Chopper pilot Bob Tur to become Zoey Tur ... Clay Russell says, "Ask me about my suicide attempt." ... Gee, Dad, it's a Wurlitzer ... Basketball's biggest fan ... Dylan Brody and the lure of Armageddon ...
Why Maria the Goose won't return to Echo Park Lake (photos, video)
This weekend in Echo Park, residents are celebrating the end of a very, very long two years. Since the summer of 2011, Echo Park Lake has been undergoing a drastic restoration. The lake was drained entirely and rebuilt from the lakebed up. Now the boats are back, the joggers are back and even the lotus flowers are back.
City officials say we can expect everything we loved about the lake to return to Echo Park, except for one friendly, feathered resident. Contrary to reports at the time, Maria the goose, star of TV screens and newspapers all over L.A., will spend the rest of her days at the Los Angeles Zoo. Off-Ramp Producer Kevin Ferguson has the story.
RELATED: The lotus, the lake and the people are back at Echo Park Lake (Photos)
Back in February of 2011, Angelenos couldn't turn on a radio, open a newspaper or watch TV without hearing about a goose named Maria.
Eyewitness News, The L.A. Times, Animal Planet, The Wall Street Journal, CBS all profiled retired investor Dominic Ehrler and his best friend, Maria, a gray toulouse goose he'd met on his walks around Echo Park Lake. The two would spend every morning together: Dominic on his scooter running around the lake, and Maria flying alongside:
The two were fixtures at Echo Park Lake until the park was completely overhauled and the ducks, coots and geese living in the lake found themselves homeless. While this wasn't a big problem for the wild waterfowl of Echo Park, finding a home for the human-imprinted Maria proved more complicated.
"We were asked by Councilman [Eric] Garcetti's office and the Department of Recreation and Parks to assist in relocating this domestic goose," said Susie Kasielke, curator of birds for the Los Angeles Zoo.
Maria arrived at the zoo in February 2011 and immediately went under quarantine. In that time, a lot changed for Maria, including her daily routine, her diet, even her gender. Zoo staff quickly discovered Maria was actually a male. Perhaps Mario might be a more appropriate name.
"Now, please, let's understand," said Dominic Ehler, Mario's human companion. "Sometimes I'll say Maria, sometimes I'll say Mario. It's kind of a long story, but I sorta say when he's good he's Maria, when he's bad he's Mario"
RELATED: Echo Park Lake goes from toxic bummer to wildlife gem in 2 short years
In the last two years Dominic has visited Maria almost every day, following the exact same routine. He drives up in his orange scooter at 10 a.m. — right as the zoo opens — and makes a beeline for Maria's pen in the children's zoo.
On a Wednesday morning at the zoo, Ehler approaches the fence. He and the goose greet one another. "Mario! Mario! You're awfully quiet. Aren't you glad to see me?"
Mario honks in reply.
Dominic opens the gate and walks inside. Other than zoo employees, he's the only person allowed in Maria's pen. Once inside he grabs a handful of lettuce; it's breakfast time.
"This is just standard procedure," says Ehrler. "The zoo provides me a little bit of romaine lettuce, sometimes kale, and I just put it in her little water trough."
Dominic's routine lasts about an hour as he relaxes with Maria and interacts with visitors. They're both approachable, friendly, and Mario's especially curious — he tried to take a bite out of my microphone twice.
The zoo is Maria's permanent home now. Among the goats, prairie dogs and more, he greets not just Dominic but everyone at the zoo with a friendly honk.
Susie Kasielke, the bird curator, says the decision to keep Maria at the zoo was an easy one to make. First, he can steer clear from things like unfriendly animals, cars and potentially goose-nappers. Second: He's a lot of fun to have around.
"The staff absolutely adores him," said Kasielke. "And I kind of consider it to be a little bit of a goose resort. He has all of his needs met, he has a full time staff, and a full time veterinary staff and everything that he could possibly need."
And what about Dominic?
"Now the lake is reopening, and the big issue is whether or not Maria or Mario's going back," said Ehrler. "And the thing of it is, is, he's safe at the zoo. He's safe here. We gotta keep in mind that he's a domestic animal. He's not a wild bird, so there is a big difference. And as long as he has interaction with people, I think the L.A. Zoo is probably the best place in the world for him. If he was in Echo Park, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night thinking, 'Is he going to be there the next morning?'"
You can also visit Maria, or Mario. He's at the Winnick Family Children Zoo section of the Los Angeles Zoo every day it's open. And if you show up early enough, you can talk with Dominic, too.
Bob Tur, legendary chopper pilot, has Gender Identity Disorder, is becoming Zoey, and is happy at last
"I'm happy. I've not been this happy. I've had a great life; Bob Tur needs to die now. And he'll be dead within three to four months." —Bob Tur, soon to be Zoey Tur
Bob Tur is a man you know, even if you don't know his name. He's the TV helicopter pilot who hovered above the Reginald Denny beating. He found O.J. in his white Bronco and followed the slow-speed chase. He's flown daring rescue missions, saving dozens of hotel guests from a Pacific storm.
He's a hero in one of the most macho professions, but Thursday he announced he's transitioning from Robert to Zoey because he has GID, Gender Identity Disorder, also called gender dysphoria, which many people who have it describe as being "trapped in the wrong body."
We talked for half an hour. Our interview — the long version is posted here — includes very candid talk about GID and sexuality and graphic clinical descriptions of the surgery he'll be undergoing.
Here's how Bob writes about his new life on his Facebook page.
What's Gender Identity Disorder like? It's weird. I know I'm female, despite being born male. When watching a movie, for example, I identify with the female lead character. When looking at my reflection in the mirror I hate what I see. I think I'm ugly and despise my body hair. So much so, I have shaved it off throughout my adult life. I've even gone as far as using Photoshop to feminize my pictures, including a series of nude photos we shot as far back as 13 years ago. What about the stereotypical things women do, like shopping? Love it. I was the only male I knew that didn't mind shopping with their wife.
L.A. Film Festival launches with N. American premiere of Almodovar comedy 'I'm So Excited'
The 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival launched Thursday night with a delightful romp and an even more delightful personal appearance from director Pedro Almodovar, who used the annual Film Independent celebration of all things indie as the vehicle for the North American premiere of his latest picture "I'm So Excited."
In his rambling intro to the evening, Almodovar thanked his brother Agustin Almodovar, who has been producing his films for him with Coen brothers-like devotion for more than 25 years. He pitched the movers and shakers in the house to hire three of his actors for American movies. He talked about his new film excitedly, completely ignoring the "no spoilers" rule of introductory remarks before a screening.
And he horsed around onstage with longtime collaborator Javier Camara, whom he described as an ideal actor for a director whose bearhug humanism envelops human beings of all sizes, shapes and proclivities: "He can be a man. He can be a woman. He can be hairy or bald. He can be fat. He can be thin. He can be whatever you want him to be." The massive audience in Regal Cinema's packed Theatre No. 1 ate out of his hand.
"I'm So Excited" is a Rabelaisian farce that takes place almost entirely on an airplane in flight with landing gear trouble. It's also a movie that has already been hailed as a return to the broad form of '80s carnal carnivales like "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down!" — films that launched Almodovar's career. Drugs, alcohol, family reunions and sex with strangers are all par for the course here for a director who has always been a libertarian as well as a libertine.
As ever, Almodovar manages to make the most decadent behaviors imaginable seem positively wholesome thanks to his skill with extracting nuanced performances from his actors and the all-embracing humanism that fires his work.
Whether it's a cranky dominatrix, a lovelorn hitman, a gay pilot passing for straight or a criminal financial mastermind in the grip of scandal, Almodovar believes passionately in every person's right to screw up everything about his or her life, and he also has faith in the human animal to imagine its way out of all of life's traps, usually via a lunge toward companionship driven by the id. In "I'm So Excited!," he sees once again all the foibles and pretensions and vanities people are prone to, laughs at and treasures each one, and then forgives us everything.
A master of the double entendre who assured the audience last night that in Spanish "I'm So Excited!" translates both as it reads in English and as "I'm So Horny!," Almodovar has called it "my gayest film ever!" It might be, both in the pansexual affirmation of its plotting and in the old Victorian sense of the word "gay," as in merriment. An auspicious opening for LAFF, a festival that hopes as ever to be not just a showcase for film but also a celebration.
