Los Angeles – Page 5 – IAMNOTASTALKER

April 15, 2010April 15, 2010

The “(500) Days of Summer” Bench

Another Downtown Los Angeles location that my fiancé and I stalked this past weekend was the famous bench from 2009’s indie hit (500) Days of Summer. A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Eileen emailed me to tell me of the bench’s location and to send me the above photograph of herself and her roommate taken while there. I should mention here that I didn’t especially care for (500) Days of Summer. Actually, it’d be much closer to the truth to say that I didn’t like the movie at all, and for the very same reason that I didn’t like 2006’s The Break-Up – it was far too depressing. I went in expecting to laugh and came out completely crushed. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the two main characters didn’t wind up together, being that the movie’s tag line read, “Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t.” But, being that I’ve always been an eternal optimist, the ending came as a complete shock to me. For those who have yet to see (500) Days of Summer, I apologize if I just ruined it for you, but I think the movie would be a whole lot more enjoyable to watch if you know beforehand that the ending is not a happy one. Anyway, I just about died when I saw Eileen’s photograph of the bench and noticed the little plaque glued to the back of it which heralds its famous cinematic appearance. That plaque is just about the COOLEST THING EVER! I think ALL movie locations should have something similar on display! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! So, even though I wasn’t a fan of the movie, I just HAD to stalk the bench to see that plaque with my own two eyes.

The bench, which shows up twice in (500) Days of Summer, is a very significant location in the movie. It first appears in the beginning of the flick – on “Day 95” – as the spot where aspiring architect/greeting card author Tom Hansen (aka Joseph Gordon-Levitt) takes new girlfriend Summer Finn (aka Zooey Deschanel) on a date. He describes the bench as his favorite place in all of Los Angeles thanks to its view of some of Downtown’s most historically significant buildings. After Zooey jokingly points out that the bench also has a view of quite a few parking structures, Tom says, “There’s a lot of beautiful stuff here, too, though. I don’t know. I just wish people would notice it more.” I love that quote as it is sad fact that L.A.’s beauty is overlooked much of the time. Southern California gets a bad wrap more often than not, but if you really take the time to look, there is a staggering amount of beauty and history and magic in this city. That’s one of the things I love most about stalking – I get to see so many unique and fascinating areas of L.A. – like Tom’s bench – that I might never have known about had they not been featured in a movie. So, thank you, Hollywood! 🙂

Tom’s bench, and the one immediately to the right of it, shows up yet again on “Day 488”, in the scene in which Tom and Summer run into each other after she has married someone else. See what I mean – depressing freakin’ movie!

The park where the bench is located, a tiny, little spot known as Angels Knoll, also appears in the movie, on “Day 259”, in the scene in which Tom and Summer pretend to have Tourette’s syndrome.

Tom’s bench is a very cool little spot and I am happy to report that it looks much the same in person as it did in the movie.

Except that it now has that uber-cool filming plaque proudly displayed on its back. LOVE IT!

The view from the bench is also much the same in real life as it appeared in the movie. And it really is quite a view!

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Because the movie filmed at so many unique and interesting locations and did such a fabulous job of highlighting Los Angeles’ beauty, I was quite shocked to find out today, thanks to IMBD’s (500) Days of Summer trivia page, that the original screenplay depicted the characters living in San Francisco! Los Angeles is so prevalent in the storyline – the city could almost be considered the third main character – that I can’t even fathom what the movie would have been like had it been filmed anywhere else.

Ironically enough, while we were stalking the bench we ran into yet another stalker who was doing the exact same thing! So, we, of course, got to talking to him and he alerted me to this (500) Days of Summer online movie locations map, which was apparently transcribed from a map that was given out as a promo during the flick’s June 24th, 2009 premiere. I know I am repeating myself here, but that map has to be just about THE COOLEST THING EVER! Why is something like this not done for all movies???? Do I have to think of everything? Sheesh! 🙂 Anyway, as it turns out, my fellow stalker was visiting L.A. from Vancouver, British Columbia, which just so happens to be Mr. Michael Buble’s hometown. So, since I just booked tickets for a little May vacation in the Pacific Northwest and have been busy making a list of all of my must-see locations up there, I asked him if he happened to know where MB’s childhood home could be found. Well, let me tell you, he just about flipped out right there on the spot, gave me the weirdest look, and immediately hightailed it out of there. Not kidding! The guy practically ran from me – he could not get away fast enough! He obviously thought I was a complete and total freak! LOL Ah well, I guess not everybody loves a stalker.

Big THANK YOU to Eileen for telling me about this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The (500) Days of Summer bench can be found in the western portion of Angels Knoll Park, which is located at 356 South Olive Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles. The bench’s exact location is denoted with a blue circle in the above aerial map. Angels Knoll is open daily, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during Winter months and from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. during Summer months.

April 14, 2010April 15, 2010

On Set With the “American Idol” Contestants

This past Sunday, while doing some stalking in Downtown L.A., my fiancé and I happened upon the current American Idol contestants filming a Ford commercial on the corner of South Hope Street and Wilshire Boulevard. And even though I have yet to watch even one episode of the series this season, I begged my fiancé to pull the car over so that we could watch a bit of the filming. And, wow, what a mistake that turned out to be! As we made our way over to the set, camera in hand, an incredibly rude crew member walked up to us and said – and I am quoting here! – “If you take a picture of this, we will sue you!” Being that we were standing on a public sidewalk in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles and that the Idol set was an open one (i.e. not closed to the public), I didn’t see how we were committing an act that was sue-worthy. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that you need to know who someone is before you can actually sue them. Was the guy planning on serving a summons to “the blond girl in the white jacket who was standing on the corner watching American Idol film in Downtown L.A. on Sunday, April 13th at approximately 11 a.m.?” Don’t think that would really fly in court of law. 😉 My fiancé pretty much told the guy to stick it, to which the crew member said, “O.K., then I am going to have to call the police!” I am not kidding here! He actually said that he was going to call the police and have us arrested! For a second there, I thought we were being Punk’d! It was at that point that I noticed a group of three paparazzi standing a few feet away from us, chatting with the two policemen who were on duty manning the set. Being that the photogs not only weren’t being arrested, but seemed to be having a very amicable conversation with the cops, I figured we were safe. 🙂 I’m telling you, though, not once in my ten years of living in Los Angeles have I ever experienced the type of rudeness I encountered on the Idol set. Sure, some crews are not very friendly, some are even rude, but this one was in a whole different realm! One of the crew members even went so far as to shove a paparazzi at one point! Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it! Oh well, at the very least, it was entertaining to watch! 🙂

Now, I should explain here that if you tell the Grim Cheaper not to do something, he becomes pretty hell bent upon doing it. So, even though neither one of us cared much about watching the Idols film their commercial or about taking photographs of them, the next thirty minutes of our day were spent doing exactly that. My fiancé took as many pictures as he possibly could and, for once, it was me dragging him off a set instead of the other way around. I was ready to leave after about five minutes of being there, actually, because there just wasn’t a whole lot going on and because I didn’t recognize any of the contestants. In fact, I had a very hard time distinguishing who was a crewmember and who was an Idol, as did my fiancé, and he actually watches the show!

The Idol shoot basically consisted of four of the contestants (Michael Lynche, Lee Dewyze, Tim Urban, and Siobhan Magnus) watering a patch of dirt in the middle of a Downtown L.A. street.

Then something happens – something that I am guessing is going to be added in digitally during post-production – causing them to all look upward. And that was pretty much it.

