea that you have to recycle things. If you look at it through it, you have to look at 24 images to get one second, so it's a deconstruction of time."