If you’re one who likes to go hog wild, you may find the mural surrounding the Farmer John Brand Clougherty Meat Packing Company in Vernon, CA, just your thing.  It certainly got my attention - so much so that I whipped out my camera and took photos from one end of the mural to the other.

The mural basically depicts farm landscapes where you can see fields, trees, corn, barns, etc and of course, lots of pigs, big and small.   Some of the pigs are happy and carefree, either laying in the grass, playing in the mud or with each other, flying airplanes, sleeping in hammocks and interacting with everyone from a buxom hill billy gal to keeping a boy company while he’s fishing to pulling a wagon for a Gladiator wanna-be.

Other pigs are trotting happily following a road and “Farmer John” signs to what they think is probably OZ, but is actually a smokehouse or a greased pig contest.  A variety of other animals also grace this mural like dogs, chicks, quails, hawks, crows and probably even more that I may have missed this time around.

If you’d like to know the history of this mural, it basically goes like this.  In 1957, Barney Clougherty, then owner of Farmer John, was approached by  Les Grimes, a talented painter of scenic backgrounds for Hollywood movie sets, to decorate the outside of his building.  With Barney’s blessing, Grimes spent the next eleven years working on his “masterpiece.” Unfortunately, Grimes died in a fall from a fifty- foot scaffolding he was using to paint a portion of the sky on the mural.

After Grimes’ death, Clougherty hired Arno Jordan to finish the murals.  Arno Jordan continued the legacy by painting new murals and restoring Grimes’ originals.  To noted art dealer Ivan C. Karp, the murals are “a fundamental tract for West Coast vernacular painting.” What’s great about this mural is that it includes several gatefold plates of entire walls. Now that’s some great detail.  The plant was purchased by Hormel who intends to maintain the murals.

To see the the photos I took of the mural, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157600117263368/

To check out the mural for yourself, here’s the address below:

Farmer John
3049 E. Vernon Avenue
Vernon, CA 90058

by Encino Man

Banana OG ~ This light green and orange, yellow-dusted bud smells of sweet flowers and bananas, with an exhale nearing as sweet (I want to try it again now that I’m not using butane lighters on my bowls).  The bud is sticky and crisp, and like all of these, are absolutely saturated in magical crystals.  Smoking gave me a loose body high, with a nice melty head buzz. OG, though stuck with the kush name, is mostly sativa, keeping things upbeat, the cross of the banana makes it sappy and devastatingly foggy to the frontal lobe after 3 large bingers. Still, I marched on…

Fire OG ~ My favorite of these OGs. Has that exotic Kush smell of rose and pine sol, with chocolate tones. This batch was fluffy and beautifully unkempt. Flames of of red and orange coil leap from the light green bud. So sticky it hurt, well not really. Deep, dank on the inhale, with a smooth tasty exhale that lingered in a musty, pleasant aftertaste. I puffed on this steadily for a week and never grew tolerant of the feeling that I was leaving tracers wherever I went, with a heavy head high that stuck for hours.

Super OG ~ Holy shit, the smells coming from a jar of this sticky, dark green nug brings about a 40 Thieves spice market of aroma. Rose, methyolyptus, soapy citrus, tar, incense, pine resin, fertilizer, and mint.  It is pungent, herbal, and delicious in every way. The kush smell makes you feel like an emperor on a flying carpet, in pointy shows and a jeweled turban. That’s before you smoke it. A taste of toasted marshmellow, perfume, and nag champa awaits, leaving the mouth feeling very clean. My head goes all abuzz on this sweet, mossy exhale of sweet dankness, and subconcious seemed to forn an instant bridge to concious mind at warp speed. Everything felt silky and sweet.

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One of our city’s most important public-access TV figures, John Kilduff, does a live painting class on the streets of Downtown LA, right at 5th and Spring.

Since public access TV in Los Angeles is going away, John is now internet only. Check out his last ever public access show here.

Atlantic Ave. & Tweedy Blvd. ~ South Gate

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Has it ever happened to you that while you’re reading through a restaurant review that sometimes one dish will stand out to the point that the only reason you want to visit that restaurant is just to try that one dish? That’s exactly what happened to me while reading Kevin Cheung’s blog, 50 Meals, about his visit to Pa Pa Walk, a restaurant that specializes in Taiwanese street food. Click here to read that review.

According to Kevin, the words “Pa Pa” means “all over town” in Taiwanese. Taking that further, “Pa Pa Walk” means to “get out around town.” Given the definition of the restaurant’s name, it seems fitting that they serve food that you might normally order from a stall or cart on the streets of Taiwan, which means that food portions are more similar to tapas.

