A tragic event for many people. And ironically the surf is reported to be really good…
LA Daily News
Wildfire map at the LA Firedepartment blog
posted by: Berlin Surfguitar
post categories: Online Sources
Bachelor Pad Magazine/
Booze, Babes & Burly-Q!
“For Mature readers”
Two lines on the cover of the premier issue of Bachelor Pad Magazine. Java of Java’s Bachelor Pad ventured out to create this very welcome addition to cool mag racks, in the handy, slightly smaller than A5 size. To add flesh to the quotes above here are some names:
Bernie Dexter – picture set of classic pin-up poses
Heidi van Horne – a day in the life of… (actress & pin-up model)
Kay O’Hara – centerfold and more classic pin-up poses
Cherry Capri – lifestyle advice
Lily von Schtupp – burlesque producer
Thrillville’s Will Viharo – the classic Vegas flicks on DVD
There’s also plenty of funny cartoons in the fine tradition of attempting to loosing you up again.
You probably got it now, this is about pin-ups, burlesque and the bachelor pad lifestyle that comes with cocktails, fezes and tikis.
Jimmy Vargas writing on the hopeful, young burlesque dancer and her boyfriend is hilarious and far out – very entertaining. Everything is written very entertaining in fact and if you miss this early issue you might kick yourself later! Did I mention the cocktail recipes and entertaining tips yet? Essential!
From the Surfrider Foundation’s MySpace blog:
The surfing world lost a true waterman this week, with the passing of John Kelly at the age of 88.
Not only was Kelly instrumental in defining modern surfboard design, he was seminal coastal environmentalist, founding Save Our Surf in 1961.
Aloha John!
Saturday september 22nd was all about Tiki. The attendance could have been stronger – bad mana Berlin!
But many Ti-key figures came from different parts of europe. The Klang & Kleid guys (Switzerland‘s Lurker, who organized the complete series of events, what an effort, especially considering the timing problems…), of course Sven Tiki and Tanja & Jochen Hirschfeld were there in person to present their respective Tiki documentations.
I also met Virani (from Paris) and Sian the Beachcomber and Trader Jim (of Pocketiki from England), Carola & my old buddy Andreas, Liz & Chris from Cambridge and even though we live in the same city I hadn’t seen Moritz® in a while, but there he was.
Sven, as usual, had prepared a thoroughly enlightening slide-show on the Tiki Modern subject. He was first to present it in the Eiszeit Kino, not before just about everybody had sampled at least one of the 4 great cocktails supplied by the Aloha Luau. The Jungle Bird was a great new discovery for me. And the new book was on display (and for sale) to the enthusiasts. Everybody who bought one had it signed by Sven – they now have quite a heavyweight coffeetable load, considering this new book Tiki Modern has more and bigger pages, and more great pictures than the already huge Book of Tiki! The layout looks cleaner than in the Book of Tiki – which goes very nicely together with the modern subject.
Intermission allowed for another taste from Aloha Luau’s menu and then it was Jochen’s turn. He held a short speech explaining the pre-history of the Armchair Travelling project and the DVD started rolling in the darkened cinema. As I was involved with creating 8 tracks for the DVD’s soundtrack I had seen parts before and Jochen had told about his travels and who he had talked to in the course of making the film. But seeing the first part (about the 30s – 60s origins and beginnings of Tiki pop-culture) condensed into only 60 minutes, the giant afford that was done was at hand. It is something else. There were hours and hours of material edited into what we were presented here, in a great way. But you have to bear in mind that the two DVDs are going to be a hundred minutes each! I was under the impression that just about everybody who could say something profound on Tiki was contacted and interviewed. Of course speaking of the most interesting subjects, giving the most exciting details. So there’s interviews, but also old, private super-8 footage! Gathered classic urban archeaologist style at fleamarkets and garagesales. Another great ingredient were the animated stills. If you have seen Riding Giantsor Dogtown and Z-Boys you know what I mean. A new way of using still photographs in film to draw you into the subject – very effective! If you don’t know about it, it’s not apparent to you it’s stills often times. Just like in the other two docs I mentioned, combined with the right music it’s a great mood- and details-asset to a project like that.
Afterwards played Hulapunk from Hamburg, and a great time was had by all.
But Aloha Luau, in true spirit, had people last minute finishing his new, cute little mini Tiki bar in Oranienstr. while he was serving drinks at the cinema. So most everybody went to check that out, after Hulapunk were finished and the first chatting about the new enlightments was done. I had a Mai-tai (bit too sour) and another, fantastic Jungle Bird.