After doing about four takes of the above sequence, the Idols joined together in front of a Ford car to shoot some publicity stills for Fox. And, let me tell you, the crew REALLY did not want anyone getting pictures of that! Which begs the question, why didn’t the producers just close the set? Sure, it’s more expensive permit-wise, but geez, it’s a better way to go about things than getting your panties all in a twist and almost punching out a paparazzi!

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Oddly enough, only eight of the nine remaining Idols were on set on Sunday, including Casey James, Katie Stevens, Michael Lynche, Siobhan Magnus, Tim Urban, Aaron Kelly, Lee Dewyze, and Andrew Garcia. For whatever reason, Crystal Bowersox was not in attendance. Or, if she was, we didn’t stick around long enough to see her.

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What struck me as odd about the whole thing was that the Idol contestants are virtual unknowns – relative newbies trying to make a name for themselves in the music industry. You’d think that the studio would want to drum up as much publicity for them as possible, not steer free publicity away! Ironically enough, one of the paparazzi told me that the only reason the photogs were there in the first place was because Ben Affleck was supposed to have been shooting a movie a block away. When that shoot got cancelled due to early morning rain, the paps figured they might as well take some Idol pics since they were already in the area. They said the pics were worthless now, but when the final winner is announced in a few weeks, they might bring in some money. Oh, if those Idols only knew!

The one highlight of my time on the Idol set was hanging out with the paparazzi who were SO incredibly nice I almost couldn’t believe it. It has been my experience in L.A. that photogs are typically not very friendly people. Most are downright despicable, actually. But the three who were on the Idol set were total sweethearts! We had great conversations about which stars are nice, which aren’t, our experiences living in L.A., and even the Michael Buble concert that I had just been to two nights prior. 🙂 The guy pictured above even let my fiancé, who has become very interested in photography as of late, test out his ultra-expensive camera. The whole thing was a very pleasant surprise.

It’s very sad to me that the Idol crew ruined something that is usually such a positive experience. If that had been my first time stalking a film set, I might never have gone back. So, to all of my fellow stalkers out there I say this – if you ever encounter a crew like this one, please, please don’t let it deter you from visiting other film sets! 99.9% of the crews out there are very friendly and know that what they do is pretty darn special and that us so-called normal people, who aren’t in the industry, are often fascinated by it and want to see it all firsthand and take pictures to show our friends back home. As the saying goes, “Mean people suck”, but I am very, very happy to report that in L.A. the number of nice crews far outweighs the mean ones!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Idols filmed their Ford commercial at the intersection of South Hope Street and Wilshire Boulevard in Downtown Los Angeles.

April 13, 2010June 6, 2010

The Michael Buble Crazy Love Concert

As I have mentioned countless times before on this blog, this stalker is one hundred percent, head over heels in love with cutie crooner Michael Buble. In fact, my fiancé and I are currently in the midst of creating our wedding slide show and the vast majority of songs I picked out to play during it are, of course, Michael Buble songs, which had my fiancé griping, “Lindsay, not EVERY song can be by him! Let’s have some variety!” Being that my dad and I are doing our Father/Daughter dance to “Save The Last Dance”, also by MB, I guess I am going to have to concede his point. Otherwise our wedding might just turn into a Michael Buble dance party. Which, now that I think about it, wouldn’t actually be such a bad thing. But I digress. So, when tickets for Michael’s Crazy Love Tour went on sale a few months back, I tried to purchase some for my parents, my fiancé, and myself. Sadly, though, the show sold out within minutes and I was turned away empty-handed. I did manage to find some on the ticket resale website StubHub a few weeks later, but seats were going for about $350 a piece. I almost bought them, too, but the Grim Cheaper put his foot down and told me in no uncertain terms that “no way, no how” was I to buy those tickets. Needless to say, I was crushed. Then, a few weeks ago, I happened to mention my desire to see MB in concert in my blog post about the Michael Buble Suite at the Best Western Alderwood Hotel and, as fate would have it, fellow stalker David immediately emailed me and said he might be able to hook me up with tickets. And, sure enough, he did! I got a call from him at about 1 p.m. this past Friday afternoon saying that he had two very reasonably priced tickets for that evening’s show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles if I wanted them. I was driving at the time and, let me tell you, I just about crashed into a tree I was so excited. I immediately called up my fiancé to tell him the news, but I was so keyed up he couldn’t understand me. He kept saying, “Lindsay, slow down! Calm down! I don’t know what it is you’re trying to tell me!” He told me later that at the time he actually thought I had been in an accident or something. LOL For the rest of the day, I could hardly sit still due to excitement as I knew that in just a few short hours I would be at the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles waiting for Michael Buble to take the stage! YAY!

David had told me when he called that the seats he had secured were good ones. And, while I knew that we would be sitting fairly close to the stage (we were in Row 17), I had NO IDEA how close we would actually be. The above picture is my reaction when we entered the arena and saw our seats for the very first time. I was literally DYING!

And while our tickets stated that we were sitting in “Row 17”, our seats were, in actuality, only six rows back from the side of the stage. You can see in the above photograph how incredibly close we actually were. The moment I first saw the stage and realized our close proximity to it was extremely bittersweet for me, as I had planned on bringing my dad to the show that night. Unfortunately, though, he was not feeling well and was unable to accompany me, which absolutely broke my heart. My dad is an even bigger MB fan than I am (if that’s possible!) and he would have ABSOLUTELY DIED to have attended one of his concerts sitting in the kind of seats that we had. 🙁 My dad not being there was truly my only regret of the night, though. The rest of the evening was sheer perfection!

The night’s opening act was a group called Naturally 7, whom I was already familiar with from the song “Stardust”, which is featured on MB’s Crazy Love CD. Naturally 7 is a group of 7 – duh! 🙂 – performers who specialize in what they call “Vocal Play”, a method of beat-boxing in which they use their voices, mouths, and bodies to impersonate instruments such as trombones, harmonicas, trumpets, and drums. They were simply incredible and if I had closed my eyes throughout their performance I would have been convinced that there were actual instruments onstage. Thanks to their jazzy-type sound, they were the absolute perfect opening act for a Michael Buble show.

At around 9 p.m., after Naturally 7 left the stage, the lights finally dimmed and the strains of “Cry Me A River” came blasting through the arena. Michael first appeared as a shadow behind a white curtain, conducting his band, and then the curtain slowly parted and there he was! Standing about 30 feet in front of me! Sigh! I borrowed my dad’s camera for the concert, as his is a lot better than mine, but unfortunately, due to the incredibly bright lights on stage, most of my pictures did not come out. Such a shame, too, as we really could have gotten some amazing shots of Michael.

After his big opener, MB addressed the crowd, something he actually does quite frequently throughout the show. As New York Post writer Dan Aquilante wrote in his March 22nd review of Michael’s recent Madison Square Garden concert, “The one trick that can’t be borrowed or learned is genuineness. There’s nothing phony about Buble. When he speaks to the crowd, it’s as if you’re in his living room.” Couldn’t have said it better myself! Michael very early on established the fact that this would not be your typical concert, but that he instead wanted us to think of it like a party – a party with 14,000 guests, no less, but still a party. He said that he would not be standing onstage simply singing songs while looking down at his shoes, but that we were “in it together” and if we wanted to sing along, that we should absolutely sing along, that if we wanted to dance, we should get out of our seats and shake our caboose, and that if the people behind us didn’t like it, well, we should just . . . and then he stuck up his middle finger and waved it out at the crowd, Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off-style. LOL I guess it goes without saying that the guy is absolutely HILARIOUS! I had seen him in enough interviews to know that he was funny, but I had no idea how funny until this past Friday night.

