There's buffalos on that thar Island: The wild bison of Catalina Island

Visible from the Long Beach and Orange County coast, depending on the weather, Santa Catalina Island is home to one town, Avalon, and a few dozen "buffalo", or American bison.  Catalina has been exporting live bison to the Dakotas for 19 years, who knew?  

In the 24 years I've lived in Southern California, I've made it out to Catalina Island one time.  In 1997, I got hired to work on the stage crew of a John Tesh piano concert.  While it was a cool trip, I worked 6 10 hour shifts in 4 days, so I didn't get much of a chance to wander the island.  I did make it up to the Wrigley Mansion, now a hotel, on the top of a small mountain.  John Tesh begins the PBS special show playing piano on the hotel's balcony.  The view from up there is absolutely incredible.  

As a SoCal main lander, I'd heard there were buffalo on Catalina for some reason, and that was confirmed by a man we worked with over there at the show.  He was a descendant of the native tribe on the island, the Tongva, called Gabrielinos by the Spanish missionaries.  He told us a bit about the island on breaks and at lunch.  The Tongva go back at least 8,000 or more years, living on Catalina Island.

Until watching the clip above, I didn't realize the bison were brought over way back in 1924, for a movie, and have been living there since.  I'd heard the movie they were used in was in the 1940's or 1950's, but that's not the case.  So for close to 100 years now, American bison, which most of us call buffalo, have been living wild, but supervised, on Catalina.  They are native to much of North America, but not to California, or Catalina or the other Channel Islands. With a trip to Catalina, you can take a buffalo tour to go see them.  Safety tip:  Don't take selfies with the "fluffy cows,"  they can really mess you up, they' huge and dangerous, even if they look really mellow. 

As Southern Californians, we all know Catalina Island is out there, off shore, we've all seen it at some point, on a clear day.  Many people forget, or don't know that there are actually eight islands off of the Southern California coast.  At about 22 miles offshore, Santa Catalina is the closest, and can be reached by a couple of ferries from Long Beach, and by small planes or helicopters.  It's one of the four southern Channel Islands, the other three are Santa Barbara, San Clemente, and San Nicolas Islands.  San Clemente and San Nicolas are used by the military, and are off limits.  Santa Barbara is tiny, and part of the national park with the northern islands.  

So Santa Catalina, usually just called, Catalina, is the one we can all go visit.  The native tribes used to travel to all of these islands in small canoes for thousands of years.  A native woman named Juana Maria, was the last of the Nicoleno tribe on San Nicolas, and lived alone out there from 1835, until being removed in 1853.  

The four northern Channel Islands are west of Malibu, and south of the city of Santa Barbara.  Those four islands are named Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, San Miguel, and tiny Anacapa Island.  The four northern islands, and Santa Barbara Island, are part of the Channel Islands National Park.  You can learn a lot more about the islands, and take a virtual tour at the website on the link.  The Chumash tribe, native to the mainland around the Malibu area, also lived on some of the northern islands.  There is evidence of humans living on Santa Rosa Island as far back as 13,000 years ago, and 11,000 years ago on San Miguel.  So at the end of the last Ice Age, there were people on at least those two islands.  

Catalina is the one island with a small city, Avalon, and as I found out when we worked out there, it's really reasonable to stay there in the off season.  You can check out the Catalina/Avalon website for more info.  Catalina is also known for diving and fishing, and lots of SoCal boaters head out there for day or weekend trips.  Not only is Catalina the only place to see a heard of wild bison in Southern California, there's a lot more to do as well.  This post will give you links to get started to learn more about Catalina and the other Channel Islands.  You can also learn more at the Channel Islands Wikipedia page.

 

 

Kobe Bryant tribute murals in the Los Angeles area

This is a great video of 120 different Kobe Bryant murals in the Los Angeles area.  I ride the bus by the two story mural on the VEM Exotic (car) Rentals building, at 11459 Ventura Blvd, in Studio City, every day.  That's my favorite mural in this area.  That one is at 1:23 in this video.  

I was never a diehard basketball fan growing up.  I lived in Ohio as a kid at a time when all of the pro sports teams pretty much sucked.  The Cincinnati Reds were really good when I was about 4, and lived in that area.  But after that, the Indians and the Browns sucked, the Cavaliers were mediocre, and so were the Reds as I grew up.  My favorite basketball team as a kid was the Harlem Globetrotters. I never became a huge mainstream sports fan.

I got into BMX racing in freestyle while living in Boise, Idaho, when I was in high school, and it was BMX that brought me to Southern California, to work at two BMX magazines, in 1986.  I was totally into BMX, riding every night and on weekends, and rarely watched football, and never watched baseball in my 20's.  But the Lakers were a dynasty, and I'd catch a game on TV now and then.  

Then in 1996, they got this 18-year-old kid in a trade from the Charlotte Hornets.  Like most people, I thought, "Who does this kid think he is, skipping college and going straight to the pros?"  Like all newcomers, he made some mistakes here and there, but it was obvious, this kid, Kobe Bryant, was the real deal.  I started catching a lot more Lakers games as the 90's progressed into the Threepeat.  Kobe became my favorite basketball player of all time.  He was just a freaking amazing player, and legit guy, all around.  

