Michael Jackson's Downtown Afterlife

Jeff Koons' statue of Jackson and Bubbles, 1988, at DTLA's Broad Museum

Everyone knows how, up until his death, Michael Jackson was preparing for his world tour at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. And many people have seen on TV and in magazines how, at Lakers games, Hollywood celebs come to the center to cheer on their home team.

But fewer know exactly where the Staples Center is: in downtown LA. Or how, in decades past, people would come to see concerts or sports events and then LEAVE IMMEDIATELY, because downtown was one scary place. Even today, as downtown approaches its 21st-century hipster zenith, it still comprises miles of parking lots and abandoned buildings, including a swathe of blocks known as Skid Row, which is said to house (figuratively speaking) 4,000 of LA's homeless. 

But since downtown is also the civic, financial, and historic heart of the city, and since real estate isn't something they're making much more of these days, downtown (re-branded as DTLA) is slowly being wrested from ignominy by hopeful developers. Vintage abandoned buildings have been turned into luxury condos, while drilling, scaffolding, and cranes mark the spots where new towers will spear the heavens next year and beyond. The names of famous tenants like Manny Pacquaio and Johnny Depp are bruited about in the pretty pocket parks and fashionable eateries that have opened at street level.

Onto this now-trendy landscape, the ghost of Michael Jackson casts a wistful, posthumous presence. The Grammy Museum, part of the LA Live complex adjacent to the Staples Center, features Jacksonalia of all kinds, including two of his single gloves. At the Broad Museum (where "Broad" is pronounced like "road"), Jeff Koons' porcelain sculpture of Jackson, relaxing with his pet chimpanzee Bubbles, forms part of Koons' Banalities Series. (Dinnerware with the image can also be found in the museum gift shop.)

Two of Jackson's single gloves featured at DTLA's Grammy Museum

The last images of the living Jackson were captured at the Staples Center, as he rehearsed the performance that was to be his comeback; these were compiled into the documentary, This Is It, which was released in 2009 in lieu of the comeback that died tragically with him. 

Michael Jackson's lifelong obsession with outward appearances makes one wonder if he would have appreciated this behind-the-scenes look at his art. But perhaps being introduced to new generations through DTLA's cultural institutions is a consolation to his lingering spirit.

Hands On

This blog is in memory of Mary Newhouse and Elizabeth Murray

My passion for sewing usually lies dormant; its fires only occasionally erupt. Because of this, I've never really mastered the process that turns fabric into couture.

On my very first sewing project, a wrap skirt, I was supposed to cut out facing panels of a very obvious one-sided fabric. Instead, I cut out identical panels, which meant that one panel showed the wrong side. I solved the problem by making the wrong-side skirt panel the inner one under the front wrap panel (where it was barely noticeable), but I've been making impulsive mistakes - and resourcefully compensating for them - ever since.

What started me on this peculiar path was meeting my friend, Alisa, in the seventh grade. I was attending a private school on scholarship, and very intimidated by the rich children who got weekly allowances for clothes. In my family, there were only four seasons of clothes-buying: school, birthday, Christmas, and summer camp.

While they still better off than my family, Alisa's was the first family I met that was handy. They had bought and restored the brownstone in which they lived on the Upper West Side. In Alisa's room, her mother had created a striking window shade out of a Marimekko sheet. In fact, Alisa's mother was an artist who made extraordinarily clever things in her downstairs studio. (Once, she showed us little patches of "turf" made out of ceramics, over which painted trepunto clouds were held by wires.)

Brought up in an atmosphere of craftiness, Alisa was the first person I knew who not only actually wore the clothes she made, but created her own patterns. Heartened by her example, I started to make my own clothes, with varying but general success.

When I went on to college, many of my new friends were agog to learn that I was actually wearing clothes I had made, but it inspired no imitation. (I did get a commission to make a pair of disco pants.)

Bard was a liberal arts college, and I was thinking about an arts degree. I had always been good at drawing, and my first art class with Tom Sullivan was very encouraging. So in the second semester, I made one of those inadvertently fateful decisions and took a class with post-minimalist artist Elizabeth Murray.

In person, Murray was the kind of person that exuded competence. She had that thick and wavy hair we all craved in those days; the fact that it was prematurely salt-and-pepper against her petals-and-cream complexion only made it more dramatic. She wore jeans, hiking boots; a goose down vest over a plaid shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to expose strong forearms. Art, as Murray taught it, was very hands on; it began with craft, and went onto vision, destruction, and reconstruction.

The class, for me, started inauspiciously, with my inability to stretch a canvas. Not having enough strength, not paying close enough attention, whatever: My square canvas flapped wings like a manta ray, rocking back and forth on the floor. She came by, glanced at it, said, "That's not right," and moved on.

