Obscure and lost L.A. history

ABOVE: The Haunted Castle at Beverly Park (now the Beverly Center)
BELOW: BP parking lot circa 1969-70

Lately, as I roam around the net in-between gigs waiting for the writer's to do their thing so I can finish mine...or to be more specific, I'm waitin' on liner notes from Pamela Des Barres for the The Sales Bros. album package I'm designing...and Al Jardine's Track info for his first solo album I'm doing...I've grown addicted to daily hang-outs in these blogs in particular:

Gorillas Don't Blog
Stuff From The Park
Outside The Berm
Vintage Disneyland Goodies
Knott's Berry Farm Museum
Daveland

Why? Because they feature not only amazing old Disneyland stuff (from photos to souvenirs to employee handbooks) but they also serve as a time machine for places that we've lost forever here in Southern California; Marineland (below), Knott's (pre-snoopy) , P.O.P., etc...


BELOW: The late great Ralph Story did a couple of shows for KCET called "Things That Aren't Here Anymore" (can't find a link to it...so I guess the show isn't around here anymore either!) But Ralph also did an incredible TV series from 1959-1970 called "Ralph Story's Los Angeles"

Yes, this is the man who invented Huell Howser.
The shows are over at the UCLA media department and can be viewed by the public there, but man I'd love to see these released on DVD. There's an entire episode done on the Hollywood Ranch Market that's mind-blowing...complete with 1967 Rodney Bingenheimer in a purple Nehru jacket buying a Diet-Rite soda at 3A.M. (those wierdos that come in after the rock clubs close, the check-out girl explains!)

Lately a lot of Pacific Ocean Park stuff has been popping up, and Chris Merritt has put up a great MP3 (from an album I also own) of the actual boat tour (my copy is signed by the producer Glenn T. Nakamoto and dated 1964- see below)


I guess what's so hard of letting go of the past, is that being an L.A. native and an artist, I really miss the visual & creative vibe we used to have here before the city turned into what I can only describe as The Invasion of the Votive People!...I can't seem to put my finger on who is behind this movement, but these beings seem to thrive on giant "votive" candles, bad gothic wrought iron and chunky wood furniture. They've re-painted over almost every architectural structure (that they haven't leveled) different shades of beige or brown..."tuscan" they call it, and now when you drive around the city on the main boulevards, the buildings actually feel like they're falling in on you...like a claustrophobic forced perspective.

BELOW: Driving around Hancock Park last week I caught it happening in action...here we see the innocent workers following orders from tuscan headquarters...one hour earlier, this was a perfectly groovy white Spanish-style home.
Stop the madness!
Listen, to each their own...but my own has a much wider color scheme! Our local retail shops aren't much better. Long gone are the bright colors and the red & white striped awnings that would pop out of those storefronts as a perfect foreground to the palm trees and blue skies. Also nearly extinct are those amazing and imaginative store & restaurant logos we used to see all around the city.

Gotta thank Dan Goodsell for the 60's Orange Julius logo, Dan's the king of original food packaging. It's a wierd sensation when you get home-sick while you're in your own city, and that's how I feel here sometimes.

A back-burner dream of mine is do a book about the L.A. that my friends and I remember. Not just a Rock history book, but a book that will give equal importance to Thrifty's and the Helm's man as it would to The Doors, Shrimpenstein and the Dudley Do-Right Emporium. The challenge in doing a book based mainly in 1960's SoCal is that I'd want it to be in full color, as I experienced it. I'm busy with many projects right now, so what I have so far are a few pages, a tentative title and (below) this cover mock-up.
I'll be meeting with a few publishers this year, but inquiries are welcomed if you have the means to publish or collaborate. Could be a fun one. Till then, see ya 'round town!

Mon Oncle

BELOW: It was a groove to find these clips from a 1969 "Playboy After Dark" appearance of my late great Uncle Milton...Milt Kamen. This is 1 of 2 parts available for viewing on YouTube.



Milton was my mother Dorothy's brother (one of 5 brothers and 2 sisters) They grew up pooor in Brooklyn and in fact, in an old Esquire magazine article written about the great comedian Harry Ritz, my uncle and Harry were talking about Milton Berle's legendary practice of stealing jokes to which my Uncle says "I was at a cocktail party last week and telling someone about my family, being raised in poverty etc...and I see Berle standing there listening to me...well, the following evening I go to another party and there I overhear Berle telling the same story word for word!...Berle didn't steal my jokes...he stole my whole life!"

BELOW: A couple of great shots courtesy of my pal and Game Show Book author Fred Wostbrock of Milt with guests from the old "Pantomime Quiz" TV show circa mid-fifties. We can see a twenty-something Carol Burnett in the mix, but I can't make out the rest of the folks. Post it in the comments if you know.
BELOW: another clip from 1976 when he was a panelist on "The Gong Show" although he doesn't say a word, it just feels good to see him again...now if Jaye P. Morgan had been my Uncle we'd have something here.



He was also a talented and classically trained musician who played the French Horn (in Carnegie Hall at one time) and also hung out with some pretty heavy cats like Brando, Wally Cox, Lenny Bruce, Oscar Levant and Dizzy Gillespie (he can be seen doin' some "freeform dance expression" while Dizzy blows the horn on the 1959 debut of "Playboy After Dark"...then titled "Playboy's Penthouse") and was frequent guest on Merv Griffin's show. Merv loved Uncle Milton, and used to have him do his own wacky movie reviews. One I remember in particular was of the 1933 King Kong film: "Here he comes to the greatest city in the world, immediately picks up this gorgeous blonde broad, and what does he do? he takes her to the Empire State Building like any tourist...talk about no imagination!"

Milt was a clean comedian, but then I've had in the past, both George Carlin and Redd Foxx tell me stories about how much they loved and dug him. He did a play in Vegas with Redd that was written by our old next door neighbor Sam Bobrick called "Norman, Is That You?" Sam was also the "Mad Man" who was responsible for that Mad Magazine cardboard 45 record called "It's a Gas" remember that one?

He did one comedy album on Capitol Records in 1964 which can be downloaded here. Thanks to Kliph Nesteroff for this one -


The album was produced by Mel Brooks and the back liner notes are written by some other funny guy named Groucho.

Legend has it that Uncle Milton dug a kid he saw doing stand-up in the Catskills and brought him in to meet Sid Caesar to see if he could get him a job writing for the show "Fellas, this kid's a young Larry Gelbart!" to which a young Gelbart (in the room at the time) said "I thought I was a young Larry Gelbart?!" Well, they ended up hiring him. The kid's name was Woody Allen.

Man, I guess what was only gonna be a few sentences and a couple of clips of my Uncle is turning into an authorized biography here! There's plenty more showbiz stories there, not to mention his "friendship" with Shelly Winters (I told you not to mention it!) but maybe some other time. Thanks for your mouse.

MAILA NURMI R.I.P.

Bummer to wake up and see that Maila Nurmi passed away on Thursday. I got to know Maila for a short time and had the honor of creating a poster for her to sign and sell (below) so she could eat and pay some bills.

Thanks to my friend Chuck Harter, I was also able to go to the original KABC studios in Los Feliz (where the Vampira show was shot in 1954) and accompanied her and Chuck to an interview done for a Halloween segment which due to the passing of Steve Allen was bumped off that evening's broadcast. Someone had posted it on YouTube, but it looks like the account's been closed (thankfully I still have the video from the original show they gave me) If I know the net, I'm sure someone else will post it again and I'll throw it back on the page. Until then, here's an interview of Maila's that brings back some great memories of a great artist.



In the meantime, as of today I'm in negotiations to do a special limited edition silk-screened version of my original 1999 poster...alas this time not to help Maila in life, but to help cover the cost of her headstone at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

We won't see the likes of her kind again. Rest well Maila.