Sunday, April 29, 2007

A Little Koreatown Boosterism...


video via www.turnhere.com

Grindhouse Grinds Down With Angela Mao

As the Grindhouse Film Festival finishes off this week, let's take this moment to remember the Queen of Seventies Martial Arts Glory, Angela Mao.

Not all of us forgot your star turns in Return of the Tiger, where you teamed with Bruce Li(!) in order to coolly-demolish an entire yakuza gang with pre-Chun Li flying birdkicks and a vengeance not before seen, even in Hong Kong cinema, all the while wearing a perfectly-fitting silver lame bodysuit. Later, in Tie jin gang da po zi yang guan, aka Stoner, you showed George Lazenby whose film it truly was, besting the former James Bond at every turn through your intense combination of sensuality and heroism.

We also remember you leaving film in 1982, in the midst of your fame, to raise a family, leaving all your bitterly-disappointed fans with celluloid memories filtered through the spectrum of weekend and late-night syndication.

Thanks for bringing her back, Grindhouse Film Festival.



video via skipster73

Bookworms of the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area Unite!


UCLA Campus Squirrel
Flickr photo from City Rat.
As we all know, for a certain stripe of Angeleno, the always well-attended LA Times Festival of Books is an annual spring pilgrimage, and, while it might be entirely-inappropriate to compare its popularity to that of Easter or Passover, I'd say it definitely plays a great third-string in that great pantheon of Spring Festivals Requiring Massive Amounts of Patience. Of course, we know that a good majority of our fellow Angelenos are there to gaze upon the curious breed of squirrel that chooses to inhabit the environs of North Campus, and, really, what better way to pass a day than to grab an open spot in the shade and slowly relax with the latest Nick Hornby sensation in one hand while snacking on organic take-out with another(watch out for hungry squirrels!)?

Now, I've attended the Festival for pretty much every year since my UCLA days; however, I decided that the usual day of shady Westwood parking garage nightmares followed by bookish shopping and slumber followed by more shady Westwood parking garage nightmares wouldn't quite pass muster this year.

Therefore, I astutely went on Ticketmaster the week before and reserved admission for three author panels, an act which gave me a slight feeling of mature responsibility(Thanks Ticketmaster), a feeling which promptly evaporated when I realized in medias res the realization that author panels, unlike UCLA basketball games or the Long Beach Grand Prix, are basically starving for people to attend, so I would have easily gotten in anyhow. Also, people who attend book events are incredibly-punctual and generally-polite, so forget about people "rushing" the door, etc.

The first panel was alliteratively-titled "The Sands of Strife: The Middle East," and it happened to feature Mark Berman, the author of Black Hawk Down, who was simultaneously both the most-famous and least-interesting of the four panelists. The other panelists, whose names now escape me, managed to engage the audience both through witty anecdotes and, also, through dissing the Bush decision to commence the Iraq War.

Unfortunately, a group named the Democratic Revolutionary Communist Party hijacked the Q&A afterward, so my question about the future of Arab media in forwarding democracy went unheard amid denunciations of the capitalist status quo in the United States and exhortations to vote for somebody named Bob Avakian as President of the United States.

Speaking of politics, the ever-prescient Gore Vidal remains a great speaker, although at his age, it's more about applauding him for a life's work than for caring about whatever he's writing now. There is something of a last hurrah feel to seeing the author of "Myra Breckonridge" and "Lincoln" taking the Bush administration to task.

Alas, Gore, we shall not see the likes of you again.


Friday, April 27, 2007

NFT Launch 4.27.07


Heading over to Highland Park in order to celebrate the official launch of the 2007 Not For Tourists Guide to Los Angeles, I could not help but feel a more than a little ambivalent. On the one hand, the offer of free Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and a free NFT Guide proved tempting; however, the wording of the invite sounded just a little too-self-congratulatory: "Bloggers, you know L.A. We at N.F.T. know L.A..." As much as I like admire baseless flattery, I have never been a tremendous fan of the the N.F.T. Guides, mainly due to their too-mundane detail(do we really need to know about every laundromat in the Hancock Park area?) and their amazingly-arcane maps which frankly make the study of Egyptian hieroglyphs seem like fifth-grade material by comparison.

