Eric Brightwell

10/31/2024

Nobody Drives in LA -- Kate Chan (陳靄淇)

Kyle and Eric sit down in an LAPL study room with Alhambra City Council District 4 candidate, Katie Chan (陳靄淇). Chan (陳) is an Alhambra native and their discussion touches upon Alhambra Community Transit (ACT), green space, walkability, her journey to politics, and Alhrambra's role as a progressive example within the San Gabriel Valley.

Spotify -- https://open.spotify.com/episode/2IscYMUP5DNk6SaDWEiQ6a?si=80804c73e5bd47be

Apple -- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/look-to-alhambra-with-katie-chan-%E9%99%B3%E9%9D%84%E6%B7%87/id1766873923?i=1000675123158

Podcast Episode · Nobody Drives in LA · 10/30/2024 · 1h 29m

10/15/2024

Who was Princess Leda Amun-Ra -- an "acid witch" who conducted dark lysergic ceremonies for several years at her castle in the Hollywood Hills? Where did she come from? And where did she go?

https://ericbrightwell.com/2024/10/14/the-mystery-of-princess-lena-amun-ra-hollywoods-legendary-acid-witch/

10/11/2024

The 30th annual Music Box Steps Day is coming up. It celebrates Laurel and Hardy's 1932 comedy, filmed on a Silver Lake stair street. It may surprise you to learn that it wasn't the first or only film to feature a neighborhood stairway, nor even the duo's first!

Thanks, in large part, to its proximity to many early film studios – Silver Lake has been home to numerous film stars since at least the 1910s. Not all of those stars were human. There was, for exa…

09/18/2024

The podcast is go!

The podcast is finally here! The only podcast about the pressures, perils, and yes, pleasures of car-free and car-lite living in pathologically car-brained Los Angeles. Co-hosts Kyle Rebar and Eric…

09/11/2024

Feliç Diada! 11 September National Day of Catalonia. Spain's long history in California is well-known. Less known is the prominence of Catalans in the state and its most populous city.

https://ericbrightwell.com/2024/09/11/no-enclave-catalan-los-angeles/

08/23/2024

For this month's "Ask Silver Lake," I delve into the history of Los Angeles Fire Department Company 56, the original home of which (now Edendale) just turned 100 years old.

The following article was written for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council‘s “Ask Silver Lake” series — ‘Ask Silver Lake’ is dedicated to exploring the history and insights of our community. If you…

08/15/2024

If you listen to Conan O'Brien's Summer Smores, you've heard him joke about how remote Altadena is. If you're not an Angeleno, however, you probably don't have a good sense of Los Angeles geography, though, so I created this map of Conan's Los Angeles.

https://ericbrightwell.com/2024/08/14/conan-needs-a-map/

07/23/2024

For the July edition of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council's "Ask Silver Lake" column, I discuss the history and character of the neighborhood's beloved bungalow courts... and include a bunch of photos taken by me.

The following article was written for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council’s “Ask Silver Lake” series — ‘Ask Silver Lake’ is dedicated to exploring the history and insights …

07/09/2024

This was the lastest "Ask Silver Lake," written for the
Silver Lake Neighborhood Council's newsletter about the Mattachine Steps... and my efforts to get the Fargo Stairs renamed the Julian Eltinge Steps -- after America's first drag superstar (and Silver Laker) Eltinge.

https://ericbrightwell.com/2024/07/09/ask-silver-lake-the-mattachine-steps-and-the-julian-eltinge-steps/

05/29/2024

The other day I found myself in Santa Clarita with a couple of hours to kill. Naturally, I got the hell out of Santa Clarita and kicked around an old ghost town, Mentryville, for a few.

INTRODUCTION  The other day I found myself in Santa Clarita with a couple of hours to kill. I Googled “best restaurants in Santa Clarita” — knowing full well that Google has …

05/16/2024

Happy Asian American Pacific Islander Month!
From 1885 until the late 1930s, Pasadena had a small Chinatown -- something I discovered two days ago. The police and local papers of the day were obsessed with its o***m dens, lottery parlors, and tongs... why hasn't this been better covered?

INTRODUCTION Most of my essays about Los Angeles begin similarly. A question is asked, an answer is hard to find or is deemed inadequate, and then I head straight down a rabbit hole. This one began…