Los Angeles magazine - June 2021

IT’S SUMMER. REMEMBER FUN? HUNTER BIDEN’S VENICE BEACH HIDEOUT

ROOFTOP BARS, BLINGEDOUT BIRKENSTOCKS, PUCK GOES POOLSIDE

THE KARDASHIANS’

LAST LAUGH Fourteen years ago she was a socialite with a sex tape. So how did Kim Kardashian and her Calabasas clan end up taking over the world?

BY BENJAMIN SVETKEY

PLUS THE LOST GAYTOPIA OF ALPINE COUNTY

BY M AT T H E W A LG E O

THE PRIME TIME OF ZIWE

BY ROBERT ITO

THE LAST DAYS OF SKID ROW

BY JASON MCGAHAN & CHRISTIAN WITKIN

$5.95 JUNE 2021 L A M AG .CO M

FIND YOUR FUN

ALL DREAMS WELCOME, EVEN SPLASHY SPECTACULAR ONES. Find your summer vibe on miles of sandy open space with beach bike paths and aquabikes, kayaks and paddleboards. You can Wh`æ_bW UeædebW!Ä ææWV ^WZXYT_bY__Vc gZdY ]ecWe]c ç^V _edV__b art, boutique rarities and fun attractions. And whatever you crave – oceanview dining or casual eats – the eclectic cuisines, like the city itself, is the quintessential beach-chic experience.

Explore the Ocean at Aquarium of The Pacific Whale Watch on a Harbor Breeze Cruise Wander Ranchos Los Cerritos or Los Alamitos Ride in a Duffy, Swan Boat or Gondola Getaway Rent a Bike and Take in the Sights Grab a Late-Morning Bite or Sip Exotic Craft Beers

For everything to see and do: VisitLongBeach.com

@VisitLB | #visitLB | visitlongbeach.com

Explore blooming gardens, antiquities galleries, and Roman-inspired architecture.

We’re excited to welcome you back to your Getty. Learn about safety measures and make free, timed reservations at getty.edu.

Plan your visit | getty.edu This image was taken before the COVID-19 pandemic. Masks are now required.

© 2021 J. Paul Getty Trust

We can’t wait to see you.

JUNE 2021

L I F E ON T H E ST R E E T

Homeless at 17 and living in a tent on Skid Row, Shiloh (left) took a bus to Pasadena every weekday to attend school.

Features 48

56

64

The Kardashian Konquest

The Citizens of Skid Row

Greetings From Gaytopia

Why are they famous? Honestly, nobody really knows. A deep dive into the multibillion-dollar Kardashian phenomenon— how a sex tape and some selfies turned an unremarkable Calabasas clan into L.A.’s biggest export since McDonald’s and revolutionized fashion, beauty, and social media—as the family everyone loves to loathe finally bids goodbye to TV (for now).

A bombshell court ruling this spring requires the city to relocate the homeless residents of Skid Row. Since the ’70s, the threemile strip of downtown L.A. has been an embarrassing symbol of urban blight. But for the people who live there, it’s a neighborhood with rules and customs all its own.

In 1970, the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front created a media firestorm by declaring it would relocate America’s homosexuals to a rural California county to vote themselves into power. Denounced

by Ronald Reagan and protested by preachers, the group and its daring plan ultimately unraveled. But it turns out that was the plan all along.

BY BENJAMIN SVETKEY

4 L A M AG . C O M

BY JASON MCGAHAN P H OTO G R A P H E D BY C H R I ST I A N W I T K I N

B Y M AT T H E W A LG E O

P H O T O G R A P H E D BY C H R I S T I A N W I T K I N

JUNE 2021

Buzz

IS MITCH O’FARRELL SUNK?

» Despite his liberal bona fides, the 13th district councilman became the fall guy for the politically disastrous clearing of Echo Park Lake’s homeless camp. Now the blowback threatens his re-election

BY JON REGARDIE PAGE 11

THE BRIEF

» Aaron Sorkin checks out of the Chateau Marmont (finally); Hunter Biden hides out along the Venice Canals; Richard Lewis’s role on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm is on again; a crime syndicate is selling hot dogs on the Santa Monica Pier PAGE 14

TIKTOK MEETS THE MENENDEZ BROTHERS

» The latest social-media revisionist campaign casts the notorious murderers as wrongly maligned victims of extremely bad parenting

BY REBEKAH BRANDES PAGE 16

F R E S H C AT C H

Shrimp ceviche with beet, cucumber, and radish at the new Cha Cha Chá downtown.

The Inside Guide

Ask Chris

» Why does Randy’s Donuts claim it’s been famous since ’62 when it’s been open since the ’50s?

What’s the busiest hospital in L.A.? Our resident historian answers all your burning questions.

BY CHRIS NICHOLS PAGE 80

» Ziwe’s hilarious, squirm-inducing new Showtime gig; the

downtown rooftop where you’ll want to spend your summer sipping negronis; a not-so-basic guide to Birkenstocks; the party’s on—and Wolfgang Puck’s in the kitchen—at The Britely; a chic desert getaway that rivals Joshua Tree; and more.

P H O T O G R A P H E D BY A D R I A N M A RT I N

ON THE COVER Illustrated by Justin Metz

6 L A M AG . C O M

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L A M AG . C O M 9

06.21

Is Mitch O’Farrell Sunk?

DESPITE HIS LIBERAL BONA FIDES, THE 13TH DISTRICT COUNCILMAN BECAME THE FALL GUY FOR THE POLITICALLY DISASTROUS CLEARING OF ECHO PARK LAKE’S HOMELESS CAMP. NOW THE BLOWBACK THREATENS HIS RE-ELECTION

BY JON REGARDIE

I L LU S T R AT I O N BY R O B E RT CA RT E R

L A M AG . C O M 1 1

POLITICS

T

HE 15 MEMBERS

of the City Council tend to be overlooked by most Angelenos unless there is an election or a scandal.

Mitch O’Farrell, who since 2013 has represented the 13th District, which stretches from Hollywood to the L.A. River and north to Atwater Village, blasted into notoriety in late March when the LAPD cleared a homeless encampment that had sprung up in his territory across the public park at the edge of Echo Park Lake.

How you interpreted the dispersal—captured by an army of TV and cell-phone cameras—likely depended on how you viewed the tent city in the first place: O’Farrell described it as a dangerous place where people had died, including an 18-year-old San Diego woman who overdosed on cocaine and fentanyl. But his take—and that of neighbors who said that the park had descended into unusable anarchy—was countered by activists who cast the encampment as a sup“Mitch represents the most progresportive community for some of the sive district in Los Angeles, and his city’s 41,000 unhoused. It didn’t help politics really don’t reflect that.”

O’Farrell that during the shutdown, So how did O’Farrell, a reliably libscores of protesters were arrested and eral politician with a record of supseveral journalists covering the proporting environmental and aniceedings were detained. mal-welfare causes and the LGBTQ The fallout has been relentless. community (he is one of Protesters are a contwo openly gay council stant presence outside members) who last year O’Farrel’s Glassell Park How did helped direct $100 milhome, and he has been a reliably lion in federal funds to denounced by activists renters, end up pilloried as a “fucking faggot” at liberal,

by Los Angeles’s increasheated council meetings. openly gay ingly vocal progressive Ktown for All, a commucouncilman crowd? And what does nity organization that become a that mean for his politisupports the homeless, punching cal future? released a three-page O’Farrell maintains statement demanding bag for that there was no nefariO’Farrell’s resignation, progressives? ous agenda in the clearconcluding that his “acts ing of the park. He says were not in good faith.” that in December his of“We saw the real transfice contracted with the San Francisco gression being the secrecy,” Dr. Robin Petering, the organization’s policy homeless outreach organization Urban cochair, told Los Angeles, saying that Alchemy, whose staff sought to build there was insufficient advance noties with park residents, warned them tice of the park’s closure. She added, that the site would close for repairs

1 2 L A M AG . C O M

and urged them to accept offers of housing. O’Farrell says more than 200 did so before the park was cleared.

“There was no secrecy, no lack of transparency to the actual population that we served there,” O’Farrell told me in early April. “So if some folks outside of the people that we focused on getting the help they needed want to squawk about lack of transparency, then they weren’t in tune with what we were doing.”

It is an unlikely dispute, but perhaps no more unlikely than the 60-year-old O’Farrell’s path to this very moment. Born in Oklahoma to a Teamster father, who would bring back souvenirs from his truck routes to California, and a mother who worked as an administrative assistant, O’Farrell was a competitive gymnast in high school before moving to Los Angeles to make it in entertainment. In a 2012 KCET interview, he recalled how after arriving he slept on the floor of the Hollywood apartment he shared with six roommates, worked at a coffeehouse, and would meander past security guards

P R OT E ST E R S : SA R A H R E I N G E W I RTZ , LOS A N G E L E S DA I LY N E WS /S C N G V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S

BUZZ

T RO U B L E D WAT E R S

M I TC H : P H OTO BY L AW R E N C E K . H O/ LO S A N G E L E S T I M E S V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; E N C A M P M E N T: F R E D E R I C J. B R OW N /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S

Clockwise from far left: Activists march in support of the homeless living in Echo Park Lake. Tents in the encampment prior to the LAPD’s clearing the park in March. O’Farrell at his election-night party in 2013.

The new councilman for L.A.’s 13th District couldn’t have known that Echo Park Lake would turn into one of the city’s most notorious homeless encampments.

The outrage from progressives over the eviction of its residents has landed mostly on O’Farrell’s shoulders and could affect his run for a third term next year.

onto studio lots. “I remember sneaking into MGM’s backlot and onto the set of Dallas and sitting at J.R.’s desk,” he said.

O’Farrell wound up traveling the world as a professional dancer on cruise ships—a fact his tormenters at Ground Game LA taunt him about on their website. When O’Farrell returned to Los Angeles, he volunteered on the City Council campaign of a young Rhodes Scholar and college professor named Eric Garcetti and, in 2002, joined Garcetti’s staff as a field director, rising through the ranks. A 2010 city resolution commemorating O’Farrell’s 50th birthday playfully referred to him as “the type of character we welcome to Hollywood Boulevard” and noted that he “waited until he was a half century old to welcome technology into his life.”

After Garcetti was termed out, O’Farrell ran for his open council seat in 2013 and defeated a labor-backed candidate in an upset. A member of the Wyandotte Nation, a Native American tribe, he took the oath of office

from Chief Billy Friend along the Los Angeles River. Four years later, he was re-elected in a race dominated by discussions of development.

O’Farrell has lived for three decades in Glassell Park with his partner, George Brauckman, and an adopted terrier mix named Speedy.

Those familiar with City Hall say O’Farrell is likable and hardworking, if sometimes prickly. Whereas some council members strive to set citywide policy, O’Farrell is described as more focused on matters concerning his constituents.

“There is no one I can think of who is more committed to his district,” says David Gershwin, who overlapped with O’Farrell in Garcetti’s council office when O’Farrell was a district director and Gershwin was chief of staff.

Now a lobbyist and consultant, Gershwin adds, “He has lived it and breathed it for years. I don’t understand what the pushback is.”

Some City Hall watchers contend that O’Farrell’s public hammering is unwarranted and that it is unfair to blame him for a police decision to dispatch hundreds of officers to clear Echo Park Lake when the Centers for Disease Control recommends leaving

homeless encampments in place so as not to spread the coronavirus. Others say that the councilman’s response to a mushrooming Echo Park crisis was riddled with mistakes—chiefly that he never should have allowed the tent encampment to grow so large in the first place, which all but guaranteed that fed-up neighbors would clash with angry homeless-rights activists.

O’Farrell is up for a third and final term next year. He has raised nearly $110,000 for his campaign (his closest competitor has just $11,000), and incumbency and political connections will allow him to haul in much more.

John Thomas, a Republican campaign strategist who is not involved in the race, says O’Farrell has a “huge advantage” but that he would be foolish to coast. Nithya Raman’s surprise toppling of incumbent David Ryu in District 4 last November shows that the unexpected can happen. “You cannot dial this in as just a regular re-election—that would be a grave mistake,” Thomas says.

Meanwhile, O’Farrell’s opposition is girding for battle. Petering says Ktown for All plans to release “grades” for council members and candidates, evaluating their homelessness and housing priorities and histories, and the message will be spread widely. “We find these tools to be really helpful for people who are newly aware,” she says.

O’Farrell professes not to be fazed, believing that, despite the barrage of negative press, his support has not withered. As we spoke, he ticked off a cadre of homeless housing projects his office engineered that are coming to his district. He also chastised some of his council colleagues and, while not naming names, suggested that when it comes to addressing homelessness, they are offering lip service.

“Some of us on the council are actually providing real results,” O’Farrell says. “Some on the council are just kind of talking a good game.”

L A M AG . C O M 13

N E WS & N OT E S F R O M A L L OV E R

The Brief Chateau Marmont co-owner Balazs fired 248 employees last March.

AARON SORKIN CHECKS OUT OF THE MARMONT INFORMED OF ITS TOXIC STATUS AMID LABOR TURMOIL, THE DIRECTOR BELATELY SHUTS DOWN A SHOOT

BY IAN SPIEGELMAN

picket lines wasn’t a great has some ’splaining look for the famously libto do. The 59-yeareral-leaning creator of The old writer-director West Wing. “The cast and had been planning on crew of Being the Ricardos shooting a scene for his upstand in solidarity with the coming Lucille BallChateau Marmont’s Desi Arnaz biopic workforce,” proat the Chateau ducer Todd Black told The HollyMarmont in wood Reporter, April, seemexplaining how ingly unaware the production of the labor un“took immedirest and boycotts ate action to shut that had bedevdown the one-day iled the hotel for CLUELESS? shoot as soon as months. In fact, Sorkin (center) with this was brought Sorkin was just Being the Ricardos’s Bardem and Kidman. to our attention.” hours away from It’s frankly a setting up cameras bit surprising that the at the Sunset Blvd. landChateau’s problems had mark when he was remindsomehow slipped under ed—apparently by leaders Sorkin’s and Black’s radar. of the hospitality union The hotel has been making representing the 248 workheadlines all year and not ers who’d been fired by hojust because Balazs fired tel owner André Balazs in March 2020—that crossing nearly his entire staff. A A A RO N S O R K I N

14 L A M AG . C O M

THR exposé in September revealed years of behindthe-scenes racism and sexual harassment at the hipster enclave where Roman Polanski once lived and John Belushi died. There were other stories last winter that Balazs was thinking of turning the hotel (which is half-owned by his ex-wife, fashion scion Katie Ford) into private residences or a club, but nothing appears to have come of those schemes, possibly because Balazs has had his hands full with other problems, like the lawsuit filed by his estranged partners at New York’s Mercer Hotel, who claim that he owes them $2 million.

But better late than never, and Sorkin (also known as Paulina Porizkova’s new squeeze) and his Ricardos stars Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman have joined a slew of other luminaries, like Jane Fonda , Edie Falco, Sarah Silverman, and Martin Sheen, in boycotting the Chateau. For now, Balazs is betting that he can ride out the storm. After all, Hollywood has been “boycotting” the Beverly Hills Hotel over its homophobic owner (the Sultan of Brunei) for a couple of years, but after a few lean seasons business at the Polo Lounge is as brisk as ever.

F O RT U NAT E S O N Biden’s

$17,500-permonth rental—not including Secret Service protection.

GUESS WHO’S LIVING ALONG THE VENICE CANALS H U N T E R B I DE N

sure has come a long way from those $59-a-night Super 8 motel rooms he describes in his new addiction-and-redemption memoir, Beautiful Things.

The president’s son—and the right’s favorite whipping boy during the 2020 campaign—is currently cooling his heels (along with wife Melissa Cohen) in a $17,500-a-month, two-bedroom rental along the Venice Canals.

The 3,800-square-foot home is owned by Sweetgreen cofounder Jonathan Neman and his wife, Leora Kadisha, daughter of Omninet Capital billionaire Neil Kadisha, who purchased it in 2017 for $4.85 million. Among its amenities: a sauna, a rooftop terrace, a walled courtyard, and a plunge pool. The residence isn’t perfect, though: the property is a little too easy to access by water, as rightwing Irish documentarians Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer demonstrated when they paddled up to the house in a kayak seeking an

C H AT E AU M A R M O N T: AA R O N P / B AU E R - G R I F F I N /G C I M AG E S ; P R OT E ST E R : J E A N - B A P T I ST E L AC R O I X /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; AA R O N S O R K I N : Y U I M O K / PA I M AG E S V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; N I CO L E K I D M A N : E M M A M C I N T Y R E /G E T T Y I M AG E S FO R WA R N E R M E D I A ; JAV I E R B A R D E M : DA N I E L E V E N T U R E L L I / W I R E I M AG E

P R E T T Y VAC A N T

H U N T E R B I D E N : PAU L M O R I G I /G E T T Y I M AG E S FO R WO R L D FO O D P R O G R A M U SA ; R E N TA L : R E A LTO R .CO M ; SA N TA M O N I C A P I E R : A L E X I R O S E N F E L D/G E T TY I M AG E S : T W E E T: @T H E R I C H A R D L E W I S

NEWLY ADJUSTED ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE FOR CITIZEN KANE. AFTER THE SITE ADDED A NEGATIVE REVIEW FROM 1941, THE ORSON WELLES CLASSIC SLIPPED A NOTCH, PLACING IT JUST BELOW PADDINGTON 2. HOW WOULD THE BEAR CELEBRATE? “I IMAGINE HE’D JUST CRACK OPEN THE MARMALADE,” SAID PADDINGTON DIRECTOR PAUL KING, “AND HAVE A SECOND SANDWICH.”

interview with Biden. They had to be shooed away by Biden’s Secret Service detail.

How the son of the world’s most famous Amtrak rider is paying for the spread isn’t known, although he’s insisted he’ll “absolutely” be cleared of any wrongdoing as the feds continue to investigate his dealings with China and elsewhere.

At this point, royalties from Beautiful Things could barely cover the cost of a parking space near the canals; although sales started out strong (No. 222 on Amazon), they’ve slowed considerably over the three weeks since publication (currently at No. 688). One news source reports that only 29,000 copies have sold so far, despite Biden’s eagerness to promote the tome anywhere and everywhere, with appearances on everything from CBS Sunday to Joe Schrank’s Rehab Confidential podcast. — I . S .

WESTSIDE STORY: IS THE PIER BECOMING A GANGLAND? YO U M I G H T want to think

twice before biting into that hot dog you just purchased on the Santa Monica Pier; the vendor who sold it to you is very likely a member of the Murcia family crime syndicate.

According to a report in The Santa Monica Observer, the gang has taken over the bustling pushcart business at the landmark amusement park—which reopened in February after on-and-off-again shutdowns throughout the pandemic—

with unlicensed Murciaconnected vendors chasing away legitimate merchants who pay as much as $1,500 a month in city permit fees.

A recent spate of violence on the pier—a scuffle in April that resulted in the ar-

officers have been refusing to step foot anywhere near the pier, claiming in an open letter to the city council that they have “been assaulted many times” and that their lives “have been threatened by members of

O N T H E WAT E R F R O N T

The Murcia gang is thriving on the Santa Monica Pier.

rest of six individuals, and one back in late September in which a vendor was arrested on charges of “assault with a deadly weapon” after attacking another vendor with an umbrella — are all related to the Murcia incursion, according to an unnamed “highly placed government official” cited in the Observer story.

Up until now, the odds of Santa Monica taking decisive action to protect the pier’s rightful merchants were about the same as winning the bottle ring toss.

The Santa Monica Police Department is steering clear of the fracas, claiming it’s not their job to police the vendors, which is technically true: a new state law known as the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act decriminalized unauthorized public vending, leaving the matter of enforcing permit violations to code enforcement officers. But code enforcement

the Murcia family.” Even the fire department, which might have something to say about all those open propane flames being used to cook snacks on the kindling-like wharf, is keeping its distance.

But, according to Phil Brock, newly elected member of the Santa Monica City Council, all that is changing. “It’s been an on-going and festering issue, and the city did not act as quickly as it should have,” Brock tells Los Angeles. “But the city is now paying attention.

We’ve been communicating with our state senator and preparing an amendment to the state law. In the meantime, we are taking action to make sure hot-food vendors stay off the wood planks. Code enforcement officers, with the support of Santa Monica police and fire departments, are taking steps.” — B E N JA M I N SV E T K E Y

99% THE SCHMO MUST GO ON R I C H A R D L E W I S ’s on-again-off-again role on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm is on again. The 73-year-old famously neurotic comedian announced in January that, after two shoulder surgeries and a back operation, he would “tragically” not be appearing in the 11th season of the hit HBO sitcom. But then, in April, the self-described Prince of Pain reversed himself. “Great news for me!” he alerted his 193,000 Twitter followers.

“LD called me and asked if there was any chance if I felt strong enough to do one episode! I am and here I’m on

SUPER TROUPER

Lewis shoots one last Curb episode.

the set to shoot it.” In the past, Lewis’s devotion to the show has sometimes reached De Niro-like proportions. In season 5, he actually lost 15 pounds for a 12-second shot in an episode in which he asked David for a kidney transplant. “I really wanted Larry to freak,” he said at the time, “to see his own death, what it might be like.” — I . S .

L A M AG . C O M 15

Buzz

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

TikTok Meets the Menendez Brothers THE LATEST SOCIAL-MEDIA REVISIONIST CAMPAIGN CASTS THE NOTORIOUS MURDERERS AS WRONGLY MALIGNED VICTIMS OF EXTREMELY BAD PARENTING

BY REBEKAH BRANDES

After CourtTV posted online the entire trial on Father’s campaign and rehabilitating Britney Spears, Day weekend, two TikTok factions—true-crime fanatics TikTok’s social justice-minded kids are rallying and anti-sexual-abuse protesters—joined forces in support around a surprising new crusade: to free the of Erik and Lyle, now 50 and 53. On Instagram, users like Menendez boys , the Beverly Hills @projectmenendez organized a letterbrothers who have spent the past 31 writing campaign urging Governor Newsom to commute their sentences. years in prison for murdering their A Change.org petition calling for an parents. appeal has garnered almost 80,000 On August 20, 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez, 18 and 21, walked into signatures. the den of the family’s Beverly Hills According to journalist and longmansion where Jose Menendez, a time Menendez supporter Robert Rand, the brothers—now under quarmillionaire Hollywood executive, had antine in different sections of San settled in for a night of TV with his Diego’s R.J. Donovan Correctional wife, Kitty. The brothers took turns Center—are aware of their newfound shooting the couple, killing their fans. Erik recently released a YouTube father in his chair and chasing their message responding to his young mother until she slipped on her own supporters’ questions and good wishes. blood and took a final blast to the face.

