Thursday, July 2, 2015

iT'S STreeT arT THurSDay! and Malibu picture of the day - Thursday, July 2, 2015

Dear Street Art Lovers, Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers:

Today we venture back up on the main drag of Thai Town, one of the other alter egos of East Hollywood. The Thai Town business district is pretty much Hollywood Blvd. between Vermont and Wilton.

Artist: many, Dens in the Head, 2015, paint on cement. 





















This work has NOTHING to do with Thai-American culture. It just sits in Thai Town. There is so much on this one wall just off The Blvd. across from Sapp Coffee House that I'm going to bust this one up over three days. Today we'll start off with a bang and show you the two "character" studies that are here. We 've got this rather Grinch-like fellow. His cap announces his identity as "Dens" and there's what looks like a twitter address @denseinthehead.

That is some crazy barren landscape behind him--I'm guessing either a roiling salt flat or a ice-encrusted  turbulence. Sorry about the shadows. It just happened to be that time of day when I got out of the car.


Dens has a companion Ratso pictured here. This guy look strangely familiar, but I think I'm imposing Ed Roth's Rat Fink and Robert Crumb's Mickey the Rat onto this fellow. I'd call Roth and Crumb both underground artists, so yeah, they're pretty strong influences on street artists whether the street guys know it or not.

These appear on the walls of an apartment building, but it's a continuation of a production piece that starts from the commercial building on the corner and heads down the street.
Rat Fink Art
Ed Roth's Rat Fink

Image result for mickey the rat
R. Crumb's Mickey the Rat
These guys look so evil and demented, and yet they look cuddly and adorable in their own way at the same time. It's pretty schizoid. I guess the colors are so bright and cheery--you can't help loving them, can't you?

I also realized that I didn't get a picture of the whole durn thing (though it will be highly foreshortened), but I'll make a pass back this week or next since I'm letting this out in pieces.

Here's a little bit of context for "Mr. Grinch." How would you like coming home to this every night before mounting the stairs into your apartment. This guy probably scares a lot of evil spirits away, so thank him.

I mentioned the Sapp Coffee Shop. I ducked into this place when it was raining hard one day this last winter. A friend had mentioned she liked the pad thai there. I had a hot chicken soup, it was great.




If you are the kind of person who likes to judge an ethnic Asian restaurant by the number of Asians eating there, this is your new joint. It was continually crowded and the call-ahead-takeout was just nonstop, not just by "narrow-eyed" guys like me, but actual ethnic Thai people. I know the Thai language when I hear it, and they were all speaking it.

The pod mall it's in is just as run-down as this sign would imply. Do check it out, but you might have to wait for a table. It's called a "coffee shop" but I don't think I saw ANYONE drinking coffee (and it would have seemed highly inappropriate too).


If you're new to Thai food served in an authentic way, it's pretty damn hot-spicy. A Thai friend of mine told me that at least in her family, spicing thing up was a way to hide the strong taste and smell of animal tissue (fish) that was starting to turn. I wonder if this is just a white-person slam that got internalized. (I've certainly heard this before.) There is no shortage of seafood in Thailand; you just eat what you caught that day. If your fish is bad, go get another damn one. I don't know about you, if I lived someplace where a dozen kinds of spices readily grew, I'd use them too.

AND NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED SEASCAPE:












Well, I hope you have nice plans to celebrate the Fourth of July. There will be no Friday posting because I will on holiday. So have a good one and we'll see you Monday.

Oh, and here's sort of what it looked like when I left around 9 last night. I love when the moon puts a track on the ocean. There was still some vestige of sunlight even at that late hour, here so close to the solstice--it was not quite midnight black in the west yet.


Love,
Pops











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