{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/t43hx17c2p/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Daniel Samakow \u0026 James Evans, 6/22/2022"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Daniel Samakow and James Evans are the owners of restaurants  Danny's and James Beach. Samakow and Evans are LGBTQIA+ community members and contributors to  Venice Pride."]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["6/22/22 at 1:30 PM"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Name of interviewee, date; The Venice Heritage Museum Oral Histories Project; Venice Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA."]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["OH_040"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Daniel Samakow and James Evans are the owners of restaurants  Danny's and James Beach. Samakow and Evans are LGBTQIA+ community members and contributors to  Venice Pride."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/224/801/small/Daniel_Samakow___James_Evans.jpg?1713985086","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119591/file/224801","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Daniel_Samakow___James_Evans.mp4"]},"duration":1259.84,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/224/801/small/Daniel_Samakow___James_Evans.jpg?1713985086","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119591/file/224801/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119591/file/224801/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/224/801/original/Daniel_Samakow___James_Evans.mp4?1713553620","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":1259.84,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119591/file/224801","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119591/file/224801/transcript/67665","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Daniel Samakow and James Evans Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119591/file/224801/transcript/67665/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:05:08 - 00:00:08:09\nMy name is Daniel Samakow,\rand my date of birth\n\n00:00:08:09 - 00:00:12:00\nis August 21st, 1952.\n\n00:00:12:02 - 00:00:13:23\nI'm James Evans.\n\n00:00:13:23 - 00:00:16:23\nI was born March 15th, 1958.\n\n00:00:17:03 - 00:00:22:21\nI first came to Venice,\rI was a freshman at UCLA\n\n00:00:22:21 - 00:00:30:03\nand I was taking an anthropology course\rand it was 1976.\n\n00:00:30:05 - 00:00:35:22\nAnd I sat down and the guy in the seat\rnext to me said, “You look really happy.”\n\n00:00:35:22 - 00:00:40:06\nAnd I said, “Oh, I just got a raise\rat my job at the library.\n\n00:00:40:06 - 00:00:43:06\nI now make $5.25 an hour.”\n\n00:00:43:06 - 00:00:47:00\nAnd he laughed and he said, “Oh,\rI work at this funny little restaurant\n\n00:00:47:00 - 00:00:50:00\nand I make $100 a night as a busboy.”\n\n00:00:50:05 - 00:00:55:03\nAnd obviously in the mid seventies,\rthat was that was a lot of dough.\n\n00:00:55:05 - 00:01:00:08\nAnd so he said, “In fact, I know one of\rthe guys isn't going to show up tonight,\n\n00:01:02:01 - 00:01:05:23\nand if you have white shirt\rand black pants, they would hire you.”\n\n00:01:05:23 - 00:01:07:02\nAnd I said, “I’ve never even been in a nice restaurant.\n\n00:01:07:02 - 00:01:08:09\nLike I could never work there.”\n\n00:01:08:09 - 00:01:11:15\nAnd he goes, “Be there at 4 o’clock.”\n\n00:01:11:17 - 00:01:15:10\nSo he gives me the address,\rwhich is across the street from the paddle\n\n00:01:15:10 - 00:01:19:15\ntennis courts on the boardwalk in Venice.\n\n00:01:19:17 - 00:01:22:06\nAnd it's a little white building.\n\n00:01:22:06 - 00:01:27:10\nAnd I see a really\rhandsome African-American  \n\n00:01:27:12 - 00:01:28:20\nvery dressed up\n\n00:01:28:20 - 00:01:32:18\nperson in, in the alley\rbehind the restaurant.