The miniature art of Sunland's Alan Wolfson; the High Desert horse rescue hurt by Erin Corwin's murder; It's so hot ... we collected It's So Hot jokes; Charles Burns shows us the Sugar Skull inside the Hive.
The nation's first marijuana raid likely happened in Los Angeles
As California and the rest of the nation ponder how government should handle marijuana, an important anniversary came and went recently: 100 years ago this month, the nation's very first marijuana raid took place here in Los Angeles.
In 1914 not many Angelenos had heard of marijuana and probably even fewer were aware the state of California outlawed cannabis just the year before.
When the Los Angeles Times reported a raid on two “dream gardens” on September 10, 1914, they had to explain exactly what this drug was to its readers.
This article was dug up from the newspaper's archives by Dale Gieringer, Director of California NORML, an organization that lobbies for marijuana legalization. He organized a press conference on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall on the 100th anniversary of what was likely the nation's first marijuana raid.
"We’re actually here to celebrate, or commemorate, the 100th anniversary of the nation’s first known marijuana bust, which happened here in the then-Mexican district of Sonoratown of Los Angeles, on New High Street, not that far from City Hall," says Gieringer.
"Hardly anybody had heard of marijuana outside of the Mexican community when this happened. In fact, the law did not even mention marijuana. The law mentioned 'Indian hemp.' Marijuana is a Mexican word that specifically refers to cigarettes of cannabis," says Gieringer. "That had not been the way cannabis was usually used prior to then in California."
Marijuana was outlawed the year before the first raid. And according to Gieringer, it doesn’t seem like anyone really noticed.
"They did it very quietly in a technical amendment, and that was not reported anywhere in the press — that happened in 1913. The first arrests though were actually here in Los Angeles. And this is the first time you see marijuana on the front page," says Gieringer. "They had to explain what it is."
Even though few seemed to be using marijuana as a recreational drug at the time, it got swept up in the beginnings of the temperance movement.
A 1913 amendment to an earlier law called The Poison Act made possession of “extracts, tinctures, or other narcotic preparations of hemp or loco-weed” a misdemeanor. A year later, Inspector Roy Jones of the State Board of Pharmacy confiscated a $500 “wagonload” of Indian hemp from two “dream gardens” in downtown Los Angeles.
Inspector Jones explained to Los Angeles Times readers what it might feel like to smoke marijuana, saying “one cigarette of the stuff puts one in a dreamy state of beatitude.”
"And of course, the entirety of the public experience and awareness and use of marijuana came after the law that was intended to prevent it," says Gieringer.
Those notes passed in junior high are just clutter
Off-Ramp commentator Taylor Orci on the things you keep, and shouldn't.
I was cleaning out my closet and came across three Ziploc bags of handwritten notes I passed in junior high. Some of the notes were from friends, some were from crushes. Some were very tiny and on lavender paper addressed to Frog 1 from Frog 2. I do not remember who Frog 2 was.
Hey Taylz. Mind if I call you Taylz? I'm in Algebra eating Pez. I think it's cool you like Dave even thought Cindy went out with him.
Out of habit, I put all of the notes in my "to keep" pile. But then, I wondered what exactly I was holding on to. I opened a note and read it. Whoever wrote it to me was bored in a class she hated. She talked about a boy she liked. She swore a lot. She made an inside joke I forget the meaning of, she used a code name for a boy I have forgotten about. Why was I doing this?
Keeping these notes didn't make me feel good. In fact, they made me feel more anxious than anything, because I hated junior high. In junior high a group of girls tackled me, pulled up my shirt and took a picture of my bra because who knows why — and those were my friends.
I remember being 12, 13... and saving these notes in freezer bags with all the pride of an archivist. Like I would read them when I was grown, and they would have in them some wisdom, some childhood spark of imagination I had since lost, and reading them would help me remember something great.
But the notes weren't great; they were all about buying jeans and saying the word “crap” a lot. I guess I thought time was the thing that transformed a friend lamenting about French fries into the kind of letter a dying Civil War soldier would write to his fiancée with his one good arm.
Dear Taylor, wazzup? How's life? Eat any pie lately? Caught any pie thieves? Just kidding, I was trying to be funny. Or funny-la. That's what I'm gonna say from now on, I'm gonna make it my thing, funny-la. Do you remember Sublime? Bradley Nowell is my God.
I do remember having big thoughts as a kid, thoughts about isolation, death, how many hours Jimi Hendrix practiced guitar when he was my age and if I was missing out on greatness because I didn't really practice anything. It's just that, those weren't the things I wrote about to my friends.
I came across a note full of quotes from the movie "Clueless," the greatest movie ever made:
"Clueless," the greatest movie ever made
And I remembered this was the summer my school forced me to go to therapy. I had started cutting myself for a number of reasons, mostly because I didn't really like me very much. All I wanted to do was go to the mall and some swanky new place I'd heard about called Louise's Trattoria with the girl who wrote the “Clueless” note.
So I lied to the therapist and told him I was hurting myself for attention because I hadn't accepted my stepdad as a positive male role model. Do I think that makes sense? No. But sure enough, it got me out of therapy.
But there was nothing so on-the-nose in that note I wrote to that girl, or in anything I wrote to anyone. So I took the three bags of notes, and I threw them away.
At first, I felt like I was betraying my kid self. I imagined little 12-year-old Taylor, confused and upset that what she worked so hard to save never actually became all that important. She probably would call adult me a dumbass, and journal about me all night. But adult me knows that junior high sucked, and I don't need three freezer bags full of kid notes to remind me of that.
After I threw out the notes, I felt lighter. And I'll never have to come up with some lame explanation to my kids why this was so important to me and why they should care about it, too.
I should add I was inspired to clean out my closet because I just helped clean out my grandparents’ house, and tumbling out of every closet were bags and bags of similar things. Not notes passed in junior high, but skeins of synthetic yarn with a quarter of a bright orange sweater attached, commemorative coins you looked at to remember the tenth anniversary of the moon landing. A limited edition jar of cologne inside a ceramic figurine of Betsy Ross. These things were waiting for a day that they had value, but value wasn't something time alone could give those things. So they sat in closets, waiting.
Tintin on acid: Charles Burns ends his dark trilogy with 'Sugar Skull'
Graphic novelist Charles Burns stopped by the Mohn Broadcast Center to talk with Off-Ramp host John Rabe about "Sugar Skull," which completes the trilogy that includes "X'ed Out" and "The Hive." He's doing a signing tonight (Thurday, Sept. 18) at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz.
Why the trilogy? Burns says, "I had finished another book, "Black Hole," which was this very long graphic novel, all in black and white, and I wanted to do something in color, so I conceived a series of books, based on a series of my life, late '70s, the Punk Era. It started that way, and then it turned into something else."
RELATED: Miniaturist Alan Wolfson, or "Honey! I shrunk the strip club!"
The look of Burns' books:
... is drawn from one of his childhood favorites, the Belgian Tintin, who had all sorts of politically incorrect adventures:
"It's called the clear-line school of comics. And it's exactly what it sounds like: very clear lines, but perfectly rendered in color."
If there's more shadow in Burns' books than in Herge's, that's because the lines between good and bad, dark and light, reality and unreality are blurrier in Burns. The trilogy moves back and forth in time and place, including between the normal world and a bizarre world in which a character named Johnny 23 struggles with many of the same issues the protagonist in the real world, Doug, faces... including a pregnant girlfriend.
(From Sugar Skull, by Charles Burns. )
Are they two separate stories or Doug's subconscious world? Burns won't say. "That's for the reader to figure out. I don't really ever clearly explain those things at all, and I like to leave those things open. Interpretation is great, as far as I'm concerned."
Burns turns 59 on Sept. 27. How does he like approaching 60? "As far as the day-to-day landscape, things are more settled in. But as far as my sweltering, swelling, itching brain, that hasn't changed at all unfortunately."
Reporter Sharon McNary tests the 3-foot bike rule
Off-Ramp host John Rabe talks with KPCC's Sharon McNary about the new law requiring California drivers to give bicyclists 3-feet of space when passing.
Usually, Sharon's on KPCC's Politics and Government desk, but she's also a regular bicycle commuter. Listen and find out how she did on the road under the new law.
(Sharon in the biking portion of an Ironman race. Read all about it on her website.)
Erin Corwin's death hurt one of her last refuges: White Rock Ranch Horse Rescue
Off-Ramp contributor R.H. Greene has been spending a lot of time in the High Desert recently, where he became obsessed by a story of unsung kindness lurking behind one of last summer's grimmest tabloid headlines: The murder of Marine wife Erin Corwin.
(A photo of Erin Corwin released by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.)
White Rock Ranch Horse Rescue is a charity for horses, still surviving, but changed forever by a brush with evil. It’s a non-profit orphanage for unwanted horses near Yucca Valley, at the end of a long dirt road so pocked by the wind it threatens to shake a car to pieces at speeds above 10 miles per hour.
It's feeding time for the 53 horses who live here. Isabella Megli, co-founder and currently White Rock's sole proprietor, tosses armloads of hay from a golf cart, as unfettered horses canter by. Carol Davison is a weathered retiree who has worked and lived on the ranch for over six years. She hovers by Isabella's side, protectively.
RELATED: AudioVision's beautiful slideshow on horse racing
On the other side of a picket fence, a trim, middle-aged "people doctor" who won’t give her name is bandaging a horse's leg wound with practiced hands. Inside the big corral, some two dozen horses frolic and snort, attended by a pair of young-looking military wives, in for the day from the Marine base at Twentynine Palms.
Davison says most of the animals have been through some combination of abuse and loss.
RELATED: Group fighting for ban on some exotic pets
There's Gemeni, a pharmaceutical industry castoff, nameless when she arrived except for the large inventory number "605" branded onto her side. There's Mystic, a quarterhorse, with a raw and permanent knee injury on her right hind-leg, and a rigid leg muscle that dangles in the wrong place. She was lamed by "horse-tripping," an antique roping practice still popular at rodeos and Mexican charreadas.
And then there's Cassy, the horse I came to see. Lexie Marks, one of the visiting Marine wives, is "sponsoring" Cassy, a big step on the road to adopting her. But there are complications, "because her owner recently died." Cassy is skittish and has trust issues. And no wonder — the horse’s story is almost entirely about loss.
Isabella told me Cassy came to the ranch from an abusive household, run by a hoarder. For months, she was too skittish to make a friend. Then a shy 19-year-old newlywed named Erin Corwin relocated to Twentynine Palms with her Marine corporal husband and visited the White Rock ranch. The bond between Erin Corwin and Cassy was instant and profound.
Isabel said, "Erin picked her out of 30 (horses). I don't know why or how, and she says, 'I want this one.' But she walked in and caught her. She rode her bareback without a bit, and those two were just one."
Later, when the microphone has been turned off, Isabella broke down talking about Erin, and blamed herself for all the signs of trouble she did and didn't see. But as we spoke of Erin and stared at the horse she once loved, the 19 year old girl seems present… maybe like the wind in the distance.
With the negative publicity surrounding Erin Corwin's murder, White Rock ranch, a 501(c)(3) relying heavily on charitable contributions, has taken a major financial hit. Volunteers have been harder to come by, and donations are down.
Right now, she says they're trying to raise money to dig a well, because every one of the dozens of horses there needs to drink 62 gallons of water a day. Then, she turns briskly to attend to the myriad chores she has left to do — and as magnets go to pull us through our days, it's enough.
Artist Alan Wolfson's exquisite miniature towns
Off-Ramp contributor Collin Friesen reports on Alan Wolfson, who makes miniature street scenes and has a retrospective coming up in Lyon, France.
Some artists go big. Think Kent Twitchell’s huge mural of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra by the Harbor Freeway. Others shrink the world into something you can fit in a briefcase — that's L.A. artist Alan Wolfson.
(Wolfson at work in his workshop. Credit: Alan Wolfson)
At his workshop in Sunland, inside, on various benches, are what you might call the fulfillment of this 66-year-old’s childhood dream.
“When I was a kid I always built things,” says Wolfson. “Like in elementary school I’d build dioramas in shoe boxes — police stations, grocery stores, I always got off on that. My dad was an artist, so I was lucky, I was encouraged to do this. I never thought I’d be able to do this as a livelihood.”
RELATED: Collin Friesen solves the mystery of the North Hollywood mannequins
Wolfson is talking about his miniature street models. They provide extremely — and I mean extremely — detailed looks at the way cities like New York and L.A. used to be in the '70s and '80s. There’s Peepland, a gritty adult theater and sex shop that's about the size of two Kleenex boxes.
From the marquee, advertising “Hot Biker Girls,” to the burnt out bulbs on the Peepshow sign, the details are perfect. Looking at it is like entering a time machine, and it's so well done you feel like you need a shower afterward.
Bend down and look inside, past the adult magazine rack, and notice the tiny dildos on the wall.
“I focus in interiors. I like it when people walk up, glance at the whole piece, and then they realize there’s a view into that… I like it when they find the hidden details.”
I ask him if those “finds” are like Easter eggs. In a way they are, he admits, although he considers it a part of a yet unwritten narrative.
