George Takei tells us how his internment camp musical "Allegiance" got to Broadway. How to plant the right milkweed and help monarch butterflies. Suzanne Lummis on good and bad poetry. New doc "Being Canadian" looks at ... well, you know.
Downtown's Bar 107 defies landlord, refuses to leave
UPDATE 9/14/2015: This just in.
Also, Bar 107 in the
is officially closed and locked up. Goodbye cheap bears, weird people and rockin' music.
— Eddie Kim (@eddiekimx)
Also, Bar 107 in the @HistoricCore is officially closed and locked up. Goodbye cheap bears, weird people and rockin' music.
— Eddie Kim (@eddiekimx) September 14, 2015
For almost ten years, Bar 107 has thrived in the growing downtown Los Angeles bar scene. It's one of the few places in America you can go for gong karaoke. It gives out free pizza during happy hour.
May 31 was supposed to be Bar 107's last day — its landlord stopped renewing the month-to-month lease. But the bar defied the order, and — as of this posting — is still open today.
On the evening of May 31, DJ Morgan Higby Night read from a prepared statement by the ownership, saying the bar would stay open until forced to leave. It complained of downtown changing and becoming less inclusive. "Bars with personality and reasonable drink prices have been replaced by sterile, safe s---holes with ridiculous prices and even more ridiculous ice cubes."
Bar 107 sits near the corner of 4th and Main Streets downtown. It's in the same building as the historic Hotel Barclay. When reached for comment on Monday, property manager Victor Vasquez said he was "very disappointed" to have seen the announcement.
Vasquez said he'd made numerous attempts to provide Bar 107 with a long-term, multi-year lease but the two sides couldn't come to an agreement. Management, he said, made the call to talk with prospective new tenants around March. He said the two sides are back at the negotiating table now and he hopes they'll reach an amicable agreement.
Eddie Kim, a senior writer for LA Downtown News, said stories like this aren't uncommon in downtown nowadays. "It's one instance out of many where there's changes happening," he said. When Bar 107 opened its doors nearly 10 years ago, it replaced Score, a well-liked gay bar.
"The people who love Bar 107 are losing a place to love," Kim added. "It's part of the identity of this neighborhood, right?"
Ownership from Bar 107 couldn't be reached for a response at the time of posting, we'll update if we hear back.
George Takei on how he took his internment camp musical, 'Allegiance,' to Broadway
UPDATE: “Allegiance” will be performed Feb. 21-April 1, 2018, at the Aratani Theater at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center in downtown L.A.'s Little Tokyo.
ORIGINAL STORY: In an intimate interview, George Takei tells Off-Ramp host John Rabe about crafting the Japanese-American internment camp history into compelling Broadway musical theater. "Allegiance," with Takei, Lea Salonga and Telly Leung, played at the Longacre Theater.
George Takei and his husband Brad were putting their house in mothballs when I arrived for our interview in August. They'd already been spending a lot of time in New York because of George's recurring role on "The Howard Stern Show," but now, with the Broadway opening of "Allegiance" just a couple months away, they were preparing to move for as long as the musical brings in the crowds.
While Brad went off to deal with the mundane domestic tasks around the move, I sat with George in their living room to talk about turning one of America's most shameful episodes — the internment of some 120,000 loyal Japanese-Americans during World War II — into a musical that could make it on the Broadway stage.
George, you just sent an email to your fans with the subject line: "I've Waited 7 Years to Send You this Email. Seven years!" Inside, you wrote: "Few things are as difficult and complex as taking a show to Broadway. It's both thrilling and terrifying." What was terrifying?
"The terrifying part is, you've poured your passion, your energy, your resources ... you make all that investment in that project, and then you're hoping the seats are going to be filled.That 'what if' is terrifying. But in San Diego, we had a sold-out run and broke their 77-year record. But now we're going to Broadway, and that same fear is there. Will they come? What will the critics say? Because it's life or death."
It took a long time just to get a Broadway theater.
"It took a long time to get a theater.You think there are a lot of Broadway theaters, but there are even more productions that want those chunks of New York real estate. So we thought we'd get in line. But then the other discovery we made is that the theater owners have relationships with grizzled old producers who have brought them a vast fortune with enormous hits, and they can cut in line. They have a track record. And so, 'will we ever get a theater' became a big question. But we have this time now — let's use it creatively, productively."
So, Takei says, the team tweaked the show, removing parts that didn't work didn't advance the story, inserting numbers that worked better and kept the story moving. They doubled down on social media, building and proving demand in the show.
