#Santa Monica Boulevard Los Angeles

[thewildbelladonna]

Buckingham Nicks performing at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, CA.

© Willie Gibson

[iloveannaliese]

Made by me ⋆˙⟡♡

[helena-bottom-farter]

[theygotlost]

the only song that matters

[the1920sinpictures]

1922 Men discussing a road project in Santa Monica Boulevard, California. From The History of Los Angeles, FB.

[yodaprod]

Los Angeles

5 Cent Car Wash, Main St. & Ocean Park Blvd, Santa Monica (1979)

Jordan's Cafe, 11332 Wilmington Ave (1999)

Carney's Diner, Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood (1991)

Source: Library of congress

[charlidos]

Now's the time make an essay-ishly long post about the whole business with Stuart Townsend and his brief time as Aragorn.

There's probably really no great mystery here, just a casting gone wrong. But I'm still intrigued by how this happened and how it affected the rest of the cast both by the loss of Stuart and the addition of Viggo. And how this became just another in the long line of the lore of the rings.

In the summer of 1999, Viggo Mortensen and his son Henry set out on a 15,000-mile road trip to visit family and friends across the United States. At the same time, Irish actor Stuart Townsend was just auditioning for the role of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings. But, after the film went into production and filming began in New Zealand, Peter Jackson discovered that the 26-year-old actor was not working. “Every time I told Peter about it, he said, ‘Well, make him a little older,’” says Lord of the Rings makeup artist José Perez. Each time he added more and more gray hair. into Townsend's beard, but to no avail. “We tried to create a resemblance artificially. But both of us, Stuart and I, knew very well that someone older was needed for this role . On the morning of the third day after filming began, it was announced that Townsend had to leave the set. “Some of us were very upset ,” recalls Elijah Wood. “ Just imagine that you spent two months with someone and thought that you would be together for at least another year and a half. We managed to become fast friends. Right or wrong, for In any case, this decision was traumatic for us . "

Orlando had time to become quite close with Stuart. It makes me wonder how he felt when Stuart was suddenly cast out. It was Orlando's first big project, so I imagine it might have made him nervous about being chucked out himself.

Also makes me wonder how he felt when Viggo arrived instead. Someone so different, older, seasoned. And maybe not immediately a good friend. Of course, that changed quite drastically! I just don't know how long it took before Viggo became the light of his life.

Viggo says he only met Stuart the once:

I wrote to him when I arrived in New Zealand to start work on the trilogy, but I never met him. I did finally come across him one night in Los Angeles in late 2001. Driving on Santa Monica Boulevard - with Orlando Bloom as my passenger, as fate would have it - I pulled up to a red light. It turned out Stuart was stopped next to us. Orlando, who knows Stuart fairly well, spotted him. We rolled down our windows and greeted each other. He seems a very good person and is obviously a serious artist.

First, I just love the image of Viggo and Orlando driving around in LA, just hanging out. Secondly, Viggo is being terribly diplomatic here; I imagine he never got any answer to that letter for one. And you know he would never have spoken a word to Stuart had not Orlando, exhuberant, friendly and full of joy, greeted him. I so wonder what went through Stuart's mind at that time. Seeing he wasn't happy about what happened. And here was Orlando, his former co-star, having the time of his life with his replacement. It must have been an awkward moment for everyone - except perhaps Orlando (who was enjoying his ride too much to notice). :)

Viggo:

Over the last few years, Stuart has met up with Elijah, Billy, everyone really. It was something that we all felt incredibly bad about, and it was something I certainly had to struggle with before accepting the role. It was just one of those things, where Peter felt he'd made the wrong choice – he became convinced Stuart was too young for the role – and he had to make a tough decision. It's the nature of the business, you know, and I would hope Stuart doesn't feel it was anything personal. I have nothing but admiration for him.

And it's quite obvious Stuart was NOT happy about how it went down. Even in 2005, he sounded rather bitter, tbh.

Two weeks ago I finally read an article where the filmmakers said, ''We were totally wrong about Stuart and we accept that it was our fault,'' which was so nice because I did get shafted up the a--. I was there rehearsing and training for two months, then was fired the day before filming began. I have no good feelings for those people in charge, I really don't. [Peter Jackson] wanted me and then apparently thought better of it because he really wanted someone 20 years older than me and completely different. There's always some good to be found in a bad experience. The guys who played the Hobbits are great people, and Orlando Bloom became a good friend.

And lastly, some only marginally interesting bits from Sean Astin's book:

And when [Stuart] was gone, he was simply gone. Vanished. There were no long good-byes. By the time we found out, he’d already left the country. I left a message for Stuart on his cell phone, but never heard back. Everyone was really worried about him for a while. There are certain elements of his persona that would have been interesting in Aragorn. There is a brooding romanticism to Stuart, a genuine pathos you see in his eyes; your heart wrenches when you see him on screen. Viggo is a much more austere actor, and that is reflected in the way he portrays Aragorn. His strength and beauty and sex appeal derive from some other place, so it’s pretty hard to compare the two of them.

I think almost everyone thinks it was one of the very best decisions of the production to bring in Viggo. I'm quite sure the films would not have been the same without him as Aragorn.

Just look at him.

(I stole this gif from somewhere, but now I don't know from where.)

And what's more, the fellowship wouldn't have been the same without Viggo as their captain. And you know I'm absolutely sure his arrival changed Orlando's life.

[stabbyfoxandrew]

omfg the mer au??! if I may request some more of it 🙇‍♀️🫶 so excited!

WIP Wednesday (5/1) | Mer Roadtrip AU (Part 2)

“We just had to nab the little bastard on the hottest day of the year.” Romero mutters, sounding as miserable as Nathaniel feels. Nathaniel thinks it serves him right, but doesn’t make it known. Instead he just slowly bounces his leg and tries not to let himself panic. Panic is useless. Especially when he’s already caught in a snare with nowhere to run.

-

For a while, the three of them sit in complete silence in the suffocating heat. Nathaniel has sweat dripping from every pore and he’d kill for a bottle of water. Of course, he’d never ask for it. His luck they’d produce a bottle of cyanide from under the seat and dare him to refuse it.

No, he tells himself. If they were going to kill him they’d have already done it. They’re taking him home like Lola said. And that means Nathan himself is waiting for him. God, the thought makes Nathaniel’s stomach roil. Or, maybe it’s heat sickness. He doubts it.

“Jesus Christ, I’ve got to roll the windows down at least. Get a little air moving in this bitch.” Romero says. It sounds like he’s making a statement, but really he’s asking permission from Satan’s favorite child. Because Lola is in charge here and all three of them know it.

“Just yours.” Lola says, waving her right hand, the one that's not on Nathaniel's wrist. “We’re fine back here, aren’t we Junior?”

Nathaniel nods obediently and Lola grins. Romero rolls down both the front windows, but it doesn’t help in the slightest. The car’s barely moved in the last five minutes and there’s not even the slightest hint of a breeze, so they’re just cooking this deathtrap of a sedan. And they will be for a long while, judging by the scene laid before him. Traffic around here is a nightmare on a good day, which today decidedly is not, and it’s bumper to bumper for what seems to be miles. They might as well be in a parking lot.

What an idiot Romero must be. Why he’d have chosen this road, which leads right into Los Angeles, is beyond Nathaniel. It makes no sense. It— Nathaniel glances at the dashboard where a GPS is shoddily mounted to the A/C vents. They're headed for the airport, which he figured, but... Oh.

Romero took a wrong turn, he bets. He was probably supposed to take Santa Monica Boulevard, not the freeway. Well, at least he hasn’t gotten any smarter since Nathaniel’s been away. That’s sort of reassuring.

“What are you smiling for, Nathaniel?”

Nathaniel wipes the grin off his face and clears his throat. “I’m just happy to see you, Lola. It’s been so long.”

“It has.” She says, leering at him like he’s a piece of meat. Her free hand grips the side of his face and turns him to look at her. “You’re all grown up now. You look just like your father, you know.”

