Craft Night

I came across this little gem known as Craft Night on the Not for Tourists website. (If you don't have the Not for Tourists' guide for LA, I highly recommend it. It's an indispensable supplement to the Thomas Guide. The NFT has maps by neighborhood and lists the locations of tons of grocery stores, banks, shops, restaurants, etc.) Anyway, while browsing the site, I came across a review for Craft Night and was intrigued.

We went to Craft Night not sure what to expect. All we had to go on was that blurb on the NFT website and the description on the official Craft Night website: adults doing crafts (yes, like crafts that you did in elementary school art class or in Cub Scouts) in the back room of a bar at night. We reluctantly entered the back room of Akbar and were promptly greeted by the self proclaimed "Craft Captain," Julianna "JP" Parr. Just over a dozen people (all in their 20s or 30s I would guess) sat at tables chatting, drinking, and most importantly crafting. The craft of the night was paint your own fashion rings. I can't say that my ring gets any use, but I did have a fun time painting that bulbous piece of plastic. My friend had so much fun, she painted not one, but two rings. As we sat there painting and gluing an excessive number of googly eyes to our rings, we chatted with JP and some fellow crafters. We learned that Craft Night goes back a number of years and has had several homes through its history.

Things like Craft Night are what make LA truly unique. Anywhere else in the country people spend their Wednesday nights watching "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader," or whatever the hot show of the moment is. But not me. I go crafting.


Craft Night held Wednesday nights 9pm-midnight at Akbar
4356 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
visit www.crafthead.com for schedule

Farmer John Pig Mural

A few months ago a friend called me and said, "let's do something random."

"Okay," I said as I picked up my trusty Lonely Planet Guide (the best travel guide series I've yet to find) to Los Angeles. I flipped aimlessly through the pages and landed on the Farmer John Pig Mural. Of course that caught my eye. What exactly was a "pig mural?" Turns out that it's exactly what it sounds like: a mural of pigs. If that isn't random enough, said mural is painted across the entirety of a factory for the Farmer John company which makes....pork products.

A pig mural was random enough to satisfy my friend's need for randomness, so we set out that afternoon for picturesque Vernon, CA. If you've never been to Vernon, you haven't missed anything (except, of course, for the Farmer John Pig Mural). Vernon is just south of downtown LA and consists of nothing but warehouses and factories. It honestly is one of the ugliest places I've ever seen. And to add to its charm, it sits on the scenic LA River.

Although there was no shortage of factories, finding the Farmer John factory was no problem, on account of the giant mural. The factory was probably about 100 by 150 yards, or in other words: big, and the mural covered the entire wall that wrapped around the complex and every exterior wall of every building. The whole mural came across as an exercise in contradiction; the grassy countryside depicted in industrial Vernon and pigs happily frolicking on the walls of a meat processing plant.

We must have spent at least half an hour exploring every inch of that mural. I've seen murals before and I've seen factories, but that was my first time seeing both together. The experience had just the right amount of weird to make an afternoon on a sidewalk outside a factory fun. You really should go check it out.

And the best part: the whole place smelled like bacon.


Farmer John Pig Mural
3049 E. Vernon Ave.
Vernon, CA 90058