My review of “Lucy’s El Adobe” by Michele Miles Gardiner

Last night, time warped and the earth tilted the second Marv didn’t heed Ian’s advice. It was the point of no return, when Rod Serling should’ve stepped in to warn us:

“You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

Little did we know then we had toyed with time travel the night before; our group of four (Marv and Lisa, Ian and I) had successfully stepped back, momentarily, into the 1980s by celebrating the 22nd Anniversary of the movie Tapeheads (the movie brought Ian and me together back in 1987 when he produced one of the movie’s songs and King Cotton introduced us). We watched the film again, remembering that the ‘80s didn’t completely suck. It wasn’t all Flock of Seagulls, Adam Ant, big shoulder pads and neon parachute pants. No, Tapeheads reminded us there was great music. And listening to our old friends from the band the Bonedaddys reunite at the after-party, playing the songs we loved that they played when we were dating, just confirmed they were as funk-fueled and blazing hot as we remembered them to be in the ‘80s. As if I were twenty-two again, I danced all night.

So our time-travel trip was a success. We didn’t leave it in disgust, with the too sweet, flat taste of Bartles and James wine coolers clinging to our tongues. We went back to the past, but returned into the present smiling. Little did we know, we stepped into dangerous territory, setting the time warp continuum off-kilter. So the following evening didn’t go quite as we expected. Here’s our evening Friday night:

As Marv drives from the Valley on the 101, Ian says, “Whatever you do, Marv, don’t take the Highland exit.” Everyone knows, the evening Hollywood Bowl traffic will suck you in, keep you trapped until it spits you out into Hollywood, forever altered – and not in a good way. But Marv doesn’t listen. He ignores Ian’s sage advice, drives onto the Highland exit and plunges us into the hellish pit of metal, glaring headlights and helpless drivers sitting in a mass-stupor.

But we don’t realize things are askew just yet.

“Doe a deer, a female deer…” Lisa and I, both sitting in the back seat, begin singing (after seeing the Hollywood Bowl Billboard’s announcement of a Sound of Music sing-a-long), completely unaware we’re hurtling into another dimension, we naively continue singing more songs from Sound of Music, “High on a hill was a lonely goat herd… Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo…”

After an inconceivable amount of time – minutes? Hours? A few decades? Lisa’s car is spit from Highland out onto Sunset Boulevard. Craving Mexican food and thirsting for margaritas, we drive toward El Compadre, passing the purple neon and blinking lights of the Seventh Veil and its “Live Nude Girls” and the Saharan motel.

Our starving foursome enters El Compadre. Musicians are playing mariachi music. People are smiling. They’re laughing and dipping crispy tortilla chips into chunky red salsa and swigging margaritas into their happy faces. We push through the joyous crowd. They all look so happy, with their chip-eating and margarita-swigging, we want to join them. But we’re told the wait could be an hour, so we decide to drive somewhere else.

And so we fall deeper into a dimension I never imagined it’d be possible to re-visit.

Like zombies, we drive down Melrose toward our destination. As if we don’t live in a city with a wide array of Mexican restaurants, as if we don’t have the power to make choices, we drive on. Nearing Paramount Studios, Marv tells stories of recording at Studio 55. We finally park. We’re stopped right across from where Studio 55 once existed. Closed for years now, it’s the reason we drove to Lucy’s El Adobe. It’s where Marv, Ian and lots of recording artists would go to grab a meal.

But that was back in the ‘70s – over thirty years ago.

“This is where Jerry Brown and Linda Rondstadt would have their tryst,” Marv says as he opens the door to Lucy’s.

We then walk into a room with gloppy amber colored lights stuck to dingy walls, walls littered with bad Mexican motif. On every other inch of the dingy walls are photos of celebrities in frames. I do a double-take. Is that Suzanne Sommers, as Chrissy Snow from Three’s Company, smiling down at me with a pony tail stuck to one side of her head?

While none of us seem impressed with the dated and slightly decrepit atmosphere, we try to find a table. One side of the room’s too dark. The other side’s glaring with light in one corner and dim in another. Unlike El Compadre, there’s no music, no joyous laughter. Some people are seated, but they don’t seem all that happy about it.

Yet  we stay.

We’re seated in a room with a too bright TV in the corner, and a very long table of people who seem to have no where better to go. So we join them in their misery, and take our place at a faux-wood, Formica-topped table.

To my right, over Marv’s shoulder, I can’t take my eyes off the bad painting of former California Governor Jerry Brown, circa 1978. He’s in profile, and seems to have an eagle flying out of his nose. But I’m starving and thirsty, so I do my best to ignore it.

