Lou Adler remembers bringing Rocky Horror to Los Angeles ... Eat-LA/Off-Ramp Collaboration highlights affordable gourmet regional Mexican cuisine ... Tomatomania ... Charlie Chan Redux ... Dinner Party Download ...
Off-Ramp fave La Casita Mexicana rings Jonathan Gold's food bell, comes in at #68
UPDATE: We were delighted to see Bell's La Casita Mexicana make Jonathan Gold's list of the 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles. We'd featured the restaurant and its owners a few years ago in our EatLA segment. And now they have beer and wine!
For a really good gourmet regional Mexican meal, you can go to Rivera in downtown LA, where it's easy to drop a hundred bucks. Or, you can dine at one of a number of restaurants here that are tan auténticos y deliciosos, pero menos caros. The Eat-LA/Off-Ramp Collaboration returns this week with a visit to La Casita Mexicana in Bell, where the food is affordable, delicious, and authentic.
COME INSIDE for the full list of restaurants we talk about.
Rocky Horror Picture Show is turning 35 - It was Lou Adler who brought it to the US
Our series of career-retrospective interviews with Lou Adler continues. Lou Adler, the man who brought you Johnny Rivers, Cheech & Chong, The Mamas & The Papas, "Tapestry," and more also recognized the power of The Rocky Horror Show when it was playing in London, brought it to his Roxy Theatre in LA, then got The Rocky Horror Picture Show made.
Now, Adler says women have been responsible for many things in his life ... women introduced him to Herb Alpert and Jack Nicholson, for instance ... and it's true in this case, too, as he told The Hollywood Reporter's Alex Ben Block.
COME INSIDE for info about the 35th anniversary showing of the movie 9/25 at downtown LA's Million Dollar Theatre, featuring Barry (Brad) Bostwick. News Release from Green Galactic: "The Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPS) celebrates its 35th year with a very special anniversary screening on Sat. Sep. 25 in Downtown LA at the gorgeous Million Dollar Theater (Sid Grauman's first in 1918; seen in Blade Runner). Barry Bostwick, who stars as Brad Majors in the film, will officiate the madness." "Presented by Sins O' The Flesh, the LA-based volunteer RHPS performance troupe, the evening is part of a larger anniversary weekend - SinsCon - the 35th Anniversary Convention of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which runs the three-day weekend of September 23 - 25, 2010 in Los Angeles. (You may have seen the LA troupe at the Nuart Theater in West LA where they have been performing every Saturday night at midnight since December 1987.)" "Bring your virgins!"
The Golden Gate Theater's Next Life as a Drug Store
On Whittier and Atlantic in East LA lies the Golden Gate Theater, made in 1927. Sadly, it's been almost 25 years since the Golden Gate showed its last film.
In that time the theater has been abandoned and the subject of a lot of political wrangling. But thanks to a decision by the LA County Board of Supervisors this past May, the fight looks like it might come to an end. The theater's owner, a developer called Charles Company, just got permission to convert the building into a CVS pharmacy while preserving some of the theater's most iconic elements. Off-Ramp's Kevin Ferguson talked with County Supervisor Gloria Molina about the Golden Gate's past, present and future.
Tomatomania!
If you haven't had a chance to take advantage of this season's tomato crop, time is almost up.
Consider running to your nearest farmer's market as soon as you finish this week's episode: To celebrate the latest batch of harvested tomatoes, we sent Cyndi Bemel to the Loteria Grill in Hollywood for Tomatomania, where the owner and producer Scott Daigre brought locally harvested heirlooms, hybrids, even something called Hayley's Purple Comet.
100 Nights of Standup with Blake Dirickson
In the world of stand-up comedy, they say it takes you 100 shows before you find your voice. But why wait?
Like every other aspiring comedian in LA, Blake Dirickson knows that. But he's decided to get those 100 shows out of the way as soon as he can. Now through December 20 he'll be doing one show every night. Kevin Ferguson caught up with him: Blake is also shooting a film to document his progress. You can read all about it and see is blog on our website, just go to kpcc dot or, click on off-ramp.
Goodbye, Columbus Day. Hello #ColumboDay!
It's Columbus Day, honoring, as anthropologist Jack Weatherford puts it, the man "who opened the Atlantic slave trade and launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history:"
Autumn would hardly be complete in any elementary school without construction-paper replicas of the three cute ships that Columbus sailed to America, or without drawings of Queen Isabella pawning her jewels to finance Columbus' trip.
This myth of the pawned jewels obscures the true and more sinister story of how Columbus financed his trip. The Spanish monarch invested in his excursion, but only on the condition that Columbus would repay this investment with profit by bringing back gold, spices, and other tribute from Asia. This pressing need to repay his debt underlies the frantic tone of Columbus' diaries as he raced from one Caribbean island to the next, stealing anything of value.
After he failed to contact the emperor of China, the traders of India or the merchants of Japan, Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in the one important commodity he had found in ample supply - human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would fit and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets of Seville and sold as slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their parents, husbands from wives. On board Columbus' slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the Indian bodies into the Atlantic.
-- Anthropologist Jack Weatherford, Macalaster College
So instead of Columbus, let's honor Columbo!
Here's my 2010 interview with William Link, co-creator of "Columbo," along with "Mannix" and "Murder, She Wrote." Link explains how he and his partner came up with the idea of Columbo, and why they didn't approach it as a "whodunit."
Dinner Party Download talks with Dave Eggers
Dinner Party Download -- your 10 minute booster shot of culture and cuisine -- talks with author, publisher, artist, and time-travel store founder Dave Eggers.
Madeleine Brand Show Preview
KPCC's John Rabe talks with the cast and crew of The Madeleine Brand Show at Brand Central, their cubicle hive in the KPCC newsroom. Madeleine's show debuts Monday morning at 9am.
Hero or villain? Rethinking Charlie Chan with Yunte Huang, author of Chan's "untold story"
Yunte Huang comes to Vroman's Books in Pasadena Friday, September 24, to talk about "Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History." Listen to this extended interview with Off-Ramp host John Rabe. (For more information about the reading, go to vromansbookstore.com.)