Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Taking kids to a cemetery for an outing may seem like an odd parenting choice.  As an odd parent, I’d like to take a few moments and explain my logic in doing so. As someone who hangs my hat in Southern California, I am well aware that we have a wealth of kid-friendly options.  I could have dropped a few hundred dollars on a trip to Disneyland. We could have gone bouncing around in an indoor playground if avoiding the sun had been our objective.  Jacque may be a little young, but I’m sure that one of our nice, upwardly mobile neighbors could have recommended an SAT prep class. However, aside from being an odd parent, I’m also an old one.  I’m fortunate that my kids joined me in the second half of my life. Truth be told, it was because of my experiences during the first half that a visit to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery seemed like the perfect place to spend a warm September morning.

As I see it, there is a disturbing trend where parents make decisions for their kids based off of the notion that if we start early enough, and plan carefully enough, and make sure that we monitor each step along the prescribed pathway precisely, their lives will be a success.  As long we as keep them in our line of sight, there will be nothing but sunny days and light offshore breezes ahead. For our efforts, we’ll get bright children who are respectful and get into the best schools. They’ll spend their weekends at Coachella where they can rebel in ways that parents approve of.  They’ll grow up to be little marvels with great jobs and big houses. They’ll be little jewels whose dazzling light will make mommy and dad shine that much brighter. The problem is that this parenting style leaves the kids only equipped for fair weather. We owe them more than just making them a playing piece in a game Keeping Up with the Jones.

Aside from that, the problem is that the squeeze we’ve put on kids is rushing them through the most important parts of life, like the self-discovery that comes with becoming an educated person.  Schools are a place where we worry more about molding them into good workers than allowing them to become interesting people. We’re gauging success based off of quantifiable data.  If wisdom about how to be a fulfilled person can’t be reported on a spreadsheet, it isn’t worth much. We’ve seemed to have forgotten that an education in the Arts is about understanding the things that make life matter.

As much as I want nothing but happiness for my kids, I have learned that there is going to be a moment in every person’s life when the world hands you your ass. If there is an algorithm for working through heartbreak, I am fairly certain that a career on the fast track is not part of it.  Despite all the plotting and planning, regardless of the scramble and the climb, we cannot escape that one day, we will all have an opportunity to get shellacked by the universe. It doesn’t matter if you’re an optometrist or a dentist, the fair weather your parents filled your sails with can’t last forever.  It’s in those quiet lonely moments when there is just the memory of failure that salvation will be found. And it will be the Arts that pave the pathway out of gloom and into meaning and understanding.

And that’s what brought us here.  We stopped by the Hollywood Forever Cemetery so I could pay my respects to a few gentlemen who kept me company during my own moments of despair.  I can see what my fellow parents are attempting to do. However, in my own case, I think that it’s better for me to equip my kids with some resources for when the great machine turns over.  Part of those resources will be grounded in an appreciation of the Arts. It does not matter how far they drop or how dark it seems to be, some human being has been there before.

This post is based on a visit to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on September 15, 2018

Hollywood Forever Cemetery

6000 Santa Monica Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90038

323 469-1181

Interested in visiting some of Los Angeles’ history? Take a look at Angel’s Flight or the USS Iowa. Interested in taking your kids somewhere unusual? Take a look at Tio’s Tacos or the Huy Fong Foods Factory Tour.

The California State Railroad Museum

The California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento has something to appeal to all of its visitors.  Any train enthusiast will be dazzled by the collection. Opened in 1981, they have amassed nineteen steam locomotives that are kept in immaculate condition.  With polished brass and stained wood, they look as sharp as the day they were first wheel out of the factory. For kids, it offers lots of hands-on opportunities and plenty of walk through exhibits as well as a collection of model trains upstairs.  For really little kids, there is a room full of Thomas the Tank Engine wooden trains they are allowed to play with. Any surly teenagers who have been dragged along on a family outing should be able to appreciate that the collection is indoors and climate controlled allowing for a comfortable place to wander despite the worst that Sacramento weather can deal out.  As striking as the collection is however, it really is a place that gets beyond just the celebration of machinery. The museum’s displays are well thought out and weave in a very human story among its exhibits. It’s a place that will leave anyone who loves trains satisfied, but it uses the trains to tell the stories of people that could have been lost in time.

