Boats Parade in the Venice Canals

By CJ Gronner

One of the most adorable things you could ever do in Venice, California is attend the annual Holiday Boat Parade in the Venice Canals. This year was the 30th one, and I think it might have been the best yet. I say that because the mood of the boating participants and the attendants that packed every narrow sidewalk and bridge was sheer buoyancy … and there is no pun intended there. There were plenty of to-go cups in gloved hands (it was beach chilly), but even without that help, everyone seemed to be in stellar spirits as they cheered and caroled under the clear, full moon evening. The Epstein-Mayers hosted the pre-party I attended (Thank you, our gracious hosts!), and we got our group gathered and canal-side just in time to see the first boat sail by, poled along, appropriately enough, by some old-style gondoliers (and “Mr. & Mrs. Abbot Kinney” that I didn’t know). Perfect.

Right on their tail was a militant duck contingent bearing signs like “Duck-U-Py The Venice Canals” and demanding their just nest eggs. Venice always has a sense of humor, and we love it.

There was a fully-amped rock and roll band made up of both Christmas characters and Super Heros. This may just have been my favorite, for fun, enthusiasm and, of course, rock.

You can be as elaborate or as simple as you like in this parade, a big pontoon-type deal, or a single kayak for one, as long as you’re having fun.

The crowds lining the bridges and sidewalks shouted their approval the whole time, and the number of people only increased as the sun began to set. It was so pretty out, people were just gasping … locals and visitors alike.

Pop culture was well-represented, from vessels celebrating Barry Manilow (yes it was ) to Snoopy’s doghouse and the Starship Enterprise.

A darling little family of reindeer? More gondoliers? Fire people? were led by the exuberant patriarch in singing some rousing Christmas numbers, with the little kid barbershop quartet on the choruses. I thought I might explode from the cute factor. Happily.

Hanukkah was given many shouts out by the happy Rabbi in his Menorah/Dreidel (that spun!) boat. He was a big hit, especially with the kids shouting out for candy (chocolate gelt). It’s funny, the parade is like the new trick or treating, or Mardi Gras … kids seemed to expect the boats to throw out candy … Noted.

Even the dogs got into the act, as seen by this little reindeer dog, though his coat did say “Bark Humbug”. Hmmm.

Robin the Snow Queen sailed by with a real fire burning in the bottom of her boat. Very cool. It gave me ideas for the Viking Ship we plan to set sail next year.

The sunset turned the whole sky pink and the lights of the homes and bridges (and boats) began to twinkle in a breathtaking twilight you couldn’t even make up. Everyone looked beautiful … mostly because everyone looked so happy. Truly, even if it was just forgetting about regular life stuff and problems for the moment, and being present and appreciating life and fun and Venice and NOW, while we had it.

I think that’s because you couldn’t help but feel the HOLIDAY CHEER everywhere you looked, especially on this boat, with the coolest, happiest Snowflake Man (with his Christmas Tree friends on back-up vox) riling up the onlookers and getting them/us/me to join him in Karaoke Carols.

As the sky darkened and became more moon and star-lit, the boats wound their way around the canals, with more applause and cheers at every turn. The parade ended and the house parties around the canals began (though many looked not to be at home … are they crazy?! Those houses were MADE to be home on this night more than any other!),we paraded on foot back to our party, but not before being greeted and embraced and invited in by just about every friendly face you’ve ever encountered in town. Right up until this night, I hadn’t been feeling the holiday swing so much yet, with so many other things going on all the time, and time itself flying so fast. But then, as you see, the holidays were jump-started right in front of our faces!

The rowdiness eased into a full moonlight serenity after a while. We rode our bikes back through the canals later on, and I had to pause to soak up the simple loveliness of a Christmas-lit bridge with its reflection upon the water. I gave myself the moment for my own reflection, and with that, BANG! The Christmas Spirit was fully upon me. I’m feeling it! And I hope you are too.

With all the hubbub of the Season … remember to reflect. Appreciate. Have FUN!

 

CANalABYSS

By Mary Lou Johnson

Come on, come all
All you hippies, have a ball!
Now’s the time, today’s the day
Lose your blues, pay no dues
Style your life, discard your shoes.

