20 Years of Hellboy!

Hell Boy?  Who knew the following was this big.  A few weekends ago, Yosiell was selected to include a piece in the show, so we took a very quick forty-eight hour trip to LA for the Twentieth Anniversary Hellboy show at 2020 Gallery in Culver City.  

Road Trip

Way too early for a Friday morning. 

The gallery space is way too small for the 100 plus artists displaying Hell Boy interpretations and for the crowd attending the opening.  The gallery space was also way too stifling for the ubiquitous heat in this population dense city.   Wall to wall people was the order of the evening in the space.  

The creator of Hell Boy, Mike Mignola, made an appearance and cut up the 20th Anniversary Cake.  Gentle readers, the cake was a series of pancakes stacked a good foot high, with a syrup based glaze...as my learned readers already know, Hell Boy's favorite food is the simple yet delicious pancake.  

The vibe?  Very un-LA.  A diverse range of "alt" s wandering the Oh Too small space.  Decidedly not the overly tanned, well toned money crowd prevalent in LA.  Have no fear gentle reader, we were staying in West Hollywood (WEHO)  so were getting plenty of that side of LA too.  Surprisingly though, everyone except the Starbuck's Barista were exceptionally nice What is it that makes Starbuck's queers so disdainful of their customers? 

Anytime a group show includes 100 plus artists, the range of styles and the range of talents run the gamut.  Everything from literal interpretations (as if the original artist had drawn the piece) to Art Deco posters and even a Crayola Crayon Sculpture.  

Yosiell and his version of Hell Boy, a la Sicklings Style. 

Definitely  crowd favorite. 

The feminist perspective, Hell Person. 

Blurry I know but this is actually a Hell Boy sculpture from a Crayola.

There was no charge for the cans of cheap cold beer...Rusty established us as beer snobs to some in the crowd without him even knowing it...we were talking about the beer selection and Yosiell asked if Tecate was the best beer available, and Rusty said, "Yeah that the other beers were all like Coors Light," and a tall portly gentleman standing right behind him drinking a Coors Light sardonically said, "Wow did he just say that?" and went outside.  We all know that Rusty has very few snobbish tendencies but good lord can he stick a size 11 foot in his own mouth and as an Irishman he does take his beer seriously.  

We came to LA expecting to tolerate money centered pretty people...have we become one of the things we despise most...don't worry gentle reader I think our humility is still intact despite a small faux pas...we've certainly not extended the olive branch to our Los Angelenos in the whole LA vs. SF competition. 
 I have also forgotten the sense of anonymity that one has while visiting. This is a place I can imagine I may never see the same person twice unless I make the conscious effort to do so.  For some reason in SF and Oakland I always get the sense that I will see everyone I meet randomly on another day...maybe that is from familiarity with a given place.  When I lived in So Cal I remember that sense of anonymity....everyone's a small fish in this over sized ocean of humanity.  This has its advantages but also leads to a sense of isolation and loneliness.  I know we can all feel this way sometimes but it seems magnified in this city for some  unidentified reason.   

The trip back was grueling, because it always seems longer coming back then going to LA, but we did stop along the way at one of my mom's favorite restaurants, Anderson's...Tacky?  Cheesy?  Yes and yes, but a fitting honorific for my sainted mother...

The hills are alive with the sounds of...dairy farms and central valley chicken farms.  

Speaking of moms, for Mother's Day, Rusty and Yosiell spent the day at Patchwork Craft Fair at Jack London Square...

Soap, soap and more soap!  By the way, the DIYer crowd there was super nice and kinda fun to hang out with...

As they sat around and enjoyed Soap Talk, I went on a bike ride downtown to view the murals from my last blogpost, the ones just in progress before are now completed. 

This one was not in progress before but I thought it was kinda cool. 

I did leave one random event out of this blogpost, Easter of course, and a few other random photos I thought my gentle readers may enjoy.  

Lake Merritt on a beautiful spring day!

The Easter Bunny was good to our house!

Rusty's Sunday join' to church hat! 

Easter Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Jesus would want me to have a slice!

On the corner of Lawton and College is a random telephone pole gnome...I know these are out there so it's nice to run across them every once in a while.  It really reminds me of the quirky, creative characters in the city of Oaks.  so friends, i hope you find random telephone pole gnomes in your neck of the woods!