The first exhibit in the hall tells the story of the First Intercontinental Railway and culminates with the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah.  While the obvious choice would have been to focus on Leland Stanford, the museum carefully includes the story of the Chinese who made his vision a reality. Depending on who is telling the story, Leland Stanford was either a captain of industry and a robber baron.  In his lifetime, he built a vertically integrated empire that involved the railroads, banking, insurance, as well as an international steamship operation. He would eventually command enough political capital to serve as the governor of California for two years. On paper, he is the type of person a free market capitalists would celebrate.  While he may be credited with being one of the masterminds behind the First Transcontinental Railroad, the reality is that his efforts would have gone nowhere without exploiting workers. During his time as governor, he spoke out publicly against the influx of Chinese into the United States of America. At the same time, he knowingly imported Chinese laborers and used them to complete the crowning achievement of his empire.  The museum makes sure that their story is not left out.

At the entry of the exhibit, a life sized diorama features the locomotive The Gov Stanford, a Central Pacific locomotive used in the construction of the Intercontinental Railroad. It looks dazzling as it sits poised on the tracks, waiting to pass through a mountain tunnel that appears to still be under construction.  Nearby are three nameless Chinese laborers, hanging off the side of a mountain as they carve through stone in order to make Leland Stanford’s dream of connecting the United States of America a reality. The end of that exhibit features a painting by Thomas Hill called The Last Spike. Completed in 1881, Hill included two Chinese laborers at the center of the painting.  Both men lean on shovels and look at the powerful men congratulating themselves while standing on the backs of others.

Chinese workers are not the only people who the museum celebrates.  In the back of the roundhouse, the museum displays two walk through Pullman Coaches.  Finely appointed, visitors can get a feel for the level of opulence travelers once experienced.  The sleeper car actually rocks to provide the sensation of riding down the rails. In the dining car, tables are set with fine china where passengers dined as the countryside slipped by.  Quite honestly, travel in a Pullman car seems like it would be a wonderful way to cross the country.

However, that level of elegance came at a very human cost.  One person was commissioned to look after the passengers’ needs.  He was required to be constantly available and permanently invisible.  Those in his care would refer to him as George, the same name as his employer, George Pullman.  Much like Leland Stanford, George Pullman built an empire on cheap labor. Seeking a way to market luxury train travel to the middle class, he sought out former slaves to provide travelers with a sense of opulence by railroad providing them with a devoted servant for the duration of the trip. Porters were required to work long days and sacrifice their own identities in order for the middle class to feel some of the creature comforts. The workers relied on tips because the wages paid their employer were low.

The two cars are remarkably well preserved and could easily cause a visitor to get nostalgic for the good old days.  However, the museum makes sure to include African American mannequins integrated into the exhibit in order serve as a reminder of the army of men who worked long hours for low pay on the trains.  

The California Railroad Museum would be a great outing just based on the strength of its collection.  However, the fact that it does not attempt to sweeten the past is really what really makes it a museum instead of just a display of archaic machinery.  

This article is based on a visit to the California State Railroad Museum on March 4, 2019.

California State Railroad Museum

125 I Street

Sacramento, CA 95814

916 445-7387

Interested in seeing trains? When in Southern California, make sure to visit Angel’s Flight and The Great Train Show when it touches down at that Fairplex in Pomona.

Valley of Fire State Park

One day, a historian will write a book about our slice of the twenty-first century and will identify right now as the moment when people lost any sense of a nuanced approach to their dealings.  It does not matter if it’s an opinion about the president, or a Yelp review of Moons Over My Hammy, the best we can manage is to say that things are either entirely great, or wretchedly terrible.  The majority of people are only carrying two crayons in their boxes. One is black and the other one is white. While I am busy throwing stones at the rest of humanity, I will go ahead and plead guilty of the same binary approach to thinking.  

Take my thoughts about the city of Las Vegas, for example.  I have been more than content to shrug that city off based on my limited interactions with it.  To me, Las Vegas is nothing more than a town built to dispense little units of pre-programmed joy.  Every day, swarms descend looking for a recharge and the machinery running Las Vegas provides exactly what the robots need to be happy.  A wonderland covered in sparkle and light, Las Vegas is a city that specializes in too much drink, too much food, and too much gaming. Thankfully, my wife convinced me to look past the obvious Las Vegas offerings on our latest outing.  If I would have relied on my own lazy thinking, we would have missed a chance to see the marvel that is Valley of Fire State Park.

The Valley of Fire is a remarkable contrast to the obvious Las Vegas fare.  Don’t look for smoky casinos filled with people who failed math as they bet it all on black. Starting with the hour long drive north, all the trappings of a major city slip away. Despite its close proximity to endless jumbo shrimp cocktails, there was little more that endless blue skies without a cell phone tower or powerline in sight.   Entry into the park is only ten dollars per carload making it one of the best values around. Valley of Fire Highway snakes through the park and offers several places to turn out and explore.

