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Arts & Entertainment

Surprise Art, Modest Crowds, and One Free Tree

This weekend, The Gal crashes an art show, serves as one tenth of an audience, and gets a free tree.

Friday night this Gal was making her way down to Mr. T’s Bowl on Figueroa for a late night rock and roll show.

For reasons unknown I decided to park on the street near the front of the building instead of parking in the rear lot like I usually do. My companions and I were getting out of the car when we noticed some movement and light across the street that seemed out of the ordinary.  It looked a whole lot like a gallery opening, so we headed over to check it out.

It was my first time at THIS Los Angeles, located at 5906 North Figueroa and the gallery was having a one night stand with Australian artist Anthony Lister. The one night, one man show was dominated by mixed media drawing/painting on large wood panels and canvasses, and was speckled with masks and other sculptural work. It was an excellent event to stumble upon and I am looking forward to their These Friends 2 exhibit,  which opens on February 2 and will showcase over one hundred artists instead of just one prolific dude.

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The show seemed to be heading in an after-party kind of direction and I thought it would be fun to stick around and try to get in to the back room that all the cool artsy types were sneaking off to, but this Gal had a Rock show to see down the block at Mr. T’s bowl. That, and she wasn't really invited--so it was off to hear some music!

Sadly, the Show at Mr.T’s was a bit of a wash, though it was definitely not the bands that were the problem. The band Kings Road, in particular, played an energetic and heartfelt set to the crowd of eight or so people meandering about on the dance floor and in the bar area. They hawked their t-shirts from the stage, lowering the price from three dollars to zero dollars by the end of the set.

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For a show with no real audience, it was a heck of a time.

Speaking with Arlo, Mr. T’s long time sound tech and one time booking agent, I learned that the lack of crowd was due in part to a hiatus the Bowl had taken from shows over the holidays. In fact, Saturday night’s show was the first show T’s had put on since the middle of December. Arlo and the rest of the staff have high hopes that the crowds will be back sooner rather than later.

After the show the Gal headed home to get lots of sleep and dream happily of the new fruit tree I was going to get for free the next day.

Bright and early-ish Sunday morning I drove down to the Glassell Park Recreation Center for Tree People and The Glassell Park Improvement Association’s annual free fruit tree giveaway.

At noon on Sunday, all interested residents of Northeast Los Angeles were allowed to come out to the recreation center parking lot and pick up a fruit tree for free.

All I had to do to get a free tree was wait in line, write down my name and zipcode, and choose the type of tree I wanted to take home and plant.

The members of the Glassel Park Community Improvement Association were friendly, excited, and efficient. In fact, they were prepared for the give away almost an hour ahead of schedule. This was due in part to budget cuts at Tree People; this year there were fewer trees and far less mulch available than in previous years.

Despite the cutbacks there were peach, plum, nectarine, and apple trees to choose from. In past years, there have also been citrus trees available, and each family from the area were allowed two free trees--this year that number dropped to one tree per family.

The people in line I spoke with were from all over NELA. One man lived across the street from the community center, another couple lived over in Hermon, and more than a few Mount Washingtonites and Highland Parkers were present.

It was hot, but the mood was upbeat, and there was lots of community literature to read while I waited in line to choose my tree.

A free tree is the best kind of tree, so I say Hooray for Tree People! Hooray for the Glassell Park Improvement Association! And most of all, hooray for my new, beautiful and free, peach tree--which currently resembles a stick in the ground. In five years or so I’m going to invite my neighbors over for peach pie.

It’s going to be delicious, and the price was totally right.

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