Nancy Sinatra put some photos of her and the late Lee Hazlewood online. Click here.
Thanks to Robbie on the Exotica Mailing List.
Thanks to Lou Smith on The Exotica Mailing List
NPR – Weekend Edition Sunday, July 29, 2007
Lyle Ritz has logged over 5,000 sessions on the bass as a studio musician. But for his latest project, he wanted to figure out a way to make music on a computer. So Ritz bought an Apple laptop and a software program called GarageBand, designed for making home recordings. Six months later, he completed work on a new solo album.
‘Hardly anybody knew how to operate GarageBand, how to deal with it,’ Ritz says. ‘So I had to fool with it a couple of months.’
On No Frills, however, Ritz entered the bass line into the computer using a synthesizer. That’s because the album features Lyle Ritz’s other musical passion: the jazz ukulele.
Ritz is known as the ‘father of jazz ukulele’ for merging the genre with the four-stringed instrument, and his credits on bass include multiple pop hit singles. However, it was in college, while he was working at a Los Angeles music store, when Ritz first picked up either instrument.
‘This was in the 50s, when Arthur Godfrey, the entertainer, who liked to play the [ukulele], popularized the instrument, and so many people just had to have ukes,’ Ritz says. ‘And one day I picked it up, somebody wanted to see this beautiful, nice, big tenor uke, and I picked it up and played a few chords on it, and I was gone.’
After a stint with a U.S. Army Band during the Korean War—in which Ritz played tuba—he dropped by the music store and played a few tunes on the ukulele for his former boss. Ritz didn’t know that jazz guitarist Barney Kessel, the West Coast representative for Verve Records, was present.
‘I just about fell through the floor,’ Ritz says. ‘I couldn’t believe that I had actually played before this man.’
Kessel offered Ritz a record deal, and in 1957—50 years ago—Ritz recorded an LP called How About Uke?, the first album for jazz ukulele.
How About Uke and its follow-up 50th State Jazz generated little interest, however, and Ritz soon abandoned the ukulele for the bass. It was at that point when Ritz joined the ‘Wrecking Crew,’ the legendary group of studio musicians who played on many of the pop hits which came out of the Los Angeles area from the mid 1960s to the early 80s. Later, Ritz also played on film scores.
While Lyle Ritz’s bass was heard by millions, his jazz records for Verve were being studied by a generation of musicians in Hawaii, home of the ukulele.
Roy Sakuma is Hawaii’s foremost teacher of the instrument. ‘All of a sudden here comes Lyle with all these fantastic chord harmonies that just took music to a whole new level on the ukulele,’ Sakuma says. Sakuma tracked Ritz down in 1984, inviting him to headline his annual ukulele festival in Hawaii. Ritz ended up moving to the islands for some time.
Ritz currently lives in Portland, Ore., where he continues to experiment with music and new recording technology. He says he’s always fooling with his ukulele—after all, he did teach himself to play the instrument.
‘I’m a firm believer and exponent of the art of noodling,’ Ritz says. ‘You don’t necessarily have to have a goal in mind, you don’t have to have a specific phrase or song that you’re working on, but you just fool with it and things happen. And I call the result the fruit of the noodle.’
Lyle Ritz on iTunes
I read it here, at the blog of the San Onofre Surfing Club. His name was Les Williams. I never knew who was the surfer on the Beach Boys Surfin’ USA album cover, but it’s a great shot with style on a considerably sized wave. A big wave. The album is among my favorite Beach Boys albums, and even pure instrumental Surf fans should know it.
Dumb Angel Blog is delivering the goods here. The next best thing to being there at the time is knowing all the good stuff.
All the themed night-clubs. The recording studios and labels. The Doo-Wop groups, the R&B and soul acts. The garage bands who covered them. The cool jazz-acts. Early Doors, artists and mindblowing interior design. Pheww… You owe it to yourself to check out this update of the Dumb Angel Blog.
Friday, July 6 – 7:30 PM
Hawaii, 1966, MGM Repertory, 161 min.
Director George Roy Hill’s (Throughly Modern Millie) adaptation of James Michener’s sprawling South Seas epic was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Cinematography (Russell Harlan) and Best Music Score (Elmer Bernstein). Max Von Sydow is the puritanical missionary who marries disappointed-in-love Julie Andrews just before they set sail to do the Lord’s work in the early 19th century island paradise. But they get more than they bargained for, squeezed between an onslaught of natural disasters and strange native customs. Their Calvinist devotion to a fire-and-brimstone worldview clashes head-on with the uninhibited, Dionysian headiness of the tropical lifestyle. With Richard Harris as Andrews’ former flame, Gene Hackman, Carroll O’Conner, Jocelyne LaGarde (who received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress).