While the Ancestral Puebloan people who once claimed it have moved on in the shuffle of history, they left their mark on the land in the form of the petroglyphs they left behind.  There are several locations to see them but the most accessible is at Atlatl Rock near the entrance of the park. Ringed by a parking lot and an RV campground, Atlatl Rock is a monolith jutting up from the dry, red sand and features 3000 year old petroglyphs.   High atop the rock, carved into the face of the red stone, there are pictures of people and long horned sheep. They are also supposed to include the depiction of an atlatl, a hunting tool that predates the bow and arrow. It is a staggering thing to see and still I am moved by the gravity of being able to show them to my kids.  I could see these markings being left by a party of hunters as they bided their time, waiting for a herd of sheep to pass through the valley. For the convenience of visitors, the park offers a staircase directly to the rocks. Aside from the petroglyphs, the observation stand also offers commanding view of the park. While the access to the carvings is remarkable, it has had its price.  While the stairs allow curious people to take in the wonder of the artifacts, they have been damaged by visitors over time.

Only a few miles down the road from Atlatl Rock lay the Seven Sisters.  Once again, the Nevada State Park Service does a tremendous job of accommodating visitors with parking and picnic tables.  The Seven Sisters, a group of red rock formations is an ideal place to bring kids and let them run wild. The formations became castles and cathedrals for my kids as they climbed and played.  It was absolute rocket fuel for imagination. The Seven Sisters was the antithesis to the obvious pleasure center activities in the Strip. Only 54 miles away, a giant jumbotron flashed advertisement for French Canadian acrobats and buffets, my kids were lost in a world of their own creation.

All totaled, we were only able to spend a few hours in the park.  Our stops and simple hikes amounted to us seeing only a fraction of the Valley of Fire.  Weather permitting, I could see returning many more times in the future. My enthusiasm for the park made me reconsider my opinions about Las Vegas as a vacation destination.  While I may still not be excited about the bright lights and wretched excess of the Strip, I would say that I am now more included to seek out some of the quieter, more subtle places in Nevada.  

Anyone considering a trip out to the Valley of Fire should plan head.  Bring food and water because there are no concessions inside the park. The only place to get food is at a truckstop just outside the entrance.

This entry was based on a visit to the Valley of Fire on December 27, 2019

Valley of Fire State Park

29450 Valley of Fire Highway

Overton, NV 89040

Interested in dusty adventure? If you’re ever in Utah, book a trip with Dreamland Safari.

USS Iowa - San Pedro, California

Despite the blue skies and the warm weather, a visit to the USS Iowa is hardly a care-free trip to the seaside. Billed as a floating museum, the decommissioned battleship serves as a sobering reminder of the real cost of being a free country.  At first glance, the ship seems massive as it rises high above its dock and lords over the harbor. Even in peacetime, the Iowa was intended to be a dramatic show of force brandishing no less than nine, sixteen-inch guns. Once a part of United States diplomacy, battleships were the big stick that Teddy Roosevelt was referring to.  Moored in San Pedro, California, it now serves as a permanent display and a reminder of the sacrifices people have made to uphold the ideals upon which the United States was founded.

Before climbing aboard, the Iowa seems mountainous.  However, its size becomes unbelievably small when one moves through the tight spaces and steep staircases.  Cramped and unwelcoming, the warren of walkways really help to provide a context for the daily demands a sailor faed that a history book cannot.  The reality of what it means to serve became all too evident when touring the ship.

Sailors on the Iowa sacrificed comfort and any level of personal autonomy.    At 800 feet long and 100 feet wide, this ship was everything to them. This is where they ate.  This is where they slept. This is where they stood watch and fought. This is where they dreamed about being back home.  This is quite possibly the place where they had the best and the worst moments of their lives. Sailors woke up, stacked three high in their bunks.  From that moment on, they did not have a second of personal privacy. During World War II, a full crew was more than 2000 people strong. It is clear that to serve on a battleship would mean being jammed in shoulder to shoulder. Creature comforts like personal space and privacy we non existent as they put themselves deliberately in harm's way as they pushed back against Fascism and Imperialism.  Far from home, sailing through the dark nights, being tossed by rough seas as they pursued their enemies, there was no guarantee that they would ever see home again. The Iowa saw combat all through the Pacific, even managing to survive two kamikaze attacks. The level of trust those crews had to have for each other is staggering to consider. The only way that any of them would be able to get home would be if each and every one of them did his job.  

