Labor Day

  

Happy Labor Day! Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers and is traditionally observed on the first Monday in September. It was created by the labor movement in the late 19th century and became a federal holiday in 1894.

I spent over 45 years in the work force. Some of that time was spent as a union member, working at various movie studios throughout Los Angeles. Today, I am reaping the benefits of full-time employment thanks to the labor movement's accomplishments over the years for equal rights, better working conditions and equal pay, especially for women. Thank you.

One of my favorite Woody Guthrie songs is "Union Maid," written in 1940.  Here's my rendition with some updated lyrics added in 1973 by Nancy Katz.

Happy Labor Day!

Labor Day

 

Happy Labor Day! Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers and is traditionally observed on the first Monday in September. It was created by the labor movement in the late 19th century and became a federal holiday in 1894.

I spent over 45 years in the work force. Some of that time was spent as a union member, working at various movie studios throughout Los Angeles. Today, I am reaping the benefits of full-time employment thanks to the labor movement's accomplishments over the years for equal rights, better working conditions and equal pay, especially for women. Thank you.

One of my favorite Woody Guthrie songs is "Union Maid," written in 1940.  Here's my rendition with some updated lyrics added in 1973 by Nancy Katz.

Happy Labor Day!

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend is the kick-off for summer!  It is also a day to remember all the people who have served, and are serving, in the armed forces; our surviving veterans; and to honor those who have died in past wars.  Thanks, guys! Wikipedia's description of this day, Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 28th in 2018). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. women and men who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the Civil War), it was expanded after World War I.

Summer also means backyard barbecues, parties, the beach and vacations! We are experiencing some cloudy and cool weather here in Los Angeles right now.  We call it "May Gray," which leads to "June Gloom."  Eventually, we'll have plenty of sunshine.  Savor the coolness while it's here!

Photo by Nicole Houff

My local ukulele group, The CC Strummers are having their annual Memorial Day Potluck on Sunday.  It's always fun, full of great food selections and excellent conversation!  We are also holding an Open Mic with about 10 participants. Ukulele has changed my life!  I hope you also have a fun weekend planned. Try to stay out of traffic and just enjoy your current surroundings. There's a lot to be said for a home-grown holiday!

East Side Los

Candelas Guitars, 2724 East Caesar Chavez Ave., Boyle Heights

We took a ride out to Boyle Heights this morning to visit Candelas Guitar Shop.  Candelas has been making premium acoustic guitars since the 1920s. They also make ukuleles!  I tried out this beautiful tenor ukulele at the Folk Music Center in Claremont last week and I loved playing it.  I wanted to see if the source had other ukes available.

Candelas "Heart" Tenor Ukulele at The Folk Music Center, Claremont

We met the owner and master luthier, Tomas Delgado and his son, Tomas, Jr. at Candelas.  They were both super-sweet and gave us a tour of the shop. We tried out a few ukuleles. They all had a beautiful sound to them. Considering the workmanship put into each ukulele, the prices were fair, just a bit more than I am willing to spend.  Many famous celebrities own Candelas guitars and ukuleles! They will customize an instrument for you to your exact specifications. It was a great visit, one that I will never forget. If you're looking for a custom, high-end instrument, Candelas is the place to go!

Ellen with Tomas, Jr. and Tomas Delgado at Candelas

After all of that decision and non-decision making, we were hungry!  We drove around the block to Al & Bea's Mexican burrito stand. Their bean and cheese burritos are SO DELICIOUS! It's comfort food at it's finest!

Larry at Al & Bea's, Boyle Heights

There was a really good guitar player sitting on the sidewalk next to Al & Bea's. His name is Sergio and he played every pop standard and Mexican oldies song while we had our lunch!  Smooth playing and excellent chord melodies!

Song stylings by Sergio Villaneda

We drove back over the bridge and headed for home, but not before stopping at the Brooklyn Bagel Bakery on Beverly Boulevard to pick up a dozen bagels for future use!

I LOVE LOS ANGELES!

Fall Back

The saying goes, "Spring Forward, Fall Back."  It's all about that one hour!  The practice began as a way to extend daytime working hours and conserve energy during the World Wars. The time change became a national standard in the U.S. in 1966 with the passage of the Uniform Time Act. It requires states to either change clocks at a specified time or remain with standard time throughout the year. Arizona and Hawaii are the only states to not observe daylight saving time. But in recent years, multiple states have shown interest in having daylight saving time last year-round, citing reasons such as more daylight after school and a decrease in robberies. Eighteen states have passed laws or resolutions to this end.  