While the brothers have exhausted The brothers then dropped out of all of their appeals, Rand claims to college and spent over half a million have uncovered a letter Lyle sent to a dollars of insurance money on cars, cousin prior to the murders detailing watches, private tennis lessons, and his father’s abuse. New evidence like parties while the cops investigated that may motivate the boys to file a the murders as a possible mob hit. writ of habeus corpus, which would The spree came to an end when Erik’s allow a final chance to request their psychologist’s mistress went to police freedom. Overturning the case claiming Erik had confessed everywould be a long shot; still, having thing in a recorded session. an army of implacable 20-year-olds The brothers’ massively covered take up your cause never hurts. “I trial was a pop culture milestone— would never diminish the ability of one of the first to be televised, gavel a movement to gain legal traction,” to gavel, on CourtTV. Millions tuned says celebrity criminal defender in. Leslie Abramson, Erik’s tigerMark Geragos. “I could see a statute mom attorney, claimed in opening being passed which retroactively statements that Jose Menendez had W E T H E J U RY allows someone to reraise the issue,” been sexually assaulting his sons for Erik and Lyle Menendez during their 1996 murder like the 2001 statute creating a habeas years until they finally reached their trial (top) and in prison. An army of TikTokers is agitating to overturn their convictions. corpus claim for women convicted of breaking point—and then gunned murdering abusive partners. down their long-suffering mother to Social media, with the celebrity buy-in of Rihanna, Snoop “put her out of her misery.” Their first trial ended in a hung Dogg, and Kim Kardashian, played an outsized role in the jury. The second, in 1996, sent both away for life. commutation of convicted murderer Cyntoia Brown’s life In 1989, when sexual abuse defenses were still rare, the sentence in 2019. If a Gen-Z celeb or two takes up their cause, brother’s tearful testimony was dismissed as a desperate the Menendez brothers might stand a chance at playing legal tactic by a pair of greedy con men. But in recent years, tennis in Beverly Hills again. Says Geragos, “Times change. a spate of made-for-TV movies and docudramas has revived People start to recalibrate. The law moves, and I’m a big interest in the case, and in a #MeToo environment, accusabeliever that movements can have an effect.” tions of sexual abuse no longer seem so far-fetched.

16 L A M AG . C O M

F R O M TO P : M I K E N E L S O N /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; T I KTO K : @ M E N E N D E Z B R OT H E R E S J U ST I C E , @ B E STO F M E N E N D E Z ; ASS O C I AT E D P R E SS

A

F T E R S U C C E S S F U L LY T R O L L I N G the Trump

The Spotlight Squad Charlize Theron Misty Copeland Yao Chen

BUZZ

S U R R E A L E S TAT E

Million Dollar Listings MEDIAN L.A. COUNTY PRICES ARE $750,000 AND CLIMBING FAST. SO WHAT DOES THE ONCE-MYTHICAL $1 MILLION HOUSE LOOK LIKE THESE DAYS?

BY ALEXANDRIA ABRAMIAN

The latest stats from Southern California's real estate hullabaloo portray a seller's market gone wild: median home prices have soared by double digits for eight months in a row. Listings for all but the most decrepit properties are attracting multiple bids, and most sell in less than a week. What gives? A classic combination of low supply, high demand driven by pandemic-induced deferred spending, and record-low interest rates. So what will $1 million buy you in L.A.’s hottest realestate market in 30 years? Well, there’s this really cute cottage on Curson . . .

$

1M

BU R BA N K

$

1M

MIDCITY

LOCATION Walking distance to Pico Boulevard’s

LOCATION: Tucked on a cul-de-sac in the desir-

ed floors, plumbing, electrical, and roof.

A separate office with its own full bath is located next to the detached two-car garage.

able Media District, minutes from Warner Bros. lot, Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center, public swimming pool and tennis courts.

DRAWBACKS The living room, dining room,

HIGHLIGHTS Well-maintained Spanish-style fire-

and kitchen comprise a single open space whose petite dimensions could hamper social gatherings.

TODAY $999,500. +8%

place and maple floors give more square-footage bang for its listing buck than Westside comps.

The kitchen is upgraded with slate countertops and professional ZLINE gas range. There's a backyard patio, fountain, and mature landscaping for outdoor entertaining.

CONTACT Elizabeth Campos Layne, Re/Max,

DRAWBACKS Dated kitchen cabinetry.

310-430-5432, www.agentslayne.com.

independent cafes and shops—Bloom, Stevie’s, Paper or Plastik, Eco Dog.

1 YEAR AGO: $1,000,000.

TODAY $1,150,000. +15%

$

1M

CONTACT Stacey Leahy, Joel Simon, Coldwell Banker Realty, 424-522-8484.

$

1M

DRAWBACKS Limited closet space.

1 YEAR AGO $858,000.

TODAY $1,050,000. +24% CONTAC T Samira Tapia, Compass, 818-642-9622.

E C H O PA R K

1421 N. Alvarado Street 1,036 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths LOCATION Masa of Echo Park, Cosa Buona,

$

1M

DEL REY

5418 Inglewood Boulevard 1,052 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms LOCATION Wedged between Del Rey and the

southern border of Culver City. Near Silicon Beach tech companies, with easy access to 18 L A M AG . C O M

Sage Vegan Bistro a short walk away.

HIGHLIGHTS Built in 1909, recently upgraded with restored wood floors, wainscoting, beam ceilings, fireplace with built-in shelving. Renovated kitchen with quartz countertops, farmhouse sink and remodeled bathroom with floor-to-ceiling forest-green tile and cast-iron claw-foot tub. The spacious backyard includes wood Beastmaker exercise structure.

H AW T H O R N E

5318 W. 122nd Street 1,543 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath LOCATION Walking distance to schools, parks,

and gyms.

HIGHLIGHTS Fresh from a recent facelift. The

common room's minimalist hearth and woodbeamed ceiling offer a blank canvas from which to go modern, retro, or boho chic. The openplan kitchen is updated with quartz countertops.

DRAWBACKS Retail mall across the street.

DRAWBACKS Blocks from 405 freeway.

1 YEAR AGO $808,000.

1 YEAR AGO $815.000.

TODAY $988,000. +22%

TODAY $949,000. +16%

CONTACT Ron Pineda, Keller Williams. 949-291-4087.

CONTACT Gregory Eubanks, Redfin Now, 310-663-7896.

M I D C I T Y: AC E M I S I U N A , D E A R S PA R R OW.CO M ; E C H O PA R K : A N T I S M E D I A ; B U R B A N K : P H OTOS CO U RT E SY CO L DW E L L B A N K E R R E A LT Y/ST U D I O C I T Y & C A L A B ASAS ; M O N E Y: G E T T Y I M AG E S

1920s Spanish cottage brought new floors throughout, updated kitchen with black cabinetry, wine fridge. Bathrooms are renovated with Pinterest-friendly tile. Other upgrades include foundation reinforcement, and Instaworthy, drought-tolerant front garden.

HIGHLIGHTS Recently remodeled with updat-

1 YEAR AGO $926,600.

1637 S. Curson Avenue 1,006 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths

HIGHLIGHTS Extensive renovation of this

Playa Vista and downtown Culver City.

323 N. Lima Street 1,857 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths

FOLLOW US ANYWHERE

@LosAngelesmag @lamag @LAmag

HouseLAmag_2017.indd 1

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06.21 THE

Inside Guide INCOMING

The

Hot Seat

ZIWE FUMUDOH ROCKETED TO INSTAGRAM FAME PUTTING PEOPLE ON THE SPOT WITH BLUNT QUESTIONS ABOUT RACE. NOW SHE HAS HER OWN SHOWTIME SERIES WITH BIG-NAME GUESTS— AND THE SAME HILARIOUS PROVOCATIONS

BY ROB E RT I T O

Plus > Get in line for the bagel that’s causing a frenzy on the Eastside PAGE 34

> SoCal’s new “It” desert getaway PAGE 40

> From hippie to haute: the surprising style evolution of Birkenstock PAGE 44

STYLED BY: Pamela Shephard-Hill MAKEUP: Rebecca Restrepo at traceymattingly.com HAIR: Cheryl Bergamy for Exclusive Artists using Contents Haircare FASHION: Prada

PH O T O GR A PH Y BY S T E PH A N I E D I A N I

L A M AG . C O M 2 1

The Inside Guide

X P E C T D I S C O M F O RT on the new Showtime

variety show Ziwe, which premiered May 9.

On her wildly popular YouTube and Instagram programs, Ziwe Fumudoh—who typically goes by her first name only—created squirminducing, can’t-look-away moments when she asked white guests Rose McGowan and Alyssa Milano the simplest of questions: How many Black friends do you have? And why do you hate Asian women? It was all in good fun, and viewers experienced a sort of cathartic relief not to be in the hot seat themselves. The uncomfortable pleasures continue on Showtime with guests like Fran Lebowitz, whom Ziwe asks, “What do you hate more, slow walkers or racism?” and a faux commercial for an American Girl line of dolls “inspired by the wives of some of history’s most important colonizers.”

When Ziwe, 28, was growing up in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants and one of the few Black kids at her private boarding school, she found herself on the receiving end of all sorts of similarly unwelcome questions. Why don’t Black people pull up their pants?

What’s up with rap? What kind of name is Ziwe?

“I would come to my parents and be like, ‘Why wasn’t I named Kelly or Ashley or something normal?’ ” she recalls.

“And they were like, ‘This is a normal name where we’re from.’ ” Here, she talks about the new Showtime gig, her childhood, and the weirdest question she’s ever been asked.

On the show, you have a music video called “Stop Being Poor.” Were you ever poor, and if so, when did you stop being poor? > I don’t think I ever stopped being poor. I don’t own any assets, honestly. The song is made for the majority of Americans who would suffer if they stopped working for six months, and that’s just about everybody, especially during the pandemic. We were seeing some of our most affluent billionaires become richer as Americans really struggled to put food on their tables. I was lucky enough to have the privilege of working during the pandemic, but if the pandemic had happened at any other point in my career, I would have really worried about how I was going to be able to afford rent.

You ask your guests a lot of pointed questions about race. What’s the 22 L A M AG . C O M

weirdest question you’ve gotten about race? > Someone asked me if I was worried that my work would not be topical when the tide about caring about race was over. That was kind of the im-

Cole Escola and Ziwe

I C ON I C

Like Oprah and Madonna before her, Ziwe has established herself as a first-name-only talent.

plication of the question.

There are comedians who talk about family life, comedians who use puppets to communicate, comedians who talk about airplanes, and they’re never asked whether their comedy will age. So the idea that my comedy, which is based on race, which has existed in the United States since the dawn of this country, will ever age out of the public discourse—that was the most absurd question that I’ve ever gotten.

You don’t seem to mind making people uncomfortable. What makes you uncomfortable? > I feel uncomfortable perpetually. But I’m OK with sitting in that discomfort.

When I’m talking to a guest and I’m asking them a question about race and I watch them squirm, I feel uncomfortable, too. But that discomfort is natural, and I’ve

been having these conversations since before there was a camera pointed in my direction. I went to predominantly white schools where I was the only Black person in the room, where I was 14 and had to speak for an entire community. And so I’m just trying to parent my inner child that felt really angry for a long time for being in those situations.

You’ve gone from Instagram videos to getting your own Showtime series.

Do you worry that you won’t be able to do everything you used to do? > No, not at all, because now I have such a bigger budget!

I’ve been shooting music videos for years, but I could never do a music video on the scale of “Stop Being Poor” before this. And now I have Fran Lebowitz sitting across from me. That’s not an interview that could have

Z I W E P H OTO G R A P H E D BY ST E P H A N I E D I A N I ; ST Y L E D BY: PA M E L A S H E P H A R D - H I L L ; M A K E U P : R E B E CC A R E ST R E P O AT T R AC E Y M AT T I N G LY.CO M ; H A I R : C H E RY L B E R G A M Y FO R E XC LU S I V E A RT I STS U S I N G CO N T E N TS H A I R C A R E ; JAC K E T/S H I RT/ B LO O M E R : S P O RT M AX ; B O OTS : B U R B E R RY

E

INCOMING

N OW P L AY I N G

MUSIC

“When I’m talking to a guest and I’m asking them a question about race and I watch them squirm, I feel uncomfortable, too.”

Hot Flashbacks

From the buzz around the upcoming Friends reunion to high-waisted mom jeans being all the rage with the TikTok set, ’90s nostalgia is in full force. Don’t fight it; just give in with this playlist of ultimate summer songs from the last decade of the twentieth century.

DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, “Summertime” If you’re ever at a barbecue where this song isn’t on the playlist, don’t eat anything, don’t talk to anyone, and try to leave as quickly as possible.

Toni Braxton, “You’re Makin’ Me High” Even after 25 years, this vintage Babyface production still sounds cooler than a summer breeze.

TLC, “Waterfalls” The chorus is unforgettable, but it’s the late Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes’s rap that still leaves the biggest emotional mark.

Sir Mix-a-Lot, “Baby Got Back” Even the existential horror of watching Sarah Palin covering the undefeated big-booty anthem on Masked Singer last year can’t dent its status as a sultry club banger.

happened before Showtime.

And as far as missing the DIY aspects of Instagram Live, I still have an Instagram.

CO L E E S CO L A A N D Z I W E : G R E G E N D R I E S /S H OW T I M E ; P L AY L I ST: G E T T Y I M AG E S

What were you like as a kid? > I had a lot of energy. I always asked a lot of questions, and that would get me in trouble sometimes.

And I cried a lot! As a child, I was really sensitive.

What would you cry about? > I would cry about everything. Once I watched this B movie called Double, Double, Toil and Trouble with Mary-Kate and Ashley, and I cried throughout it because I was so sad that the twins were separated. I’m just really, really sensitive to other people’s emotions, honestly.

Do you ever marvel at how far you’ve come? > I never would have

thought that I would be in this position a year ago. I was this little girl from Lawrence, Massachusetts, whose parents are immigrants from Nigeria, whose grandmother starved to death in her village. There’s no world you can conceive where this would be the direct line to the person that I’ve become. I just hope that I can give people a sense that anything they want to achieve is possible.

A lot of actors want to sing and dance but never get the chance. Is that why you created your own variety show, so you could do whatever you wanted? > Yes. It’s such a scam. I get to make everyone watch me sing and dance and interview people and act in sketches that I write and help write and star in. So I’m like, wow, I’m the luckiest person in the world.

2Pac, featuring Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman, “California Love” Please be upstanding for the Golden State anthem.

Raucous whooping, hollering, and dancing is mandatory. No exceptions.

Janet Jackson, “That’s The Way Love Goes” The epitome of sexy, early ’90s slow jams from Janet’s untouchable phase. When the mercury is rising, it never misses.

New Radicals, “You Get What You Give” The feel-good summer smash of 1999 has gotten a new lease on life since it was performed at the Biden inauguration, and those lyrics about kicking Marilyn Manson’s ass hit extra hard these days.

Hanson, “MMMBop” We all pretended we hated this song back in the summer of ’97, but we can stop fronting now.

Brandy and Monica, “The Boy Is Mine” Have you ever met a ‘90s kid who doesn’t like this song? If so, ask them to surrender their ID because they obviously forged their date of birth.

Montell Jordan, “This Is How We Do It” This new jack swing classic can still turn any summer house party inside out.

L A M AG . C O M 23

The Inside Guide

M OV I E S C O M I NG S O O N

Return to Your Seat

The Bay Theatre by Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas is expected to welcome moviegoers back this summer.

THEATERS ARE EAGER TO GET CUSTOMERS BACK, BUT ARE THEY DOING ENOUGH? B Y PA U L S C H R O D T

THE TO-DO LIST

theaters in the long run.

They are certainly in a vulnerable position. After over a year of being shuttered, the beloved local cinema chain ArcLight, as well as Pacific Theatres, announced in April that they would permanently close, saying they didn’t “have a viable way forward.” Meanwhile, smaller operations like the New Beverly Cinema, Vista, Egyptian, Aero, and the Bay Theatre, were dark at press time but said they planned to eventually reopen.

The Lumiere Music Hall in Beverly Hills has done more than most, offering a small popcorn and small soda for $1—and advertising the meal deal on its marquee—to celebrate its reopening. The Alamo Drafthouse downtown was scheduled to come back May 28, with temperature checks and special

events, including screenings with free toys and tchotchkes.

Ultimately, Bock says, it will have to be the movies themselves that draw people back. Tom & Jerry, which was released concurrently in theaters and on HBO Max on February 26, surprised by hauling in over $14 million in its opening weekend at the box office.

Released March 31, also in theaters and on HBO Max, Godzilla vs. Kong has vastly exceeded expectations, raking in $400 million and counting. Hopes are cautiously high for A Quiet Place Part II, the John Krasinski-Emily Blunt horror flick out May 28, and the latest Fast & Furious installment, F9, out in late June.

“Pandemic or not,” Bock says, “the right film at the right time can just do cuckoo bucks.”

Your June cultural agenda

READ

LISTEN

STREAM

SEE

Following the bestselling Daisy Jones & The Six comes Taylor Jenkins Reid’s seventh novel, Malibu Rising. A perfect beach read, it focuses on a single, feverish end-ofsummer party in the '80s, the famous family members who host it, and the secrets they keep. June 1.

The Backstreet Boys resume their mammoth world tour, which kickstarted in Lisbon in 2019 and was brought to a halt

by COVID-19. The Hollywood Bowl concert is presented by Live Nation and precedes the L.A. Philharmonic’s season at the Bowl, which begins in July. June 7.

Broad City’s Ilana Glazer gets serious in False Positive, a horror film coming to Hulu about IVF and a sinister fertility doctor played by Justin Theroux. Glazer, who cowrote the film, says it’s “the first art that I’ve made that wasn’t blatantly trying to make people happy.”

June 25.

Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei brings Trace to the Skirball Cultural Center. Created in 2014 while Ai was under house arrest, the installation features 83 portraits of activists and prisoners built from thousands of LEGO bricks.

Through Aug. 1.

24 L A M AG . C O M

Ilana Glazer

WAT C H The gang is getting bigger this summer. John Cena makes his Fast & Furious saga debut in F9, playing the brother of Vin Diesel’s Dominic.

Expect fast cars, fighter jets, exploding parachutes—and, yes, John Cena don’t lie to yourself—a good time.

June 25.

—B E C K Y

ZHANG

T H E AT E R : AA R O N P/ B AU E R - G R I F F I N ; I I L A N A G L A Z E R : CO U RT E SY H U LU ; J O H N C E N A : CO U RT E SY U N I V E R SA L P I C T U R E S ; M A L I B U R I S I N G : CO U RT E SY B A L L A N T I N E B O O KS

R

E G A L , A M C , C I N E M A R K , Landmark, some Cinépolis locations, and even Hollywood’s El Capitan and TCL Chinese Theatre are showing films in Los Angeles again at limited capacity (50 percent or 200 people to a screen, whichever is fewer, as per health department rules), but don’t expect free popcorn, complimentary cocktails, and all-you-can-eat candy. What they are offering is a bit less sexy. Cinemark is touting a new “Cinemark Standard” when it comes to cleaning procedures and an increased “freshair rate” for its HVAC system. While AMC offered 15-cent tickets on its initial U.S. relaunch day last August, it’s now back to regular pricing, though you can still rent out one of the company’s auditoriums for a private screening for a mere $99. TCL Chinese is giving $10 tours of its historic grounds and leaning hard on special events—notably a number of celebrity imprint ceremonies—to juice excitement. But experts say such measures might not compel Angelenos to abandon their couches.

“I just don’t think they’re doing enough,” says Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co., an entertainment research company. “Do something we can’t resist! ” He believes that the lack of big promotions may hurt

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The Inside Guide

MIXED MEDIA

Reality Check STARVED OF LIFE EXPERIENCES DURING THE PANDEMIC, AUDIENCES ARE BINGING ON DOCUMENTARIES. BUT FOR EVERY HEMINGWAY, THERE'S A HOT GIRLS WANTED

BY STEVE ERICKSON

26 L A M AG . C O M

timated the influence of a novelist whose persona consumed his literary impact, which has given ground, for half a century, to contemporaries like F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner. Nonetheless, the documentary was a riveting and unsparing portrait of a man and his time, and for many, it was probably revelatory about the extent to which the author fetishized masculinity while grappling with gender ambiguity.

It remains to be seen how long the doc boom continues. At a moment when high-profile boutique theater chains like ArcLight are shutting down, no one can doubt there have been tectonic changes in our media viewing.

And the audience’s new enthusiasm for documentaries isn’t always as elevated as Burns or Morris; half of the most popular documentaries streaming are about crime, particularly when it’s violent (Making a Murderer, The Staircase, and the fascinatingly meta I’ll Be Gone in the Dark), though seduc-

E R N E ST H E M I N GWAY: E A R L T H E I S E N /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; M U H A M M A D A L I : C H I P H I R E S /G A M M A- R A P H O V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S

T

H E T WO M O S T compelman wrongfully convicted of killing a ling series I’ve seen in the police officer; A Brief History of Time, last couple months were which introduced cosmological theoabout social misfits creatrist Stephen Hawking to popular culing a quasi-fascist online planetary ture; and, particularly, Fog of War, cult (think The Matrix crossed with observing how good men made disasTwin Peaks) and a world-famous autrous decisions as they pertained to thor becoming unhinged as he grapVietnam. If any single figure accounts ples with the secret of his gender for the documentary’s current vogue, identity (Breaking Bad crossed with though, it’s Ken Burns, now coming Transparent). Both shows had evoff Hemingway with Muhammad Ali, erything—intrigue, danger, politics, the story of the activist heavyweight familial melodrama, epic implicachampion, looming at summer’s end. tions—and if they sound like projects Burns is the Spielberg of the docucooked up by Hollywood, in fact, they mentary, mostly for better and someare documentaries. Not so long ago times for worse. The Burns formula documentaries were a niche, which was perfected 30 years ago when The is a nice way of saying they evoked Civil War became a TV phenomenon. the dry, dusty landscape of knowlPart photographic sleight of hand (the edge rather than the amusement park camera gliding over stills), part perof escapism. Still struggling to satformative tour de force (familiar voicisfy a cultural ADD all the more proes delivering quotes of the day), part nounced during the pandemic, audiambient seduction (a musical theme ences binged on the likes of Q: Into some can hear in their heads decades the Storm and Hemingway because, later), The Civil War introduced a starved of experience new century of Amerby the long shutdown, icans to their counthey’ll consume the try’s most horrific and real world whatever heartbreaking chapKen Burns, way they can get it. and brought alive mostly for better ter The status of the for audiences a histobut sometimes ry of which too many documentary has been changing in a way remain woefully ignoworse, is the that’s reached critirant.

