Photo Essay: The Wiltern Theatre, Public Areas

If the case of the Wiltern Theatre teaches us anything, it's that something that's very very far gone can still be saved.



I mean, this place had an approved demolition permit.



The demolition crews had arrived.



And, like a scene out of a Hollywood movie, preservationists threw their bodies in front of them in order to save this beloved Art Deco building.



The furniture (including the built-in theater seats) had been sold off.



There was a giant hole in the ceiling...



...and two feet of water covering the floor.



Somehow, this bygone movie palace (originally opened in 1931 as the Warner Western) was able to bounce back...



...and operate successfully over 80 years later as a popular concert and event venue...



...with many of its original details and ornamentation preserved...



...or, at least, reproduced.



From the moment you enter from under the glittering marquee soffit and those two gorgeous blade signs...



...you are struck by wall and ceiling murals...



...lighting fixtures illuminating gold leaf...



...with the beginning hints of streamline moderne.



The centerpiece of the lobby is the rotunda...



...now outfitted with LED lighting...



...and first restored in 1984 during the multi-million dollar effort to reopen the theater as a performance venue...



...once it had been saved from demolition in 1979.



Although many features have been repainted to their exact original specifications...



...the general color scheme of the vestibule, lobby areas, and auditorium are much more muted now...



...than the days when bright oranges and reds were used to counterbalance the black and white pallor of the silent film era.



Art Deco details abound in the public areas...



...including the walls of the ladies' lounge...



...and of the inner lobby...



...and balcony levels.



Even the plaster walls feature some raised details for added texture...



...even where color may be lacking.



Inside the auditorium...



...you get a view of the grilles that once housed a 4/37 Kimball pipe organ...



...long since dismantled, its parts sold off and given new life as pieces of other organs around the country.



The auditorium ceiling once featured nine skyscrapers, reflecting the growth of Wilshire Boulevard as the "new downtown" and an exciting new center of business...



...but unfortunately in the 1980s restoration, the design was simplified, and the number of skyscrapers reduced to seven.

I've actually been to the Wiltern twice for concerts and didn't notice a lot of these details, with the theater packed to the gills, and most of my attention directed at the performance on the stage. It never even occurred to me that it was appropriately named after the intersection it calls home, the Wil(shire)-(Wes)tern.

And it's such a staple in LA today, I had no idea the obstacles it had to overcome to survive the way that it has. It's inspiring to think it's never too late – that nothing is too far gone to be saved.

Maybe that means there's hope for some of the rest of us.

Stay tuned for photos from the off-limits areas of the Wiltern, including the projection booth, mechanical room, dressing rooms, and backstage.

Related Post:
Photo Essay: Open House at the Restored Alex Theatre, Magic Hour

EVENT: Talking Trash at the Burbank Recycle Center - with Obscura Society LA

Ever wonder where your trash goes?


Photo courtesy of Burbank Recycle Center

Join me & the Obscura Society LA as we delve into the world of hazardous waste – including common household items that contain environmentally dangerous levels of heavy metals and mercury – at the Burbank Recycle Center on September 4 at 10:30 a.m.


Photo courtesy of Burbank Recycle Center

From household electronics and batteries to fluorescent lights and even eyeglasses, we'll learn where the trash goes, and we'll even take away a recycled souvenir!


Photo courtesy of Burbank Recycle Center

The current Recycle Center opened in October 1992 and houses a Materials Recovery Facility, Buyback/Dropoff Center, Used Oil Center, Compost Corner, and Learning Center.


Photo courtesy of Burbank Recycle Center

On our tour, we'll view their worm and compost bins and many exhibits, one of which demonstrates what happens when pollutants are washed down storm drains.

Even if you're not a Burbank resident, you can bring your used motor oil, oil filters and rags, and antifreeze and see what happens to them after drop-off. The Recycle Center collects a swimming pool's worth of motor oil every year!

Notes for this adventure:
- The tour will begin promptly at 10:30 am.
- Our tour will include a Q&A session, so bring your curiosity and lots of questions!
- At least half of our tour will be outside, so please wear sun protection (sunglasses, hat, sunscreen) and be mindful of hot summer temperatures.
- This tour is kid- and family-friendly, but please no kids under ten.
- Closed toed shoes recommended.
- Plenty of parking in the free lot or on the street – or take the train to the Downtown Burbank Metrolink station, a 10 minute walk.

Tickets On Sale Now

Related Posts:

Photo Essay: Low Tide at Dead Horse Bay

Photo Essay: Hacienda Heights Trails, Landfill Adjacent

Photo Essay: Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant

Photo Essay: Burbank Water and Power Eco-Campus

These Unavoidable Regrets

I started this blog in 2006, though more seriously devoted time to it in 2007 and 8, concurrent with an ensuing existential crisis and then an actual life crisis that has been going seven years strong.

