Typing on Andy Rooney's typewriter, Pasadena's newest wine store, Really Old Jews Tell Jokes, and the logistics of bringing in the space shuttle.
Steve Soboroff's typewriter time machines
Some people collect parasol handles, baseball cards, ceramic cats. L.A. businessman Steve Soboroff collects one of the most cumbersome objects this side of Ward Kimball's steam locomotive: typewriters.
And while some typewriter enthusiasts collect rare or interesting machines, whether or not they have significant meaning, Soboroff said he has strict requirements when purchasing the machines.
"I'm minor league when it comes to collecting, because I have a caveat on my typewriters. The typewriters that I collect were previously owned by famous people," he explained.
Soboroff owns 16 historic typewriters, including machines owned by Ernest Hemingway, John Lennon, Joe DiMaggio, the Unabomber, Jack Kevorkian, and Andy Rooney.
"Andy Rooney was thinking when he was sitting at that typewriter. And so was John Updike, and so was Ernest Hemingway. Tell me how you feel when you just typed on Andy Rooney's typewriter, having been a fan for all these years," he said.
According to Soboroff, winning Rooney's writing tool was a steal at the auctions. "It was cheap, it was a joke. Nobody showed up at that auction – $700. I probably would have paid $5,000 in my brain, and I think that as part of the collection that it's probably worth four or five times that, because John Lennon's typewriter I have been offered $250,000 for," he continued.
Soboroff said he loves knowing that Lennon crafted his first songs on the typewriter he now owns; that the Unabomber's typewriter is missing parts that were used to construct bombs. And aside from owning a piece of history, Soboroff revels in discovering treasures within the typewriter cases.
"In the case of Joe DiMaggio's I found his scissors-clipped up Master Card," he recalled. "I tried to use it and they were so busy that the owner didn't even look at the credit card, and he just swiped it through and said, 'No, this doesn't work, do you have another one?' I said, 'No **** it doesn't work, it's Joe DiMaggio's from 40 years ago.'"
Soboroff discovered a more valuable item in Hemingway's case: old negatives. "Inside one of the boxes – it looked like burnt bacon. I went to touch one, and it turned to dust in my hand. But it was obvious what they were, they were parts of negatives," he said, adding that he had someone steam and let the film settle before making a print of each of the remaining negatives.
"I sent it to the number one Hemingway scholar in the world, and she came back to me within two minutes and said 'Oh my gosh, that's Ernest Hemingway when he was two-years-old, that's his father, the boat is on their lake in Michigan,'" he remembered.
But Soboroff's collection isn't purely for private enjoyment – the businessman opens his collection for public viewing in order to donate money to charities. He said that he's thrilled people will drive 200 miles to look.
Soboroff has already made $200,000 at charity auctions, by giving enthusiasts the chance to sit in front of these time machines and peck out a page of prose.
To Soboroff, a typewriter carries more meaning than the story of the hands that have touched the keys of the machine.
"What the typewriter symbolizes now is timelessness, and also a slower, more thoughtful way of life," he said. "What is made these days that will be used 60, 70, 80, 100 years from now? I don't think there's anything, and these typewriters have hundreds of years to go."
Andy Rooney's comedic take on typewriters vs. computers:
Off-Ramp's LA Press Club Awards Finalists
KPCC has an astounding, humbling, 37 finalists for this year's LA Press Club Awards. For our part, Off-Ramp is excited to learn that we have half a dozen finalists.
The winners will be announced on June 24, but in the meantime, check out our finalists:
For Best Entertainment Reporting / Criticism - Steven Harris, who did an outstanding, music-filled appreciation of Stan Kenton to mark his centennial.
For Best Sports Reporting - Raghu Manavalan's "Ballhawks" is a masterpiece of pathos, telling the story of a baseball fan who just won't quit.
A game with Dodger Stadium's ball hawks
For Best Public Affairs Talk - Off-Ramp put together a Memorial Day special last year that included interviews with vets, the father of a Marine who was killed in action, the widow of the chief engineer on the USS Indianapolis, and the memories of the youngest person on Schindler's List.