Spielberg of cal mass these past 15 Burns occasionmonths. The genre has documentaries. ally gets the obligabeen around forever: tions of evenhandedRobert Flaherty’s Naness and exclamatory nook of the North and drama exactly backthe Soviet-made Man With a Movie ward: As masterful as The Civil War Camera were landmarks of the silent was, it could have been a bit clearera. Frederick Wiseman’s gonzo-verité er on that whole slavery thing that docs have served as portals into evmade the war inevitable. And while eryday institutions (Hospital, High Ernest Hemingway certainly was the School, City Hall), while Errol Morris most celebrated American writer has told stories that served as searing since Mark Twain, exactly as Hemingexposés: The Thin Blue Line, about a way claimed, Hemingway overes-

Viewfinders GROUNDBREAKING FELLOWSHIP BRINGS NEW VOICES TO DOCUMENTARY

BY JOSEPH BIEN-KAHN

T H E O S C A R - N O M I NAT E D feature documentary Time—

FAC T S O F L I F E

K E N B U R N S : A L B E RTO E . R O D R I G U E Z /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; T I M E : CO U RT E SY A M A ZO N ST U D I O S

Above: Burns almost singlehandedly created the modern documentary format. Left: His most recent subjects include Hemingway and Ali.

tive con artists and sociopaths (Fyre, WeWork, The Inventor) will sometimes do in lieu of a dead body. Much of the rest focuses on sex, either illicit (Hot Girls Wanted) or weird (The Vow), or the stuff of People magazine, including profiles of Michelle Obama, Michael Jordan, and Taylor Swift.

If few reasonable people would argue that more documentaries isn’t a good thing, the more information that becomes available, the more its quality demands examination. In the past, the rarity of the documentary gave its content an undue authority.

Q: Into the Storm uncovers how, in an information age, otherwise intelligent people can believe some really nitwitted shit when it’s rendered in absurdly labyrinthine terms. Reality has been so vivid and often overwhelming these last few years that fiction can’t compete anymore. We may be coming full circle: when “information” is the fiction, and no one knows the difference or wants to.

about Fox Rich, a New Orleans woman who spent two decades fighting for her husband Rob’s release from jail—was initially conceived as a short doc, until the last day of filming in 2017. It was then that Rich handed director Garrett Bradley a treasure trove of home videos. Bradley, a rising talent with little network outside of the South, knew she had something great but she needed help.

“I was very much an independent filmmaker,” says 35-year-old Bradley.

She found the assistance she sought in a fellowship from Concordia Studio, a new company from Davis Guggenheim, Academy Award-winning director of An Inconvenient Truth; producer Jonathan King; and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs.

“I came to L.A., and there was a network of mostly white men who gave me breaks,” says Guggenheim, the son of Academy Award-winning director Charles Guggenheim. “And not at one juncture—at like 50 junctures. What I’m seeing with these filmmakers in the fellowship is that network is not there for them. So we’re trying to build one.”

Concordia publicly launched in early 2020 with a slate of projects, including Time, at the Sundance Film Festival, but it’s been in development for years. In 2017, Guggenheim started working with Rahdi Taylor, who’d spent a decade at the Sundance Institute. There, she witnessed the creation of several fellowships to get BIPOC filmmakers into the industry. But she watched these directors continually miss the chance to helm biggerbudget, career-changing projects. She envisioned a fellowship for midcareer, underrepresented filmmakers to help them cross the “chasm between the independent side of the film industry and the industry side.” Concordia’s largesse from Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, allowed the company to offer tailor-made assistance to filmmakers.

For Bradley, this meant help cut-

ting, so Concordia connected her with editor Gabriel Rhodes. “What’s unique is this fellowship adapts to the fellow,” says Guggenheim.

The Concordia Artist-in-Residence program currently has 14 fellows and five alums. On an afternoon in February, ten of those fellows sat in on a Zoom master class hosted by the documentarian Pete Nicks. The fellows lapped up Nicks’s thoughts on how to persuade a police force, a hospital, or a school to give a director access and final cut; when to start the camera rolling; and the like. He also told the fellows to remain focused. “Be true to your passion and vision,” he said.

“That’s going to result in the best film.”

Fox and Rob Rich in Time.

To run a nonfiction fellowship at this moment is fruitful but fraught: the entrance of Apple, Netflix, Amazon, and other streamers has created a boom for documentaries, but the algorithmic pull has also threatened to dilute the genre with cookie-cutter true crime and mindless fluff.

Time serves as a proof of concept for everything Guggenheim and Taylor are building. The lyrical film about the psychic cost of a father’s prison sentence on a family is light-years from Netflix’s Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. And yet the film sold to Amazon Studios for $5 million and successfully premiered on the platform last fall.

“Rahdi is creating this precious kind of womb, where all these artists can grow,” Guggenheim says, “while always keeping in mind that these incredible people have to be functioning and powerful out in the real world.”

L A M AG . C O M 27

The Inside Guide

BOOKS

Dark Matter

YEARS AFTER THE DEATH OF CREATOR ADAM PARFREY, THE FANTASTICAL CULT PUBLISHER FERAL HOUSE IS STILL ROARING—AND FINDING UNTOLD STORIES OF A DIFFERENT SORT

W

H E N A D A M PA R F R E Y died in 2018, he was honored with an obituary in the New York Times and a full-throated farewell on the official website of the Church of Satan, the latter of which ended with “Hail Adam! Hail Satan!”

Parfrey founded the independent publishing company Feral House in downtown Los Angeles in 1989 and from its noirish offices published titles—Apocalypse Culture, Psychic Dictatorship in the U.S. A., The Secret Life of a Satanist, Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr.—dedicated to some of the very darkest subcultures. Parfrey reveled in the bizarre and had an anthropological interest in the overlooked and forgotten; Feral House's books served as progenitors of everything from Reddit to Oscar-winning films.

“In the pre-internet days, you couldn’t find things,” says screenwriter Larry Karaszewski, who cowrote the screenplay for Ed Wood based, in part, on a Feral House book. “You had to trust these kinds of sources. And Adam was among the sources.”

“Everything the establishment extols as comfortable and right and good makes me sick.”

—ADAM PARFREY

28 L A M AG . C O M

The publishing company counted among its writers satanists, punk rockers, conspiracy nuts, serial killers like Ian Brady (aka, the Moors Murderer), and those who could be described as fascists and neo-Nazis.

Parfrey, who was raised Jewish in Malibu, fervently maintained that just because he published people's work didn’t mean he agreed with them.

“Everything the establishment extols as comfortable and right and good makes me sick,” he said in a 1995 interview with a zine.

Parfrey also played the provocateur himself, writing a still-shocking takedown of the feminist Andrea Dworkin in which he called her “pachydermlike,” and playing a blackface character called the minstrel in Crispin Glover’s film What Is It? “He wanted to shock people out of their malaise,” says his younger sister, Jessica Parfrey, 56.

It’s almost impossible to imagine Parfrey or his company existing in our U N TA M E D T I T L E S quick-cancel era, and yet three years The just released New after his death at 61, Feral House Age Grifter (top) is about the founder of a bizarre remains very much alive. Overseen religion. Older Feral by his sister along with author and House books include 2013's Ye-Ye Girls and longtime associate Christina Ward, 2010's The Weird World the indie publisher continues to of Eerie Publications. probe hidden corners and steadily release new titles.

Out this month, New Age Grifter: The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia and His Cosmic Family by Joseph L. Flatley tells the story of the founder of a UFO-obsessed cult. Due in July, When We Are Human: Notes from the Age of Pandemics by John Zerzan looks at what the world may be postpandemic.

Jessica Parfrey, who runs the company out of her Port Townsend, Washington, home, has made an effort to find writers different from those that Feral House was originally known for. In 2019, she and Ward put out a call for “writers who identify as Women, People of Color, LGBTQ, and others who have felt excluded from traditional publishing.” Still, she sees herself as being on a continuum with her brother’s approach, which was all about bringing outside voices in.

“There are infinite stories out there,” she says. “I just want to share some that might be super cool but that don’t always get noticed.”

P O RT R A I T: T E D S O Q U I ; N E W AG E G R I F T E R A N D W E I R D WO R L D O F E E R I E COV E R S D E S I G N E D BY S E A N T E JA R ATC H ; Y E Y E G I R LS D E S I G N E D BY G R E G G E I N H O R N

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The Inside Guide

ART

Rogue’s Gallery JET-SETTING CURATOR CHRIS SHARP IS LAYING DOWN ROOTS IN LOS ANGELES—AND SHAKING UP THE CITY’S GALLERY SCENE WITH HIS EPONYMOUS NEW SPACE

BY MICHAEL SLENSKE

W

HEN CHRIS SHARP arrived in Soto Climent. The two eventually transformed Los Angeles in mid-March 2020, their living room into a white-cube gallery they a few days before the lockdown dubbed Lulu. In contrast to Mexico City’s obwould put an indefinite pause session with conceptual art, Lulu made a name on his globe-trotting lifestyle, for itself by focusing on form and craft-driven the last thing he planned to do was open a galpaintings and scultpure. lery. For starters, the 47-year-old curator and “I’m very interested in artists who think arts writer already had a thriving gallery, Lulu, plastically, by which I mean artists who think in Mexico City, where he’d been living since 2012. through materials, medium, the history of that But even that venture was somewhat of a fluke. medium; who challenge it; and who are able to “I wanted to be a novelist,” says Sharp, articulate or convey complex or sophisticated dressed in a white-linen buttonideas,” he says. down, khaki shorts, and navy Sharp initially moved to L.A. skate shoes on a warm afternoon last spring to hunker down with in the backyard space of the newhis girlfriend, food writer BB “L.A. is very ly minted Chris Sharp Gallery, Their apartment manufactured Beugelmans. which he opened in Mid-City in became a gallery during the pan. . . It feels like January. “I have no plans; shit demic until the two found an just happens.” old floral studio that they transa fake city. But Raised in San Francisco by a into the Chris Sharp Galthat’s wonderful formed single mother who put her dreams lery, with Beugelmans managing and a huge part the space. It debuted earlier this of becoming a painter on hold to of its charm.” work two jobs to support the famyear with seven ethereal paintily, Sharp studied literature at ings by young Kiwi abstract paintCHRIS SHARP the New School in New York. He er Emma McIntyre, who just finmoved to Paris in the early aughts ished her MFA at ArtCenter. In a to write and started working in the glowing review, Frieze magazine art world to pay the bills. He was toiling as a studubbed the exhibition “sublime.” The current dio assistant to the Polish-American art star Pishow, up through June 12, is devoted to young otr Uklanski, when the Parisian dealer Fabienne Brit Sophie Barber and her chunky paintings Leclerc enlisted him—for, he says, “no good readepicting celebrity portraits taken by celebrity son”—to curate a group show. She flew him all photographers—think Tyler Mitchell shooting across America to scout artists, and by the time he Harry Styles. Sharp is also still involved in variopened the show in 2006 he was hooked. ous international projects, including a massive “Trying to write a novel, you spend a large new aquatic-themed show on the French isle of majority of your time alone; but in art, it’s a colPorquerolles, featuring works by Jeff Koons, Paul lective enterprise,” says Sharp. “I love the synKlee, and Alex Olson. But he’s most excited about tactical nature of art. You can put objects into settling here and building up his L.A. program. a room together and, depending how you posi“The fact that L.A. is very manufactured—in tion them, you can modify and create meaning the sense that it’s got faux Spanish villas, the movwhile at the same time protect and preserve the iemaking industry, the strip mall—it feels like a intentions of the work.” kind of fake city. But I feel like that is wonderful Over the next decade, Sharp became the ediand a huge part of its charm,” he says. “The life tor of the Milan-based magazine Flash Art and of the independent curator—where you’re on a continued to curate shows around the globe. Afdifferent plane all over the world if you’re lucky— ter a residency took him to Mexico City in 2012, gets pretty tiring. I like being in one place. I find he moved into the apartment of artist Martin it really refreshing to be home.”

30 L A M AG . C O M

L O OK S H A R P

Sharp in his Mid-City gallery with Coral Vs King Snake Jacket (2019), a ten-foot-tall sculpture by L.A.-based artist Ishi Glinsky that investigates his punk rock influences and Tohono O’odham Nation heritage.

P H O T O G R A P H BY J O S E F JA S S O

The Inside Guide

HANGOUT

Shining Britely JUST IN TIME FOR THE POST-PANDEMIC BOOM, L.A.’S LATEST PRIVATE CLUB FEATURES A NEW OUTPOST FROM WOLFGANG PUCK AND A FIZZY, ROARING TWENTIES VIBE

BY MERLE GINSBERG

T

H E L A S T T H I N G L . A . needs is another private club—unless it’s The Britely. Bringing a fresh reboot of Old Hollywood glamour to the hotel-heavy Sunset Strip, the club, on the site of the old House of Blues, is a palatial, art deco pastiche of velvet sofas; ostrich feathers; prismatic chandeliers; smoky mirrors; floral, animal, and geometric prints in pinks, pistachios, and butter yellows.

It’s an an homage to the Jazz Age—a place the ghost of Jay Gatsby would be happy to haunt. There are two indoor bars and one outdoor, with sconces and chandeliers throwing the kind of light you want to get a little louche under.

And how many Hollywood social clubs serve up Wolfgang Puck’s luxe-level cuisine in two restaurants? Membership is $2,800 a year or $4,200 for couples. That includes entrée to the splashy gym and spa at The Britely’s sister hotel, the Pendry. When that long-promised Roaring Twenties redux finally rolls in, the Britely will be ready. Are you?

1

2

All of interior designer Martin Brudnizki’s favorite hues show up in this painting by Markus Linnenbrink. “There aren’t many cities that offer such a vivid and iconic palette,” Brudnizki says.

“Ocean blue, greens of hills, and sunset pinks became the foundation for the scheme. The Britely was designed with the city of West Hollywood in mind; its identity is unique to the area.”

Wolfgang Puck’s cheery Merois restaurant, which just opened next to the rooftop pool, hopes to do for seafood what Puck’s Chinois on Main did for Asian cuisine.

And If you come early enough, you might catch Puck himself reviewing the night’s menu from his usual poolside perch.

PRETTY PALETTE

RAISING THE BAR

PHO TO GRAPHS BY WAYNE NAT HAN

3

MAIN EVENT The lounge features a deco-style warm-pink wall: “We call it Prada pink,” says managing director Estelle Lacroix, differentiating it from the millenial hue.

Boldly striped barstools contrast with a tile floor and a marble-topped bar.

“We tried to add some whimsy to the relaxed ambience of the club,” says Brudnizki. “We want people to come and escape daily life.”

4

FEELING BLUE

Plush teal sofas add a bit of gravitas to the caprice of a ballet-pink ostrichfeather lamp and a painting by local artist Erin Garcia in “the bowling alley room.” When you’re not bowling strikes, you can take in performances by visiting musical acts.

5

STRIKE A POSE You can’t help but shine while making a dramatic entrance on this swank, mirrored staircase leading past a painting by Kenton Parker and down to the club’s main rooms. You’ll see yourself coming and going—as will everyone else.

L A M AG . C O M 33

The Inside Guide

W H E R E T O E AT N O W

SOUTHERN CHARM

Cha Cha Chá in the Arts District is an offshoot of a popular Mexico City restaurant of the same name.

New & Notable U Street Pizza PA S A D E NA

O This highly antici-

IT’S TIME FOR A MEZCAL NEGRONI! A LIVELY, NEW ROOFTOP MEXICAN RESTAURANT CONJURES THE HAPPY OLDEN DAYS—AND GOOD TIMES TO COME

BY HAILEY EBER

T

H I S A L M O S T F E E L S like the

as a teen. “Every dish has an aspect of someBefore Times,” my friend says to thing she made at some point. She was my first me as we sip tequila cocktails and teacher,” says Guzmán, who went on to become dive into an order of guacamole a beverage director at Sqirl and then got back and chips, which tastes, as guacain the kitchen at Le Comptoir. mole almost always does when you’re drinking Guzmán doesn’t want you to be acutely aware outdoors, magical. We are sitting on a plantof the time that goes into his dishes, but it’s there festooned roof downtown at Cha Cha Chá, a in flavors that are magnified and clear. Carnisprawling Mexican restaurant that opened in tas taste just as they should because they’re first March. Sure, the waiters wear masks and face cooked in lard for hours, then quickly caramelshields and there was a temperature check ized with an orange reduction. “When you add upon entry, but the servers also come bearing the citrus at the end, it’s super alive,” he says. shots of mezcal, there were several stylish-andCarrot flan is a small thrill, nodding to carrot slightly-annoyed people waiting at the cake but wholely its own dessert. hostess stand, and it’s kinda like it At full capacity, Cha Cha Chá used to be. will have seating for 300, the Time is a surprising theme majority of it outside. Mexico that pops up over and over at City restaurateur Alejandro Cha Cha Chá: you’re reminded Marin had planned the place of childhood dishes, boozy for years, and he ended up nights of yore, and you’re being prescient about what compelled to wonder what the diners might want in 2021. vaccine summer might hold.

“It’s allowing us all to come Chef Alejandro Guzmán’s back to what we missed,” says cooking is heavily inspired Guzmán. “Not necessarily goby recipes from his mother ing back to normal, but the T OSTA DA OF T H E T OW N and the family taco joint in parts we like.” 812 E. 3rd St., The Jitomate features melted tomato and avocado. the Valley where he worked Arts District, chachacha.la.

3 4 L A M AG . C O M

A.O.C.

B R E N T WO O D O Two of the food world’s OGs, Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne, are expanding with a second location of their classic West 3rd Street small-plates spot.

It’s taking over the space once occupied by Tavern, which shuttered last year. The dining room has been thoroughly renovated, and there’s a new outdoor space. Hamilton Lyons, the former Tavern chef de cuisine, is in the kitchen.

11648 San Vicente Blvd., aocwinebar.com.

Il Fiore F I NA NC I A L DISTRICT

O Two chefs with impressive résumés are behind this ambitious trattoria at the O Hotel.

Clay Cassis hails from Bestia and Vespertine; Joel Stovall comes from Josef Centeno’s restaurants. Together, they’re cooking intriguing riffs on Italian classics.

Papaya makes an appearance in a pork pappardelle dish.

819 S. Flower St., ilfioredtla.com — H . E .

M A I N I M AG E : WO N H O F R A N K L E E ; B OT TO M : CO U RT E SY O F C H A C H A C H Á

Spirits Rise

pated spinoff of the popular trattoria Union serves New York-style pies topped with Little Neck clams, vodka sauce, Ezzo pepperoni, and the like. Chef Chris Keyser has toiled hard to perfect his pizzas, but the vegetable dishes—a green goddess chopped salad, fried cauliflower with red pepper romero—are more than mere afterthoughts.

33 E. Union St., ustreetpizza.com.

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The Inside Guide

LINE DINING

Holey Pursuit

A NEW, ARTISANAL BAGEL SHOP IS DRAWING DEVOUT FANS TO VIRGIL VILLAGE, BUT IS IT WORTH THE WAIT? B Y PA U L S C H R O D T

T

O T H E FA I T H F U L , Courage Bagels is

much more than a bagel place. It opened quietly and sporadically in October in Virgil Village, a rapidly gentrifying Eastside pocket. In March, it was featured in a barn burner of a New York Times article proclaiming, “The Best Bagels are in California (Sorry, New York),” and carb worshippers soon descended (as did haters screaming, “Liar, liar, gentrifier!”). On a recent Saturday morning, people waited as long as 90 minutes for Courage’s unique bagels—relatively small and delicate, more Montreal than Manhattan in style, with a crispy outside (the Burnt Everything is a favorite) and fluffy inside—topped with cream cheese and lox or salmon roe. For some, the difficulty in obtaining them of is part of the appeal: Courage is open only Thursday through Sunday, and orders can be placed only at the shop window—not online or by phone. But even rabid chowhounds have their limits. Courage recently stopped selling loose bagels for $3 each; bagels can only be had sliced, with cream cheese ($4) or as part of a sandwich ($10 to $18). “You know what it’s like to tell people there are no loose bagels?” Isabella Manning, the chipper woman working the window, asked. “It’s not fun.” 777 N. Virgil Ave., East Hollywood, couragebagels.com.

L I T T L E L A DY I N WA I T I NG

Two-year-old Hannah was lucky enough to nab a sought-after carb.

I N T H E QU E U E AT COU RAG E BAG E L S

“It’s tricky because it’s not a fast situation. I’m not criticizing them because I’m willing to wait. But it seems like there could be a different distribution system.

What else they need is a bathroom—I had coffee.”

—ANNA CAMPBELL, 56, MARKETING , VISITING FROM WEST VIRGINIA

“We come every single weekend. I’m obsessed because it’s literally not only the best bagel, but one of the best foods I’ve ever had.

When you have one, you’ll understand.

Everything is the best version of itself.”

—RACHELL LE-TIU, 31, FASHION BUYER, SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

“The only time the line moves forward is when people decide they’re gonna go to Sqirl.”

—ZAK HARRIS, 32, PRODUCT DESIGNER, BOYLE HEIGHTS

36 L A M AG . C O M

P H O T O G R A P H BY C O R I NA M A R I E H OW E L L

Feed your soul

Jay's Bar Silverlake 4321 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90029 (323)928-2402 www.jaysbarla.com

My Ramen Bar DTLA 321 1/4 E 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (213)613-9888 www.myramenbar.com

The Inside Guide

DRINKS

SOUR POWER

The Other Paloma at Cult packs both a citrus zing and a jolt of caffeine.

Bitter Thrill

FORGET THE ARNOLD PALMER. STRONG COLD-BREWED COFFEE AND FRESH-SQUEEZED GRAPEFRUIT JUICE MAKE FOR A SURPRISINGLY DELICIOUS SUMMER THIRST QUENCHER

I F YOU WA L K into Cult, a new cafe in Santa Monica, and ask for a refreshing beverage, Lena Enriquez, the head of the coffee program, will ask you to trust her. She’ll shake up a drink called the Other Paloma that mixes coldbrewed coffee, fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, and simple syrup. “It’s sour at the forefront, and then it’s super sweet and creamy at the end,” she says. Though people often shy away from the pairing initally, she says, they end up loving it. “Not one person has sent it back.”

