Dog Day Afternoon - Downtown Los Angeles

Over 1000 people and 500 dogs attended the fourth annual Dog Day Afternoon event at The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday July 27, 2010. The event sponsored by the Cathedral and the Downtown Business Improvement District brought together the local community of dog owners, local pet supply and service vendors and adoption groups against the backdrop of the beautiful Cathedral of Los Angeles. Every dog was very well behaved with not so much as a bark from any of the dozens of breeds in attendance. The event had designated “potty” areas which were adhered to by our trusty canine friends of the proud downtown neighborhood. These furry creatures brought along their owners who were treated to Dodger Dogs (the stadium version), music, wine and a little social mingling as a reward for a job well done in providing transportation to the event. I hope to see you all next year for a new installment of Dog Day Afternoon in Los Angeles.

Echo Park, Los Angeles - 100 Years Ago

Echo Park Lake - from a family photo album - July 1910

Echo Park Picnic - from a family photo album - July 4, 1910 or 1913

Echo Park Kodachrome slide - from Madge Donohue's photo album - 1959

My friend Madge in front of her Clinton St. house, Kodachrome slide - 1959

Echo Park Lake, digital snapshot from condo across the street - 2010

On a muggy day in July of 1910 friends and family gather at the Echo Park Lake in the city of Los Angeles for an afternoon of conversation, food and celebration. Among the lotus leaves, a three legged dog swims after a stick, propelled into the lake by his owner and just as quickly, returned to him for another go around. Two old men engage in a game of checkers on an old wooden board which is hand colored with black and red squares. They pass a flask back and forth and ponder each other’s next move on the homemade checkerboard. One is an out of work carpenter that will soon be working at the Mack Sennett Studios and the other is a drifter from Muncie, Indiana. On the other side of the lake, a group of girls gather under a palm tree and softly whisper to each other about a young man that is riding his bicycle around the lake. He is but 23 years of age, with a slim build and is wearing a straw hat and the only coat he owns, a wool button-down that is much more suited for the winters of Iowa where he has recently arrived from. The whispers quickly turn to giggles as his straw hat escapes him and blows into the lake where it floats away to the center of the water and away from reach. Off in the distance the humming of the oil derricks that are rich in Echo Park can be heard, as a lone Victorian home barely in its teenage years sits atop of the hill overlooking the festivities of the day. A loud bell is rung by the matriarch of the family that has gathered at the lake this afternoon signaling that food is being served. As two dozen friends and family members make their way to the picnic area, the drifter from Indiana abruptly ends his game of checkers and roams to the site of the picnic where he politely asks to be fed, his breath smells of rye.

It's July 1910 in Echo Park and a few years later the sounds of heavy construction will dominate the neighborhood as Aimee Semple McPherson’s Angelus Temple begins to take shape across the street from the lake on Glendale Blvd. In the mid century decade, the West Coast sounds of Art Pepper’s alto saxophone could be heard in the late evening hours as he plays his horn on the porch of his Echo Park craftsman residence. About the same time, my friend Madge Donohue arrives from Oswego, Kansas and moves into a house on Clinton Street overlooking the lake where she lives alone until her death in 2004. In the early 1990s, the sights and sounds of a film crew fill the conversations at the Pioneer Market located at the intersection of Echo Park Blvd and Sunset Blvd as Allison Anders’ “Mi Vida Loca” is being filmed in the neighborhood. Today, young bohemians transplanted from all over the country line up around the block to hear live music at the popular EchoPlex music venue on Glendale Blvd. It's mid July and the summer heat has arrived.

Post Office - Charles Bukowski Slept Here

A WWII soldier on leave in front of the LA Post Office Terminal Annex, back of the photo reads "March 15, 1943"

Lost in Time - The Los Angeles Post Office Annex Downtown Los Angeles 2010

Bukowski’s bungalow in East Hollywood – I wonder if my writing would improve if I lived here ?

Charles Bukowski, a German born poet, short story author, novelist and Los Angeles High School graduate (class of 1939) is as much an icon as any creative soul of the last century. Once called the “poet laureate of the lowlife”, Bukowski wrote in an auto-biographical style using his alter-ego, Henry Chianski to portray his real life beatnik adventures of wine, women and debauchery in downtown and East Hollywood neighborhoods. His first novel, “Post Office” published in 1971 follows the story of the protagonist Henry Chianski, as he becomes a substitute mail carrier and then later a full time mail clerk at the Los Angeles Post Office Terminal Annex located on Alameda Street in downtown Los Angeles. The story echoes the author’s plunge into the world of punching a clock for a living, allowing him to pay the rent while he put pen to paper, whiskey to lips and producing some of the best literary works of a generation.

A few years ago there was a movement to give historical-cultural landmark status to Buk’s one time Hollywood bungalow located at 5124 De Longpre Ave where he lived from 1963 to 1974. “Post Office” was penned at this location in between stints of womanizing and boozing, paving the way for his 1978 novel, “Woman” which takes place at the funky bohemian Spanish bungalow court. The effort for landmark status was bitterly disputed by passionate Bukowski fans, who did not want his memory commercialized, but they eventually lost the battle and a “Bukowski Court” sign now stands on the street which is also the flagship stop of a bus tour celebrating the late poet’s haunts. I realize I am not the first to think of it but the ultimate and most ironic celebration to his life would be renaming the post office where he worked during some of his many creative peaks to the “Charles Bukowski Los Angeles Post Office Terminal Annex”.

His novel, "BarFly" was made into the 1987 film starring Mickey Rourke as the ever compelling Henry Chianski and Faye Dunaway as his drinking partner and love interest, Wanda. In the opening credits of the film you can see several dive bars that Bukowski frequented in the MacArthur Park and East Wilshire neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Many of these bars are long gone today. Look closely and you will see Buk as he sits at the bar during one of the bar scenes in his only cameo appearance.

Buk…if you are reading this somewhere, your prose continues to inspire me and can you please check my grammar and spelling, the next round is on me.