\n\n00:01:32:18 - 00:01:38:03\nAnd my friend, my new friend\rintroduces me to Hal Frederick,\n\n00:01:38:03 - 00:01:41:22\nwho was one of the owners\rof this little restaurant called Roberts.\n\n00:01:42:00 - 00:01:44:19\nAnd right then, my friend\n\n00:01:44:19 - 00:01:47:19\nCharles says, oh, you know,\rWayne isn't coming to work tonight.\n\n00:01:47:19 - 00:01:50:05\nI thought maybe my friend could work.\n\n00:01:50:05 - 00:01:52:07\nAnd he said, “Oh, God, just what\n\n00:01:52:07 - 00:01:54:09\nwe need, another one.”\n\n00:01:54:09 - 00:01:56:02\nAnd I said, “Redhead?”\n\n00:01:56:02 - 00:01:58:21\nAnd he said, “Come on in.”\n\n00:01:58:21 - 00:02:03:20\nAnd hence, my almost 50 year\rcareer in restaurants began.\n\n00:02:03:22 - 00:02:10:20\nBut that first night\rI saw something that I never saw.\n\n00:02:10:22 - 00:02:16:01\nEven as I got older,\rI think Venice attracted a kind of free\n\n00:02:16:01 - 00:02:20:21\nfor all eclectic clientele,\respecially at that time.\n\n00:02:20:23 - 00:02:25:18\nThat was a mix of celebrities,\rreally cool people and locals,\n\n00:02:25:20 - 00:02:29:21\nand I just immediately\rbecame hooked and have,\n\n00:02:29:23 - 00:02:33:20\nas I say, spent\ralmost half a century in that business.\n\n00:02:33:20 - 00:02:37:04\nThanks to that.\rAnd a good friendship with Hal, also.\n\n00:02:37:04 - 00:02:40:04\nFor fifty years. \rYeah, very close.\n\n00:02:40:04 - 00:02:44:08\nMy first early experience was when I went to Cal Arts\n\n00:02:44:13 - 00:02:47:20\nand I was majoring\rin Happenings and Environments\n\n00:02:47:22 - 00:02:53:07\nand we would come down to the nude\rbeach on Venice Beach and that was right\n\n00:02:53:07 - 00:02:58:14\nnear where Danny's, our restaurant\rwas, right where Windward is,\n\n00:02:58:16 - 00:03:02:19\nand it was 100% nude beach.\n\n00:03:02:23 - 00:03:05:18\nIt wasn't just topless, it was bottomless.\n\n00:03:05:18 - 00:03:09:10\nAnd we would come\rdown there and, you know,\n\n00:03:09:12 - 00:03:10:01\nhang out, at the beach.\n\n00:03:10:01 - 00:03:11:16\nHang out.\n\n00:03:11:16 - 00:03:14:07\nYeah, that was yeah, that which I loved.\n\n00:03:14:07 - 00:03:15:08\nIt was so free.\n\n00:03:15:08 - 00:03:20:06\nI mean that's I think attracted me\rto Venice, it was such a free place\n\n00:03:20:08 - 00:03:22:14\nand how cool is this?\r \n\n00:03:22:14 - 00:03:25:04\n \rSo what impressed me connected me\n\n00:03:25:04 - 00:03:28:19\nto Venice at the time,\rthat was really the sense of of freedom.\n\n00:03:28:23 - 00:03:33:05\nAgain, I was going to an art school,\ryou know, majoring in,\n\n00:03:33:07 - 00:03:36:20\nstudying with Allan Kaprow,\rwho coined the phrase ‘Happenings’ and\n\n00:03:36:22 - 00:03:39:01\njust was a very freethinking kind of person.\n\n00:03:39:01 - 00:03:42:09\nAnd here was a bunch of kindred spirits.\n\n00:03:42:11 - 00:03:45:11\nAnd I had moved from Pittsburgh\n\n00:03:45:16 - 00:03:49:13\nand I needed to reset my mind to be,\n\n00:03:49:15 - 00:03:52:03\nyou know, California.\n\n00:03:52:03 - 00:03:55:03\nAnd this place did that for me.\n\n00:03:55:08 - 00:03:58:17\nPeople in the service industry\rcould move here because it was so cheap\n\n00:03:58:19 - 00:04:02:09\nto live down in Venice\rand it had this natural\n\n00:04:02:11 - 00:04:05:20\nfreedom and artsiness and,\n\n00:04:05:22 - 00:04:10:01\nand they, you know, when I first moved\rhere, they they said the negative ions\n\n00:04:10:01 - 00:04:15:00\nby the beach made you happy, made\ryou, relaxed you, and\n\n00:04:15:02 - 00:04:19:21\nand I always thought it was Venice\rwas a confluence of those negative ions\n\n00:04:19:23 - 00:04:21:19\nand sort of the high intensity\n\n00:04:21:19 - 00:04:23:15\nof Hollywood\rwhere everybody was trying to get ahead.