U Want 2 GoGo

You know you want these bad boys....

Go Go’ers, did we have fun last weekend?  Yes, we did.

Do we remember the fun we had last weekend?  Some of us definitely…maybe…kind of…sort of do.

If last weekend’s frenetic Gaelic festivity left you vowing to sit this weekend out, reconsider.   Really.  Culture + cocktails = relaxed revelry with no memory gaps.

Especially with a free donut or two to keep the sugar high going….

Also, drinks....

100 Hours +/- of Fun

Last year’s L.A. Film + Music Weekend drew 2K-plus people for 100 hours  of cinema, musica, and cocktail-ica at the so-comfy-it’s-almost-criminal Downtown Independent Theater.   The 2012 festival promises to be bigger, better, more musical-ier.

When Ms. Go Go says “musical”, she is not talking Glee.

Music-centric films  (Uprising: Hip Hop and the L.A. Riots) and shorts (One Big Holiday - My Morning Jacket) are well represented on the cinematic slate (Already, you’re a fan of this fest.) with  road films – Parenthood‘s Sam Jaeger’s festival  opener Take Me Home plus the festival closer celebration of the Deadheads DVD release — romances, portraits, poetry, and more rounding out the weekend.   There will be live music, there will be Q&A’s, there will be parties, there will be you.

Just click on tix, show up, sit back, enjoy.

You can do this….

L.A. FILM + MUSIC WEEKEND 2012 - Fri, March 23rd – Sun, March 25th; $8-$99 — Downtown Independent Theater, 251 S. Main St,DTLA 90012; Parking available 24-hours at 233 S. Main St.  For times/info/tix: http://www.lafilmweekend.com/

You do not have to wear a giant clock to THE CLOCK (Photo by Chris Polk/FilmMagic, courtesy of Comedy Central)

24 Hours of Free Time and Gratis Donuts

Go Go’ers, you may  be super-synced-up with digital calendars, talking time pieces, and smart phones that call you “Rock God”.

When it comes to time management, though, Christian Marclay has to be the undisputed king.  Awarded the oh-so-prestigious Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Biennale, Marclay’s  The Clock is a twenty-four-hour “single-channel montage” that is constructed from approximately a gazillion moments of movie and TV history that depict the passage of time.

Just in case you missed some of it.

And if you forgot your watch, not to worry…. Marclay edits the clips together to “create a functioning timepiece synchronized to local time wherever it is viewed—marking the exact time in real time for the viewer for twenty-four consecutive hours.”

So you’ll be able to identify the precise minute you remembered you left the iron on.

Best of all, that working clock imagery is up there on a giant screen.  Sometimes, bigger IS better.

Free?  Always better.

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY’S “THE CLOCK” — Sat, March 24 @ noon to Sun, March 25 @ noon; FREE/May not be appropriate for all ages – Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd, LA 90036;  323.857.6000

Around the Clock: 24 Hour Donut City

The ForYourArt donuts won't be this big. (Photo courtesy of Randy's Donuts)

According to ForYourArt, Los Angeles has been “likened to a donut in a…spatial sense” because it’s a “series of interconnected suburbs without a center.”

Ms. Go Go’s personal vision of L.A. is more of a mounded-mixed-noodle/vegetables/tofu/shellfish/fifty- different-kinds-of-pork concept but whatevs.

Still, you can’t beat the donut for one-handed convenience so it’s appropriate that the drive-through donut shop craze of the Fifties was launched in L.A. courtesy of Russell C. Wendell who founded the original “Big Donut Drive-In’s of Los Angeles”.

A visionary after Ms. Go Go’s own heart.

Los Angeles also has many of the nation’s “most celebrated” 24-hour donut shops.   Ms. Go Go — always a fan of excess — is a fervent celebrator of  fried dough and might-as-well-mainline-it sugar.

Woo hoo!  Go donuts!

To celebrate the free 24 hour marathon screening of The Clock across the street at LACMA, ForYourArt is hosting Around the Clock: 24 Hour Donut City. The FREE 24 hour marathon donut event features sweet treats from a dozen of those celebrated donut spots like the Maple-Bacon donut from the Nickel Diner and the Glazed Coconut Donut from The Donut Hole.

A dozen of the above and a thermos of coffee and you’ll be ready for back-to-back marathons of The Clock.

AROUND THE CLOCK: 24 HOUR DONUT CITY - Sat, March 24 @ noon to Sun, March 25 @ noon; FREE — ForYourArt, 6020 Wilshire Blvd, LA 90036. Click here for donut schedule.

Funny Ha Ha and Sexy Ooh La La

Go Go’ers, you’ve fested, cocktailed, clocked, and sugar-highed the weekend away.  What are the two surefire things to get you out of the house and keep you awake once you’re out?

Laugh-out-loud comedy and almost-bare-naked-ladies, of course.

Not necessarily in that order.

Dominican powerhouse Ludo Vika only performs her Ludo’s Funny Burlesque a few times a year so if you want to see a show, you have to be paying attention.

Kind of like watching striptease. (Yes, that WAS a rim shot you heard, Go Go’ers.)

Aside from the Comedy Kittens, the line-up changes show to show but this time around, Ludo promises comedians from TV’s talent trifecta:  HBO/Showtime/Comedy Central.    And by “Comedy Kittens”, Ms. Go Go does not mean You Tube videos of kittens playing with feathers and string.

Actually, the props might be the same.

LUDO’S FUNNY BURLESQUE — Sun, March 26th @ 6pm; $15 or $12 for 2 or more tix — Grupo de Teatro Sinergia and Teatro Frido Kahlo Theater 2332 W Fourth St, LA 90054; 213.382.8133.  For tix/info: http://www.fridakahlotheater.org/Ludo%20Vika.htm    

Ready?  U Know U Want 2 Go Go….

Ms. Go Go is usually a forward-fun-looking gal but last week’s Bowmore Whisky-Oyster Pairing with Poetry at DTLA’s Seven Grand deserves a recap.

The concept of the evening was intriguing; match briny oysters with Bowmore  whisky: one of the  peat-smoked single malts from Islay, an Inner Hebrides island west of Scotland.   As an added fillip to the evening, Pedro Shanahan, Seven Grand’s Spirit Guide and Whiskey Society co-curator, informed interested parties that the price of the evening was a poem.  And not just a poem on a piece of paper to add to a pile but a poem to be read to the assorted company; those too shy to read the poem themselves, said Pedro, could have their poem read.

You might think this would limit involvement.  Au contraire.  According to Pedro, the event, which was capped at 30, was full in six hours.

The  dark and intimate Jackalope Room at the back of Seven Grand’s 2nd story whiskey palace is  always cozy but the night of the Bowmore/oyster/poetry event, people were two and three deep.  David Wilson, Sales & Marketing Director for Morrison Bowmore Distilleries and Jamie MacKenzie, Regional Manager for North America, were squeezed into a corner.   Beer Chicks Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune barely managed to grab seats.  Seven Grand always gets an involved crowd but there was a palpable sense of anticipation in the room.

Johnnie “the Scot” Mundell, Bowmore’s West Coast Ambassador, was in charge of spirits: both the alcoholic and the “raising of….”  Master Ecailler Christophe Happillon of the Oyster Gourmet — you’ve seen him shucking oysters at Church & State as well as the Edison – took care of the bivalves.

Johnnie, many of whose 64 cousins transported whisky off the Isle of Islay via the Kennacraig Ferry,  explained that seafood and Islay whiskys are a natural pairing,  The Harbour Inn on the Isle of Islay is renowned for its seafood bought from local fishermen;  Johnnie introduced the assembled guests to the Harbour Inn’s method of serving oysters on the half shell.

First, little glasses of malted barley, both plain and peat-smoked over a mesh floor at the two century+ Bowmore Distillery, were passed around so guests could taste the difference.

Ms. Go Go would just like to say that as a bar nosh, peat-smoked barley beats beer nuts, pretzels, and peanuts by a mile.

Each guest then received an oyster on the half shell and a glass of  Bowmore 12 year old single malt.  Johnnie instructed everyone to sip a little of the oyster liquor, then a little of the whisky.  Next, guests held the shells horizontally to preserve the liquor and swallowed the oysters, which were meaty and not too salty.  Then, a little whisky was poured into the remaining oyster liquor and sipped from the shell.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

As Johnnie said, the whisky replaces anything else that you would put on an oyster: lemon, Tabasco, mignonette sauce.  The 12 year old was followed by Bowmore 15 – Darkest, with the sherry cask adding a hint of sweetness.  We finished with the Bowmore 18 year old, whose smokey, salty flavor really complemented the oyster’s brine.  Ms. Go Go is a fan of unadorned oysters but  the Islay whisky made the wild sea flavor of the oysters even more pronounced.

The most surprising thing about the evening, though?  The poems and those who read them.

Johnnie and Pedro set the mood of conviviality.  Pedro read some not-so-cheery gulag-themed poems that, no pun intended, broke the ice.

Johnnie had everyone who read a poem give their “star sign” first.  After admitting you were a triple Scorpio, reading a poem was nothing.

Ms. Go Go was sitting in a mini Poet’s Row.  On my left, were Steve Schechter and Marcia Schechter of Witch Creek Winery.  Steve read an original, convivial poem about whisky.  On my right were the Dell sisters Elizabeth and Emily:  partners (producer and writer/director respectively)  in Two Camels Films. (B-Girl, upcoming Battle.)

Johnnie called on Emily to read a poem she’d written to celebrate the birthday of Scottish poet Robbie Burns for the 2012 Burns Night Supper of the Los Angeles Scotch Club at Beckham Grille in Pasadena.  Everyone who performed was rewarded with, as Elizabeth described it, “a poet’s bottle whisky tasting.”  Johnnie, who dubbed Emily’s poem “Stolen Poem”, purchased the poem for Bowmore with the proviso that she’d read it if called upon.

She was and she did.  It was a stunning  poem. Wild applause ensued.

Ms. Go Go, the slacker, read Herman M. Ax’s poem Drunkenderata, which encourages lushes to be competitive  with other drinkers and chat up everyone who might buy them a drink.   No surprise there.

Poems were read from books.  Translated poems were read.  Haunting, intimate original work was read.

And here’s what became apparent.  The poems were as much of a draw as the whisky and the oysters.  People weren’t getting up to read because of whisky courage — although the combination of whisky and poetry was pretty potent.  People couldn’t wait to get up and read — and those who didn’t read regretted “not having ownership of that night”, according to Johnnie who agreed, along with Pedro, that it was an exceptional night.

There was such generosity of spirit,” said Johnnie.  ”Everyone belonged to the moment we were in.”

Monthly poetry and whisky salon, anyone?

(Check out Eat: Los Angeles for initial post about the event.)