In the process of a much needed desk cleanup, I came upon the above piece of doggerel jammed in the back of a drawer. Something I’d amused myself writing when I first moved to the canals. Even then it had a faint aura of nostalgia about it. THE CANALS! What emotions those words have evoked in me over the years; curiosity, fear, desire, passion, anger, sorrow.

My first experience of the canals was many years ago when I was in my early twenties. I had picked up (Or allowed myself to be picked up by) this guy in a bar who took me to his place for a night-cap. It’s all a very vague and boozy memory of California moonlight and jasmine, and walking over an incredible bridge and a funky, little house. (Although “funky” was not then a hip word, but a word used by Blacks meaning a bad smell.) And it was all a magical mystery tour that lingered dimly in my memory.

Years later I moved to Venice. I lived in a house trailer (not a mobile home), and I had been politely informed that my presence was no longer desired. This kept happening to me in all the trailer parks in Santa Monica.

For those of you who do not know about trailer parks, they are monuments to conformity and prejudice, and are microcosms of the worst that our society offers. Anyway, here I was in a trailer park in Venice, jumping off spot of the nation. (You would never know by looking at that black elephant, Washington Square, that where it now stands housed at one time a couple hundred happy low-income people in their trailers.)

I had read about Venice – All Bad – and heard from my friends about Venice – All Bad – but, I had no choice. My first impression confirmed all these “all bads.” When I stopped in the Saucy Dog (The Pelican’s Catch to you noveau-arrivees) most of the customers looked like they were waiting for a fix or a trick.

After cowering in my trailer for a couple of weeks, I finally ventured out to Hinano’s for a beer, and met some people who didn’t carry switchblades or brass knuckles, and the fear gradually dissipated, but THE CANALS were something else; Bikers and Dopers and Blacks and Chicanos and Pollution and Poverty, and Knives and aborted babies floating in the water and Dope . . .

Eventually I moved out of the trailer park and lived on Ocean Front Walk. (Just to make you pea-green with envy, I had a perfectly elegant apartment for $125 a month, utilities included!) My daughter was completely happy at Florence Nightingale School (now Anchorage), even though my friends had told me, “You can’t send Johanna to school in Venice.” I considered myself really privileged to live on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

Johanna was told not to go to THE CANALS, but one day she came home dripping wet because some kids had pushed her into THE CANALS in a market basket. I was sure typhoid and pelegra were the mildest eventualities to be expected from this excursion, and examined her closely for rashes and open sores for weeks afterwards.

One day a couple of years and moves later, she came home breathless. “Mom! They’re having a big party in the canals, and it’s real neat, Mom, and it’s okay and everyone is invited and please, Mom, come with me. They’ve got music and corn on the cob and watermelon and come on, Mom, it’s real neat!” So I went and it was real neat and that was the first Canal Festival.

By then the pinch, which was later to become a squeeze, was starting to be felt and we were gradually being pushed away from our beloved Pacific. But after that first festival, a sneaky thought had entered my mind. “If all else fails, I can move into THE CANALS.” I wonder how many others who had been even unaware of their existence, or thought about them as a pox on Venice, also entertained this thought – after the hippies hipped us? Sort of like the old song, “Don’t Tell Your Best Friend About Your Old Man.”

Anyway, the day finally came when I had to move again. The pinch became a squeeze became a shove, and through the machinations of some canal friends, I became a resident. My second day here, I was awakened by a loud banging on my door and was told to “get my ass down to the vacant lot at the end of Howland because they’re cutting down the Sapote tree!” “When in Rome” and all that, and I rushed down to see people defying bulldozers and chainsaws, to save some dumb-looking tree. But it was all into the vortex of canal activism. Scarcely a day went by without some community activity – some political, some poofery.

There were campfires and Coastal Commissions; volleyball and Venice Town Council, pot lucks and police confrontations, media and meditations. I raised chickens and rabbits and my monkey roamed free and I was inspired by the belief in self-determination. It was glorious and exhilarating and I really believed our strength and unity and dedication to the common good would have results. Venice was the vanguard and THE CANALS would show the way. Power to the People was there for the taking!