The mission of those first crews wasn’t much different from many of those sailors who followed.  Peacetime service did not mean any less danger. In 1989, the Iowa became one of the worst non-combat disasters when 47 sailors died, killed by an explosion in one of the turrets.  Despite the risks of personal safety, the hope of any of those crews was that their sacrifice would help preserve the security of their home, a place where the citizens created a government dedicated to preserving their freedoms.  The fact that the democratic experiment continues to exist for almost 250 years is in large part because of the men and women who are willing to put their lives on hold and to criss cross the globe in an attempt to help generations of people who they would never meet.

Considering the human cost, it's no wonder why when coming aboard the USS Iowa, every visitor is asked if he or she served.  Service members have their names and dates of service announced over the loudspeakers. It is a welcome home and a small gesture of thanks to others who have given years of their lives to be in similar situations. While it may be a small thing it did not go unnoticed.

This post was written after a visit to the USS Iowa on August 12, 2018.

USS Iowa

250 S Harbor Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90731

877 446-9261

Looking for other places with big machinery? When in Sacramento, pay a visit to The California State Railroad Museum.

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater

Los Angeles is a deeply conflicted city.  Bukowski recognized it. So did Wambaugh. X’s Los Angeles is hardly a love song to the city of Angels.  Even Miley Cyrus took time to reflect on how vapid and unfriendly a place it can be. It’s a place that manufactures images of perfection and sells them to the world, but stumbles over its ability to improve itself.  For all of its sunshine and warmth, it’s an inhospitable place full of strangers. It wants to be palm tree lined streets and clean lines, an ideal attempting to emulate a Nagel print. However, what lies beneath is a decaying metropolis, almost completely absent of joy.  

Here comes the hype man.

Be ready to sit on the floor.

And yet, while it is a city of brooding unhappiness, it is also home to The Bob Baker Marionette Theater.  For fifty-five years, the theater company has offered up a place where families can come in and shake off the weight of the city.  What happens in that little concrete building sitting in a fold between the high rises of downtown and Echo Park is pure magic. It’s a place where puppeteers transport a room full of children on an afternoon of wonder with little more than their collected imaginations.  It is one of those very special places where even the worst in life can be corrected with nothing more than some laughter and a little bit of ice cream.

In late July, the editorial staff of Animated Meat headed out with children in tow in order to experience the Bob Baker Marionette Theater at their 1st Street location.  What we found was absolutely amazing. A performance by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater is remarkable because they are able to produce so much from a few simple ingredients. There is nothing more to be found than a capable crew of puppeteers, a pre-recorded soundtrack, and a room full of kids.  That’s it. And yet, when the lights dim and the first puppet steps out front and center, something special goes on in that space. It’s a kind of magic where the outside world and all of its troubles cease to be.

All of this joy is about to be released onto the streets of Los Angeles.

With an ever changing parade of puppets over the course of the show, it is evident that the late Mr. Baker understood a child’s attention and knew how to feed the sense of awe, with princesses, robots, dancers, and monsters, all twirling and moving to songs recorded in a bygone era.  Every weekend, the theater company welcomed another group of children and entertained them without the slightest shred of irony or cynicism. There is no cool here. Brownie points are not awarded for being clever or cutting. Unlike companies like Disney who have figured out how to maximize profits, the Bob Baker Marionette theater only charged fifteen dollars for a show.  The only thing for sale is a five dollar marionette. The constant push to maximize the profit margin does not exist within these four walls. It is an art produced for one reason, to delight children and provide them some shelter from a harsh city that has provided very few safe harbors.

Rules we should all be able to abide by.

Over the course of his life, Bob Baker made several thousand puppets. These ones were stored in one of the hallways.

These puppets are set to perform at the Halloween Spooktacular.

Currently, the company is in a state of flux, opting to shut their doors and become a puppet show in residency for the time being.  For the next few months, people can catch a show at the Southern California Children’s Museum in Pasadena. However, they just announced a new, permanent home on York Avenue in Highland Park.  The proposed theater will be created from unrealized designs drawn out by Bob Baker himself. While the news sounds optimistic, I can’t help but think that the potential loss of this theater says so much about the value this era and this city puts on children.  It’s jarring to consider that something so special and necessary to the common good of a conflicted place like Los Angeles has such an uncertain future. Los Angeles would be a sadder, grimmer place without it.

Jacque giving his two cents on the staging of this photo.

Jacque was telling me about the composition of this sign and how the color played off the black background. Kids say the darndest things.

Interest in seeing a show?  Follow this link. Aside from being a spectacular place to let a kid’s imagination run wild, it is also a 501 C3 non-profit organization. Interesting in making a donation?  Follow this link.

Portrait of the artist preparing to fly away.

Bob Baker Marionette Theater

4949 York Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90042
213 250-9995

Looking for some unique places to take kids? When in Hollywood, pay a visit to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. In Nevada, make sure to stop at Valley of Fire State Park.