“What I’m trying to do is, I’m trying to give you scenery, lighting and enough props so you can come up with your own narrative…so you can put on your own show.”
Wolfson’s work has a post-Rapture feel. He never features people, except in the shrunken ads and movie posters. He says putting miniature humans in the scenes just advertises that they’re not real, pulling focus from the overall experience of the piece.
Each sculpture takes from three months to a year and half, and Wolfson makes everything, from the smallest brick to the theater napkin dispenser with a single napkin pulled a third of the way out, that sits next to the stack of cups leaning precariously from the counter of the concession stand. It’s art by the millimeter. Not photorealism per se, but a slightly heightened, condensed version of how things used to look and feel.
Wolfson has built more than 100 dioramas in his career. They can sell for tens of thousands of dollars, but he says that’s actually not why exhibitors need to beef up security when they show his work.
“The museum in New York had a security detail,” he laughs. “And the show I’m doing in France, they’re aware of the fact that groups of school children go through. They find it interesting and they want to stick their fingers in there.”
Nineteen of his works will be shown at his career retrospective later this month in Lyon, France at the Musée Cinéma et Miniature.
Once a year, West Adams' Angelus Rosedale Cemetery comes to life
The Angelus Rosedale cemetery in West Adams has buried more history buried underground than probably any place in Los Angeles. Some of Southern California's founding fathers are buried there. Movie stars. Tycoons. Civil War veterans. This year it celebrates its 130th birthday.
On Saturday, Sept. 27 the West Adams Heritage Association will host its annual Living History Tour of the cemetery.
When Angelus Rosedale was founded in 1884, it was home to Los Angeles' early mayors, business people and even a former governor. As time went on actors and film industry professionals made Angelus Rosedale their final resting place – though it wasn't often by choice.
"One of the things they seemed to have in common – those who landed here – they were very famous. They made a lot of money, and they spent their money on alcohol," said Meyers. "Eventually, they landed here."
One of the cemetery's most famous residents is Hattie McDaniel. McDaniel played Mammy in "Gone With the Wind" – a role which made her the first African-American to win an Academy Award.
"When she died, she had asked to be buried at a different cemetery, but because she's African-American they had discriminatory rules at the time, and she wasn't welcome," said Meyers. "Instead, she's buried here."
Angelus Rosedale is also home to dozens of bodies who were buried decades before the cemetery's 1884 founding – transported to West Adams after Los Angeles' original graveyards had been neglected and stood in the way of a quickly developing downtown.
For their tour this year, the West Adams Heritage Association plans to highlight Angelus Rosedale's connection to the Civil War. The bodies of dozens of union and confederate soldiers rest inside the cemetery's walls, along with the cousins of Abraham Lincoln and Confederate president Jefferson Davis.
For Meyers, one of the most notable residents of Angelus Rosedale is Allen Allensworth – the first African-American to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. Allensworth was born into slavery in Louisville, Kentucky and escaped during the civil war to fight for the Union.
After the war ended, Allensworth became a Baptist minister. He kept close to the military and was appointed chaplain to the Buffalo Soldier regiment in the late 1800s. Allensworth also founded a city: Allensworth, California was a planned community for African-Americans started in the early 20th century.
Allensworth retired in Southern California and died in Monrovia on Sept. 14, 1914 after being hit by a motorcycle. He's buried at Angelus Rosedale among dozens of other Union soldiers.
Spots for the Angelus Rosedale Living History Tour on Sept. 27 are available at this link.
Book burning anyone? A look at LA's comic book ban of 1948
UPDATE: Next week is Banned Books Week, and on Tuesday, Sept. 23, there's a free performance at the Central Library by Captured Aural Phantasy Theater bringing some banned comics to life. CAPT's Ben Dickow tells us the show will include a discussion about the ban, which was sparked by some pretty adult fare making its way into kids' hands.
"The performance focuses on the April 21, 1954, U.S. Senate hearings into the bad influence of comic books. It was after these hearings that many comics were censored and banned. Captured Aural Phantasy Theater will perform excerpts of the actual transcripts from the hearings, a few of the stories that were mentioned by the Senators and some historical material that puts the hearings in the context of the times. Includes live music and short comedic bits much like a variety show." -- Captured Aural Phantasy Theater
The event reminds us of this fine piece Robert Garrova filed last year telling us about LA County's 1948 comic book ban.
Today, 'crime' video games are violent enough to scare away plenty of parents, but back in the '40s, it was crime comic books that filled the violent media role. Comics of the era were getting more and more violent too, and, in September 1948, L.A. County passed a ban on comic books.
Benjamin Dickow lectures on comics history at Otis College. He says the penalties for putting comics in the hands of minors were harsh. "Basically the ordinance said it was punishable up to a $500 fine and six months in jail if an adult gave or sold a comic to kids," Dickow says.
According to Dickow, some of these banned comics were never really meant for kids in the first place. "In WWII, GIs were reading comic books and when they got back they were still reading comic books. A lot of the comic book writers had been in the war," he says. "These were never totally meant for kids."
But, available at the grocery stores and five and dimes of the day, theses increasingly sensational comics provoked plenty of parents, and led to huge comic book burnings on the East Coast. Dickow says he can't help but see the comic book burnings of the '40s as a little paradoxical, as they happened just a few years after we defeated the book-burning Nazis.
Benjamin Dickow is part of a group called Captured Aural Phantasy Theater that brings comics and other culture to life monthly at El Cid. Captured Aural is celebrating their fifth anniversary of programming this year -- their next show is November 3. More info here.
LA Heat Wave: We're collecting 'It's So Hot ... ' jokes
There's not much you can do about the current heat wave but grin and bear it, with the accent on the grin. To that end, we're collecting "It's So Hot ..." jokes.
Like: It's so hot that a hipster in Highland Park shaved off his beard.
RELATED: The time Rabe tried to fry an egg on the sidewalk during a heat wave
Or, It's so hot that over at the Huntington, they've taken the cactus plants inside!
(Image: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens)
I put out the call on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and Steve Weintz came though for us:
, the Tar Pits boiled off & the fossils crawled out & over to the LACMA garage.
— Steve Weintz (@Moe_Delaun)
@KPCCofframp @KPCC #ItsSoHot, the Tar Pits boiled off & the fossils crawled out & over to the LACMA garage.
— Steve Weintz (@Moe_Delaun) September 15, 2014
But we need more.
If you've got an "It's So Hot" joke for us to help us deal with the heat wave, please leave it in the comments section below or post it on our social media feeds with the hashtag #ItsSoHot, and thanks!
UPDATE TUESDAY:
KPCC's Morning Edition host, Steve Julian, e-mailed these to me, "from a friend," which means "the Internet: "
How hot is it?
The cows are giving evaporated milk.
The chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs
I saw a dog chasing a cat and they were both walkin'
The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.
The potatoes cook underground, and all you have to do to have lunch is to pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper.
The trees are whistling for the dogs.
You start putting ice cubes in your water bed.
You can make instant sun tea.
Your car overheats before you drive it.
Mike Sheehan's sketchbook: Elvis Costello at the Hollywood Bowl
Artist Mike Sheehan has been sketching for Off-Ramp for a couple years now and has taken us across Southern California, from the Murrieta immigration protests to a gangster's hideout in Lake Arrowhead to Mayor Garcetti's inauguration. This time, it's a summer night at the Bowl.
Last Saturday I went to the Hollywood Bowl to see Elvis Costello and Ben Folds.
Symphony orchestras have a tradition of hosting rock musicians. Sometimes this isn't such a great idea. Metallica anyone? But sometimes the right rock musicians collide with the L.A. Phil, and it makes sense.
I've been a fan of Elvis Costello for a long time and been fascinated by his career. He seems fearless in exploring disparate musical styles and working with musicians and songwriters across genres. And he's a real practitioner of song-craft and ornate wordplay.
Saturday, it was rock's former "angry young man" turned gracious host and storyteller — kind of a study in how to age gracefully and stay relevant by constantly pushing yourself into new territory. And, judging by Saturday night, just having fun and enjoying what you do. I always imagine that it must be great to be free to explore more complex or new arrangements of your work with such a world-class group of musicians.
Costello and Folds both brought a sense of humor to the evening. But at the Bowl, it's just as much about the experience. I love the Bowl in the summer. Half the fun is getting there early, enjoying the wine, food, conversation and weather. When all the elements come together, it's amazing — one of those things I can always count on.
I did forget my usual dimmer book light for sketching, so I MacGyver'd a little button light with a paper napkin over it to dim it (didn't want to bother other listeners), cupped it in one hand, and hoped I got a few drawings.
I realized that I tend to hit the Bowl in late August or early September. It's this and not Labor Day that signals that my summer is coming to a close. I know Southern California has a kind of year-round summer, but I still always hate to let go of it.