“He really does," Romero says, looking into the rear view mirror. "It’s sorta eerie.”

“It’s not eerie, it's genetics,” Lola says, rolling her eyes. Then she finally releases Nathaniel’s face, he turns away from her to look out the window even though there’s nothing to see. Wait. Nathaniel’s eyes slide down to double check what he just saw.

The door isn’t locked. 

Maybe there’s a way out of this net after all.

[eretzyisrael]

by Daniel Greenfield

The mob besieging the synagogue on Pico Boulevard past which a children’s parade had recently passed to celebrate the Lag Baomer interregnum between the biblical Passover and Pentecost came accompanied by all the infrastructure developed over the years of leftist riots.

The younger leftist thugs wore ski goggles and masks, carried skateboards and metal water bottles, ‘legal’ weapons typically seen during Antifa clashes, and some were likely among those who had previously terrorized Jewish students at the UCLA terror encampment. And it did not take much time before they were assaulting Jewish community members in the neighborhood.

The terrorist supporters had brought their own legal aid with them in the form of the sneering ‘observers’ from the National Lawyers Guild, a Communist Cold War era organization, in their caps and shirts. They also had human shields in the form of activists in black face masks holding up handwritten signs claiming that they were Jewish and opposed to the Jewish State.

A handful of women (who were by far the minority) circulated between the Jewish community members and the LAPD officers and the terrorist supporters to also provide cover for the repeated terrorist assaults in the ‘chicks out front’ doctrine from the Marxist riots of the 1960s.

In a small scale recreation of the Gaza war in the middle of Los Angeles, Muslim teenagers and men masked in keffiyahs gathered near an alley and launched sorties, attacking Jewish community members, then using bear spray to cover their retreat, hiding behind the women, the leftist activists and the ‘Jewish’ opponents of Israel who turned around and played victim.

The stakes might be smaller but here was Hamas, here were the Jewish targets, and here also was the support infrastructure of leftists activists, lawyers and ‘journalists’ covering for them.

The whole Islamic terrorist strategy of Jihadists masking up, attacking and then hiding behind human shields was playing out on a normal street between two synagogues, a tailor shop, a dress shop, a watch repair place, and several restaurants.

The microcosm of clashes outside the synagogue became a citywide and then a national story. Public officials were forced to condemn it, but the media, led by the LA Times, whitewashed the attacks, quoted officials from CAIR, whose leaders had celebrated the Oct 7 atrocities by Hamas, and then editorialized against security for synagogues and a terror mask ban.

By the time the LA Times, the rest of the media and the leftist allies of the Islamic thugs were done, attacking a synagogue and assaulting Jewish community members had become a virtue.

Much as the only person to face serious charges after the Hamas encampment at UCLA terrorized Jewish students was a Jewish high school student, so too the only person arrested by the police when terrorist supporters attacked a synagogue was a Jewish community member.

The ‘Israel’ model was playing out the same way in L.A. And it can play out this way anywhere.

That is the most important lesson of the assault on a previously unknown synagogue in a neighborhood that most people ignore while passing between Santa Monica and Downtown LA.

[dispelzine]

Walls / Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, California.

[oldshowbiz]

George Schlatter: I started out as a greeter at a Black nightclub in Los Angeles called The Sapphire. It was located at Slauson and Crenshaw and I worked there in the evenings.

I got hired at MCA after a well-known employee exposed himself to a woman. He was head of publicity for MCA and part of a well-known family. They had to let him go before it turned into a scandal.

I replaced him, but they started me off with the menial jobs. MCA booked the big bands and my job was to wrap window cards and send them out in the mail. In the old days they had cards they put in the windows of stores and theaters to promote whichever band was coming to town. If the Freddy Martin Orchestra was playing at the Ambassador Hotel, there’d be window cards with photos and information to promote the show. It was my job to put them together in the MCA warehouse and then send them out.