Off-Ramp's Memorial Day Special
For Best Documentary - R.H. Greene produced "Airborne," an enlightening, enthralling, entertaining hour-long documentary about the radio career of one of the best filmmakers, Orson Welles, featuring dozens of rare clips from Greene's own archive.
"Airborne", an Orson Welles documentary
And ... For Best Anchor - John Rabe, who has been hosting Off-Ramp since he created it in 2006.
Samuel Oschin crossed Alps by elephant, planted flag at North Pole, and in death, names Endeavour buildings
The late Samuel Oschin was big in real estate and S&L's, and now his name will be huge at the California Science Center, south of downtown LA. His foundation, headed by his widow Lynda Oschin, has made a big but unspecified gift to the center that will help it shelter the Space Shuttle Endeavor at the California Science Center.
Oschin's name goes on the temporary pavilion that'll house Endeavor when it arrives in LA this fall, and then it goes on the Science Center's new wing, set to open in 2017: the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.
The foundation gift, which brings the Endeavor capital campaign almost halfway to its $200-million goal, almost didn't happen. Lynda Oschin says the foundation had already named a cancer center at Cedars-Sinai, and the planetarium at the Griffith Observatory, and didn’t support the shuttle gift ... until Jeff Rudolph, the Science Center’s president, got her to attend an event at the center with Endeavor crew and a group of schoolkids.
Then, Oschin says, she was hooked. "Watching the children watch the astronauts, and interact with the astronauts later on, that’s what it was all about. And one of these kids will discover the cure for cancer, will get us back into our space program."
In his spare time, Samuel Oschin was a science nut and explorer. He went to the North Pole, up the Amazon, and across the Alps on elephants, like Hannibal. Lynda Oschin says the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center encompasses all his myriad interests because it'll focus on the science and technology behind aerospace. "This is my husband’s vision and his passion," she says. "Truly everything he dreamed, loved, and believed in. Children, education, space and astronomy, adventure and discovery, inspiration, creativity, science, math, exploration, innovation, engineering, commitment ... all wrapped into one."
Logistics: You could drop the Big Rock, but not the Shuttle Endeavor
Moving the big rock to LACMA was a monumental engineering feat, but, frankly, they could've dropped the rock. The Space Shuttle Endeavor is taller and wider and, not incidentally, is a national treasure. Getting it from LAX to the California Science Center unscathed would be a triumph bigger than the Big Rock, Carmageddon, and getting a table at Pizzeria Mozza put together. The good news is, they're going to do it during the day and expect it to be, in the words of Mayor Villaraigosa, the biggest parade the city's ever seen.
Off-Ramp's John Rabe talks with Jeff Rudolph, president of the California Science Center.
John: May I ask for a special favor? My favorite exhibit here is the huge lever you can use to lift up the 5,000-lb pickup truck. Can you do the same thing for the Endeavor, so we can lift it up?
Jeff: You know we may not be able to do the same thing for Endeavor, but you will see incredibly exciting engineering challenges when we bring it here from the airport, so we'll do a little piece on that.
John: I think it's going to make bringing the the rock to LACMA, which was a huge, a monumental engineering task, look like a couple of guys getting a pick-up truck and moving a buddy's apartment across town.
Jeff: I'd rather talk about what we're doing than what others are, but let's just say this: the Space Shuttle is truly an international treasure. There are only three orbiters left that have traveled in space. With 25 missions, it's been 122 million miles, incredible things have happened from the Space Shuttle, so it's extremely important and something we have to protect on the whole way here. It's also very large. It's about 122-feet long, 78-feet wide, it'll be about 57-feet tall as we bring it through the street. In terms of sheer size it is quite a bit bigger than the rock.
John: This thing is incredibly wide. How do you get it up city streets?
Jeff: We've identified routes that allow us to do that and actually, probably more of a challenge than width was the height. We can't go under an overpasses. You can't have any obstructions in the way so we had to find a route there. Width is a challenge as well, but we have a lot of big boulevards in Los Angeles and we've found some ways to get it here that way, but there will be some need to move, certainly overhead utility wires will have to move because if we cross the path, we're taller than they are. Then some streetlights and traffic signals and things like that we'll have to move as well.
