"Stop!" I wanted to shout inanely 500 pages ago, "I'm trying to catch up!" -- Six months of reading, one month just in the last dozen of pages, in a vain attempt to make this all last longer. The closer I got to the end, the more I realized I was reaching today's real time, where the stories would end, and I'd have to start writing my own. I have to thank folks like the GaylordWilshires, the lorens, the collection of Martins, and especially the fostering E_R, amongst EVERYONE here, for an incredible journey through our collective histories.
I come bearing gifts, like any good first-time visitor to your world. Lived here in LA for the last 26 years since going through college, where I spent hours lost in old USC yearbooks in various libraries around campus trying to piece together the histories of that small area of town, and dwelled here in the 'Crescent Heights' subdivision of West Hollywood for two decades, gathering local lore and history through 4am jaunts lost in blogs along the internets.
Want to see
an inside last look at Perino's, circa 2002? In a moment...i'm still saying Hello! ...it's taken a long time traveling here to be able to do so. So many times in reading the forum, I've shouted "that's right there!" wanting to write immediately, but within pages we receive all the correct answers (sometimes some false information at first, but it always seems to get settled out), so I learned a lot of patience to read everything before jumping here. You all are awesome.
So yes, E_R, you have legions of followers coming up reading through the ranks of pages, all with more information and stories coming, I'm sure. Here are a few topics I've been waiting to speak about (and will get to mentioning further in separate notes, now that I've reached "hello!" status here, and apologies for just an introductory tease)... AIP/Movietown Plaza, Aldous Huxley living near The Huxley, Barney's Beanery/ABC rumors, Rexall Owl Drugs and the Doors of Perception, mountain removal at the top of Laurel Canyon, the fabulous Quonsets of the Culver City Airport, Northridge Quake and Santa Monica's 4th street (including the Central Tower red-tagging), Exposition trains of 1986, the Byrds basement rehearsals, more of Crescent Heights, and Perinos.
As for Perino's, and a first attempt at posting from Imageshack, it was used for filming long after it fully closed as a restaurant, as we know. I spent two days there during the music video filming of "Are You In?" from the rockband Incubus in 2002. The couches, chandeliers, lamps, furnishings, and kitchen equipment, we were told, were all as original as the place could be after all those years. The entire video was shot inside old Perino's, so freezeframe to your heart's content.
Youtube "Are You In?" :
• Video Link
http://imageshack.com/i/f0dbY3qJj
http://imageshack.com/i/hj2MzycIj
http://imageshack.com/i/ewppKQYRj
http://imageshack.com/i/p6K84tFaj
http://imageshack.com/i/ezXWuYxJj
http://imageshack.com/i/ewf974hkj
All images copyright Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
I'm very excited to be at the end of your storytelling, and looking forward to much more!
- 1612havenhurstdrive (aka in real world, brett)