\n\n00:04:23:15 - 00:04:25:02\nAnd that sort of smashed\n\n00:04:25:02 - 00:04:29:00\ntogether, created\rthis sort of amazing confluence of energy.\n\n00:04:29:02 - 00:04:33:15\nBut we met in...\r1982 on March 15th.\n\n00:04:33:15 - 00:04:35:15\nAs it turns out,\n\n00:04:35:17 - 00:04:36:11\non my\n\n00:04:36:11 - 00:04:40:10\n24th birthday,\rmy friends took me to the West Beach,\n\n00:04:40:10 - 00:04:46:06\na friend in particular,\rand she knew everybody in the restaurant.\n\n00:04:46:08 - 00:04:51:03\nAnd so I ended up going to the bar\rand sitting by myself\n\n00:04:51:03 - 00:04:54:15\nwaiting for her to return\rso we could celebrate.\n\n00:04:54:17 - 00:05:00:15\nAnd in walks Daniel, who lived next door\rin the little fennel strewn cottage.\n\n00:05:00:15 - 00:05:05:02\nAnd he was, at that time,\rhad just finished a painting.\n\n00:05:05:04 - 00:05:10:06\nAnd we, he sat next to me\rand we started talking.\n\n00:05:10:06 - 00:05:13:20\nAnd before I knew it he said,\r“Do you want to come see the painting\n\n00:05:13:20 - 00:05:15:22\nI did?  It's right next door.”\n\n00:05:15:22 - 00:05:20:02\nAnd that was,\rwe just had our 40th anniversary\n\n00:05:20:02 - 00:05:24:13\nas partners and friends\rand business partners and you name it.\n\n00:05:24:15 - 00:05:25:06\nYeah.\n\n00:05:25:06 - 00:05:29:15\nAnd it was, I think the last summer before\rAIDS really took over.\n\n00:05:29:15 - 00:05:31:00\nAnd I\n\n00:05:31:02 - 00:05:34:08\nyou know, most people understand\rthe service industry\n\n00:05:34:08 - 00:05:39:16\nwas really devastated\rby those first ten years of AIDS.\n\n00:05:39:16 - 00:05:43:09\nSo I think part of it, too,\rwas being in Venice, we\n\n00:05:43:15 - 00:05:49:08\nwe saw a lot of very creative people\rwho succumbed almost immediately.\n\n00:05:49:10 - 00:05:53:00\nAnd it brought a bond to us.\n\n00:05:53:00 - 00:05:56:03\nWe still to this day\rsay when you've been through\n\n00:05:56:03 - 00:06:00:07\nthat experience of losing people\ryou dearly love and and,\n\n00:06:00:09 - 00:06:03:09\nyou know, kind of\n\n00:06:03:14 - 00:06:08:13\nI was always sure I was the next one,\rlike, how did I get spared?\n\n00:06:08:15 - 00:06:14:07\nAnd I think that that forged a bond\rthat we never would break.\n\n00:06:14:07 - 00:06:16:06\nAnd so far we have.\n\n00:06:16:06 - 00:06:21:00\nBut also we became this\rlike because we were this relationship.\n\n00:06:21:02 - 00:06:24:08\nAnd I liked to cook\rwhich ended up getting us...\n\n00:06:24:12 - 00:06:26:10\nAnd I like to serve. \rHe was at the front of the house\n\n00:06:26:10 - 00:06:31:15\nso yeah, we like do barbecues\rin that little fennel front yard\n\n00:06:31:21 - 00:06:33:01\nthat people would be going to the West\n\n00:06:33:01 - 00:06:36:17\nBeach where Bruce Marder was cooking\rnouvelle cuisine,\n\n00:06:36:19 - 00:06:39:21\nand they would be like, you know,\rof course they were all doing coke.\n\n00:06:39:21 - 00:06:42:21\nBut, you know, they’d come out\rand they're having eaten,\n\n00:06:42:23 - 00:06:45:09\nyou know, quail egg\rand a piece of something\n\n00:06:45:09 - 00:06:48:10\nand they're smelling like steaks\ror whatever\n\n00:06:48:10 - 00:06:51:14\nwe were cooking and like,\rOh my God, we want your food.\n\n00:06:51:16 - 00:06:53:15\nIt's like, we should go into the restaurant business \n\n00:06:53:15 - 00:06:54:16\nat some point.\n\n00:06:54:16 - 00:06:58:20\nI mean, for me,\rthe thing I remember about Venice in,\n\n00:06:58:21 - 00:07:02:15\nsay, the late seventies and early eighties\rwas that\n\n00:07:02:15 - 00:07:06:11\nwhen you talk to anybody else in LA,\rit was like the Wild West.\n\n00:07:06:13 - 00:07:08:05\nIt had a\n\n00:07:08:07 - 00:07:11:05\nreal high crime reputation.\n\n00:07:11:05 - 00:07:15:01\nIt was, you know, why would anybody,\rif Santa Monica were available\n\n00:07:15:01 - 00:07:18:01\nor the Marina,\rwhy would you want to be there?\n\n00:07:18:02 - 00:07:20:19\nWhich was precisely the reason I loved it,\n\n00:07:20:19 - 00:07:23:19\nbecause you didn't\rhave those kind of people there.\n\n00:07:23:23 - 00:07:26:11\nI just remember the affordability\n\n00:07:26:11 - 00:07:29:10\nand the openness of it and the fact that\n\n00:07:29:16 - 00:07:32:15\nbesides the drugs, I, I felt like\n\n00:07:32:15 - 00:07:37:19\nthere were so many people there\rlooking for alternative existences.\n\n00:07:37:21 - 00:07:39:21\nAnd I really connected with that.\n\n00:07:39:21 - 00:07:43:11\nAnd having grown up on military bases,\n\n00:07:43:12 - 00:07:47:07\nI was so seeking\rpeople who wanted to settle down\n\n00:07:47:07 - 00:07:52:07\nand be in a place and discover\rwho they were. So,\n\n00:07:52:09 - 00:07:55:03\nyou know, the the reality for me\n\n00:07:55:03 - 00:07:59:21\nwas just the opportunities of being around\n\n00:07:59:21 - 00:08:04:16\npeople who were thinking differently\rwas really what Venice meant to me.\n\n00:08:04:16 - 00:08:06:21\nAnd it was the neighborhood.\n\n00:08:06:21 - 00:08:11:11\nI mean, when you first come to L.A.,\respecially as a teenager going to college,\n\n00:08:11:13 - 00:08:14:18\nthe sprawl of L.A. is almost daunting.\n\n00:08:14:20 - 00:08:17:15\nAnd I remember finding  \n\n00:08:17:15 - 00:08:20:20\nSilver Lake, which felt very community\n\n00:08:20:22 - 00:08:25:03\noriented, and I thought,\roh, I could happily live here or Venice.\n\n00:08:25:03 - 00:08:28:19\nI didn't see any other places\rin, you know,\n\n00:08:28:21 - 00:08:32:13\nthis area that so embodied\n\n00:08:32:15 - 00:08:38:01\nneighbors and community\rand routine of seeing each other\n\n00:08:38:03 - 00:08:41:19\n“And so early eighties now\ryou, you were talking about you're starting \n\n00:08:41:19 - 00:08:43:10\nto get into the restaurant industry.”\n\n00:08:43:10 - 00:08:45:00\nMm hmm. Mm hmm. Hmm.\n\n00:08:45:00 - 00:08:46:17\n“So let's talk\ra little bit about that growth. \n\n00:08:46:17 - 00:08:47:19\nAnd you were starting to talk about\n\n00:08:47:19 - 00:08:50:06\n72 Market Street,\rif you want to talk about that as well.”\n\n00:08:50:06 - 00:08:54:13\nIt opened in August of 1984.\n\n00:08:54:15 - 00:08:55:11\nI just\n\n00:08:55:11 - 00:08:58:13\ndon't think there had been\ranything like that.\n\n00:08:58:13 - 00:09:02:10\nIt was,\rI think, in the Doug Chrismas space\n\n00:09:02:12 - 00:09:06:08\nthat was kind of a gallery\rin the seventies.\n\n00:09:06:10 - 00:09:08:19\nAnd Tony Bill had exquisite\n\n00:09:08:19 - 00:09:14:12\nstill does, has exquisite taste\rand had Morphosis,\n\n00:09:14:14 - 00:09:19:22\na kind of cutting edge\rarchitecture firm designed this jewel.\n\n00:09:19:22 - 00:09:25:16\nI mean, it was completely,\ryou were on a tenement seeming street\n\n00:09:25:16 - 00:09:31:02\nthat was dirty and gray\rand you opened this patina door,\n\n00:09:31:02 - 00:09:34:16\nit had that kind of greenish tinge on it.\n\n00:09:34:18 - 00:09:38:19\nAnd you were in like, a jewel box.\n\n00:09:38:22 - 00:09:41:14\nIt was wood.\n\n00:09:41:14 - 00:09:45:06\nIt was a mixture of all kinds\rof architectural elements\n\n00:09:45:08 - 00:09:50:10\nand had a huge grand piano that Dudley\rMoore would play when he was there.\n\n00:09:50:12 - 00:09:54:06\nLiza Minnelli sang when she would come in.\n\n00:09:54:08 - 00:09:55:16\nI remember that\n\n00:09:55:16 - 00:10:00:03\nyou know, it was just, and\rand it was because Tony had an office\n\n00:10:00:03 - 00:10:02:13\nacross the street where Robert Redford\n\n00:10:02:13 - 00:10:06:08\nand all kinds of people\rhad offices at various stages.