John: You take them down, then you have to put them immediately back up, too.
Jeff: Exactly. It's a huge coordination, John. No one move is that difficult, but it's just the number of them because we're going 12 miles through the streets.
John: Moving the big rock to LACMA. It had an incredibly Twitter following, had people showing up all over the place. Are you going to do that as well?
Jeff: We've talked with the city as well, both cities, and really decided it makes more sense to do this during the day. The mayor, I think in October, called it the "Mother of all Parades," and that's what we really see is a huge celebration by everyone in our region and we think that a lot of people will turn out to see it.
John: Lessons learned from the big rock?
Jeff: Of course, we did learn how much media interest there was in it. We learned, more than anything I think just a model of how they did it. It is a very different thing, their issue was primarily weight, ours is primarily size.
John: I would guess you'd get much bigger crowds than for the rock.
Jeff: As I said we have a Space Shuttle, which is a national treasure.
John: Do you think millions of people will show up along the path?
Jeff: I think in that scale maybe hundreds of thousands. I hear from people, not just all over L.A., but literally all over the country and the world, when I'm talking to people and colleagues, they say 'we want to know the date, we're gonna be there,' they're going to fly into L.A. to see this thing and I think a lot of people think that way. We did get a little taste of this in the last few weeks as they were bringing the Space Shuttle Discovery to the Smithsonian and the Space Shuttle Enterprise circling New York. Just huge crowds out all over the streets and all over the tops of buildings, so I think we'll see the same thing here.
'My Cat from Hell' star Jackson Galaxy on 'Cat Daddy,' his new memoir
If you've ever seen Animal Planet's "My Cat from Hell," you already know Jackson Galaxy. With a meticulous goatee and a guitar case full of cat toys, he's America's most colorful – if not most well-known – cat behaviorist.
He's also an author; he's written a memoir, called "Cat Daddy." It touches on history with addiction, music and animals. Off-Ramp Producer Kevin Ferguson talked with Galaxy at his Redondo Beach home, where Galaxy starts by describing his job:
Galaxy: The funny thing is that I avoided the term 'cat behaviorist' for a long time. What I said before was 'cat behavior consultant,' 'cat shrink,' I would just call myself 'Cat Daddy,' or whatever.
Ferguson: So who's approaching the microphone right now?
Galaxy: The cat head-butting your mic right now is Velouria. She is now about 18, she looks great, huh? She's been with me 17 or so of those years; she's been through a lot with me.
Ferguson: In your book, the cat that plays the biggest role is this cat named 'Benny' ... I believe you encountered him in Boulder, right?
Galaxy: Benny came to me when I was working at the Humane Society Boulder Valley. It was basically one of those times where we were having a staff meeting at the front of the place, and through the blinds, I saw somebody try and do a dump and run, where they just ran up with something in a box, and tried to run away. It turns out that he had a shattered pelvis, he had been hit by a car, he had been adopted by us a year before. I decided to foster him, and I just couldn't let him go after nursing him back to health in six weeks.
Galaxy: What was important about him was that he was so challenging. I mean, I was already on the road to saying, 'I think that I want to do this, cat behavior.' He just behaviorally slapped me in the head for 13 years. Every time I think I had a workable theory, he would rip it up and do that maniacal mad scientist laugh. He was horrible that way, and he kept me so humble.
Ferguson: Remember the really cruel master in 'Kill Bill'? The one who just keeps whapping her over the head over and over again...
Galaxy: ... As she tries to eat a grain of rice with her chopsticks, and she does it with her hand, and he throws the bowl ... exactly. Benny was the cruel master for sure, yeah. But if it weren't for Benny, I wouldn't be able to punch my way out of the coffin, you know?
Galaxy: The book is also a story about my troubles with addiction, and how either you really do something with these animals, or you quit. You have to surrender, you have to give over control, you have to admit that you're not the center of the universe – all the things that addicts don't do. Benny got me to the point where I had to make that decision.
Ferguson: So in a lot of 12-step programs, they talk about the need to have a higher power. For you, it was Benny.