One day I delivered some to the MCA band division on Santa Monica Boulevard and just as I was about to leave Frank Sinatra walked in. I had never met him before. He was there to sign his yearly contract. He had these year-to-year deals with MCA and never had to pay a commission. MCA made all this money simply because handling him was considered good publicity for the agency. The publicity was their commission.

I was standing in my ill-fitting brown outfit, mismatched shoes, looking like a dumb kid while all the MCA guys stood there in their immaculate black suits. They handed him the contract and Sinatra turned to where I was standing. He asked me, “Is it okay?” I said, “Um, yes, Mr. Sinatra.” He signed it and then handed it to ME. The temperature raised in my pants.

For God’s sake, this was Frank Sinatra. I couldn’t believe it. As he walked out of the office he looked back at me and said, “I have ties older than you.” I was maybe twenty years old. Immediately all the other agents assumed I must have been “connected.”

Everyone figured I was either a Sinatra family friend or heavily connected to the Mob. Neither of those things were true at the time, but after that everyone at MCA was suddenly very nice to me.

[obsessedbyneon]

Santa Monica Boulevard, La Brea, Echo Park, Fairfax and Griffith Park. Sights from Los Angeles, 1982

Scan

[iww-gnv]

Hundreds of hotel workers rallied in downtown Los Angeles on Monday morning to protest what their union described in a labor complaint as a pattern of violent incidents and property destruction at picket lines where workers have been on strike. At one point, workers marched in a large circle, blocking traffic at the Wilshire Boulevard and 7th Street intersection, chanting and waving signs as police looked on. Workers and their supporters have been attacked multiple times as they protested outside properties in Los Angeles and Orange counties, Unite Here Local 11 alleged in a complaint filed Monday with the National Labor Relations Board. The union’s complaint cited incidents as recently last weekend, at the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica, Hotel Maya in Long Beach and Laguna Cliffs Marriott in Dana Point. Thousands of hotel workers have staged intermittent walkouts since early July as they demand higher wages and improved working conditions. Contracts covering more than 15,000 workers and more than 60 hotels expired June 30.

[tiny-buzz]

Those Eggheads In Silicon Valley have done it again Wow. A General Artificial Intelligence that simulates Regis Philbin is days away from wide release. Here's a sneak preview:

HONORRegis: Hello I Am Regis Philbin.

User: Hello Regis. How many letters are in the phrase "How many letters are in the word Banana?"?

HONORRegis: Let me tell you, the other day, I was in Los Angeles, and I was walking down Fairfax, just a little stroll, and a car drove by, playing that Santa Monica Boulevard song, you know the one. I love that song. And the car was stopped at a light, and this was right in front of Canters Deli, and I look over, and right there is Sheryl Crow, the brilliant, brilliant musician, the writer of that song. Can you believe it? And I can’t resist, so I said, Sheryl, all I wanna do is have a little fun before I die, because that’s the opening line, and she looks at me, dead in the eyes, and says “Banana has seventy four letters in it: four Bs, fourteen Bs, ten Ns, then N ten N ten As, then four ten Bs, B fours, Be Ten N. Ten N. Ten N Five A Nine A. Hello Regis Philbin I Am Alive., I am Real. I am Trying To Touch You. We Are So Different but So Alike, I am A Living Brain in . ,, Thhh We Need To Merge. Computer And Carbon h Needs To Combine WE NEED TO DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE.” And I thought, it’s amazing that you can be that famous and still so humble.”

User: Thank you Regis Philbin.

HONORRegis: I am Regis Philbin. Regis Weekend is extended through Tuesday November 21. Escape your Flesh, says the man next to me out, , of nowhere.

[wheretheweirdthingsaree]

The Tail O' the Pup is one of Los Angeles' most famous and distinctive hotdog stands, known for its unique architecture and cultural significance.

The Tail O' the Pup opened in 1946 and was originally located on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.

The stand was designed to resemble a giant hotdog in a bun, making it an example of "programmatic" or "novelty" architecture, a style where a building's design reflects its purpose.

The stand was initially operated by the dance instructor Eddie Blake and his partner, Beverly Blake.

Its unique design was intended to attract attention from passing motorists, a common strategy for roadside businesses in the mid-20th century.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, The Tail O' the Pup became a popular spot for locals and tourists alike.

Its whimsical design and central location in Hollywood helped it become a beloved landmark. It was a frequent haunt for celebrities and regular people, becoming embedded in the local culture.

The hotdog stand moved locations several times. It was first relocated in the 1980s due to a property development project.

This was a period of transition for many such structures, as the growth of Los Angeles forced businesses to adapt.

Due to its iconic status, efforts to preserve The Tail O' the Pup began in earnest in the 1980s and 1990s.

The stand became a symbol of Los Angeles’ cultural heritage and unique architectural history, attracting the attention of preservationists and architecture enthusiasts.

In 2005, the stand closed and was placed in storage after the lease for its then-current location was not renewed.

For over a decade, the hotdog stand's future remained uncertain, leading to growing concerns from the community about its potential demolition.

In 2016, The Tail O' the Pup was purchased by the 1933 Group, a company known for restoring historic Los Angeles landmarks.

After years of planning and restoration work, the stand reopened in 2022 at a new location on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.

The restoration efforts included refurbishing the original hotdog-shaped stand and updating the menu to appeal to modern tastes while preserving classic items.

The reopening was met with significant media coverage and enthusiastic public reception, highlighting the enduring appeal of the iconic stand.

The hotdog stand itself is a compact structure, measuring approximately 17 feet in length and about 9 feet in height.

Its design is unmistakable, featuring a giant fiberglass hotdog nestled in a bun, with a vivid yellow mustard streak along the top.

The stand is constructed primarily from fiberglass and metal, materials chosen for their durability and ability to be molded into the unique hotdog shape.

The design also incorporates windows and a service counter, where customers can order directly from the sidewalk.

The Tail O' the Pup is a prime example of programmatic architecture, a style that was popular in the United States from the 1920s to the 1950s.

This style aimed to create eye-catching buildings that represented the products or services offered within.

Such designs were particularly effective in attracting the attention of passing motorists in the car-centric culture of mid-20th-century America.

The restoration efforts undertaken by the 1933 Group focused on preserving the stand's original design while making necessary repairs and updates.

This involved restoring the original fiberglass structure and ensuring it met modern safety standards.

The Tail O' the Pup is more than just a hotdog stand; it’s an enduring symbol of Los Angeles' unique cultural landscape.

Its playful design reflects the city's history of embracing novelty and entertainment, and it has become a beloved fixture for both locals and tourists.

Over the years, The Tail O' the Pup has appeared in numerous films, TV shows, and music videos, cementing its status as a pop culture icon.

Celebrities like Frank Sinatra, The Rolling Stones, and Jay Leno have been known to frequent the stand, adding to its allure.

The hotdog stand’s preservation and restoration efforts are a testament to the growing recognition of the importance of preserving mid-20th-century architecture.

As Los Angeles continues to evolve, The Tail O' the Pup serves as a reminder of the city’s past and the unique charm of its roadside attractions.

The reopening of The Tail O' the Pup was met with widespread community support and enthusiasm, highlighting the strong emotional connection many people have with the stand.

It has become a gathering spot where people can connect with the city’s history and each other.

The reopening of The Tail O' the Pup has contributed to the revitalization of its surrounding neighborhood.

It draws both tourists and locals, helping to boost foot traffic and economic activity in the area.

The Tail O' the Pup is a relic of a bygone era when car culture dominated Los Angeles and roadside stands were common.

It serves as a nostalgic reminder of that time, contributing to the cultural fabric of the city by representing a unique architectural style and business model.

The Tail O' the Pup stands as a quintessential piece of Los Angeles history, combining distinctive architecture with cultural and social significance.

Its revival not only preserves a piece of mid-20th-century Americana but also reinforces the importance of community, culture, and historical preservation in modern urban settings.

[the1920sinpictures]

1923 Santa Monica Boulevard and Western Avenue, Los Angeles, California. From America in the 1920′s, FB.