Oh sure, there were troglodytes – Myrtle Wilson and the Dufays and that weird looking one with the short hair – but no one could take them seriously. We were smart and strong and hard working. We had Ron Guenther, as reliable as a priest at Mass, who would be at the Coastal Commission every Monday morning; we had Steve Claire, who was so bright you knew logic must prevail; we had Judy Weiner – “Ms. Ecology” herself; we had gentile, loving people interested not only in their own preservation, but dedicated to sharing with those less privileged. And, we had fun!

Then, one by one, as if planned, these people sold out from under them. Each representative of the Area Council was engaged in a struggle to remain in the area. Energy for political work was diverted into a struggle to survive. People left the canals and new people, who were attracted by the canal’s mystique, tried valiantly to pick up the torch, but to no avail.

BY the eighth year the Canal Festival degenerated into a commercial tourist attraction, with young people coming from Pacific Palisades, playing “hippy for a day” stoned out on downers, pissing on your lettuce! Canal people started closing their doors, and realtors started opening their offices. The stampede was on. Get your little canal fixer-upper, artsy-fartsy, cutesy-pie here! Can’t lose! Bound to increase in value! THE CANALS are IN! . . .

The next year a last gasp effort to raise consciousness was made when the festival was decently laid to rest by the Canal Festival Funeral of 1976, the year of the Bicentennial. The route of the funeral procession was dictated by the permits before the Coastal Commission, for development of some 25 lots in THE CANALS. The police stopped at my house in the morning to get black armbands to wear to the funeral. I was touched. Later that day I found out these same hypocrites has amassed an army of patrol cars and motorcycles.

Provocateurs and collaborators laid siege to the canals; denied citizens their rights, beat people in full view of national T.V. cameras, confronted and menaced children. (Who in the true spirit of Venice kids, managed to pop a few wheelies behind their backs when they were making like the Gestapo.)

I awaken to the sound of Hammers
Mother Mary comes to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
Realty.

(First appeared in the Free Venice Beachhead’s 100th issue April 1978.) b

 

A Venice Holiday

By CJ Gronner

Our hard core Christmas baking day, a verrrry serious annual tradition, fell on Sunday this year. Things began to fall apart even before I awoke on Sunday morning to find that SUMMER had actually finally arrived in Venice! It was a perfect 80 degrees and sunny out. Now I love Christmas, but I’m not a masochist. This had to be at least in part a Beach Day. The baking would have to come after the kitchen wasn’t too hot to turn on the oven!

Meanwhile, in Minnesota it had snowed so much that the Metrodome caved in and the Vikings game had to be relocated to Detroit to be played on the following Monday. I know this because I talked to one of my hometown BFF’s while laying on the beach in my bathing suit. Surrealism. While hearing tales of my friend’s kids bundled up to brave the -30 degrees to sled in Minneapolis, I watched the Venice kids sliding down the winter sand hills on those round disc sleds. While talking, it was clear that we were both a little jealous of each other. But really … I was pretty happy to be right where I was.

I was even more happy to be here in the evening, when we went to the cutest thing in the entire world, the Venice Canals Boat Parade. All the lovely homes were lit up for the holidays, the bridges were lit with lights and words like JOY.

That emotion was written all over the faces of every single person we passed … even the little kid in a Spidey costume who insisted on spraying imaginary web stuff on me for blocks. (I egged him on though. Imagination is grand).

It appeared that every Canal dweller was having a big, fun party, and as we strolled past, we felt the Christmas spirit in full effect … even though we were wearing flip-flops and the night air was balmier than it’s been all year long.

If all that didn’t warm your heart, my friends texted me a number that you can call and get real live college kids to sing you a Christmas Carol for free, and for fun!

Really, call up 217.332.1882 and have a song you love in mind, and those guys will whoop it up for you right then and there. That’s the thing to remember amid all the madness of the Season – and believe me, I’m feeling that part of it all – that the whole idea behind it is to come together, celebrate, and be united in the feelings of peace and goodwill.

Enjoy it all, wherever you are, and whatever the weather.

 

Sluice Gates slush fund

Six years after the project was approved by the Grass Roots Venice Neighborhood Council (GRVNC), new sluice gates are in operation on the Venice canals. The gates regulate the flow of sea water into and out of the canals. On April 22, 2004, the GRVNC Board, including this reporter, unanimously approved “$560,000 expenditure for repair, replacement, and maintenance of (the) gates.”

