Digital Ink Los Angeles

Wolfmother‘s got big, bold stadium rock for the masses. Some might call it Stoner Rock, but it gets the job done , whatever it’s called.

Wolfmother‘s debut album, Wolfmother, reached multi-platinum status in 2006, becoming a big hit with the West Coast music aficionados before emerging as a global sensation.

Wolfmother‘s new album, Cosmic Egg, is out on Tuesday, October 27th. The band’s changed — with drummer Myles Heskett and bassist Chris Ross leaving the band in 2008 — but the man-in-charge, Andrew Stockdale, still seems to get it done.

This link is the first full-release single from Cosmic Egg:

“New Moon Rising“

Enjoy.

Back in the day, before Brooklyn became a borough of its own, New Yorkers called anyone from Brooklyn a “trolley dodger,” because of the myriad street cars running through the borough, with kids and adults dodging them to play on the city’s streets.

The team was originally called the “Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers.”

That was soon shortened to Dodgers.

On April 15, 1947, after much trial and tribulation, Branch Rickey‘s courageous endeavor came to fruition when Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play for a Major League Baseball team, playing his first game as a member of the Brooklyn team.

The team moved to Los Angeles in 1958, settling into their Chavez Ravine digs at the beginning of 1962. Dodger Stadium became the home of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills, Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Rick Monday, and many others. Not to mention, Vin Scully, the voice of Dodgers baseball.

This season’s Dodgers are the National League West Division Champions, with a National League-leading 95-67 record. Players like Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Juan Pierre, Rafael Furcal, Orlando Hudson, and Clayton Kershaw have made the Dodgers pennant contenders.

Check out the 2009 Postseason Schedule here.

THINK BLUE!

For most L.A. Westsiders, the 25th Annual Abbot Kinney Festival happening this weekend in Venice, California, is like a little New Orleans Mardi Gras mixed with Austin’s South-by-Southwest Music Festival.

Abbot Kinney was a visionary and a conservationist, but he was also a businessman. More than likely he would be proud of the current gentrified state of affairs on the street named after him — Abbot Kinney Boulevard.

Abbot Kinney’s dream of a “Venice USA” beach recreation development opened on July 4, 1905.

Though Abbot Kinney tried to create a bohemian mecca for arts and culture, the residents were more inclined for social parlors and sports activities. Even with some of the most astute lecturers and performers of this era providing a cultural beacon, Kinney’s artistic endeavor was a financial loser.

According to Westland.net, “By December 1905, Kinney knew his dream of creating a great cultural Mecca had failed and, ever the astute businessman, he turned his attention to accommodating the wishes of the public. The character of Venice succumbed to the beach goers and summer holiday guests who frequented the community’s many amusement attractions and Venice came to be known as the ‘Coney Island of the Pacific.’”

“By mid-January 1906, an area was built along the edge of the Grand Lagoon that was patterned after the amusement thoroughfares of the great 19th and 20th century expositions. It featured foreign exhibits, amusements, and freak shows. Trolley service was available from downtown and nearby Santa Monica.”

“Visitors were dazzled by the system of canals complete with gondolas and gondoliers brought in from Venice, Italy. There were ornate Venetian-style businesses and a full sized amusement pier. Around the entire park was a miniature steam railroad along a 2 1/2 mile track. Kinney and some of the nearby residents were aghast at some of the low-class shows that Venice began to offer, but it was considered the best congregation of amusement devices on the Pacific Coast, and it made a handsome profit.“

Eventually Kinney gained control of city politics and had the name changed from Ocean Park to Venice in 1911.

Today, Abbot Kinney Boulevard has replaced the beach boardwalk as the center of arts and culture in this seaside community. The 25th Annual Abbot Kinney Festival is a celebration of the man from New Jersey and his dream for a Utopian arts and culture mecca.

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Los Angeles’ Topanga Canyon has a special venue for theater with
Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum.

Thanks to FlavorPill‘s Tanja Laden for the info:

In the ’50s, blacklisted actor Will Geer opened a theater on his Topanga property for fellow performers ostracized during the McCarthy Era. After landing the role of Grandpa Walton in the ’70s, Geer officially opened the nonprofit Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, which remains one of LA’s most beloved professional repertory theatres.

This summer, in addition to a trio of plays by Shakespeare and The Miser by Molière, the outdoor theater stages a clever retelling of The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. Adapted by Heidi Helen Davis and the play’s leading lady, Geer’s daughter Ellen, the play is reset from turn-of-the-century Russia to the heels of the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Virginia, highlighting the timelessness of Chekhov’s last play.
–- Tanja Laden

Theater’s cool. And socially responsible.

