John visits This Old House's set - a home renovation in Silverlake - and talks with the show's founder, who also produced The French Chef and Victory Garden ... another OCMA Biennial artist ... Frank Romero is painting offramps and selling his Frogtown studio ... Mark Peel lamb bastes chicken breast ... Seth Menachem's mysinglepeeps.com -- like dating sites, but without the lies ...
On the set with This Old House in Silverlake
In episodes that premiere in January, This Old House finally comes to Los Angeles. The 30+ year old PBS show is renovating a Spanish home in Silverlake (location secret), but they let Off-Ramp host John Rabe in to talk with host Kevin O'Connor and watch the show being taped.
CLICK THROUGH for links to the show and our other This Old House interviews.
This Old House inventor, Russell Morash
Off-Ramp host John Rabe goes to the source, talking with one of the kings of home and garden/how-to television. Russell Morash invented "This Old House," after inventing "Victory Garden," and producing "The French Chef" with Julia Child. CLICK THROUGH for the long version of my interview.
If you're a fan of This Old House, The French Chef with Julia Child, and Victory Garden, you'll want to listen to my interview with Russell Morash.
(Credit: WGBH)
Morash was just a kid out of Boston U with an MFA when he got a job at WGBH, the public TV station in Boston. In just a few years, a middle-aged lady with an odd accent and a new cookbook came into the station and started a cooking show, and a revolution ... A revolution in cuisine (for Americans) and a revolution in TV. With Morash, Child and The French Chef proved people wanted to watch and learn.
Morash went on to invent, in the mid-1970s, Victory Garden; and in 1980, This Old House. Now, you can't throw a lardon without hitting a cooking show and you can't swing a hacksaw without hitting a home improvement show host.
Pretty good for a guy whose own dad thought This Old House might sustain for, oh, three episodes or so.
Here's Julia making an omelette.
Bon appetit!
Los Angeles Pigeon Club celebrates 100 years of fancy pigeon breeding
Founded in 1911, the Los Angeles Pigeon Club has made a name for itself by celebrating, elevating and exhibiting one of the most ordinary, unavoidable birds in the world. But after one look at the kind of fowl that the LA pigeon club exhibits, and you'll see these birds are anything but ordinary. Just this past week the group held their 100th annual Pageant of Pigeons event in Riverside. Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson went to the club's monthly meeting in El Monte last year.
Frank Romero Selling Landmark Frogtown Studio
For about thirty years, Frank Romero, the groundbreaking Chicano artist known for his images of LA's car culture and portrayals of LA history like the killing of Ruben Salazar, has worked out of a studio and gallery in Frogtown, the neighborhood sandwiched between the LA River and Riverside Drive.
Now, at 70 and spending half the year in France, he's selling the place. He tells Off-Ramp host John Rabe this will be the last year the famous Christmas Show and Sale will be held at the gallery, and he explains why he's been focusing on painting offramps for the last few years.
This is the long version of their interview, conducted Monday, November 29th, at the Frogtown studio.
CLICK THROUGH for info on the sale, which starts this weekend.
The Romero's 29th Annual Christmas Show and Sale is at 1625 Blake Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90031, on Saturday, December 4 & 11, from 7-midnight; and Sunday, December 5 & 12, from noon-6p.
Painter John Zurier's big sky ethos
If anyone ever deserved the title "painter of light", its Berkley painter John Zurier: his work in this year's biennial practically consume the viewer with a massive expansive of sky blues and cloudy whites. He talks about how, in his paintings, he both tries to transport viewers to far off places and make them think about about the story behind his surreal, ethereal landscapes.
This interview is a part of Off-Ramp's special look in the 2010 California Biennial. Click here to listen to the whole thing!
From the OCMA bio: John Zurier was born 1956 in Santa Monica, California; lives and works in Berkeley. Zurier received both his BA (1979) and MFA (1984) from the University of California, Berkeley. One-person exhibitions include shows at Peter Blum Gallery, New York; Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco; Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and Galeria Javier López, Madrid. His work has also been shown at the Berkeley Art Museum; the Seventh Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea; Hunter College Art Gallery, New York; and the Oakland Museum of California. Zurier participated in the 2002 Whitney Biennial. He is eminent adjunct professor at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and the recipient of a 2010 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
MySinglePeeps.com - New Matchmaking Site With No Lies from the Single Peeps
Seth Menachem is a new world Shadchen, an actor, writer, filmmaker, and blogger beleaguered by his single friends to find them mates. So, as he tells Off-Ramp host John Rabe, he started MySinglePeeps.com.
My friend Seth Menachem is many things. Husband, father, actor, and now matchmaker.
In his new online venture, My Single Peeps, Seth profiles his single friends, like Lior ...
Lior wears old man sweaters. I feel like that's the kind of thing I should just get out of the way as fast as possible because it's the first thing a girl would notice if she went on a date with him. They're usually pretty expensive sweaters... just not particularly hip.
... and Ali ...
I could tell you that Ali was the most irksome person on the planet and you'd still write her and ask her out. Because all you'd care about is the chance to see her boobs. Because she's hot.
And then, when emails of interest come in, Seth forwards them to the profiled party.
Many of my friends are single. They like to complain to me about how hard it is to find someone to love ... This is my way of trying to get them off of my back. They don't know I'm doing this. When they find out they will probably be really annoyed. Then they will laugh. Then they will ask me to show them pictures of the people who wrote to them.
I like that he's balanced about their good and bad points ... like Ameenah:
She's opinionated, and is not fearful to speak her mind. She's really serious about what she does and tends to use terms like, "My craft," when referring to acting.
For my money, the most intriguing guy on My Single Peeps (and I'm not looking, Julian) is Schmuly ...
... but you'll have to go to My Single Peeps to find out why -- I'm betting -- he'll be the first Peep to be married.
Mark Peel on Lazy Chickens and Tasty Thighs
If drumsticks taste better, why do so many restaurants only serve chicken breast? That's what Off-Ramp host John Rabe asked Mark Peel, Off-Ramp commentator, celebrity chef, and another (chicken) leg man.
Sing along with the LA Master Chorale!
In December of 2008, John Rabe talked with music director Grant Gershon about the Los Angeles Master Chorale's annual Messiah Sing-a-Long. It's just like the Sound of Music sing-along, only not as campy. It's happening again this year, so CLICK THROUGH for tickets!
CyberFrequencies
The role of video games in the public schools.
Writer RH Greene's abs boost him above Homer, Dickens, and other flabby writers
Today, your mind can be flabby but your belly can't, and writer RH Greene figures that puts him at the top of the list.
COME INSIDE to see Greene's actual abs.