Angelyne, Angelyne, the somewhat racy billboard queen. Off-Ramp for Feb. 28, 2015

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Icons! John meets and rides through Hollywood with Angelyne, and Kevin interviews former Minuteman bassist Mike Watt, who'll be on the punk Mt Rushmore.

Angelyne, Angelyne, the somewhat racy billboard queen. Off-Ramp for Feb. 28, 2015

Icons! John meets and rides through Hollywood with Angelyne, and Kevin interviews former Minuteman bassist Mike Watt, who'll be on the punk Mt Rushmore.

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Icons! John meets and rides through Hollywood with Angelyne, and Kevin interviews former Minuteman bassist Mike Watt, who'll be on the punk Mt Rushmore.

Meet LA's Destiny Rodriguez, 14-year old star of latest BrainsOn! science podcast

Every other week on Off-Ramp, we play an excerpt from BrainsOn!, the new science podcast from KPCC's Sanden Totten and MPR's Molly Bloom. Over the months, we've heard how sound works, why roller coasters make us sick, and why dogs sniff each others' butts.

This time, BrainsOn! looks at the science of volcanos, and the co-host of the show is Destiny Rodriguez, a 14-year old at St. Helen Catholic School in South Gate.

Destiny plans to be a mechanical engineer. What's that? "They innovate the future," she says. "Everything from toasters to cars to even space ships. They make them better, they find problems, and they fix them. All engineers, whether you're a biomechanical, medical, any type of engineeer ... they're problem solvers."

Destiny's father Albert says, "She broke the news to me about three years ago and I was totally surprised because I am so removed from that. I'm an artist. For a living, what pays the bills is graphics, but I do tattoos, airbrush, you name it." Like this:

(One of Albert Rodriguez's apparel designs.)

"I've been doing (art) since I was 13," Albert says, "So I can relate to Destiny's fortitude, as far as being driven to her goal. I just opened my eyes to the field (of mechanical engineering) through the eyes of my child."

BrainsOn co-creator Sanden Totten, KPCC's science correspondent, says the podcast uses kids as co-hosts because kids have such great, basic questions about things. Plus, if a scientist is being interviewed by an adult, their answers are often too complicated for kids (and adults). But if they're talking to kids, they make it understandable to kids (and adults). Totten calls the kid co-hosts the show's "secret weapon."

For the episode, Sanden took Destiny to JPL where she met everybody, saw lots of scientific equipment, a few deer on the grounds, and cool cars in the parking lot. She's into cars, too, and recently helped Albert fix his '64 Impala. And she's running her own business, designing and selling bows to her classmates.

KPCC expert's advice to new LA Marathon runners: Fight 'Taper Madness'

The 30th edition of the LA Marathon is Sunday, March 15. And if this year is like past years, most (53%) of the 25,000 people running will be running their first marathon, according to organizers.

That means that right now, at least 13,000 people might be suffering from a syndrome called Taper Madness. (Maybe more. See the quote above.)

According to KPCC's Sharon McNary, for whom this will be her 123d marathon, Taper Madness often happens to inexperienced runners who've been going through a sensible training regimen. "You've probably built up to about 18, 20,  maybe 26 miles in advance of the marathon out in training," she says, "but in the 2 weeks before the marathon, you're cutting back to about half, or a third of your weekly volume. But there are people who will go out and do 20 miles, 18 miles, really close to the marathon, and they risk leaving their good race out on the training course."

McNary, an official marathon pacesetter for those  who run 5-1/2 hour marathons, says it's not that  Taper Madness sufferers are hooked on the adrenaline of running. "No, it comes from an insecurity. They just don't believe that after two weeks of low-volume running they'll be able to come back and do that 26.2 miles really strong and really fast."

So, she says. Relax. Make the marathon a celebration of your training. And don't pig out on the samples at the LA Marathon Expo at the convention center.

Writer, director Nicholas Meyer remembers Leonard Nimoy

Nicholas Meyer talked with Off-Ramp about the late Leonard Nimoy. Meyer directed him in the Star Trek movies "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Undiscovered Country" and worked on the screenplay for "The Voyage Home," which Nimoy directed.

Leonard Nimoy died today at the age of 83.

Song of the week: 'Do it' by Tuxedo

This week's Off-Ramp song of the week is "Do It" by Tuxedo. The band is a collaboration between Seattle record producer Jake One and Los Angeles soul singer Mayer Hawthorne. It's off their self-titled debut album comes out this week on Stones Throw Records, an LA original. The video is great, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-gcfQhR_9c

Their record release show is Wednesday, March 4 at the Regent Theater in Downtown Los Angeles. Tickets are sold out online but promoters say there ought to be spots available at the box office on the night of.