The funds were to come out of the Venice Surplus Property Fund, which is funded by the sale of real estate that belonged to the city of Los Angeles or the city of Venice. The funds can only be spent in Venice. Some of the funds were recently spent to pave the parking lots behind the Abbot Kinney merchants. Canal resident Darryl DuFay says that the project was finally accomplished when Councilmember Bill Rosendahl obtained “emergency funding.”

However, Nate Kaplan, press aide to Rosendahl, confirmed that the funds came out of the Surplus Property Fund. Rosendahl told the Beachhead that the city bureaucracy (public works department) dropped the ball. But, in a June 13, 2006 press release announcing the repair of the gates, Rosendahl stated “This swift repair would not be possible without the collaboration of community leaders and City staff.” He continued, “I would like to thank the Venice Canals Association and my Venice Field Deputy, Mark Antonio Grant, for the hard work and commitment shown on this project.”

Although this might seem like the end of the story, it wasn’t. Even though the gates were repaired in 2006, work proceeded on replacing them with new gates. The new gates are supposed to last for 20 years, however, the old gates were replaced after 17 years.

-Jim Smith

The Jaya Mural

By Emily Winters and maryjane

In March 1974, Judy Baca of the City Wide Mural Project approached Jaya (Sanskrit for non-violent Revolution/peace/victory), an active, uppity Women Artists Collective, to create a mural about the Venice Canals community and its struggle to survive the intrusion of profiteers. Open public tedious meetings and hearings for this mural were held over a period of fifteen months. This included gathering permission from the building owner, the community and their input for the mural visuals. Jaya member, Emily Winters, volunteered to facilitate their ideas into actual design.

Emily Winters first submitted design was turned down by the community for being too ‘sad’. They wished to portray the contrast of the canal people who had a love and zest for harmonious living with the intrusion of profiteers, those who didn’t have a clue about life’s realities and the importance of ‘quality of life.’

With this in mind, Winters designed a second concept, this time to the wall’s actual dimensions, and incorporated its architectural irregularities and idiosyncrasies. It was unanimously approved at more multiple tedious meetings and hearings.

Prior to this mural, the walls of the building were covered with graffiti expressing the despair with the then existing metro-squad/police abuses. The community demanded that the graffiti “Stop the Pig”, (then a term of empowerment), be included in the mural design.

The mural now known as the Jaya Mural, depicts the sterile white Marina trying to destroy our beautiful and colorful life in the canals. The People’s Park which we built is the focal point showing daily canal life: the arts, farming, fishing, families of four generations; the general supportiveness of a community and the migratory birds. The house being illegally bulldozed symbolized all our homes being destroyed, and was based on a true incident about Sadie Hayes and her home. The ten protesters of that bulldozing stood the line, and were joined by the driver of the bulldozer in support of their action. Needless to say, all were arrested and taken to the hoosegow (jail), later released on their own recognizance.

After many months and with many volunteers, the mural was finished. Upon completion, a few residents protested “Stop the Pig” on the grounds that it was demeaning to our police force. However, they did not complain about the other side of the building which was covered with much stronger and demeaning graffiti commentary. Many tedious hearings again ensued to try and censor this important community statement of “Stop the Pig”. First amendment rights prevailed and despite the picketers objecting to “stop the pig”; the mural was dedicated November 8, 1975. At the end of 1976, the Jaya Collective disbanded.

In March of 1981, for some mysterious fit of passion from a strange unknown brain, a crew of unnamed profiteers arrived at the mural site, very early in the am., and white washed the whole mural. The on-going community-never-failing-network got word out and immediately appeared, en masse, with battle gear of water hoses, brooms and brushes, washing the paint away before it could dry.

The following morning, once again very early in the am, the profiteers again arrived in ski masks with police escorts and the oil based paints, sprayed the entire mural with thick green paint. And again, canalers arrived en masse prepared for battle with paint thinner, rags, ladders, brooms and brushes and scrubbed it all off. A greenish residue remained though, especially on the area of the sterile white Marina.

In late 1996, SPARC hoped to refurbish this mural as part of their 20th Anniversary celebration. Unsuccessful attempts at restoration had been made in the past, but permission was not obtained, even though the community had been requesting it since the 1981 paint out. Finally, due to the remarkable gifts of persuasion of a caring community member, permission was granted and restoration was realized by February 1997, resulting in a joyous sigh all around us.

Many people volunteered at various times in 1975, but a core quartet of Jaya members did the everyday. Astonishingly and totally by chance, the same quartet gathered and achieved this 1997 mural restoration, 22 years later: Jaya members Emily Winters, artist, activist; Judith Foster, activist; maryjane, artist, activist and Don Unzicker artist and honorary Jaya member.

The “Spirit of Venice Award,” was awarded to Emily Winters in September 1997 for the refurbishment of this mural by the Abbot Kinney Festival.

Then in 2006, the Jaya mural was so badly tagged that the property owner was going to have the mural painted out unless the tagging was removed. The mural was also in need of major restoration. The Venice Arts Council founded the Endangered Art Fund which selected this mural as their first public art restoration project. Through the wonderful love, support and generosity of the Venice Community, and the City of Los Angeles, the mural was restored in 2008 by Emily Winters and Nathan Zakheim Associates.

The caring and diligence of the Venice community that has kept this mural alive for 39 years! A more detailed description can be read in “A Seashore Memoir” by maryjane, pages 65-67.

Images of the Jaya mural restoration and Channel 4 TV news coverage are available on YouTube or at http://www.veniceartscouncil.org.

The Jaya Mural is located at 316 South Venice Boulevard at Dell Avenue in Venice.

Jaya Mural Celebration

Jaya Mural Celebration – On May 3, the Venice Arts Council (VAC) Endangered Art Fund is celebrating the completion of the Jaya Mural Restoration Project by honoring donors at a champagne brunch. The brunch will be held at Switch Studios where the Jaya Mural is located, near the Venice Canals at Dell Avenue and South Venice Boulevard.

The event is by RSVP and includes comments from major donors such as; Paul Racs, Office of Community Beautification; Linda Lucks, Board of Neighborhood Commissioners; Jonathan Zeichner, Abbot Kinney District Association, Don Geagan, Beachhead Collective Member; and Grace Godlin, Voice of the Canals.

Artist Emily Winters will give an overview of the mural’s history. Other speakers include Steve Clare, Venice Community Housing Corporation and Suzanne Thompson, Endangered Art Fund.

Emily Winters is a graduate of the Chicago Art Institute majoring in figure drawing and painting. She moved to Venice in 1963. Winters raised two daughters while working in commercial art as a billboard painter for record companies and then outdoor advertising. She was the first woman painter hired by Foster and Kleiser. She was a union activist in International Brotherhood of Allied Trades, Local 831, elected to the executive board and served as shop steward. Winters, co-founded and chairs the Venice Arts Council.

See the Feb. 2006 Beachhead at <www.free venice.org> and <www.venicearts council.org> for more of her art.

On May 3, the Venice Arts Council (VAC) Endangered Art Fund is celebrating the completion of the Jaya Mural Restoration Project by honoring donors at a champagne brunch. The brunch will be held at Switch Studios where the Jaya Mural is located, near the Venice Canals at Dell Avenue and South Venice Boulevard.

The event is by RSVP and includes comments from major donors such as; Paul Racs, Office of Community Beautification; Linda Lucks, Board of Neighborhood Commissioners; Jonathan Zeichner, Abbot Kinney District Association, Don Geagan, Beachhead Collective Member; and Grace Godlin, Voice of the Canals.

Artist Emily Winters will give an overview of the mural’s history. Other speakers include Steve Clare, Venice Community Housing Corporation and Suzanne Thompson, Endangered Art Fund.

Emily Winters is a graduate of the Chicago Art Institute majoring in figure drawing and painting. She moved to Venice in 1963. Winters raised two daughters while working in commercial art as a billboard painter for record companies and then outdoor advertising. She was the first woman painter hired by Foster and Kleiser. She was a union activist in International Brotherhood of Allied Trades, Local 831, elected to the executive board and served as shop steward. Winters, co-founded and chairs the Venice Arts Council.

See the Feb. 2006 Beachhead at <www.free venice.org> and <www.venicearts council.org> for more of her art.