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Michael Buble is an absolute and total goofball and, as you can see in the above photographs, spends the vast majority of his time onstage laughing. LOVE IT! It is blindingly obvious how much he enjoys performing and that sheer kind of joy is nothing if not contagious.

He also spends a lot of time having actual conversations with people in the audience. One lady asked him if he was married, as he appeared to be wearing a wedding ring, which you can see in the above picture. He explained, though, that he had just recently gotten engaged to his Argentinean girlfriend, Luisana Loreley Lopilato de la Torre. The woman who had asked the question cried out, “Oh, I’m Argentinean, too!”, to which Michael said, “Well, then you know! It is customary in your culture for a man to also wear an engagement ring.” The woman gave him a blank stare and then MB said, “OK, I guess not! Well, she sure had me fooled!” LOL See what I mean – HILARIOUS! Buble also does spot-on impersonations and can speak in hundreds of different accents, which he did throughout the night. It very quickly became exceedingly obvious that Michael Buble is not a singer, but an all-out performer.

What amazed me most about the show, though, was the fact that, aside from one set of pyrotechnics that was released during the opening song, the entire night was completely devoid of spectacle. There were no histrionics, no big dance ensembles, no videos playing in the background. Michael was accompanied onstage solely by a microphone, a stool, and his band. When you have a voice like his, everything else is just a distraction.

And, let me tell you, he had that audience on its feet the ENTIRE NIGHT LONG! He’s truly an OUTSTANDING performer and he gives no less than 100% the entire one hour and forty minutes that he is onstage. He runs around, dances his goofy Michael Buble-type dances, cracks jokes, and tells stories. And he is absolutely enchanting!

Before we left for the concert, my dad told my fiancé that he would no doubt be a Buble-fanatic by the end of the night, to which I said, “Are you kidding me? The Grim Cheaper is going to be sitting there the entire time thinking about the amount of money the tickets set him back.” LOL To my astonishment, though,the G.C. had a BLAST! There were points in the evening when he was absolutely doubled over in laughter thanks to MB’s onstage antics and I even caught him tapping his foot along with the music a few times. What’s even more telling is that at one point he ventured outside of the arena to use the restroom and I asked if he’d stop at one of the concert kiosks to buy me a T-shirt I had been eyeing. When he returned from the restroom empty-handed, I asked about my T-shirt and he explained that, while waiting in line, he heard Michael start to sing “Home”, so he immediately rushed back inside as he didn’t want to miss it! I guess my dad was right, after all – the Grim Cheaper has definitely become a Michael Buble fan. 🙂

My favorite part of the concert, though, had to be when MB talked about his childhood. Buble told the audience that most fans incorrectly assume that Frank Sinatra was his childhood music idol, when in actuality he loved none other than the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson! As you can imagine, I just about died upon hearing that! He went on to say that growing up he spent quite a bit of time on his father’s boat – his father was a professional salmon fisherman – and every time MB got a break during the day, he would go down to the galley and watch a little movie called Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He said he absolutely LOVED the parade float scene and credits it with giving him his original desire to perform. Sigh! A Michael Jackson AND John Hughes fan? Could this guy be any more perfect??? Then MB went on to perform an awesome “Billie Jean/Twist and Shout” medley, during which he even did the Moonwalk!, and, let me tell you, I just about died! It was SO MUCH FUN! You can watch a similar medley from Michael Buble’s Madison Square Garden concert by clicking above.

For the grand finale, Michael sang his latest hit song “Haven’t Met You Yet”, which is one of my favorites. I couldn’t believe it when the confetti first started to pour down from the ceiling signaling the end of the show, though, as it had seemed to me that only about 25 minutes had passed since Michael first took to the stage. In actuality, it had been almost ninety! As they say, time FLIES when you’re having fun. I literally could have sat there all night listening to him perform. He was PHENOMENAL. After the grand finale, MB came back out for an encore of three more numbers, including “Song For You” which he said he ends every single show with. During the final stanza of the song he astonished the crowd by dropping his microphone to the floor and singing to us without using anything to amplify his voice. Let me tell you, you could have heard a pin drop in that room, the crowd was so wowed. His voice was so incredibly powerful, it was almost unbelievable. It was an absolutely amazing end to an absolutely amazing evening – one I will never forget for the rest of my life. I literally don’t think I breathed once during the entire show. Even now, days later, my Michael Buble fog has yet to lift and my pulse rate is just beginning to return to normal. 🙂

A HUGE, TREMENDOUS, AND VERY HEARTFELT THANK YOU TO DAVID FOR HOOKING ME UP WITH THE CONCERT TICKETS! WORDS CAN’T EXPRESS HOW MUCH I APPRECIATE WHAT YOU DID! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: You can find out about Michael Buble’s upcoming tour dates on his official website here. The next leg of his tour begins on May 6th, 2010 in the United Kingdom.

April 7, 2010April 7, 2010

The “Glee” Vanity Fair Photo Shoot

In early December of last year, I came across these Fan Sites Network photographs of the male stars of Glee – including my latest love, cutie Matthew Morrison – posing for an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair at the Urban Light display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and I just about died. I absolutely COULD NOT WAIT for the article to be published so that I could stalk the display and blog about it. I’m really not kidding – on January 1st, February 1st, and March 1st of this year, I literally ran to my local newsstand to check out the latest issue of the magazine to see if the Glee pics were in there. Well, the photos – ahem – photo was finally published this past Thursday in the magazine’s May issue and I have to say that I was sorely disappointed with it. I had whole-heartedly been expecting the Glee actors to garner a cover story or, at the very least, a full-fledged feature article, so, you can imagine my disappointment last Thursday upon discovering that the actual publication consisted of a single page. Yes, you read that right – ONE single, solitary page. In my never-to-be humble opinion ;), I have to say that Vanity Fair really dropped the ball on this one! I mean, HELLO! Glee is not only the biggest new show of the 2009 Fall television season and is finally returning to the airwaves after a FOUR MONTH hiatus, but it also recently won both a Golden Globe Award (for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy) and a SAG Award (for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series) along with countless other awards and nominations too numerous to list here – before its very first season had even been completed, no less! Shouldn’t that at least garner them more than a half page picture and tiny write-up buried all the way on page 181? Shame on you, VF! Not only that, but I wasn’t exactly crazy about the sole photograph that did get published, either. It is a pretty dark and dreary picture, especially considering that Glee is a show chock full of . . . well, glee! But, even though I wasn’t very happy about the finalized product, I still just HAD to stalk the place where the photo shoot took place. So, this past weekend I dragged my fiancé out to Wilshire’s Miracle Mile District and did just that.

I’ve actually driven by the Urban Light display countless times over the past few years and have always found it a bit odd, to say the least. As you can see in the above photographs, the large scale art installation consists of a group of grey-colored lights standing right smack dab in the middle of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s central courtyard which is located along the heavily trafficked Wilshire Boulevard in Mid-Town L.A. Trust me when I say that the whole thing looks very bizarre when driving by at 35 miles per hour. And even though I’ve always admired the many vintage street lamps that are in still in use around the Los Angeles area, the Urban Light display always seemed out of place to me and I never had any interest in stopping my car to get a closer look.

That is, until my good friend Renae sent me the above picture of her family taken earlier this year, which I thought was just about the coolest family photograph I had ever seen! I absolutely loved, loved, loved it and, in turn, realized what an amazing display the Urban Light installation actually was. I mean can you even imagine taking wedding photographs there?? They would be A-MA-ZING!