Galaxy: I'm comfortable now saying that I'm guided by the will of something much, much larger and unknown. But when addicts first come into recovery, they say the word 'God' and you're back out on the street. In one of my first meetings, some guy said, 'What is it, when you are near it, that says that you are not in control of the world?' I said, 'Oh, when I play guitar.' He said, 'That's it. Your guitar's your higher power.' That lasted me for awhile, but Benny is my higher power, because I surrendered to his wills and his needs. That worked for me very well.
Ferguson: You've had this reality show for...
Galaxy: Filming season 3 right now.
Ferguson: What has that been like?
Galaxy: At first it was a real struggle for me. I actually am, despite what I look like and despite what I act like, fairly private. My process is fairly private, and I was really scared about how the cat community would perceive me. I didn't want to be seen as like, 'flavor of the month.' As time has gone on, one of the incredible benefits, the feedback that we get back now, is amazing. People on Facebook and Twitter coming back to me and saying, 'This little piece of information saved my cat.' I didn't save their cat, but the information did, because they just brought it to their world. That's amazing.
Ferguson: Before the reality shows that are around right now, there weren't really a message of, 'Here are some best practices that everybody can take away.'
Galaxy: Yeah, I mean, it is reality TV. You have to pepper in the human stakes, and my husband and wife and my boyfriend or girlfriend is going to hurl themselves off a bridge, and if that's the clothing that it has to wear, then that's fine.
Ferguson: I have one last question. When I got here, your t-shirt was immaculate. When I put on a t-shirt, there's like pre-cat hair. What's your secret?
Galaxy: You want to hear something really funny? This shirt was a gift – I just got it last night, otherwise, it would be absolutely furred up. I mean, look at the couch. ... I have no secret.
Ferguson: Until now, I would have said this was a completely uplifting interview, and I've never been more...
Galaxy: ...You're totally sad now. I've tried a lot of different fur-removal things, but yeah, my fingers are pretty much the best way.
"My Three Sons" sons buck child actor blues
Today, each of the sons from "My Three Sons" will be honored by Councilman Tom LaBonge at LA City Hall.
The sitcom told the story of a widower (Fred MacMurray) raising three boys with the help of a crotchety old man (Williams Frawley and Demarest). It ran on ABC from 1960 to 1965, then on CBS until 1972, and has been worldwide syndication since then.
The three of the sons who could make it to the studio (Don Grady had a broken leg) credit smart parents for their well-adjusted adulthoods. They kept them in regular schools and didn't let their stardom give them a big head. "You can keep doing this, as long as it's not your life."
In the forty years since the show was cancelled, Barry Livingston continues to act on TV and movies, Stan Livingston is a film producer and editor, Don Grady, who played Robbie, is a successful tv music composer, and Tim Considine is a photographer and contributing editor for "Road and Track" magazine.
My Two Sons - Silverlake Wine alums open Everson Royce wine store in Pasadena
The first thing you notice when you walk into Everson Royce wine store in Pasadena ... well, besides the hundreds of wine bottles ... is an absence. "Where are the comfortable chairs I can camp out in all night as I slowly get more and more angry at the world?"
And according to Randy Clement, co-owner of the new store with April Langford and Joe Capella, that's the point. It's a lesson he learned as co-owner of Silverlake Wine, which has become a focal point of its neighborhood. No chairs means people wander around, bump into each other, talk, be human. People have met and married at Silverlake Wine; why not at Everson Royce?
Another thing you'll notice is beer taps. Except they're not for beer. They're for draft wine. Under the counter you'll find 5-gallon kegs kept at exactly the right temp, and a nitrogen delivery system. The wine stays fresh, meaning better taste for you and less wasted wine (wasting wine costs $$$ and is also a mortal sin). It also doesn't use any glass bottles, meaning it's better for the environment. And, winemakers make some wines exclusively for draft wine.
Another thing you'll notice, Randy promises, is zero attitude. Many wine stores treat their customers with great respect nowadays, but there are still enough snobby ones that the public has reason to be wary.
