Oceanic Arts co-founders LeRoy Schmaltz (far left) and Bob Van Oosting (far right) with author and his friend, April 2016.
WHITTIER, Ca.–Every day is a getaway day at Oceanic Arts.
The holy grail of American tiki culture is tucked back in an industrial park in Whittier, Calif., the early home of President Richard Nixon.
Oceanic Arts is to the free blue seas what the Watergate complex was to fishy burglars.
Oceanic Arts is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.
Founders LeRoy Schmaltz and Bob Van Oosting are still hanging ten. [...]
Courtesy of National Blues Museum
ST. LOUIS–The National Blues Museum is in a former department store in downtown St. Louis. The museum got a lot of love even before its April 2 grand opening, as the $14 million center was named a top travel destination by the New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine.
I waited until the doors opened to get my mojo talkin’.
The National Blues Museum is a snappy, well told story with lots of panels, posters and photographs. It has an ambitious vision. It is billed as the only institution of its kind dedicated exclusively to preserving and [...]
JOHNSON CREEK, WIS.—-The band Starship reopened the historically quirky Gobbler Theater Sunday in Johnson Creek, about half way between Madison and Milwaukee, Wis. Vocalist Stephanie Calvert channeled her inner Grace Slick reminding the older crowd to “Feed Your Head” in the band’s cover of the Jefferson Airplane 1967 hit “White Rabbit.”
Only the late 1960s would be able to birth the Gobbler Motel and Supper Club.
Feed your head, indeed.
The Gobbler complex was created in 1967 by area turkey farmer Clarence Hartwig, who decorated his dining room in pink colors and pink [...]
LOS ANGELES, Ca.—Merle Haggard was a friend of mine. And if you liked America’s back roads, honky-tonks and remembered to open car doors for women, he was a friend of yours too.
Haggard died April 6 on his 79th birthday.
He died at his home in Northern California,. which was poetic. Haggard is as essential to the California landscape as John Steinbeck or Cesar Chavez. No person was too small for this musical giant, whose reach went beyond country into jazz, swing, blues and pop.
Merle was an empathetic songwriter, a bandleader, a romantic and a huge slice of American history. He was a loyal friend of the downtrodden. This one hurts.
Merle, his long [...]
