Hollywood Fights Back!, an ill-fated stand against HUAC ... 5 Every Week joins the Off-Ramp lineup ... SoCal winemakers shameful past ...
Rainn Wilson on Baha'i, acting, being a 'Bassoon King' and... round worm
... Actually, we're not even going to mention the time Rainn Wilson was in Nicaragua with his family and a round worm exited his body. It's just too gross. But it's in his memoir, "The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy." In disturbing depth.
However, we do talk about his painful upbringing by two loving parents who didn't love each other, how he fell from and returned to his Baha'i faith, his zonkey, his love of "Taxi" and "Barney Miller," his horrible, horrible grandfather who didn't get struck by lightning, and why he acts. Also, we sing, so you'll want to listen to the audio for the full effect. Here are some of the highlights:
On his awful grandfather, Chester
"He was a pretty horrible man. It's hard for me to find anything redeeming about him. He was a multimillionaire who stole his brother's lightning rod electrical company business from him. The brother went on a long vacation and signed over the paperwork to his brother, Chester... and then he came back and Chester was like 'Oh, it's all signed over to me, belongs to me now, sorry, you're out.'"
Wilson remembers that his grandfather was a member of the Seattle Yacht Club, but never tried to assist Wilson's family, who were living in shabby rentals and driving beater cars "on the verge of exploding."
On the loveless marriage between Wilson's father and stepmother
"My birth mother took off to have a series of affairs, relationships, and marriages. I didn't really see her again until I was about 15. My dad got immediately remarried. ... A year in they knew that they didn't love each other, and then they stayed married for 15 more years after that. So, it's a very peculiar kind of torture for a child to grow up in a family that seemingly has all these normal things; we watched TV, we ate pancakes, sometimes we took Sunday drives, we visited relatives... but at the same time, in that house itself, there was no love. There was no hugging, and laughter, and passion, and all the things that come with love. So that's kind of a crazy-making situation."
But Wilson's father and stepmother raised him on the Baha'i faith...
"...where all the writings are about love and unity," says Wilson. Wilson's father met his second wife in Nicaragua while doing religious work in the jungle villages of the Mosquito Coast, "filled with monkeys and mosquitoes and malaria. And quicksand. Actual quicksand." Wilson left the Baha'i faith, but returned to it and now prays and meditates daily.
From the nerdy "Bassoon King" in high school to a television star on "The Office"
"I have always felt like a misfit. I think that's what growing up in a weird, stilted, oxygenless home will do to a person. I always loved comedy. I loved the crazy sidekick characters and all the great '70s and '80s TV shows, and [it was] beyond my wildest dreams that I ultimately got to play one."
"Taxi" in particular left its mark.
"It bridged that gap between comedy, and it had so much pathos and reality woven into it at the same time, and you really felt like these were real characters. It brought the sitcom a little bit more into the real world, in a similar way that 'The Office' did."
LA's Nuclear Secret update: Camp Coverup ... Brandeis Bardin won't release full results
In late September, Joel Grover, investigative reporter for our media partner, NBC4, told us about his latest report. It was called LA's Nuclear Secret, and it detailed what might have been the country's worst nuclear accident: the meltdown of a reactor at the Santa Susana Test Lab, and the subsequent and repeated release of radiation and other dangerous contaminants from the site over the course of years. It also told how Boeing, the current owner of the site, has tried to block full cleanup.
Now, the I-Team is back with a report that airs Monday night at 11 looking at contamination at one of the Field Lab's neighbors, the Brandeis Bardin Institute, now owned by American Jewish University, and the Institute's refusal to release all test results done at the property, the largest Jewish-owned single piece of land outside Israel and home to a popular summer camp for kids that is woven into the fabric of Jewish life in LA.
Erwin Sokol was a BBI counselor in the 1950s, he sent his kids to the camp, and his wife served on the Institute's board of directors. They're also heavy contributors, and he told Joel they feel betrayed. “Public safety is the number one issue," he says. "Health is the number one issue. That goes beyond our love for the institute. I think a fence should really be put around it and it should be locked up, until we find out more what’s going on, exactly what’s going on there.
Rabbi Lee Bycel was President of BBI in the early 2000s and he says he asked for all the information on contamination before he took the job, and was told he shouldn't worry about it. He told Joel: “It’s the moral thing to say 'show us all your tests.' That shows that you care about the institute. Transparency has to be demanded by everyone who sends people there, everyone who loves the place.”
Joel says he's repeatedly asked the institute to sit down for an interview and answer the questions the community wants answered, but has been rebuffed. AJU did send a long written response on Friday; here's an excerpt.
Based on an exhaustive records review and the conclusion of scientific experts, we found no cause for concern about the health and safety of the campers, staff or other visitors – past or present. Current testing confirms the safety of the property.
-- Excerpt of American Jewish University statement to KNBC
NBC4 has posted the entire response from AJU, with extensive annotation correcting what it believes to be overstatements and misstatements. It's a must-read.
Cultural icon, surfing legend Duke Kahanamoku gets first comprehensive bio in ‘Waterman'
Off-Ramp host John Rabe talks with sports historian David Davis about Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968), one of the founding fathers of modern surfing and swimming, a pioneer in race relations, a beloved figure in Hawaii and a literal lifesaver.
Davis' new book, "Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku," is the first comprehensive biography of a legend described by another sportswriter as "Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey combined."
Here's how Davis begins the story:
The precise moment when Duke Paoa Kahanamoku slipped into the shimmering blue waters of the Pacific Ocean is lost to history. Duke himself recalled only that he was around four years old when his father, so proud of his namesake, the first of the Kahanamoku children to survive infancy, tossed him over the side of a canoe somewhere off Waikiki Beach. "It was save yourself or drown," he said, "so I saved myself."
This was no mere introduction. This was a baptism. Water binds the Hawaiian Islands. It is no exaggeration to say that, in Duke's era, water was the lifeblood of Hawaii and its people. It cleansed their bodies after work and was a transportation source. It was their playground, for surfing, swimming, and canoe races, and it was a hallowed sanctuary.
On that momentous but unrecorded day, young Duke splashed, flailed, and swallowed water until he discovered his buoyancy and equilibrium, caught his breath, and trusted in the ageless sea that engulfed his body, like his father and uncles and grandfathers before him. Until he felt comfortable enough to stretch his arms beyond his head and pull his hands through the water, his sticklike legs kicking and churning. Until he was moving, self- propelled, his black hair glistening in the sunlight, a little black shadow shimmering in blue liquid. A water bug, soon to be a water boy, soon to be a waterman.
— Excerpt from "Waterman," by David Davis
(Duke Kahanamoku in a swimming pool in LA in 1933. Credit: AP)
Click the arrow on the audio player to hear much more with David and John, including how Kahanamoku saved eight people from drowning in a single incident.
David Davis will be talking about "Waterman" and signing books at The Allendale Branch Library on Saturday, Nov. 14, at 2 p.m. at 1130 S. Marengo Ave. in Pasadena.
5 Every Week: Vidiots fest, secret tennis courts, French Mexican food
Here are five great things you should do in Southern California this week, from art to food to music to an adventure we’ll call the Wild Card from the makers of the 5 Every Day app. Get this as a new podcast in iTunes. If you want five hand-picked things to do in Los Angeles every day, download the free 5 Every Day from the App Store.
ART: Vidiots Fest
Call us sentimental, but we miss video stores. So much of our adolescence was wasted dilly-dallying in fluorescent-lit Blockbusters, looking for an education in the “Cult” aisle, gnawing Red Vines, and cracking wise with the equally adolescent cashiers.
The video stores of our youth are all ghosts now—abandoned suburban monuments to the time before Netflix eviscerated the simpler pleasures of idly browsing empty VHS boxes.
But luckily, Vidiots, the iconic video store in Santa Monica that has been a temple to cinema low and high since the 80s.
Vidiots was saved from going out of business earlier this year by a donation from producer Megan Ellison, whose production company, Annapurna, churns out innovative indies like "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Her.” Ellison has taken a role in the store’s second life—as a microcinema, classroom, and cultural space devoted to film appreciation.
Next week is Vidiots Fest 30, a festival celebrating the store’s 30th anniversary. The calendar of events mirrors the the store’s screwy, passionate cinephile ethos: a Q&A with Michael Mann, an acting class taught by Carl Weathers, and a screening of Desperately Seeking Susan with the director, Susan Sedelman, at the nearby Aero Cinema.
CITY: WeHo Park Tennis Courts
Isn't this Public Rooftop tennis court amazing? http://t.co/3roC12u7dh #westhollywoodpark #ReturnTheServe #LA pic.twitter.com/b4VDf9GOH5
— ustasocal (@USTASoCal) July 15, 2015
There's a parking garage next to the WeHo Library that's home to a glorious open-air open secret: the West Hollywood Park Tennis Courts. They’re a trio of surprisingly underused hard courts—all first-come first-serve, all free, and if you're there before they turn the night lights on, all with a panoramic view of the surrounding hills in Beverly and Hollywood.
All you have to do is hand off your driver's license to a security guard on the first floor, and they'll give you a keycard that'll take you up to this inexplicable, sixth floor paradise.
They even validate parking.
FOOD: Trois Familia
https://instagram.com/p/9W2RK0SlQy/
That was fast. Foodie intel has been leaking out for a couple weeks on Trois Familia, a new Franco-Mexican brunch spot that’s taken over the space recently vacated by Alegria on Sunset in Silver Lake.
Familia is the latest addition to chefs Ludo Lefebvre, Jon Shook, and Vinny Dotolo's growing mafia of restaurants, which includes Hollywood’s Trois Mec and Jon & Vinny’s, the cult pizza place on Fairfax. The neon sign in the low-key strip mall space announces their novel MO in all caps: FRENCH MEXICAN FOOD.
They started serving mid-day specialities last week and neighborhood foodies are already losing their minds over the potato mousseline with poached egg and chorizo jam — to say nothing of the churro french toast with Salt and Straw ice cream, beet tartare tostadas, and "double-decker" potato tacos—the list of delights is long.
And, soon, so will be the wait list. Get in there while you still can.
MUSIC: Karaoke at the Smog Cutter
https://instagram.com/p/9kgKlqlVqU/
There are a couple schools of thought regarding what qualities best define an ideal Karaoke experience. School #1 is your private room, state-of-the-art experience — like those swanky K-Town places that have the new Rihanna song on the books as soon as it drops.
School #2 is the opposite: cheap drinks, a single screen, and a microphone that smells like six different kinds of vomit.
We appreciate the merits of both philosophies, but skew toward the latter.
That’s why we love the Smog Cutter in Virgil Village, which has possibly the worst karaoke setup in the city. The pool table takes up two-thirds of the bar's open space, which means that if you're not literally standing at the bar or crammed into the tiny designated karaoke area, you're likely to get a pool queue jabbed in your back. Wonderful.
They've got all of your go-to's cued up and waiting! Just maybe wash your hands after you flip through the books.
WILDCARD: Chandelier Tree
Our dream dates usually involve highly unromantic things, like dangerously spicy foods, exploring strip malls, and cheap drinks in run-down karaoke joints. But we think we’ve got something that’ll make your sweetheart swoon.
Here's the plan: first, wait until nightfall, then make your way to 2811 W Silver Lake Drive. There, in a mighty oak tree in an otherwise unremarkable front yard, some would-be cupid has hung dozens and dozens of chandeliers.
When it’s all lit up at night, the Chandelier tree is without question the most stupidly lovely thing in Silverlake. It’s a senseless act of beauty that’ll melt hearts and make your romantic designs a cakewalk.
Make sure you plug the lightbulb-bedecked parking meter out front to help foot the tree’s electrical bill on your way out. Your date will think you’re a real catch.
Native Americans gave their blood to make wines in early Los Angeles
"Los Angeles had its slave mart, as well as New Orleans and Constantinople—only the slave at Los Angeles was sold fifty-two times a year as long as he lived, which generally did not exceed one, two, or three years, under the new dispensation."
— Horace Bell, 19th century L.A. newspaper publisher
If we didn't know it already, most of us wouldn't be surprised to discover that Southern California was a major grape-growing center in the 1800s and that the region produced a lot of wine.
(Drawing of Jean Louis Vignes' wine establishment in 1831. Credit LAPL)
There's Vignes Street, after all, and those ancient vines growing at the Avila Adobe on Olvera Street. And, of course, there's San Antonio Winery, although that came along much later.
In fact, that history goes back 175 years, as journalist and amateur historian Frances Dinkelspiel wrote on LA Observed the other day. But then this graph hit me:
"Maybe it's no surprise that Los Angeles is ignoring the 175th anniversary milestone since aspects of the city's early involvement with wine were reprehensible. While many people know that Father Junipero Serra and the Franciscan fathers treated the Native Americans badly during the Mission era, virtually enslaving them to plant vineyards and harvest and press grapes, few realize that the Californios and Americans who flooded the state during the Gold Rush treated them even worse. Los Angeles gets special mention for the harsh and punitive laws it enacted to force Native Americans to make wine."
It's part of the story she tells in her new book "Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California," which weaves family and local history to tell a story we should all know better.
(1865: Vignes orchard and vineyard at Downey Ave. and Hansen St. Credit: Frank Schumacher/LAPL/ Security Pacific National Bank Collection)
Listen to our interview to discover how state and local officials collaborated with local businessmen to keep the local natives working for free.
Frances Dinkelspiel will be talking about her book, "Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California," at Book Soup in West Hollywood on Nov. 7 at 4 pm.
Los Angeles pro football fans, remember the Otter
Last week, the NFL orchestrated town hall events in the three cities that could lose their teams. For many here in L.A., the dog-and-pony shows in St. Louis, San Diego and Oakland boiled down to: "Hey, your loss, our gain." But remember the Otter.
Throw a brick in L.A., and it’ll hit an Angeleno espousing the idea that at least one team, and possibly two, will be playing in a temporary venue here next fall, and that a permanent, billion-dollar stadium will open in a few years in Inglewood or Carson. There’s only one problem: this scenario relies on the NFL.
If there’s anything we should have learned since The Rams and Raiders blew town in 1994, it’s that the NFL can’t be trusted. Do things look different this time? Yes, but they always look different to Charlie Brown right before Lucy pulls the ball away and he ends up flat on his back.
(Rams player Eric Dickerso, 1985. Chris Gulker/LAPL Herald-Examiner Collection.)
Everyone who is eagerly chirping “This time is different!” and “The process has never been farther along!” should remember the past. And the fact that the 32 NFL owners are the modern-day Illuminati, and they’ll run the show however they please.
I’m not drinking the Hater-Ade, riding the Hate-Board, or shaking up my Magic Hate Ball. I played football in high school (just one concussion!), I like to watch occasional games, and I’d enjoy having a team with ticket prices I can’t afford but that I could watch on TV with my kids. My skepticism comes from having seen the league repeatedly use L.A. as a boogeyman, threatening small-market governments that, unless they fund a new stadium, their franchise will move.
As a public service, here is the list of local sites that have been trotted out as potential homes for the NFL: the Dodger Stadium parking lot, the Coliseum in Exposition Park (twice), the City of Industry, the city of Carson, Hollywood Park, the Rose Bowl, Anaheim, and AEG’s South Park.
And here are the teams that have been confirmed, mentioned or rumored as candidates to move to L.A.: the Rams, Raiders, Chargers, Buffalo Bills, Jaguars, Vikings, Saints, Seahawks and Colts. That’s more than one-quarter of the NFL teams.
On the NFL’s side, it’s been a brilliant business tactic, as every secondary market scared of losing a team has coughed up the cash for a new stadium. And what happened to TV revenue without an L.A. team? It grew fatter than the Farmers Field blimp.
If time has proved anything, it’s that the league doesn’t need L.A., and L.A. doesn’t need the league. If one needed the other so badly, a deal would have been worked out. In fact, two decades of local leaders have actually been pretty savvy by not dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars in public money to a stadium.
Absolutely, we are seeing steps never before taken. But can we trust the league?
Remember "Animal House," when the frat brothers wreck the car Flounder was taking care of?
Otter tells Flounder, “You F---ed up. You trusted us.”
NFL, thy name is Otter.
Jon Regardie is the executive editor of the Los Angeles Downtown News.
The 'Trumbo' backstory: How Hollywood tried to fight HUAC, then caved
With the new movie "Trumbo" opening Thursday, Off-Ramp contributor R.H. Greene looks at how Hollywood tried to stand up against the Red-baiting House Un-American Activities Committee — but caved almost immediately.
Dalton Trumbo was a Communist. And a blacklisted screenwriter who wrote "Spartacus," "Roman Holiday" and "Gun Crazy." And a left-wing novelist and union organizer. His story is well-known, and the movie about his life is already being pushed for the Oscar. Far less known is that Hollywood rallied to his cause in two star-studded radio broadcasts.
October 26, 1947. The House Un-American Activities Committee is in its second week of hearings on alleged Communist influence in Hollywood. Subpoenas are flying. Hit movies are being sifted for subversion. Names are being named.
In response to 43 HUAC subpoenas, Hollywood forms the Committee for the First Amendment, with backing promised from their bosses.
And the day after Dalton Trumbo testifies before HUAC, ABC radio airs the first of two programs paid for by the committee. It’s “Hollywood Fights Back,” with a Who’s Who of celluloid heroes rallying against the witch hunt.
On the first "Hollywood Fights Back" broadcast, 35 major stars speak out. They're joined by senators, educators, and the Nobel Prize-winning author of "Death in Venice," Thomas Mann. Leading the charge is the biggest screen hero of the day: Humphrey Bogart.
But "Hollywood Fights Back," recorded in advance, was a fatal tactical flaw. In Washington, things weren’t going according to plan.
John Howard Lawson — the first and most explosive of the "unfriendly" HUAC witnesses — was a true believer who came to Washington spoiling for a fight. Lawson's roaring defiance before the committee plays heroic today. But it was a catastrophe.
The tone was set. One by one, the Hollywood 10 were gaveled into silence, including Trumbo. The 10 were held in contempt and sentenced to a year in jail.
Make no mistake, before the Cold War, there were Communists in Hollywood — and everywhere else in America. The Great Depression had discredited capitalism. For most, seeing Red was something you dabbled in. Like the Green Party.
But even as the first "Hollywood Fights Back" program hit the air, the industry's united facade was crumbling behind the scenes, like a cheap plywood movie set. In a month it was over. The blacklist was studio policy. "Hollywood Fights Back" was an instant relic, useful only to count ghosts.
And the stars who tried to fight had to take it back. Edward G. Robinson, Burl Ives, Lucille Ball. Some, like Vincent Price, named names in secret, behind locked doors. Some, like Gene Kelly, abased themselves, sending detailed letters that disavowed personal beliefs. Even Bogie caved.
The blacklist's most compassionate chronicler was Dalton Trumbo, who always struck a "there but for the grace of God" tone. Accepting a Writer's Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 1971, Trumbo said: "It will do no good to search for villains or heroes...because there were none. There were only victims … None of us emerged from that long nightmare without sin."
Song of the Week: "In the Flames" by DJDS
This week’s Off-Ramp song of the week is “In the Flames” by the Los Angeles electronic music duo DJDS.
Formerly known as DJ Dodger Stadium, DJDS is made up Sam Griesemer and Jerome Potter. “In the Flames” is off their upcoming new record, “Stand up and Speak,” which comes out January 29.
Griesemer and Potter produced the album by recruiting singers and musicians from all over Los Angeles through craigslist and other platforms.
You can see DJDS live at the Echoplex on Saturday, November 14. Watch the video for "In the Flames" here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7WWTEfk66o
You won't need Starbucks to keep you awake at the LA Opera's 'Moby Dick'
Off-Ramp commentator Marc Haefele reviews "Moby Dick," at the L.A. Opera through Nov. 28.
As the sun begins to set, Ahab looks over the wake of the ship and mourns that his obsession deprives him of any enjoyment of beauty; all is anguish to him. At the masthead, Queequeg and Greenhorn look over the world, while Starbuck, on deck, bemoans Ahab’s madness. — "Moby Dick" Synopsis, Act One, Day One
First, there’s the presumption, flash, daring and pure immense labor involved in operatizing the greatest of American novels. Second, there are the successful results: melodic, dramatic, even intellectual. It's Jake Heggie’s and Gene Scheer’s “Moby Dick,” in a traveling production from the Dallas Opera.
Of course, the successful results are straight out of Melville’s mighty questioning of the ways of man to God; of subordinates to leaders; of family versus ambition; of obsession and duty and plain human love. Of racism versus respect. Pessimism and hope; perception versus reality. And just about every other issue that has ever bedeviled humanity, all crammed among the doomed thwarts and planks of a small wooden ship.
Composer Heggie and librettist Scheer have gathered up a surprisingly generous assortment of Melvillian obsessions, delivered by the L.A. Opera in a pleasing package full of rollicking choruses, challenging arias and, most effectively, intricate and mellifluous ensembles.
This is 21st century opera, folks, with diverse but harmonically enticing tunes that invoke Britten, Puccini, Wagner, Glass and even Sondheim, plus generic, late-model film music. (Which is no more reprehensible, of course, than Beethoven insinuating pop tunes of his day into his music.) But operatic modernity has apparently finally shed the "Modernity’" of a century ago... meaning that sedate operagoers need not fear 12-tone intervals here. Moby’s tonalities are in the Old Time tradition. (Despite this, I noted quite a few emptied seats after intermission).
They push the story right along, as we see tenor Ahab (Jay Hunter Morris) ensorcell* his crew into accepting, then enthusiastically sharing, his obsession to destroy the whale who mutilated him years ago. “Just a dumb beast,” protests the rational mate Starbuck, empathically sung by baritone Martin Smith. To no avail. The rest of the story is how this shipful of rational men abet their own destruction by this "dumb beast’’ to which they ascribe supernatural powers. It’s a never-bettered metaphor for mankind in fatal conflict with chaos.
(The last known image of Melville, 1885. Rockwood/NYPL/Wikipedia)
Along the way, individual human tales unwind. The narrator Greenhorn/Ishmael, well sung by tenor Joshua Guerrerot, falls in love with a mighty Polynesian harpooner, Queequeg, embodied by bass-baritone Musa Ngqungwana; the two plan themselves an island paradise in a gorgeous duet. Pip, the cabin boy — doughty soprano Jacqueline Echols — is lost at sea and, in a shattering scene in which Pip sings a gently deranged aria while suspended in the water, goes mad before being saved by the crew.
Starbuck and Ahab have their own hate-love relationship, and nearly kill one another before the end. Yet, in a lovely, lissome duet, they discuss the joys of home and parenting until Ahab is nearly persuaded to turn back to Nantucket. It seems that rationality will finally prevail. But just then, the lookout spots the deadly (if strangely benign-looking) white whale. Soon it is all over for everyone but Ishmael, "alone is left to tell the tale.’’
Conductor James Conlon got the best out of his players and Heggie’s eclectic score, while stage director Leonard Foglia mastered the intricate and athletically challenging staging. Tenor Morris’ dramatic presence filled the role of Ahab, but there seemed to be a bit of strain in his opening night performance. Nicholas Brownlee was excellent in the offstage role of Captain Gardiner — who offers Ahab a final, spurned chance to demonstrate his humanity. Grant Gershon’s men’s chorus was spot on.
Good as the singing and the playing is, the staging and projections make the show here. The traveling production incorporates what my '60s mind can only perceive as a massive light show, turning the stage from a superimposed mariner’s chart into heaving storms that overwhelm the men crammed into their virtual whaleboats. Robert Brill gets the set credits, Gavin Swift and Donald Holder the lighting, Elaine J. McCarthy the projections.
Heggie’s tonal fabric of diverse influences sometimes showed its seams, particularly in certain crisis moments. I was entertained, even inspired, but I don’t recall being particularly moved until the very end of the lengthy, sprawling, seductively melodic work.
Was it perhaps that “Moby Dick” was upstaged by its own spectacular staging? Swept up as I was in the enormous production values, I sometimes wondered how "Moby Dick’’ would fare if mounted in a simple concert presentation, where it would have to stand alone as music and drama.
(*Enchant. — Ed.)
Pio Pico: A life as big as the 2-time governor's needs 2 graves
"What are we to do then? Shall we remain supine, while these daring strangers are overrunning our fertile plains, and gradually outnumbering and displacing us? Shall these incursions go on unchecked, until we shall become strangers in our own land?" -- Pio Pico
Rags-to-riches-to-rags stories are common in the fabric of Southern California history. They're"quintessential," says Carolyn Christian of the Friends of Pio Pico.
Pio Pico, the last governor of Alta California under Mexican rule, was a revolutionary who at one point made the missions forfeit their land. He also bet tens of thousands of dollars on horse races, but at the time of his death, couldn't afford his own grave.
Pio de Jesus Pico was born on May 5, 1801 at the mission San Gabriel Arcángel. California in this era had a tightly stratified caste system with indigenous people at the bottom, Mestizos (Mexicans with European blood) in the middle, and Spanish rancheros at the top, making up a mere 3% of Alta California's total population, according to historian Paul Bryan Gray. Pico himself came from Spanish, African, Native American, and Italian descent, but thanks to his father's service in the Spanish army, he had the potential to be part of the landowning class.
(Pio Pico, 1858. UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)
"The elite became the elite because they were the descendants of the original soldiers sent to California in 1769," says Gray. "The way things worked was that if you had an ancestor who did military service, or if you did military service yourself, you would get a land grant."
Eligibility was important, but availability came first. The Catholic Church controlled most of California's arable land through the missions. By the 1830s, upheaval was fomenting throughout the ranchero class, who were eager to expand their holdings by secularizing the mission lands for use by civilians. Pio Pico found himself at the head of a small rebellion and met the anti-secular Governor Manuel Victoria in combat at the Battle of Cahuenga Pass on Dec. 5, 1831.
Victoria was one of the very few injured in the battle, and didn’t return to his post. Pico "was elected to the Assemblea, what we'd call the state Assembly today," says Gray. He held office for 20 days in 1831 until the Mexican government pushed him out. The popular movement of secularization had taken hold though, and Pico and his brother Andres secured massive tracts of land in the San Diego and San Fernando areas, and after the Mexican-American War, in the San Gabriel Valley.
Pico married his wife, Maria Ygnacia Alvarado, in 1834. The two never had children together, but adopted two daughters. Carolyn Christian says that Pico fathered these children with other women, and legitimized them through adoption. Maria Ygnacia was the niece of Juan Bautista Alvarado, the Monterrey-born governor from the north who held office from 1836 to 1842. When Alvarado was succeeded by Mexico’s Manuel Micheltorena, Alvarado and Pico joined forces with another former governor, Jose Castro, in an uprising that culminated in the Battle of La Providencia in 1845.
Governor Micheltorena was overthrown and Pico retook the governor’s mansion, this time with Mexico’s blessing. One year later, the United States declared the Mexican-American War, and Gray says Pico accomplished little in this time. Pico had written about the increasing throngs of settlers from the Southern states coming to California leading up to the war:
"What are we to do then? Shall we remain supine, while these daring strangers are overrunning our fertile plains, and gradually outnumbering and displacing us? Shall these incursions go on unchecked, until we shall become strangers in our own land?"
"Pio Pico actually left California, went down to Mexico, and there are a couple stories why," says Christian. "Some people say he was a coward and he was running away. Other people say, no, he was going to down to Mexico to get reinforcements to come up and fight the Americans. The other reason why people think that he left is because if you have a head of government, and they're captured, you have a lot of negotiating power. So if they're gone and they can't be captured, that helps from having something leveraged against you."
Mexico ceded California and the rest of the Southwest with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848, signed at the Cahuenga Pass — the very site of both of Pico’s rises to governance. Pico returned to Los Angeles the same year.
"When he returned to California, he announced, 'I'm back, I'm governor of California.' And of course he was immediately thrown in jail," laughs Christian. Pico was bailed out by William Workman, says Christian, and became a proud member of the new Californian society. He was elected to the L.A. City Council, but never took office, says Gray. He continued building up a fortune in land holdings and gained a windfall from cattle raising because of the Gold Rush's high beef demands.
Maria Ygnacia Pico died in 1854, but Pio Pico would live on for another 40 years. In the 1860s and '70s he had two more children — sons — and in 1870 he made his last grand business venture: The Pico House. It was L.A.'s first three-story building and luxury hotel, with 33 suites, designed by architect Ezra Kysor, and still stands at El Pueblo de Los Angeles. Pico lost the hotel to the San Francisco Savings and Loan Company in 1876.
(L: Pico House, est. 1870, 400 block of LA's Main Street. R: Merced Theatre, erected 1870, L.A's first playhouse. Konrad Summers/Flickr Creative Commons)
Pico’s resources dwindled swiftly in the 1880s. His ranch was damaged by floods, he gambled away as much as $25,000 on a single race, and his son and translator Ranulfo was murdered for leaving a woman at the altar.
"He never bothered to learn English, so he couldn't read the deeds and mortgages and other documents given to him," says Gray, and Christian adds, "There was a lawyer by the name of Bernard Cohn, who actually swindled a lot of the Californios out of their land. He did it by presenting them with what they thought were loans, and they were actually signing over their ranchos... It went all the way to the California Supreme Court." Gray calls this the last in a long string of risk-taking by the ex-governor, "and as a result he lost all his land in Whittier and finally died in total poverty because of his negligence."
Pico died on Sept. 11, 1894 at 93 years old. He was buried at the first Calvary Cemetery, L.A.'s original Catholic cemetery, which was founded in 1844 and condemned due to massive disrepair in 1920. Pico and Maria Ygnacia Alvarado were interred in an above-ground tomb with cast iron markers, and at one point Alvarado's skeleton was grave-robbed and left strewn some 50 feet away, according to the L.A. Downtown News. The cemetery and most of its occupants were relocated to Calvary's current location in East L.A. in the '20s.
(Pico Family tomb at Old Calvary Cemetery. LAPL/Security Pacific National Bank Collection)
Cathedral High School now occupies the site the original Calvary Cemetery stood on. Pio Pico was moved not to East L.A., but to the Workman-Temple Homestead in what was known as Rancho La Puente. Pico had granted William Workman massive land tracts for serving in the Mexican military during the Mexican-American War, and when his great grandson Thomas Temple found oil on his family's property, Workman's grandson Walter Temple built a mausoleum for friends and family — which is Pio Pico's final resting place.
Visit Pio Pico's tomb at the Homestead Museum, which is giving a special presentation and tour at the Walter P. Temple Memorial Mausoleum on Sunday, Oct. 25.