"We have a Shubert theater (the Longacre), and Bob Wankel is head guy there, and I remember pouring my heart out, telling the story of my parents, hoping that touches. And he was understanding, but I understood his problem, too. Everybody is trying to get a theater and he has to make a good business decision and was initially skeptical. An internment camp musical? But music has the power to make an anguished painful situation even more moving, even more powerful. It hits you in the heart."
This is your Broadway debut, right? Are you petrified?
"Yes, yes. I've done a lot of stage work, and I've done a lot of public speaking, but it's Broadway, and I'm a debutante... at 78 years old! And it's the critics, too. The New York Times, Ben Brantley. That's who I'm going to be facing, and so it's both exciting and absolutely filling me with ecstasy, but what makes it ecstatic is the fear."
For much more of our interview with George Takei, listen to the audio by clicking the arrow in the player at the top of the page ... and hear George Takei and John Rabe's duet of "Tiny Bubbles."
See dinosaur bones found by kids at Alf Museum in Claremont
There's another place to see dinosaurs in LA County besides Exposition Park: the Raymond Alf Museum at the Webb Schools in Claremont, an intimate museum dedicated to fossils discovered by kids. For almost 80 years, Webb students have been contributing to paleontology, thanks to an ambitious track star who came to the school in 1929 and wound up taking Webb students on field trips that unearthed over 70,000 fossils.
Raymond Manfred Alf was born in 1905 in Canton, China, and lived there with his missionary parents until he was 11. The Alf family relocated to Nebraska, and by the late 1920's, Alf was a prominent sprinter who almost qualified for the Olympics.
According to Don Lofgren, director of the museum and Alf's biographer, Alf came to run for a Los Angeles track club in 1929, but after the track season, needed a job. He had taught math before, and took a tutoring position at the Webb boarding school for boys in then-rural Claremont. Alf soon became a full time biology teacher.
In the mid-1930's, Alf happened upon a fossil horse jaw at a photo shop in Claremont Village, and the clerk told him it came from Barstow. Alf arranged a field trip for a few boys from the school in 1935. In the summer of 1936, Alf was leading a trip to Barstow, and the headmaster's son, Bill Webb, found a skull. As it turned out, the skull was from an undiscovered Miocene-age peccary, Dyseohys fricki.
Thus cemented the tradition Alf called "The Peccary Trips." From 1936 to 1976, Alf took students to fossil sites around the US, including museum board member Dick Lynas, who graduated from Webb in 1955, and went on a Peccary Trip in 1953.
(Raymond Alf and the Chevy Suburban he drove on Peccary Trips. Courtesy the Webb Schools)
"It was a six week trip in a Chevrolet Suburban with no air conditioning, with hot plastic seats, and all the kids would be sliding around in the heat. We'd go to Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota," remembers Lynas, who found two Brontothere skulls in Nebraska. Brontotheres belong to the same order as the rhinoceros, lived in the late Eocene era, and had two large horns protruding from their snouts. Lynas says that the ranch they prospected for fossils at in Nebraska was so "littered with bone, you couldn't walk in a straight line without stepping on something."
Other notable exhibits include the skull of Purussaurus, a forty foot long crocodilian from Brazil; a skeletal cast of an Amphicyon (sometimes called a "bear-dog") mounted above the only known footprints belonging to the species, and "Baby Joe," the young Parasaurolophus discovered by Webb senior Kevin Terris in 2009.
Much of "Baby Joe's" skeleton is still encased in rock, to avoid breaking. Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC
Lofgren notes that the Alf museum's dinosaur fossils are mostly discovered in other states, and that Southern California contains far more mammals than dinosaur fossils in its rocks. Today, the Alf Museum's collection numbers about 165,ooo specimens from around the world. 95 percent of them were found by students, says Lofgren.
The Museum began in the basement of the school library, which was also Alf's classroom. By 1968, the basement was overflowing with bones, and it was then that the building that currently houses the Museum was built and has since been accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, making it the only such museum on a high school campus. Alf, who died in 1999 at age 93, lived on the Webb campus for almost 70 years.
The Raymond M. Alf Museum is located at 1175 W Baseline Rd, Claremont CA 91711, and is open 8am-4pm Monday-Friday.
Immigration, refugees, politics, and betrayal — it's Greek drama at the Getty Villa
It's a very old story, as Euripides told it some 2,400 years ago: Jason (leader of the Argonauts) leaves his wife Medea when Creon, the king of Corinth, offers to let him marry his daughter. Bad move. Medea gets her revenge by killing their children.