Marv mentions again, “Yeah, this is where Jerry Brown and Linda Rondstadt would have their tryst.”

“Marv, do you have some sort of quota to say the word tryst, tonight?” I ask.

Starving and thirsty, we still all manage to laugh.

Finally, a busboy brings us chips and salsa. The watery red salsa is accompanied by a sorry little wooden bowl (the size of a baby’s palm) with about sixteen chips sitting in it. Not great at math, even I calculated that’s only four chips per person.

We each take turns grabbing our first chip. I bite into mine. “Ewww. It’s cold and stale. And what’s with serving them in such a puny bowl? Haven’t they updated since the ‘70s? Don’t they know we now expect bucket sized drinks and huge baskets of chips?”

Lisa nods. Ian rolls his eyes. Marv quotes Woody Allen from Annie Hall: “It was such bad food, and so little of it.”

With scenes from Annie Hall drifting through my mind, I zone in on the teeny tortilla chip bowl and realize that the bowl is exactly the same type my mom had back when I was a kid… in the 1970s. I look up and stare at Jerry Brown and the eagle flying out of his nose… I shake my head. What decade are we in?

Now Lisa looks frustrated, staring at the tiny wooden bowl. “This isn’t right. The chips are gone, but we still have lots of salsa.”

We all nod. It’s wrong. But I think our waiter won’t be bringing us chips very soon, because he’s probably thinking “Hey, why should I give these people decent service? I cater to the hoity-toity elite, like Jerry Brown, Linda Rondstadt, Chrissy from Three’s Company, the kid from HR Puff-n-Stuff, the Breck Girl, Mr. Whipple from the Charmin toilet paper commercial…” (Screaming,”Please!!! Don’t Squeeze the CHARMIN!!!” Also several other vintage CHARMIN Adverts below)

Finally, we get more stale chips. But now we’re out of salsa. It must’ve evaporated since the time the waiter last visited.

Lisa’s not happy. “Now we have chips, but no salsa.”

We all nod. This is very, very wrong. The chip to salsa ratio is completely askew. We’re in a bad cycle. The waiter may bring salsa, but then we’ll have no chips; then he might find time to bring chips, but then we’ll have no salsa. Lisa’s exactly right.

That’s when I have my epiphany: Of course the chip to salsa ratio is out of whack. The entire night is off-kilter!

Doesn’t everyone see? We’ve been plummeted back into 1978, when Jerry Brown was Governor! That explains the artwork and dated Hollywood “celebrities” on the walls.

We finally get our small (which are supposed to be large, but only according to a long gone era’s measurement), strangely perfumey margaritas. The below average tasting drinks just confirm my discovery of our time travel error. The only way this restaurant could still be opened in the present era of bigger, better, more choices and online restaurant review sites – it’s still 1978. There’s no other explanation for how this place could survive.

The waiter never brings the guacamole Marv ordered and my chicken mole enchiladas taste like they’re drenched in Nestle’s chocolate syrup.

Who else would accept food and service this bad? The only people who would return again and again to this place are people who’ve sat in gas lines due to the oil crisis, people who’ve worn polyester pant suits on a hot LA day, people who’ve hustled to disco music, people who laugh at Three’s Company and listen to their eight-track tapes of Abba and Captain and Tennille. These are the people who don’t complain when served sixteen stale tortillas chips. They don’t know any better!  They don’t have online review sites like Yelp and CitySearch. Heck, the personal computer, for them, doesn’t even exist yet!!

I keep this information to myself, that we’ve been hurled deep into the darkness of the disco-era doldrums.

Lisa thinks the only thing off-kilter is the chip to salsa ratio. I don’t want to panic her any further. Ian, Lisa and Marv only know the night is out of balance, and it all just feels wrong, as if something’s amiss… but they can’t figure out what.

We can’t wait to get out of this place. We debate what sort of tip to leave and then scamper out as quickly as possible.

(The “Let’s Do the Time-Warp Again” sequence from the film “Rocky Horror Picture Show”)

During the drive back to the Valley, on the 101, Ian talks about how horrid the service was. Marv says, “Yeah, we only tipped them fifteen percent. Ha!”

“Yeah,” I say, “And when we tipped them we didn’t really feel like doing it. That’ll show ‘em!”

I laugh to cover my fear that we may never return to the year 2010, where people are served large baskets of tortilla chips, where little joyless crap-hole restaurants could never survive on their reputation thirty years ago.