The Urban Light display, which is comprised of a group of 202 actual working 1920’s and 1930’s era Los Angeles street lamps that took over seven years to collect, was created by performance artist and sculptor Chris Burden in early 2008. Burden is perhaps best known for his highly controversial performance pieces from the early 1970s, the most famous of which was entitled “Shoot” and involved an assistant actually shooting him in the arm while onstage. Not surprisingly, he was made to see a therapist after that production. 😉 Burden also once had himself nailed to a Volkswagen Beetle during a show. Needless to say, the guy’s a bit out there. According to this article which was written by Susan Freudenheim and appeared in the January 30th, 2008 issue of the Los Angeles Times, in recent years Burden has shifted his attention from performance art to “large-scale assemblage sculptures”. He first stumbled upon the vintage street lamps that would become the foundation of his “Urban Light” display in December of 2000 at the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena. Even though he had no plan for them at the time, he immediately purchased a pair of the vintage lights for $1600. An avid collector of a wide array of tchotchkes, Burden soon found himself in possession of 150 of the street lamps and used them to build a small scale display outside of his studio. Eventually, a few big wigs at LACMA viewed the installation and knew it would be the perfect piece to stand in the middle of the new courtyard that was being built outside of the museum. Andrew M. Gordon, a chairman on the LACMA board, donated the money to purchase the display, to which Burden had added 52 more lamps, and the rest, as they say, is history. The installation’s first lighting was on February 7, 2008 and coincided with the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA. In a humorous side note, not only did each of the 202 lamps have to actually be installed per Los Angeles City Code, but they were also all inspected by the Bureau of Street Lighting. No that’s not a joke, Los Angeles actually has a Bureau of Street Lighting!

Seeing the Urban Light sculpture up close and personal is extremely jarring as the display is absolutely HUGE, much more so then it appears to be when simply driving by. Burden designed the piece so that visitors could actually walk through each of the lights to experience what he describes as “architecture without walls”. And let me tell you, one can easily get lost in the middle of the installation, as I obviously did in the above photograph. 🙂 I honestly can’t recommend stalking the Urban Light display enough. It is an absolutely beautiful and truly unique place that everyone should see in person at least once.

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And, of course, I just had to pose in the exact spot where the Glee picture was taken, which is on the northwest corner of the installation. 🙂

Note – The Glee photograph which appears in this post does not belong to me, but remains the sole property of photographer Michael Roberts and Vanity Fair Magazine.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Chris Burden’s “Urban Light” display, where the Glee guys’ Vanity Fair photo shoot took place, is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in Mid-Town L.A. The Glee boys posed in the display’s northwest corner, which is pictured above. The May issue of Vanity Fair, which features the Glee photograph, will be on sale throughout the end of April. If you would like to check out a more in-depth photoshoot of the cast, pick up this month’s Glamour.

February 10, 2010June 16, 2011

Cole’s Restaurant from “A Lot Like Love”

This past weekend I dragged my fiancé out to re-stalk Cole’s Restaurant, a location that I originally blogged about way back in May of 2008. I first learned about the old time watering hole while watching the DVD commentary for fave movie A Lot Like Love, during which one of the film’s directors mentions that the New York bar scene featured at the beginning of the flick wasn’t actually filmed on the East Coast at all, but at a historic little bar in Downtown Los Angeles named Cole’s. After doing a bit of online research I discovered that COUNTLESS movies had actually been filmed on location at the historic bar, so I, of course, immediately dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, upon arriving we were greeted by a sign announcing that the restaurant was closed for a massive renovation project. 🙁 And I have longed to stalk the place ever since. So, since we were in the area this past weekend, I begged my fiancé to make a little pit stop there and, since he was hungry at the time, he happily obliged. YAY!

Cole’s actually has a few other claims to fame besides being an oft-used filming location, including the fact that it is not only where the French Dip sandwich was first originated, but it is also the oldest continuously operating bar and restaurant in all of Los Angeles.

Cole’s, which was originally known as Cole’s P.E. Buffet, was first opened on December 8, 1908 by an entrepreneur named Harry Cole in what was once the main terminal of the Pacific Electric Building. That very same year, Cole’s main chef, a resourceful young man named Jack Garlinghouse, dipped the bread of a roast beef sandwich in Au Jus sauce in order to soften it for a customer who suffered from sore gums, and, thus, the French Dip sandwich was born. Those sandwiches, and the restaurant itself, became extremely popular with the hundreds of thousands of commuters who traveled through the Pacific Electric Building terminal each day. Twenty-five years later, in 1933, Cole’s was still such a popular spot that on the day California nixed its ban on beer, the bar served up over 19,000 gallons of the stuff to its parched customers. Yes, you read that right – 19,000 GALLONS in ONE day! That same year, Harry Cole’s son, Rawland, who was a bit of an entrepreneur himself, decided to start cashing checks out of the restaurant’s back room and wound up giving out over $1,000,000 each month (and we’re talking 1930’s money!), which was a larger amount than any U.S. bank was giving out during that same time! Cole’s has also had a longtime celebrity following, attracting such notables as Mickey Cohen who was a regular there during the 70’s and even had his own booth.

In 2007, Cole’s was purchased by a Los Angeles area development company named 213 who subsequently began a year-long, $1.6 million restoration process on the historic restaurant, during which its 40-foot long mahogany bar, porcelain penny tile mosaic flooring, and antique Tiffany glass lamps were all brought back to their original glory. The 213 company, which is headed by C.E.O. Cedd Moses, even added a “secret” bar in what was formerly Cole’s storage room. That secret bar is named “The Varnish” and it is so hidden, in fact, that I had absolutely no idea it was there until I read about it online after I got home. 🙁 For their restoration efforts of the legendary restaurant, 213 was awarded the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Preservation Award.

Cole’s specialty is, of course, its signature hand-carved, made-to-order French Dip sandwich which was originated on the premises one hundred and two years ago. There’s actually another L.A. area restaurant named Phillipe’s also laying claim to that exact same feat and the dispute between the two establishments is almost as old as the sandwich itself. But being that in 1974 the City of Los Angeles designated Cole’s a Historical Landmark Site and a State Point of Historical Interest not only due to its significant location, but also to its culinary invention, I think it’s safe to say that Cole’s has won that battle. 🙂 Cole’s French Dips can be constructed out of a variety of meats, including lamb, pastrami, turkey, and the typical roast beef. They can also be adorned with extra meat, Swiss, cheddar, goat, or blue cheeses, and an “atomic pickle spear”. I opted for a turkey French dip, sans the cheese and pickle, and I have to say it was absolutely A-MA-ZING! The meat truly was hand-carved, right-off-the-turkey-type turkey and I loved every last bite of it. What I loved more, though, was the historic aura of the place. It was incredible to be sitting there, dining on my French dip, thinking about the fact that the very sandwich I was now eating had actually been created on the premises over a century ago. Yes, I’ll take my meal with a side of history, please. 😉 I think it goes without saying that I ABSOLUTELY LOVED Cole’s and I honestly can’t recommend stalking the place enough!

In A Lot Like Love, Cole’s stood in for the New York bar where Oliver (aka Ashton Kutcher) and Emily (aka Amanda Peet) make a $50 bet that he won’t be a successful married businessman in six years time.