Next, we had to paint an apple (which I did on a pre-stretched canvas). I fell in love with my realistically rendered macintosh apple, even though I was never able to make it "realistically" sit on the table. Murray commented that my apple hung there in space, searched my face for understanding, and moved on.

Our next assignment was to cut a hole out of the canvas, then paint over our apples and begin again. By this time I was in open rebellion. Art had always been easy, even intuitive for me; it was something for which I'd been praised since childhood. The fact that I was not doing well in an art class, and that it was costing me a fortune in pre-stretched canvases (because I could not stretch one myself) and art supplies (because I would forget to clean my paint and brushes and have to replace them) was both humiliating and enraging.

I can't remember how I managed to finish the class. It was a terrible time for both of us. Murray was a born teacher, and she was suffering for not being able to get through to me.

But in a way, she did. I told her, "This class has taught me that I'm not an artist. I have no vision." She looked at me with intense regret, saying, "There are other things you could do - you could be an illustrator."

Thousands of people each day stroll by Murray's mosaic (pictured above) at the 59th Street Station of the New York Subway system. Murray died in 2007; her New York Times obituary demonstrated what a dedicated and single-minded an artist she was. Yet another obituary, this one in New York Magazine, implied that for all her innovations and talent, she was not taken as seriously as a male painter.

So while to this day I feel the failure implicit in Murray's gentle, hopeful recommendation, it also saved me from a world of hurt.

Fine art is not for the faint-hearted.

Local Heroes

The other day, as I was driving through the town of Red Bank, NJ, I ran into the Cluck-U chicken on his way to work.

I didn't actually run into him, although he frequently rushes into oncoming traffic, begging the classic riddle.*

We waved to each to other like the old friends we are. Once, at my prompting, he had rushed into oncoming traffic to answer my question on where to rent a chicken costume. (At the time, I was working for Successful Meetings, and we always needed stuff like that.)

At the moment, Cluck-U is the only business around here that believes in sending people in costumes out onto the street as brand magnets, but the man in the chicken outfit is part of a long line of mascots that used to patrol their own patch of sidewalk. Baby boomers who visited New York and Atlantic City in the 60s may still remember Mr. Peanut, the legume manque who worked Times Square and the Boardwalk. For those who don't, the humorist S.J. Perelman has immortalized his encounters with the Planters Peanut mascot.

Nowadays, when we think of costumed mascots, we think "Disney." However, Mickey Mouse & Co. tend to stay close to home (and why not, when your home is as a big as a state). Still, I do recall a chance encounter in 2002 between Mickey and the Cremaster Cycle of avant-garde artist, Matthew Barney. It was ugly: Confronted with crashed and mangled cars, baby shoes covered in Vaseline, and a looped film involving grapes being pushed through a slot cut into a Latex sheet (I think), Mickey preferred to stay in a corner - perhaps the only corner in New York's famously cyllindrical Guggenheim Museum. And I think he made the right choice.

The local heroes, like the Cluck-U chicken, also tend to stay close to home - our homes - exhorting us to wave, honk, and accept coupons for discounts from their sponsors.

Next to sports mascots (of which I know next to nothing), they tend to be comestibles. In fact, the last remarkable mascot encounter I remember was a showdown between then-Yankee Tino Martinez and the Hormel Hot Dog, back in the summer of 2001. It was "Tino Martinez Day" at what was then the new Yankee Stadium, and Tino Martinez was accepting an award from the president of Hormel Meat Products. Standing by, as the color guard, was the Hormel Hot Dog mascot. Martinez accepted the award and shook the president's hand, but when the Hot Dog offered his hand, Martinez turned his back and walked away.

"Oh, s**t!" the man in front of me opined. "He dissed the salami!"

A decade later, Martinez is retired, while the Hormel Hot Dog is still at it, putting on his Hot Dog hose one leg at the time.

*In the Cluck-U version, a chicken crosses the road because he is paid by the hour.

AKA Punch and Judy

When people start talking about the good old days, I often hark back to my own good old days, growing up on the upper East Side in the midst of luxury. Note how I say in the midst of luxury; while up the street was Imperial House, the most luxurious high-rise then in New York, my home was a fifth-floor walkup. And while my home was still typical of most New York neighborhoods, in the ’60s, the high-rises were closing in, fast.

And since the neighborhood was in transition, so too was my grade school, P.S. 183. Children of diplomats, television stars, and the generally well-off mingled with the children of eh, not-so-much. The atmosphere was generally peaceful and non-menacing—except at lunchtime.

