August 7, 2013
Spent yesterday in Hollywood. Started early at Thai Town on Sunset where Pattarapan guided us to the very best Thai food in the States.
From Thai Town we drove to the Getty Art Museum which I had never been to. I went specifically to see the Ed Rusche (pronounced Rue-shay) show featuring photos from his 1962 book "26 Gasoline Stations," a highly collectable book of random gas stations on Route 66, taken on Ed's trips home to Oklahoma City. I wanted to see if any Kingman gas stations were featured and sure enough the Flying A truck stop was in there, which was actually south of Kingman at McConnico, I believe. If I'm not mistaken, it later became the Phillips 66 truck stop and my father went into partnership with a guy there for a short period and they lost a bunch of money on the cafe, with various truck stop restauranteurs, coming and going, most leaving in the middle of the night and stealing all the equipment.
That was a thrill to see, although, the Kingman gas station was not in the show, but on a small, hanging replica of the book at the end of this line of photos:
I actually wanted to see the gas stations huge and impressive, but "fine art" photographers have this conceit about showing the images small, which I just don't get. I drove 375 miles to see this and the smallness of the display (all of Ed's images were in this small room) was underwhelming to say the least.
Fortunately, the Getty has an impressive display of Impressionist paintings, including this Doc Holliday dead ringer.
"Portrait of A Man" by Edouard Manet, 1860
Love the horseshoe stick pin, which Doc would have undoubtably worn, but I believe the old timers out West believed the horseshoe should face upwards so the luck won't run out.
After several hours and lunch at the Getty we drove down to Sunset Blvd. and took the scenic route back all the way to Echo Park. Amazing billboards along the way:
And, of course, it's fun to people watch as well. Here's a cross section of crosswalk life in downtown Hollywood (this is near Sunset and Vine):
Lots of business types, starlets and tourists. . .
Including the yahoo, star struck cowboy taking the photos.
'I occasionally see a guy walking on the side of the road giving me a thumbs up. He's usually filthy but it's nice he appreciates my driving."
—@Flushing_Nemo