Saturday, July 7 – 4:00 PM
Rare Tiki Island-Themed TV
Approx. 60 min. Artist Kevin Kidney hosts an entertaining hour of vintage tiki-themed television from the early 1960s – including some special surprises! *Tickets available to this program at the door only UNLESS purchased with the Luau Dinner ($20).
Saturday, July 7 – 5:00 PM
Luau Dinner
Following the 4 PM program, join us in the Egyptian Courtyard at 5 PM for a Royal Southern California-style Luau with live music from King Kukelele and his Friki Tikis, the Polynesian Paradise Dancers, vendors and a bountiful island-themed dinner.
On Saturday, July 7th, you have three special ticket price options:
Movies Only (valid for all movies on Saturday only):
General: $12; Senior/Student: $10; Cinematheque Member: $9
Luau Dinner Only: $20 (includes film admission for 4 PM show and dinner.)
All Movies (4 PM and 7:30 PM Movies), plus the Luau Dinner:
General: $27; Senior/Student: $25; Cinematheque Member: $24
*A limited number of dinners will be sold at the door. To guarantee a dinner ticket please purchase in advance.
Vendors in the Courtyard may include: Tiki Tony, Adrift Clothing, Crazy Al’s Bone Productions, “Dumb Angel” Magazine authors Dominic Priore and Brian Chidister, Tiki Diablo, Falling Cocos, Coconut Kids Clothing, Tiki Farm, the American Cinematheque selling poster and others…
Saturday, July 7 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
The Sophisticated Misfit, 2007, Smee Entertainment, 65 min.
Mark Chervinsky directed this four-year exploration of the world of Shag, the unlikeliest of Los Angeles artistic icons. Shag’s work doesn’t reflect the multicultural urban milieu of contemporary Los Angeles but rather an entirely different era. Think post-WWII boom years, suburban tracts sprawling across the landscape, Disneyland opening its doors and designers embracing the space-age motifs of Sputnik and the mission to the moon. Shag’s world is one of early 1960’s furniture, cocktail hours, sprawling ranch houses, built-in wet bars, and jet-set style. He embraces a simpler time. But his artwork is filled with subtle, humorous winks of the eye acknowledging that this period wasn’t quite so simple. The smiling women in their mod dresses hold secrets. The festive party scene in the go-go ’60’s home isn’t really what it seems. With Whoopi Goldberg, Patton Oswalt, Paul Frank and Shag. Winner of the Maverick Filmmaker Award at the 2007 Newport Beach Film Festival.
His Majesty O’Keefe, 1954, Warner Bros., 91 min.
Director Byron Haskin (THE NAKED JUNGLE; the original WAR OF THE WORLDS) brings a bracing exuberance to this tall tale of stranded-in-Micronesia sea captain Burt Lancaster’s quest to manipulate his native hosts into helping him build a trading empire. Joan Rice is the enchanting island girl who ends up being queen to his king. The spectacular Fiji Islands locations were stunningly photographed by the great cinematographer Otto Heller (THE CRIMSON PIRATE). Co-starring Andre Morell, Abraham Sofaer, Benson Fong. “…This swashbuckling South Seas adventure feature is ideally suited to Burt Lancaster’s muscular heroics. The Fiji Islands location lensing is a plus…” — Variety Discussion in between films with Shag and director Mark Chervinsky.
Sunday, July 8 – 7:30 PM
Miss Sadie Thompson, 1953, Sony Repertory, 91 min. Dir. Curtis Bernhardt (Possessed).
After having to leave Hawaii when her Honolulu singing job goes kaput, hard-luck dame Sadie Thompson (Rita Hayworth) is stranded on the isle of Samoa which is home to a U.S. Army base. She’s befriended by well-meaning, lovable GI hunk Aldo Ray as well as his soldier pals (including a young Charles Bronson). But dirty-minded lay minister and self-righteous gadabout Jose Ferrer, laying over with his wife on a trip, believes she is nothing more than a common prostitute and is offended by her presence. He takes it upon himself to make Sadie’s life a living hell until he can get her deported back to the States. Although Rita’s singing voice was dubbed by Jo Ann Greer, you would never know it during the musical numbers – she is positively dynamite performing “Hear No Evil,” “The Heat Is On,” and “Blue Pacific Blues.” Originally shot in 3-D, this is a terrific color remake of W. Somerset Maugham’s classic tale Miss Thompson, first filmed in 1932 as RAIN by director Lewis Milestone with Joan Crawford.