"It is a bitter thing to be a woman," she says. "Men boast their battles, but it is easier to stand in battle three times in the front lines in the stabbing fury than to bear one child."
("Medea (about to murder her children)," Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix (1862), Credit: Wikipedia Commons.)
In "Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles," MacArthur Fellow Luis Alfaro has made Medea an undocumented Mexican seamstress, fighting assimilation and her husband Hason's ambition. Hason cannot resist the power offered him by a fully assimilated and childless woman developer, and when Medea discovers that he's married her rival, and will lose her child, the caca hits the ventilador.
Although it's set in Boyle Heights, Alfaro's play, directed by Jessica Kubzansky and produced by The Theatre @ Boston Court, is in performance in the ancient outdoor amphitheater at the Getty Villa, adding yet another layer to the reworking of the classic text.
Listen to the audio to hear my conversation with Alfaro after the premiere Wednesday night.
"Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles," plays Thur. – Sat. through Oct. 3 at 8pm at the Getty Villa. tickets from $36 - $45.
Surkus: The app that pays people to party
Venture into Hollywood, Venice, Downtown on any given night and you'll find some of Los Angeles' most fashionable, of-the-moment night spots. If the place is fashionable and trendy enough, you'll probably find yourself surrounded by hip young people looking to network, drink, maybe hook up.
Except now, thanks to a new app called SURKUS, some of the Angelenos in attendance are literally paid to party.
Take the W Hotel in Hollywood. It's Sunday Jazz Night, around midnight. And for a school night, it's way busier than you'd think.
The speakers pump house music, not jazz. The cocktails are $15. But the crowds of 20 and 30 somethings crowding the rooftop bar don't seem to mind.
Out by the pool, a big group clusters around a fire pit, chatting, drinking, vaping. Good looking and dressed to impress, they embody the late-night scene like they've been sent over from Central Casting. Which, in a way, they have.
What the other party people here don't know is that with the help of a new tech company called Surkus, the event organizer is paying each of these attendees $8 and giving them free drinks all night. Their job? Be here, look good, have a good time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_qndIKuUEg
Surkus calls it "crowdcasting" — providing clubs, restaurants and events in New York and Los Angeles with bodies to fill the room, order drinks, and liven the place up. Promoters and bar owners tell the company how many people needed — what age, sex, lifestyle, and what you'll pay — and they hook you up with people like Chuli Joy:
"Going out and getting to talk to the pretty girls, that's cool, you know?," said the 28-year-old actor. "But to get paid to talk to pretty girls? I'm like, hey, you can't beat it."
"I only thought celebrities got paid to party," said Myriah Klingler, a 23-year-old production assistant. "But nope, anyone can. I guess that's part of L.A."
Some of these so-called "Surkus-goers" say they've made as much as 30 to 50 bucks at other events, just by being there. But what about the clients? Paying people to come and drink free booze seems like a good way to go out of business, fast.
"People find crowds interesting," said Robert Menendez, the company's president and co-founder. "Why is that crowd there? What is happening there? This is just human nature. I mean, nobody walks by a crowd and goes, 'eh.' People are curious."
Surkus pitches its value also as a matter of timing. People who show up right when the doors open keep the place from feeling dead. Their presence is a kind of kindling for the raging party bonfire to come.
Jin Yu has been running Jazz Night at the W for five years with a fashionably-late arriving crowd in attendance. Surkus changed that, he said.
"Most of my guests get here around 11 p.m. Surkus-goers get here at 10 p.m. and it's an immediate energy burst right before all my guests get here," said Yu. "So the moment they walk in they say, 'Wow! This is amazing!'"
Yu was so amazed by Surkus, he said, he joined the company—Yu is Surkus' Chief Creative Officer now.
But there's another word for this job: they're plants. Right? If paying customers don't know their fellow partiers are drinking for free, isn't that unfair? Or a little bit dishonest?
"I'm not telling a guy that loves country rock music to show up at a hip-hop event and pretend he's into hip-hop," said Menendez. "We're nudging people into doing things that they were probably going to do anyway sooner than later."
Surkus says more than 30,000 people have downloaded the app, and the company is looking for investors to expand that number. Potential "Surkus-goers" are asked to fill out a personal profile and then give the company access to some of their Facebook data — how else will you know if someone would enjoy a hip-hop event if you don't know what they publicly like?