Then, as we yelled and threw food and wiggled in our seats, the lunch room monitor would roam though the aisles, looking for “trouble-makers.” The monitor was a grown woman; I believe she was a volunteer and perhaps was related to one of the kids at the school. But when she found trouble-makers, she would hit them upside the head with a Ping Pong paddle that she had brought for that very purpose.

I remember being a junior monitor, charged with keeping my table in line. When this woman came by my table and hit one of the kids so hard you could hear the wood, I jumped in front of her and said, “Stop hitting him!” (I was scared and shaking, but I would do things like that. In fact, my nickname was “the Hippie.”)

I’ll never forget how her eyes seemed to dance around, bobbing in every direction except mine, as she said, “Don’t ever tell me what to do.” And I never did again, even though she continued to whack children aged seven to 12 over the head with a Ping Pong paddle until I graduated and lost track of her.

What’s more, no one else ever told her what to do, except one man. I think he was a parent, often dropping off a little girl at recess. And he was an actor, not famous, but I would see him in small parts in movies and in certain revolutionary TV commercials that were causing a stir at that time.

My mother’s reading tastes were eclectic, and one of her paperbacks was From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor by an ad man named Jerry Della Femina. Although this book did not exactly change my life (except, perhaps, that I never considered advertising as a career), it has continued to influence me in ways I will not reveal.

Della Femina and people like him were responsible for a new, gritty “New York” style of TV commercial, like the Alka-Seltzer campaign. Using the tiny tenement apartments of struggling New Yorkers as a backdrop, these admen pedaled to have-nots instead of to haves, reasoning that, since there were more have-nots, they could sell more products that way. (OK, maybe I revealed a little bit.)

And this parent was just the type of New York stage actor who was flourishing in this environment. Apparently he and the monitor had “history.” It was like a Punch-and-Judy Show, come to life: She would charge at him, roaring and brandishing the paddle, as if she would hit him with it. He was half her size (in fact, just a little taller than the grade school child he escorted), but he would charge back at her, getting in her face and throwing down some pithy insult that would make us kids laugh and engorge her with new rage.

But then he would leave the stage (in this case, the school cafeteria), and she would return to her duties, only madder than a hornet. Ah, good times.

I’m reminded of this because I just watched The Taking of Pelham One Two Three—the 1974 version, not the new one, and suddenly saw the actor-parent from the cafeteria, or at least someone who resembled him mightily. The name of the actor is Robert Weil, and he played Marino.

The original movie shows an unlovely New York filled with unlovable characters, some with guns. But it was the city of my youth, and I remember it with fondness.

Maybe there is something to this good old days’ crap.

A Parting Gift

Years ago, when I was a child and we were separated, my mother sent me a book: The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

It's a frightening book even now, about pain and loss and death (and never mind that I could not even begin to pronounce the author's name), but it was from my mom and I tried to read it. I won't ruin the book or (or the movie) for you, but the story takes place in a desert, and its undercurrent is about the magical nature of children - how they can impart wisdom and understanding without themselves having either.

Perhaps my recent stay in the desert put me in mind of the Little Prince, or maybe it was an incident that occurred when Lee and I went to the movies in Cathedral City's Town Center.

This particular town center looks very much like the kind of dusty desert outpost you'd see in movies like Morocco or Gunga Din, but with an IMAX theater at one end and the Mary Pickford Theatre at the other.

The Pickford Theatre is a replica of the old-style movie palaces of the '20s and '30s. In fact, it is named after one of the most famous stars of the early 20th century (and former Desert resident, along with husband Buddy Rogers), the absolutely tiny Mary Pickford. (I know she was tiny, because one of her former costumes graces a display in a little alcove off the main lobby.)

Pickford, and her handsome then husband Douglas Fairbanks, were among the first generation of Hollywood "royalty." They looked down their noses at their outre daughter-in-law Joan Crawford (or so she thought) but hobnobbed with Russian aristocracy who were then fleeing the horror of the Russian Revolution (and thus were willing to enjoy the company of people they might previously have run down in the street).

In fact, one Russian aristocrat made Pickford the gift of a Faberge egg - not a fancy one - but one with the distinction of having been given to him by Prince Alexei of the Romanov family. It was the tradition, he said, of the Romanovs to give these eggs at Christmastime.

And so, in a display case in a little alcove off the main lobby of the Pickford Theatre in Cathedral City Town Center, is a white porcelain egg, once held by another little prince long ago. Having looked at it and its letter of provenance, we then walked away and out of the building; outside, where the desert night sky was filled with stars that were large and small, but flinty and out of reach, and it was as lonely as any wilderness.

Son of the Desert

Near dawn, I was sitting in the lobby of an old Casablanca hotel with my bags, waiting for my boyfriend Lee to finish making sure we had left nothing behind. We were catching the morning train to Tangier.