Historic Places LA: New open-source website makes — and might save — history

Historic Places LA is something the likes of which even New York City -- supposedly more history-conscious than L.A. — doesn't have. It's a one-stop website that lets anyone - city planners, developers, citizens, tourists — find L.A.'s historically significant places and information about them.

Building the site started with SurveyLA, which cataloged L.A.'s historic resources, and was led by the Getty Conservation Institute and the city of L.A. The GCI's Tim Whelan says a survey is "at the core of all cultural management and protection. You need to know what you have, where it's located, and why it's important."

Here's one of the key issues: the city and developers have frequently demolished buildings they knew were historically significant, so it's not always about having the knowledge. But Mayor Garcetti says, "Information is knowledge is power." Not everything will be preserved, he says, but Historic Places L.A. gives us a better shot at it.

Off-Ramp commentator Marc Haefele agrees: "In theory, a whole lot more people than ever before are going to know what an historic building is when they see it, and they're going to know what it is when someone wants to knock it down."  

"Cities like New York and Chicago have stronger enforcement mechanisms," KPCC's  Patt Morrison points out, "and I think that's going to be the next step that the city will have to take."

Historic Places LA is also just kind of fun. Mouse over an address, as Whelan did during the demo Tuesday, and you can see how a home designed by black architect Paul Williams is connected to Johnny Weissmueller ... and Mick Jagger.

'Famous for being famous' icon Angelyne lets Off-Ramp hitch a ride in her pink Corvette

In 2000, when I arrived in Los Angeles from an obscure state in the Upper Midwest, people tried to explain Angelyne. "Who is she? What does she do? Why is she famous, again?" Then, after a while, you get it: She is Angelyne, and Angelyne simply is.
 
In an article about her new 2015 pink Corvette, Los Angeles magazine described her thus: "The enigmatic billboard legend Angelyne is famous for being famous — the original Kim Kardashian (without the sex tape) — and though her pictures have appeared above city streets for the last three decades, only her closest confidants know her original identity."

(1997 photo of an Angelyne billboard. Anthony Friedkin/LAPL/L.A. Neighborhoods Collection)
 

A friend in his 30s remembered in a tweet:

Such an icon. I remember her billboard was the highlight of the school bus ride for many pre-teen boys.

— Jordan Davis (@jordancdavis)

@KPCCofframp Such an icon. I remember her billboard was the highlight of the school bus ride for many pre-teen boys. #losangelesmemories

— Jordan Davis (@jordancdavis) February 8, 2015

I'd glimpsed her signature pink Corvette a few times, but until I went to an art opening at Meltdown Comics a few weekends ago, I had never seen Angelyne in the flesh. But there she was,  promoting one of her acrylics — a self-portrait of her, nude but Barbie-neutered, astride a skeleton.

We can't really show the picture, but she's an artist, a singer:

Angelyne singing "My List" in a music video from the early 1980s

... and an actor:

Angelyne in "Earth Girls Are Easy" (1988)

She's also, as I was to learn, beloved by many — including a fish named Lightning at the French Market — and a very good parallel parker. I know because, after 15 years in L.A., I not only got to meet Angelyne, but ride with her in the famous car. I knew Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson would appreciate it:

I already was. (And, by the way, if Huell and Angelyne would have met, there would have been a cosmic singularity that would have destroyed the world.)

During our half-hour drive, I learned:

• Why she charges for fan photos and shields her face behind the Japanese fan: she doesn't want to "blow her wad" by giving everything away for cheap
• That she puts proceeds from her sales into a purse shaped like a chicken
• That she's happy, "because I make people happy." Although she is "questing for a pink, pain-free existence, and I'm going to find it, gods and faeries."

In all, I have to say Angelyne seems old-fashioned nowadays. Almost demure. She's sexy and sex-positive, sure. But while she shakes her silhouetted boobs in that music video, there's no sex tape of her. She's much more a Mae West than a Kim Kardashian. In an age when many famous people share everything about themselves, we still know almost nothing of Angelyne but what she wants us to know.