There's a reason why I called it "Avoiding Regret" and not something more definitive, like "No Regrets" or "Eliminating Regret," or not something more positive, like "Pursuing Beauty" or "Carpe Diem": because regret is always coming at you, from all directions, and all you can do is try to make the right decisions to dodge it. It looms, like an incoming tsunami. And, at some point, you can no longer run from it.

I suppose some people in their decision-making process consider, "Is this the right thing to do?" But I have never been guided much by morality, preferring pragmatism and a self-centered focus on my own feelings. I ask, "Will I regret this?" or, more likely, "Will I regret not doing this?"

I consider everything I say carefully. I act strategically. I edit and reedit my writing. I try to regret nothing.

But I have a whole life that I lived before 2006 that I must take responsibility for, in my younger days of foolish and reckless abandon, released out into the world after a sheltered childhood, unprepared for what I might encounter.

I didn't know how not to drink too much.

I didn't know how to respect myself.

I didn't know how to demand respect from others.

I didn't know how to find love, or be loved.

In those early days of adulthood, I made a lot of mistakes. I certainly seized the day, but probably too much. I seized everything within my grasp, everything offered to me – including too many drinks, a potent serving of crystal meth, and people who didn't belong to me.

My first boyfriend Seth was dating another girl when he first took me out. I knew this, but I accepted the date anyway, as well as the goodnight kiss. On our second date, he declared that he'd broken up with his girlfriend, and wanted to make me his girlfriend – an offer I accepted, not knowing that this was a lie and he was actually now dating us both.

I also didn't know that this would establish an inescapable trend in my dating life: I would never be the one; I would always be the other one.

Even before that, in high school, I would get these lines from guys that went something like "If I weren't dating __________, I would be dating you." But then when that guy would stop dating whats-her-name, he wouldn't run into my arms. He'd start dating some other girl, and there I was, still on the sidelines.

Seth taught me a terrible lesson: that guys could be lured away from their girlfriends, even just momentarily, even by a chubby, nerdy, inexperienced girl like myself. I gained much of my sexual experience with other girls' boyfriends, and, later, husbands. I started innocently enough, asking pointedly, "Do you love your girlfriend enough not to cheat on her with me?" and engaging in a subsequent makeout session that the guy would ultimately regret and sometimes the girlfriend would even discover. It got worse as time went on, as guys got older and more willing, and as The Taken Ones pursued me more enthusiastically than any single guys ever had, and possibly ever would.

At the time, I didn't care. In each case, I blamed the guy. After all, he was the cheater. I was lonely and unloved – and available! – looking for affection wherever I could find it. I had no integrity, because I was desperate to fill the void, even with something that didn't belong to me.

Even when I thought that I was finally a girlfriend again, it turned out I was Freddy's other woman, unbeknownst to me until his actual girlfriend introduced herself to me. I did the right thing and broke up with him then, but only because I felt cheated on. If he'd been upfront with me about the girlfriend but wanted to be with me too, I probably would have permitted it, because I would've been willing to accept a shared love, any love.

After all, as the other woman, at least I always knew I wasn't the only one. It was a choice I could make.

But those girlfriends out there didn't have that advantage.

I always saw the girlfriends and wives of the men I attracted as the enemy, perhaps because they had what I wanted, or they had gotten there first, or they were keeping all the good ones to themselves, and out of circulation for the rest of us.

Now, I realize: I was the enemy.

I've done some very bad things in my life, to a lot of people I didn't even know. Most of it was meaningless and brief, but on occasion, it was repeated and extensive. The only three men from my past that I've ever loved were committed to some other woman at some point in our relationship, while they were also with me.

Since moving to LA, I've tried to spurn the inevitable advances of the taken ones, but when your loneliness is killing you, it's not easy to choose to be alone. I've relapsed a couple of times, but not at all for the last two years. I'm not proud, but it's progress.

Earlier this year, there was a wedding I could've tried to stop, but I didn't. I'm going to give that girl her chance to be happy with a great guy. He doesn't really want to be with me anyway. At least, not now.

The thing is, out of all of those people I've hurt in the past by trying to find some love for myself, the person I've hurt most of all is me. I now have no faith in humanity. I can't trust anyone. Even as I start to date someone who's wonderful, who says he wants to be with me, who says he has no intention of doing anything with anyone else, I cannot help but think of all of the other women who are out there who are just like me, waiting in the wings for their chance. And how I wish they would just give me my chance to be happy with a great guy, finally, after waiting my whole life, all this time for someone who thinks they could love me.

This is my comeuppance.

I have done this to myself.

I have turned men who were not cheaters into cheaters, and now I think they all are.

And somehow, I think that I deserve to be cheated on, in exchange for what I've done.

These regrets cannot be avoided.

Related Posts:
My Regretful Past
Upon the Disappointing Lack of a Mayan Apocalypse
Disappointments, I've Had a Few...
Black Swan, and The View from Behind First Place
Not My Kind of Friend
My Public Shame
Mine, All Mine

Getting Back on Track

It's so easy to get derailed in this life.

There are slings and arrows coming from every direction, and next thing you know, you wake up covered in cheese dust with swollen eyes and salt-stained cheeks, on sheets you haven't changed in months, because who would notice?

For those of us who are particularly sensitive to the vibrations of the universe around us, it's hard enough to stay on track during one of life's tumultuous events, like a lost job or a lost love. But when love is gone, friends are far, money is tight, work can't be found, the bed is empty, the bank is empty, the gas tank is empty, and all you feel is physical pain and heartache, how can you not think that all is lost?

I was never going to love again.

I was never going to work again.

I was going to lose my apartment, and have nowhere to go.

I was going to gain all of that weight back. It had already started to happen.

I didn't wish for any of these things, but I'd lost control over all of them, and as though in a dream, all I could do was watch the events as they unfolded. I couldn't stop them. I could only make the predictions and try to prepare myself for the worst.

Sometimes, you can't steer or brake or maneuver yourself out of a crash. You just have to duck for cover.

I've been so lonely and isolated for so long – sure, for my whole life, but particularly these last few months. When I'm working and have got some money, I manage to socialize with strangers, though it never fills the vacancy of the close friends that are back East, with whom phone conversations are too few, and the distance grows greater as our in person visits become more infrequent. But when times are tight and I don't know how I'll pay the next month's rent, all I can do is hunker down, try not to spend any money, or break anything, or get sick or hurt, in the body, the heart, or the mind.

I don't know what happened on the earth or in the stars in early July, three months after the shit hit the fan in my life in a perfect storm of life-altering crises, but things started to change.

On Independence Day, a couple of friends gave me the one thing I needed the most: they reached out, spent time with me, and just listened.

A shift ensued.

The next week, I started an eight week group therapy session that started helping me untwist my thoughts, and feel like I'm not the only one who thinks them.

The same day, like a gift from the Universe, I met someone who has given me hope, and who has helped put my heart back together, even just a few pieces at a time.

Since then, I've lost seven pounds. I've sold more photos and more writing. My unemployment went through.

And it looks as though I might actually work again.

I'm not back on track yet, but I'm getting there. For some reason, in addition to my persistent depression, I have more anxiety now than I've ever had before, and I've got to figure out how to manage that. But I've been happy to wake up in the morning more than a few times (particularly when there's someone to wake up to). And that's really something.

The thing is...

...when it's going well,

it's so scary,

because suddenly I've got something to lose again. 

I can do bad; I'm used to bad.

But please don't take this good away from me...

Related Posts:
The Forever Now
Feeding the Multitudes
My Time Has Passed

EVENT: Classic Cars & Musical Instruments That Play Themselves - with Obscura Society LA

Here's another chance to join me on an adventure: to the Nethercutt Collection of classic cars and musical automata, on Thursday August 28 at 1 p.m.



J.B. Nethercutt was an intrepid car collector who decided to take over the business that his aunt founded, Merle Norman Cosmetics. Somehow car restoration and cosmetics went hand-in-hand (even selling nail polish in the same shade as some of his restored cars), and as the beauty business grew, so did his car collection. And not only cars, but also a curious collection of antique musical instruments.



Join me and the Los Angeles Obscura Society as we explore this rare collection of antique and vintage automobiles which includes 30 of the finest automobiles of the 1910s, 20s and 30s, as well as pristine Post-War examples like a lowrider with hydraulics, an early model electric car, and Delorean.



Continuing our time warp into a bygone era, we'll also visit the upstairs Music Room to peruse Nethercutt's collection of gramophones, music boxes, player pianos, nickelodeons, orchestrions, and other musical instruments that literally play themselves.



Amidst these automated mechanisms, we'll get to hear the largest Mighty Wurlitzer organ of its kind on the West Coast, fully equipped with strange Hollywood sound effects like doorbells, alarms, train whistles, and wind.



For those wanting to make a day of it, arrive early for a self-guided tour of the Nethercutt Museum (free!) to view the 1937 Canadian Pacific Royal Hudson Locomotive and 1912 Pullman Private Car across the street! Both attractions close at 4:30 p.m.