I do like Daylight Saving Time, when it doesn't get dark until later in the day. It's good for driving at rush hour.  Whatever.  I just know that this Sunday, we'll get one extra hour of sleep!

Irish in Los Angeles

St. Patrick's Day is not really my holiday, but the spirit has reached me. Our Mid-City L.A. neighborhood must have had a strong Irish population during the 1920's and 1930's.There are more than a few Irish establishments nearby, many of the homes are built to look like Irish and English country homes in the Storybook style and there are many Catholic and Protestant congregations in the vicinity.

I found this darling St. Paddy's Day Barbie Doll online. She looks ready to hoist a pint at Tom Bergin's!

Supposedly, EVERYONE is Irish on this day. Have a great ol' time in Irish L.A. today!

21 Years Later, Back on the Radio

Mary Katherine Aldin's Master Control

This past Sunday I had the pleasure of being the guest host on KPFK's "Preaching the Blues." Regular host, Mary Katherine Aldin invited me. The show has been on the air for decades. When I was listening a lot in the late 1980s and early 1990s the host was Ed "The Geezer" Archer. He was always full of entertaining stories about blues performers. That's what makes a radio show interesting to me, hearing about the lives of the players and little tid-bits about their performances.  I tried to bring some of that to the show on Sunday night.

For 8 years I co-hosted the "Friday Night Blues Revue" on KPCC-FM with John "Juke" Logan (RIP). Juke was a very well-known harmonica and keyboard player. He knew everybody in the roots and blues music scene. Due to the fact that Juke knew so many musicians, we had great guests on our radio show. This resulted in a CD, produced by Jerry Hall, called "Friday Night Live" compiling so many of the live performances from our 8 years on the air. The CD is documentation of L.A. blues players from 1992-2000.  Sadly, KPCC went to an all-talk format in 2000 and cancelled all music shows, otherwise I'd probably still be there hosting the show! I played many tunes from this CD on Sunday's show.

I learned how to engineer, announce, etc. when I was the board operator for "Billy Vera's Rock 'n Roll Party" on KCRW-FM in the mid-1990s.  I also learned a lot about rhythm and blues, blues, swamp pop, zydeco, Cajun and straight-up jazz when I worked with Billy and Juke. I tried to bring their spirit and knowledge to KPFK on Sunday.

Some of our in-studio guest on the "Friday Night Blues Revue."  Clockwise, from top left, Ladies of the Blues, Billy Boy Arnold, the Blazers with Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, Ronnie Barron, Billy Vera, Rick Holmstrom & Johnny Dyer, Floyd Dixon

There's a LOT of preparation that goes into hosting a show, especially for two hours. Sometimes at KPCC, when Juke was on the road, I would host the show on my own. Usually, I'd just bring a bunch of blues compilations and decide on the spot which song I would play. On "Preaching the Blues" last Sunday, I was not the engineer. Mary Katherine was handling those duties. So, the CDs weren't in front of me for reference and back-announce. I had to prepare a spread-sheet of the songs and comments I wanted to play and talk about.

Also, when you're on the air live, you have to juggle the songs around to make room for station identification, commercials for other shows, etc. Luckily, Mary Katherine took care of this too. I used to be very nervous when I had to do this on my own. Many times there were equipment failures, the radio signal might get cut off or worse. There were and are so many things that can go wrong. We had a few minor CD player failures on Sunday, but Mary Katherine is a pro and knows how to yell at the machines so they behave!

Turntables are available for vinyl play

I tried to play lots of my Los Angeles musician friends' songs on the air. Naturally, I over-programmed so we ran out of time. It was fun though. If you'd like to hear the show, it's archived at KPFK.org. Just go to the "Archive" section, look for the show, "Preaching the Blues" and click on the July 11, 2021 show. It should be up for a week or two. Thanks to Larry for coming along and photographing this event and organizing the CDs for us. Thanks also to Mary Katherine for her calm engineering and announcing. We would have taken photos with MK, but she is camera-shy.

Leaving KPFK, the back door is filled with bumper stickers. So colorful!

All in all, we had a great time! If you'd like to help keep these shows on the air and make a contribution to KPFK, 90.7 FM, Pacific Radio for Los Angeles, Southern California and the World, click HERE.  

Plein-Air Painting with Jacinto Guevara

Larry photographing the artist, Jacinto Guevara, Echo Park

On Sunday, Larry and I drove over to Echo Park Avenue at Montana Street in Echo Park to visit with our long-time friend, Jacinto Guevara while he was painting a scene on the street. Jacinto loves old Los Angeles architecture, the more dilapidated, the better.