While you won’t see the unexpected combo on the

38 L A M AG . C O M

menu at Starbucks, it’s been percolating for years.

Kafn Coffee in Glendale serves a version called Julio’s Pamplemousse that’s sweetened with agave, while the 2020 book Good Drinks featured a recipe for a mocktail made with the unlikely duo and a black cardamoncinnamon syrup and served in an elegant coupe glass.

Author Julia Bainbridge writes that she was initially skeptical but that the “bitter-on-bitter . . . just worked.”

1460 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, cultsantamonica.com; 1019 E. Palmer Ave., Glendale, kafn.coffee.

P H OTO BY M U S E M E D I A

BY HAILEY EBER

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The Inside Guide

FOOD TRENDS

The Best of the Crunch

S I C H UA N S E NS AT I O N Based in downtown L.A., Fly by Jing Sichuan Chili Crisp stands out with a tongue-tingling variety of Sichuan pepper called gongjiao and a depth of flavor thanks to fermented black beans. $15 at flybyjing.com.

NO QUESTION, CHILE CRISP—A SPICY OIL WITH CRUNCHY BITS—IS HOT. WHILE THE ICONIC BRAND LAOGANMA HAS BEEN HUGE IN CHINA SINCE THE LATE ’90S, PANDEMIC BOREDOM HAS BROUGHT THE CONDIMENT A NEW LEVEL OF INTERNATIONAL HEAT. IT’S BECOME THE “IT” SAUCE TO LEND LIFE TO NOODLES, MEAT, VEGGIES, AND EVEN ICE CREAM. HERE ARE NINE BRANDS TO TRY. B Y H E AT H E R P L AT T

C RU NC H T I M E Denver-based Chile Crunch is made with Mexican chile de arbol and is one of the crispiest iterations around. $12.80 at chilecrunch.com.

Momofuku Chili Crunch took David Chang and company years to perfect and features three kinds of Mexican chilies. $12 at shop.momofuku.com.

SMOKIN’ HOT Each two-ounce jar of Loud Grandma CBD Chili Crisp Oil contains 120 milligrams of fullspectrum, hemp-derived CBD. $29 at pdhcbd.com.

V I R G I N T E R R I T O RY Mexico City’s Don Chilio Chile Crisp is made with jalapeño, habanero, or serrano chiles fried in extra virgin olive oil, which lends it a unique peppery, grassy kick. $14.99 at donchilio.com.

GET A WHIFF Petu-Ya’s Nariz de Perro translates to “dog nose” because Tijuana-based creator Fredy Rodarte says the sauce “will make your nose sweat.” $14 at sesame.la.

MARKET FORCES Even TJ’s has a take on the trend. Trader Joe’s Chili Onion Crunch is a cheap thrill with dried onions and bell peppers. $3.99 at Trader Joes, various locations at traderjoes.com.

40 L A M AG . C O M

G OOD DEVELOPMENT

LIGHT HOT Acclaimed L.A. pastry chef Max Boonthanakit uses sunflower oil as a healthy base for his Boon Sauce, which has a cult following among those eagerly awaiting new batches. $18 at boonsauce.com.

CO U RT E SY O F B R A N DS

G OOD SEEDS Toasted fennel, sesame, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds make Umamei X Brain Dead Chili Oil—a collab between Top Chef winner/Daybird toque Mei Lin and clothing brand Brain Dead—a textural delight. $19 at umamei.com.

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Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego 1 Market Place, San Diego, CA 92101 619.232.1234 manchestergrand.hyatt.com

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The Inside Guide

T R AV E L

The Mild, Wild West AT A NEW RETREAT IN THE CUYAMA VALLEY, A MIX OF COWBOY CHARMS AND MIDCENTURY DESIGN MAKE FOR A DELIGHTFULLY LOW-KEY, HIGH-STYLE DESERT GETAWAY

I

F YO U ’ V E E V E R dreamed of Joshua Tree

without the Instagrammers and the pressure to trek around a national park every day, this might be the place.

Located in the high desert of Santa Barbara County—about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from L.A. and at roughly the same altitude as J. Tree—Cuyama Buckhorn offers a funky, arid retreat in an area brimming with open space and just enough things to do to make for a relaxing getaway.

The roadside resort was built in 1952 when New Cuyama was an oil boomtown for ARCO. Petroleum and gas production eventually declined, and now agriculture is the main industry for the whistle-stop, which has a population around 700.

In 2018, Ferial Sadeghian and Jeff Vance, partners in the West Hollywood–based architectural firm iDGroup, purchased the Buckhorn with the aim of restoring it to its glory days. “You could see the bones of a beautiful midcen4 2 L A M AG . C O M

tury building,” Sadeghian recalls, noting that the resort was designed by noted architect George Vernon Russell, responsible for icons like the Hollywood Reporter building on Sunset Boulevard and the Flamingo in Las Vegas.

The pair have lovingly renovated the property to create a stylish, low-key luxe, and sustainability-minded vacation spot. A new pool, which debuted earlier this year, and a barrel sauna overlook open plains, a picturesque abandoned building once occupied by the Burger Barn, and the setting sun. The leathery smell of P. F. Candle Co.’s teak-and-tobacco scent breezes through indoor areas. At night, guest gather around cozy fires—including one in a vintage ochre-glazed outdoor Malm stove—dotting the two-acre grounds. Sadeghian says the Cuyama Valley has drawn comparisons to both Joshua Tree and Marfa, Texas, but notes that the area is many years away from such developed destinations. Still, it does offers a similar sense of funky surprises among beautiful desolation. “People don’t expect this.”

C U YA M A B U C K H O R N

BY HAILEY EBER

THE CHECK OUT:

Cuyama Buckhorn ¬ STAY The 21 guest rooms have been remodeled in a style Sadeghian calls “midcentury cowboy”: rustic woods mingle with clean lines; cowhide rugs rest upon patterned, black-and-white tiles from the 1950s. Amenities include semiprivate patios; soft Brooklinen towels; bath products from the buzzy, eco-minded Los Angeles company Further; complimentary instant Verve coffee, Tea Pigs teabags, and s’more kits. A thoughtful mini bar is packed with locally made booze and snacks.

H I T T H E R OA D

Cuyama Buckhorn was built as a roadside resort in the 1950s. Two WeHo architects bought it in 2018 and have lovingly renovated it, adding sleek firepits, a large pool and Jacuzzi, and Western-meets-mod decor.

¬ EAT The inn’s Buckhorn Restaurant is pretty much the only game in town. Thankfully, it serves tasty, affordable rustic fare made with local ingredients—from a Santa Maria tri-tip sandwich ($15) to a roasted tomatillo Caesar salad ($12).

An adjoining coffeeshop offers up pastries; espresso drinks; and a fridge stocked with staples, like premixed jars of fresh margaritas. At press time, the restaurant was open for dinner only on weekends, but guests may order supper nightly to be enjoyed in their rooms, on their patios, or among the myriad delightful outdoor vignettes on the property. The stunning bar is closed amid COVID-19 but promises to be an atmospheric spot for cocktails. ¬ DO Laze around the pool, take in a sauna, or pretend to play bocce while sipping a local microbrew. Go for a hike in picturesque Aliso Park or Carrizo Plain.

Tour and taste at Condor’s Hope winery (condorshope.com), or frolic with goats named after RuPaul’s Drag Race characters at Cuyama Oaks Ranch (@cuyamaoaks). ¬ THE BOTTOM LINE Friendly to guests with pets and children—and to design devotees with neither—this is a chic retreat for those looking for well-appointed desert relaxation. But if you’re seeking a bustling shopping and restaurant scene and more-formal notions of luxury, this might not be the destination for you.

Rooms from $229 a night; 4923 Primero St., New Cuyama; cuyamabuckhorn.com.

L A M AG . C O M 43

FA S H I O N

BUKAREST BY ALECSANDER ROTHSCHILD » $580

ARIZONA VALENTINO GARAVANI » $510

FLORIDA FRESH VEGAN » $110

SUPER-BIRKI » $80

ARIZONA BIG BUCKLE » $150

TERRA BY SASKIA LENAERTS » $510

ARIZONA SPLIT » $115

ARIZONA ESSENTIALS » $45

4 4 L A M AG . C O M

CO U RT E SY O F B I R K E N STO C KS

The Inside Guide

NOTES ON A SANDAL

LOSE THE SWEATPANTS, KEEP THE BIRKENSTOCKS. THIS SUMMER, COMFORT AND CHIC ARE ONE

BY MERLE GINSBERG

ARIZONA BIG BUCKLE » $150

ARIZONA SPLIT » $115

KYOTO SOFT FOOTBED » $150

TATACOA » $170 *A L L S H O E S CA N B E F O U N D AT B I R K E N ST O C K . C O M

T

H E Y ’ V E C O M E a long way, baby. From the orthopedic health movement of the Sixties to the fashion-obsessed aughts, the once-basic Birkenstock has become a shoe for all seasons. The unmistakable leather-and-cork creations transcend age, occupation, class, and income, and grace the feet of some of the world’s chicest women: Kate Moss, Charlize Theron, Katie Holmes, Naomi Watts, Sienna Miller, and Gwyneth Paltrow. In the process, the Germanbased company has swelled into an almost $5 billion-dollar brand that currently produces 1,800 styles.

Birkenstock’s journey from funky to fabulous began when the shoes first appeared on international runways in the early 2000s, after Moss playfully donned a pair at a fashion shoot. In short order, luxe brands like Celine, Givenchy, Valentino, Isabel Marant, Fendi, and Ferragamo came out with their own flat-soled homages—at three or four times Birkenstock’s price point. Then Birkenstock got smart and kicked off its own designer collabs. These days, their collection features styles created with Valentino, Stüssy, and Proenza Schouler, as well as students of the London fashion academy Central Saint Martins. All of the designer versions fall under the Birk banner of “1774”—the year German shoemaker Johann Adam Birkenstock committed to his craft—and sell for $300 to $500 a pair.

The stolid German company began to envision a more stylish future when it decided to host its own Paris runway show in the Tuileries in 2017, with 40 models strutting down a runway in 115 styles, among them clogs in polyurethane; ballet flats; sneakers; oxfords; and even moto booties, all with that uniquely contoured footbed made for both women and men, including mandal-loving fans like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher, and Christian Bale.

It’s unusual for a populist brand with such a distinct health-conscious pedigree to regularly make the pages of Vogue (which deemed the shoes “pretty/ugly”), especially since Birkenstock is the rare fashion brand that does zero celebrity seeding. But if you hang out at Birkenstock’s landmark Abbott Kinney store (one of only three in the country), you’re sure to spot a random celeb or two, like Frances McDormand, who rocked a custom pair of yellow suede Valentino Birks with her pink Valentino puffedsleeved gown at the Oscars.

Birkenstocks are the rare footwear brand that straddles cool and comfort, butch and femme, Boho and SoHo. They’re made for you: fashiony or anti-fashion. So now the only thing one need consider is: to sock or not to sock?

That, indeed, is the question.

L A M AG . C O M 45

The Inside Guide

HAPPENINGS

THE RAINBOWS AFTER THE STORM The first Pride after the pandemic is shaping up to be quite a party The City of West Hollywood’s Out on Robertson program is turning a stretch of Robertson Boulevard into a pedestrian-only zone every weekend in June, giving you more space to safely drink and dine at the epicenter of LGBTQ L.A. Most notably, the Abbey will be celebrating its 30th anniversary by welcoming guests to its new Robertson expansion. @theabbeyweho.

Short Stories TURNS OUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE HARD FOR DECADES TO WRITE A MEMOIR. BILLIE EILISH IS THE LATEST TEEN STAR TELLING TALES OUT OF SCHOOL B Y A L E X S C O R D E L I S

spent the past year in Zoom classrooms, but 19-year-old pop phenom Billie Eilish topped the charts, nabbed two Grammys, and published a book. Yes, on May 11, the Highland Park native’s Billie Eilish hit the shelves, and the pop star joined the ranks of authors who have put out memoirs before they could legally order a shot of Cuervo.

Have a look.

› Little Girl Lost by Drew

Barrymore (1991) At age 14, the actress/talk show host released one of Hollywood’s most shocking teen memoirs. Barrymore packed decades of Charlie Sheen–level decadence into the years before she could get a driver’s license; she writes that she was drinking at age nine and doing cocaine regularly by age 12. A classic tell-all, this out-of-print book can fetch up to $1,000 on eBay. It’s like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas written by a junior high student.

› Miles to Go by Miley Cyrus (2009) Yes, the title refers to Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” but this is not a literary

46 L A M AG . C O M

masterpiece. Cyrus’s memoir was published when she was just 17 and still the star of Disney’s Hannah Montana—before her career took a turn (and got way more interesting).

The first sentence of the book is, “Okay, this is gonna sound like a weird place to start, but I think a lot about my hands.” “Call me Ishmael” it is not.

The One Archives at the University of Southern California, the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world, is offering a virtual gallery of exhibitions throughout the month of June. Take a tour of Metanoia Online, an interactive web exhibit exploring HIV history and Black women’s contributions to AIDS activism. metanoia.onearchives.org.

Every Sunday in June, the queer party Gay Asstrology will be hosting an in-person Gay Ass Brunch at El Cid in East Hollywood. @gayasstrology.

› Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton (2004) At age 13, the surfing prodigy survived a shark attack but lost her left arm. Her harrowing, best-selling account, published a year after the incident, made her something of a Cheryl Strayed for the YA set. The badass’s first words out of surgery were, “When can I surf again?”

Naturally, it was also a movie.

› Justin Bieber: First Step 2

Forever and Justin Bieber: Just Getting Started by Justin Bieber (2010 and 2012, respectively) Bieber put out not one but two books before the age of 20. James Joyce didn’t publish A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man until he reached the ripe age of 34.

Advantage: Bieber.

B R I NG I T O N The Pride parade in 2019 (left) and drinks at the Abbey, which turns 30 this year.

Organized by Los Angeles dominatrix Mistress Justine Cross, the second annual L.A. Kink Pride boasts a packed calendar of virtual events from June 4 to 13. Workshop titles include “Between the Worlds: Kinky Rituals & Magical Play,” “Dirty Talk Skills,” and “BDSMeditation Journey,” just to name a few. lakinkpride.com.

The City of West Hollywood’s annual One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival kicks off on Harvey Milk Day, May 22, and runs through June 30. Events include virtual poetry readings, film screenings, and theater performances as well as an interactive sonic art exhibit at West Hollywood’s Plummer Park. pride.weho.org. — S C H U Y L E R M I TC H E L L

PA R A D E : R O N E N T I VO N Y/S O PA I M AG E S / L I G H T R O C K E T V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S ; I N STAG R A M .CO M / T H E A B B E YW E H O ; B U M P E R ST I C K E R : J U DY C I S N E R O S /O N E A R C H I V E S AT T H E U S C L I B R A R I E S

M

O S T T E E NAG E R S have

Strut your stuff June 12 at Tutus ’N Heels, a one-mile walk raising money for Camp Brave Trails, an LGBTQ youth summer camp. The event, which is sponsored by Payasos L.A., the Eagle L.A., and Akbar, will culminate in an after party at Rough Trade Gear. tutusandheels.org.

WE MOVED 700+ PEOPLE INTO SHORT-TERM HOUSING DURING COVID-19.

HELP US MOVE THEM

HOME for good.

ESSENTIAL PEOPLE. ESSENTIAL WORK.

DONATE AT LAFH.ORG Photo courtesy of L.A. County

by

B E NJA M I N S V E T K E Y

illustrated by

R I S KO

Honestly, nobody really knows.

A deep, metaphysical dive into the multibillion-dollar Kardashian phenomenon— how a sex tape and some selfies turned an unremarkable Calabasas clan into L.A.’s biggest export since McDonald’s and revolutionized fashion, beauty, and social media— as the family everyone loves to loathe finally bids goodbye to TV (for now)

WHY ARE

THEY FAMOUS? 4 8 L A M AG . C O M

T H I N K A B O U T A L L the things

“ K ” I S F O R “ K A S H A N D K A R RY”

Above: Kendall’s modeling career exploded with Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Her 2017 Pepsi ad was pilloried for appropriating Black Lives Matter tropes.

Right: Corey Gamble, Kris Jenner, Kim and then-husband Kanye West, Kendall and sister Kylie, and Travis Scott at the Met Gala Celebrating Camp, 2019.

cast CEO who greenlit the series in 2007. “You’d watch the show, and you’d be like, ‘Oh my God, look at the way they’re swearing at their mother! Look at the way they’re swearing at each other!’ And then one sister would be waxing the other sister’s ass. And she’d be on all fours! Everything about the show was new and surprising. And that’s the No. 1 rule in television. You have to surprise. You have to give the viewers something they haven’t seen before.”

The No. 2, 3, and 4 rules of television, though, are that you don’t wax your sister’s ass on TV. And that’s the awesome paradox of Keeping Up: it’s a series that not only broke the rules but shredded them in a blender with bananas and yogurt and turned them into one of Khloé’s famous smoothies. Keeping Up’s phenomenal success defies pretty much all the laws of show-biz physics. The characters are paper-thin. The dialogue is beyond vacuous. The plotlines could be written by Kris’s pet chimp (remember Suzie? See season 3, episode 9). So why, of all the family-based reality shows that have come and gone over the last couple of decades—from The Osbournes to Here Comes Honey Boo Boo—did the one about a brood of bickering, celebrity-adjacent social climbers capture the adoration of the world and give rise to what the New York Times once described as the “Kardashian industrial complex”?

What’s the secret of their globe-conquering karisma? It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma smeared in gobs of Kim’s skin-perfecting body-shimmer lotion. But there are some theories.

“One sister would be waxing the other sister’s ass. And she’d be on all fours!

Everything about the show was new and surprising.”

50 L A M AG . C O M

L E F T: P E P S I G LO B A L ; R I G H T: P H OTO BY D I A D I PAS U P I L / F I L M M AG I C

people hate about L.A. The shallowness. The tackiness. The air-kissing phoniness. Now think about the stuff people love about L.A. The glamour. The beauty. The money.

The more money. Stir it all together, add a dash of unabashed exhibitionism, and what do you get? The answer is staring you right in the face: Kim Kardashian.

After 14 years of “leaked” sex tapes, shaky marriages (one lasting a whole 72 days), messy breakups (like the latest split with a certain Trump-supporting rap star), hand-to-handbag combat between sisters, surprise pregnancies, and even more surprising parental gender-change operations—all of which played out for the whole world to see on E!’s reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians, pab\a pbee Zbk its 285th series-ending episode lhf^mbf^ mabl lnff^k—it’s hard to come up with another Angeleno who more vividly embodies life in this town. Or at least life as people who don’t actually live here imagine it. Despite having no ]bl\^kgb[e^ talents— Kardashian doesn’t sing, dance, or act—she has managed to make herself one of the most famous personalities on the planet, and that may just be the most L.A. thing about her. She is the corporeal incarnation of a city built on celebrity worship.

But, of course, Kardashian is so much more than just an over-the-top avatar for Los Angeles. Her show chronicling the daily dramas of the Kardashian-Jenners household— her sisters, Kourtney and Khloé; her stepsisters, Kendall and Kylie; her brother, Rob; her mom, Kris; and her stepdad, Caitlyn (who just announced a run for governor of Cal-ifornia, no joke)—is among the most successful and durable reality series in cable-TV history. At its height, it was draw-ing ten million viewers—more than double what The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was pulling in its prime—and even today, in a fractured TV landscape, it still grabs about a million viewers an episode. Just as impressively, it’s been the launching pad for an ever-expanding lifestyle empire—branded beauty products, jewelry, shapewear, video games, apps, and insanely lucrative social-media sponsorships—that has made this K-loving klan from Kalabasas krazy rich. According to Forbes, 40-year-old Kim, who can rake in up to a million dollars for a single Instagram post, recently became a billionaire. And she’s not even the first in the family; 23-year-old Kylie briefly held that title in 2019, thanks to the sale of her red-hot Kylie cosmetics line, but got booted off the list when Forbes determined she’d lied about her tax returns. You know, sort of like the time she fibbed about getting lip fillers.

“Nothing like the Kardashians had been on TV before,” notes Ted Harbert, the former E! president and Com-

THEORY #1 “Fight, fight, fight. Love, love, love.”

Not at all surprisingly, the Kardashians-Jenners disagree about who originally came up with the idea for the show. In her 2017 memoir, The Secrets of My Life, Caitlyn (who divorced from Kris in 2014 and largely left the show before undergoing gender-affirming surgery) takes the credit for the concept.

“The house is awash in puberty and adolescence and young adulthood and two parents with very different styles,” she wrote. “It seems to me something is there for television.” But Kris has said that it was her friend Deena Katz, a casting director for Dancing with the Stars, who spotted the gang’s TV potential in 2006 while having dinner at their house. At Katz’s suggestion, Kris called Ryan Seacrest, who’d just started his own production company, and Seacrest sent a camera crew over to Calabasas for some test shoots during a family barbecue.

“They edited together maybe seven or eight minutes from the barbecue—nothing more than that—and they showed it to my staff,” recalls Harbert. “Nobody liked it.

They said, ‘They don’t do anything. They’re not stars.

They’ve got no skills.’ They turned it down. But then Ryan

called me and very politely asked me to take a look, and he sent over a tape or DVD—whatever it was back then—and I watched at home.

The next morning, I told my staff that I thought it was a hit and we’re putting the show on the air.”

What Harbert saw in those eight minutes—what he thinks might explain Keeping Up’s enduring popularity—was a classic family drama hidden inside a modern American household.

“It’s a simple formula that’s been around for hundreds and hundreds of years,” he says. “It’s family conflict. A lot of yelling, a lot of screaming. And at the end, everybody hugs and says they love each other. It’s the same exact formula with a ton of TV shows. I was at ABC for years doing everything from Dynasty to Eight Is Enough, and it was the same formula back then: Fight, fight, fight. Love, love, love.” Harbert sent the footage to Jonathan Murray, the reality-TV genius behind MTV’s The Real World, who’d been producing Paris Hilton’s A Simple Life for E!. Murray had a vague awareness of Kim from her friendship with Hilton (Kim appeared in a couple of episodes of A Simple Life as Hilton’s stylist) and, like everybody, knew of Kim’s late father, attorney Robert Kardashian, from his time in the limelight defending O. J. Simpson of murder charges in the 1990s. But he agreed with Harbert—he also saw a hit waiting to happen—and signed on to produce the show.

“It was clear to me that it was a ready-made sitcom,” he says. “You had the mom who was very much in her daughters’ lives, particularly Kim, Khloé, and Kourtney.

You had these sisters with very distinct personalities.

You had the brother, Rob, who was trying to figure out his place in this very female home. And then, of course, you had Bruce Jenner, who was the conservative dad who was never quite sure what to do with his daughters and wife. There was a natural dramatic structure for comedy. And I think that’s why it’s been so successful.

It’s just very watchable TV.” L A M AG . C O M 5 1

1

It’s all about Kim Like snowflakes, no two Kardashian-Jenners are exactly alike. Kourtney is the cool, level-headed sister (except for the time she got angry at Kim and chucked a water bottle at her). Kendall is the aloof runway model (who tore Caitlyn a new one when her dad crashed her debut Victoria’s Secret show). Kris, the mother, is the brains behind the business (the self-described “momager”). But from the very start, the show’s center of gravity has always been Kim, the Bugs Bunny of this particular bunch of Looney Toons. Even as far back as that eight-minute barbecue video, she was the one taking charge, speaking into the camera and introducing viewers to her family. And while any given Keeping Up episode might splinter off into plotlines involving other siblings (indeed, some of them have occasionally branched out with spinoffs), the focus inevitably snaps back to the show’s true star. “Kim was always the most driven,” says Harbert. “She wanted it the most.”

To a lot of viewers, Kim has also always been the most relatable, in so far as a billionaire megainfluencer with 215 million Instagram followers and a soon-to-be-ex-husband named Kanye West can be described as relatable. And that may be another explanation for the show’s huge popularity. “There’s a whole new middle class of women in the United States and indeed across the world for whom the traditional white, thin, blond model is not somebody they can identify with,” explains Meredith Jones, a professor at Brunel University in London who organizes “Kimposiums” devoted to the academic study of the Kardashian phenomenon. “But the Kardashians—and Kim especially—have established a new ideal of global beauty: curvaceous, brunet, not paleskinned, not particularly tall. They almost look Latina, although they’re not; the older ones are half Armenian. But the point is Kim doesn’t look like a typical white American woman. And that makes her very appealing to this massive new middle-class demographic who also don’t look like a typical white American woman.”

Establishing a new global aesthetic, though, is only part of Kim’s brilliance; she also figured out how to cash in on it; but then Kim always had a mind for business. When she was 26, just before the show launched, she opened a clothing boutique with her sisters (they called it Dash, inspired by their surname) and worked its tills between classes at Pierce College. As she became more famous, she found other methods of supplementing her reality-TV-star income (which, by the way, wasn’t much in the beginning; the budget in the show’s early days was merely $190,000 per episode, with the family getting just $10,000 an episode to split among themselves). She started making paid nightclub appearances, cutting ribbons at shop openings, and, in 2011, launched her first clothing line, the Kardashian Kollection, which sold at Sears. She even found a way to turn an old sex tape she’d made when she was 23 with

her then-boyfriend, singer Ray J—which somehow got leaked just before Keeping Up made its debut—into a massive windfall, cutting a deal with porn giant Vivid that ultimately netted her a reported $4.5 million. Granted, there were missteps along the way (her 2010 partnership with Charmin toilet paper was in hindsight a mistake), but by 2014, she was earning $28 million a year and landing on Forbes’s Celebrity 100 list.

Her most consequential business decision, though, came on March 21, 2009. That’s the date Kim posted her first tweet (“Hey guys it’s Kim Kardashian! I finally signed up for Twitter! There are a few fakes so just know this is the real me!!!”). The merger of Kim’s super relatability with the internet’s ultra-accessibility was a turning point for humanity, not unlike when Skynet gained selfawareness. Over the next couple of years, as Kim infiltrated and dominated every new social media platform to come along, she would all but invent the modern-day influencer economy, pioneering the first sponsorship deals (for everything from detox teas to jewelry to morning-sickness pills). Her sisters followed suit, leveraging their own smaller but still humongous social media clout to earn money and sometimes just cause trouble (Kylie nearly sunk Snapchat when she announced she no longer used the app). Before long, Kim and her sibs were selling their own stuff online. Kylie was first, in 2015, with her cosmetics. But Kim surpassed her in 2017 with KKW Beauty. Initially, she had just one product. But an estimated 300,000 units of Kim’s Crème Contour and Highlight Kit sold out within two hours, generating $14.4 million in sales. More ventures followed, like Skims, Kim’s shapewear brand that has somehow managed to thrive even during the pandemic, when most people are wearing sweatpants, not latex. Earlier this year, Forbes valued that company at “north of $500 million.” That’d be in the same article announcing that Kim was officially a billionaire.

“Kylie nearly sank Snapchat when she announced she no longer used it.”

5 2 L A M AG . C O M

K A R DA S H I A N WO R L D : A P I C T O R I A L H I S T O RY

1. Kylie in 2015. 2. Paterfamilias Robert Kardashian defends O. J. Simpson, 1995. 3. Kim and West tie the knot, 2014. 4. Paris Hilton and Kim, 2007.

5. Kendall, Kim, and Kylie, 2021. 6. Kardashian-Jenner family portrait, 1993.

7. Kardashian skit on RuPaul’s Drag Race. 8. Kim with her kids. 9. Caitlyn Jenner at the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party. 10. Khloé and Kourtney, 2009.

1: PHOTO BY SCOTT BARBOUR/GETTY IMAGES; 2: VINCE BUCCI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; 3: IG: @KIMKARDASHIAN; 4: PHOTO BY CHRIS POLK/FILMMAGIC FOR BRAGMAN NYMAN CAFARELLI; 5: PHOTO BY HOLLYWOOD TO YOU/STAR MAX/GC IMAGES; 6: PHOTO BY MAUREEN DONALDSON/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; 7: VH1; 8: IG: @KIMKARDASHIAN; 9: KARWAI TANG/GETTY IMAGES; 10: PHOTO BY GUSTAVO CABALLERO/GETTY IMAGES

THEORY #2

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3

5 6

7

10

9 8

L A M AG . C O M 53

THEORY #3 “They’re phonies, but they’re real phonies.”

“I’ve spent time with the family when the cameras were off,” says Harbert. “And they’re the same as when the cameras are on. What you see is who they are.”

For better or worse—and in the Kardashian’s world, it’s often hard to tell the difference—they are 100 percent authentic. And that may well be another reason Keeping Up has been such a hit. Outside of a certain gated mansion in Calabasas, celebrities are generally protective of their private lives. They try to shield themselves and their families from prying eyes. Capturing a famous person in an unguarded moment of spontaneous honesty is incredibly rare and usually highly entertaining (which is why clips of actors like Christian Bale and Tom Cruise shouting at crew members on film sets always go viral). But on Keeping Up, it’s pretty much wall-to-wall spontaneous honesty, often in its most banal and inane form. From the show’s very first scene, in which the size of Kim’s backside is literally the first topic of conversation (she has “junk in the trunk,” Kris observes), and through season upon season of embarrassments and humiliations both large and small—Kourtney REALITY STAR WOOS REALITY-SHOW PRESIDENT

Kim in the East Room, 2019. She successfuly lobbied Trump to grant a pardon to Alice Marie Johnson, serving a life sentence for a first-time drug offense.

54 L A M AG . C O M

catching her boyfriend, Scott, cheating on her; Rob getting caught regifting an iPad to his girlfriend, Blac Chyna; Kim’s meltdown on that zipline during a family trip to Thailand— the Kardashian-Jenners let it all hang out in the most public way possible.

“The challenge with a lot of reality shows is that the people who are on them want to control everything,” says Murray. “So, what you get is something very watered down from what you read about them in the tabloids. But the Kardashians were very smart. They let us tell their story fully. What you saw on TV was just as compelling as what you read about them in the tabloids.”

“Did we sometimes set up a baseball game for them?

Or plan trips so that we forced them together? Yes, we did all that kind of stuff,” admits Farnaz Farjam, Keeping Up’s showrunner for all 14 years of the production. “But we never told them to pretend to be mad at so-and-so. We all agreed early on never to do that. Anything that came up in their interpersonal relationships, all of that was authentic.

In fact, anytime one of them tried to hold something back, the other sisters would call them out on it. They wouldn’t let them get away with it.”

But, of course, there is such a thing as too much authenticity. When Keeping Up first arrived on the airwaves, the reviews were blistering. The New York Times described the Kardashians as “a family that seems to understand itself only in terms of its collective opportunism,” dismissing the show as “purely about some desperate women climbing the margins of fame.” Others complained about Keeping Up’s message of unrelenting materialism and rampant consumerism. Indeed, the London School of Economics was so concerned, it even conducted a study, finding that just 60 seconds of exposure to the Kardashians made viewers more selfish and less empathetic toward the disadvantaged. Anna Wintour—not exactly a champion of the huddled masses—was said to have despised the Kardashians so much that she walked to the other side of the room if Kim or any other family member made an entrance. The Kardashians, though, blithely ignored it all, and over time the condescending eyeball-rolling started to peter out. (Page Six recently reported that Kim, who filed for divorce in February, is now being pursued by “everyone from royal family members to A-list actors to athletes to billionaire CEOs,” while Kanye is being courted by the likes of Roseanne Barr and Azealia Banks.)

Eventually, even Wintour relented, putting Kim on the cover of Vogue. Twice.

Ironically, what the media elite hated about the Kardashians may have been one of the very things fans loved most.

The Kardashians did more than just bare their private lives to the camera—they tore open the curtain and exposed the scaffolding behind fame. They revealed to the general public the insane amount of focus and attention and sheer elbow grease (not to mention lip liner) that goes into building and maintaining modern-day celebrity. “I call it glamour labor,” says Elizabeth Wissinger, a professor at the City University of New York who has lectured on the Kardashians at a Kimposium in London. “The Kardashians reveal what goes on behind the scenes in order to appear as hip and cool and amaz-

M A N D E L N G A N /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S

In essence, what Kim did was construct her own closedloop synergistic consumer ecosystem: she used her TV show to establish herself as a relatable role model to millions of fans—people who wanted to live and look just like her—then used social media to sell them stuff designed to help them do just that.

“She was really the first entrepreneur who began to sell products purely by using her own body, her own life, and images of herself,” notes Jones. “None of Kim’s products were sold with traditional advertising in any sense.

But that model she came up with is now the most lucrative way to sell things. She was the first to figure that out. It’s all about selling oneself.”

ing as they seem on the screen. They have all these endless YouTube videos demonstrating how to use their makeup.

How to make your lips stick out. They show their fans all the work required to be glamorous and famous.”

To paraphrase Truman Capote’s description of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, they may be phonies, but they’re real phonies.

THEORY #4 It’s their world (and we wish we lived in it) For all the breakups and bickering, the stolen breast milk incidents and $75,000 diamond earring mishaps while swimming in Bora Bora (“Kim, there’s people that are dying!”), the world in which the Kardashians live is not really such a bad place. In some ways, it’s downright utopian. For starters, they seemed to have licked the problem of racism. Although there have been occasional accusations of cultural appropriation—Kim took some heat in 2018 for turning up at the MTV Movie and TV Awards with a cornrow hairdo while Kylie’s heavy hand with bronzer has on more than one occasion led to criticisms of “Blackfishing”—the Kardashians-Jenners seem admirably color-blind. “They marry or partner with Black men and have Black babies, but race is hardly ever mentioned in the show,” says Jones. “In this way, they embody the American fantasy of the unproblematic mixed-race family.”

They also embody the American reality of the increasingly matriarchal family (according to a recent study by Chase Bank and Refinery29, 40 percent of households in the U.S. are now, like the Kardashians, headed by women). The entire clan is female with just two exceptions, and one of those exceptions—Bruce, the dad—ended up transitioning to female. The other, sibling Rob, more or less disappeared from the show after season 7 to deal with mental-health issues and diabetes, although he started popping up again last year. Still, a case could be made (kind of ) that the Kardashians represent a new sort of feminism as they steer their own path, in their $400,000 Lamborghinis, toward a greater awakening of gender equity. Or maybe they’re just heading to the Chipotle drive-through window—it’s hard to say. “I think the Kardashians would love to invoke the feminist moniker,” says Wissinger. “But they’re only sort of feminists. They’re feminists when it works for them.”

Whatever you want to label them, these are women who clearly know how to garner and wield power. Kim, in particular, has shown an aptitude for politics. In 2018, she persuaded Kanye’s pal President Trump to grant clemency to Alice Marie Johnson, an African American grandmother who’d been serving time for more than 20 years for a

nonviolent crime. Kim’s also been active in LBGTQ causes as well as a supporter of charities like the Alzheimer’s Association and has spoken out against the Armenian genocide. For the last couple of years, she’s even been studying on her own to become a lawyer (California allows applicants to take the bar without attending law school) and has said she plans on sitting for the exam sometime in 2022. “Kim has the potential to become president,” insists Jones. “I’m not joking. Look at the last president. Kim would be far superior to that one. Don’t underestimate this woman. She’s only 40.”

THEORY #5 If it’s good enough for Princeton . . .

“Sometimes we just need a break,” Kim recently explained in an interview with an Italian fashion magazine about the decision to finally end Keeping Up. “It’s really simple. We just need a minute to regroup. You know, we haven’t had a break for 14 years . . . I think there’s no other way to say it other than we just live such big lives. And we have kids now. And they need us.”

But even as Kim was announcing last September that the show would be ending in 2021, the family was already hard at work on plans for their return to TV.

By December, they were unveiling a new multiyear partnership with Hulu to “create global content” for the streamer. Exactly what that content will look like and how much the Kardashians will be paid for it is not publicly known, although there have been reports that the Hulu payday will far surpass the $100 million deal the family made with E! in 2017 for Keeping Up’s final seasons. But never mind the details; the bottom line is that despite the end of their current show, the Kardashians aren’t going anywhere.

That’s great news for fans like Kristen Starkowski, a graduate student at Princeton University who cofounded the Princeton Kardashian Lifestyle Klub, a student organization with 150 members who meet to watch their favorite show and play Kardashian trivia games. “Princeton is an incredibly high-stress environment so the Kardashian Lifestyle Klub was meant as an opportunity for students to take a breather, sit back and relax and watch something really entertaining,” Starkowski says, offering what may be the most intelligent explanation yet for how the Kardashians turned their utter lack of talent into a multibillion-dollar entertainment empire. “Personally, for me, it’s just silly mindless fun. Like, the other night, there was an episode where they’re all doing an obstacle course, sort of competing against each other. What can I say? It was just funny.”

“Kim has the potential to become president. Don’t underestimate this woman.

She’s only 40.”

L A M AG . C O M 55

BOXER & SHARON The way that different races and nationalities split up on Skid Row reminds Boxer of prison, where he served 28 years. He got sent to Skid Row after his release. "It was me being thrown to the wolves," he says of his arrival. The 54-year-old was an amateur fighter before he went to prison for inadvertently killing a man in a brawl.

He soon was residing at 6th and Crocker, one of the few areas where Black gangs allowed Mexicans to deal drugs. "That was our get down," he says. Six years out of prison and three years sober, he lives in an SRO hotel nearby and still visits the area to help friends who never made it off the streets.

Sharon (right), a gruff Skid Row veteran, has always wanted to be “in pictures.” She materialized in the middle of a shoot, posed for a few minutes, and left without a word.

THE CITIZENS OF SKID ROW by

JASON MCGAHAN

photography by

CHRISTIAN WITKIN

A BOMBSHELL FEDERAL COURT RULING THIS SPRING REQUIRES LOS ANGELES TO RELOCATE THOUSANDS OF HOMELESS RESIDENTS ON SKID ROW. SINCE THE ’70S, THE FOUR-SQUARE-MILE STRIP OF DOWNTOWN HAS BEEN AN APPALLING SYMBOL OF THE CITY’S URBAN BLIGHT. BUT FOR THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE, IT’S A NEIGHBORHOOD WITH CODES AND CUSTOMS ALL ITS OWN. L A M AG . C O M 57

S

K I D R O W has existed for at

least a century, but it wasn't until the 1970s that it became the sprawling city it is today— a forlorn stretch of tarps and tents and SRO hotels corralled into four square miles between 3rd Street to the north, 7th to the south, Alameda to the east, and Main Street to the west. In the ensuing decades, it has become the homeless capital of America, ringed by miles of new condos and skyscrapers. An estimated 2,800 unhoused people live here at any particular time, and thousands more trek here annually from across the country, undeterred by the occasional attempts to sweep them out.

But that may soon be changing. In a stunning ruling in April, as the coronavirus began to recede from Los Angeles, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ordered city and county officials to put a roof over the head of every homeless person living on the streets of Skid Row by fall. To prove he was serious, Carter ordered the city to place $1 billion into an escrow account to pay for fast-tracked shelter and housing— which might make this the first real attempt to reverse the decades-long practice of using the area as a human dumping ground for the poor, mentally ill, and addicted. (The city is preparing an appeal.)

In the meantime, downtown's breakneck development continues to steadily encroach on this enclave of misery. Just last month, a Denver-based developer unveiled an ambitious new plan to build a $2 billion commercial complex on the neighborhood's southern edge.

For most Angelenos, Skid Row is a nuisance, a cautionary tale, or a shameful reminder of the city's callous indifference to its least fortunate citizens. But for the people who live here, it's also a community—one with its own peculiar set of leaders and laws and outlaws and hierarchies, enforced by people who are trying to make the best of the hellish reality that they're living. Over the past year, Los Angeles writer-at-large Jason McGahan and photographer Christian Witkin made repeated visits to chronicle the Skid Row that most outsiders never see. Here are a few of the people they met along the way.

5 8 L A M AG . C O M

TREVOR

By some estimates, white people make up 14 percent of Skid Row's population, but few stick around for very long. Most of them are what the locals call "tourists"— anxious visitors who blend in and pick up drugs after dark. Some never get out of their cars; others nod off on the sidewalk or "sublet" a tent from a local and get high. From runaways to film execs to aerospace engineers, white folks from all walks of life escape to Skid Row to indulge their habits freely and anonymously in a place where dealers are available around the clock. Trevor, 23, left Salt Lake City with his girlfriend and spent time in San Diego and Orange County before he woke up on a Skid Row sidewalk on a cloudy Saturday afternoon.

S H I LO H & N E F F

Shiloh is a high school senior who lived for a month in a small tent at 5th and Gladys, across the street from the abandoned Salvation Army shelter. At 17, she was homeless and taking public buses to school in Pasadena. Living on the street is less dangerous than the women's floor of a shelter, she says.

Neff, 26, of Compton, is her boyfriend, and the couple's neighbors call them "love birds." They keep a two-year-old pitbull chained outside their tent for protection. Shiloh says the Skid Row community is the best family she has.

L A M AG . C O M 59

JOSH

Josh, 36, used to work on a paving crew before he ended up on Skid Row. He sometimes dresses like a woman because, he says, police in the area tend to leave women alone. But Skid Row is also home to a close-knit clique of transgender residents, many of whom turn to sex work to survive. They congregate every night after dark on a two block stretch known as the "ho stroll," pushing cis sex woirkers to less desirable locations near the 10. Donna Rae, a 44-year-old Black trans woman from Alabama (not pictured), has "escorted" for years on Skid Row and says rising demand for trans women has boosted the starting rate for some types of sexual favors to $40, several times what her cis counterparts charge. Some johns seek out Skid Row for the sheer thrill of it, she says. "Rich white guys from Beverly Hills don't want me to go to them; they want to come down here."

6 0 L A M AG . C O M

KEKE

Keke was hiding from a boyfriend who had beaten her up when she met Miami on Skid Row. Miami would check on her every day until Keke healed, and for that she fell in love with him. He proposed at a cookout the couple hosted in 2019; he got down on one knee and gave her the diamond from his earring. By then, the couple was getting clean and earning money renting tents to people with nowhere to stay. Shortly after Keke got pregnant with Miami's child, police arrested him on an outstanding warrant.

Suddenly, he was facing five years in prison. But Keke sent letters to the judge about the child they were expecting, and Miami was diverted to a drug rehab program. Keke hopes to find a permanent apartment for the family for when Miami gets out. "He's afraid of being abandoned because his mom abandoned him on Skid Row when he was 16. But I'll never abandon him," she says.

L A M AG . C O M 61

ACE

Ace resides on what he considers "prime real estate"—an outlying area near 5th Street and Central Avenue, away from the worst of Skid Row's drug activity. He has lived there four years, in a tent beneath a plastic tarp.

Before his addictions got the better of him, Ace worked as a system administrator at JPL. The married father ekes out a living fixing broken and discarded electronics and running a phone-charging station from his tent. He's also the man to see about getting power hooked up in an encampment. "Technology changes, but the laws of electricity don't," he says.

After years of living in the streets, he says, his philosophy for staying safe is simple: "Know what's going on, but mind your business."

6 2 L A M AG . C O M

RODNEY

Rodney, 60, of Pasadena, estimates that he has spent 36 years in the prison system. He admits to having violent tendencies and says he sticks to the outskirts of Skid Row to avoid getting in fights. In the months before this photo was taken, he suffered a stroke and a heart attack.

L A M AG . C O M 63

p i y a o a T G G

ETING E S R

FROM

In 1970, the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front created a media firestorm by declaring it would relocate gays to a rural California county to vote themselves into power. The plan failed. But it turned out that was the plan all along.

B Y M AT T H E W A L G E O P H O T O I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y P I X E L P U S H E R

64 L A M AG . C O M

O

Published in partnership with Truly*Adventurous, trulyadventure.us 6 6 L A M AG . C O M

MERRY PRANKSTERS Morris Kight (left) and Don Kilhefner, 1970.

Kight, founder of the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front, and Kilhefner, the group’s office manager, promoted journalist Don Jackson’s vision of colonizing Alpine County in rural northern California with gays from L.A. Jackson was aghast when he discovered the duo never believed in the plan and used it as a publicity stunt to promote gay rights. Right: Markleeville, the county seat that was to be ground zero for the endeavor.

selves, set up our own institutions, defend ourselves, and use our own energies to improve our lives.”

Now Jackson needed people who could help turn the idea into reality. Though an introvert by nature, Jackson was a good listener and a deep thinker, and that made him the flag-bearer for this promised land. Tall and fit and a little shy in a way that came across as distinguished rather than weak, Jackson unveiled his plan to gay activists at the West Coast Gay Liberation Conference in Berkeley, California, on December 28, 1969. Encouraged by a the positive response, he began working with gay rights groups in the Bay Area to recruit volunteers to become the first pilgrims into Alpine County.

At first, Jackson planned to keep word of the project inside the gay community. “If I’d had my druthers,” he later said, “we’d have moved in quietly, as artists and writers, establishing a colony, and then announced the gay takeover as a fait accompli on the day the election returns came in.”

But then, in the summer of 1970, on one of his regular trips to Los Angeles, Jackson mentioned the project to Morris Kight.

Kight was a 50-year-old force of nature, a labor organizer and peace activist from Comanche County, Texas, who moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and immersed himself in what was then the rather staid “homophile” move-

P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : G E T T Y I M AG E S ; L E F T PAG E : A N T H O N Y F R I E D K I N ; R I G H T PAG E : A L L I M AG E S CO U RT E SY O F T H E P U B L I S H E R

N E N I G H T, D O N JAC K S O N, 38, had a dream that changed everything.

In the dream, he was approached by a man he recognized, a doctor who had killed himself after losing his medical license for coming out as gay. The doctor held out his hand, and Jackson took it. “Come, I will show you a place,” the doctor said.

A place. So simple, but it sounded majestic and urgent.

Jackson had long been outraged by the discrimination he and others felt for being gay, which had pushed him into activism and journalism. His byline frequently showed up in the underground papers that were the beating heart of the movement, and he was a worthy recipient of the vision that now unfurled before him.

The dreamscape transformed, and now he and the deceased doctor were on a mountaintop together. “I looked down into a little valley,” Jackson would recall, “and saw the tightly clustered town on a little river, its pastelcolored buildings glowing in the brilliant sun.”

He woke. It was a light-bulb moment. A place could be real and life-changing. It was one of those moments you remember for the rest of your life, when your whole past, your pain and pleasures, all your experiences and hopes, snap into clarifying focus, and you know at once what to do next. It was one of those moments moving from sleep to wakefulness, where the first thing you do is grope for a pencil before a shimmering idea slips away.

“I conceived the idea of the gay colony,” Jackson said, a utopia and “a quicker way to freedom.” A place where gay men and women could live without fear of discrimination.

Jackson needed a setting to match his vision. He had his eye on Alpine County, chosen for the simple reason that it was the least-populous county in California, with a shade under 500 residents—and fewer than 400 registered voters. If enough homosexuals moved there, Jackson reasoned, they could install their own government and establish a “gay symbol of liberty, a world center for the gay counterculture, and a shining symbol of hope to all gay people in the world.”

A turning point for Jackson’s activism had come months earlier on October 31, 1969—Halloween—when he and about 40 other gay men were peacefully protesting at the San Francisco Examiner building against a recent article that described homosexuals as “semi-men with flexible wrists and hips.” As they marched, a plastic container filled with black ink was dropped on their heads from the top of the building. The protesters used the spilled ink to put their handprints on the building and were arrested for “malicious mischief.”

The seeds were planted that something better could be out there when Jackson read a manifesto called “Refugees from Amerika” by Carl Wittman, who argued that for homosexuals to be truly free, “we must govern our-

ment. Kight radicalized the movement by founding the Committee for Homosexual Freedom, which, in 1969, became the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front, the third local chapter of GLF after New York City and Berkeley. Instantly recognizable by his thick, snow-white hair, Kight was a natural-born showman with sharp elbows.

But his devotion to the cause was absolute. Kight had been wanting to shine a light on gay rights issues like discrimination in jobs and housing. The gay takeover of a small, rural, and reactionary county in the California mountains could certainly do that.

“I thought, wait a minute,” Kight later recalled, “Don Jackson has a capital idea, and we must capitalize on it.”

Kight convinced Jackson to go public with his campaign. Respecting Kight as an elder statesman in the movement, Jackson agreed to publish an essay about his dream, which appeared in the Los Angeles Free Press, an underground paper.

On October 19, a phone call came into GLF’s office. The ringing was heard by Don Kilhefner, 32, who was usually at the office. In fact, he lived there. Raised in a Mennonite family in central Pennsylvania, he moved to California after college. In the summer of 1970, he became homeless when the car he had been living in got towed. He got permission to sleep on the couch in GLF’s of-

fice, becoming, by default, the group’s office manager.

On the other end of the line was Lee Dye, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times who covered health and science. His beat included gay issues, since, at the time, homosexuality was widely considered a mental illness.

“I hear there’s this thing called the Alpine County project. What’s that all about?’” Dye asked.

GLF had tried to get the Times to cover the story, but the paper was notoriously averse to reporting on gay issues. And Kilhefner was inspired by Jackson’s vision and approach. “I liked him because it was clear to me he was very intelligent, not a grandstander, diligent in his research, carried a certain humility that I speculate came from a sense of inner authority,” Kilhefner recalls. “Our conversations always had substance to them, no grandiosity, no bullshit, no pretending.”

With the reporter on the line, Kilhefner thought on his feet. “Oh my God, what a coincidence! We’re having a news conference tomorrow morning on just that subject!”

He gave the office address at 577½ North Vermont Avenue.

In case Dye actually showed up, Kilhefner needed help to prepare. He hastily recruited two GLF organizers to stage an improvised presser at the office. Jackson couldn’t attend, but no matter. The move fit with GLF’s way of operating. “We were prepared to act at a moment’s notice,” Kilhefner says.

The office was in a second-floor apartment in a dilapidated two-story house in East Hollywood, “an old dowager of a building that had dignity,” as Kilhefner recalls.

The aesthetic of the offices was very 1970s radical: photographs of Huey Newton, Frederick Douglass, and Che Guevara hung on the walls alongside a raised-fist poster.

In a corner stood a small forest of picket signs, readymade for any occasion: police brutality, anti-war demonstrations, gay rights marches. For the presser, they arranged chairs in front of a poster reading Gay People’s Victory!

The following morning, Tuesday, October 20, Kilhefner and his two fellow speakers outlined the audacious plan to turn Alpine County into a “refuge where homosexuals can live without harassment.” Already, 479 homosexuals

“I conceived of a gay colony— it would be a quicker way to freedom.”

L A M AG . C O M 67

CHANGE AGENTS Below: Carolyn Weathers, a Gay Liberation

Front member, recalls her excitement “to be like pioneers in covered wagons and take over Alpine County.” Opposite: A GLF fundraising poster. The Alpine County project generated headlines in the New York Times, Time, and the Wall Street Journal.

68 L A M AG . C O M

“Almost any state in the union has an Alpine.”

Having explained all this, they looked out at the pool of reporters—one reporter, to be exact, Lee Dye. His story appeared in the Times the next day under the headline “Homosexuals Describe Plan to Take Over Alpine County.”

After that, Kilhefner remembers, “all hell broke loose.”

A

L P I N E C O U N T Y E RU P T E D. It did not have

a single traffic light but was suddenly the eye of a cultural storm. “Naturally, we’ll do everything we can to prevent anyone taking over our county,” Hubert Bruns, a rancher and chairman of the Alpine County Board of Supervisors, told the San Francisco Examiner when the news broke. “We have a real nice county here. We don’t know what we’re going to do if they succeed. We’ll try anything.”

The population of the county had settled to about 500 since the year 1900, when a boom in silver mining ended.

The residents were proverbially hardy souls who reveled in the county’s spectacular scenery, rugged terrain, isolation, and harsh winters. Alpine County was also notable for its conservatism. In the 1964 presidential election, Barry Goldwater won the county with 57 percent of the vote.

That was the highest percentage of votes Goldwater received among California’s 58 counties.

Now the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and wire services around the country picked up the story of the Alpine County project. “The residents of Alpine County are not amused,” Time noted in an article titled “Gay Mecca 1.” When the residents of the until-then obscure region tuned in their TVs to a special featuring Bob Hope, they found him talking about their county: “They had one demonstration up there, and the cops had to break it up, and instead of mace, they sprayed them with Chanel No. 5.” The residents of Alpine had suddenly been put on the national stage by a group trying to wipe them off the map.

On Wednesday, October 21, 1970—the day after the GLF press conference in Los Angeles—chairman Bruns, three additional supervisors, and District Attorney Hilary Cook made the four-hour drive from Markleeville to Sacramento, the state capital, to plead with Governor Ronald Reagan for help in repelling the gay invaders. The officials met with Reagan’s assistant legal affairs secretary, Richard Turner, who gave them bad news: if the homosexuals followed the letter of the law, Turner explained, there was no way to stop them.

“The people are very upset,” Bruns told a reporter after the meeting. “They”—the homosexuals—“will receive a hostile reception when they come.” Bruns added that “apples and peaches don’t grow well” in Alpine County’s cool mountain climate. “No fruit is very welcome up in our particular county.”

The reaction continued to darken and soon became threatening. A sign on the highway was defaced to read: WATCH FOR DEER—HIT A QUEER.

C A R O LY N W E AT H E R S P H OTO G R A P H A L B U M : U S C

had volunteered to make the move. Once they met the 90-day residency requirement, the new gay majority would call a special election to replace the district attorney, county supervisors, and sheriff. The GLF, they explained, had by this point launched two “expeditions” to Alpine County and planned to begin the “migration” in less than three months, on January 1, 1971. The new arrivals would “live off the fat of the land”—as well as the $2 million in federal and state funding the county received annually. They predicted Alpine County would become a “mecca for homosexuals” as well as “straight curiosity seekers.” “[It] will not be just a male society,” Kilhefner said.

“Many of our sisters will join us.” Among those who’d already enlisted were doctors, lawyers, and teachers, he said.

“We are still searching for two nurses, and we need one civil engineer to serve as director of roads.”

“It would mean gay territory,” Kilhefner continued, echoing Jackson’s original dream. “It would mean a gay government, a gay civil service, a county welfare department that made public assistance payments to refugees from persecution and prejudice. It would mean the establishment of the world’s first museum of gay arts, sciences, and history, paid for with public funds.”

“Just imagine what a great place that would be for summer rock concerts,” Kilhefner said, adding that eventually the group hoped to expand the concept across the country:

G L F WA N T E D P O ST E R : CO U RT E SY O F T H E P U B L I S H E R

O

N T H E O P P O S I T E S I D E of the continent, ex-

tremist radio personality Carl McIntire was following the news about Alpine County with special interest. On his daily radio program, The 20th Century Reformation Hour (which was actually half an hour), McIntire announced he would be organizing a counterattack if GLF took over Alpine County.

McIntire, an ultraconservative fundamentalist preacher from Collingswood, New Jersey, was heard on hundreds of stations nationwide and raked in more than $3 million in small contributions from listeners every year. Broadcasting from the studios of WXUR, a radio station he owned in Media, Pennsylvania, McIntire railed against “communism, liberalism, racial integration, sex education, evolution and water fluoridation,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Critics complained that McIntire’s program was “highly racist,” “anti-Semitic,” “antiNegro,” and “anti-Roman Catholic,” and in July 1970, the FCC revoked WXUR’s license for violating the agency’s fairness doctrine and failing to “keep . . . attuned to the community’s needs and interests.” But McIntire had appealed the ruling, and in October he was still on the air. “Homosexuality,” he would say, “must be met by the Gospel, and the attempt to dignify and legalize it will further corrupt society.”

“The day of silence has passed,” McIntire said of the Alpine County project, “and it is unthinkable that the Christians of the United States should sit by and permit a county to become a homosexual estate to embarrass this nation before the world . . . A new order, established after they have repudiated our system of morality, could very well become the first U.S. atheist and Communist county.”

McIntire promised to move enough of “our Christians” to Alpine County to keep the homosexuals from “obtaining majority control.” McIntire said his recruits would live in trailers and work as “missionaries.”

Don Jackson, dubbed the “Father of the Alpine Project” by the Los Angeles Free Press, was busy organizing an ad hoc coalition of activists that would come to be known as the Alpine Liberation Front (ALF), to pave the way for a smooth migration. According to scholar Jacob D. Carter, ALF formed committees to “organize farm communes, bee-keeping, a melodrama-theater beerhall project, a crafts pleasure fair, ski resort, free clinic, free school, utilities, communications, housing, and consumers’ co-op.” ALF also published a pamphlet filled with information about Alpine County’s climate, economy, government and history.

While Jackson was busy in the Bay Area, on November 1, more than a hundred people crammed into the GLF’s Los Angeles office, separating into five committees. “Accumulation of money, material and personnel for the actual migration will be put into effect by these committees,” the group’s newsletter, Front Lines, reported, “with the enthusiastic support of much of the gay community around the country and the world.”

“The lid really blew off the establishment’s teapot when the GLF-LA told the world about the plans for taking over the tiny county of Alpine, California,” the newsletter boasted in an article titled “Alpine Co. Here We Come!” “Everyone in the State power structure from Ronnie Reagan to the Board of Supervisors of Alpine to ‘Dr.’ Carl McIntire . . . have been running around like lunatics trying to find some legal (or even not so legal) way to prevent the takeover of the otherwise insignificant area by gays.”

Carolyn Weathers, a member of the group, remembers the excitement of a chance to “be like the pioneers in the covered wagons and take over Alpine County.” Weathers marveled at the energy of these packed Alpine County planning meetings. At one session, a burly man with a bushy beard sat in the corner, nimbly sewing a large blanket, the needle moving with remarkable speed. “Our brothers and sisters who go to Alpine are going to need our help in getting through the first winter,” he suddenly announced. “So come on, sisters, get busy helping me sew blankets!” And then he put his head back down and resumed sewing.

With group leaders such as Kight and mastermind of the impromptu press conference, Kilhefner, often busy on urgent L A M AG . C O M 69

Gays. Now, I visualize it [as] a liberated territory, a bastion of liberty in the statist sea, based on the basic libertarian doctrine that a person has a right to do anything he wishes so long as he doesn’t harm anyone else.”

Gaytopia would be a starting point. “I visualize [ALF] growing into a national organization,” Jackson wrote. “The liberation of Alpine for Gays will be only its first objective; it will go on to liberate other cities, counties and states for the people—counties for Indians, counties for Hippies, counties for any oppressed people who want to free themselves from the oppression of the ancient regime.

The Alpine Liberation Front can become a major thing in the history of the nation.”

But Jackson worried about the effects of the publicity surrounding the project. He latPRIDE AND JOY Above: GLF members, including Kight (far left) and Kilhefner (third from er said he feared it was making the project right) celebrate outside the Farm in West Hollywood after forcing the owner to rescind the no-touching rule prevalent at gay bars in 1970. Opposite: A poster for a GLF event in “appear unreal.”

Griffith Park. Ultraconservative radio host Carl McIntire used his nationally syndicated Back in the High Sierra, 5,500 feet above program to denounce GLF and threatened to relocate hundreds of his listeners to Alpine sea level, residents of Alpine County were County to offset the influence of the gay pilgrimmage. busy forming committees of their own. At a business, the ranks had to rise up to prepare for the move. daylong meeting at the single-story courthouse in MarkleeGLF volunteers fanned out across the city’s gay neighborville, their county seat, on Thursday, November 12, Hubert hoods handing out flyers to recruit “Alpioneers.” They colBruns, the chairman of the board of supervisors, called the lected donations in a miniature covered wagon on Hollyproposed takeover “the most crucial problem any county wood Boulevard, and collection jars were placed in gay has faced, perhaps, since the Civil War,” and compared bars all over the city.

GLF’s tactics to Hitler’s. “Possibly these people are victims of GLF also received offers of support from outside the gay persecution, and we will help them if we can,” Bruns said, community. Economic Research Associates, the firm that “but not by allowing them to take over Alpine County. We had helped analyze the impact of Walt Disney World on the hope to convince the people in Los Angeles this is not a Orlando area, offered its services, and the California Libergood place for them to live.” tarian Alliance endorsed the project.

Nor was Carl McIntire’s proposal any better received in “Your main resources are the freedom you offer plus the Alpine County than GLF’s. Many residents now felt they environment you are locating in,” Dana Rohrabacher, one of were caught between two opposing forces far beyond their the libertarian group’s founders and later speechwriter to control. Their home had become an early battleground in then-President Reagan, wrote in a letter to GLF. “The ecowhat would come to be known as the culture wars. nomic goods are perfect for some kind of a combination ski Rumors were going around that rich homosexuals were gambling resort.” already gobbling up property in the county, hoping to From the San Francisco hub open “gay resorts.” Some resiof the project, Jackson wrote dents wanted to invite Joe Kight frequently with updates Conforte, the owner of the and advice and included some notorious Mustang Ranch flattery for the elder statesman brothel across the border in of gay activism. “The people givSparks, Nevada, to open a ing interviews should be rotatbranch in Markleeville, preed,” he wrote in one letter. “The sumably to somehow counyounger longhairs are best for teract the influx of gays. relating to the younger Gay Lib Residents formed committypes, but you should do some of tees that day. One would prethe interviews to give dignity to pare emergency legislation to the project. Your name won’t dissolve the county by merghave to appear in the press very ing it with neighboring El many more times before you are listed in Who’s Who.” Dorado County if necessary. Another would “prepare a As media attention increased, Jackson’s vision for the plan for maintenance of law and order.” project expanded. “Events have changed my concept of Chris Gansberg, the chief of Markleeville’s volunteer fire what Alpine will be,” he wrote in another letter to Kight. “It department, was confident that the county’s harsh winter has grown into a bigger issue than just Gay Lib or even just weather, when temperatures of -20° Fahrenheit were not 70 L A M AG . C O M

FA R M I S L I B E R AT E D : U S C

The young Dana Rohrabacher was a supporter of the Alpine project.

C A R L M C I N T I R E : G E T T Y I M AG E S

uncommon, would deter the would-be settlers. “An invasion by 500 people in January would create a land office business for the undertaker,” Gansburg said. “It could not be done with any degree of success.”

An NBC News crew covered the meeting, and a very serious report from tiny Markleeville aired the following night on the NBC Nightly News amid updates on the Vietnam War and student protests.

The anticipation of colliding worlds would come to a head on Thanksgiving Day, when an advance party from the Los Angeles office of the GLF arrived. Steve Beckwith, Rod Gibson, and June Herrle had made the seven-hour drive from Los Angeles to the remote mountain town near the Nevada border to “test the temperature and savor the landscape and report back to [GLF] on conditions.” They were accompanied by a handful of journalists.

Wrapped in scarves and heavy coats against the late autumn chill, with buttons reading ALPINE OR BUST pinned to their lapels, Beckwith, Gibson, and Herrle—two hirsute men and a small woman with short hair—collected soil samples and recorded the temperature. At Egger’s, a general store and Chevron station, they bought a loaf of bread, a bag of potato chips, and a bottle of wine for lunch. Besides Egger’s, the visitors could glimpse a forlorn hotel with a restaurant and bar, a coffee shop, and a post office— and not much else. The general store’s owner, Gus Egger— who was also a county supervisor and had lived in Markleeville since 1947—was unperturbed by his unusual customers, though he wondered how they’d make a living once they got to Alpine County.

Beckwith, Gibson, and Herrle posed for photographs on the steps of the county courthouse that would, they hoped, soon be the seat of the world’s first all-gay government.

Across the street, they held an impromptu press conference in a small memorial plaza with a fountain that commemorated a former county sheriff. Perhaps they noticed the promise of its inscription: “Devoted to Duty—Loyal to Community— Friendly to His Fellow-Men.” “We want to show the local residents that homosexuals are just plain people like everybody else,” Beckwith told the reporters.

The next day, Beckwith, Gibson, and Herrle met with Alpine County Sheriff Stuart Merrill in front of Egger’s. Beckwith proposed a meeting with local residents, but Merrill was having none of it.

He had already tired of the publicity the project was attracting. “Absolutely not,” the sheriff said. “The people of Alpine County haven’t time to attend any meetings.

They are tired of being pestered by you people.”

It is possible Merrill also had not been pleased to hear about the plan to have a gay sheriff.

“You’re not going to tell us what to do!”

Beckwith shouted in response. “We want to come into this county peacefully, but we are going to come in, no matter what you say.”

GLF had scheduled the visit over the long Thanksgiving weekend partly for the symbolism. These young, radical homosexuals saw themselves as modern-day pilgrims, intent on escaping political and social persecution and eager to find a new land of independence and opportunity.

T

H E S C H E D U L E D S TA RT date of the migra-

tion was January 1971. Alpine County held its collective breath. Then a mammoth blizzard dumped more than three feet of snow in the mountains, temporarily cutting the town off from the outside world.

McIntire’s minions did not show up to try to stop the Alpine pilgrims. In fact, his hold on his enterprises was slipping. In a year’s time, McIntire lost his appeal of the FCC’s revocation of his radio station’s license. His empire crumbled, and his ministry never recovered.

But the new year brought a far darker obstacle. There had been threats, including, reportedly, by the Ku Klux Klan, but the real danger to the project ended up coming from within.

Gibson, one of the Thanksgiving Day pilgrims to Markleeville, discovered evidence that the upper echelons of GLF in Los Angeles had never had any intention of providing the continuing support the project would need to be completed. It was all a lie, a clever stunt. Gibson was furious when he learned that “an elite group of [GLF] members”— namely Kight and Kilhefner—were simply using the project to generate publicity and were in effect lying to the gay community as well as the establishment press while leaving to “those who thought the project to be valid . . . the monumental task of making it come off.”

Gibson wrote in a letter exposing the hoax, “The ends will never justify the means when it entails using peoples’ hopes and dreams.”

Jackson who had literally dreamed up the idea, was devastated. He had been in (CONTINUED ON PAGE 78)

L A M AG . C O M 71

THE HOT LIST L.A. MAGAZINE

ho

OUR MONTHLY LIST OF L.A.’S MOST ESSENTIAL RESTAURANTS E D I T E D

BY

H A I L E Y

E B E R

WEST

Birdie G’s

SANTA MONICA » American $$

James Beard Award–nominated chef Jeremy Fox gets personal with a sunny spot dedicated to comfort food and named after his young daughter. The high-low menu is full of playful riffs on comfort food, from a decadent stufffed latke called the Goldbar to a matzo ball soup with carrot miso to a next-level relish tray.

Don’t miss the jiggly Rose Petal pie for dessert. 2421 Michigan Ave., 310-310-3616, or birdiegsla.com. Full bar.

Broad Street Oyster Co. MALIBU » Seafood $$ If ever there was a car picnic scene, it’s at this openair spot overlooking Malibu Lagoon State Beach (and across from a SoulCycle, if we’re being honest). You can grab a great lobster roll (topped with uni or caviar if you’re feeling extra fancy), towers of raw seafood, great clam chowder, and a burger sprinkled with shio kombu (dried kelp) that shouldn’t be overlooked.

23359 Pacific Coast Hwy., 424-644-0131, or broadstreetoyster.com. Beer and wine.

Cassia

SANTA MONICA » Southeast Asian $$$

Bryant Ng mines his Chinese Singaporean heritage, honors wife Kim’s Vietnamese background, and works in the wood-grilling technique he honed at Mozza at this grand Southeast Asian brasserie. Hunker down at a table on the patio—or treat yourself to some great takeout—to devour turmeric-marinated ocean trout or chickpea curry with scallion clay-oven bread. Wherever and however you enjoy Ng’s cooking, you won’t be disappointed. 1314 7th St., 310-3936699, or cassiala.com. Full bar.

Colapasta

SANTA MONICA » Italian $

It’s equally pleasant to grab and go or eat at this quiet, affordable spot that features fresh pastas topped with farmers’ market fare. The colorful, poppy-seed-sprinkled beet ravioli is delicate and deli-

72 L A M AG . C O M

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T H E B R E A K D OW N W EST

Includes Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Century City, Culver City, Malibu, Marina del Rey, Mar Vista, Palms, Santa Monica, Venice, West L.A., Westwood

EAST

Includes Atwater Village, Eagle Rock, East L.A., Echo Park, Glendale, Los Feliz, Pasadena, San Gabriel Valley, Silver Lake

T H E VALLEY

Includes Arts District, Bunker Hill, Chinatown, Historic Core, Little Tokyo, South Park

Includes Agoura Hills, Burbank, Calabasas, Encino, North Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Toluca Lake, Van Nuys

CENT RAL

SOUT H

DOWNTOWN

2021

cious, while the gramigna with pesto and ricotta is hearty and satisfying. 1241 5th St., 310-310-8336, or colapasta.com. Beer and wine.

Crudo e Nudo

SANTA MONICA » Seafood $$

Brian Bornemann, the 31-year-old former executive chef at Michael’s Santa Monica, has gone his own way.

He and his girlfriend, Leena Culhane, have launched a sustainable neighborhood joint that’s by turns a coffee shop, a seafood market, and a casual restaurant where you can nibble impeccably prepared crudo, tuna tartare toasts, and vegan Caesar salads on the patio while sipping a thoughtfully selected natural wine.

Though the project began as a pandemic pop-up, it’s now an exciting brick-and-mortar spot from one of the city’s most promising young toques. 2724 Main St., crudoenudo.com, or @crudo_e_nudo. Beer and wine.

Dear John’s

Includes Beverly Grove, East Hollywood, Fairfax District, Hancock Park, Hollywood, Koreatown, West Hollywood

Includes Bell, Compton, Gardena, Hermosa Beach, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, Watts

Denotes restaurants with outdoor seating $ $$ $$$ $$$$

I N E X P E N S I V E (Meals under $10) M O D E R A T E (Mostly under $20) E X P E N S I V E (Mostly under $30) V E R Y E X P E N S I V E ($30 and above)

Price classifications are approximate and based on the cost of a typical main course that serves one.

For restaurants primarily offering multicourse family meals, the cost per person of such a meal is used.

In the current climate, restaurant hours are changing frequently. Check websites or social media accounts for the most current information.

CULVER CITY » Steak House $$$

There’s still good times and great food to be had at this former Sinatra hang stylishly revamped by Josiah Citrin and Hans Röckenwagner. Steak-house classics— crab Louie, oysters Rockefeller, thick prime steaks— pay homage to the lounge’s Rat Pack past and can be enjoyed on a sunny new patio or to go. 11208 Culver Blvd., 310-881-9288, or dearjohnsbar.com. Full bar.

Felix

VENICE » Italian $$$

At Evan Funke’s clubby, floral-patterned trattoria, the rigorous dedication to tradition makes for superb focaccia and pastas. The rigatoni cacio e pepe—tubes of pasta adorned only with Pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper—nods to Roman shepherds who used the spice to keep warm, while the rigatoni all’Amatriciana with cured pork cheek sings brilliantly alongside Italian country wines. 1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd., 424-387-8622, or felixla.com. Full bar.

Kato

SAWTELLE » Cal-Asian $$$

Jon Yao is now serving his acclaimed Taiwanese tasting menu outdoors. Dishes like 3 Cup Abalone and Dungeness crab soup are just as revelatory alfresco. At

C R U D O : CO U RT E SY SA N T ’O L I N A © KAT H RY N B A L L AY

JUNE

Yellowtail crudo from Sant’olina

$118 for more than a dozen courses, Yao’s prix fixe menu is one of the best deals in town. 11925 Santa Monica Blvd., 424-535-3041, or katorestaurant.com.

Michael Teich and David Johns, along with Burt Bakman of the beloved barbecue joint SLAB. 9876 Wilshire Blvd., 310-285-1260, santolinabh.com, or @santolinabh. Full bar.

Mírame BEVERLY HILLS » Mexican $$$

Joshua Gil is cooking exciting, contemporary Mexican fare with market-driven ingredients and serving them on a stunning patio. Dishes are imaginative but not overly contrived—salmon-skin chicharrón with fermented garlic aioli; a divine slow-cooked Heritage Farms pork shoulder served with a black-lime gastrique, celtuce, and hearty, richly flavorful frijoles charros cooked with a pig’s head. The latter is available as part of Mírame’s to-go family meal, which includes house-made tortillas; a memorable riff on Caesar salad with pork chicharrón, roasted vegetables and goat cheese; chocolate flan; and an adorable little bottle of margaritas. At just $105 for two people, it’s an amazingly affordable way to sample Gil’s cooking.

419 N. Canon Dr. , 310-230-5035, mirame.la, or @mirame.la. Full bar.

Ospi VENICE » Italian $$$

Jackson Kalb’s sprawling new Italian joint brings bustle and outdoor tables to a corner on an otherwise quiet stretch. Pastas, including a spicy rigatoni alla vodka and raschiatelli with a pork rib ragù, are sublime, and most travel remarkably well if you’re looking to takeout, which is the only option for lunch. Roman-style pizzas boast a uniquely crispy, cracker-thin crust; to get the full crunch, have a slice as you drive your takeout home. 2025 Pacific Ave., 424-443-5007, ospivenice. com, or @ospiveni. Full bar.

Pasjoli SANTA MONICA » French $$$$

Dave Beran’s à la carte spot bucks the trends and eschews bistro clichés in favor of old-fashioned thrills— an elaborate pressed duck prepared just as Escoffier would have and served with potatoes au gratin dauphinois—and modern French fare. The showy duck must be reserved in advance as only a limited number of birds are available each night. But there are plenty of other exciting dishes on the menu, such as the chicken liver in brioche and a complex lobster, mussel, and clam bisque with shaved fennel and tarragon.

2732 Main St., 424-330-0020, or pasjoli.com. Full bar.

Pizzana BRENTWOOD » Italian $$

It’s not easy to make over the local pie joint, but 35-year-old chef Daniele Uditi has reimagined an urban standby with equal parts purism and playfulness that has become a neighborhood favorite in the process. Most impressive is the open-mindedness that has him deftly transforming the Roman pasta dish cacio e pepe into a pizza or putting a hearty short rib ragù on the Pignatiello pie. And in a real twist, appetizers and seasonal salads aren’t afterthoughts but highlights.

Don’t miss specials, like an insane chicken parm sandwich. 11712 San Vicente Blvd., 310-481-7108, pizzana. com, or @pizzana. Also at 460 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, 310-657-4662.

Sant’olina BEVERLY HILLS » Mediterranean $$S

The buzzy h.wood Group has taken over the rooftop at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to launch this breezy pop-up that’s likely to become a permanent fixture. Tables with views are topped with blue-and-white linens, and the menu is full of crowd-pleasing dishes: babka french toast for brunch, harissa-cured salmon, a lamb burger for dinner, or various Middle Eastern dips for any time of day. The culinary team includes h.wood’s

BOTTLE YOUR FEELINGS » Wine moms shouldn’t have all the fun.

Vinovore (616 N. Hoover, Silver Lake, vinovore.com) is offering virtual tastings and gift boxes for Father’s Day.

DOWNTOWN Angry Egret Dinette CHINATOWN » Sandwiches $$

Wes Avila has left Guerrilla Tacos and is focusing on torta-esque sandwiches at this heartfelt new venture.

Standouts include the Whittier Blvd: beef belly braised in star anise-laced lard for eight hours, then stuffed in a roll with horseradish cream, avocado, queso fresco, serrano chile, and red pepper escabeche. It’s hearty and decadent—especially if you opt to add a duck egg, which you should— but also wonderfully nuanced. There’s ample outdoor seating, but sandwiches with fried ingredients, like a veggie number, with squash blossom tempura, miraculously manage to remain crispy and travel well. 970 N. Broadway, Ste. 114, 213-278-0987, aedinette.com, or @angryegretdinette.

C H E F FAVO R I T E S DAV E B E R A N PASJOLI

Badmaash HISTORIC CORE » Indian $$

This Indian gastropub concept comes from the father-and-sons team of Pawan, Nakul, and Arjun Mahendro, who are all well versed in the culinary techniques of East and West. The menu features contemporary mash-ups, like a version of poutine smothered in chicken tikka, tandoori chicken wings, and a spicy lamb burger. If tradition’s your thing, you’ll be comforted by spice-stewed chickpeas, potato and pea samosas, and what they call Good Ol’ Saag Paneer.

Wash it all down with carefully curated, reasonably priced natural wines. 108 W. 2nd St., 213-221-7466, badmaashla.com, or @badmaashla. Beer and wine to go. Also at 418 N. Fairfax Ave., Fairfax District, 213-281-5185.

Gamboge LINCOLN HEIGHTS » Cambodian $

The Cambodian sandwiches known as numpang, which are somewhat similar to Vietnamese banh mi, are the speciality at this charming new deli. Crusty bolillo bread is a vessel for proteins like lemongrassmarinated pork shoulder or grilled trumpet mushrooms, along with condiments like Maggi mayo, chili jam, and carrot-and-papaya slaw. The menu is full of delights beyond sandwiches, including rice bowls; a great shredded chicken salad with cabbage, peanuts, and a citrus-and-fish-sauce dressing; and a memorable braised-sardines-and-tomato dish. Order food to go, or enjoy it on the sunny, succulent-dotted back patio. 1822 N. Broadway, gambogela.com, or @gambogela. Beer and wine.

Guerrilla Cafecito BACON BURRITO FLAKE It’s super simple— not fancy, by any means. But it’s not very expensive, and it doesn’t have a lot of filler, and it comes with this really great tomatillo salsa. Plus, the eggs are never overcooked; they’re good, runny scrambled eggs. $7.50, 513 Rose Ave., Venice, veniceflake.com.

JOEL’S CHICKEN RIGGIES BIRDIE G’S They do this as a regular special. It’s basically Buffalo chicken meets riga-

toni. I grew up in Syracuse, so it’s really nostalgic for me. And it’s just a good, messy, delicious pasta dish. $24, 2421 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica, birdiegsla.com.

SMOKED SALMON SHOOP’S They make it inhouse, and it’s really well done. It’s not too forward in herbaceous notes. It just tastes like you want it to taste. You can get it on a sandwich or a savory pancake, but we usually just get a quarter pound to take home. $29.99/pound, 2400 Main St., Santa Monica, shoopsdeli.com.

ARTS DISTRICT » Breakfast $-$$

This newish breakfast offshoot around the corner from Guerilla Tacos makes a perfectly balanced brekkie burrito that rivals the city’s long-established best.

The doughnuts are wonderfully not-too-sweet: a doughnut even a non-doughnut lover can love.

No wonder they often sell out. 704 Mateo St., 213-3753300, or guerrillacafecito.com.

Pearl River Deli CHINATOWN » Chinese $

Chef Johnny Lee has gained a reputation as a poultry wizard, and his succulent Hainan chicken is a highly sought-after dish. Sadly, he’s serving it only as an occasional weekend special at his tiny Far East Plaza takeout spot. But don’t despair: the ever-changing menu is full of winners, from a pork chop sandwich on a pineapple bun to a beefy, memorable rendition of mapo tofu. 727 N. Broadway, Ste. 130, 626-6889507, pearlriverdeli.com, or @prd_la.

Redbird HISTORIC CORE » New American $$$$

Neal Fraser has defined his own kind of L.A. elegance over the 20 years he’s been cooking in his native city.

Setting up shop in the deconsecrated St. Vibiana Cathedral offered an opportunity to add theatrics to a space that’s contemporary and classically plush and now boasts three distinct outdoor dining areas. A delicate curried carrot broth and beluga lentils transform slices of smoked tofu from wholesome to haute, while lamb belly spins on a spit in the former rectory.

114 E. 2nd St., 213-788-1191, or redbird.la. Full bar.

Sonoratown FASHION DISTRICT » Mexican $

At this downtown spot known for its flour tortillas, you can order à la carte or opt for affordable familystyle takeout options to make your own tacos, burritos, or chimichangas filled with chorizo, carne asada, or mesquite-grilled chicken. Wash it all down with a six-pack of Tecate or seasonal aguas frescas. 208 E. 8th St., 213-628-3710, sonoratown.com, or @sonoratownla. Beer.

Superfine Pizza FASHION DISTRICT » Pizza $ Get a quick taste of Rossoblu chef Steve Samson’s Italian-food mastery at his casual pizzeria, which serves both thin-crust slices and whole pies. The pepperoni always pleases, but the honey—with spicy sa-

L A M AG . C O M 73

lami, provolone, and Grana Padano—really thrills.

1101 S. San Pedro St., Ste. F, 323-698-5677, superfinepizza.com, or @super finepizza.

CENTRAL Alta Adams WEST ADAMS » California Soul Food $$ Riffing on his grandmother’s recipes, Watts native Keith Corbin loads up his gumbo with market veggies and enlivens his collard greens with a smoked oil. Soul food in this city is too often associated with Styrofoam containers, but this verdant patio, which reopened March 18, is a lovely place to linger. Hot sauce splashed onto skillet-fried chicken is pure pleasure, enhanced by a bourbon drink the bar tints with roasted peanuts and huckleberries. Finish the night by taking on a heroic wedge of coconut cake.

5359 W. Adams Blvd., 323-571-4999, or altaadams. com. Full bar.

Antico

is anchored by a courtyard with soft sunlight and laurel trees. Caroline Styne’s wine list doesn’t shy away from the ecology of vineyards, while Suzanne Goin’s cooking has become indispensable. Carefully constructed salads showcase vegetables at their best, and the roasted chicken with panzanella is both an homage to San Francisco’s Zuni Café and a classic in and of itself. 8700 W. 3rd St., 310-8599859, or aocwinebar.com. Full bar.

Brandoni Pepperoni WEST HOLLYWOOD » Pizza $$ Six nights a week, Brandon Gray turns out some of L.A.’s most exciting pizzas. Gray, a veteran of Navy kitchens and top local restaurants like Providence, brings boundless imagination to his pies. They’re topped with premium ingredients—Jidori chicken, Sungold tomatoes, Spanish octopus—in exciting combinations. A curry-Dijonnaise dressing renders a side salad surprisingly memorable. 5881 Saturn St., Faircrest Heights, 323-306-4968, or brandoni-pepperoni.com. Wine to go.

Gigi’s

LARCHMONT VILLAGE » Italian $$

HOLLYWOOD MEDIA DISTRICT » French $$$

Chef Chad Colby smartly converted his East Larchmont Italian restaurant into a takeout spot for foccacia pizzas and ice cream, fashioning a makeshift pizza oven with the plancha top that used to sit on the restaurant’s hearth. The ice cream has a wonderfully smooth texture, and the flavors are spot-on.

The honeycomb and strawberry have garnered a lot of praise since the restaurant opened in 2019—and rightly so—but Colby has regularly been introduing new flavors like cookies-and-cream and pistachio.

4653 Beverly Blvd., 323-510-3093, antico-la.com, or antico_la. Wine to go.

With its sceney Sycamore Avenue location and gorgeous, illustration-lined interiors, Gigi’s could easily succeed with subpar fare. But chef Matt Bollinger’s bistro classics—like curry mussels, steak tartare, and roasted chicken—are done quite well, if priced rather high. The wine list from beverage director Kristin Olszewski, an Osteria Mozza alum, is surprisingly interesting, with various natural and biodynamic options on offer. 904. N. Sycamore Ave., gigis.la, or @gigis_la. Full bar.

A.O.C. BEVERLY GROVE » California $$$

Unforced and driven by culinary excellence, A.O.C.

Harold & Belle’s JEFFERSON PARK » Southern Creole $$ For Creole-style food—a mélange of French, African, and Native American flavors—Harold & Belle’s is as close to the Dirty Coast as you’ll come on the West

Coast. The crawfish étouffée in spicy gravy will have you humming zydeco, while the bourbon bread pudding will leave you with a Sazerac-worthy buzz.

2920 W. Jefferson Blvd., 323-735-9023, or haroldandbelles.com. Full bar.

Lalibela FAIRFAX DISTRICT » Ethiopian $-$$

The strip of Fairfax known as Little Ethiopia has long been dominated by the same handful of restaurants. Chef-owner Tenagne Belachew worked in a few of them before opening her own sophisticated haven, which invites with the swirling aromas of berbere and burning sage. Stretchy disks of injera— the sour, teff-flour pancake that doubles as a utensil for scooping up food by hand—arrive piled with uniquely pungent delights. There are wots, or stews, made with chicken or spiced legumes or lamb sautéed in a creamy sauce. 1025 S. Fairfax Ave., 323-9651025, or lalibelala.com. Beer and wine.

Luv2Eat Thai Bistro HOLLYWOOD » Thai $$ Vibrant flavors and spices abound at this strip-mall favorite from two Phuket natives. The crab curry, with a whole crustacean swimming in a creamy pool of deliciousness, is not to be missed (it travels surprisingly well), but the expansive menu is full of winners, from the massaman curry to the Thai fried chicken with sticky rice and sweet pepper sauce.

6660 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-498-5835, luv2eatthai. com, or @luv2eat.thaibistro.

n/soto WEST ADAMS » Japanese $$$$

N/naka chefs Niki Nakayama and Carol IidaNakayama have expanded. To start, n/soto was focused on offering elaborate bento boxes from a togo window, but the duo have plans to turn it into a bustling izakaya with indoor and outdoor seating as the city opens up. For now, the bento boxes

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make for takeout that is both delicious and highminded. The first box on offer was called A Taste of Home and told the story of Japanese immigrants coming to America via nearly two dozen dishes, from beef sukiyaki to pressed-mackerel sushi. It makes for a special evening in, if you’re lucky enough to score one. Preorders go live on Tock every Friday at noon and tend to sell out quickly.

4566 W. Washington Blvd., 323-879-9455 , n-soto .com.

Osteria Mozza/Mozza2Go HANCOCK PARK » Italian $$$

Nancy Silverton aims for end-times elegance with a parking lot that’s been transformed into a piazza where you can spend an evening nibbling on pastas, pizzas, and thoughtful salads from Mozza, Chi Spacca, and Pizzeria Mozza. Mozza2Go’s expansive menu is heavy on the pizzas, with an $85 five-pizza package that’s a steal. Don’t miss the Spacca burgers, offered only on the weekends, for takeout and delivery only. Osteria: 6602 Melrose Ave., 323-2970100, or osteriamozza.com. Full bar. Pizzeria: 641 N. Highland Ave., 323-297-0101, or pizzeriamozza.com.

Beer and wine.

République

Bar Restaurant SILVER LAKE » French $$$

Chef Douglas Rankin, who worked under Ludo Lefebvre for years, struck out on his own with this charming “neo bistro” in the old Malo space in Sunset Junction. The menu features playful Gallic-ish fare, like curly fries and plump mussels Dijon atop milk toast; classic cocktails; and plenty of funky wines available by the glass. A large parking-lot seating area has huge plants, twinkling lights, and good vibes. Somehow it manages to feel both festive and safe. 4326 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-347-5557.

Full bar.

NATALE E T H A I

C U I S I N E

Daybird WESTLAKE » Fried Chicken $

This long-anticipated casual chicken concept from Top Chef winner and Nightshade toque Mei Lin is finally open, and it was worth the wait. Lin separates her hot poultry sandwich from the flock of others in the city, thanks to uniquely crispy fried chicken that’s dusted with a memorable, Sichuan-peppercornheavy spice blend. A spicy slaw and habanero ranch dipping sauce add to the fun. 240 N. Virgil Ave., Ste. 5, daybirdla.com, or @daybirdla.

Eszett

HANCOCK PARK » Cal-French $$$

SILVER LAKE » Eclectic $$

République may be devoted to French food, but its soul is firmly rooted in Californian cuisine. Walter Manzke is as skilled at making potato and leek beignets as he is at roasting cauliflower and local dates.

Meanwhile, Margarita Manzke’s breads and pastries are always spot-on. Like a fine wine, this classic L.A. restaurant just gets better and better. 624 S. La Brea Ave., 310-362-6115, or republiquela.com. Full bar.

This stylish, cozy wine bar brings warm hospitality and tasty plates, large and small, to the strip-mall space formerly occupied by Trois Familia. Chef Spencer Bezaire’s menu showcases Japanese, French, and German influences, making for hearty yet refined togo meals. The big fries alone are worth an order. 3510 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-522-6323, or eszettla.com. Wine and beer.

Ronan

Found Oyster

FAIRFAX DISTRICT » Cal-Italian $$

EAST HOLLYWOOD » Seafood $$$

At Daniel and Caitlin Cutler’s chic pizzeria, the pies—especially the How ‘Nduja Like It? with spicy sausage, gorgonzola crema, green onion, and celery—are the clear stars, but it’s a big mistake not to explore the entire menu. It’s filled with delicious delights, from cacio e pepe risotto to a sea bass served with an ever-changing assortment of banchan. 7315 Melrose Ave., 323-917-5100, ronanla.com, or @ronan_la. Full bar.

