page one playboy late-breaking stories funk bartok wedding dark elvis
Frankie "Kash" Waddy
Frankie "Kash"
Waddy
Inside the World of a
P-Funk Time Lord
 
Galpin
Beau Boeckmann
Custom Car Nirvana
at Galpin Ford
 
Kenny Gravillis
Kenny Gravillis
Smart Art for Hip Hop
and Hollywood
 
T.J. Hooker
T.J. Hooker
Desperate Hours of a
T.V. Ham
Five-O Undercover
 
Daredevil Alley
Daredevil Alley
Super Joe Reed, Janet Lee, Evel Bowevel
 
King Crimson
King Crimson
Prickly Prog-Rockers
Hold Court on Sunset
 
Kam Fong
Kam Fong
a.k.a. Chin Ho Kelly
The Five-O Farewell
 
George W. Bush
Regime Change
The Case for One Term
 
playboy
40 Years
January 1963
Playboy Magazine
 
Kris & Rita
30 Years
Kris & Rita – 1973
 
ironman
20 Years
Iron Man – 1983
 
Kerry Von Erich
10 Years
Kerry Von Erich
1960–1993
 
Previously on Five-O
Issue Two
Swingtime Strippers
 
Issue One
New World Evel
 
 

But with Charles Phoenix in charge, that all changes. This L.A. artist's projecto-ray is a prism into the labyrinths of local memory, a '50s time machine, a family reunion under glass, an exposé of tender and hilarious if not downright unsafe family customs, a damn fine way to spend a couple hours at the theater.

It's a wonderful show, warm and indigenous, called God Bless Americana. But when you see it, you feel charged less with patriotism than with an emotion that says, shaking your head softly, flushed with recognition, I can't believe all of that's gone — because I was there, and they told us this was it!

So far there's been the Southern California summer edition and also the Holiday Show. Each induces its own therapeutic resonation with every summer trip and holiday gathering you either enjoyed or endured. Though Phoenix salvages his slides from dozens of sources (he is an "addict," and we are his "enablers"), there is inside these candid shots an uncanny coherence between folks who don't know each other — a society as homogenous (and chalky white) as dairy-fresh vitamin D milk. Good God!

Found art, recovered art, uncanny dioramas of local life salvaged at thrift stores and garage sales — call it what you want. It works for me, just as long as you add the dry-martini wit of Charles Phoenix, putting just the right spin on the pains of adolescence lived out on the stage of the new holiday wardrobe, or on the telling gag-photo of a kid with a cow-lick sticking up his baby sister with a genuine nickel-plated .38. Ah, suburban life.

Then there's those ruffled lamps, shadowing Phoenix at every turn like Javerts on the trail of Jean Valjean. From Hermosa to Hollywood, Long Beach to Pasadena, it appears there are three constants in the Angeleno Cold War era: smokin', drinkin', and crimes against fashion — mainly in the form of ruffled lamps.

You know, here at Hollywood Five-O, we're always striving to regain that Boss '70s feeling we learned to associate with "reality," so for effect on this piece I was thinking of using the headline "Operation Phoenix." Except people might confuse it with the Operation Phoenix in Viet Nam.

One is an ingenious monologue and slide show that I declare to be the antidote to today's most pronounced entertainment malady: over-production.

The other Operation Phoenix? Civilian massacres, but hey! — the Pentagon pinned a medal to future Senator Bob Kerrey's chest for that hair-raising act of valor before he confessed the truth decades later.

Anyway, the Senator's bloodbath is a fit subject for another day, so squash the creepy horror themes and cue the pizzicato of neighborly strings. This Phoenix project, inside the Spielberg Theater within Hollywood's Egyptian, is a family exhibition, although in both events you are forced to confront the atrocities of the Sixties — for Charles Phoenix they come in the form of ruffled lamps.
 

The New Charles Phoenix So. Cal. Retro Slide Show Is Now Playing Through June 29!
Check for info.


 
World Poker Tour
World Poker Tour
Introducing the NASCAR
of Texas Hold-em
 
Tree Sitter
Tree Sitter
John Quigley
Onboard "Old Glory"
The 400-Year Old Oak
 
Bartok
Bartok Takes A Bride
Eqyptian Theatre
All-Stars Party
with Thai Elvis
 
Malvin Wald
Malvin Wald
The Naked City Writer
on Al Capone and
Ronald Reagan
 
HEll House
Hell House
Interview with Filmmaker
George Ratliff
 
The Conqueror
Bow Down, Tartar Dogs!
It's John Wayne as
Genghis Khan
 
Film Noir
Film Noir Fest 2003
Black Lightning Strikes
at the Egyptian
 
Forry
Forrest J Ackerman
86th Birthday Bash for
Famous Monster
Magnate
 
Funk Photos
The Funk Does
Hollywood
 
Charlton Heston
Omega Man
 
Lemmy
A Very Lemmy
Christmas
Yuletide at the
Rainbow Room
 
Charles Phoenix
Charles Phoenix
Big Laughs in
Kodachrome
 
Xmas Parade
The Hollywood
Christmas Parade
Unholy Spectacle of
Glitter and Filth
 
theron productions