We met Jacinto years ago when he was playing conjunto accordion and guitar in different Los Angeles bands. There was quite an American roots music scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. We were all hopping from one club to another to listen to bands. We met at clubs like the King King on La Brea and 6th, Raji's on East Hollywood Boulevard, The Palomino in North Hollywood, the Central on the Sunset Strip, the punk club, Al's Bar, downtown L.A. and tons of other places around the Los Angeles area. It wasn't unusual for us to be out every single night seeing bands. Of course, we'd never go to a club on Saturday night, that was for amateurs, not real music lovers!

Diane Lujan and Jacinto Guevara, Los Angeles

During this time, we were interested in all types of roots music, including the blues, rockabilly, Cajun, Zydeco, Conjunto, Polka and more! Conjunto Music is Mexican-American music that has been influenced by the music of German immigrants to Texas. The accordionist, Flaco Jimenez is a very popular musician in this genre. Once we found out about the Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio, we traveled there with many of our friends to experience this music in its home. We went back the next year and fell in love with San Antonio. Jacinto really fell in love with the city, because he and few of his other bandmates from Los Angeles ended up moving to San Antonio. That was almost 30 years ago!

Jacinto and Larry, Echo Park

Jacinto still performs occasionally, but since his move he has concentrated on his artwork more. His paintings are in the collections of many celebrities, including Cheech Marin and Eric Clapton. You can read more about Jacinto's artwork HERE.  When we found out that he was visiting Los Angeles, we made it a point to stop by his painting location to say hello.

Jacinto lived in Echo Park and East Los Angeles as a youth. He remembers the neighborhood fondly and wanted to memorialize a few of the buildings before they are torn down! Yesterday, he was painting the barbershop.

Barbershop, Echo Park Ave., painting in progress by Jacinto Guevara, 2021

Google screenshot of the Barbershop, Echo Park Ave. at Montana St., Echo Park

I definitely think that Jacinto has made the Barbershop building look better in his painting than it does in real life! He even painted one of those famous Echo Park stairways!

Today he is working on a scene in City Terrace, East L.A. Here's a screenshot of his subject:

City Terrace Drive and Ramboz, ELA

There are lots of run-down buildings in old Los Angeles that make great subjects for paintings!

Glad that we were able to visit with Jacinto during his short visit to Los Angeles!

The Los Angeles Music Center

I soooo remember when the Music Center was built, between 1964 and 1967 on Bunker Hill (Welton Becket and Associates, architect).  It was a major deal for Los Angeles.  Thank you, Buffy Chandler.  The Philharmonic Auditorium on Olive St., that had been housing the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra since 1920, closed.  I do remember attending a performance of the L.A. Civic Light Opera presentation of "Oklahoma" at the Phil when I was a small girl.  It was such a hassle getting downtown, parking, etc.  Once the Music Center was built with ample parking, it was so much easier attending performances.  In the old days, everyone took the street car downtown.  Once the street car lines were taken out and the automobile ruled the L.A. roads, more parking was required.  The Music Center was modern, sleek and glamorous!  We visited often.

The glamorous chandeliers at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion. 1965.

Photo from Water & Power Associates Website

1965. Water & Power Collection.  7,000 fans wait in line for tickets to see "Hello Dolly."

For a few years, around 2012, 2013, The Music Center sponsored Christmas Ukulele programs and Strummers in the Summer. It was so much fun actually playing ukulele at the Dorothy Chandler Auditorium. I felt like a REAL musician!

I cannot wait for performances to return to The Los Angeles Music Center! Hopefully, after June 15th, when Covid restrictions are lifted we will be able to enjoy all that Los Angeles has to offer!

Celebrating During the Pandemic

This past year has been a year of togetherness for me and Larry. Luckily, we still get along beautifully! We celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary yesterday, amid the rules of Covid-19. We couldn't do most of the things that we would have done, like travel, visit museums, go to the movies, attend an art show or other gathering. We managed to have a nice day though.

We started out the day with coffee for Larry and a Medicine Ball Beverage for me. The Medicine Ball at Starbucks consists of peach tea, citrus mint tea, steamed lemonade, honey and hot water. It's supposed to combat the flu, sniffles or any other virus! It was delicious. We drove over to the Original Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax. The Farmers Market is very L.A. noir during the rain. It's an open-air market with many covered areas. We ducked into an alcove to enjoy our hot beverages and watch the rain. After some produce shopping, we headed back home.

This would have been the time for a visit to the museum. Hopefully, museums, etc. will re-open soon! Instead, we watched our wedding video from 29 years ago! It's a VHS tape, but Larry still has a few VCRs hanging around the house, so he hooked it up and we had a few laughs. Ahhh! To be young, handsome and beautiful!