\n\n00:10:06:08 - 00:10:10:10\nSo it was a little bit like when Daniel\rwas talking about the negative ions\n\n00:10:10:10 - 00:10:14:18\nbringing Hollywood down there,\rput them on a different level.\n\n00:10:14:18 - 00:10:19:06\nBut I literally got to,\ryou know, see on a regular basis\n\n00:10:19:06 - 00:10:23:13\nCary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor\rand just extraordinary\n\n00:10:23:13 - 00:10:26:13\nconnections were made as well.\n\n00:10:26:16 - 00:10:31:01\nYou know, in terms of my friends,\rwe were all very Venice centric.\n\n00:10:31:01 - 00:10:32:15\nWe were very proud of Venice.\n\n00:10:32:15 - 00:10:36:07\nAnd I loved being on that edge of both,\n\n00:10:36:09 - 00:10:40:15\nyou know, kind of outlaw,\rbut obviously being gentrified,\n\n00:10:40:15 - 00:10:45:10\nbut nowhere near the way that we see\rin the last, you know, ten,\n\n00:10:45:12 - 00:10:49:07\nten years.\rBut I would walk there every night with Bartok,\n\n00:10:49:09 - 00:10:53:15\nyou know, to pick him up\rat the end of the, at the end of the shift,\n\n00:10:53:15 - 00:10:59:03\nand, and then we drive\rback in his Volkswagen and, uh,\n\n00:10:59:04 - 00:11:02:01\nlike one night I remember getting there\rand they said, close the doors,\n\n00:11:02:01 - 00:11:05:22\nand Michael Feinstein was on the piano\rand, and Liza\n\n00:11:06:00 - 00:11:08:14\nhopped on the piano, starts\rsinging to the restaurant,\n\n00:11:08:14 - 00:11:12:13\nand it was like,\rokay, this is pretty cool, you know?\n\n00:11:12:14 - 00:11:15:05\nThe funny thing about opening James Beach\n\n00:11:15:05 - 00:11:19:02\nwas how quickly\rthat the deal came together.\n\n00:11:19:04 - 00:11:23:18\nNow, when I look at restaurants\rand, you know, putting together $2 million\n\n00:11:23:18 - 00:11:27:09\nto just open a place,\rwe were a very kind of simple\n\n00:11:27:15 - 00:11:31:13\nand I think because we had lived next door\rand been in Venice\n\n00:11:31:13 - 00:11:36:04\nthe entire,\ryou know, 15 years at that point,\n\n00:11:36:06 - 00:11:36:23\nwe just had a\n\n00:11:36:23 - 00:11:40:00\nkind of confidence\rthat if it was going to work,\n\n00:11:40:00 - 00:11:43:13\nit was going to work, and if it didn't,\rwe'd both find other things to do.\n\n00:11:43:13 - 00:11:48:14\nSo there was a kind of carefreeness\rthat I think really appealed to people,\n\n00:11:48:16 - 00:11:52:01\nespecially ones\rwho had watched the West Beach kind of,\n\n00:11:52:03 - 00:11:54:13\nyou know, start Bruce\rkind of lost interest,\n\n00:11:54:13 - 00:11:58:17\nwent on to other projects and\n\n00:11:58:19 - 00:12:01:03\noh, he introduced us to Sherry, though.\rRight,\n\n00:12:01:03 - 00:12:03:11\nto our chef for ten years.\n\n00:12:03:11 - 00:12:06:01\nWho was a lesbian, by the way.\n\n00:12:06:01 - 00:12:09:22\nSo two gay guys and a lesbian work and,\n\n00:12:10:00 - 00:12:14:14\nyou know, which was unheard of kind of\rif and that's another thing to appreciate,\n\n00:12:14:14 - 00:12:17:17\nwhich is that people really hadn't\n\n00:12:17:17 - 00:12:20:23\nconnected with gay people, like,\ryou know, like they do today.\n\n00:12:21:01 - 00:12:24:00\nThere were a lot of people\rwe knew who didn't know\n\n00:12:24:00 - 00:12:27:09\nany gay people, you know,\rdidn't know they knew gay people.\n\n00:12:27:09 - 00:12:31:16\nAnd no would say to us because again,\rwe were just a stable couple,\n\n00:12:31:18 - 00:12:36:20\nwe were meeting people all the time and\rwe were like the goodwill group for gays.\n\n00:12:36:23 - 00:12:39:23\nYou know, I mean, literally\rthere were people who said, “You know,\n\n00:12:39:23 - 00:12:42:20\nI never knew a gay person,\rI always thought they were perverts.”