So what dish caught my interest? On the menu, it’s referred to simply as “Cream Soup in Fried Toast”, but when placed in front of you, it’s reminiscent of clam chowder bread bowls. Kevin further translated that the name in Chinese sounds just like “coffin cover”. Fellow blogger, Wandering Chopsticks, also was so entranced by Kevin’s post that she paid a visit herself to try this dish and with further research learned that this soup/bread dish is referred to as coffin bread in Taiwan. In her words, “[it] hails from Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan and the capital from 1663 to 1885. It was so named because of its coffin-like appearance.” In my own research, I came upon the Primitive Culture blog, where the blogger wrote briefly about his experience with “coffin bread” in Taiwan with a brief mention from his dining companion about a possible American naval connection to this dish.

Basically, “coffin bread” is what first got me in the door of Pa Pa Walk, but what brought me back for a second visit was how good the food was in general. For my first visit, a friend and I shared 6 savory dishes, including the “coffin bread” and 1 dessert. The first three items that hit our table included the smoked duck, the bbq pork fried rice and the grilled Taiwanese sausage. The fried rice was good, if nothing special. I enjoyed both the duck with its crispy skin and the slight sweetness of the sausages, which when eaten with a piece of raw garlic, had a great savory component to them.
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The Los Angeles Times reports that due to the statewide budget crisis, arts programs are being suspended and possibly cut out for good. This is likely a harbinger of things to come, as arts funding and education is often the first to go in tough times. From the article:

The Los Angeles school district has suspended a key arts program because of a spending freeze, a sign of what may be ahead for the state’s largest district, which is facing a serious budget shortfall.

When the school board was forced to slash almost $400 million from this year’s budget because the district received less than expected in state funds, it kept most of the cuts away from classrooms. But now the district may have to cut another $400 million, which could mean increasing class sizes, laying off teachers or providing fewer meals at schools.

L.A. Unified officials also instituted a spending freeze, which resulted in the abrupt postponement of the arts program. In a Dec. 12 e-mail, district administrators told arts instructors with the Arts Community Partnership Network to cancel all work immediately and that payments might be delayed, though work could begin again next month if the state resolves its budget crisis.

“We are all waiting for the state budget in January . . . and hoping for the best,” said Richard Burrows, L.A. Unified’s director of arts education. Districts throughout the state are also making drastic cuts, said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, who warned that eliminating arts and after-school-program funding could have dire consequences.

Photo: LAUSD Art School, by Waltarrr

Many of the world’s greatest graffiti artists call Los Angeles their home. Maybe it’s the great weather or the diverse population… Whatever the reason, LA’s artists put out creative work year after year. Here is a rundown of some of the work of LA’s best! (Disclaimer: I apologize to anyone that I left out. This list is of course incomplete.)

January 19, 2008 - Will Rise (more pics on LA Taco)
Art show by AWR crew members Pusher, Zeser, Krush, Rime, Saber, Revok, Retna, Reyes, Skrew, Sever and Ewok at the Robert Berman gallery in Santa Monica

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January 26, 2008 - Eat Your Art Out (more pics on LA Taco)

Auction to support the Angel City Derby Girls roller derby team at Meltdown Comics.

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March 6, 2008 - Rime at Ghetto Gloss (more pics on LA Taco)
Artwork by Rime

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April 10, 2008 - LA VS WAR (more pics on LA Taco and GraffHead.com including live painting)
Four day festival in downtown LA showcasing anti-war art created by Los Angeles based artists.

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April 20, 2008 - Piece of Mind Los Angeles Premier (see pictures from the premier)

The Los Angeles premier of the feature length documentary that chronicles 2 years in the life of 4 Los Angeles based graffiti writers: Augor, Char, Yoink and Paste. Piece of Mind is a beautifully shot and produced work by Evan Romoff and Keegan Gibbs.
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Robert Graham was born far from the ocean in D.F. in 1938 and spent much of his adult life just steps from the Pacific in Venice Beach. His art has helped define sculpture in Los Angeles, including the entry pavilion of the Coliseum (below) and the Virgin Mother statue (above) and doors of the downtown Cathedral. Graham was 70 years old and is survived by his wife and son.

Submit Here

MANIFEST HOPE: DC and its partners are offering the public an opportunity to submit art in an online contest, with three chances to win. The contest is comprised of three parts. You can make one submission per category, totaling a maximum of three submissions. The three categories are: Health Care Reform, Workers’ Rights and The Green Economy. Submission is quick and simple. We will be accepting submissions from Monday, December 22nd, 2008 through 11:59 a.m. EDT on Friday, January 9th, 2009.

Of the submitted works, 15 pieces, 5 from each category, will be selected by our panel of acclaimed judges to show at MANIFEST HOPE: DC in Washington, D.C., which will be open from Saturday, January 17th - Monday, January 19th, 2009 for the days preceding the Presidential Inauguration. Selected works will then be shipped over-night by the artists to the Manifest Hope: DC gallery (shipping costs covered by Manifest Hope: DC).

You can submit any medium of art: painting, sculpture, collage - any 2D or 3D creation that uses positive messaging to convey the urgency and importance of encouraging a national dialogue about the contest’s three themes. Please use your creative ideas to help capture the energy we have experienced in this momentous campaign! Also, please make sure to read the guidelines of this contest before submitting your work.