Anyhow, by the time I arrived, the party had been going on for two hours already, so I had to forget about the evening's main draw, a free N.F.T. Guide, a fact the doorman attempted to make up for by passing me a ticket for an extra dosage of the P.B.R, actually a good deal since I had planned on the Seinfeldian "regift" job on the N.F.T. Guide anyhow. Footsie's-known as Highland Park's local hipster dive-certainly did not disappoint, with pool matches played by people who clearly knew better than to take the often-sacrosanct rules of pool seriously accompanied by a safe, too-by-the-Hipster-Handbook dosage of seriously-muted indie rock on the jukebox, a condition that nearly-always gives me an inexplicable jones for the completely hipster-suicide, 100% KMART aisle musical equivalent of a bright green polyester Nehru Jacket-the Vengaboys("We Like to Party" anyone? No takers?). Alas tackiness 'tweren't what it used to be...

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Can We Get Some AC Here?


LACMA
Flickr photo from tangerine112.
Tuesday evening's performance by Brazil's Assad Brothers at LACMA's Bing Theater proved to be a forceful argument for the acoustic guitar in the standard repertory. Indeed, the Assads, Latin Grammy winners who established their reputation on Nonesuch Records 2001 recording Sergio and Odair Assad Play Piazzolla, paced gracefully through masters such as Villa-Lobos, Rodrigo, and Gismonti, bringing to each their own signature flourishes. By the end of the evening, many of us finally found of which Assad is which: Sergio lives in Chicago, while Odair teaches in Brussels.

Unfortunately, LACMA's Bing Theater was desperately in need of some form of air circulation. Perched in the fourth row, I was breaking out into an extremely-uncomfortable sweat.

All in all, though, the performance was definitely worth it, as the Assads truly give their all to the music

Monday, April 23, 2007

Stupidest. Idea. Ever.


Of course, in order to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the Rodney King Uprisings/Riots(the term used depends a great deal on your political outlook), a group known as the Friendship Boxing Club(!) has deemed it necessary to plan an event to promote "Memorial Harmony."
What sort of event you might wonder? Maybe A)a peace rally attended by a few local community figures giving featureless speeches devoted to breathless ideals such as friendship, racial harmony, and anti-consumerism?Nope. Umm, B)a charitable gig featuring Chuck Norris, Soliel Moon-Fry, Gloria Allred and other readily-available C-list celebs including, perhaps, Mr. King himself? Nope. C)A Multicultural Book Fair featuring independent bookstores to compete, in numbers and diversity, with the Borders/Barnes & Noble-dominated Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA? Try again.

The answer is D)A boxing match.

Nice going guys. We all know that boxing, unlike the aformentioned-pastimes, promotes tolerance and racial harmony unlike any other activity, and it will surely inform future generations that we truly learned something from the images of Los Angeles burning under curfew fifteen years ago, even if really we only watched from the entirely-safe vantage point of our own living rooms and armed solely with a remote control.

Thanks Friendship Boxing Club for your efforts to promote a more-liveable future in our city.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Last Remaining Seats...


Orpheum
Flickr photo from eNRGeee.
More than a few bloggers have already mentioned this festival, but it's important that we get the word out on a Los Angeles Institution, the Last Remaining Seats Film Festival. It's one of the few chances we have to see truly classic films in wonderful historic venues including, this year, the Orpheum and Alex Theaters. Here's the schedule:

2007 Schedule (Wednesdays at 8 p.m.)

May 23 North by Northwest Orpheum Theatre
May 30 Roman Holiday Los Angeles Theatre
June 6 Flesh and the Devil Orpheum Theatre
June 13 Yankee Doodle Dandy Los Angeles Theatre
June 20 La Balandra Isabel llego esta tarde John Anson Ford Amphitheatre
June 27 Scarface Alex Theatre

On the one hand, Hitchcock at the Orpheum sounds like a sure bet, but whose idea was it to show Scarface? It's fun watching Pacino do his schtick, but Scarface a veritable film classic? I guess this gives Angelenos a good opportunity to revive the debate...

Poker Challenge


Alright, it's Saturday night, it's Koreatown, you're probably expecting a fully-reported evening of careless carousing at the local watering hole/karoake parlours. However, the Koreatown Chronicler's wonderful Westchester friends always throw a well-attended Ten Dollar Poker Night every couple of months, and the thought of a friendly, yet cost-effective, evening of booze-fueled competition is always impossible to resist, especially since it always offers me the opportunity to casually visit one of my favorite grocery stores, Bristol Farms, in order to pick up some pre-poker competition goodies. This time, I decided that the wonderfully-breezy Spring weather demanded that we drink Jamaica's very own alchoholic brew, Red Stripe. Of course, you think of beer when you think of Jamaica, right?

Of course, the party itself was spectacular, with Jenn Fong adding to the festivities with a delicious Raspberry Mousse Cake from Glendale's own Porto's Bakery, always a party highlight.



As far as the poker itself goes, well, Gary Hoggatt has promised to send me a full write-up of the top four players and their winnings, which pretty much tells you how far my "subtle, conservative" approach to poker got me last night: let's just say I was playing Solitaire and making repeated appetizer bar trips pretty early. Suggestion: We could have a Mah Jong table for poker drop-outs supplemented with readings from various Amy Tan novels including, but not limited to, The Joy Luck Club, for inspiration(I also have the Original Broadway Cast Album of Rodger and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song which gives me an idea...)...Any takers?

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Restaurant Review #3-Versailles


It's with great pleasure that a recent trip into the environs of Encino resulted in my being able to savor the samplings of the tasty Cuban restaurant, Versailles. Now, I have always been a huge Versailles fan, having had a few birthday fiestas at their Venice location, and this has always been mainly because it is such a singular experience of an interesting, varied cuisine rarely sampled in the United States outside of Little Havana in Miami, a shame because Cuban food generally tends to be both just hearty enough for a full meal and just exotic enough, especially with its hints of citrus, to be interesting, thus making it an ideal impress-your-date food.

Although there are four locations in Los Angeles, I vouch for the Encino location providing the most superb overall dining experience, especially after a recent interior design. Parking's still rough, though, and you might find yourself parking over at the crowded strip-mall next store to find a parking space, especially during lunch hour and weekend evenings, times when you should also expect to wait twenty minutes for a seat.
All meals at Versailles begin with a serving of buttered garlic bread, enough to whet the appetite, yet leave one waiting for the main course. Those expecting tortilla chips and salsa will be bitterly disappointed...

As far as entrees are concerned, probably the most popular dish is the famed Garlic Chicken, covered in a thick layer of onions and lathered with a refreshing garlic-citrus marinade. On the side, fried plantains and moros y cristianos(black beans and rice) round out the meal, a relative bargain at under ten dollars. Round out the meal with an appetizer of fried yucca, and you may have the best Cuban dish in the city.

Also to be considered are the ropa vieja, a sort of beef stew that's incredibly spicy, and the paella, a Cuban spin on the Spanish dish well-worth the forty minute-plus prepration time. There are also a few vegetarian options, so vegetarians do not need to feel entirely left out of the feasting fun.
If dinner is not enough, dessert options are varied as well; Versailles is not the type of restaurant to be abandoned after the main course in favor of Ben & Jerry's. I personally prefer the homemade flan with a coffee apperetif.
It's rare in Los Angeles to find an interesting, yet neighborly, restaurant where dinner for two comes in at under twenty-five dollars, but Versailles definitely fits the bill. Furthermore, be sure not to be intimidated by the long lines: they move rather quickly, especially considering the extreme friendliness of the staff, many of whom have worked there for what seems like forever and who take extra care to make sure your experience is ideal.
So whether it's an inexpensive date or a get-together with college buddies, definitely consider Versailles as an option. After a first visit, you will not need much convincing in order to return.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Little Tokyo Beats Us to the Digitized Punch!


little tokyo
Flickr photo from miafaye.
OK, so we've broken ground(as of tomorrow) on city-wide Wifi in Little Tokyo of all places, and, ironically, this on the day while Antonio is giving his State of the City Address downtown. Thus, we have three blocks of L.A. now covered by a wireless "cloud", while the rest of us pay cable companies, T-Mobile, and Starbucks for our digital fix.

So we here at the Koreatown Chronicle have to ask our quite photogenic, yet not-always-very-available, mayor, "Why, Mr. Villaraigosa, does Little Tokyo now have a municipal WiFi umbrella, while the rest of Los Angeles is left to its own devices? Wasn't it one of your much-hyped projects to produce a completely wireless Los Angeles, or did that idea get lost at the last City Council Meeting?"

Thanks for the Memories

Now that the day's over, let's remember that we are collecting fond, tender memories for generations to come.

Thanks IRS for giving us the opportunity to turn a tiresome, computer-laden chore into an annual ritual of forms, numbers, and postage stamps.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Thank You, State of California


Opening my mailbox this afternoon, a mysterious Franchise Tax Board check tumbled out.

Eighteen bucks. Nice.

Anybody for a lunch at Denny's? I'm buyin'.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Three Cheers for Orange County(The Taco Gods Are Pleased)!


As the majority of the people in the social circles I belong to slowly move toward the supposedly life-changing event of turning thirty, it gives me immense solace to know that we still have it in us to throw outstanding...taco parties. Chicago has its pizza, the Carolinas have their pulled pork, Seattle has its coffee, and we in Los Angeles have the diminutive, yet fiesty, taco. We even have a blog called "L.A. Taco" dedicated entirely to the "Taco Lifestyle in Los Angeles." Yes, friends, tacos are not just a mere assortment of chilly iceberg lettuce, processed cheese gunk, warmed ground beef, and yellow fried corn shell;rather, they are the culinary representation for the Los Angeles mindset: unhurried, confident, appropriate without being stuffy...

Food aside, Mike and Phaedra always throws a wonderful birthday party annually in the city of Tustin. You heard me right friends...great parties in Tustin, a city firmly within the firmanent of the Orange County gods(and, formerly, the U.S. military), yet the local kids still manage to do right by their tacos. Of course, the best indication of the success of a party is how late the last guests leave, and I must say, last call came sometime past one with guests leaving with plenty of taco leftovers in arm. It's good to know that even though Mike's now a proud parent, that will not serve as an excuse to put the tortillas away early.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Goin' South for Some Rollickin' Fun

Having skipped the Joshua Ferris reading at Skylight last night, I had originally planned on calling it an early night, perfect for enjoying a glass of Suav Blanc on the Kung Futon. It was not to be...

The New Beverly Cinema has a special triple-feature of Southern regional movies going this weekend(as part of the Grindhouse Film Festival), and the temptation of heading over there for a little Southern-fried film was far too intense.

The first flick, Hot Summer in Barefoot County(1974) or Kuuma kesä Barefoot Countyssa in Finnish(thank you Internet Movie Database) features bootleggin' fun in a small town, and all the usual cliches are out in full force. Don Jones plays the world-wise "city" boy cop sent to break up the locals' fun, and Jeff MacKay plays Culley Joe Roberts, the good ol' boy who, seemingly out of sheer boredom, lives solely to frustrate his efforts. Along the way, there are more blatant scene-chewing car chases than you could shake a stick at(I lost count at #7 or something), most of which involve the usual incompetent bigoted Southern sheriff and his overly-fastidious, bumbling deputy sidekick, who, in one of the film's centerpiece scenes, gets assaulted by halter top bombshells Valerie Putney and Sherry Robinson. Great film, even if this particular transfer(Quentin Tarantino's own) was missing a few choice reels here and there.

Redneck Miller(1977) and In Hot Pursuit(1977) feature more of the same, although by this point, I'd gourged myself silly on three ridiculously-large popcorns by this time, and I was gleefully dozing in and out so both films sort of blur together in a haze of sticky butter-fueled, country music fun. In Hot Pursuit(1977), also known as Polk County Pot Plane, has an interesting backstory, something about a Georgia state politician wanting a film made about his congressional district, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Since you'd only see these movies here, I'd strongly recommend going and seeing them tonight if you can. Also, do not miss Koreatown's very own 1st Annual Subtitle Film Festival, playing this weekend at MPARK4 Theatre(Wilshire/New Hampshire).

Friday, April 13, 2007

Kung Futon

OK, so I've earned your disappointment by titling this entry "Kung Futon." However, I confess...I never thought the arrival of something so concrete and tangible as a mere piece of furniture-especially something with an easy-to-dismiss-as-not-quite-serious name such as "futon"- would herald the dawn of a new era, but, indeed, it has...

Officially, your Koreatown Chronicler is now no longer living a semi-monastic existence in a bargain basement sleeping bag atop hardwood; although, strangely, I am already heading toward unmerited sepia-toned nostalgia for the bare-bones "hardwood" days, kind of like Nirvana must have felt about the Bleach album or Walt Disney felt about the Alice comedies as Steamboat Willie rolled into production or (insert one more completely-irrelevant pop culture reference here for rhetorical effect). "When I moved to Koreatown, I didn't have a pillow to lay my head on, etc..."

Anyhow, I currently refuse to post any futon pictures, as I have to have something somewhat suspenseful to draw all you OC types here to Koreatown for my apartment warming gala(date and time TBA-I have to do my best Truman Capote before the Black and White Ball impression here). Of course, for those of you who may already have formed a set opinion on the subject of futons, we'll also be having karoake which I've heard really packs 'em in.

Let me take this opportunity to thank the very helpful staff at The Futon Shop over on La Brea. May the future futon buyers of America flock to your golden shores.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Jonathan Lethem at Skylight Books 4.11.07

Having passed on the opportunity to go over to Vroman's yesterday, I couldn't miss heading over to my favorite Los Feliz haunt, Skylight Books, to see Jonathan Lethem reading and signing his new book You Don't Love Me Yet, covering the escapades of a group of penniless musician bohos struggling to make a go of it in Los Angeles. Of course, we don't expect Lethem, whose notable works include Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, writing about L.A., but more on that later...


Of course, this being an evening featuring a novel about L.A. musicians, and this also being Skylight Books, the crowd was provided with a little Lethem preshow with three Silverlake musicians performing "Monster Eyes," a song based on You Don't Love Me Yet, which set a sort of laid-back tone(check out the guy in the animal mask complete with Vodka bottle) for the subsequent reading.

Lethem was great, really choosing passages which struck a chord with the audience. Although I was not sure he'd pull it off, he managed to capture the sort of completely-relaxed, yet simultaneously self-serious, tone of Silverlake bohemia, especially the band scene. I really thought it was a bold stroke that Lethem chose to have one of his main characters working for a telephone hotline where people air their random complaints. One part of the book I chanced to read had this character, aptly-named Lucinda Hoekke, asking her musician boyfriend to head down to San Pedro for crabs. When I later had the chance to ask Lethem about the scene, he said he stole the idea from a popular L.A. guidebook for tourists. Yes. I'm now reminded of Ports O' Call in good ol' Pedro...


Anyhow, digressions aside, Letham fielded numerous questions from the audience, including my own too-obvious inquiry about why he chose Los Angeles for his setting. He mentioned something to the effect of he was becoming tired of being the guy-who-knows-and-writes-all-about-Brooklyn. Refreshing reply.

So get the book. Read it. Tell me what you think. If you have any complaints, feel free to call the Grievance Hotline at (213) 291-7778. I can't promise absolute satisfaction if you take the time to read the novel, but I certainly can promise somebody's undivided attention to your somewhat factually-based, yet most strident, opinions and comments.

Metro Fare Increase

The following is being posted here and has been sent to all members of the Los Angeles City Council. Normally, I find public postings such as this annoying, but I think it's important to take a stand on this one...

To Whom It May Concern:

Thanks for offering us the opportunity to write and/or
email in our opinions about the upcoming fare
increase. As somebody who has moved back to Los
Angeles from the suburbs specifically because of the
fantastic system of Metro Rail that has been built
here in the city, I am really upset about the fare
increase, not so much because of the actual cost,
which I can afford, but because I am afraid this fare
increase might dissuade people from even trying to
leave their cars.

Let's face it, most middle-class Angelenos have to be
lured to try public transit in our automobile-ridden
city, and higher fares just are not the way to get
them to try Metro Rail. Basically the message behind
increasing fares is that those people who are using
public transportation should be penalized for doing
so, hardly a way to boost Metro ridership. Indeed, if
anything, Metro fares should be decreased in order to
promote civic responsibility through using public
transit.

Of course, I shouldn't also have to point out the
obvious damage this fare increase will do to
working-class Angelenos, many of whom already subsist
in this city under the poverty line, although it's
hard to imagine how.

Instead of taxing those of us who use public
transportation, perhaps it's time we consider tolls on
some of our massively-clogged freeways leading into
and out of our metropolis, a step already taken in
other major U.S. and world cities of comparable size
to our own. In an era when global warming captures
headlines, such a step, although unpopular and, yes,
inconvenient, is clearly the right thing to do in this
instance.

The ultimate question is: Is Los Angeles going to
accept responsibility for its transportation problems
and make the hard choice or will it continue to make
choices detrimental to the vast majority of its
citizens? Are we following the lead of other major
cities and fully-supporting public transportation, or
are we going to continue complaining about traffic as
we sit in our air-conditioned houses, completely
disconnected from the urban metropolis around us?

The decision now lies with you. Make the right call.

Thank you,

Brandon Gabriel Abraham

Canter's in the Wee Hours; Pet Rent Due

So last night's Josh Haden concert at Temple Bar ended at Canter's...sort of the requisite stop-off before the obligatory drive home, and certainly more lively than the sparse crowd at the Haden show. Even though the place looks beat-up(like the customers at that hour), the food is average-mediocre on a good night, and the wait staff does anything but wait to take your order, Canter's hands-down beats any other 24-hour place in L.A., at least between the hours of 12 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. Where else can you get kischka varnischkas at those ungodly hours?

On another note, I found out this morning that I owe my monthly ten dollars pet rent, having forgotten to include it in my monthly check. This resulted in a note on my door admonishing me that although I am indeed a desired tenant, my apartment management prefers to receive its payment of Pet Rent on time. Interesting. This sets off several questions in my mind: Can I be evicted over Pet Rent? Or would Pancho the Chihuahua get evicted(I'm picturing it now: Angry landlord heartlessly slams door on unaware chihuahua with a "And stay out!" as said chihuahua marches hopelessly in the snow toward a U-HAUL)? Are there any other legal implications involved which might require a visit to Southwestern Law School Law Library("This time, he's doing it for the chihuahua.")? Furthermore, is Pet Rent covered under existing Rent Control or is that my next project?

Alright, I know, I've already gotten too much mileage off the Pet Rent debacle...

Time to pay the Man his ten bucks

Monday, April 9, 2007

KCRW Gives Me Free Tickets to a Musician About Whom I Know Nothing

Being a true Angeleno, the abundant amount of time spent in my semi-claustrophobic, yet oddly-anonymous, Nissan Sentra is actually used for something, much to the weary, jaded scepticism of all those New Yorkers out there who can't imagine anything productive occurring while, gasp, driving across the badlands of Los Angeles. Yes, my friends, time spent driving is time to a)attempt to read the headlines of the Los Angeles Times and maybe the odd opinion column as well or b)try to catch up on thanksless chores such as paying that past-due cell phone bill before service actually gets interrupted(note: reading and punching in a credit card number while driving is a feat Angelenos should demand as part of one of our inalienable rights) or c)engage in shameless flirtation(this tends to be more successful on freeways than surface streets for some inexplicable reason) or d)win concert tickets to an obscure band you've never heard of on KCRW. On my way to Santa Monica and La Brea today to buy a serviceable vase from my local Target retailer, I engaged in option D.

KCRW Announcer:(poised) This is KCRW. You're a winner!
Me: What? I won? Can I talk to Nic Harcourt?
KCRW Announcer: No, he's on-air right now. Can I have your membership number?
Me:(Fumbles through wallet)Umm...I think it's right here. Just a second...
KCRW Announcer: If you're driving, DON'T look for it...
Me:(Still fumbling) Hold on, I can't hear you. I always have bad reception when I go to Target.
KCRW Announcer: Just give me your last name. We'll find your number.
Me:(Relieved) Ohh...(short pause)Abraham.
KCRW Announcer: And your phone number in case we can't find your membership number?
Me:(Confused...again)I just changed it. It's in Koreatown, a 213 number. I could get it off my phone but I'd have to hang up(While this conversation is occuring, clearly-audible car horns and traffic noise can be heard).
KCRW Announcer: No worries. Just show up at Temple Bar at 10 p.m. Tuesday night for your pair of tickets. You're going to see Josh Haden!
Me:(Clearly does not know this artist but goes along in order to seem "in the know")Yes...Josh Haden. Yes. This rules! I've always wanted to see him live! I won!
KCRW Announcer:(Doesn't hide that she finds this display of feigned unabashed enthusiasm distasteful) Thanks for your support(hangs up).

Later, I checked the Temple Bar website and found out that I'd have paid seven dollars cover to see Josh Haden...Nevertheless, I feel an inexplicable small sense of victory, but not so much from actually having earned the right to see Josh Haden free of charge...

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Restaurant Review #2-Chi Dynasty




While everybody knows you can always find a Chinese restaurant open on Christmas, the same also seems to apply to that other major Christian holiday, Easter. Not being too sure what would be open today meant that our small circle of friends needed a sure bet, and the old Los Feliz stand-by Chi Dynasty, about a five-minute drive from Koreatown, seemed like an ideal spot, especially because Chinese food is usually enjoyable with a small crowd, perfect for sampling a little of everything.

The interior of the restaurant is a visual treat, with your typical flourishes of lacquered screens, jade buddhas, and towering pagodas. The interior designers did a great job in designing an Asian cultural experience without condescending into kitsch, a situation particularly common in Chinese restaurants built during the sixties and seventies. Be forewarned, however, the restrooms could be cleaned more regularly.



The meal began with a well-portioned Chinese Chicken Salad and several pots of black tea. The salad was especially noteworthy, with tasty chunks of chicken spread throughout without overwhelming the crisp lettuce.



As for the main course, everybody in our group enjoyed the lemon chicken, served with the lemon sauce on the side in order to preserve the full flavor of the meat. The green beans, bathed in a pungent garlic sauce, also proved to be a hit with everybody; however, the sesame chicken, another of Chi Dynasty's signature dishes, proved less popular, being served completely bathed in a too-tangy sesame sauce.



Overall, Chi Dynasty makes for an enjoyable dining experience. For a group of six(plus a two-month old), the entire tab came to around sixty dollars, which is pretty reasonable for this neighborhood. Unfortunately, the lunch menu doesn't include tofu options, so vegetarians are rather restricted in terms of dining choices, and this left more than one member of our party sorely disappointed. Since we were informed that Chi Dynasty will soon be moving to a new spot in Los Feliz Plaza due to lease complications, maybe this change of venue will also entail a broadening of choices on the menu. For now, however, if you're in Los Feliz craving Chinese, Chi Dynasty saves a drive to Chinatown without breaking the bank in the process.

Twelve Angry Men. One Satisfied Viewer.

Roundabout Theatre Company's Twelve Angry Men, a hit on Broadway now showing at the Ahmanson Theatre until May 6th, is a play for our time. Maybe too much for our time for the play's own good. It's become such a standard repertory piece that we pretty much need to be awed in order to be truly won over, which is suprising since this 1957 play initially shocked audiences with its raw portrayal of racial hypocrisy in the Land of the Free.

Pay close attention, however, and you'll still be able to find moments of intense insight into how subtlely racism can undermine even the most objective analysis, depicted especially when our Ivy League-educated Juror Eight must continually reiterate and justify his own qualms about the validity of the state's case. At several moments in the action, this performance allows us to share a bit of the general air of inevitability and resignation surrounding the case, a mood accentuated by the depressingly-nondescript design of Jury Room 2A, complete with the monotony of wall-to-wall forest green-and-black floor tiling which looks as though it were imported directly from the nearest DMV bureau. Kafka-meets-midcentury Manhattan, indeed.

George Wendt is perfectly-cast as the foreman; however, not to sound too much the theatre purist, but do we always need to applaud the appearance of a T.V. celeb in a stage production? Every actor in this show gave a stellar performance, yet when the jurors were introduced, only the two that had been on television received an introductory applause. Didn't Shakespeare tell us the play's the thing? Or am I just fighting the inevitable fact that theatre has become more or less an adjunct of television and film?

What's more, I was able to get a ticket two hours before the show for twenty dollars. At that price, I might just go back for an encore performance.

Stuart Timmons at Metropolis Books 4.7.07

For those unfamiliar with Downtown L.A., every native Angeleno sort of has a conflicted view of the place, a troubling situation not helped much by the sheer fact that the vast majority of Southern Californians never venture into the place and, when they do, the combination of traffic-congested one-way streets, rampant poverty amid pockets of blossoming affluence, and the lurking question of "Why did we bother coming here in the first place?" seem to make the visit a downer on even the best of days.

Currently, however, Downtown is undergoing an urban transformation. New building projects, more lofts than you can shake a subway map at, and, finally, some sense of urban life beyond the cultural outlet of Music Center have certainly helped. A great example would be the opening of Metropolis Books at Fourth and Main late last year, a move which finally brings that staple of cities everywhere to our lovely town: the cosmopolitan bookstore that serves as a meeting point for the "interested" of all persuasions.