Surkus also looks at how many followers its users have have, on Twitter, or Facebook, or Instagram. Surkus says it sells more than just bodies to its clients, it sells influence, too—what Surkus-goers Instagram, their followers see.
"You have a digital agency that kind of aggregates everybody's social, pulls it together," said Jin Yu, the Chief Creative Officer. "You categorize them. You profile them. You know exactly who they are and you send them to events that they want to go to."
Surkus' high tech arsenal includes a digital geofence that automatically checks-in their invitees when they arrive at an event. And the company doesn't just know your location. They can also track your altitude.
That means if a Surkus-goer leaves the rooftop at the W for a quiet drink in the lobby—Surkus knows.
In a time where people worry openly about the way our personal information intersects with brands and marketers, Surkus pushes the envelope.
But to Robert Menendez, Surkus' co-founder, it's the future. Why pay thousands for a billboard when you can target and pay potential customers to come to a showroom or open house, or take a test drive?
"This is what happens when big data comes into existence," said Mendendez. "I know people are like 'Well, I'm not into it.' But you're into it. You're there. You're online, you have a cell phone, you have a free app, you're part of it."
Rob Cohen's new doc 'Being Canadian' tries to explain our neighbors to the north
Canada, also known as America’s winter hat, is misunderstood, maligned and ignored ... or at least that’s the theory of “Being Canadian,” a new documentary by L.A. TV comedy writer Rob Cohen. Rob recently traveled cross country -- theirs not ours -- to see if he could pin down what makes a Canadian a Canadian.
It took eight years to get Rob Cohen and his team’s movie to the big screen, but only about five minutes to make this the most Canadian interview ever -- when they say, “Sincere apologies, Saskatchewan, we love you,” it demonstrates how Cohen’s politeness bonafides are established by saying "sorry" to the provinces that didn’t make the final cut of the movie.
(Canadian PM Mackenzie King, who owned several Irish terriers, all of them named Pat.)
Rob explained how frustration with his fellow TV writers in Hollywood inspired his "Roger and Me"-like journey.
“Like most Canadians living outside of Canada, I think you're constantly under attack because people don’t know or care about Canada and you constantly hear comments that make no sense,” says Cohen. “We would get along great and then I’d say 'borrow' or 'sorry' and the jig was up. They would freeze like they’d caught a spy.”
His goal was a movie that explained Canada to Americans by asking random Canadians to explain what it means to be ... well ... them. Pretty simple task, eh? As producers Colin Gray and Megan Raney Aarons learned, not so much.
“We actually had scheduled meet ups in each cities, we had T-shirts and placards and tried to get people to share their comment was an ongoing challenge going across Canada,” says Gray. Raney Aarons chimes in:- “One park where we tried to organize a meet up, we had two people show up: One guy in a mullet wig, one Brazilian dude. Those were the people who showed up and wanted to talk about Canada.”
Now there are lots of famous talking Canadians in the movie, such as Martin Short, Alanis Morissette and Paul Shaffer, but most make their homes down here. Why? Because if you’re too chatty in Canada, they deport you.
Ha, kidding. They’d just ask you to go.
But just for fun, imagine what it would be like to ask Americans what it means to be American. Americans will talk about anything. In fact, the movie features two drunk-sh geography majors who were asked if they knew the capital of Canada: “Let’s guess Arkansas!” they agreed.
Is it any wonder that Canadians define themselves, in part, as not being from the USA?
That is long held belief in Canada, but not everyone thinks it’s true. David Frum is dual citizen and former White House speech writer who’s now an editor with The Atlantic magazine. He is not in the movie.
“If you take all of North America," he says, "and delete all of the South and delete Quebec, what you find is what’s in between those two zones, is a place where culturally there are a lot of similarities.”
So why then, don’t Canadians jump up and down yelling about how Canadian they are? To hear Frum tell it, with Eastern and Western Canada not liking each other, not to mention the French-English divide, they just don’t want to rock the boat. “Canada has a challenging difficult project to hold together, and that has made Canadians worry about too much self assertion.”
By the way, his definition of what it means to be a Canadian was pretty spot on: “Every time a Canadian votes in a parliamentary election, every time a Canadian reacts to criminal attack by calling a police officer instead of reaching for a gun, over time they bump into someone on the street and say 'sorry', they are doing what it means to be a Canadian.” Frum, by the way, is the son of the late Barbara Frum, a beloved CBC host and essentially the Susan Stamberg of Canada, but even cooler.
And filmmaker Andy Cohen’s conclusion? “My summation would be Canada is a much hipper place than when I left and I think they love being ballsy about it in a Canadian way.”