Filmmaker R.H. Greene is covering the L.A. Film Festival for Off-Ramp
Barber: "I cut the hair of a fugitive from justice, Whitey Bulger"
UPDATE 6/12/2013: BOSTON (AP) - A federal prosecutor said in opening statements today at James "Whitey" Bulger's racketeering trial that the reputed mobster was at the center of "murder and mayhem" in Boston for almost 30 years, while the defense attacked the credibility of the government's star witnesses. Prosecutor Brian Kelly told jurors that Bulger headed the violent Winter Hill Gang that "ran amok" in Boston for nearly three decades, killing 19 people, extorting millions from drug dealers and other criminals, and corrupting police and FBI agents. "At the center of all this murder and mayhem is one man - the defendant in this case, James Bulger," Kelly said.
Bulger's lead attorney, J. W. Carney Jr., went after the prosecution's star witnesses, including hit man John Martorano, who admitted killing 20 people and has agreed to testify against Bulger. Martorano served 12 years in prison for his crimes, in what Carney called an "extraordinary benefit" for his cooperation with prosecutors. "The federal government was so desperate to have John Martorano testify ... they basically put their hands up in the air and said take anything you want," Carney said.
The government plans to show the jury a 700-page file they say shows that Bulger, while committing a long list of crimes, was also working as an FBI informant, providing information on the New England Mob - his gang's main rivals - and corrupting FBI agents who ignored his crimes.
Bulger, now 83, was one of the nation's most wanted fugitives when he fled Boston in 1994 after receiving a tip from his former FBI handler, John Connolly, that he was about to be indicted. He was finally captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., where he had been living with his longtime girlfriend in a rent-controlled apartment.
The trial is expected to last three to four months.
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Some called him a Robin Hood, but the feds indicted him for 19 murders. Not a very good fella.
He was Massachusetts Mafioso James "Whitey" Bulger, and after a 19-year career as an FBI informant, he went on the lam in 1994. He wasn't captured until 2011, outside his apartment in Santa Monica.
But even a murderer needs a haircut, and Bulger, it turns out, used to go to a colorful barber in Santa Monica for a beard trim - his head being almost completely bald.
Bulger, says this barber, who has requested anonymity, was a gentleman, and gave a 100% tip for a $14 beard trim. Once, the barber remembers, he was cutting a cop's hair, and Bulger walked in and sat down in a nearby barber chair, cool as a cucumber, waiting his turn.
When asked what he thinks about Bulger's capture, the barber laments, "They took away one of my best customers."
Clay Russell breaks the taboo, talks about his suicide attempt
On Nov. 19, Clay Russell wrote on mariashriver.com:
“Do you want to be here?”
“Here, the hospital, or here, Planet Earth?”
“Here, the hospital.”
“No, but I don’t think I’m in any condition to drive home right now.”
That’s an exchange I had recently with an Emergency Room physician. I don’t remember the conversation because I was pretty much unconscious when it occurred and I only heard about it later.
I was unconscious because I had swallowed 50 Ambien tablets and 10 Vicodin, all washed down with a bottle of very good 2004 Meursault. There’s a lot about that evening I don’t remember but I do remember being glad when I finally woke up the next morning. Some people might not have been so glad.
Much later, after attending a cocktail party, he got word that, since he was looking for work, he shouldn't be talking his suicide in public. That struck him as dumb. As he told me, "It would be perfectly normal dinner party conversation to talk about your colonoscopy, but you talk about mental illness and people get freaked out." Not talking about it, the stigma of suicide continues.
In our long interview for Off-Ramp, the 51-year old talked about his diagnosis (bipolar 2), the day he attempted suicide, his treatment strategy, and what it's OK to ask him about at a cocktail party (pretty much everything). In the last six months, Russell says he's learned a lot.
I’ve learned about the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-TALK (8255) – where the people who answer the phone just want to help folks get past moments of hopelessness. I called them today and had a chat. They’re a great resource. They save lives. I don’t have all the answers, but I have begun to learn about myself and frame my problem. It’s a start.
Clay Russell, by the way, was not only Maria Shriver's personal assistant, but also Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's body man for many years. "I think Maria got me in the divorce," he jokes.