And I, of course, just had to eat lunch while sitting in the same spot where Ashton and Amanda sat in the flick. 🙂

The side booth area that is visible to the left of Ashton in the above screen capture is no longer a part of Cole’s. It was closed off during the restaurant’s recent remodel and is now a separately owned “secret” bar known as the Association. Yes, there are two secret bars located on the Cole’s premises!

The Association’s unmarked front door is pictured above.

In Jumpin’ Jack Flash – one of my all-time favorite movies EVER – Cole’s once again stood in for a New York bar, this time as the place where Terri Dolittle (aka Whoopi Goldberg) gets kidnapped by a man in a tow truck while making a telephone call from a public phone booth.

It is during this scene that Whoopi utters the infamous line “I am little black woman in a big silver box!” LOL

Towards the end of the movie, Whoopi once again runs by the restaurant on her way back to her office after escaping from the police. Cole’s is also talked about throughout the flick as the place where Whoopi and her pals hang out after work. Ironically enough, back before my very first trip to the Big Apple, I spent HOURS using Google Street View to search New York for this location. It wasn’t until years later, when I stalked Cole’s the first time after watching A Lot Like Love, that realized my mistake. I can’t believe I wasted so much time scouring New York for this location, when the whole time it was literally right in my own backyard! 😉

In Rumor Has It, Cole’s stands in for the San Francisco bar named the Fillmore Pub, where Kevin Costner and my girl Jen Aniston share a dance. Ironically enough, before I knew about Cole’s, I actually spent quite a bit of time searching the San Francisco area for this spot! Which means – you guessed it! – that I not only wasted countless hours searching for this location – not realizing it was the same place featured in Jumpin’ Jack Flash – in New York, but in San Francisco, too. LOL Man, I’m such a blonde sometimes!

The scene where Kevin and Jen kiss outside of the ladies’ room after their dance was really filmed in the bathroom area of Cole’s, as well.

The exterior of the restaurant was also used in the filming of the scene, although they changed the signage to read “Fillmore Pub”. As you can see in the above photograph (which was taken during my first Cole’s stalk) and screen capture, though, the signage used in the movie is an exact match to Cole’s real life signage. Love it!

In Forrest Gump, Cole’s yet again stood in for a New York watering hole. It was used as the spot where Forrest and Lieutenant Dan spend New Year’s Eve of 1971. Sadly, though, not much of the bar is visible in that scene.

On a side note – Located directly across the street from Cole’s is a little place named J &J Sandwich Shop, which is the restaurant which stood in for the Night Owl Cafe in fave movie L.A. Confidential.

And located directly above Cole’s is the ninth floor window from which Bud White (aka Russell Crowe) hung D.A. Ellis Loew (aka Ron Rifkin) in the same movie.

Cole’s has also appeared in an episode of The X-Files, in numerous episodes of both Mad Men and NYPD Blue, and it flashed by very briefly in the 1991 movie Guilty By Suspicion. And, according to legend, the Terminal Bar from 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which was in actuality just a set, was based on Cole’s.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Cole’s is located at 118 East Sixth Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit their website here.

January 25, 2010January 25, 2010

Sarah Silverman’s Apartment Building from “The Sarah Silverman Program”

A few months back, I got an email from a fellow stalker named Kate who wanted to know if I could track down the apartment building where Sarah Silverman lives on The Sarah Silverman Program. Kate had heard on one of the show’s DVD commentaries that the building was located somewhere in Hollywood in close proximity to Paramount Studios, where the series is taped. Because I had never watched an episode of The Sarah Silverman Program – although I did see one being filmed 🙂 – for this particular stalking venture I had to call for reinforcements – i.e. fellow stalker Owen. 🙂 Like the blonde that I am, though, in the email I originally sent him asking for his help, I accidentally told him that the building was located near Universal Studios, instead of Paramount! Oops!!! Brain blips like that are quite common for me, I’m afraid, and they drive me – and those around me – crazy! Anyway, Owen spent quite a bit of time searching in the Universal Studios area (I still feel bad about that!), until I realized my mistake and informed him. Well, it wasn’t 20 minutes later that he emailed me back with an address! Yes, he is the master! Seems he found the building by looking at aerial views of various neighborhoods surrounding the Paramount Lot. He first set some parameters for himself of areas to check, searched all the houses within those boundaries, but had no luck. Then he opened up the parameters a bit to the south and almost immediately found the apartment. THANK YOU, Owen! 🙂

On The Sarah Silverman Program, Sarah, along with her friends Brian Spukowski (aka Brian Posehn) and Steve Myron (aka Steve Agee), live in a Mediterranean style building supposedly located in Valley Village. In reality, though, the building, which I am happy to report looks EXACTLY the same in person as it does on the show, is located in the heart of Hollywood.

One inconsistency that I did notice, though, is that on the show, Sarah’s building has an interior hallway, as you can see in the above screen captures. But from how it appears in real life, I am fairly certain that interior hallway doesn’t actually exist. In reality, it seems that the building contains four individual apartment units, each of which can be reached via the four front doors facing the street, thus negating any need for an indoor hallway.

The above photograph is the view looking north from the front of The Sarah Silverman Program apartment building. The big white structure located behind the large hedge is Paramount Studios, so that DVD commentary wasn’t lying – the apartment is indeed located in VERY close proximity to the lot where filming takes place! 🙂

On a side note – I finally sat down to watch a few episodes of The Sarah Silverman Program before writing this post and I have to say that I wasn’t really impressed. It’s kind of an odd program. It can funny at times, but for the most part, it’s just . . . well . . . very, very odd. That’s the best word I can find to describe it. Needless to say, I most likely won’t be watching it again. And I’m actually pretty bummed I spent $4 buying the episodes on iTunes. I could have bought a cup of Starbucks coffee with that $4 – something which I am fairly certain I would have enjoyed a whole lot more than the show! 😉

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location. 🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Sarah Silverman’s apartment building from The Sarah Silverman Program is located at 607 North Irving Boulevard in Hollywood, just one block south of Paramount Studios.

January 20, 2010June 16, 2011

SpeedZone from “Guess Who”

This past New Year’s, my fiancé’s entire family – including his two school-age nephews – came to town to watch the Rose Parade. Before their arrival, he scoured the internet to find some fun places in the L.A. area to take the kids after the festivities were over. One of the ideas he came up with was to spend a few hours at SpeedZone in the City of Industry – an amusement park of sorts which features an array of kid-friendly fun such as go-kart racing, miniature golf, and a large arcade. I have to admit that I wasn’t actually too keen on the idea at first . . . until my fiancé told me that the place was an oft-used filming location, that is. And then I was 100 percent on board with the venue and even tried to convince everyone that we should skip the whole parade and just head straight there instead! 🙂

SpeedZone is best known for its four go kart courses, for which it recently won the LA Magazine “Best of Los Angeles 2009” – Best Go Kart Track award. Those four tracks include the Top Eliminator Dragster, where racers drive authentic 300 horsepower NHRA dragsters on a mini-track reaching speeds of 70 miles per hour in less than 3.5 seconds;

the Slick Trax – an ultra-slick polished surface course which encourages spinning and can accommodate up to 15 different drivers at the same time;

the Grand Prix – a long, single licensed-driver course based on Formula 1 and Indy Car tracks which features tight turns and a speed timer; and the Turbo Track (which I unfortunately did not get a picture of) – a course which can accommodate up to twenty drivers at a time racing in high-torque one- and two-seater cars. Not into go karts? Well, that’s OK, too, because SpeedZone also features an arcade which boasts over 100 games including numerous video games, air hockey tables, and, my personal favorite, skee ball machines. There are also two 18-hole golf-courses on the premises and a cafe which serves up pizza, sandwiches, burgers, and cocktails. Yes, you read that right, the SpeedZone Cafe has a full bar, because adults enjoy go kart racing, too, you know. 😉

While hanging out at SpeedZone, I raced on both the Top Eliminator Dragster course and the Grand Prix course and the Grand Prix was by far my favorite. I had an ABSOLUTE blast racing and actually thought I was burning up the course the whole way through . . .