Notes for this adventure:
- This is a Thursday day time event (1 pm to 3:30 pm).
- Allow for plenty of travel time: Sylmar is 30 miles north of LA metro and travel time can take up to an hour in traffic.
- Unfortunately we cannot wait for latecomers - we must start on time!
- Free parking is available in the large lot adjacent to the Nethercutt Museum across the street, or on the street.
- Only water is permitted on site. No food or beverages are sold on site.
- Photography is allowed in the Collection, but please – no touching!
- Sorry, no children under 12.
- Dress in layers: Sylmar can get very hot in the summer, but it will be cool inside the collections's building.
- Handicapped Accessible.

Tickets Available Now

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: The Cars of the Nethercutt Museum & Collection
Photo Essay: The Musical Instruments of the Nethercutt Collection

You Can't Always Get What You Want

It's true, you can't always get what you want.

But you'll never get it if you don't ask for it.

And I've spent so long being so very afraid of asking for what I want.

I have not had a committed, exclusive relationship with anyone – a "boyfriend" – since 1995. (And even then, it's still questionable whether he was still dating his last girlfriend when he started dating me.) Back then, it was so easy: at the end of our first date, Seth asked, "Do you want to be my girlfriend?" and I said "Yes." And for the next month before leaving for my study abroad program in London, we spent every night together, sleeping separately but making out in cars and getting kicked off the beach at night and going to the movies and thrashing around in his parents' pool. I didn't have to ask for it. I didn't have to ask for any of it. It just happened, and it was understood.

Years passed, as I finished college and moved to New York City, where no one seems to go on dates but everyone seems to have a girlfriend. I couldn't figure out how to become one myself – to get nominated, elected, knighted, canonized into the position. Was it a contest? A fight? A treasure hunt? A vision quest?

I wanted to be Freddy's girlfriend. For a while I actually thought I was, but I never said it, and he never said it. And then I found out that I wasn't his girlfriend at all: I was the other woman. Although he went out with me in public, to parties and clubs, he had another girl at home, who knew his kids, who spent Thanksgiving with him.

I wanted to be Phil's girlfriend. I never said it to him, but he knew, and countered it by telling me he just didn't imagine us as a couple. When I asked "why?" and he didn't answer, I didn't persist. I knew he thought that settling down was settling. Despite telling me that he loved me (not that he was in love with me) in those late drunken hours, I knew he only thought of me as a friend with benefits, though he didn't actually say it until 16 years after first kissing me. I'd held out hope that whole time, making no demands. Catch as catch can.

I wanted to be Dylan's girlfriend, and I thought that might happen once I moved to LA, where he already lived, but somehow while I was busy getting a job and setting up my move, some other girl wedged herself in between us. I didn't fight it. I just waited for my turn. But my turn never came, and they're married now.

It feels a bit silly now, after all these years, pushing 40 years old, to still talk about having a boyfriend and being a girlfriend. After all, I'm a grown-ass woman. I can have a lover. A partner. A soulmate. A companion.

But whatever you call it, I still don't want to share.

I still don't want to be shared.

Can't we just try you and me for a while? Just you and me? I'm not asking for forever, I'm just asking to try.

Because I know what I want, and I want to be yours.

At least I'm finally asking, rather than just accepting whatever comes my way.

Related Posts:
The Love I Deserve
Let Me Love You
Try To Love

Love Is the Drug

After having pretty much totally given up on love and marriage (though I still give myself the hope to have sex now and then), I felt the butterflies again, and I thought I'd been reborn.

Suddenly, my life was no longer half over. I still had half of my life left to love.

The fireworks were breathtaking and intense, heart-pounding and spectacular, but all too quick.

I am an addict, so I couldn't get enough.

I can never get enough.

And although you'd think that this little taste of love, this renewed passion, may have set me on a course of Sandi getting her groove back, it's done exactly the opposite.

This ostrich is putting its head back in the sand.

This armadillo is rolling up into a ball to protect its soft middle.

I'm not strong enough for this. My heart can't bear breaking anymore.

I didn't want to do this again. I didn't ask for this. I wanted it to be over. I wanted my time to have passed. If I could accept that, then I could move on, instead of loving people who would never love me back, instead of chasing a smidgen of love which is so much less than I deserve.

Yes, I know I deserve love, and to be loved. But I don't think it's ever going to happen. So I'd like to just move on now, please.

I want to stop waiting for the phone to buzz.

I want to stop wondering what's wrong with me, and feeling that I'm not good enough.

I want to stop trying. I try so damn hard.

I just want it all to stop.