Eager to see the results, I trekked Downtown yesterday to see Stuart Timmons reading from his new work Gay L.A., a book cowritten with the fantastic Lillian Faderman, and one which is particularly timely given that much of the history it chronicles takes place in buildings currently under redevelopment. Who would have known that the fading, yet still grand, Alexandria Hotel was the site of a 1914 scandal involving "masquerading"(L.A.P.D. code for drag)? Or that there was an anti-police brutality uprising in 1959 outside of Cooper's Donuts, ten years before Stonewall? With this work, Timmons has done for L.A. what George Chauncey did for New York City; he has put us on the map. My recommendation: buy this work, and place it on your bookshelf next to your worn-out copy of City of Quartz from undergrad days.

So what are you waiting for?

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Faded Beauty. Any Takers?


So we've all heard in one form or another the story that Koreatown has more abandoned sofas, loveseats, and dining room furniture per-capita than anywhere else in Los Angeles. Whether or not this piece of Angeleno lore has any merit, we here at the Koreatown Chronicle are dead-set on rectifying the matter by displaying some truly representative examples of this phenomenon.

Exhibit A-This sofa has been waiting for takers outside an apartment complex near Wilshire and Serrano for at least the last month. While its beauties are faded, with a little care(and some new upholstery), this sofa may just be right for your boho pad in Silverlake. All for the price of, well, nothing...

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Restaurant Review #1-Pollo a la Brassa


As part of an ongoing series, I will regularly be reviewing local restaurants of note-mostly in Koreatown, of course, but with the occasional venture into the far reaches of our metropolis...

Because I have often have a jones for both a)Peruvian chicken and b)local hole-in-the-wall establishments, Pollo a la Brassa is an ideal spot to begin our restaurant reviews. After all, what's more natural than Peruvian chicken in the heart of....Koreatown.

Located at 8th and Western, Pollo a la Brassa represents a splendid Peruvian response to the ever-popular, yet always a bit too-hyped, Zankou chicken chain. At Zankou, it's the garlic sauce we're pretty much paying eight bucks for. Not so with Pollo a la Brassa, where the wood-burned chicken itself stands on its own, supplemented by a fantastically spicy aji sauce. They serve the sauce in ketchup bottles here, thereby increasing the temptation to lather the entire meal in green saucy deliciousness. With or without sauce, however, there's a reason for all that firewood outside the door; this is definitely chicken with a strong, smoky personality. Five dollars gets you a quarter of moist, tender chicken and your choice of either french fries or rice and beans. Eight dollars gets you the whole bird. The perfect takeout chicken deal. Sweet.

Pollo a la Brassa also features beef anticuchos and Peruvian soup, all at inexpensive prices, but, come on, we're all here for the chicken.

Also, there is a small patio-like area for dining-in which may be your delight if you enjoy hearing the blaring sounds of Spanish television announcing futbol standings and novelas. For this particular visitor, it all adds to the divey ambience of the place, perfect for the odd Tuesday evening when there's nothing to do except eating pollo and people watching.

Matzo and More!



So the fact that Monday was a holiday was not at all lost here in L.A., as Jews and non-Jews alike united to share in the joy of eating matzos of all different brands....Manischewitz, Streit's, JNF, etc. Since mazto, except when utilized as a core ingredient in the beloved soup of the same name, has a retail window of maybe two weeks at the most, the shopping rush was particularly pronounced. "We can't keep 'em on the shelves," stated one JONS cashier who, incidently, refused to be named.

In order to partake in the joy of eating matzo, I decided to temporarily abandon Koreatown and go for a journey to the great city of Glendale, where Emily Parkhurst and family have held a wonderful socially-informed version of the Matzo Festival. Of course, I'm a tremendous fan of traditions that require patience, attentiveness, and an empty stomach. L'Chaim!

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Chronicler's Castle Takes Shape



Only a certain sort of person would have the chutzpah to call their diminutive studio a "castle"; however, the term will have to do, especially considering the popularity of the medieval theme in the neighborhood. We have Castle Korean Barbecue at Western and Beverly, the numerous "Villa" apartments dotting Normandie Avenue a few blocks east, and the esteemed Oxford and Harvard(streets, that is) nearby. Think Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament, only with Korean Barbecue substituted for Cornish game hen. Anyhow, here's some pics from the permanently under-construction domicile...