Friday, August 28, 2009


To continue with my Laurel Canyon obsession, this was Harry Houdini's house. It burned down and the grounds are reportedly haunted.

On this street, Lookout Mountain Avenue, you can see Houdini's haunted grounds, across the street is the Bird house designed by Byrd - who also designed the 10050 Cielo house where Sharon Tate was murdered - and occupied by Tom Mix and then Frank Zappa until it burned down, "Our House" of Joni Mitchell and "Mama" Cass Elliott's house where parties were attended by virtually everyone in the rock and roll Hall of Fame and where the songs "Helplessly Hoping" by CSN&Y ""Wild Horses" by Keith Richards and Graham Parsons and "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix were inspired/created.

That is just one freaking residential street.

To put just how wild the Laurel Canyon music scene was in the late '60's and mid '70's, Joni Mitchell, Linda Rondstadt and Judy Collins all pretty much dated/slept with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Don Henley, John David Souther, Glenn Frey, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Buffet and James Taylor.

And these women, especially Joni Mitchell, were considered downright straight prudes of their crowd because they didn't do one-night-stands, orgies or heroin or acid.

What were the wild women doing?

The Chicago Cubs got Milton Bradley for $30 mil for three years, right now he has 32 RBI and is batting .265, he has been thrown out of many games for stupidly arguing calls, he has made countless base running mistakes and thoughtless errors in the outfield, got an a screaming argument with his manager, Lou Piniella, and now he is whining about the Cubs fans being hostile towards him.

Bradley thinks they're hostile? I'll show him some hostile.