HOME: Stories From L.A.

Latest Episodes:

Episode 11: The View From The Road Mar 23, 2016

Show notes

The crowning paradox of the touring comic’s life may be this: You have to leave home to make a name, but without the grounding and security of home you may not have anything to say. This week, three experienced comedians on striking the tricky balance between the road and home.

Music:

“Sophistication,” from the Complete Capitol Production Music
“Track 2,” from “I Love You Alice B. Toklas” (original soundtrack)
“Rythn,” by Podington Bear
“Pretty Simple,” by Podington Bear

Thanks to Cathy Ladman, whose one-woman show, “Does This Show Make Me Look Fat?”, opens soon; Brad Upton, whose upcoming tour schedule is available here; and Jackie Kashian, who can be heard on The Dork Forest and The Jackie and Laurie Show.

**Episode 10: A Life At Sea, On Land** Mar 09, 2016
Show notes

How far would you go to rescue the remains of a bygone world you’ve loved since you were a kid? Peter Knego went to Alang, India, and then did it again and again, to save what he could of the great ocean liners being scrapped there. But he didn’t just want to save the ships. He wanted to live in one. And to a remarkable degree he’s succeeded, filling his home in Oceanside, CA with a breathtaking array of maritime memorabilia.

This week: One man’s mission to recreate, in landlocked miniature, the great days of the oceangoing ships.

*Thanks to Peter Knego and Mark B. Perry. To learn more about Knego’s memorabilia business, visit midshipcentury.com.*

Music:

Theme from “The French Line” (1953)

“Back In The USSR,” by The Beatles

“Saver,” by Podington Bear

“Whiplash String Swell,” by Podington Bear

Excerpt from “Tosca,” by Renata Tebaldi

**Episode 9: A Home Away From Home** Feb 24, 2016
Show notes

Suppose you wanted to design a home away from home. What would you put in? What would you leave out? What kind of seating would you have? (Soft? Hard? Low? High?) What kind of tables — big working slabs or intimate little two-tops?

A good “third place” may seem casually homey, but its design is the end result of a million tiny decisions. This week, it’s a conversation with Kambiz Hemati, who oversaw store design at Starbucks for two years and now owns Love Coffee Bar in Santa Monica, where he gets to think hard — and think small — about what makes a place feel like home.

MUSIC:

“Trader Ho Hey,” by Podington Bear

“Whistle Work,” by Podington Bear

“Song For A Pea,” by Podington Bear

*Thanks to Kambiz Hemati of Love Observed and Love Coffee Bar.*

photo-8 — **Episode 8: A Home, A Murder, A Mystery (or two)** Feb 10, 2016
Show notes

Up in the manicured hills of Los Feliz, a neighborhood that boasts at least three famous murder houses, the one with the weirdest history may be the Perelson house… where, deep in the night of December 6, 1959, a husband and father of three lost his fragile grip and went terribly, shockingly crazy. But the story only starts there.

Why did Harold Perelson snap? What does it mean when, without warning, the safety of a family home is shattered from within? And how do you explain what’s happened to the house since?

*Read blogger Jen Clay’s account of a 2012 trip to the Perelson house here. That’s her photo to the right.*

*Thanks to Jeff Maysh, whose “The Murder House” is the definitive work of reporting on the Perelson case; Scott Michaels of Dearly Departed Tours; and Yolonda E. Lawrence.*

Special thanks again this week to the fantastically talented, prolific and generous Podington Bear, a/k/a Chad Crouch, whose work is an invaluable repository of music that’s free for non-commercial use.

MUSIC:

“Epiphany,” by Podington Bear

“Dark Matter,” by Podington Bear

“Strikes Again!” by Podington Bear

“Preservation,” by Podington Bear

“How Fortunate The Man With None,” by Dead Can Dance

“Corridor,” by Podington Bear

“Velcro,” by Podington Bear

“Got Spark,” by Pdington Bear

Update: Season 2 Dec 02, 2015

Show notes

Season 2 of HOME comes your way in January. Subscribe today and new episodes will automagically fly through the aether to you more or less the very second they’re released. And if you get a moment between now and the start of the new season to tell your friends about the show, or even better, to rate and/or review it at the iTunes Store, why, there’ll be a fine fat goose under your Christmas tree!*

(Many thanks to the most excellent Podington Bear for much of the music used in Season 1, including “Vox Bubble Rumba,” heard in this audio update.)

*Not a binding promise of an actual goose

**Episode 6: Ghosts of The Carlotta** Nov 17, 2015
Show notes

The venerable Villa Carlotta — home to show business A-listers in the Golden Age, and later to a generation of young actors, writers and musicians — sits, a hollowed-out shell, on Hollywood’s Franklin Avenue. It may or may not be about to undergo a transformation into an upscale hotel. What happens to a community when it’s driven from the place where it’s made a home? One resident stubbornly hangs on, battling for the soul of a building that once buzzed with life and energy.

MUSIC:

“Home,” by Henry Hall and his Gleneagles Hotel Band

“Twine,” by Podington Bear

“It’s All Forgotten Now,” by Ray Noble and His Orchestra

“Tuesday’s Tune,” by Herschel Burke Gilbert

“Toccatta and Fugue in D Minor,” by Johann Sebastian Bach

“Zombie,” By Johnny Fever (Sam Fuller)

“Csm,” by Podington Bear

*Photos, top to bottom:*
Carlotta exterior 2008 *by Stinson Carter.*
Carlotta lobby 2015
Carlotta lobby 2014 by Stinson Carter
Carlotta courtyard 2014 by Stinson Carter
Carlotta courtyard 2015

*Thanks to Sylvie Shain (above).* *For more information on the campaign to save the Villa Carlotta, see its Facebook page.*

*Read Stinson Carter’s excellent piece about The Carlotta in Vanity Fair.*

Episode 5: Growing Up 818 Nov 04, 2015

Show notes

There’s the San Fernando Valley, the one you can find on a map… and then there’s The Valley, the one that exists in the culture, whose notoriety far outstrips its size. How did that happen? How did it come to be that you can mention The Valley to people in Milwaukee or Toronto or Tokyo and they’ll know what you’re talking about? And what does it mean to call The Valley home? This week HOME looks at the tangled legacy of a place that managed to be both the iconic American suburb and an industrial powerhouse that cranked out everything from beer to cars, and moon rockets to The Brady Bunch.

For more on the history of the San Fernando Valley, visit the Valley Relics Museum.

MUSIC: