In-deep with "The Office" star Rainn Wilson ... Joey Arias does the best Billie Holiday impersonation you'll ever hear ... Gregg Turkington is Neil Hamburger in "Entertainment" ... 5 Every Week keeps you busy ... and Brains On tells you how salamanders regenerate lost limbs.
In 'Entertainment', comedian Gregg Turkington engages with his alter ego, Neil Hamburger
For the last 20 years, comedian Gregg Turkington has made a name for himself pretending to be Neil Hamburger, a hapless anti-comedian who’s toured internationally.
Now, Turkington has co-written and starred in “Entertainment.” His character is based on his alter-ego, but the film, which he co-wrote, paints an impressionistic, dark and surreal picture of the struggles of low-level entertainers everywhere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laCKBx6dmW8
So what does making a film like this mean for a comedian who’s made a name for himself pretending to be someone else?
The story of Neil Hamburger
When Gregg Turkington takes the stage as Neil Hamburger, he wears a tuxedo, carrying (and sometime dropping) an elbowful of drinks. He coughs loudly into the microphone. He berates the audience for showing up late or not laughing too quietly. His repertoire is made up almost of entirely what/why jokes with off-color, sometimes offensive punchlines. Here's a video of his 2006 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Hamburger's network TV debut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djqPOXKWLfk
Neil Hamburger's real identity was as open as an open secret could get. Sure, Turkington would never talk publicly about Neil Hamburger. And yes, Neil would reciprocate in interviews. But almost every news story about Hamburger correctly identified him as Turkington's alter-ego. And the question could be answered after 30 seconds of Googling, at most.
"I've never been one who likes to do comedy where you're letting the audience in on the joke right away," says Turkington. "I kind of like the mystery of it. And I don't know that most people that see Neil Hamburger take it at face value and believe in it, but that's how I like to present it."
Part of the intended mysteriousness behind Neil Hamburger lies in his origins. Originally, Hamburger was a character on a prank call album recorded by Turkington and friends. He started getting requests for more from the character.
At home, Turkington started recording comedy albums under the Neil Hamburger name. It was a simulated stand up record: he'd mix in field recordings of casinos to simulate a live audience. Friends would pretend to be hecklers. After Neil delivers a punch line, Turkington would mix in awkward laughter just as often as he'd leave it out.
As fans of Neil Hamburger grew in numbers, so did demand to see him live. Gregg accepted an offer to open for a punk band touring Australia. It didn't go well:
I remember the second show I ever did as Neil Hamburger, it was an underage show. In Australia they don't have all-ages shows, at least in Victoria. It's either everyone's over 18 or everyone's under 18. Everyone was under 18. So I thought "well this will be fun, these kids."
And they [were] like a lynch mob! These sweet little kids I see lined up before the show turned into the nastiest monsters you've ever seen. They just lined up at the front of the stage and just spit, and spit, and spit, until the black tuxedo was covered in spit.
The spit dried off, and Turkington says he came out of the experience surprisingly upbeat. "There was something about performing, I felt like I could take this in some other directions that aren't explored on the records."
Neil Hamburger has opened for bands like Tenacious D and Bad Religion, appeared on dozens of Network and Cable TV shows.
During all this, Turkington controlled the Neil Hamburger's public image completely. That changed when director Rick Alverson proposed making a film based on the character.
Taking to the big screen
In "Entertainment," Turkington stars as The Comedian — not Neil Hamburger. But he wears Neil's tuxedo, tells the same jokes, and friends and family even call him Neil. But where Neil Hamburger is a lovable but grumpy antihero, The Comedian is a sad figure. He travels the California desert playing bars to crowds that are mostly indifferent, sometimes hostile. When he isn't on stage, The Comedian tours depressing landmarks and leaves desperate, unreturned voicemails for his daughter.
It's a weird, impressionistic journey dotted with moments of surreal comedy and violence. The appearances by A-list stars like John C. Reilly and Michael Cera make the movie even more odd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KB49WmW7g4
"One thing that I really liked, was a psychologist told me that she thought it was the most accurate depiction of clinical depression that she'd ever seen on film, which I thought was really interesting." says Turkington, laughing a little.
By starring in the movie, though, Turkington starts a new chapter in his career: It compelled him to talk publicly about Neil Hamburger for the first time. And in making the movie, he gave up control over a character that for 20 years made up part of his identity to collaborate with Director Rick Alverson and co-writer Tim Heidecker.
"It was tricky," Turkington says. "It was very strange to be letting down my guard in these ways. Because I trust Rick so much, and his vision, I eventually just said 'You know what? I'll do what you need.'"
Can a film like "Entertainment" transform a career? Turkington, a veteran performer, stars in an Adult Swim web series and has appeared in movies like Marvel's Ant Man lately. A movie like Entertainment shows there's much more going on than Neil Hamburger.
"Entertainment" opens at Cinefamily on Thursday, November 19 and will be available on iTunes, Netflix and other streaming services worldwide on November 13.
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.
Singer, drag performer Joey Arias channels Billie Holiday at REDCAT
Joey Arias is a veteran performance artist and singer. He came of age in Los Angeles, spending his formative years in Highland Park and at Pasadena's Cal Arts, but he made a name for himself in New York in the mid-'70s, when Manhattan was weird and disco was raging.
Arias worked at the Fiorucci store in Manhattan, where he became an iconic part of the shop and New York's LGBT art scene. He made friends with people like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and the avant-garde performer Klaus Nomi. He and Nomi even shared the stage with David Bowie for his strange, legendary 1979 performance on Saturday Night Live — Arias is the backup singer wearing red:
Arias is also a drag performer. He’s sung in the style of dozens of great singers but none more compelling than Billie Holiday. The New York Times called his performance “devastating” and the New Yorker called it “extraordinary” and “heartbreaking.” Here’s a clip of him performing “Strange Fruit” in San Francisco:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp36REH1yGo
You can see Joey Arias for yourself starting Thursday, November 19 at REDCAT in Downtown Los Angeles. Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson talked with Arias about how he discovered his gift at channeling the voice of Lady Day.
On first listening to Billie Holiday
I was probably about 8 or 9 years old. My parents were big music fans, and they played lots of records. And there was this one voice that was kind of shocking to me. I mean, I've heard a lot of female singers, but this one was the lazy sound, or something that was like behind the beat. My ears stood up and I thought, "Wow, who is this?"
I looked at the album. It was Lady Day. And I was fascinated by her. So I started really paying attention to her phrasing. And as a kid, already then, I was like, "What is this about?"
On realizing he could sing like Holiday
I was in a band — I was a kid — and I was doing all these rock and roll songs, being very pop and rock. Trying to be one of the arena rock stars like Led Zeppelin, or whatever. I kind of wanted to be more like her. Somehow, my voice became a bit scratchy. And it wasn't pure.
When people would hear me, they're like, "Oh my God, you have that Billie Holiday thing going on!"
As life goes on, you know: party, drinks, carrying on... it becomes that way naturally. I don't put anything on it, I don't pretend, I'm just doing what I'm doing. I'm just Joey channeling that feeling of what Billie was, the way she would attack a song.
On dressing in drag for the first time
Actually, I hated drag. They use to take me to drag bars — it's like, "Get me out! Immediately! I can't be here, this is ridiculous. I can't stand it."
I was invited to an Andy Warhol party for Halloween, with Truman Capote and artists, of course my buddies Keith Haring and Jean-Michel [Basquiat], Kenny Sharp and Ann Manguson, the list goes on and on. And you had to be in drag. And I was like really cringing, going there.
I got there in drag. I was dressed like this Russ Meyers super vixen. When I walked in, nobody knew who I was, and they were asking, "Who are you, really?"
And I was like "Joey!"
And Andy said, "Oh my God, you should always dress in drag, you should always been that way!"
On the concept of "channeling" Billie Holiday
I can go anywhere with Billie. I can sing pop songs. I can sing whatever and channel Billie into that vibe. And I ask for the lights to be rather low, and not to be bright. It's not about me, it's about the singing. The band's lit up more than I am!
Of course, you'll see me. But it's really about hearing that voice, where it's coming out.
5 Every Week: The longest movie ever, salad as art, LAPD's rock garden
Behold: 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: Out 1 Potluck at Cinefamily
What’s your ideal length for a movie? 90 minutes? Two hours?
How about five?
Good news: there's a place for you. The Super Long Movie Club is a group of cinematic daredevils who burn the celluloid at both ends. They’re screening a single 13-hour French movie through this entire weekend.