And the name? Is it an LLP? A veddy British touring car? Two thirds of a rock super group (Everson, Royce, and Palmer?)?
No, no, and no. Clement and Langford have twin sons, named Everson and Royce. Yes, it's a wine store named for the underaged.
(Everson Royce is on North Raymond Street in Pasadena next to the Armory Center for the Arts. (626) 765-9334 )
'Old Jews Telling Jokes' is old news for Irv Brecher collaborator Hank Rosenfeld
You've probably seen one of these clips already.
It’s part of the new stage show “Old Jews Telling Jokes.”
Old Jews? Old news! Milton Berle, George Burns and Jack Benny. Those are three old Jews telling jokes. And I spent seven years with Irving Brecher, who wrote for all of them. When I helped him write his memoirs, he wanted to call it “Scripts & Crypts,” because he said, “What’s funnier than death?”
Irv had a book called "The Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor" that had 14 pages of death jokes, and he took me to some of the funniest funerals ever, for Morey Amsterdam, Buddy Hackett and Jan Murray. These were funny old Jews who got so old they um, died, but even at their memorials they were funny. So many friends wanted to speak at Jan Murray’s funeral that the rabbi warned mourners: "Just to remind you, Shabbos begins tomorrow at sunset..."
I read once that Jewish humor is "laughter with sadness in the eye." Irv had that look, and so did his friends. Irv told me a joke Milton Berle used:
“Anytime somebody orders a corned beef sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise, somewhere in the world, a Jew dies.”
“He would say that on stage!!??” I blurted out, shocked.
“To Jewish audiences,” Irv said.
Irv told one to a big group (you can hear him tell it in the audio version we've posted here):
Actor Pia Zadora was talking with her husband about her screen career, which flopped. "Movies aren't for me, but on stage, where I can connect with a live audience, I'm wonderful." So her husband funded a production for her. "The Diary of Anne Frank." Pia Zadora played the lead, and in the third act when the Nazi's rushed in and demanded, "Where is she!?" 400 people in the audience all shouted at the same time, "She's in the attic!"
Freud wrote, "the capacity for humor wanes when we are overwhelmed by shame, guilt, and depression." Bupkis! Groucho Marx, another comic Irv wrote for, said reverence and irreverence are the same thing. So either nothing is sacred to them, or everything is. Especially life.
At Hillside Cemetery in Culver City, the retirement home of so many Jewish mirth-masters, I saw these words from the prophet Isaiah carved into a chapel wall: “The Lord God maketh death to vanish in life eternal. And he wipeth away tears from off all faces.” So do old comedians.
Pop legend Neil Sedaka writes children's book, reflects on career
Songwriter and composer Neil Sedaka is a humble guy who's not afraid to parody his famous pop songs. His new book, "Dinosaur Pet," co-written by his son Marc and illustrated by Tim Bowers, depicts a lighthearted friendship between a young boy and his pet dinosaur. But enclosed in the book is a CD with three all new songs, including the book's title-track with Sedaka's grandchildren on backing vocals to the tune of "Calendar Girl".
He says the inspiration for the book came from his desire to give younger generations what he gave their parents and grandparents in earlier years. Although he's a much older man, Sedaka still speaks of his music and career with the same passion and interest as someone eager to relive it all over again.
Sedaka finished up his book tour at Book Soup in West Hollywood last week and told Off-Ramp's Sam Blum his feelings on music's immortality and a few surprises he has lined up in the near future.
Robert Gupta, First Violin for LA Philharmonic brings classical music to skid row
When Robert Gupta isn’t busy being first violin for the Los Angeles philharmonic, you might find him on skid row. He directs Street Symphony--a nonprofit group of professional musicians who bring music live classical music to those in need. KPCC’s Ashley Myers-Turner met with Gupta this past Wednesday for a performance at the Skid Row Mental Health Center, Downtown. You can read more about the program in her KPCC news story.
Music for Off-Ramp on May 19, 2012
Caught a song on this week's Off-Ramp? Liked it but can't figure out the name? Take a look at our playlist to find out what you heard!
Also on this week's show we played "Sausalito Bay" by Smokey and his Sister: