Our Los Feliz

The title says it all. If pic­tures from past years are any indi­ca­tion, this should be a really fun event. I’m teach­ing all-day so my cov­er­age will be lim­ited to the evening fes­tiv­i­ties, but that’s no excuse for you not to make an appear­ance ear­lier in the day!

Details are in the flyer below:

Hello Los Feliz and happy Inde­pen­dence Day! It looks like our local yarn-bomber is at it again, I spot­ted the fol­low­ing on a run through Grif­fith Park yesterday:

This one isn’t knit­ted but that’s prob­a­bly all well and good, as far as the bear cares, as it’s been pretty hot out lately. Local blog Inher­ent Style in LA has some higher qual­ity pic­tures up on their site.

If you’re look­ing for things to do today Bob Leg­ett has got some ideas for you.

These are some of the more inter­est­ing Los Feliz ref­er­ences that have popped up on the inter­net in the past cou­ple weeks:

• The Los Feliz Ledger has released their lat­est issue: http://www.losfelizledger.com/
• I saw “For The Record: Baz Luhrmann” at Barre Ver­mont and can’t rec­om­mend it highly enough — I had a stu­pid grin on my face the whole evening:
• KCET released a guide to the LA River, lots of fun things to see and do. (via laist)
• There’s a new pet sup­ply store at Kings­ley and Hol­ly­wood, where the Twisted Spade poker hall used to be. Busi­ness has been light, but it looks like it’ll be a good resource for the community.
• A new show will be start­ing at the Sky­light The­ater on June 3.
• The Los Feliz Street Fair will be return­ing on Sun July 24, 2001 (Thanks to John F. for the tip!)
• LAPD have updated their crime blot­ter. You can now know way too much about how many crimes are hap­pen­ing where you live. (via Hol­ly­wood Patch)
• We were fea­tured in a Cap­i­tal One com­mer­cial. Keep your eyes peeled for Fred 62 and a local dry cleaner.
• Uncle Jer’s is clos­ing their brick and mor­tar store and will be tak­ing their store online. (via Blog­ging LA)
• Fire Com­mis­sioner and Com­mu­nity activist Joe Sanchez passed away (via EGP News)
• Ben­nett Kayser will be our new school board rep.
• A pro­file was writ­ten about Art in The Streets cura­tor and local res­i­dent Roger Gast­man. (via LA Times)

I started “Our Los Feliz” in hopes that I would have an excuse to get to know my neigh­bors bet­ter – that I would be able to feel more a part of the com­mu­nity. Before this project was even a twin­kle in my eye, there were peo­ple in the neigh­bor­hood who broke through my stranger-danger anx­i­ety and insisted on being a part of my life. Thomas Bond was just such a person.

A fix­ture in the Hollywood/Vermont Star­bucks where I and half the screen­writ­ers in the world seem to while away their days, I knew Tom long before I ever met him. There are unwrit­ten rules in Lap­topis­tan: no one is to talk, no one is to laugh, and no one is to engage those with head­phones. Tom was not one for such rules, and our lit­tle world was a bet­ter place for it.

Tom was incred­i­bly gre­gar­i­ous and could bring even the most shrink­ing of vio­lets into full bloom.  He was a tal­ented sto­ry­teller with an easy laugh, and he seemed to be an expert on all sub­jects polit­i­cal, his­tor­i­cal, and min­eral. He some­how man­aged to be the smartest man in the room while never mak­ing the peo­ple he talked with feel stupid.

I had planned to inter­view him, in part to intro­duce a fan­tas­tic man to the neigh­bor­hood, but self­ishly: to sat­isfy my curios­ity. In many ways, Thomas was, and now will remain, an enigma to me. For a man I saw almost every day I knew sur­pris­ingly lit­tle about his his­tory and what made him tick.

From what I’ve been able to piece together, his life was a remark­able one. He attended Ala­m­agordo high school in New Mex­ico, later went to Lub­bock Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity on a speech and debate schol­ar­ship, even­tu­ally grad­u­at­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Utah in 1974 with degrees in Nuclear Mate­ri­als Engi­neer­ing and Polit­i­cal sci­ence. He worked as a Navy nuclear reac­tor oper­a­tor with top secret clear­ance (I’m begin­ning to sus­pect he was issued his last name ex post facto), and he helped to evac­u­ate many Amer­i­can sol­diers and Viet­namese civil­ians from harm’s way dur­ing the Viet­nam War. He ran an adver­tis­ing agency in Los Ange­les in the 80’s and 90’s; per­fectly tim­ing his tran­si­tion to online mar­ket­ing in ’95.

While his death was not entirely unex­pected (he had a gal­lows humor born of long-standing health issues), it is tragic nonethe­less. My chats with Tom were often the high­lights of my work­ing days, and I sus­pect I’m not the only one in this neigh­bor­hood who now feels like they’ve lost a kindly uncle.

Thomas Bond died of a mas­sive heart-attack on May 2, 2011, he was 62. He is sur­vived by his sis­ter and nephews.

A memo­r­ial ser­vice is planned for Sun­day May 22, 2011 at the Hollywood/Vermont Star­bucks; I believe the ser­vice is sched­uled for 3pm, but please check their mes­sage board in the morn­ing for addi­tional details.

A pit­tance of Tom’s thoughts, rec­ol­lec­tions, and sto­ries can be accessed through his blog, diet web­site, and face­book page. I encour­age any­one who knew Tom to leave a com­ment on this post.