Outside in the street, the cafes were opening and beginning to dispense the sweet mint tea and staggering strong coffee of the day. I could hear metal gates rolling open, clinking glass. But my eyes were glued to the lobby's miniscule TV set, which was playing Arab pop music videos. First, there was a music video of a man in desert robes singing into the distance. Then there was a woman in bangles and long curling hair and lots of eye contact.

Suddenly, an unseen hand had changed the channel, and in black-and-white, a mild-mannered man in glasses was talking back and forth with a bunch of people. At first, I thought it was Marcello Mastroianni, but then I realized it was Omar Sharif.

Obviously, Sharif was a star of the Arab cinema prior to becoming world-famous for Lawrence of Arabia. But unlike that film, where he was launched as an exotic sex symbol from another culture, here Sharif was playing an everyday - albeit very debonair - character from his own culture. (It was the difference between Antonio Banderas from Desperado and his roles in Almodovar movies.) I wanted to see more, but I had to catch a train.

That was more than 15 years ago. Fast forward to 2004: we were now in Madrid, on the trail of Ava Gardner for Lee's biography, Ava Gardner: Love Is Nothing. We roamed the neighborhood where she had an apartment, and the exurbs, where she had a home with a pool. We stayed at the Hotel Wellington, famous hangout for the bullfighters she loved. (There was even a bullfighting reporters convention while we were there.)

One evening, as we happened to stroll through the avenidas and calles next to Retiro Park, we came upon a store: "The Sharif Shirt Company." It was indeed a clothing store, with all shirts made of 100 percent Egyptian cotton. And it was endorsed by Omar Sharif, who had attended its debut in 2002.

Strangely enough, we had been talking about going to Paris to visit Sharif. Sharif had appeared in Mayerling with Gardner, and an assistant to Sharif said the actor would be happy to talk but the interview must take place in person, in Paris, as he did not do interviews over the phone.

The timing for that meeting never worked out, which may have been just as well. (This was during the then septuagenarian actor's "scrappy" phase from 2003 to 2005, when he was head-butting police and punching parking valets.)

Meanwhile, I think the movie I was watching was Hubbi el wahid (1962). Hard to tell, after these years. If you know, please tell me what it's about.

Left on Monty Hall . . .

. . . right on Buddy Rogers. As I cruised in search of a post office (or even a mailbox) in the 100-plus degree summer heat, I reflected that Palm Springs and its surrounding desert cities may comprise the most name-dropping area in the U.S. In addition to the Walk of Fame in downtown Palm Springs, many of the streets are named after the celebrities that made this town their home.

For example, I live close to Gene Autry Trail, which goes over the Gene Autry Bridge, glances past Gene Autry Plaza, and heads out toward I-10. Autry, the Singing Cowboy (1907-1998), was among the first celebrity residents of Palm Springs. Up the street on East Palm Canyon Drive, the Parker Palm Springs, features a private residence that once belonged to Autry, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom detached building with a private entrance way.

From the Parker, you can look up over the other side of Palm Canyon, up to Bob Hope's home on Southridge. The house reflects the desert's iconic avant garde architecture; it's been compared to anything from a mushroom cap to Darth Vader's helmet. (A similar roof shape belongs to the Oceans 111 restaurant in Rancho Mirage.) I've been told that the Hope house is frequently used as a venue for charity events, but I haven't been there myself.

I have, however, been to Frank Sinatra's Twin Palms. When Lee was writing Ava Gardner: Love Is Nothing, we were given a private tour of this surprisingly modest home, with its phenomenal pool and its infamously cracked bathroom sink (reportedly the result of a Frank-Ava contretemps).

Frank Sinatra Drive begins at Palm Canyon in Rancho Mirage, and goes way out there, baby, into the desert. But whenever I go to Palm Desert, I take Gene Autry and turn right on Dinah Shore. Similarly, whenever I go to the airport (to pick up my mother Carol, say), I drive up Gene Autry, go left on Ramon, then make a right onto Kirk Douglas Way, which snakes through the airport, bypassing lots of road traffic. Once, when we were in Palm Springs visiting Lee's friend, the inimitable character actor and notorious potty mouth, Marc Lawrence, he took us on a tour of famous actors' homes - one of which was Kirk Douglas'. It was on a very dark street, and had all its lights out. "He's not home," said Lawrence, adding the usual obscenities. (Thinking back on this, I'm wondering if Marc had forgotten to turn his headlights on.)

Bob Hope Drive, Gerald Ford Drive, Fred Waring Way, the list goes on. In fact, there's an old joke about giving directions around here that my husband told me: "You can stop on Gerald Ford, you can go down on Dinah Shore, but don't ever cross Frank Sinatra."

Tell it to the bathroom sink.