An in-depth look at Grand Central Market's history ... and $60m+ debt. Comedian Danny Lobell on the lure of the urban chicken. Brains On probes, very carefully, into carnivorous plants. Jesse Katz learns to cut a bagel. The people who VOLUNTEER to examine coyote poop.
Downtown LA's Grand Central Market seeking $30m in debt relief, facing discrimination lawsuit
There have been a lot of articles about downtown LA's venerable Grand Central Market, mostly focusing on the gentrification of its vendors. But in a new article for Los Angeles Magazine, Jesse Katz reveals that the market is facing a $60m+ balloon payment, and a racial discrimination lawsuit.
The Community Redevelopment Agency, which had presided over Bunker Hill’s destruction, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which was seeking to lure riders onto the newly opened Red Line, gambled. In 1993, they loaned Grand Central Square $44 million. Almost immediately L.A.’s postriot economy slumped. ... In 1997, (owner Ira Yellin) defaulted on his $2.4 million annual obligations. The agencies devised a rescue plan—only to watch Ira, in 2002, default again. The second bailout allowed Ira to pay just interest for 30 years, on average about $1 million a year, while deferring the principal until 2033. Then Grand Central would face a daunting balloon payment: $69 million. -- Los Angeles Magazine, October 2016
Now, Adele Yellin, Ira's widow, is proposing to settle the debt for $32.5m. As Katz writes, "It is astonishing to think that the market, even newly resurgent, is this fragile, its fate hinging on two public agencies taking a $37 million loss."
At the same time, Katz breaks the news that she's facing a discrimination lawsuit from two former tenants.
Their ouster was part of a “concerted effort and business plan to ‘gentrify’ the tenant base at Grand Central Market by ejecting long-term and ‘legacy’ tenants based on their race, color, national origin, and/ or ancestry, in order to replace them in the substantial majority of instances with Caucasian tenants,” the two merchants allege in a complaint pending in Los Angeles Superior Court. They contend that of the approximately 15 vendors the market displaced, only two were not ethnic minorities; and of their replacements, all but two were white-owned businesses. The case, which has not previously been reported on, seeks $8 million to $16 million in economic and punitive damages. -- Los Angeles Magazine, October 2016
Listen to the audio for much more on Grand Central Market's financial problems, and to hear about Jesse's experience behind the counter at Wexler's Deli.
Comedian Danny Lobell: Why chickens actually cross the road
L.A.'s Danny Lobell is a comedian and podcaster - he hosts a monthly comedy show at the Hollywood Improv called Bookshelf, as well as the podcast "Modern Day Philosophers," where comedians talk philosophy. But above all that, Danny Lobell loves chickens.
I’m sitting in my house in Mid City when an email pops up on my phone:
“Nottingham University is studying the relationships between chickens and humans. Are you interested in being flown to London to give a talk about chickens?”
The university said they'd pay my expenses to and from the United Kingdom. I emailed back, “You’d have to bring my wife along as well, and pay her expenses.” They replied immediately: “Done deal.”
Three months later, I stood on stage at the Hen and Chickens Theatre in London, telling my story about raising a rooster and chicken with my Ecuadorian gangster neighbor to a group of archaeologists and anthropologists.
I had originally told the story on "This American Life," and then in a TEDx Talk in Phoenix. The Nottingham chicken project had a budget of almost $3 million.
Three. Million. Dollars.
Whenever I get involved with chickens, crazy things happen.
Two years ago, I needed to see a doctor, and the closest one my insurance would cover was in East L.A.. After a long trip there, I started heading home, when I saw a pet shop with graffiti animals all over it.
Inside, it was cramped. There was a snake in a cage on top of a rabbit on top of a canary. That’s when I saw Sonya, a little brown chicken. I got her for $20.
On the ride home, she was perched on my shoulder like a parrot, and I felt like a captain on a voyage, sailing the seas of the 10 West. Well, sailing is generous — traffic was slower than a conga line in a nursing home.
Since then, Sonya's been joined by four more chickens I got at the Malibu Feed Bin. I like to think of these chickens as fancy rich ladies. Unlike Sonya, who came from a gang bangin’ part of East L.A., these four gals grew up with an ocean view of the Pacific.
I got my latest chicken in a way that can only be described as God trying to make me laugh. Recently, my parents and brother came to visit. We went to the L.A. County Arboretum and if you've been there before, you know there are dozens of peacocks living there.
While driving back with my family, I wondered if I could raise peacocks in my backyard. Why not?
But then, just one block away from my house, I found myself hitting the brakes and coming to a stop.
I'd almost run over a chicken crossing the road.
Oh, the irony of a comedian who raises chickens, who buys chickens on a whim and talks about chickens but has never addressed the age-old question:
Why did the chicken cross the road? I finally had the answer: Probably to escape people who were going to eat her.
My brother and I got out of the van, leaving my parents to discuss what the hell I’m doing with my life, as we chased a chicken around a car and came at her from either side to catch her. It only made sense to name her Peacock — an homage to the birds I saw that afternoon.
Only a few minutes after deciding I wanted a peacock, the universe had given me one. The only difference was that my Peacock was yet another chicken.
Watching chickens walk around my backyard gives me the same relaxing feeling I get from observing beautiful tropical fish swim around a fish tank. There’s something very soothing and serene about it.
Plus, chickens are the only pets that leave you a packaged breakfast in the morning. You don’t even have to milk a chicken for an egg. It’s just there waiting for you. It’s their way of saying, “Thanks for having us at your place.”
Song of the week: "Period. Period." by Sex Stains
This week’s Off-Ramp Song of the Week is “Period. Period.” by the Los Angeles band Sex Stains.
Sex Stains is lead by Choreographer and singer Mecca Vazie Andrews and Allison Wolfe, who sang in the famous riot girl group Bratmobile, and she’s also an Off-Ramp contributor.
"Period. Period." comes off Sex Stain’s self-titled debut album, which is out now on Don Giovanni Records. The video, which premiered this week, for the song on our website - it was shot at the Smell, the beloved all ages club in Downtown LA.
What do LA's urban coyotes eat? Ask a scat hunter.
Review: 'Haunted House Party' at Getty Villa a 'fizzy cocktail of ancient and new'
Classical scholars have an unusual peeve with Roman Comedy: there is so much of it. Compared, that is, to the dire shortage of the Greek tragedy and comedy that is generally considered much better work. We've got 20 plays by the Roman playwright Plautus, but only 7 tragedies (maybe) by the mighty Aeschylus.
The Greeks of the classical period probed deep into the human predicament, into the fundamental injustices of life and our inadequate mortal coping mechanisms against the iron hand of fate.
Roman comedy, on the other hand, probes deep into fart jokes; the funny side of prostitution; gross sexual allusions and pure slapstick.
But Roman comedy can also make you laugh despite yourself. And the lack of depth makes it relatively easy reading in the original (as I discovered in 3rd year Latin) due to the amusing predictability of much of the repartee. In any case, Latin comedy’s high survival rate probably had much to do with its baser appeal, along with the fact that aspiring medieval clergy members had to copy (and even perform) the texts as Latin language exercises. Which is why we have so many plays by Plautus, as well as the entire (meager) output of his fellow Roman playwright Terence, while far greater Greek tragedy and comedy wound up stuffing mummy cases.
Compared to its elite Attic predecessor, Roman comedy is pure sitcom—but it can be more fun than the Greeks. Which is why it’s so strongly influenced everything from Shakespeare to vintage burlesque to Broadway to generations of TV. Which brings us to the Getty Villa’s latest presentation, “Haunted House Party,” aka the Mostellaria, of (c. 200 BC) Plautus, brought before us by a lively local troupe called the Troubadour Theater Company, whose previous Getty theater lab productions seem to have Cuisinarted pop music with Classic dramaturgy: I for one sure am sorry I missed ABBAmemnon.
But I was glad I got to see “Haunted House Party,” which is also a fizzy cocktail of ancient and new. It takes a little getting used to, the blending of the original text with several hundred local and/or contemporary allusions to everything from Donald Trump to the new iPad to Gladstone’s for Fish. In his program note, Troubadour director/adapter Matt Walker maintains that unlike the Greek prototype, Roman theater was an itinerant operation, working off temporary wooden stages, then piling everything in carts and moving on, much like the Italian Commedia del Arte of 500 years ago.
Certainly, his Mostellaria is on the run every minute. Walker, the lead as the wily slave Tranio, has extra mobility via plastic knee pads on which he slides out of tough situations into even tougher ones. The basic plot gives us a dissolute young gentleman named Philolaches, whose spendthrift habits are abetted by Tranio while Philolaches’ father is away in Egypt. Philolaches’ major expense has been the freedom of a brothel girl named Philematium, whom he loves.
There is a lot of simple dissolution going on involving drinking and alleged orgiastic sex (behind closed doors). Of course the denouement is Philolaches’ father Theopropides’ return. To keep him off the riotous premises, Tronio claims his house has become haunted. As the falsehood collapses, the shtick gets slappier as Philolaches’ loan shark appears, demanding repayment. Finally, all is improbably resolved as the lovers are united and forgiven, somehow, the loan shark is paid, and Tronio is spared crucifixion for his subversive antics.
Through all 90 minutes of this, we’ve had a big production number about every eight minutes, all song and dance and strumming. The jokes sizzle and bomb, alternately, but things keep on moving. There were moments -- of them fairly long -- when the Helzapoppin’ frenzy wore me down until I wanted to raise a white flag.
But in the end, when the dozen actors packed up their stage cart and rolled away, I had laughed a whole lot and so had everyone else. Since its inception, the Getty Villa’s outdoor Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman theater has been mostly devoted to tragedy. In "Haunted House Party," it bore the mask of comedy just as proudly.
All the cast was good. Particularly distinguished were Walker and Beth Kennedy, in the roles of both the downchild slave Grumio and the loan shark; Joey Keane in the drag role of Philamateum; Karole Foreman as Philameteum’s garrulous attendant; and Michael Faulkner as Theopropides. Sharon McGunigle’s costumes were superb. So was Eric Heinly’s music.
"Haunted House Party" runs at the Getty Villa through Oct. 1.