Cohen spends a lot of the movie interviewing American celebrities about what they think of Canada, which boils down to ... they don’t, really. And frankly, who doesn’t already know that? But the film really finds its feet when it deals with the maple syrup theft crisis, flag design and psychotherapy.
And if that weren’t incentive enough to watch, this flick has also been certified 100% Celine Dion free. “She was an early 'no' so we took her at her word and moved on,” says Cohen. When asked in what official language he was turned down, he answered “Her managers.”
Which is to say, if you want to know what being Canadian is all about, “Being Canadian” is a good place to start. And being Canadian myself, I can say “Being Canadian” might just teach you a few things about ... well, you know.
"Being Canadian" opens Sept. 18 and will be in limited release in L.A., including at the Crest Westwood. Full disclosure: Off-Ramp contributor Collin Friesen is an actual Canadian.
4 ways you can help the dwindling monarch butterfly
We all love monarchs.
Well, yes, but I'm talking about the monarch butterfly, which is not only beautiful, but makes one of the most stupendous migrations — and is dwindling in numbers.
Off-Ramp animation expert Charles Solomon has long been interested in butterflies, which make regular appearances in anime.
"They're beautiful," he says. "The wings have patterns the artists can play with that excite the designers, so butterflies turn up in everything from old Molly Moo-Cow films to Disney's Silly Symphonies, to just being the background element that suggests nature."
(A screengrab from "
Charles knew monarchs need milkweed to survive, and wanted to plant some in the backyard of his house near Griffith Park. But what kind should he plant, where could he get it and how should he take care of it?
The Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers and Native Plants to the rescue! The foundation's director of horticulture, Madena Asbell, met us at Charles's house with four milkweed plants — one of which had a monarch caterpillar on it — and a wealth of monarch and milkweed knowledge.
So here's how you, like Charles, can help the monarch, according to Asbell:
1. Plant milkweed
"Monarchs are what we call 'host specific,' which means that they depend entirely on milkweed for their reproductive cycle. The caterpillar of the monarch consume only milkweed and no other plant. Fortunately, the caterpillars don't have to find the milkweed — it's the adults who find it. The females have very sensitive chemical receptors on their feet, and they're able to locate the milkweed. They lay their eggs directly on the milkweed leaves, the eggs hatch, the caterpillars emerge, and then begin to feed."
2. ... But make sure to plant the right kind of milkweed (the like California native narrow-leaf milkweed, which went into Charles's yard)
"We're really strongly encouraging people to plant native milkweeds right now. Tropical milkweed is very common in most nurseries, and people are wanting to do the right thing for the monarchs and putting it into their gardens, but current research shows the non-native tropical milkweed actually helps a pathogen of the monarch, a protozoan parasite."
Asbell says native milkweed plants are also drought tolerant, so they're a better choice for that reason, too.
3. Go up to Santa Barbara, to see many monarchs
"We actually have two monarch populations in North America that are divided by the Rockies. The eastern population overwinters in Mexico, and the western population overwinters along the Central Coast of California, and you can go see them beginning in November, through the winter. One of the sites is just north of Santa Barbara."
4. Love butterflies, but don't disparage moths
Moths actually make up 80 percent of lepidoptera, and although they're generally not as glam as the butterflies, they perform some very important roles, including pollination. Charles points out that in the arts, butterflies are often the good guys, like frogs, while moths, like toads, are the villains. But don't tell that to Mothra.
Suzanne Lummis, LA's ambassador of poetry, on LA poets and what makes a bad poem bad
Charles Lummis, one of the founders of modern Los Angeles, was many things… and not all of them good. But luckily, the literary gene made its way to his granddaughter, the poet Suzanne Lummis, who turns 64 on Sunday, Sept. 13. She talked with Off-Ramp contributor Marc Haefele.
It’s been a big season for Suzanne Lummis, who has long been something like the Southland’s prime poetic muse… as a teacher, a poet and, most of all, an ambassador of poetry.
Lummis has just published two books, including “Wide Awake,” her anthology of L.A. poets, the first such book in decades.
"In Los Angeles, there were poets when I came here, in '79. It was a smaller group of poets, earlier in their career. Now, this many years later, it's a strong, vibrant, much more sophisticaed scene. There are poets who've come in from elsewhere around the country and poets who've been here all along who've just gotten better," Lummis said.
Lummis studied poetry at Fresno State with one of America’s great poets and teachers of poetry, Philip Levine, who died early this year. People have called the Pulitzer Prize winner “The Blue-Collar Walt Whitman.”