That moment when you realize Angelyne is in front of you at

Tweets by TheCoffeeBean

. Too good not to share with

! pic.twitter.com/cV5xuZIS6p

— Lana Rushing (@lanarushing)

That moment when you realize Angelyne is in front of you at @TheCoffeeBean. Too good not to share with #mydayinla! pic.twitter.com/cV5xuZIS6p

— Lana Rushing (@lanarushing) February 11, 2015

(Photo of Cassie reacting to Angelyne reposted courtesy Erica Fields)

And still, people get a kick out of seeing her (there were many honks as we drove around) and meeting her, and nobody balked at paying for a photo. They seem to admire her for continuing to do her own thing. "God bless America," said local historian Chris Nichols, talking that night about Angelyne.

Or as Peggy McKay, star of "Days of Our Lives," put it in the French Market parking lot as Angelyne sold T-shirts to fans, "I can't explain [Angelyne's allure], but I recognize it. I think it's an amazing legend that she has created. And I congratulate her on being Angelyne."

Ferguson, fire, Mexico City protests ignite LA artist’s creativity

Images of fire, protests, and tear gas from Ferguson, Missouri, Mexico City, and downtown Los Angeles have circled the globe through social media the last six months. They landed in the inbox of painter Sandy Rodriguez, who works out of a studio in South L.A.'s Leimert Park.

Sandy Rodriguez has a 9-to-5 job at the Getty’s education department. During her off hours she paints at a former hair salon converted into an artist studio.

"I'm one of three artists in residence with Art+Practice Foundation here in Leimert Park. This is the first year of the program.  It is a 14 month residency so I get to create and just work here for 14 months, started in August of 2014," Rodriguez says.

When she started the residency, she proposed a dozen paintings about Leimert Park’s revitalization. She painted a 1920s home, a street scene, and the nighttime fog of nearby Mar Vista.

(Fog in Mar Vista, a painting by Sandy Rodriguez. Image: KPCC/Maya Sugarman)

And then Ferguson, Missouri happened.

One of her paintings includes an image of a McDonald's restaurant.

"A number of reporters and people had been arrested inside a McDonald's in Ferguson during the first few days of the demonstrations, and they were being accused of trespassing in a public space. You hope that you include just a little bit of information, that it’ll jog recent memory and conversations and think about a lot of topics that come up, right?" Rodriguez says.

(Ferguson, Missouri, in a painting by Sandy Rodriguez. Image: KPCC/Maya Sugarman)

The first time she painted fire? "I remember it was ’92," Rodriguez says. "It was the civil unrest, and it was only through the front page of the LA Times. And I still have old, crumbled LA Times front page images from various kinds of moments that I’ve painted."

It’s a process of mentally cutting and pasting, editing the found images, and channeling the results through her hand, paint brush, and onto the canvas.

Sandy Rodriguez is a Chicana. She grew up in L.A. and Tijuana in a family with three generations of artists and painters. Next to the Ferguson works are paintings of an overturned car bathed in fire and a nighttime scene of Mexico City’s national palace, with crowds circling a burning effigy of the president. The paintings are reactions to the November protests in Mexico over the police killing of 43 young teachers.

What moved her?

Sandy Rodriguez is fascinated by fire and the rebirth that follows. Friends know this and send her pictures of fires. She got one of these pictures in the middle of the night in December. It was of Geoff Palmer's massive apartment complex on fire in downtown L.A.

“It was one of those moments, you’re like, 'This is a historic fire. I can’t believe this is happening in my lifetime.' I know it’s not a good thing when a whole entire block goes up in flames, but hopefully they’ll rethink what happens in that same plot of land next.”

Rodriguez doesn’t create alone. She opens up her studio to visitors to hear what they have to say about her work. “There’s an idea that there’s a lone artistic creator, toiling away by themselves in a space, and it’s not in a vacuum. That process is about being a part of a larger community, a larger dialogue, a larger history.”

In June, a curator will pick some of Sandy Rodriguez’s paintings for a group show at the Art + Practice space in L.A.’s Leimert Park. She'll be talking about the art she's created on March 18.

UPDATED: The night VA chief McDonald made his now infamous 'special forces' claim

UPDATE 2/24/2015:

VA Secy Bob McDonald has come under fire for claiming to be a member of US Special Forces as he was walking through Skid Row, talking with a homeless man who claimed  to be a Special Forces veteran.

WATCH the CBS report. KPCC's Rabe appears in black, with umbrella in pocket

I elected not to use that exchange because there was no way to prove whether the homeless man was a veteran (McDonald himself doubted the claim), and the homeless man seemed highly uncomfortable; he obviously felt ambushed by the media hoarde. 