NBA 'super fan' James Goldstein on fashion, architecture and basketball
His business card is twice the size of an ordinary business card, but that's in keeping with James Goldstein's outsized life.
To the NBA, he's the courtside super fan who's traveled to thousands of games. To fashionistas, he's an over-the-top fop, a style symbol. To lovers of LA architecture, he's the guardian of the renowned Sheats-Goldstein house, built in 1963 by architect John Lautner and used in music videos and movies--most memorably in Joel and Ethan Coen's The Big Lebowski.
RELATED: See the AudioVision post on Jackie Treehorn's Beverly Hills Pad
Goldstein has owned that house for 40 years, the same four decades that he's owned the classic cream-colored Rolls-Royce parked outside. The Rolls-Royce is all curves and bends; the house is all angles and edges.
"Men today don't know how to dress. They all want to be conformists, they're afraid to do anything different," said Goldstein. "The clothes that are offered are pretty disappointing in my opinion. I feel that women have all of the advantages when it comes to clothes. Frequently, I'll see something from the women's collection and ask the designer to make a version of it for me."
James Goldstein recently sat down with Patt to talk about his passion for architecture, basketball and fashion.
Interview Highlights
You may be one of the rare men in the world that spends more money on clothes than women do
"I spend a ridiculous amount of money on clothes. I don't like to keep track of what I spend."
Have you always worn hats?
"Over the last ten years or so, I've been wearing wide brim hats that I've designed myself. I like myself better when I'm wearing a hat, and everyone else seems to like it as well."
In America it seems to be baseball that is glorified as having some mystical properties. What is it about basketball that engages you?
"I think America used to be about baseball. Basketball, to me, is the ultimate in athleticism. And I enjoy watching what I consider the best athletes in the world, competing and improvising and coming up with their own individual moves on the court just the way a designer would come up with something original."
You try to go to every game, even the out of town games. Why?
"The playoffs are the highlight of my year. The intensity of basketball that takes place during the playoffs is so exciting for me, and it's much more exciting in person. I've become so well known in the other NBA cities, all of it adds up to a very exciting time for me."
In all of these years of having season tickets I can't imagine you started courtside. How did you move from where ever your first seats were down to courtside?
"From the very beginning I was sitting courtside, the only difference was that in the early 60's when I started out doing this the courtside seats cost $15. And now a courtside seat to a Laker game costs $2800."
I've heard that you cheer against the Lakers?
"You phrase that as though it's only an occasional thing. It happens to be 100 percent of the time. I didn't grow up in L.A., it's not like I was a fan of the local team when I was growing up. I was a fan of another team. I didn't see any reason to drop my allegiance simply because I moved to Los Angeles."
Do you like the air of mystery that's kind of built up around you? Like, who is he? Where did he come from? Where did his money come from?
"I'm amused by everyone calling me the mysterious man. So, I've come to enjoy it, but I've never gone out of my way to create it. To me, being famous just for sitting in the first row and going to a lot of games is not really a notable achievement. I get a lot more satisfaction out of being known as a fashion icon."
Dylan Brody, professional scold: The possibility of Armageddon isn't a free pass to behave like children
I understand the comfort that many people take in apocalyptic mythology. Frankly, a swift and sudden end to the world as we know it is pretty much all I have by way of a retirement plan.
If the world is coming to an end soon, then nobody needs to take responsibility for his or her actions. Maybe some divinity will mete out rewards and punishments. Maybe there will just be a dry husk of an overheated globe with bacteria-laced winds and orgiastic cockroaches slowly eating away the flesh and then the bones of humanity. Either way, you won’t have to worry about mortgage payments, losing that weight your doctor seems so obsessed with, or when television gave up on writers and actors in favor of anyone Kardashian or Kardashian-adjacent.
As a culture we loathe the idea of individual suicide, even for those condemned to a life of pain and suffering. Still, we romanticize the notion of societal downfall. From recurring announcements from biblical scholars who claim to know the date of the rapture to Hollywood films about global catastrophe, epidemic extinction events and alien attack, the modern imagination seems to be downright giddy about the thought of it all coming to an abrupt end.