"I felt in that class the bar was set very high. He didn't discourage people, but he didn't lead people on. He didn't lie to people or fudge, at all. You know, you had to want it the way a dancer wants to be a dancer, the way a painter wants to be a painter; you had to go through that apprenticeship, you had to humble yourself, you had to start out with the idea 'I don't know how to do this yet,'" she said. "If anybody went in there with the idea that they were already a good poet, they were going to be divested of their delusions."
That experience taught her the two requirements for writing good poetry.
"Well you have to be absolutely engaged with language, you have to be in love with language. And it would be helpful to have some talent," she said.
In “The Poetry Mystique,” she gives some excellent observations as to what makes a great poem great. It’s edifying and engaging. But not nearly as deliciously fun as her list of what makes a bad poem bad.
"I mean poetry in which the language is not alive — holds no charge, does not spring from precise observation, vivid recollection, luxuriant or stark imaginings," she explained. "I mean poetry couched in platitudes, generalities, absent of imagery, physical details, texture and surprise. Or, I mean poetry with language that's energetic but chaotic, murky, unfocused. Or, I mean poetry that's careless, ungrammatical, not because the poet has set out to capture the vernacular of a particular speaker, but because the poet has not bothered to learn the basics of language."
Let’s end with a third Lummis book, a collection of her own poems from last year. It’s named after one of our town’s key singularities: “Open 24 Hours.” Here’s the ending of “The Night Life is for You":
"Some Doo-wop tune on the airwaves says the night's thousand shifting eyes around the watch you guess — two of them are yours.
Tonight, Mr. Good or Bad might pluck you from the crowd, there's some place you're supposed to be, some fun you're supposed to have.
It's late, your fate, and it's open 24 hours."
Suzanne Lummis says writing poetry is usually a struggle, although sometimes, she says, “When you’re really hot it just comes to you, I call it getting one for free.” She says we now call that “the unconscious,” but she seems to prefer Garcia Lorca’s idea that it comes from the duende, a sort of dark goblin who inhabits you, and the poetry it’s responsible for “comes up from the soles of your feet.”
Songwriter and producer Dam Funk: 'I stayed with the funk,' straight through his new album
Dam Funk is a songwriter, singer and producer who’s paid his dues. Born Damon Riddick in Pasadena, Dam Funk’s music elevated and celebrated funk at a time when it wasn’t fashionable, uploading songs to Myspace and celebrating when they got 13 plays.
Now, fans listen to his music worldwide. He's been signed to Los Angeles' Stones Throw Records since 2008 and he collaborated on a full album with Snoop Dogg in 2013.
Then all of a sudden, funk became fashionable again — Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” stayed at Billboard's number one spot for 14 weeks last year, while its video took Best Male Video and was nominated for Video of the Year at Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards. One of the biggest albums of the year, Kendrick Lamar’s "To Pimp a Butterfly," samples several hit funk songs and features appearances by George Clinton and Ron Isley of the Isley Brothers.
Dam Funk’s newest album came out this week — it’s called “Invite the Light.” Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson met Riddick at his home to talk the new album and funk’s newfound place in the spotlight.
On collaborating with Snoop Dogg for "7 Days of Funk":
It was a pleasure to work with Snoop. Just like it was a pleasure to work with Steve [Arrington, of the funk group Slave], and anybody I've collaborated with. All the people I've collaborated with, it's been an organic vibe. It wasn't something the label chose, or something like that.
Me and Snoop have been knowing each other for a minute. You know, back and forth, seeing each other at different places, and we have a similar background. He was born the same year as me, right across the freeway from each other — him in Long Beach, me in Pasadena.
We should've been friends before. But sometimes things in the game are different. I was always on my own in the musical world of L.A. I didn't come up in the same circles as a lot of the cats in the scene that I'm from. And I think Snoop recognized that, I think, it was unique and refreshing, that he was able to work with someone that didn't come up in those same circles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEu_ARi0Fc8
On the renaissance of funk music:
At one point, when I was being very musical and letting people know about funk, boogie and even disco, this city was so focused on beats — they had a whole blips and bleeps thing. I love everything that new generations come up with and the kids experiment with, but there's something timeless about funk, rock, jazz, the biggies. It's not for an unknown reason: they're great songwriters, they're great musicians.
And I'm glad that I'm affiliated and aligned with that type of history, because I understand what you're saying, that people are catching up. But at one point it was almost like I was a laughing stock in L.A. The boogie, the disco funk... it's like now, you look up five years later, and of course that album [Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly"] has all those elements now. The demographic of people that are into that record were not into [this] style literally five years ago.
There's no complaints, I'm not bitter. I stayed with the funk. And now people are realizing that it's a viable music that they can respect and not just write off as like some Dave Chappelle, Rick James joke.
On calling funk and heavy metal "the dirty lost cousins of rock and soul"
I just feel like heavy metal, and metal, if you will, we're the people who were able to take things further. A louder distortion pedal in metal, or a crazier synthesizer solo in funk. Whereas the other genres that are related to our genres are a little bit confined into a capsule, or cubicle if you will, of the way that it's expected to be heard.
And also, even the dress codes. If you look at the metalers back in the day, they were like louder than the regular rockers with just jeans and a T-shirt. And then funk, look at P-Funk. They looked different than some of the soul singers.
But then again, what I've been trying to do is shake that image. If people could see how I am right now, it's like, funk can be made by people who don't have platform shoes on.
But I like that theatrical thing, too. I think that a lot of that is missing. Kiss is one of my favorite groups — I had their posters all over my wall. That attracted me, it was fun. You ordered the belt buckles, you'd roll with the logo on [a] T-shirt. That's what's missing! A lot of the music now doesn't have that fantasy effect. Everything is real, real, real. That's what, sometimes I mess around with people on social media: I say, "Man, F keeping it real. Let's keep it fantasy!"
On his music's positive message and its impact on fans
About four weeks ago a gentleman tweeted outwardly to people, he said, "If it wasn't for you, when I met you in Houston, I would've killed myself that night."
I just didn't know what to say, but music is powerful. And also, the way you treat people.
"Invite the Light" is out now on Stones Throw Records.
How gay rights got its start in science fiction
It sounds like a dystopian science fiction novel: Writers in crowded basements, operating under pseudonyms and code words to build networks with the like-minded without attracting the ire of a watchful government.
But it’s true – gay and lesbian writers and activists who wanted to connect with others in the LGBT community in the 1940s could only do so with pseudonyms and double entendre. And they were able to do it with the help of another burgeoning movement with roots in Los Angeles – science fiction.
Jim Kepner's "Toward Tomorrow" magazine. Courtesy ONE Archives/USC.
“Everybody in this particular time is using a pseudonym to cover for their gay activities,” says Joseph Hawkins, professor at University of Southern California and director of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at USC. “So, if they openly go out and do gay activities, they get blacklisted by the American government.”
Deep within the ONE archives, Hawkins made a discovery. Jim Kepner is famous in LGBT history for co-founding the nation’s first gay magazine, as Lisa Ben (whose real name is Edythe Edye) is for founding the first lesbian magazine. But these two LGBT revolutionaries found an unlikely ally in the science fiction community, which not only allowed them to imagine a more equal future, but connect with others under their pseudonyms: Jyke (Kepner) and Tigrina the Devil Doll (Ben).
“I’ve always been completely obsessed with science fiction,” says Hawkins. “And then when I began to realize how much Kepner was and how much Lisa Ben was - they were actually using science fiction publications to figure out what they wanted to do with gay and lesbian magazines.”
Lisa Ben -- an anagram for “lesbian” -- would go on to found the nation’s first lesbian magazine, "Vice Versa," in 1947. Six years later, Jim Kepner would co-found "ONE Magazine," dubbed “the homosexual magazine,” which was in circulation for over a decade. Their revolutionary work would spur the early gay rights movement, as well as win the first Supreme Court cases for LGBT people.
A page from a science fiction fan zine from the 1940s, with Ray Bradbury and Tigrina (Lisa Ben). Courtesy ONE Archives/USC
“Each of them has these particular science fiction covers, so Lisa Ben writing as Tigrina or Kepner writing as Jyke will produce these incredible fan zines.” Hawkins said. Both Kepner and Ben were well-known science fiction writers in Los Angeles, writing in well-known magazines and members of fan clubs, along with Ray Bradbury and L. Ron Hubbard.
“This provides a sort of proving ground where they learn how to organize, how to create networks for publication,” Hawkins says. “If you think about it, Lisa Ben and "Vice Versa," and "ONE Magazine" owe, to some extent, their foundation to that early science fiction publication.”
But Ben and Kepner didn’t just save their activist writing for "Vice Versa" and "ONE." Their science fiction writing was full of their desires for a more equal world.
“It was all over the place,” Hawkins said. “Some of it is clouded, some of it’s not. Kepner and Lisa Ben weren’t just talking about gay rights, they were talking about feminism, racial equality – the thing is science fiction was a place they could do all that because they were imagining a new world.”
Courtesy ONE Archives/USC.
Kepner and Ben, as Jyke and Tigrina, were both devoted members of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, which met weekly in the basement of the Prince Rupert Arms near downtown Los Angeles to imagine a future of technological marvels and social equality.
The society still exists. Now in Van Nuys, it’s the oldest running science fiction society in the world, and holds members just as devoted as Kepner and Ben once were, like June Moffatt, who joined the society in August 1947 when she was a teenager. She says she “only met Tigrina once” but she knew Kepner quite well.
“He was good fun,” says Moffatt. Moffatt knew Kepner was gay and an activist, but he was still just “one of the gang. I remember once sitting down next to [Kepner] and telling him he was in danger,” Moffatt says, laughing. “I was flirting with him.”
Song of the Week: 'Girl' by the Internet
This week's Off-Ramp Song of the Week is "Girl" by the Internet.
Hailing from Los Angeles, the Internet is a soul band fronted by Syd Bennett and Matt Martin, formerly of the rap group Odd Future. “Girl” is from their new album, Ego Death, which came out in June.
Here's the song's trippy music video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmY8mG4_3j4
You can see the Internet live this Tuesday, September 8 at the El Rey Theatre before they kick off an international tour.
Heino impersonator Marc Hickox highlights our SoCal Oktoberfest roundup
Friends, raise a glass to King Ludwig I, who in 1810 married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen and started the public festival that became known as Oktoberfest. Here's the king in his traditional Oktoberfest outfit and haircut:
Despite its name, Oktoberfest starts in September. I don't know why, but does it really matter? In any case, here's just a sample of the many Oktoberfests in Southern California. If you know of another, please add it in the comments section.
Alpine Village
I have no reason to dispute Alpine Village's claim to the largest and oldest Oktoberfest in SoCal, generally running weekends from Sept. 11 to Oct. 31 in Torrance.
(Marc Hickox as Heino at Alpine Village Oktoberfest 2011. Credit: John Rabe/KPCC)
And surely the most bizarrely wonderful attraction at Alpine Village is Marc Hickox's tribute to the German phenomenon Heino, who has sold more than 50 million records, more than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, or even David Hasselhoff. With more added reverb than an 80-year-old Frank Sinatra, Heino sings Schlager und Volksmusik, sentimental tunes about German things... like Mom.
And the Mutters sure do love him:
What is Heino, I asked my German colleague Alex Schaffert. She replied, "I can't explain it." But again, does it matter? Hickox — who is actually a brunette Canadian actor — says he plays Heino as the "international sensation that happens halfway through the night."
To be clear, Hickox calls himself Heino!, not Heino. But he says the real Heino seems to not take himself too seriously and has not tried to stop him or the other Heino impersonators.
To hear our entire conversation, click on the blue audio player that magically turns orange.
(Credit: Alpen Vagabunden)
Old World
Alpen Vagabunden is one of the featured bands at Old World in Huntington Beach, which throws its 39th annual Oktoberfest Sunday, Sept. 13 through Sunday, Nov. 1, with dachshund races, Oktoberfest babes and a $5 Kinderfest. VIP tickets (which let you skip the line), are $40 most days, but admission is only $10 at the door. Admission is free on Wednesday and Thursday, 6:30-10:30 p.m.
More celebrations
Big Bear Lake throws an Oktoberfest celebration weekends from Sept. 19 to Oct. 31. It's their 45th annual. Dana Point's runs Oct. 17 & 18, and supposedly has more German handcraft beers than any other Oktoberfest in the region.
If meat sausage isn't your thing...
...there's the Vegan Oktoberfest in downtown Los Angeles Oct. 3 & 4 at L.A. Center Studios, 450 S. Bixel Street 90017. You can dance like a chicken with a clear conscience.
For something more laid back:
The German-American League, which has its clubhouse at 1843 Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica, was founded in 1905 and lays claim to being "one of the oldest German-American organizations in California." Their Oktoberfest is Sunday, Sept. 6, starting at 1 p.m. The menu includes Riesenbratwurst, Gegrillte Haehnchen, Geraeucherte Forellen, Leberkaese, Sauerkraut, Kartoffelsalat mit Speck, Gulasch Suppe a la Ursel and frisches deutsches Brot. There will also be dancing.