15 seconds into the audio for this Off-Ramp segment, as we talk about flashlights, McDonald does say, "I was a Ranger." According to a VA spokesperson: "As a graduate of the US Army Ranger school, Secretary McDonald was entitled to wear the Ranger tab on his uniform throughout his career." 

-- John Rabe

The day after vowing to end veterans homelessness in a landmark settlement, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald sought to underline his commitment to the issue by taking part in L.A.'s annual homeless count.

McDonald walked the streets of L.A.'s Skid Row for a couple of hours, looking for homeless people, and Off-Ramp went with him.

One of the most poignant and symbolic moments came as we passed a homeless encampment, and McDonald was learning the rules for the survey: Count each individual you see. If you only see a tent, put down "tent." But if there are people outside of it, don't count the tent and the person, and if "there's a foot sticking out, that's one person."

That brings it home, McDonald said, "Particularly when you think that that person could have been in Iraq or Afghanistan, sleeping on the ground. Vietnam. Korea. Waking up and going out to fight."

McDonald didn't find any confirmed vets for sure during his walk around Skid Row. The volunteers are told specifically not to poke into tents and ask invasive questions of the homeless during the census, and McDonald abided by those guidelines.

Sketch artist Mike Sheehan discovers a magical place in the San Bernardino mountains

Sometimes when I'm in an unfamiliar area I type random words into my phone's GPS. Like "historical buildings" or "fountain pens." Don't laugh, I found the worlds greatest fountain pen store that way.

I think this is driven by childhood dreams I used to have of finding magical places in my neighborhood. Sometimes I get lucky and find a cool place to paint or sketch. A few years ago I did this in an unfamiliar area in the San Bernardino mountains. Driving around looking across the treetops, I saw what looked like a gold dome — like a glimpse of the Taj Mahal. It was tantalizing but I couldn't find access. When I got home, I looked it up. 

Usually this stuff turns out to be a themed coffee shop or some other unremarkable mirage. But being in a forest this far off the the beaten path, it seemed really strange. It turned out it was the real thing, built by a Yogi from India in the twenties and thirties. In fact it was an entire camp, Camp Mozumdar, named for A.K. Mozumdar, with an amphitheater called the Pillars of God.

Everything I read about it made it sound like it was a heavily guarded, stay-away kind of place. I left it at that until a few days ago when I did some more research. This time, I found that the Universal Peace Federation, formerly known as the Unification Church (Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity) or, derogatively, the "Moonies," were reviving the property. Turns out the church has owned the property since the 1970s and were now reaching out to the local community. I called the director and pastor of the camp, Juan Morales, and asked if I could come by, and he immediately said yes. 

I parked at the front gate off Mozumdar Drive and was greeted by barking dogs. Then Scott O'Brien, a member of the church, came up and we all walked down to the cabin where Juan lives. We sat down and talked for two hours or so.

Juan told me his journey to Camp Mozumdar, his trips to Israel — including one where he met Yasser Arafat, who he said cried when he heard Reverend Moon's teachings. He also pointed out the bedroom Reverend Moon stayed in when he was at the camp. Juan came to Camp Mozumdar from New York where he had a ministry.

After our talk, Scott and another Church member, Marvin, took me on a tour of the property. First we hit what they call "Holy Ground," a picturesque overlook with split log benches. It overlooks Silverwood Lake and beyond to Death Valley. We moved on to the Pillars of God, an amphitheater with twelve granite pillars representing Jesus' disciples circling out from a cross in the center.

Then we headed to the object of my desire, the "Temple of Christ." The Temple reveals itself in pretty spectacular fashion, and it looked bigger and in better shape than I'd imagined. It's really surreal in this setting. I love that what Mozumdar dreamed and built almost a hundred years ago is still here and imagined Mozumdar giving his talks in the temple all those years ago. 

This was definitely satisfying my childhood "magical place" fantasy. It doesn't get much better than stumbling onto a mini golden domed Taj Mahal in the Southern California mountains.

We went back to the cabin and Juan had whipped up some pork mole and rice. We said a little prayer and ate. I went back for seconds. 

I asked if I could hang out and they said sure, as long as I wanted. Scott and I went down to the Temple and I decided to do an oil sketch, a luxury since I don't usually have a stationary subject. Scott hung out and talked. He told me how he met members of the Church in Berkeley in the seventies, about a chance encounter with Bob Dylan and meeting the Reverend Moon himself.