Those brief high moments of pleasure are not worth the terrible crashes in between, the horrible lows of sleepless nights and swollen eyes and empty arms, and a heart that aches not only for this one, but for every him and her before.

But I am an addict, and I have a taste for a particular kind of drug, a particular kind of love that does me no good in the long run.

And as much as I want to maintain my sobriety from it, there is no dealer I can stop calling. There is no anonymous support group or rehab center. There is no specific place to avoid encountering it. Just when I think I've successfully run away from it, or it's gone away on its own, I get a fleeting vision of it, pick up its scent, and hunt it down, jettisoning me off the wagon once more.

I can't help myself.

I've been struggling with a reason to get up in the morning most of my life. I still wonder what makes life worth living. And the one thing I can point to as the most likely answer – love – is the one thing that will lead to my ultimate undoing.

You cannot live for the drug, for the drug does not live for you.

Related Post:
Feast or Famine
This Addictive Life
The Worst That Could Happen

Pinning It Down

Sometimes I like to do something or go someplace just to take pictures of it.

Sure, it might be interesting in and of itself, but somehow the thrill, for me, comes out of the documentation of it.

Let me show you what it's really like.

I mean, how many people get to learn how to pin insects? How many people have held real butterfly wings in their hands, and gotten the dust of their scales all over their fingertips?

Traditionally you would imagine these tiny silver pins with little flat silver pinheads, but we were using pins topped with a circus blue ball, making for a particularly spectacular carnival affair...



...even if the specimens looked a bit drab from the outside.



Before any pinning started, the first thing we had to do was hold the moth by its thorax (sort of the middle of its body) and pull all of its legs off. 

The legs were then cast aside, and oh God, the carnage.



We had styrofoam boards for mounting, and gently eased a pin through the thorax...



...as we used our fingers and heavy paper stock to ease the wings open, and reveal a bit more color.



I had a feisty one, so I had to cross-pin its rear end down to keep it from sticking straight up....



...in addition to pinning just outside of each wing in four corners to create that perfect "V" shape.



Finally, the antennae were also cross-pinned down so that they would lie flat, being careful not to yank them off (which meant you'd have to glue them back on).



Those pins suddenly looked huge with an even smaller specimen, whose wings were more likely to tear and whose antennae just would not lie flat.



Finally, I got to choose my last specimen: a reddish and green shiny beetle...



...with an impressive wing display...



...but which was shockingly wet, and rather stinky to smell.



With such a pronounced body and such tiny legs, it's hard to pin a bug like this without making him look like he's been thrown into a ball pit.

Maybe I should've spread his wings. Maybe I should've laid him on his back?

I left my specimens behind at the workshop, because once I'd pinned and mounted them, and once I'd taken all the photos I could muster under low lighting conditions (saved only by the torch on my cell phone), I was done with them.

It felt like a waste, those dead bugs sacrificed, only to be discarded. I was embarrassed for them, their wings and legs being repositioned, body parts being torn off, or falling off on their own. The humiliation seemed to serve no purpose but my own temporal pleasure. I wasn't doing it for science, as many insect pinners have before me. I wasn't really even doing it for art.

I was just doing it to say I did it, as I have done many other things before.

And for what?

Related Posts:
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Photo Essay: Moore Laboratory of Zoology, Closed to Public

I Said I Wouldn't Go Back

...unless it was to bring a group.


Photo by Todd Eric Andrews

So I returned to the ghost shipwreck, despite the arduous hike to it, despite the hot summer weather and the sun beating down.



I had first visited the wreckage of the Shipwreck Dominator during LA's annual May Gray season, a cloudy, overcast marine layer that the drought took away from us this year.



That meant I had the chance to return with some better lighting and lead my own group.



I saw things I hadn't seen before.



The dead, empty lobster shells along the rocks are a reminder of the impact that the Dominator's wreck had on the environment of Rocky Point...



...when it's wheat cargo absorbed the seawater and expanded into a gloppy oatmeal, attracting the flies which attracted the lobsters which attracted the fishermen.



You can still see a few fisherman (and their poles) down there these days...



...and although the tide was a little higher this time than last...



...I think I still discovered new pieces of wreckage that I hadn't seen before, perhaps brought in with the tide and never taken back out to sea.



Although it's not far, it's not an easy walk out there...



...and two people didn't make it all the way. But it felt like we had all really experienced something together, despite our sore ankles, fatigue and sunburn. And we were all grateful for that, and for the chance to make some new friends who share our love for adventure and discovery.

For the official event recap on AtlasObscura.com, click here.

Related Posts:
EVENT: Shipwrecked! With Obscura Society LA
Photo Essay: Hike to a Ghost Shipwreck