EatLA on Gastropubs ... Dinner Party Download ... Photos by one of The Minutemen ... Larry Mantle interviewed by John Rabe ... The Voice of Bambi - Donnie Dunagan ... The Secret of Kells ... Poverty in Armenia.
New Regular Off-Ramp Food Segment - EatLA Joins Team Off-Ramp
Eat-Los Angeles, the guide to all things edible in Southern California, will be joining Off-Ramp to keep you up to date on new and interesting restaurants and food trends. This week, the book and website's editor, Colleen Bates, talks with Off-Ramp's John Rabe and Queena Kim about gastropubs.
If you want to hang out with friends and have a drink and a bite some evening, and have a few people join you and have a few people leave, maybe you don’t want to go to Spago or The Sizzler.
You want a “gastropub,” where the food is good and the beer and wine is tasty and interesting.
Eat-Los Angeles has been checking out the trend, which includes: The Lazy Ox Canteen downtown, Hudson House in Redondo Beach, The Six in West LA, and Bacaro near USC.
Rabe MC's Fun Pasadena Collegiate Event at Rose Bowl Saturday - and you're welcome!
Caltech, Art Center College of Design, Fuller Theological Seminary, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Pacific Oaks College and Pasadena City College ... Pasadena has a wonderful diversity of educational institutions, and they've never met head-to-head at the Rose Bowl to make cheeseburgers or play monster croquet. They will now, and John Rabe gets to emcee.
COME INSIDE FOR DETAILS!
There's still space for you at the Rose Bowl Saturday.
Here's the news release with full details:
PASADENA INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING WILL VIE FOR TOP HONORS IN FRISBEE TOSS, CHEESEBURGER CHALLENGE AND OTHER COMPETITIONS THIS SATURDAY
Pasadena is known worldwide for its annual Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game, but it is also a renowned college town.
Student teams from Caltech, Art Center College of Design, Fuller Theological Seminary, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Pacific Oaks College and Pasadena City College will vie for top honors in the first Collegiate Field Tournament Cup on Saturday, April 3, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Rose Bowl Stadium.
Will it be the scientists? The chefs? The artists? The teachers? The faithful? The undeclared? Admission is free and everyone is invited to root for their favorite teams.
Creative challenges including monster croquet, Frisbee toss, cheeseburger challenge, meteor catch, blind faith challenge and giant puzzle race will round out a day that will be as much about bonding among Pasadena’s world-renowned colleges as it is about competition.
Cheeseburger Challenge – This challenge pays homage to the fact that the cheeseburger was invented in Pasadena; it’s also a nod to the aspiring chefs of the Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts who may invent the next gastronomic superstar that will become a staple of American life. Game officials will provide each team with two pounds of ground beef and a small grill that the team must assemble. Each team will add their own special ingredients to prepare a cheeseburger and serve it to the judges for evaluation.
Frisbee Toss – This challenge is a tribute to the fact that Frisbee golf was invented in Pasadena and the first Frisbee disc course was constructed at Oak Grove Park near JPL. Each team will have three opportunities to throw Frisbees into the end zones while team members attempt to catch them. The team with the most point wins the challenge.
Meteor Catch – This contest acknowledges the difficult scientific challenges Caltech students and researchers undertake on a daily basis. Each team will attempt to save the world from destruction as meteor balls are launched toward them. Each team must catch the meteor balls in a device they quickly construct from materials provided to them. The team that catches the most meteors wins.
Blind Faith Challenge – This is a nod to the thousands of students who have graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary over the years. A number of colored flag pendants for each team will be placed across the stadium field. A blindfolded team member who is not aware of the placement of the flags will be directed by fellow team members to each pendant. The team that retrieves all of their flags and runs them to the end zone first wins.
Monster Croquet – This highlights the fact that PCC is one of the largest community colleges in the nation. Each team member will push an oversized beach ball with a mallet through a series of giant balloon arches that will serve as wickets. The team that succeeds in getting their beach ball through all the wickets the fastest wins.
Giant Puzzle Race – Educators who graduate from Pacific Oaks College teach their students to solve problems. Each team will retrieve the pieces to a jigsaw puzzle from throughout the stadium and rush them to the field for construction. The team that finishes putting their puzzle together first wins.
