of neon and angel city in the city of angels

Last night I attended MONA's Opening Reception of their new show featuring Classic Soda Pop Signs and other neon related Kinetic Arts. Thanks to Tom Gilmore the museum has a temporary new home although they continue the search for a bigger venue as most of their permanent collection sits in storage.

As you enter the space the most prominent aspect, which also hearkens people off the street, is the newly restored Craby Joe's sign from the recently defunct skid row watering hole. Accompanying the sign is a mini-photo retrospective from the final evening of business taken by Eric Lynxwiler of the Neon Cruise fame.

[Yours truly can be seen in the photo of the photo above if you know where to look.]

This temporary home for MONA is a blessing in the fact that the previous location down Olympic near FIDM was slightly off the beaten path. Now, especially in the wake of the Craby Joe's aftermath, the museum is generating more attention than in the past and one can only hope that a permanent home will come forth from some divine source. Subway Terminal Building, I'm looking at you. Or any other space that possesses 50,000 SQ FT, a large loading dock and crazy high ceilings. That's kinda hard to come by in today's Downtown Real Estate game especially when developers are looking for retail and/or dining and not non-profit.

Someone recently bemoaned the fact that MONA was charging at the art walk however let's remember that museum just up Grand Avenue with a similar name, MOCA, has sponsorships and grants galore that help support them in opening their doors for free every Thursday. MONA doesn't have that capability right now, they need to charge so they can pay their bills. Or they need a sponsor. Again, any takers?

But I digress, the opening seemed to be a hit with a steady flow of people from 7-10pm stopping by to take a look and snap some photos.

Since Neon Boy was slated to stay for the entire party and The Gentrifier and I didn't have any reason to stay and watch him talk about neon, we moseyed over to Seven Grand for a cocktail. Near the corner of 4th and Broadway we noticed a film of some sort being projected on top of a parking structure and I wondered if it was Angel City as I've heard about this outdoor "drive-in" but never knew it's exact location. On our walk back to MONA we decided to investigate and indeed my suspicions were correct. Located on the top floor of a 2 story parking structure was a small massing of cars huddled together with people either enjoying the movie from inside their vehicle or on the makeshift "lawn" in front of a considerably large screen, with the projector located conveniently on the top of a '57 Chevy.

The entrance fee is $10 per person no matter what mode of transport you utilize to get there and as I said before they do have a large astro-turf area in front of the screen so if you don't have a car, its OK. If you do decide to drive they have an FM transmitter which will allow you to watch the movie the old fashioned way. I'm looking forward to checking it out on my own in the future, perhaps we will put together a "3BN goes to the movies" night or something.

After all the excitement was over and we dragged Neon Boy out of the party by his LED tie we ran into Bert Green and Co. having a beverage on the Banquette patio and converged with Wonton Winstead on the last leg of his nightly walk around the block.

And so it ended up being just another fun night with friends in Downtown enjoying all that it has to offer.

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