I start to worry: will I go home and find someone’s Ford Pinto parked in my driveway? Will it be my home at all? Or will I have to revisit 8th grade in Northern California, wearing Ditto Jeans and smearing my lips with Bonne Bell strawberry gloss as I hum “Dreamweaver” to myself on my way to school… dreaming about my future? Please, no!!

As we hurtle toward the Valley on the 101, the four of us – as if one – begin chanting nonsense like we’re Yoko Ono quadrupled: Yoko Ono Ono Yoko…aaaaaaaahhhhh…. Uhhhhhhh…. It’s fun. It’s goofy. What are we doing? Are we purging the seventies from our systems?

Few people in the seventies would dare give Yoko the time of day after she (or so she was blamed) tore apart the Beatles. Maybe our homage to Yoko is re-altering the time warp continuum… getting us back into balance. We weren’t supposed to return to 1978. Just as we’re now not supposed to howl and squawk like Yoko. What sane people would want to do either? Are we sane? Well, that’s up for debate, but…

We drive up to Marv and Lisa’s house. Marv’s very own car is in his driveway, and it’s not an AMC Pacer!

We’ve done it! We’ve come back to the future – to the present. Never again will Lisa have to suffer the outrage of chips without salsa, because we, the people of today, have learned to put chips in large baskets. We’re back to where computers have come far beyond Pong! Never again will I take our present day for granted. I’m done dabbling in time travel even if there was some great music back then and Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey, John Travolta, and Linda Rondstadt were all hot.

Anyway, who knows, maybe I just hallucinated the entire time warp thing, got carried away with all the Jerry Brown art and musty Mexican motif.

Ian and I say goodbye to Lisa and Marv. We get in our car (What a relief! It’s not a Pinto!), and drive home.

Excited to be back in my very own place, I run to my computer and get online to post a review of Lucy’s El Adobe. It’s succinct: “Just Don’t!!!!”

Standing behind me, as I type my last “!” is Rod Serling:

“If you think it’s possible to return to the past without any consequences, think again. Once it’s done, everything you know will go out of balance… in the Twilight Zone.”

You may discover more of Michele’s work HERE…

Thanks Benjamin Kanarek

I want to share some of my music projects with you.  Most were written in English, but several were adapted in to French.  Here is one, a ballad called “Tout les Silences”, sung and adapted in to French by Barbara Nicoli.  Arrangement was by Mathias Schuber. I wrote this song in my home studio in Paris. It is just one of many Pop-Rock songs I have written over the past 20 years.

Tous les Silences ©Benjamin Kanarek (SACEM)