Zac: The movie is called “Out 1,” and it’s a 1971 New Wave flick that’s been billed as the “Holy Grail of Modern French Cinema.” It stars close to a dozen of that nation’s biggest names, and it’s barely ever been screened in the 45 years since it was first finished, for understandable reasons.
So, that makes it arguably the longest narrative film in cinematic history. Not for the feint of heart.
But what about the basics? Food? Bathroom breaks?
Breathe easy: the Club thought of everything. There’s even a potluck to keep your blood sugar on track.
CITY: Getty Salad Garden
Here’s an understatement: the Getty Center’s got room to spare. Space is one of the palatial property’s many finer qualities.
Since last month, artist Julia Sherman has been making something useful of all that real estate, by converting a modest patch of the Getty grounds into the Getty Salad Garden. It’s an installation of raised beds currently growing organic heirloom vegetables and salad greens.
Sherman did the same thing last year on the rooftop of MoMA’s PS1 in New York, and that garden became a site for performances, artistic conversations, and various salad-related happenings, like a re-staging of a Fluxus performance-art piece called “Make a Salad,” last performed in 1962.
Consider it salad as a form of social practice.
That happens to pair nicely with the Getty’s new food-inspired exhibitions: The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals and Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
No word yet on if they’ll let visitors pinch a few greens, but we’re bringing our tongs just in case.
FOOD: Button Mash
There’s a marquee at Sunset Market Plaza in Echo Park that’s been taunting us. It says “Button Mash,” and it’s been teasing the neighborhood’s spacious new barcade — yes, that’s a bar and an arcade combined — for months.
But Button Mash is finally in business.
Barely open two weeks, it’s become instantly popular, with people lining up to drink beer and twiddle classic arcade games like Asteroid, Pac-Man, and a solid lineup of pinball. What we’re most excited about, though, isn't the games — it's the food.
Button Mash’s kitchen marks the triumphant return of Starry Kitchen, a once sorta-illegal pop-up restaurant in its proprietor’s apartment, and then, later, off nights in a dingy Chinatown bar.
But now Starry Kitchen’s got a full, well, kitchen. And they've expanded the menu, which still features some of the most exciting, critically-beloved, downright weird pan-Asian street food in town, including their legendary electric green spicy tofu balls.
Game on.
MUSIC: Mustache Mondays
https://www.instagram.com/p/9Y_ofKtT-h/
Mustache Monday is L.A.’s best straight-friendly queer dance party. It's an inclusive weekly escape that recently relocated from its longtime home at divey punk bar La Cita to the basement of the Globe Theatre on Broadway.
Host Nacho Nava promises the new underground club will somehow be both louder and sleazier than the old space, which we find a little hard to imagine.
But if anyone can pull it off, it’s the Mustache crew.
Resident DJs Josh Peace and Total Freedom play hard house and electro for a rotating cast of guests in progressive fashion looks.
It’s a perfectly catch-all cure for a bad Monday, and some of the most reliable people-watching in town.
WILDCARD: Police Academy Rock Garden
We normally do everything in our power to stay as far off of the LAPD's radar as possible — no life of crime here. But there's a certain subversive pleasure that comes with spending a couple of hours loitering all over police property.
You've possibly caught sight of the Elysian Park Police Academy along the backroads beside Dodger Stadium. It's in some foreboding barracks near Chavez Ravine — kinda hard to miss.
What you might not know is that the grounds inside are home to some very beautiful, and totally public, spaces.
Come to see waterfalls, reflecting pools, flagstone pathways, and a patchwork of carved stone benches and rock gardens that look like set-pieces from "The Planet Of The Apes." Bucolic stuff. Setting foot inside definitely feels like trespassing — a sense amplified by the occasional ringing of gunfire from the nearby police shooting range. But this is public property, and there’s nothing they can do to stop you.
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: "Eyes" by Jherek Bischoff
This week's Off-Ramp song of the week is “Eyes” by composer Jherek (like “Derek”) Bischoff. It’s off his 2012 album, called “Composed” — what else? David Byrne of the Talking Heads sings lead vocals on this song.
Jherek Bischoff lives in Los Angeles and is performing at a special show this Tuesday, November 17 with the Isaura String Quartet at the Blue Whale in Little Tokyo.
Watch the video for "Eyes," starring David Byrne himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkHuhr9MDlc
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.