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Archive for 2006
Terrace dividers are multi-colored for a very satisfying, grand scale pop art effect. The giant half-a-cat-food-can stylishly sticking out from the top floor certainly must be a semi-circular cocktail lounge. Street level orange stripes mark the 76 Gas Station at the Hotel’s entrance corner.
This spectacular slide was taken just months after the grand opening ceremony where pink-painted elephants, escorted by bathing suit-clad models, circled the hotel’s main entrance. Did anyone protest?
During construction Conrad Hilton buried a stainless steel time capsule beneath the lobby. According to the list of contents on the Beverly Hilton’s website, the most exciting thing in the time capsule is a 1954 Sears Catalog. Want to join me there when they unearth it in 2054?
Just last week I went to the Beverly Hills Hilton to report on the Cher Auction preview for NPR’s Day to Day.
Listen to Charles on NPR.org
They transformed one of the big ballrooms into what I called Cherland. Four decades of Cher hits provided a snappy sound tract. There were two lands. Her extra large-scale, Hearst Castle-style furniture and décor were displayed in Cher–at-Homeland. In Cher-costumeland dozens of memorable, heavily-beaded, often belly-button revealing Sonny and Cher Show costumes were in perfect condition.
“Well, they were only worn once” Cher’s genius designer, Bob Mackie, told me. Then Cher entered Cherland, sort of. It was a man in Cher-drag. But that’s not much different than having a woman playing Mickey Mouse at Disneyland!
Here’s to Cherland and Pink Elephants at the Beverly Hilton and YOU!!!
“The costumes are all pure Sonny and Cher, and Cher, and all that – by Bob Mackie, of course. Then all this Goth furniture, and some of it’s not so Goth. It’s kind of a combination between Goth and out-of-control Liberace, maybe a little? I mean, don’t tell Cher I said that.”
Hear the full story here on NPR.
A trio of triple-plated, bullet nosed, chrome hairdryers. Style and substance-wise they are the ultimate in hair dying machines – not to mention an AMERICANA classic of the highest order. The red dot label reads NORMANDIE. Behind them as a backdrop is fancy style pink and grey wallpaper. Beneath them, and crowned ever-so-beautifully by them, sit three fair-skinned, blued-eyed, small town Wisconsin maidens. They are belted, buttoned up, and literate. Each holds reading material. Only their lips are painted.
Chrome is among the many things we AMERICANA’S have to thank South Africa for. That’s because more than half of the mirror-finish metal that we love so much comes from South Africa. The rest comes from other faraway exotic places including Kazakhstan, India and Turkey. Thanks to them too. There is a more than plentiful supply of un-mined chromium left deep inside mother earth. But today, we use so little of it. Is it because chrome plating things creates toxic waste?
Also this week –
CHARLES PHOENIX on NPR -on The Los Angeles County Fair
Listen to Charles on NPR.org
The fair ends this Sunday – Don’t forget your camera!
Upcoming retro slide shows – please let your NYC friends know – thanks!
NEW YORK CITY – OCTOBER 10 – 8PM
CHARLES PHOENIX: AMERICANA THE BEAUTIFUL
A Live Comedy Performance with Found Vintage Slides –
Celebrating America’s Golden Era, the Space Age
WHERE: Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Ave. NY, NY, 10003
TICKETS: $20 at the door one hour before showtime
New dates for the “DISNEYLAND TOUR OF DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES” will be announced next week! And coming again this holiday season – THE RETRO HOLIDAY SLIDE SHOW – dates to be announced soon!
Here’s to the girls getting beautified beneath chrome on Kodachrome, the fair, the future and YOU!
The somewhat larger than life cutout oranges say Florida. He looks happier than she does and hold what might, just very well be, an empty milk glass cold cream jar.
I wonder if she knitted his sensible sweater vest. Whoever knitted it made it too short. It’s the thought that counts.
Whoever did the interior designer work here is clearly gifted. Various utensils hang harmoniously up and down like the musical notes of a song. The white wooden cabinet doors double as a craft gallery. Among the centered fish decals are four crocheted pieces include a blonde doll being hung and a useful and decorative rose (like the half-breed wine) grape hot pad made by crocheting over bottle caps.
Corporate Americana would be proud of the product placement here. On a make-shift, hang-on shelf a box of Brillo pads is haphazardly placed on top of the upside-down glasses, including a purple anodized aluminum tumbler missing from its multi-colored mates. That optimistic Brillo font is instantly recognizable. Just below “Mr. Short-Vest’s” left arm is the neck and cap of a Heinz Ketchup bottle. The Heinz’s first served their salted, sweetened and color enhanced tomato-based goop in 1876. Sitting ready to be used on the countertop is Americana’s favorite deep frying agent, Crisco. The fine folks at Proctor and Gamble proudly introduced those handle-less paint cans of grease in 1911.
I’m sure that we all have the urge to deep fry more often but fear what it will do to the walls surrounding our cook top. This slide is indeed a fine example of what happens when you fry too much. The evidence goes way beyond the Crisco spatter and fume-saturated wax paper tacked to the walls. The walls themselves seem to have been deep fried.
Here’s to the too-short vest, Brillo, Heinz and everything deep-fried in Crisco,
Aloha!
This slide isn’t about the lovely lady tourist about to get the center back seam ripped out of her dress, no. It’s all about those triple-wide panoramic windows on that short-lived island-hopping DC 3. Apparantly these view-friendly flyers didn’t last long in the Hawaiian Airlines fleet. They wern’t structurally sound and shook alot.
This week I’m in “Alohaland,” to do a slide show in Maui. The first thing you see after leaving the Maui airport is a big K Mart store. Passing by any K Mart always makes me think of the first time I ever saw a car on fire. I was about five. It burned then exploded in a ball of flames in front of my childhood K Mart in Montclair, CA. I’ll never forget it. The people and thier little poochie barely escaped. It was quite a show.
The supermarket SPAM displays here in Hawaii remind me of my favorite cake recipe to share – SPAM cake. Take a regular white cake mix and sub grated SPAM for the oil. Your trustworthy mixer will pulverize the miracle meat product and you won’t even know its there, (except for the little bits of grissle.) But never mind that. Frost it generously with cream cheese frosting and serve with Americana pride. And if you’re a good food colorist it’s even better if you tint the cake and frosting mixes to match that very savory shade of SPAM pink.
This morning while driving through pineapple plantations and sugar cane fields it occured to me that Hula dancing inspired the Hoola Hoop. I had never put the names Hula and Hoola together. It was a divine moment of Alohacana inspiration.
Here’s to K-Mart, SPAM cake, Hula dancing, Hoola Hoops and YOU! Aloha!
A spotty line of spectators watch the action at a distance. Two grown up girls either are judging or cheering or both. One wears her denim cut full and rolled. The other parts her hair Rita Hayworth style. The contestants seem to be all young men and one young lady. She is second from the right. One is bigger than all the others. Everybody but the sunglass-and-straw-hat-sporting photographer has their hands beside or behind them. They wear denims and dungarees. Shirts not required. Get ready, get set, go!
Some say life is a big rat race. I say life is more like a big pie eating contest. Enjoy it one sweet bite after another.
Part of that sweet life is going to the county fair. The Los Angeles County Fair, the country’s largest, begins today. Epic in story, size and stature it is an all you can eat buffet of Americana culture sold sugared, salted and deep-fried in flavors sure to impress even the snootiest of taste buds. www.fairplex.org
UPCOMING SLIDE SHOW PERFORMANCES
IN NEW YORK – Tuesday October 10th:
CHARLES PHOENIX’S AMERICANA THE BEAUTIFUL
A Retro Slide Show Celebration of America’s Golden Era, the Space Age
… 5-4-3-2-1 BLASTOFF!
Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Ave
New York, New York 10003
Tuesday October 10th 8 pm
$20 – Tickets at the door one hour before showtime
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
IN HAWAII – Thursday, September 14
CHARLES PHOENIX’S RETRO VACATION SLIDE SHOW TOUR OF THE USA
Thursday, September 14, 7:30
McCoy Studio Theater
Kahuimi, Maui
Here’s to the pies, the contest, county fairs and you!
I love it when people decide to take their official new car portrait on the right shoulder of the Hollywood freeway in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. Does anybody even take an official new car portrait anymore?
The sky is the haziest of pale blues. The monumental modern Federal Building stands as stately as it still does. Split-neck streetlamps spotlight the slow lane and shoulder at night.
Beautifully framed between the ivy covered canyon slope on one side and light traffic speeding by on the other, a young lady about town strikes a proud pose with a brand-spanking-new butterscotch metallic 1959 Chevrolet Nomad Station Wagon – so new that it doesn’t even have a license plate.
Her smart sunglasses soften the golden glare of the mid-day Southern California sunshine. The belt of her otherwise plane-jane, yet timeless classic, cotton sundress is trimmed in turquoise. Yes, the car is low and wide but she is tall by any feminine standards.
The vast expansion of Southern California’s “toll-free”-way system during the 50s and 60s made it the most advanced metropolis on earth. More than anything else in the built environment, freeways defined the modern era and forever changed the landscape, lifestyle and distance between town and country as they connected our spectacular cities and space age suburbia’s ever so conveniently.
Southern California’s freeway system is so Tomorrowland. It reminds me of Autopia at Disneyland. Only it’s much bigger, free to ride on and you can’t just crash into the car in front of you for fun.
Properly dressed in a portly-sized suit and wide-brimmed hat, a sun-lit man-about-town crosses the street on one side as a battleship grey 1949 Dodge emerges from the semi-shaded canyon of casinos and commerce on the other. This is the only downtown on earth that has casinos on the east side of the street and commerce on the west. The neon signs are seductive and abundant – some are electrified by day and some are not. The lack of font variety is as unexpected as it is unpretentious.
I love Reno! I went there frequently in the 80s. Two of my best friends were fresh-out-of-college TV news reporters there. One of them had a great aunt that lived nearby – Aunt Pauline. She was short, slender and as sassy as her day-glo red hair ala Lucy. I’ll never forget the afternoon we spent with her.
We took her to lunch at her favorite eating place, the counter Woolworth’s where a simple and savory luncheon was served to us in style. Between bites of her fried egg sandwich she told us a story I’ll never forget.
She had recently retired from the Nevada Club where she was the head cashier for thirty-five years. In all those years of working there she said the owner of the club spoke to her just one time – once in thirty-five years! Everyday he came in with his little pet Chihuahua and walked right past her. He never even nodded. She described him as a rather large man who wore tailored pinstripes, imported wingtips, smoked big cigars and always drove a big, jet black Cadillac.
One day while he was out of the office, his Chihuahua bit her on the ankle. The bite drew blood and required stitches. The next day he came in without the dog, walked right up to her and spoke to her for the very first time. He said “Are you OK? She said “Oh yes, I’ll be fine.” He replied “Well, you made the dog sick.” He never spoke to her again.
Before we took Aunt Pauline back to her 60s time warp house, at her request, we drove her thru McDonalds where she bought five plain hamburgers –a week’s supply – one for each day. She said that she froze them, and then microwaved them for lunch. Yum-yum!
Here’s to Reno, Aunt Pauline, microwaved McDonald’s and YOU!