Uniform Judging – There’s absolutely nothing uniform about Pasadena’s superior institutions of higher learning, but uniforms for each team will have been designed expressly for this competition by the schools they represent. A panel of judges will select the best team uniform based on attractiveness, originality and thematic connection to the school’s learning focus.
Parking is free in Lots K and F. Entry to the stadium will be accessible through the south gate only.
The Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament is sponsored by the city of Pasadena, idealab! and Honda Design Center.
Larry Mantle celebrates 25 years of Airtalk with party, Off-Ramp interview
Note from John Rabe: It's a real pleasure to work with Larry Mantle, who started hosting Airtalk on April 1, 1985 (when I was 19). We threw a party for Larry this week, with Morning Edition host Steve Julian as the MC, since he's known Larry for 27 years. I was honored to be asked to interview Larry at the party, held in the Crawford Family Forum here at the Mohn Broadcast Center. Here's some of our conversation, which covers Larry's beginnings as a would-be pastor, his love of live radio, and s-e-x.
Donnie Dunagan, the voice of "Bambi," was also Marines drill instructor!
The voice of Bambi is coming to town for Monsterpalooza in Burbank next weekend (at the Marriott Burbank Convention Center, April 9-11).
75-year old Donnie Dunagan gave KPCC's John Rabe a call from his home in Texas and they talked about his work on "Bambi," "Son of Frankenstein," as the Marines' youngest-ever drill sergeant, and about Walt Disney as a leadership model.
COME INSIDE for photos and a link to the convention!
The trail of an Off-Ramp segment is usually prosaic. Like this one:
I was watching a VHS of “Son of Frankenstein” a while back and, as is my habit, imdb’d it. I noticed that the kid who played young Peter Frankenstein was still alive.
And that he was the voice of young Bambi in the Disney classic, as well as the animators' face model.
Further web work revealed he was coming to town for Monsterpalooza, a convention in Burbank starting Friday, April 9.
So, if he’s still alive and coming to town for an event, maybe he’d be up for an Off-Ramp interview. He was and we had a great talk. Turns out Dunagan is not only alive, but on fire, in great shape mentally and physically ...
… the legacy of thirty years in the Marines!
So check out our interview, and read more about him at Ultimate Disney.
How We Live: Life on the Margins in Armenia
Southland photographer Sara Anjargolian has a new book out documenting the rise in poverty in Armenia. It's called How We Live: Life on the Margins in Armenia.
Since we have the largest Armenian community outside of the homeland right here, Anjargolian hopes her book will bring awareness and a call to action. KPCC's Shirley Jahad went to see images from the book at Casitas Studios in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Minutemen's Mike Watt displays photos at Track 16 in Santa Monica
Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica has an exhibit up right now called "Eye-Gifts from Pedro." It's a collection of photographs by seminal punk bassist Mike Watt, who’s most famous for co-founding the band "The Minutemen."
Watt is a longtime resident of San Pedro and the exhibit is a series of photographs he took while kayaking and biking along the harbor. KPCC’s Alex Cohen met Watt at the exhibit.
Fly Girl
Last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to a special group of pilots. More than 200 World War Two veterans - surviving members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots - or WASPS - were in Washington, DC for the ceremony. A Los Angeles writer has fictionalized their story. KPCC’s Washington Correspondent Kitty Felde caught up with her at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Animation expert Charles Solomon (and John Rabe) love "The Secret of Kells"
UPDATE 4/3/2010: "The Secret of Kells" is finally in wide release. Go see it soon!
"The Secret of Kells" is a magical new animated feature from Europe about the monks who drew the famed Book of Kells, one of the most famous illuminated Bibles. The movie gets a special screening at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on Saturday (1/9) at 1pm. The first piece of audio is the lightly edited web version of John Rabe's chat with animation expert and Off-Ramp contributor Charles Solomon about the movie. The second is shorter but includes clips from the movie. Come inside for more info.
Dinner Party Download - making you smarter for 45 episodes
Dinner Party Download talks with comic Tig Notaro, visits Wall Street, and talks with designer Ali Pulver about how to eat on the street.