\n\n00:12:42:20 - 00:12:45:19\nAnd uh, but, you have changed my mind \r\n\n00:12:45:19 - 00:12:48:10\nabout how gay people are, you know...\r\n\n00:12:48:10 - 00:12:54:16\n We were blessed twice.  One was, within months we \n\n00:12:54:16 - 00:13:00:12\n were reviewed in the LA Times with an outstanding review,\rand then Gourmet magazine came in\n\n00:13:00:14 - 00:13:05:12\nand which was pretty unheard of,\rat, you know, six months open.\n\n00:13:05:18 - 00:13:09:20\nthat put us on the map\rin a way that we never looked back.\n\n00:13:09:20 - 00:13:15:18\nWe were really fortunate to find a year\rand a half into it\n\n00:13:15:18 - 00:13:19:08\nthat the place across the street,\rwhich is an iconic,\n\n00:13:19:10 - 00:13:22:06\nvery upscale\rMexican restaurant called Rebecca's,\n\n00:13:22:06 - 00:13:26:08\nwhich Bruce from the West\rBeach owned and named after his wife.\n\n00:13:26:10 - 00:13:28:18\nHe wanted to sell that all of a sudden.\n\n00:13:28:18 - 00:13:32:01\nAnd so we were able to take that place\n\n00:13:32:02 - 00:13:36:23\nand made that\ra whole adventure in terms of,\n\n00:13:37:01 - 00:13:42:22\nyou know, put it in a sushi bar\rand it was called the Canal Club,\n\n00:13:43:00 - 00:13:47:05\nand that had a nice 20 year run\rthere as well.\n\n00:13:47:07 - 00:13:52:03\nI literally feel like I blinked\rand the whole place came to life\n\n00:13:52:05 - 00:13:57:06\nand our lives were full of meeting\rVenetians, meeting people\n\n00:13:57:06 - 00:14:01:03\nwho were attracted to Venice being,\ryou know, we joked at James Beach\n\n00:14:01:04 - 00:14:04:20\nall the time that real estate agents\rwould come there to close the deal.\n\n00:14:04:22 - 00:14:07:21\nThey would show them the house,\rand then they'd say, “Now\n\n00:14:07:21 - 00:14:12:05\nyou've got to see this place\rthat's so full of life and love”\n\n00:14:12:07 - 00:14:15:05\nand all the time they would say, \r“Yep, that did it.”\n\n00:14:15:05 - 00:14:18:18\nLike they knew they wanted\rthat to be their neighborhood place.\n\n00:14:18:22 - 00:14:20:07\nOur third restaurant\n\n00:14:20:07 - 00:14:24:05\nwas actually named after\rDaniel and was a tribute to Venice.\n\n00:14:24:07 - 00:14:28:03\nI always thought of it\ras the Museum of Venice History.\n\n00:14:28:03 - 00:14:29:10\nWell, it's funny.\n\n00:14:29:10 - 00:14:33:02\n“So talk about the origins of that. And”\n\n00:14:33:04 - 00:14:34:09\nGod. How did that start?\n\n00:14:34:09 - 00:14:37:23\nWell, so it was St Mark's originally,\n\n00:14:37:23 - 00:14:41:12\nand it became part of the bunch of things.\n\n00:14:41:16 - 00:14:48:11\n“And where was that”\rIt’s on Windward. It's on the corner of Windward and Speedway\n\n00:14:48:11 - 00:14:51:19\nIt's a very historic building,\rvery close to Windward Hotel.\n\n00:14:51:21 - 00:14:54:03\nThere was a big feud\rwith the people who were operating it.\n\n00:14:54:03 - 00:14:56:06\nThere was a guy, I forget his name, but,\n\n00:14:56:06 - 00:14:57:19\nhe had a place called Tantra,\n\n00:14:57:19 - 00:15:02:09\nand he would walk around with a sword\rin a big caftan with a sword.\n\n00:15:02:11 - 00:15:03:23\nAnd he did, uh,\n\n00:15:03:23 - 00:15:06:20\nhe kept it open after hours\n\n00:15:06:20 - 00:15:10:18\nand he sold Jell-O shots to minors\rbecause he said it was a food.\n\n00:15:10:18 - 00:15:13:02\nThe Sharps, who owned\n\n00:15:13:02 - 00:15:16:02\nthe property of James\rBeach and Canal Club were like\n\n00:15:16:02 - 00:15:19:15\npulling out their hair,  that the city\rtook away part of the liquor license\n\n00:15:19:17 - 00:15:21:18\nbecause they didn't\rwant it to operate so late.\n\n00:15:21:18 - 00:15:23:11\nAnd so they got us involved.\n\n00:15:23:11 - 00:15:26:02\nThey said, “Hey,\rmaybe you guys could fix this.”\n\n00:15:26:02 - 00:15:27:17\nAnd we went in there and\n\n00:15:27:17 - 00:15:31:04\nessentially, you know,\rwe decided to take over that restaurant.\n\n00:15:31:04 - 00:15:36:19\nWe got the liquor license reinstated\rbecause we had good reputations and but,\n\n00:15:36:21 - 00:15:39:03\nbecause it was such a historic location\n\n00:15:39:03 - 00:15:43:03\nand we had the last remaining gondola\n\n00:15:43:05 - 00:15:46:01\nthat Abbot Kinney brought\n\n00:15:46:01 - 00:15:49:15\nfrom the Lewis and Clark exhibition\rin Oregon in 1906.\n\n00:15:49:15 - 00:15:52:09\nThere were 12 of them,\r11 of them burnt down.\n\n00:15:52:09 - 00:15:54:04\nWe had the last remaining one.\n\n00:15:54:04 - 00:15:56:05\nWe wanted to create a house for it.\n\n00:15:56:05 - 00:16:00:18\nSo, you know, in this old building\rwe created, piers\n\n00:16:00:20 - 00:16:04:19\nhold this one ton gondola over the bar.\n\n00:16:04:21 - 00:16:09:04\nAnd for a long time,\rone of the things that to bring back\n\n00:16:09:04 - 00:16:12:22\nthe history,\rI was very much trying to support people\n\n00:16:12:22 - 00:16:17:22\nconnecting to the history of Venice\rto connect to because of its art roots.\n\n00:16:18:00 - 00:16:21:11\nYou know, I mean, there's so much\rthat's happened in Venice from Beat Poetry\n\n00:16:21:11 - 00:16:25:12\nto the Doors, and God knows just\rand so many people\n\n00:16:25:12 - 00:16:29:06\ndidn't have any idea, you know,\rit was just kind of getting lost.\n\n00:16:29:08 - 00:16:31:08\nAnd so we were trying to preserve that.\n\n00:16:31:08 - 00:16:36:05\nAnd one of the things, there was a group\rwho wanted to put up the Venice sign,\n\n00:16:36:07 - 00:16:39:15\nand they had been raising some money\rfor a while, but it\n\n00:16:39:15 - 00:16:42:23\nwas kind of stuck in limbo.\n\n00:16:43:01 - 00:16:44:22\nTodd Von Hoffman was involved with that.\n\n00:16:44:22 - 00:16:50:22\nAnd I I got involved because\n\n00:16:50:22 - 00:16:54:18\nthe city wouldn't give a permit\n\n00:16:54:20 - 00:16:57:14\nto put up the sign\runless the Coastal Commission\n\n00:16:57:14 - 00:17:00:09\ngave them the okay\rand the Coastal Commission\n\n00:17:00:09 - 00:17:03:19\n wouldn't give them an okay\runless the city gave them a permit.\n\n00:17:03:23 - 00:17:08:01\nSo it stuck for years in\rno man's land and,\n\n00:17:08:01 - 00:17:11:16\nand we had just,\ryou know, gone through this\n\n00:17:11:16 - 00:17:15:08\nwhole rigmarole of like building piers\rand the historic building.\n\n00:17:15:10 - 00:17:18:10\nSo we were real, really good friends with\n\n00:17:18:12 - 00:17:21:00\nBill Rosenthal,\rwho was the first openly gay\n\n00:17:21:00 - 00:17:24:05\ncity councilman and Mark Grant\n\n00:17:24:09 - 00:17:27:01\nAnd so we had a lot of pull at that time.\n\n00:17:27:01 - 00:17:32:10\nAnd we came up with the idea\rof putting the Venice sign up\n\n00:17:32:12 - 00:17:36:09\nas a Christmas light decoration,\rputting it on a Christmas permit.\n\n00:17:36:11 - 00:17:39:04\nSo essentially, you know,\n\n00:17:39:06 - 00:17:42:06\nwe went the Coastal Commission said,\rwe have a permit,\n\n00:17:42:09 - 00:17:45:08\nit's a Christmas decoration\rpermit for the Venice sign,\n\n00:17:45:08 - 00:17:49:07\nwe raised money and said, you know,\rthis is going to be great for Venice.\n\n00:17:49:07 - 00:17:50:16\nIt's going to be like the Hollywood sign,\n\n00:17:50:16 - 00:17:53:16\nit's going to be a moniker,\rpeople will photograph it,\n\n00:17:53:18 - 00:17:57:13\nBut anyway,\rso we had a party up at Danny's\n\n00:17:57:14 - 00:18:02:15\nwith all the Venice historians\rand people who were part of this effort.\n\n00:18:02:17 - 00:18:06:12\nAnd Danny's was so new\rwe didn't even have enough glasses.\n\n00:18:06:12 - 00:18:07:22\nSo at James Beach\n\n00:18:07:22 - 00:18:11:04\nwe had glassware in the basement\rof the old clubhouse.