I came back the next day and sketched the amphitheater and the Holy Ground. I was also enjoying the conversations with Scott. 

The man who built all this, Akhoy Kumar Mozumdar, was born in India to a high caste family.  Later in his life, his spiritual quest led him to a teacher that told him he was destined for teaching in America. He arrived in Seattle, Washington via tramp steamer in 1903. He began lecturing about what he called "Universal Truth," established his ministry in Spokane, wrote books and his message spread. 

He's considered a part of the "New Thought Movement," a spiritual movement based on the teaching of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby that started in the 19th century. In 1919, he made his way to Los Angeles. From there, he bounced around the country teaching and healing. At one of these lectures someone mistakenly introduced him as "Prince Mozumdar," and it became a nickname that stuck the rest of his life. 

Somewhere around this time, he purchased ten acres of land at what is now Camp Mozumdar. It eventually expanded to the over 100 acres it is today. He wanted a place where people of all faiths could come and worship. He lectured at the Pillars of God on Sunday afternoons in the summer. People came and camped and he never charged them. 

As he got older people commented on how he didn't age, that he'd found his own "fountain of youth." But in 1953 time caught up with him like it does all of us. His camp was sold to the YMCA then to the Universal Peace Federation in 1977. 

I found a lot of this info on a site run by David E. Howard. I contacted him about the current level of interest in Mozumdar's teachings, and he wrote back, "I wish I could tell you that interest in AKM's teachings was white hot and growing but from my perspective that's not the case. I've never followed statistics about activity on our website but I can report that occasionally a reader will write an email of appreciation or make a donation or share an experience from long ago at Camp Mozumdar.

I hope they get Mozumdar's dream back to its full glory. That it's still sitting there more than 80 years on, surviving fires or demolition by shortsighted people, is a miracle in itself. I wish I could thank him for the magical little adventure it brought me.

Punk legend Mike Watt on the Minutemen's early days in San Pedro

When the Mount Rushmore of California Punk is built, there will be debates over who to include, but at least one name is a shoe-in: Mike Watt. 

Mike Watt, the bass player for the Minutemen, one of the most unique bands in the history of Southern California music. Mike Watt, the champion of San Pedro history and member of Firehose, and the Stooges, the solo artist and composer of three operas. 

Mike Watt, the enthusiastic, unflappable talker.

The Minutemen started in 1980, and today it's been nearly 30 years since they last performed — guitarist and singer D. Boon died in a car crash in 1985, while the band was on tour. Drummer George Hurley is still alive and plays with Watt.

On how growing up in San Pedro impacted The Minutemen's sound

On how the Minutemen developed their sound

'

On how they managed to shoot the record cover for "Double Nickels on the Dime" in one take:

New Getty exhibit 'Zeitgeist' highlights anti-sensual German artists

A few years ago, on a wall along West Venice Boulevard, someone painted a simple inscription: “Kasper David Friedrich, 1774-1840.’’  Millions must have seen this great German romantic painter’s name as they drove to work. I never knew who painted the name, but whoever you are, the Getty has a new exhibition just for you. It's “Zeitgeist: Art in the Germanic World 1800–1900,” at the Getty Center through May 17.

("A Walk at Dusk," about 1830–35, Caspar David Friedrich, oil on canvas. Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum)

To appreciate the Getty’s new show, it helps to recall just how far behind the rest of Europe Germany had fallen by 1800. A bundle of separate countries, it had no national art school. Its single greatest artist, Kasper Friedrich, was just beginning his creation of dark moody tableaux showing nature vanquishing all else. 

But there was no German painting that corresponded to the music of Haydn or Beethoven, the literature of Goethe and Schiller, the poetry of Heine — products of that great romantic age.

Then suddenly, there emerged German painters who became famous and influential even in France and England. One major sect of such artists featured at the Getty called themselves Nazarenes — and seemed determined, like the Pre-Raphaelites in Britain, to distance themselves from all art since the Renaissance.

(1835 portrait of Peter Cornelius. Credit: Public domain/Wikipedia Commons)

Painters like Peter Cornelius, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and Johann Friedrich Overbeck saw themselves as a chaste creative elite, resistant to sensuality and feeling. Important French critics called them “pure artists,” but young composer Felix Mendelssohn was less impressed.

Most of the work in the Getty’s new exhibit are drawings loaned by a philanthropist couple — therapist Fiona Chalom and plastic surgeon Joel Aronowitz. Their drawings are rare works and their like is seldom seen in America — to modern eyes, they’re sometimes fascinating, sometimes banal.