Adaptation/Barbara Nicoli

JE N’ARRIVE PAS À TE PARLER DE MOI

J’AI PEUR QUE TES YEUX TROUBLENT MA VOIX

ET MON CŒUR QUI BAT À CHACUN DE TES PAS

JE N’AI PLUS VRAIMENT LE CHOIX

MAIS SI JE M’INVENTE DES HISTOIRES

ET SI J’AI BIEN FINI PAR Y CROIRE

JE NAGE À CONTRE COURANT

MON CORPS IMPATIENT

DÉROUTÉE PARFOIS J’IMAGINE TOUT BAS

QUE TA PAUME FRÔLE UN PEU DE MOI

QUE TU LAISSES UN PAS ENTRE TES LÈVRES ET MOI

C’EST PEUT-ÊTRE MIEUX COMME ÇA

MAIS SI JE M’INVENTE DES HISTOIRES

ET SI J’AI BIEN FINI PAR LE CROIRE

IL Y A DES ORAGES EN MOI

QUE TU N’ENTENDS PAS

ET MÊME SI JE TOURNE LA PAGE

J’ENTENDS TOUS LES SILENCES QUE TU ME LAISSES

JE DÉRIVE ET JE PERDS TA TRACE

JE SAIS BIEN QUE TU NE M’AIMES PAS

ET CES FANTAISIES POUR ME METTRE À L’ABRI

DE L’ÉTAT QUI TROUBLE MES ESPRITS

JE COMMENCE À VOIR QUAND NOS RIRES SE SÉPARENT

L’ILLUSION QUE J’AI NOURRIE

ET SI JE M’INVENTE DES HISTOIRES

C’EST QUE J’AI BIEN FINI PAR ME CROIRE

JE N’ARRÊTE PAS D’Y PENSER

J’ESSAIE D’OUBLIER

ET MÊME SI JE TOURNE LA PAGE

J’ENTENDS TOUS LES SILENCES QUE TU ME LAISSES

JE DÉRIVE ET JE PERDS TA TRACE

JE SAIS BIEN QUE TU NE M’AIMES PAS

MAIS LES TEMPS QUE MES RÊVES S’EFFACENT

N’OUBLIE PAS LES SILENCES QUE JE TE LAISSE

JE DÉRIVE JUSQU’À PERDRE LA FACE

JE SAIS BIEN QUE TU NE M’AIMES PAS

Better late than never… I absolutely love this song by Rufus Wainwright “Going to a Town” and for those of you that may not have heard this Muse like tune, hope you enjoy it.  Yes it is from 2007, but still as poignant as when it was released.

The Live Uncut Version

His recent CBC Q TV interview

­­­­There’s A Time

There’s a time when we will suffer

There’s a time when we will fall

There’s a time when we know nothing

When we think we know it all

When we’re lost in stormy weather

Cold and stranded in the rain

Life can be so dark and empty

There’s no meaning only pain

There’s a time we feel sorrow

There’s a time we feel blessed

There’s a time we can borrow

There’s a time we should rest

All the times I lived in shadows

Swimming waters much too deep

Getting high on intuition

Too scared to fall asleep

All those times misunderstanding

Feeling nothing but perplexed

There were times when I saw clearly

Knowing what was coming next

There’s a time we feel sorrow

There’s a time we feel blessed

There’s a time we can borrow

There’s a time we should rest

Marv Kanarek ©2010

A few weeks ago, I bumped in to Super Model, Artist and Singer Karen Mulder at a party that was thrown by artist Philippe Pasqua. I hadn’t seen her since I last shot with her for L’Officiel Magazine and it was a real pleasure seeing her again.

Just wanted to share this amusing short vignette totally shot with my iPhone of Karen Playing the Photographer with my Camera…

Enjoy

Song “Regarde Toi” by Benjamin Kanarek © Adapted & Sung by Barbara Nicoli

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with author Paulo Coelho for the RG VOGUE June 2010 issue. He was a real pleasure to be with. He is funny, witty and amiable. He is extremely open and received us warmly at his apartment in Geneva, Switzerland.

Photo ©Benjamin Kanarek 2010

Paulo has a great sense of humor and isn’t afraid to share what’s on his mind when he has something to say. I won’t go in to a major diatribe about his accomplishments. We all know he wrote the Alchemist amongst many others. Paulo has written approximately one novel every two years including, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, The Fifth Mountain, Veronika Decides to Die, The Devil and Miss Prym, Eleven Minutes, Like the Flowing River, The Valkyries itch of Portobello. But perhaps what you didn’t know was that he is also an accomplished song writer as well, composing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Brazilian icon Raul Seixas

Hope you enjoy this little video that we did, called “50 Minutes with Paulo Coelho” as well as some of the images that were taken for the June 2010 issue of RG Vogue.

And check out Paulo Coelho’s Blog

“50 minutes with Paulo Coelho”, The Making of Video also on You Tube Here

Published images and bonus…

By Isa Maïsa

The irony of success is when we lose ourselves in it. The fickle thing is that everyone wants it, not everyone has it and even when we do, some are not able to handle it. As our society today considers fame and fortune to be the Holy Grail of our sense of purpose, living a life in an attitude of a happy medium is hushed as insufficient. Yet it is shattering to hear the news about great talents leaving this world prematurely. Just these past few months we saw the loss of two, Alexander McQueen and Michael Jackson. How disturbing to think they had what many would consider to be the winning lottery ticket of life: fame, fortune and success. Or did they? What made them and so many others get lost in (their) success?

It is obvious that they lived under extreme pressure to succeed, which ended up absorbing life out of them. Discovering their past childhood, we realized how their dysfunctional families had made their short-lived lives difficult and unhappy. While no one family is perfect nor needs to be, the ability to cope and to have a balanced life would bring out the best potential in all of us. How to overcome failure and challenge is vital for success, and having emotional support from loved ones is crucial for survival. Both seemed to be missing for Alexander McQueen and Michael Jackson.

Of course, there are those who argue that their childhood was what caused their genii, their source of strength and their drive. However, it remains difficult to think an insufferable and miserable upbringing can bring out the genius in someone when most specialists believe geniuses are born as geniuses regardless of their environment. Look at the genius talent of Pablo Picasso who was nurtured as a very young boy. His euphoric artistic career excelled beyond belief while living a life of harmony with his art, friends and family to a ripe old age of 92.