\n\n00:18:11:04 - 00:18:13:21\nThis clubhouse was built in 1911.\n\n00:18:13:21 - 00:18:17:22\nIt was old California bungalow\rand it had a funny basement.\n\n00:18:18:00 - 00:18:22:04\nAnd anyway, the gondola\rwas hanging over the bar, as I said.\n\n00:18:22:04 - 00:18:24:09\nBut the bow of the gondola,\n\n00:18:24:09 - 00:18:28:12\nthe coxcomb, used to hang down too far,\rit would hit people in the head.\n\n00:18:28:13 - 00:18:32:15\nSo some, during some prior period,\n\n00:18:32:17 - 00:18:36:16\nit had been removed from the gondola\rand had been lost, if you will.\n\n00:18:36:18 - 00:18:40:20\nAnd so it was like\rthe holy Grail of Venice.\n\n00:18:40:22 - 00:18:46:07\nAnd so anyways, I run to James Beach\n\n00:18:46:09 - 00:18:48:10\nand I'm down in the basement\n\n00:18:48:10 - 00:18:52:06\nand I notice a piece of wood wedged\n\n00:18:52:06 - 00:18:57:13\nbetween the base of this fireplace,\rthis ancient fireplace, and the mud walls.\n\n00:18:57:13 - 00:18:58:23\npretty much, I reached in\n\n00:18:58:23 - 00:19:02:11\nand I pull out\rand it's the fucking bow of the gondola,\n\n00:19:02:13 - 00:19:06:09\nthe that's been lost for\rwho knows how many years.\n\n00:19:06:11 - 00:19:09:16\nThat day I just happened, in a basement\n\n00:19:09:16 - 00:19:12:00\nI've been to ... hundreds of times.\n\n00:19:12:00 - 00:19:14:16\nI just, that time I noticed it,\rso I pulled out\n\n00:19:14:16 - 00:19:16:08\nI'm like, in shock.\n\n00:19:16:08 - 00:19:20:05\nIt's like a Torah\rthis big, you know, and I put over my shoulder, \n\n00:19:20:07 - 00:19:23:05\nand I go back to Danny's, and I go,\n\n00:19:23:05 - 00:19:25:04\nit gives me goosebumps right now.\n\n00:19:25:04 - 00:19:26:10\nAnd I got, you....\n\n00:19:26:10 - 00:19:30:05\nnobody's going to believe this, but,\ryou know, this Holy Grail,\n\n00:19:30:05 - 00:19:33:23\nthis thing that Abbot Kinney  \rthe last one that was\r \n\n00:19:34:01 - 00:19:38:08\nlost forever of\rthe one remaining gondola.\n\n00:19:38:10 - 00:19:40:20\nWe just found it,  just now.\n\n00:19:40:20 - 00:19:44:19\nYou know, right before we light up\rthe Venice sign for the first time,\n\n00:19:44:21 - 00:19:51:02\nI mean, if that's not a sign\rthat Abbot Kinney  approves of what we're doing,\n\n00:19:51:04 - 00:19:56:07\ngetting people to to connect to that sense\rof community to connected freedom.\n\n00:19:56:07 - 00:19:58:13\nYou know,\rVenice really should be about freedom.\n\n00:19:58:13 - 00:20:00:03\nIt shouldn't be about money.\n\n00:20:00:03 - 00:20:02:03\nIt shouldn't be, you know,\n\n00:20:02:03 - 00:20:03:19\nand things do change.\n\n00:20:03:19 - 00:20:06:11\nI mean, people the style of arts change.\n\n00:20:06:11 - 00:20:07:23\nThey're more digital now, let's say.\n\n00:20:07:23 - 00:20:12:00\nBut, you know, but still, that sense\rof creativity and freedom, I think, is\n\n00:20:12:00 - 00:20:15:19\nwhat attracts the Googles and the Snaps\rand all these people down here.\n\n00:20:16:01 - 00:20:19:15\nThey want to connect to that creative\n\n00:20:19:17 - 00:20:22:11\nenergy, that sense of freedom.\n\n00:20:22:11 - 00:20:25:04\nYou know, it's in the Zen sense.\n\n00:20:25:04 - 00:20:27:09\nIt's one of those things\ryou can't hold on to.\n\n00:20:27:09 - 00:20:32:06\nYou almost have to let go to feel it, you know...\n\n00:20:32:06 - 00:20:34:02\n  to feel freedom.   \n\n00:20:34:02 - 00:20:36:20\n“Um, I think that's a good spot,\rbut if there's anything more that\n\n00:20:36:20 - 00:20:40:02\nyou guys want to share that we haven't\rtouched on or anything.” Hmm.\n\n00:20:40:04 - 00:20:42:09\n“or any last thoughts you want to put on”\n\n00:20:44:08 - 00:20:47:22\nI don't know, we could go on for weeks.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/119591/file/224801#t=0.0,1259.84"}]}]}]}