Apart from those few who claim not to believe in the science of global warming, we seem resigned now to the idea that we have passed a tipping point, that the damage we have done to our planet’s thermo-regulatory system is irreversible. For a long time, the easy way to avoid making large changes to our society and our behavior as individuals was to deny that change was necessary. Now that we know it is necessary, the easy out is to say that it is too late.
Recently I talked with a young woman about the possibility of peace. She has grown up in a time of near constant war. She said, “Peace? It’s hard to get your mind around. I mean, ... is that even a thing?” I hadn’t put forth a complex plan for the attainment of peace, mind you. I had just mentioned it as a concept. Even that was too much.
Like the loss of our glaciers, the ongoing pollution of our skies and the eventual repeated arrests and trials of a post-adolescent Honey Boo-boo, entire generations see the sheer horror of warfare as simple inevitability.
Whether we speak of a biblical apocalypse, an environmental one or one born of nuclear or chemical weapons, what we imagine is a sudden release from responsibility. When we take that apocalypse as inevitable we willfully abrogate that responsibility before we have the right to do so.
Right now we are alive, we have free will and we are the most adaptable creatures ever to build air conditioners. Let’s do the courageous thing. Let’s work toward peace, wean ourselves off of fossil fuels and begin to plan for a long future. That way, if we blow it and the world ends abruptly it can just come as a pleasant surprise.
Dylan Brody is a humorist, Off-Ramp commentator, and bad financial planner, and he has a new spoken-word album on i-Tunes.
PHOTOS: LA campaign consultant John Schwada savors political quiet of Oman, 'the most charming police state in the world'
John Schwada is a former TV reporter and, most recently, media consultant for L.A. City Council candidate Gil Cedillo, City Controller candidate Dennis Zine and City Attorney candidate Carmen Trutanich.
For LA Observed, Schwada wrote about his soul-cleansing trip to Oman:
Trutanich and Feuer, Zine and Galperin, Cedillo and Gardea (the former in each of these pairings was a client of mine) were 12 thousand miles away, as I walked, trekked, drove my way around Oman. 1519 kilometers of driving. Maybe 50 kms of walking. The daytime temperatures: in the 100's.
In the boondocks of Oman, while getting lost in the labyrinthine alleys of an ancient village where Jesus reincarnate might have found himself at home, the struggle with the heat was tiring. But it was a good tiring. Every drop of sweat squeezed another sub-cutaneous, molecular-level drop of LA and a frustrating campaign season out of my body.
You can read his full essay at LA Observed.
RIP Fran Bascom, 86. Worked on 'Days of Our Lives,' 'Lou Grant,' 'Designing Women'
Actor and Off-Ramp contributor Barry Cutler sent this email to friends this weekend, about the death of veteran casting director Fran Bascom, Sunday, June 2, at the age of 86. According to welovesoaps.net, she was nominated for 15 Artios Awards from the Casting Society of America, including nine for Days of Our Lives, for which she worked from 1992-2007.
I'm jumping to the conclusion that, if you are or were an actor in Los Angeles, especially if you've performed in theatre, you encountered and, at the very least, appreciated this wonderful and supportive woman, Fran Bascom. I know of no other casting director who went out of her way to attend theatre, search out new talent and encourage those she already knew.
Personally, she seemed to show up at just about every play in which I ever performed in the greater Los Angeles area. Most of the time, when I encountered her after a performance, she was kindly flattering and supportive. But I most fondly remember her approaching me after one play, for which I'd sent invitations, and said, "Barry, you know I love you as an actor and I appreciate your invitations. But please don't invite me to anymore plays as bad as this one."
She seemed to remember everybody, no matter how many years may have passed. Once, after I'd moved back to NYC for a few years, she contacted me through my last LA agent, offering me a day-player role on the soap Days of Our Lives, but encouraging me to return because she believed it would become a recurring character. And it did. When the salary wasn't enough to cover keeping places in New York and L.A, she - not my meek agent - talked Days' producers into raising my pay.
I'm sure those of you who knew her have more such stories of her kindness and generosity of spirit.
Sadly, Fran passed away last week. Yesterday, I was told that there will be a memorial for her at 10am on Friday, June 14, at St. Charles Church, near Moorpark and Lankershim in North Hollywood. It was suggested that, in Fran's memory, one might contribute to an animal shelter.