We were married at the L.A. City Hall, March 3, 1992. Larry's buddies from the Photo Department at his aerospace job took the video and photos of our big day.

The fountain just outside of City Hall

We rode up to the Tower at City Hall. The skyline of Los Angeles certainly has 

changed during the past few decades!

We decided to have tacos for lunch. We didn't want a huge feast, because we'd planned to go out to dinner. We ended up at Bee Taqueria on Adams Blvd., just east of Fairfax. It was recommended to us by our friend, Emiko. 

The MOST delicious carne asada and seafood tacos!

This is the second time we've eaten at Bee, always in the rain! This is an unusual place. The property houses a few other shops and business, mostly in shipping container-like buildings. Bee Taqueria has the MOST delicious gourmet tacos! We shared the seafood/shrimp taco and a carne asada taco on a blue-corn tortilla with guacamole. The rain had let up, so we dined alfresco. It was chilly, but invigorating.

We managed to do things around the house, knit, read, practice ukulele and catch the news on TV before heading over to Sawtelle Blvd./Japantown for dinner. We ate at Midoh on the second level of Sawtelle Place, this mini-mall that houses a market, sushi place, Daiso, mochi place and Karaoke. Our friend, Sherry recommended Midoh. We were the only patrons on the back patio this cold and rainy night. They had heaters, so it was comfortable. The food is home-style Japanese. It was really wonderful. We each had little dinner salads. Larry ordered the Udon Carbonera which is a fusion of Japanese and Italian food, with bacon, cream, egg, parmesan cheese, black pepper, and baby spinach. It was rich, creamy and decadent! I ordered the Nabeyaki Udon Hot Pot which is chicken broth with chicken, udon noodles, shrimp tempura and soft-boiled egg. It was warm, filling and comforting. For dessert we shared this parfait of strawberry fluff with chunks of lemon chocolate brownie on top! They have a marvelous dessert menu. We will definitely return to Midoh. The food and service were great.

Mixed Greens Salad

Udon Carbonara

Nabeyaki Udon Hot Pot

Dessert

Really, considering the world's circumstances, we managed to have a fine time celebrating our 29th anniversary! Next year, I hope we'll be in Palm Springs or Hawaii!

Happy Valentines Day 2021

"Nancy" by Ernie Bushmuller

This year, Valentines Day fell on a Sunday. We're still in the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic, even though our virus numbers are going down in Los Angeles. No indoor dining, no gathering in bars, no inside fun with friends. It's February. It's cold. We are lucky in Los Angeles to have a few sunny days at least, so outside activities are popular.

In the morning, Larry and I just had our usual breakfast and read the Sunday L.A. Times. We exchanged our homemade, personalized Valentine cards. In past years, before we all learned Photoshop, I would cut out pictures, paper doilies, construction paper hearts and glue everything together into a Valentine collage. With the advent of Photoshop, we are way more sophisticated now with our cards.

Very appropriate for this year

Corny, but heartfelt!

Larry had some gardening jobs to complete and I was scheduled to go to a little birthday party for my friend, Sherry. I met up with the Uke Buddies (an offshoot group of the C.C. Strummers) at the Jackson outdoor Cafe for a bit of lunch, birthday cake and ukulele playing. The Jackson Cafe is my go-to place during this pandemic. Sam, the owner, makes the BEST sandwiches, wraps, soup, salads, omelettes and more in his little snack shop. The patio is quiet and delightful. There are enough empty tables on a Sunday so that we can socially distance ourselves. We were lucky that it was a sunny day (until the wind came up later in the afternoon). 

Ethan, Tom, Carole, Emiko and our Fans

Dianne, Ellen, Cali

Cali and Birthday Girl, Sherry

We ate lunch, played a few tunes and had birthday cake, prepared by Ronnie. It was a really fun afternoon! Sam and his staff wanted to know when we're coming back. They LOVE hearing us play ukulele and singing! We even had a few fans during our set.

Ronnie, Dianne and Ellen

I always try to match my ensemble to the decor!

After our the ukulele lunch party I hurried home to my sweet Valentine. The weather was turning cold. Outdoor dining was out of the question. Larry had received a gift card for In 'n Out Burger for his January birthday from our friends, Audrey and Jeff. This was a perfect time to redeem that coupon! We have several In 'n Out Burger locations in the L.A. area. The one closest to us is always mobbed. We decided to take a drive down to El Segundo, south of the airport and try the larger In 'n Out there. The line was short, we could see the sun setting toward the west through the palm trees while we enjoyed our burgers in Larry's spacious car.

It was a perfect Valentines Day! I hope you had a good Sunday too!