There are exceptions, where the horrible ‘family legacy’ of a painful childhood brought out delicate sensitivity and a subtle visionary, such as Doris Lessing.She coped and survived thanks to her fantastic imagination which led to her happy vocation as a writer, earning her the Nobel Peace Prize. In this case, her agony and memories led to her creativity. This shows two opposed cases of possible sources of success: what must be remembered is the importance of awareness in dealing with what life brings, making the best out of it, by keeping harmony and balance, even when doing so seems impossible.

Below a great documentary “George Michael, a different story” showing how he dealt with success and almost drowned in it during the “Wham!” period… And what was needed: A heavy dose of business acumen to learn how to swim with sharks.

by: Benjamin Kanarek

I’ve never been a big RAP person. More in to Alternative Rock, Rock, Pop-Rock and R&B.

But Die Antwoord (which means The Answer) from South AfriKa are really Special. They can Rap at 50,000,000 Miles Per Hour and have some really interesting melodic content blended in to the Mix. Their lyrical content is controversial and worth listening to. It says a lot about the human condition in a sector of South AfriKan culture that is  an in your face stark revelation. It also gives one a behind the scene’s look at South AfriKa’s financially underprivileged white minority. Yo-Landi the female in the group is quirky, strange and sexy. I want to call their style of music “Punk wRap”. Why not, it’s like a Punk backlash and Rap wrapped in to a hybridized melting pot. Die Antwoord will be touring in Europe and North America later this year. Could be a real cultural eye opener for all of you Rap Aficionado’s. Have a listen…“Enter the Ninja”

Here is a recent interview with Die Antwoord, just after their first concert:

By Frédérique Renaut

There are many ways of capturing facial expressions in an image. It seems that  photographer Thibault Grabherr has found an interesting twist for the “in the eyes” project.

Actresses are the masters of creating an emotion through facial expressions. Erase all the glamorous artefact: hair, heavy make up and focus on the eyes. Very light retouching and  through their eyes you may find a window to their soul.

Eleven French actresses: Aure Atika, Mélanie Bernier, Caroline Ducey, Elodie Navarre, Sylvie Testud, Vimala Pons, Julie Depardieu, Catherine Frot, Julie Ferrier, Marilou Berry, Déborah François and Charlotte Rampling were thrilled to be part of this project. Each of them are expressing themselves in their own unique manner and has been masterfully captured through the eye of Thibault Grabherr.

The concept was birthed by two visual artists: Thibault Grabherr, Photographer and Christophe Durand, Make-up artist & Creative Director

• Thibault Grabherr assisted Dominique Issermann for three years. He began his career as a photographer in 2000 and started working on film sets where he befriended numerous actors and actresses whom he photographed for French magazines the likes of Madame Figaro, Elle, Paris Match, Studio and Première Magazines (Liv Tyler, Sophie Marceau, Shu Qi, Gael Garcia Bernal, Yvan Attal, Marc Ruffalo…)

• Christophe Durand is a multi-faceted artist. Widely renowned in the world of beauty and luxury as a make up artist for the brands of Zenith, Tag Heuer, Chopard and many others rely on his talent for their advertising campaigns. Creative Director of two cosmetic brands: Bourjois and UNE a brand new line recently launched under the Chanel-Bourjois umbrella. Celebrities Eva Herzigova, Tiger Woods, Lewis Hamilton, Maria Sharapova, Maggie Cheung, Gong Li and Emmanuelle Seigner have been privy to his expert makeup artistry. For twenty years, he has orchestrated fashion shows for Thierry Mugler, Kenzo and Paul Smith. A true leader in his field, Chrisophe created ICON magazine as a visual extension of his creativity. Behind this ICON of fashion also lies the heart of a man who has chosen to use his success to finance the construction of orphanages in Calcutta, India. Christophe Durand is truly an artist for all seasons and can quite comfortably reside in all of them.

For those who are interested in acquiring one of his portraits, they can be purchased in very limited edition. They exist in two formats: 120cm x150cm or 80cmx100cm. Contact here.

Just wanted to tell you that I shot writer Paulo Coelho for RG Vogue Brasil.

The best selling author with close to 140 million books sold world-wide, including The Alchemist, and most recently Brida. We have some incredible video of Paulo during the shoot and the dialogue is fresh and spontaneous. We shot at his home in Geneva, Switzerland. It was a real pleasure for both Frédérique Renaut and I to work with him.

I’ll be posting once it comes out in RG Vogue Brasil…

Stay Tuned