This tiny oyster bar was a pre-pandemic favorite, and chef Ari Kolender’s seafood dishes still thrill when taken to go or enjoyed on the restaurant’s “boat deck.” The scallop tostada with yuzu kosho and basil is a must-order, and a bisque sauce takes the basic lobster roll to new heights. Interesting, affordable wines add to the fun. 4880 Fountain Ave., 323-486-7920, foundoyster.com, or @foundoyster.

Wine and beer.

Slab

“The Best of Culver City” 9 Years in a Row - Culver City News

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Venice: 10101 Venice Blvd. | (310) 202-7003 Full Bar | Sushi Bar Beverly Hills: 998 S. Robertson Blvd. | (310) 855-9380 Full Bar | Valet Parking

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Hippo

BEVERLY GROVE » Barbecue $$

HIGHLAND PARK » Cal-Italian $$

Hungry diners used to line up in the driveway of Burt Bakman’s home, desperate for a taste of his famous smoked barbecue meats. In 2018, Bakman came up from the underground, opening a sleek storefront that’s now filling to-go orders for hearty fare, from perfectly marbled brisket to pulled-pork sandwiches and collard greens. You can even get a six-pack of Bud Light. 8136 W. 3rd. St., 310-855-7184, slabbarbecue.com, or @slab. Beer and wine.

Hidden in a wood-trussed dining room behind Triple Beam Pizza, this Cal-Ital restaurant from Mozza vet Matt Molina balances casual and refined. Snappy wax beans are sluiced with vinaigrette for a picnic-worthy salad. Great pastas and juicy grilled chicken thighs deliver the unfussy pleasure found at the best neighborhood spots. Eclectic regular specials like haute corn dogs add to the fun. 5916 ½ N. Figueroa St., 323-545-3536, or hipporestaurant. com. Full bar.

H A L L O F FA M E 1 9 9 6 - 2 0 2 0

Son of a Gun BEVERLY GROVE » Seafood $$

Florida-raised chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo deliver a certain brand of sun-drenched seashore nostalgia. Dropping into the nautically themed dining room for chilled peel-and-eat shrimp and a hurricane feels as effortless as dipping your toes in the sand. There are buttery lobster rolls and fried-chicken sandwiches alongside artfully plated crudos. 8370 W. 3rd St., 323-782-9033, or sonofagun restaurant. com. Full bar.

EAST All Day Baby SILVER LAKE » Eclectic $$

Jonathan Whitener’s Here’s Looking At You is, sadly, closed, but his thrilling cooking continues on a bustling Eastside corner. Whether you opt for smoked spare ribs, a hot catfish sandwich, or a breakfast sandwich on pastry chef Thessa Diadem’s sublime biscuits, it’s all great. 3200 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-741-0082, alldaybabyla.com, or @alldaybabyla.

Maury’s Bagels SILVER LAKE » Bagels $ East Coast transplant Jason Kaplan spent a decade in L.A. before deciding he had to take matters into his own hands if he wanted a great bagel in this town. He started out as a pop-up at farmers’ markets and coffee shops, but his appropriately modestly sized, delightfully chewy bagels and quality smoked fish now have a brick-and-mortar location. On a quiet Eastside corner next door to Psychic Wines, it’s quite charming. 2829 Bellevue Ave., 323- 380-9380, maurysbagels.com, or @maurys_losangeles.

Northern Thai Food Club EAST HOLLYWOOD » Thai $ Offering specialty dishes unique to northern Thailand, this family-run favorite doesn’t skimp on flavor, spice, or authenticity. Tasty takeout meals include the khao soi gai (curry egg noodle with chicken), laab moo kua (minced pork), tam kha noon (jackfruit salad), and pla salid tod (fried gourami fish). For those unfamiliar with the region’s distinct cuisine, the illustrious sticky rice is still a reliable bet. Need more incentive? Everything

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L A M AG . C O M 75

on the menu is less than $10. 5301 Sunset Blvd., 323-474-7212, or amphainorthernthaifood.com.

Saso

PASADENA » Spanish $$$

The arrival of this splashy new spot suggests that the good times might soon be here again. It shares a charming, sprawling courtyard with the Pasadena Playhouse, and the seafood-heavy menu from chef Dominique Crisp, who previously worked at L&E Oyster Bar, begs for reuniting with friends on nice summer nights. Orange zest enlivens jamon iberico crudite, while miso butter takes grilled oysters to new heights. 37 S. El Molino Ave., 626-808-4976, sasobistro.com, or @sasobistro. Full bar.

Sōgo Roll Bar

LOS FELIZ » Sushi $$

So -go is hardly the only concept in town devoted to rolls, but it has mastered the form. Rice is cooked with the same careful consideration and seasoning that sushi master Kiminobu Saito uses at the highend Sushi Note, and it manages to maintain a great temperature and texture, even when being delivered.

Fish is not just fresh but also flavorful, each type thoughtfully paired with ideal accompaniments, from a tangy yuzu-pepper sauce that makes salmon sing to brandy-soaked albacore with garlic-ginger ponzu and crispy onions. 4634 Hollywood Blvd., 323-741-0088, sogoroll bar.com, or @sogorollbar.

Beer and sake.

for takeout and delivery, elegantly mix decadence with some authentic soul. 3131 W. Sunset Blvd., 323922-6061, spoonandpork.com, or @spoonandporkla.

Beer and wine.

Sunset Sushi SILVER LAKE » Japanese $$$ With omakase boxes priced from $30 to $85, this new sushi place in the old Ma’am Sir space strikes the sweet spot between affordable and indulgent and is another exciting addition to the Eastside’s growing number of quality sushi options. It’s a sister spot to Highland Park’s Ichijiku, but with a more luxe vibe and a larger menu, tailor-made for takeout. 4330 W. Sunset Blvd., 323-741-8371, sunsetsushila.com, or @ sunsetsushi. Beer and sake to go.

Union

PASADENA » Italian $$$

The food shines at this cozy trattoria just off Pasadena’s main drag. Chef Chris Keyser, an acolyte of Philadelphia pasta maestro Marc Vetri, joined in 2019, keeping classics, like a great cacio e pepe, on the menu while adding his own dishes, such as a thrilling crispy octopus appetizer. Most of the eat-in menu is also available to go, and family-style meals for four are also available. The pastas all impress, but don’t miss the wild mushrooms and polenta with a sublimely delicious sherry vinegar and truffle butter sauce. 37 E. Union St., 626-795-5841, unionpasadena. com, or @unionpasadena. Wine.

Spoon & Pork

SILVER LAKE » Filipino $$

The go-to for Filipino comfort food offers a variety of dishes, all featuring one shared ingredient: deliciousness. Spoon & Pork puts an innovative spin on some Filipino favorites—just try its adobo pork belly, pork belly banh mi, or lechón kawali. The dishes, which can be ordered at the counter to enjoy on the patio or

BOOK IT » Make Bavel’s amazing harissa prawns at

home! Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis’s Bavel: Modern Recipes Inspired by the Middle East is out now.

THE VALLEY Black Market Liquor Bar

STUDIO CITY » New American $$

Some nights it seems as if half the Valley is here, enjoying the colorful patio. Top Chef graduate Antonia Lofaso’s Italian chops are visible in the buxom ricotta gnudi with brown butter and pistachios. The deep-fried fluffernutter sandwich is a reminder that food, like life, should not be taken too seriously. 11915 Ventura Blvd., 818-446-2533, or blackmarketliquor bar.com. Full bar.

The Brothers Sushi

WOODLAND HILLS » Sushi $$$

This hidden gem, reinvigorated when chef Mark Okuda took the helm in 2018, is worth traveling for.

Keep spirits up with the Hand-Roll Party home kits (there’s even one for kids), or splurge on an omakase that can be enjoyed on the patio or to go. You can also order à la carte or get non-sushi items like soyglazed grilled chicken. 21418 Ventura Blvd., 818-4564509, thebrotherssushi.com, or @thebrotherssushila.

Beer, wine, and sake.

Casa Vega

SHERMAN OAKS » Mexican $

The Vega family’s 64-year-old institution has put up a massive tent in its parking lot to keep the margaritas flowing amidst COVID-19 restrictions.

And if you prefer takeout, there’s a drive-through setup that makes it easy to pick up a plate of enchiladas or a hulking “oven-style” burrito topped with enchilada sauce and melted cheese. The expansive menu has a great selection of hearty crowd-pleasers, cocktails, and tequilas. You might leave tipsy, but you’ll never go hungry.

13301 Ventura Blvd., 818-788-4868, or casavega.com. Full bar.

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0

Hank’s BURBANK » Bagels $

The L.A. bagel revolution continues at this stylish spot in the Valley that serves up carefully constructed sandwiches. Tomato, aioli, and mapleglazed bacon elevate a simple bacon, egg, and cheese, while a classic salmon-and-lox construction has thoughtful touches like salted cucumbers and pickled onions. Sammies shine with plain cream cheese, but it’s worth grabbing a tub of Hank’s “angry” spread—a spicy, slightly sweet concoction—to have in your fridge. And no cream cheese is needed for Hank’s everything jalapenocheddar bagel, a stunning gut bomb.

4315 Riverside Dr., 818-588-3693, hanksbagels. com, or @hanksbagels. Also at 13545 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.

SOUTH Ali’i Fish Company EL SEGUNDO » Seafood $$ This small, unassuming spot shames all of the glossy poke purveyors popping up around town to serve mediocre versions of the Hawaiian dish. Glistening cubes of tuna, flown in fresh from the islands daily, remind you how great poke can be. Even a vegan poke, with tofu and sea asparagus, manages to satisfy. If you’re not looking to go raw, there are various salmon and tuna burgers to choose from, and the smoked-ahi dip with house-made potato chips is not to be missed. Perfect for picking up a beach picnic. 409 E. Grand Ave., 310-616-3484, or aliifishco.com.

Fishing With Dynamite

usual, but it is. The same goes for velvety clam chowder. Here, it achieves smoky richness—you can thank the Nueske’s bacon for that—without any of the floury glop. On the menu, you’ll find several kinds of oysters from across the country, Peruvian scallops, and Alaskan king crab legs. 1148 Manhattan Ave., 310-893-6299, or eatfwd.com. Full bar.

flavors of Vietnam for a casual drinking scene.

Nibble on fresh spring rolls with shrimp, pork, and a peanut dipping sauce, then wash it all down with a craft beer or three. 247 Avenida del Norte, 424-398-0237, or dinelittlesister.com. Beer, wine, and sake.

Hotville

MANHATTAN BEACH » New American $$

BALDWIN HILLS CRENSHAW » Fried chicken $

M.B. Post

After three years of running a pop-up, Kim Prince has opened a brick-and-mortar that does her family’s legacy justice—she’s the niece of André Prince Jeffries, owner of Nashville legend Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, where hot fried chicken is said to have originated. Prince adds spice at every step in the cooking process to produce a complex, layered flavor. The sides ($5 and up), like spicy mac and cheese and kale coleslaw, are also winners. 4070 Marlton Ave., 323792-4835, or hotvillechicken.com. No alcohol.

David LeFevre (the Arthur J, Fishing With Dynamite) cuts a swath through genres and latitudes with the gusto of someone who’s clearly pleased to be at the stove. He sears Scottish salmon with roasted garlic puree, sugar snap peas, truffle vinaigrette, and charred scallions.

There’s plenty of wordplay on the menu (“Meat Me Later”), but no pun can do justice to his bacon-cheddar biscuits with maple butter. 1142 Manhattan Ave., 310-545-5405, or eatmbpost.com.

Full bar.

Little Coyote LONG BEACH » Pizza $

BELL GARDENS » Afro-Mexican $

That most amazing slice of pizza you had that one, very drunken, late night in your early twenties in New York lives on . . . in Long Beach. The crust, made with dough cold-fermented for 48 to 72 hours, is carby perfection: tangy, crispy, thin but with a healthy puff. The concise menu doesn’t offer any revelations about what should be atop pizza, but instead perfects the usual suspects: pepperoni comes in generous quantities, tiny porky cups glistening with grease; a veggie supreme transcends the usual half-cooked-produce mediocrity of the form. This is pizza worth driving south for. 2118 E. 4th St., 562434-2009, littlecoyotelbc.com, or @littlecoyotelbc.

Little Sister

MANHATTAN BEACH » Seafood $$$

REDONDO BEACH » Asian Fusion $$

A premium raw bar near the beach shouldn’t be un-

Chef and co-owner Tin Vuong deftly translates the

Tamales Elena Y Antojitos This small spot, with counter service, a drivethrough window, and a patio purports to be the only Afro-Mexican restaurant in the area. It focuses on a distinct cuisine from a part of Guerrero to which former slaves fled. Pozoles are rich and slightly thick, and the memorable pork tamales with red sauce are wrapped in fire-tinged banana leaves that impart a hint of smoke. 81801 Garfield Ave., 562-0674-3043, ordertamaleselenayanto jitos.com, or @tamaleselenayantojitos. » WE WELCOME YOUR COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS. PLEASE EMAIL US AT LETTERS@LAMAG.COM.

L A M AG . C O M 7 7

GayTopia G

ETING S RE

FROM

In 1970, the Los Angeles Gay Liberation ber Front ecla created a media firestorm by declaring it would relocate gays to a rural California rni county to vote themselves into power. Thee pl plan failed. But it turned out that was the plan lan all along.

B Y M AT T H E W A L G E O P H O T O I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y P I X E L P U S H E R

64 L A M AG . C O M

Gaytopia

C O N T I N U E D F R O M PAG E 7 1

almost constant contact with Kight, never imagining that he Kight had no intention of implementing the plan. He felt betrayed, and he never forgave Kight for leading him on.

“Kight didn’t want to risk ruining the scheme if he let Jackson in on his real intention to use Alpine County solely as an agitation and propaganda tool,” explains Kight biographer Mary Ann Cherry in Morris Kight: Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist. “Their relationship never recovered from the betrayal that Jackson experienced when Kight backed away from the Alpine dream . . . Kight bruised more than a few personalities and made some serious enemies on the road to gay liberation.”

Kilhefner, now 82 and still active in the gay rights movement in Los Angeles, admits the ploy, describing the Alpine County project today as “agitprop.”

“We weren’t doing it because we were serious,” he says. “We would do things to get the Man’s attention so we could get our issues out there. It was a serious attempt to get into the media some knowledge of the gay movement, that gay people were everywhere.”

Kilhefner explains that the announcements at the press conference on October 20, 1970, were complete balderdash—he and the others present just made it up as they went along. “The press conference was a Potemkin village,” Kilhefner says. There had never been 479 volunteers lined up to move to Alpine County, much less doctors, lawyers, and teachers. As far as he was concerned, there would be no migration on January 1, 1971—or ever. It was an unexpected turn when the project took on a life of its own, and GLF’s rank and file began planning for the move in earnest.

And in order to maintain the ruse—to keep generating publicity—GLF’s leadership had to keep the rest of the group in the dark. “It was meant as political 78 L A M AG . C O M

theater,” Kilhefner says, “but some people took it seriously.”

Weathers, one of those people, now recalls how “people felt used” when they found out the project was phony.

“Many of us were upset that it had been fake,” she says.

“I feel like the Alpine stunt was a publicity stunt a bit along the lines of a Lee Atwater dirty trick that went too far,” Del Whan, who joined GLF in early 1970, said. “Many gay people took the plan to set up a gay county seriously, however, and were very upset when they eventually realized that Morris was just making waves to stir up public attention for gay civil rights.” She worries that the Alpine County project overshadows GLF’s genuine accomplishments, such as organizing the first Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles.

Once the hoax was exposed, planning for the Alpine County project came to a screeching halt. Though true believers may have been able to follow through without their leadership, the effort was demoralized. The hoax may have hastened the group’s demise. Disenchanted members drifted away, and by the end of 1972, the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front was no more.

But Kilhefner has no regrets. “I saw immediately it probably would go nowhere because the 10 to 12 people involved were largely talkers not organizers, and they had no driven, resourceful, fire-in-the-belly leader. Both Morris and I kept those thoughts to ourselves and never criticized the Alpine Project in any way, always taking the position that we support you in your attempt to make it happen; however, never did we put any time or effort into it. And it died a natural death.”

As a publicity stunt, however, Kilhefner says the Alpine County project was spectacularly successful. “It opened a lot of people’s eyes. Because we weren’t begging for acceptance. What we were saying was, ‘Fuck that shit. We’re here, we’re queer, we’re part of the society, and we’re becoming politically aware.

We’re fighting back. We won’t take it anymore.’ That’s the legacy of the Alpine County project.”

In Alpine County itself, if the nuances were unclear, the residents could see their new neighbors were simply not showing up. Sheriff Stuart Merrill told a reporter, “I think they have given up.”

Perhaps the most notable twist,

though, was that the position of many in Alpine County had changed. When still preparing for the influx, a committee had been formed to “see to the Gays’ welfare.” “Homosexuality is as old as heterosexuality,” Ruth Jolly, the county health officer, had commented. “That it is undesirable may be argued, but to talk of invading this county is sickness.”

Some residents also pointed out that an influx of new residents, whatever their sexual orientation, would raise property values, increase the tax base, and boost local businesses. “I hope they come,” one merchant said.

“Hell, 500 more people up here, and my business would triple. Of course, I will sell to them. I’m open to the public aren’t I?” Several prominent citizens, including the school superintendent and the county welfare director, ended up expressing support for the project.

Gibson, by the end of his Thanksgiving mission, had even felt “re-inspired” by positive interactions.

Following up on the abortive Alpine County project in 1975, the Los Angeles Times reported that the endeavor had “raised the consciousness of at least one resident”: Hubert Bruns, the county supervisor who once had likened GLF’s tactics to Hitler’s. “I don’t think they’re as dangerous as we thought at the time,” Bruns told the paper. Bruns also said he “had come to realize there were probably homosexuals already living in Alpine County,” though, he added, “none are ‘out of the closet’ that I know of.” The strangest fact about the relocation project may be that it really could have worked had it not died of a collective broken heart.

Today, the population of Alpine County is about 1,100. It’s still California’s least-populous county, but it has become decidedly more gay-friendly than it was in 1970.

After the Alpine County project fell apart, Jackson turned his attention to creating a gay utopia in a tiny San Diego County town called Bankhead Springs.

But that project, known as Mount Love, unraveled, too. Jackson’s byline disappeared from the pages of the underground papers in the mid-1970s. He dropped out of sight. “He just kind of disappeared from the organized, radical gay community,” Kilhefner says. “I consider him one of the pioneering warriors of early Gay liberation—an essential voice. I honor him.”

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L A M AG . C O M 79

E MAI L YOUR BURNI NG QUEST IONS ABOUT L.A. TO ASKCH RIS@LAMAG.COM

Why does Randy’s Donuts claim its been famous since ’62? My dad ate there in the ’50s.

FLIPPING THROUGH THE BINS ONCE MORE

A:

An astounding 13,000 crullers and cakes pass through the windows of the Inglewood landmark daily in boxes printed with that incorrect year. Originally built in 1952 by Russell Wendell as part of his Big Do-Nut Drive-In chain, the shop was purchased by Bill Eskow in 1976 and sold again in 1978 and then in 2015, so it seems the year was lost in translation.

Our inquiry, though, led the company to change the date, and now they’re planning a 70th anniversary party. “My sister didn’t want her name on it,” Eskow’s son, Randy, says. “So Dad said, ‘Randy, we’ll put your name on it.’

I have a picture of me inside the donut. The bellbottoms tell you the year.”

mid perched atop an 80-foot mast. The bank closed in the 1950s, and the landmark morphed into a Chinese restaurant, then a used-car dealership, and then a piano shop before being restored as offices for a film production company, which it remains today.

Q: I’ve been admiring the clock at Santa Monica Bou-

levard and Fairfax my whole life.

What’s its story?

A: The four faces don’t always tell the same time, and the chimes no longer ring out, but the venerable timepiece still clings to the Hardy Building after 97 years. Adding a leaded-glassand-copper clock to an elegant brick building gave a little gravitas to smalltown West Holly-

Q: What’s the busiest hospital in Los Angeles?

A: Cedars-Sinai, which discharged over 50,000 patients last year, is the busiest for surgeries and overnight stays. The most active emergency room is at Los Angeles County/ USC Hospital, where more than 155,000 were seen last year.

The most beds are at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, which houses 1,100 mental health patients, including criminals declared not guilty by reason of insanity. Reps for the shuttered St. Vincent Medical Center say that it has likely become the busiest filming location in the world, hosting 50 productions a year. It may no longer be a hospital, but it plays one on TV.

RANDY’S DONUTS: COURTESY RANDY ESKOW; TURNTABLE: PHOTO BY NEIL GODWIN/FUTURE PUBLISHING VIA GETTY IMAGES

Randy Eskow, at 24, inside his namesake pastry, circa 1977.

80 L A M AG . C O M

Record Store Day

wood. “We respect the historic significance,” one of the property owners says. “And we hope to fix it someday.”

The bracket clock was manufactured

by O. B. McClintock, which became an alarm company, which became Diebold. It’s famous for those electronic voting machines.

L OR D OF T H E R I NG

Q: What is that tower at Hollywood and Grammercy that looks like L.A. City Hall?

A: Architects John and Donald Parkinson had recently completed L.A.s most famous tower when they were hired to design another art deco pylon on Hollywood Boulevard. California Bank opened on June 30, 1930, with a glowing glass pyra-

C H R I S ’S P I C K

O Sales of vinyl albums were up an astonishing 46 percent last year, even though most record stores were closed.

Celebrate the return of those mystical realms on June 12 during Record Store Day, when L.A.-area shops unpack instant rarities, colored vinyl, picture discs, and new music from long-gone artists. Needles will drop on red-hot reissues from Beck to Björk at more than 50 shops. The Inland Empire’s Dr. Strange Records will revel with a DJ. Permanent Records wants to celebrate with its own weirdo reissues at its new roadhouse, bar, and vinyl garage in Cypress Park (if COVID-19 restrictions permit).

Records are much more than spinning discs of polyvinyl chloride—they unite communities like ours.

VOLUME 66, NUMBER 6. LOS ANGELES (ISSN 1522-9149) is published monthly by Los Angeles Magazine, LLC. Principal office: 5900 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA, and additional mailing offices. The one-year domestic subscription price is $14.95. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to LOS ANGELES, 1965 E. Avis Dr., Madison Heights, MI 48071. Not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or other materials, which must be accompanied by return postage. SUBSCRIBERS: If the Postal Service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year.

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