“One of the main dif­fer­ences between Rus­toleum and Kry­lon, y’know the aver­age hard­ware store paints, and these paints that are made specif­i­cally for artists is the high-quality of the paint itself. The cov­er­age is really good. [Iron­lak does] spec­trums that are a lot higher. The color spec­trum, as you can see in the wall here, they’ll do like five or six col­ors of pink. 8 col­ors of pur­ple, 10 col­ors of green, blue, and stuff like that. If you go to home depot, Kry­lon in their reg­u­lar lines makes pretty much only two or three dif­fer­ent col­ors of each. That’s one of the main dif­fer­ences. And then also, the amount of dif­fer­ent caps you can use, tips you can use, on all of these spray cans, enables you to do so much more.”

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After receiv­ing an email from a reader who enjoys the blog, but keeps miss­ing out on great Los Feliz events because I have a pesky habit of post­ing day-of: I have cre­ated a Twit­ter feed and a Face­book fan page. Just fol­low @OurLosFeliz or click on the “Like” but­ton to the right and you’ll be noti­fied in your social media stream within 30-min of any blog posts going live.

Thanks so much for read­ing and com­ment­ing, it makes all the time spent research­ing and writ­ing worthwhile!

Just a quick reminder: the “Taste of the East­side” food fes­ti­val is from 1-5pm at Barsndall park. I’ll be on-site chow­ing down and con­duct­ing inter­views. You can read this post for more details.

The Sil­ver Lake Jubilee is Immi­nent — 2 days of music, com­edy, lit­er­a­ture, and food. I’ve never been, but this year’s event is look­ing like a can’t miss. Mark your calendars.

Lineup from their website:

MUSIC
Music Pro­duc­tion by | SLJ Music Advi­sory Com­mit­tee | Space­land Pro­duc­tions |Origami Vinyl | Mucho

COMEDY
Com­edy Pre­sented by | Iliza Shlesinger

Adam DeVine
Iliza Shlesinger
J Chris New­berg
Jer­rod Carmichael
Jay Lar­son
Jodi Miller
Kyle Dun­ni­gan
Mark Ellis
Neal Bren­nan
Pete Holmes
Tig Notaro

LITERATURE
Lit­er­a­ture Pre­sented by | PEN Cen­ter USA | Molos­sus | Les Figues Press |Slake | What Books | The Rat­tling Wall | LA Review of Books | Amor Fati

Azarin Sadegh
Cas­san­dra Love
Children’s Book Read­ings pre­sented by 826LA
Chris­t­ian Lan­der
David Shook
Davin Malasarn
Diana Wag­man
Eric Layer
Gabrielle Calvo­coressi
Hafeez Lakhani
Jamie Schaffner
Janet Fitch
Jerry Stahl
John Boucher
Joseph Matt­son
Kate Micucci
Lau­ren Marks
Libby Flo­res
Lou Math­ews
Mary Otis
Marytza Rubio
Mehnaz Turner
Mon­ica Carter
Natashia Deon
Rachelle Cruz
Renee Simms
Reyna Grande

i will destroy you comics showcase

Jed McGowan
Levon Jihan­ian
Malachi Ward
Robert Goodin
Tom Neely
Keenan Mar­shall Keller 

THEATER, DANCE, and DERBY

Hol­ly­wood Fringe
Insta-Grow The­ater pre­sented by Mov­ing Arts and Matrushka Con­struc­tion
LACER After School Pro­gram
LA Derby Dolls
Sweaty Sun­days

EMCEES

Barry McLaugh­lin
Brock LaBorde
Jamie Flam
Josh Covitt
Kim Vasi­lakis
Liam Sul­li­van
Mer­rill Davis
Michael Cor­nac­chia
Paul Prado
The Span­glers
Vanessa Ragland

Try­ing to fig­ure out what to do tonight, or maybe you’re plan­ning ahead to this week­end in Los Feliz?

This week­end is chock full of lec­tures and lit­er­ary events, but if you only do one thing this week­end: call your mother on Sun­day, tell her you love her, and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day.

Top Picks:

Pop-Sequentialism: Comic Art of the Mod­ern Age | Fri­day 8-11pm
La Luz de Jesus Gallery,
4633 Hol­ly­wood Blvd, Los Ange­les, CA 90027
Hand-drawn pan­els from some of your (or the nerd in your life’s) favorite comics: Watch­men, X-Men, Fan­tas­tic Four, Spi­der­man, Cap­tain Amer­ica, Bat­man… and if you’re will­ing to drop $500+ you can take it home with you.

Venice Spring Fling | Sat 11am – 7pm
Win­ward Plaza Park, Venice, CA 90291
Not tech­ni­cally Los Feliz, but hey, we all need an excuse to get to the beach once-in-a-while. This is an all-day music fes­ti­val, and I’ll bet dol­lars to donuts there will be some gourmet food trucks. On sec­ond thought… you might want to check the lineup, this may be the excuse you’ve been look­ing for to avoid the beach.

Pub­lic Star Party | Sat 2pm – 10pm
Grif­fith Obser­va­tory
A mars obser­va­tion sta­tion sim­u­la­tor that is free and open to the pub­lic? Tele­scope demos?! Um, sign me up please. Also, NASA sci­en­tists just ver­i­fied we’re in a space-time vor­tex, too cool!

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