(Head of a Man; Friedrich Overbeck; Germany; about 1820 - 1825; Graphite on brownish paper. J. Paul Getty Museum )

But it isn’t fair to judge an entire body of work based just on these drawings — particularly Overbeck’s, who is best known for his amazing murals. There is originality in the landscapes, but much of Schnorr and Runge’s other work seems overdecorative; brilliant illustration rather than art. What was to these artists an avoidance of the Renaissance and modern traditions now makes their works seem to be of no period whatsoever.

And yet, of course, they are of the period when artists tried to refute their own era, only to be tsunamied by far more vital movements like impressionism. In the history of art, they are 19th century painting's Neanderthals, a culture that disappeared as the modern leapt forth.

(View of the Residence of Archduke Johann in Gastein Hot Springs, about 1829–32, Thomas Ender, watercolor over graphite. Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum)

Apart from Caspar David Friedrich, who understood that "A painter should paint not only what he sees in front of him, but what he sees within,” the only artists in this show who brim over with excitement stand apart from the Nazarenes. They are Gustav Klimt and Alphonse Mucha, not Germans at all but Austro-Hungarian geniuses who poured into their art all the sensuality and feeling that these Germans scrupulously avoided.

Professional sneaker cleaner sets up shop in Little Tokyo

Little Tokyo recently became home to the first brick-and-mortar location of Jason Markk, a company that specializes in cleaning products for sneakers. Now, the store is taking the concept one step further: on-site sneaker cleaning.

The store’s "sneaker care technicians" scrub, polish and deodorize for anywhere from $15 to $32 per pair.

Jason Mark Angsuvarn, the company’s founder and near namesake, says the business combines two of his obsessions: sneakers and cleanliness.

“I do remember my first pair of sneakers. They were a pair of black Flight 89’s and I loved them. I wore them everywhere," says Jason. "And I've always been a clean freak."

Even as a teen, Jason says he got frustrated with the generic shoe cleaning products you find at a mall or drugstore. He found them often too abrasive and potentially damaging to shoes.

So, he started creating cleaning mixtures and methods of his own.

“I’d use a mixture of household items. My thing was OxiClean, a little bit of dishwashing soap and that was it. If I had white laces, I’d use laundry detergent and a little bit of bleach,” says Jason. “That’s how the idea came about. I was just cleaning my shoes one night and I was thinking, ‘Man, there’s got to be something better.’”

Jason started asking around about how other people cleaned their sneakers, at shoe stores and in online forums. He said it was like asking people about their favorite hangover cure — everybody had their own home remedy.

Jason decided to create a cleaning product designed specifically for sneakers and the people who love them. After going through a handful of chemists and exhaustive testing, he was ready to start selling his cleaning kits online.

Sneaker connoisseurs took to it immediately, and seven years later, Jason’s company was doing so well that he opened up a flagship store location.

(Inside Jason Markk's flagship store in Little Tokyo. Photo courtesy of Jason Markk.)

Jason added the drop-off sneaker cleaning service to his plans for the store at the last minute, and to his surprise, it’s turned out to be the main attraction.

“We get everyone from, like, your super hardcore collector, to the soccer mom. In the location we’re in in Little Tokyo, there’s so much foot traffic,” says Jason.

Jason’s not kidding about his diverse clientele. Two on-duty cops came in to drop off sneakers while I was there.

“There are so many return customers now, it’s like an errand now. It’s not a special thing. It’s just like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna go to the groceries. I gotta go to the dry cleaners. I gotta go to Jason Markk,’” says Jason.

One Yelper begins their five-star review of Jason Markk like this: “If you laughed, appreciated and/or understood that scene in Do The Right Thing when Larry Bird runs over the ‘the brand new white Air Jordans’ then you need to bring your kicks here.”

(A before and after shot from Jason Markk's drop-off sneaker cleaning service. Photo courtesy of Jason Markk.)

Of course, as their customer base grows, the weird stories get weirder:

“This is kind of gory, but we had this pair of Bapes come in and they were just covered in blood,” says Jason. “The guy had almost blown his hand off during Fourth of July. It was really nasty. My guys are fearless. They just threw the gloves on and went at it. And they did a great job. They looked brand new.”

The hand healed fine, too.

Jason Markk's flagship sneaker cleaning store is located at 329 E. 2nd Street in Little Tokyo.