But not socialism. Just social. Societal GOODness.

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The Cherokee word for “Fire” is a-tsi-la

Northern Los Angeles is on a-tsi-la right now.

The Los Angeles Times coverage has been pretty good.

Thanks to the LA County Fire Department for saving lives and risking their own.

Michael Martin Murphy had a big hit in the 70s called Wildfire — even though it’s about a horse named Wildfire lost in a blizzard , it still seems appropriate at this time.

“I would come home to listen to a football game — there weren’t other sports on — and I would get a pillow and I would crawl under the radio, so that the loudspeaker and the roar of the crowd would wash all over me, and I would just get goose bumps like you can’t believe. And I knew that of all the things in this world that I wanted, I wanted to be that fella saying, whatever, home run, or touchdown. It just really got to me.“

If Vin Scully were an inanimate object, he would probably be a nighttime freight train that has run the same country tracks, at the same times, bringing the same vital cargo to small-town America for each of the last 60 years — the lone whistle comes drifting in, loud and true, a soothing presence in the midst of darkness and uncertainty, allowing the dreamer to rest and relax, as all is well in an uncertain world.

“Hi everybody, and a very pleasant evening to you, wherever you may be. It’s time for Dodgers baseball!” The words spoken from a wise sage of baseball, indeed, of life, who has seized upon the hearts and minds of baseball fans for 60 years. Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Steve Garvey, Maury Wills, Ron Cey, Kirk Gibson, Darryl Strawberry, Orel Hershiser, Manny Ramirez, and the rest of Dodgers immortality.

Born in the Bronx on November 29, 1927, Vin Scully turns 82 years-young this year. For 60 years, he’s showed up to work EVERY DAY, having missed only five scheduled broadcasts in that time. Repeat, in over 60 years of broadcasting Vin Scully has missed only five scheduled broadcasts in that time frame. This includes the untimely, heartbreaking death of his first wife, Joan Crawford, in 1972.

He’s an emblem of all things right about man, and of the nature of kindness, simplicity, and blessed character. He has spoken to race riots, war, famine, presidential assassinations, catastrophes, and everything in between. Somehow, Vin Scully always has something good and proper to say. Somehow, Vin knows just what the listener needs to hear.

Case and point:

In 1974, Hank Aaron was facing death threats as he approached the all-time home-run record. Vin Scully’s words on that fateful evening: What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly Hank Aaron.

On June 29, 1990, one of Vin’s favorite Dodgers, Mexican-born Fernando Valenzuela, hurled a no-hitter near the end of his career with the team. Vin’s call of the final out: If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky!

Vin Scully recently announced he would be retiring after his next season with the Dodgers — in his characteristically self-deprecating manner, he stated, “If they’ll have me back again.”

For his service to the Dodgers, Major League Baseball, and the entire world of sportsmanship and athletic competition, Vin Scully is a hero to me.

“As long as you live keep smiling because it brightens everybody’s day.” O.K., Vin, we’ll try, but it seems so easy for you.

In 1969, Sharon Tate was one of the sexiest women in the world. Mattel developed the “Malibu Barbie” to mimic the look of Sharon Tate in all her bikini-clad glory. Sharon Tate is reported to have described the potential for the eventual, flattering reproduction as “sexy little me.”

Charlie ain’t pretty. Charlie don’t surf. And, Charlie don’t kill people anymore, either.

In the second week of 1969, Charles Manson led his drug-fueled “Family” on a killing spree that produced nine mutilated bodies and a fear frenzy that gripped the city of Los Angeles in a month-long state of paranoia.

The eventual announcement of suspects — and revelation of Charles Manson as the sociopath turned apocalyptic murderer behind the “Manson Family” — allowed Los Angeles to breathe a sigh of collective relief. Charles Manson’s desire for the end-of-the-world Helter Skelter would not be realized.

Rumors of a race war and Black Panther vs. KKK battle remained just that – rumors. But Roman Polanski‘s pregnant spouse became the focus of Manson’s hate-filled energy, essentially becoming a wrong-place-wrong-time victim who happened to occupy the residence where one of Manson’s potential music-industry connections had recently lived.

The events that shook Los Angeles 40 years ago this week have become much in the way of infamy. But one question remains — where did Charlie get his bone-chilling thirst for such hatred and evil?

Born to a sixteen-year old, truant teenager, named Kathleen Maddox, she would prove to be a troubled prostitute, alcoholic mother. Charles Manson vividly remembers one occasion in his childhood when he felt joy — the day his mom emerged from prison for armed robbery and gave young, seven-year old Charlie a heart-felt hug.

Soon after, Charles Manson’s mom abandoned him forever, and the rest is morbid history.