. . . until I got to the end and noticed my pitiful time! Yes, the 75.249 time is mine. As you can see, two of the other racers noted on the board pictured above completed the race in almost half the amount of time it took me! LOL What can I say, I am cursed with having the opposite of a lead foot. But I had an absolute blast being there and cannot wait to go back . . . and hopefully improve my time! 🙂

SpeedZone’s most memorable cinematic appearance was in the 2005 comedy Guess Who in the scene in which overprotective father Percy Jones (aka Bernie Mac) challenges his future son-in-law Simon Green (aka Ashton Kutcher) to a little drag race on the Grand Prix track. The two get into a bit of a scuffle during the race and wind up veering off the track, through a large hedge, and straight into oncoming traffic.

Contrary to what was shown in Guess Who, though, SpeedZone does not allow two people to race on the Grand Prix track at the same time. And don’t go looking for the archway pictured above, which Bernie and Ashton drive under in the movie, either, because I could not find it anywhere, which leads me to believe that it was either a prop brought in for the filming or that it used to be a real feature of the track that was removed sometime after filming took place.

SpeedZone also stood in for Zany Town, the Chuck E. Cheese style arcade featured in the ultra-depressing Season One episode of CSI: Miami entitled “Broken”. The episode was actually filmed almost in its entirety on the SpeedZone premises.

The park’s golf area was also used in “Broken”, as the “Sir Golf-A-Lot” miniature golf course, where H and the gang finally apprehended the bad guy at the end of the episode.

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SpeedZone has also been featured in the reality shows Blind Date, Amish in the City, Average Joe, Who Wants To Marry My Dad, and Dismissed, on the game show Jeopardy, and it is set to appear in an upcoming episode of the new Melrose Place. While I was stalking SpeedZone, I just had to ask one of the employees which celebrities had visited the theme park over the years and I just about died when he told me that Jennifer Aniston had been there! Love it! I was even wearing my Team Aniston sweatshirt at the time. 🙂 Courteney Cox and David Arquette have also raced cars at the park.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: SpeedZone is located at 17871 Castleton Street in the City of Industry. You can visit their website here. Guess Who was filmed on the Grand Prix track and CSI: Miami was filmed in the Electric Alley arcade and on the Speedway miniature golf course.

December 23, 2009December 23, 2009

Christmas Tree Lane

Last December, I blogged about a house in Altadena known as the Balian Mansion, or, as I like to call it, the real Clark W. Griswold house (pictured above). And even though the mansion has appeared only briefly onscreen – in the movie Obsessed and in an early episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 – the house is somewhat of an institution in these parts due mainly to something that happens there each December. During the Christmas season, the Balian Family decorates their mansion with THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of twinkle lights. People literally drive from miles around to see the spectacle and, last year, the place was even written up as one of AOL’s Top Twelve Festive Holiday Homes. Anyway, in last December’s post on the Balian Mansion, I happened to mention another display of Christmas lights in the Altadena area – a one mile stretch of road named Christmas Tree Lane, which, while not a filming location, is definitely a holiday must-see. Well, one very astute reader named Allyn contacted me shortly after that post was published to let me know that Christmas Tree Lane actually is a filming location, appearing in, among other things, the 1998 teen comedy Can’t Hardly Wait. Allyn told me that the Lane popped in a scene in which the two nerd characters are shown walking along a cedar tree lined street. Ironically enough, though, even though Allyn had described the exact location AND the movie in which it was featured, this proved to be a rather difficult stalk for me. It all started yesterday morning when I popped in my Can’t Hardly Wait DVD and scanned through it TWICE, both times coming up completely empty-handed. I couldn’t seem to find a scene featuring Christmas Tree Lane ANYWHERE! It then occured to me that Allyn had perhaps mistakenly told me the wrong movie. So, I promptly started scanning through a few other teen comedies that I thought Allyn might have confused with Can’t Hardly Wait. After skipping through Not Another Teen Movie, She’s All That, and the first two American Pie flicks with absolutely no luck, I became completely perplexed. And then, like a beacon, it hit me! I needed to consult with fellow stalker Owen. Because Owen has long had a penchant for actress Jennifer Love Hewitt (JLove, are you listening??), I figured he would know the movie Can’t Hardly Wait like the back of his hand. And, sure enough, he did!

While my first instinct was that the Christmas Tree Lane segment might only have appeared in a deleted scene or an extended version of Can’t Hardly Wait, fellow stalker Owen clued me in to the fact that it actually pops up about 15 seconds after the credits start rolling at the very end of the movie. Which explains why I missed it even though I scanned through the movie TWICE! LOL In the scene, the two X-Philes, so named because they are huge X-Files fans :), are shown walking along a tree lined street in the early morning. And just as one X-Phile says to the other, “This town is so lame. Nothing exciting ever happens here.”, a UFO appears and beams the two right up. THANK YOU, OWEN! 🙂

Christmas Tree Lane is, in actuality, a mile long stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue, in between Woodbury Road and Altadena Drive, in Altadena. The road is lined with over 150 towering deodar trees which were planted by Altadena’s founder, John P. Woodbury, in 1885. Woodbury had originally seen the large-scale deodar trees during a trip to Italy and returned home to Altadena with several hundred of their seeds, which he immediately planted. After being cultivated at a ranch for two years, the trees were then deposited all along the mile long driveway leading up to Woodbury’s yet-to-built Altadena mansion. And while the mansion was never actually completed, that mile long stretch of driveway eventually became Santa Rosa Avenue, a main thoroughfare in Altadena. In 1920, a rather festive Altadena gentleman named Frederick C. Nash, along with The Pasadena Kiwanis Club, decided to light one small section of Santa Rosa Avenue during the holiday season. Over the years, more and more trees were added to the spectacle, finally resulting in a one mile stretch of land encompassing 150 trees, which are lit with over 10,000 twinkle lights. The street was eventually dubbed Christmas Tree Lane and was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on September 13, 1990. According to the official Christmas Tree Lane website, the display is “the oldest large-scale Christmas lighting spectacle in the United States” and each December more than 50,000 motorists venture out to Altadena to view it. The lights on the trees are hung each year by a group of hard-working, dogged volunteers and members of the Board of the Christmas Tree Lane Association. Up until the year 2000, the electricity costs were paid for by Southern California Edison, but after the deregulation of California utilities, the financial obligation of keeping the trees lit fell to the Christmas Tree Lane Association. The tree lighting tradition has only been able to continue thanks to the many generous donations received each year. If you would like to donate your time or money to the Christmas Tree Lane Association, you may do so here. I honestly can’t recommend stalking Christmas Tree Lane enough! It is an absolutely magical display of Christmas lights, the likes of which I have never seen duplicated. On a side note – the fact is not lost on me that I am wearing a tank top in one of the above photographs, despite the fact that it was taken after dark in late December. LOL That’s Los Angeles for you, though! And while I am usually a big fan of L.A.’s warm climate, during Christmastime I actually prefer there to be a chill in the air. As Kevin McAllister said in Home Alone 2, “Who wants to spend Christmas in a tropical climate, anyway?” 😉 Come December 26th, though, I am all about the heat! 🙂

I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t take the time here to mention two other Pasadena area homes which, while not filming locations, are definitely holiday must-sees. The two houses are actually located on neighboring streets and, let me tell you, both are a site to behold! The first one is pictured above.

Not only do both houses feature a myriad of multi-colored twinkle lights, but they also boast musical animatronic displays starring such characters as Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, among countless others! Not kidding! I can’t even tell you how much fun it is to visit these two homes each year and to see what new Christmas decorations have been added to the already over-the-top spectacles. LOVE IT!

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Big THANK YOU to Allyn and Owen for helping me out with this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Christmas Tree Lane is a mile long section of Santa Rosa Avenue located between Woodbury Road and Altadena Drive in Altadena. This year, the lights will be turned on nightly from dusk until midnight through January 6th. If you would like to donate time or money to the Christmas Tree Lane Association, you can do so here. At the end of Can’t Hardly Wait, the two X-Philes are shown walking north on Santa Rosa Avenue, directly in front of the house numbered 2287. The Balian Mansion is located at 1960 Mendocino Lane in Altadena, just a short distance from Christmas Tree Lane. The other two must-see houses in the area are located at 1776 Las Lunas Street and 1775 Monte Vista Street in Pasadena, just north of the 210 Freeway.

December 21, 2009January 12, 2011

Bullocks Wilshire – The Department Store from “Christmas Vacation”

One location that I have been dying to stalk for months now is the former Bullocks Wilshire department store located just outside of Downtown Los Angeles – a spot which has been featured in countless productions since its grand opening way back in 1929. And, even though I am usually a big fan of immediate gratification, I waited to stalk this location until just recently as I wanted to blog about it in December, along with my other Christmas movie posts. So, what holiday movie was the building featured in, you ask? One of my very favorite Christmas flicks of all time – the 1989 holiday classic Christmas Vacation. In the movie, Bullocks Wilshire stood in for the Chicago area department store where Clark Griswold (aka Chevy Chase), accompanied by his son, Rusty (aka The Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki), shopped for lingerie. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who, as luck would have it, just happened to be driving right by the department store on the day filming took place way back in 1989. Once Mike noticed the production trucks, he, of course, immediately pulled over to inquire about what was being filmed and to watch some of the action. And, let me tell you, when Mike told me about the location a few months back, I just about passed out from excitement as I had always wanted to know where that scene had taken place! Thank you, Mike! 🙂

The Bullocks Wilshire building was originally built in 1929 by the father and son architecture firm of John and Donald Parkinson, a team who was also responsible for designing the Continental Building, which is better known as Los Angeles’ first skyscraper, Union Station, L.A.’s City Hall and the Memorial Coliseum. Department store magnate John G. Bullock commissioned the building in the hopes of creating the most luxurious and upscale shopping experience Angelinos had ever seen. The interior, which was designed by Eleanor Lemaire and Jock Peters, was the utmost in splendor, featuring travertine flooring, marble walls, ornate elevators, and rosewood display cases.

For the design of the relief located above the department store’s Wilshire Boulevard entrance, which reads, “To build a business that will never known completion”, Bullock looked to MGM art director Cedric Gibbons, who is best known for designing the first ever Oscar statue.

Because Bullock wanted to cater to the growing number of motorists in the L.A. area, the department store was the first in Los Angeles ever to feature a porte cochere, aka a covered driveway under which shoppers could hand over their vehicles to waiting valets.

The building’s most remarkable feature – in my mind, at least – has to be the highly elaborate mural painted on the ceiling of the porte cochere. Romanian painter Herman Sachs designed the brightly colored fresco secco as a tribute to Mercury, the god of travel. The painting features renderings of different forms of modern-day transportation, including airplanes, trains, and ships.

Upon its opening on September 26, 1929, the 241 foot tall Bullocks Wilshire encompassed over 230,000 square feet of retail space which included a perfume hall, a penthouse tea room, a “doggery” which sold trinkets for shoppers’ furry companions, a saddle shop, a Louis XVI room, a furrier, live mannequins, a salon, and a private suite where the truly elite could shop in complete privacy, all the while sipping martinis and snacking on the finest hors d’oeuvres. Years later, Bullock added a Chanel Room, a photography studio operated by celebrity photographer Neil Gittings, and a Ladies Custom Salon, run by future Hollywood costume designer Irene Lentz. Thanks to Bullock’s incredible attention to detail, the department store quickly became the place to see and be seen in Los Angeles. Such stars as Mae West, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, John Wayne, and Marlene Dietrich all visited Bullocks Wilshire at one time or another. And actresses June Lockhart and Angela Lansbury and former First Lady Patricia Nixon even worked there in their early years. Thanks to the building’s architectural detail and rich history, Bullocks Wilshire was added to the National Registry of Historic Places on May 25, 1978. Sadly, in the late 80s, the store began a precipitous decline, eventually being sold to the Macy’s chain. A few years later, the historic building was heavily vandalized both inside and out during the riots of 1992, with looters destroying display cases, prized artifacts, and even setting fire to the property. Bullocks Wilshire ended up closing its doors for the last time in 1993. But its story doesn’t end there. About a year later, the property was purchased by Southwestern Law School, which had long occupied a neighboring building. The school then set out on a ten year, $29 million restoration project which completely restored the historic building back to its original state. For this endeavor, Southwestern Law School received a National Preservation Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Today, Bullocks Wilshire is used as a part of the Southwestern Law School campus, where, coincidentally, actor Jerry O’Connell (husband of Rebecca Romijn) is currently a student. 🙂

And, while the building is not actually opened to the public, while stalking the place, I ventured inside and asked the security guard on duty if I might be allowed to take a quick peek. The guard truly could NOT have been nicer and allowed my fiancé and me to walk around the school. Unfortunately, though, photography is not allowed indoors, so I couldn’t take any pictures, other than the two pictured above, which I snapped through the building’s front window. But, take my word for it, the interior – which you can see photographs of here – is nothing short of magnificent. Walking into Bullocks Wilshire is like stepping back in time to a more glamorous era. The cafe, the lounge area, even the bathrooms have all been restored to their original state and I couldn’t have been more excited to be seeing it all with my own two eyes. And, even though the building is now technically a college campus, the interior still looks much as it did when it operated as an upscale department store. I was so mesmerized with the place, in fact, that I am just dying to get my hands on a copy of this book to learn more about the building’s rich history!

Bullocks Wilshire shows up just briefly in Christmas Vacation in the very memorable scene in which, while out shopping with his son Rusty, Clark Griswold meets and flirts with a lingerie saleswoman named Mary and utters that famous line, “It’s a bit nipply out”. LOL LOL LOL When I was a Senior in high school – and I should mention here that I went to a Catholic high school – one of my classmates, Marcus, came up with the inspired idea of reading a surf report to the entire school each morning during our daily announcements. Marcus’ little experiment was going well, too, until one particularly cold morning, when he announced to the student body that the ocean “was a bit nipply” that day. Needless to say, that was the end of that morning’s announcements – and our daily surf report. But, ever since that fateful day, even all these years later, I can’t help but think of Marcus and laugh every time I watch the Christmas Vacation shopping scene. 🙂

Bullocks Wilshire was also the store where Benjamin Siegel shopped at the beginning of the movie Bugsy;

its La Directoire room was the site of the ”Romantic Dinner” Taco Bell commercial featuring Gidget, the talking Chihuahua;

it was where Angela Chase (aka Claire Danes) shopped with her mother Patty (aka Bess Armstrong) in the Season 1 episode of My So-Called Life titled “The Zit”;

and the Louis XVI Room was where the Mother/Daughter Fashion Show was filmed in that same episode.

it was the location of the eponymous elevator in Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator” music video;

the exterior was featured briefly in Public Enemy’s “By The Time I Get to Arizona” music video;

and in The Aviator, it stood in for the nightclub where Howard Hughes and Ava Gardner got attacked by Hughes’ former girlfriend.

Supposedly, the final scene in Ghostbusters was filmed on the roof of Bullocks Wilshire, but as you can see in the above screen captures and photograph, the Ghostbusters roof and the Bullocks Wilshire roof look nothing alike. And, while it’s entirely possible that some close-up filming for that scene did take place on top of the Bullocks Wilshire tower, my best guess is that the entire scene was filmed on a studio soundstage somewhere in Hollywood. Bullocks Wilshire has also been featured in the movies Topper (where it stood in for the luxurious Connecticut area Seabreeze Hotel), Tarzan’s New York Adventure (where it was used as a New York hotel), Dunston Checks In (where it again stood in for a New York hotel), Fist of the North Star, On Deadly Ground, Family Plot, The Tie That Binds, Rough Magic, and in episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Judging Amy, and The Agency.

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Big THANK YOU to Mike for finding this location! 🙂

On a very sad side note – My thoughts and prayers go out to Brittany Murphy’s friends and loved ones today. I can’t even imagine losing someone so young, especially this close to the holidays. 🙁 Rest in peace, Brittany.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bullocks Wilshire is located at 3050 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. You can visit the building’s official website and see interior photographs of it here. Because Bullocks Wilshire is part of the Southwestern Law School campus, it is not open to the public. Once a year, though, tours of the property are given. You can check the Southwestern Law School website for further tour information.

December 1, 2009December 1, 2009

Big Oaks Lodge from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

Before I left on my New York vacation just about two months ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I spent a day together stalking in and around the San Fernando Valley. And even though we had a long list of places to stalk, the location we were most excited about seeing had to be a place called Big Oaks Lodge, which was used in the Season 2 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 entitled “Camping Trip”. Before arriving at Big Oaks Lodge, I was actually a little nervous about the drive up there, though, as I had read that the place was located completely out in the middle of nowhere, but, as it turns out, it’s not really as out in the middle of nowhere as I had thought. The Lodge is located a brief twenty minute drive from the City of Santa Clarita, and while the road which leads there is remote, windy, and lacks a Starbucks, it’s really not a bad ride at all. 🙂 Big Oaks Lodge was originally built in the 1920s as a rest stop and eatery for traveling stagecoaches. In the 30s, 40s, and 50s, the Lodge and its surrounding area became something of a Hollywood hotspot for the likes of such legends as gangster “Pretty Boy” Floyd and the original Brangelina – Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford – who even ended up building their own private cabin near the restaurant. In later years, the property served as a training spot for boxers like Mike Quarry and Michael Doakes and even boasted its own outdoor ring, which has since been removed. The Lodge now serves as a meeting place and rest stop and features not one, but two different eateries on the property. The first is a little food stand named the Char House, which serves up such culinary staples as hamburgers, chili, and tri-tip sandwiches and is popular with the Harley Davidson set. The Lodge’s more upscale restaurant is named Cavi and it specializes in authentic homemade Italian food. The Lodge is still popular with celebrities to this day and has played host to talk show host Jay Leno and members of the band ZZ Top.

Big Oaks Lodge is actually much smaller than I expected it to be and consists solely of the main lodge area, which houses Cavi restaurant, the Char House shed, an outdoor patio, and two small cabins, which can be rented out nightly. While stalking the place, Mike and I had the good fortune of meeting one of the Lodge’s owners, who absolutely could NOT believe that we had driven all the way out to Big Oaks just to see a location from an episode of 90210 which had aired over 18 years ago. And, let me tell you, he just about fell over when we showed him Mike’s portable DVD player, where we had the “Camping Trip” episode all cued up. LOL 🙂 The owner told us we were free to walk around the property and take all of the photographs we wanted. And you really should have seen the two of us! We could not have been more excited and were screaming like little schoolgirls pretty much the entire time! “Oh, look there’s the firewood shed!” and “Ohmigod, there’s the tree Brandon leaned against!” LOL We were both pretty bummed out, though, that neither of the Lodge’s restaurants were open while we were there, as we had hoped to grab a bite to eat during our stalk. 🙁 But you know what that means, don’t you? My fiancé will definitely be getting dragged out there in the near future so that I can re-stalk the place. 🙂

In the “Camping Trip” episode, thanks to a patch of bad weather, Brandon, Brenda and the gang get stuck at Big Oaks Lodge while on their way to a camping trip in Yosemite. The entire episode was pretty much shot on location at the Lodge and made use of the entire Big Oaks property, which I am happy to report still looks very much the same as it did on 90210. Pictured above is Big Oaks’ front entrance, which showed up several times in the episode.

The firewood storage area, which looks a bit different today than it did when 90210 was filmed, was the spot where the gang first took shelter from the rain after pulling over at Big Oaks.

Had to do it! 🙂 LOL

The “Char House” restaurant stood in for the Lodge’s main office where Brenda and Dylan booked a cabin for the group to spend the night.

Once upon a time there were actually ten different cabins located on the Big Oaks property, but today there are only two and both of those cabins were featured in the “Camping Trip” episode. The 90210 gang stayed in the wood shingled lodge, which at the time of the filming was painted red, but is now a light grey color.

And the Newlyweds stayed in the rock cabin located directly next door.

And although a full exterior shot of the rock cabin was never shown during the episode, as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the front door still looks exactly the same today as it did during the filming. Love it! And I was very excited to find out that the real life interiors of both cabins were also used extensively in the episode. Unfortunately, though, the owner didn’t have his keys on him while we were there, so he was not able to take us on a tour of the cabins. 🙁 Next time!

The picnic table area in front of the Char House was used as the location where the gang fretted about Dylan and Brandon’s early morning disappearance.

The road in front of the Lodge and the main parking area showed up in the scene in which Brandon and Dylan return to the campsite after their little hiking mishap.

And finally, a large tree in the Lodge’s dirt parking lot – aka “Brandon’s tree” – was featured as the spot where Brandon contemplated life after his near death experience of almost falling off a cliff. So, of course, I just had to pose like him! 🙂

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A little bit of 90210 trivia for you – The highly dramatic scene where Dylan downed a few airplane bottles of liquor (pictured above) was not actually filmed at Big Oaks Lodge, but in the backyard of the real life Walsh house! Mike and I learned that little tidbit of information from the owner of Casa Walsh during our private tour of the home. 🙂 So cool!

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According to the Big Oaks Lodge website, the property has also been featured in the movies Frances, Enough, American Gun, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and in episodes of the television series Dynasty and Highway to Heaven, and in commercials for AT&T and Vonage. It’s a very cool place and I highly recommend stalking it, especially to fans of the original 90210!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Big Oaks Lodge from Beverly Hills, 90210 is located at 33101 Bouquet Canyon Road in Santa Clarita, just nine miles north of where Bouquet Canyon Road intersects with Plum Canyon Road. You can visit the Big Oaks Lodge website here. Cavi restaurant is open Wednesday through Sunday, beginning at 5 p.m. The Char House is open Saturdays and Sundays, starting at 11 a.m.