So today's location for this post of Crazy California 43 is the huge Kobe and Gigi mural at 11459 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, my favorite Kobe mural, and the one I see daily.  If you're a Kobe fan, the locations of 119 more Kobe murals are in the video above, go check some out in person.  

Kobe Bryant, obviously, is known for primarily, basketball, but he's a guy who's also won an Oscar and done many other things.  There are a few of my favorite Kobe Bryant videos I found while drawing a tribute picture of him, in my Sharpie Scribble Style.  Where is that drawing now?  I sold it to the guys as VEM Exotics, where my favorite mural is.  I hope it's on one of their walls inside.

Kobe's Top 50 NBA highlights - Watch this again.  Seriously.   Kobe's talent was off the chain.

Kobe and Shaq interview each other, years after playing together 

Kobe Bryant- Mamba Mentality- USC Performance Science Institute - I watched 30 or 40 hours of interviews of Kobe while drawing the drawing of him, this is my personal favorite interview I found of him.  I watched the whole thing three times, I think.

 Kobe Bryant- Up Close interview with Jimmy Kimmel

 TEDx Shaghai Salon- The Power of the Mind

 My favorite Kobe Bryant mural.  11459 Ventura Blvd, Studio City, #steveemigphotos

Close up of Kobe's face, in my tribute drawing of him.  #sharpiescribblestyle

Barris Kustoms: The King of the Custom Cars" shop is closing down

George Barris, the legendary car customizer, died in 2015.  The Barris Kustoms shop, located at 10811 Riverside drive in North Hollywood, California, has closed down now.  Here's a look at George Barris, and some of the crazy cars that came out of this shop.

Full disclosure, I'm not a diehard car guy.  But I am the son of one.  My dad was a draftsman and engineer from a small town in Ohio, who was a serious car guy and street racer in his younger years.  He owned three classic Ford T-Birds, a couple of Chevy Corvairs, and about 35 other cars and several motorcycles, before he got married.  I remember riding in my dad's last old car, a '55 Ford, when I was about 4 or 5 years old.  I also rode in a parade in Wadsworth, Ohio, in a T-bucket roadster with dad and his best friend Wilson, who built the car.  So like a lot of kids from the late Baby Boom and Gen X era, I grew up with my dad pointing and going, "Check out that car."  That love for buying, selling, modifying, and racing cars came from the early pioneers of American car culture.  One of the biggest names in that world is customizer George Barris.

Painting of the original Batmobile, on the window of Barris Kustoms.  #steveemigphotos

 

George Barris was born in 1925, and was the son of Greek immigrants.  He and his brother Sam, a year older, loved to build balsa wood models of cars, boats, and airplanes as kids, and entered them in local contests.  In high school, George and Sam were given a hand-me-down Buick in rough shape, and they customized it themselves, at a time when nobody really thought of driving cars that weren't stock.  The looks and reactions from kids at school, and the fun of creating something new out of an old car, got them believing they were on to something.  A few years later, George hopped in his '35 Ford and headed down to Hollywood.  George set up shop in the city of Bell, and later moved to Compton boulevard.  Brother Sam joined him in 1945, after completing his military service.  

The Beverly Hillbillies jalopy, my photo of their photo, on the front of the Barris Kustoms shop.

 

They customized cars for people in the hot rod and custom car world in the beginning.  George also wrote tech articles and shot photos that appeared in many car magazines, particularly Petersen magazines.  In 1961, his wife Shirley a new location in North Hollywood, just over the hill from Hollywood itself, but right in the middle of the Burbank, North Hollywood, and Studio City area of The Valley, where most movies and TV shows actually got made.  Soon Hollywood actors and personalities, as well as the studios themselves came calling, asking for custom cars to be built.  

Barris customized truck, photo on the front of their shop.

 

Perhaps the most famous car George is known for is the original Batmobile, built for the 1960's Batman TV show- Bam!-Klunk!-Kaplow!  George's custom cars became legendary around the world, to thousands of  hot rodders and street racers, and millions of kids watching Batman, and other shows like The Munsters.  Barris Kustoms built the Munster Koach, and Grandpa's Dragula for The Munsters TV show.  The Dragula was a casket turned into a dragster.  Barris also designed an built the Beverly Hillbillies overloaded jalopy, James Dean's Porsche Spyder, a car for the Banana Splits kids' show, they modified cars for The Dukes of Hazard, and designed and built KITT from the Knight Rider TV show, along with many, many others.  

 A crazy six wheeled ATV, again my photo of a photo on the front of the Barris Kustoms shop.

George's wife Shirley passed away in 2001, and George himself got called by a higher power to customize some cars in the afterlife in 2015.  The surviving family members kept the business going since then, keeping the huge legacy of George and Barris Kustoms alive through car shows, media, and other events.  They haven't customized any more cars since George's death.  So now the legendary location of the shop is up for sale.  Several of George's cars were donated to the Petersen museum years ago, in Los Angeles, and are on display there.  The thousands of photos, posters, die cast cars, and other mementos in the Barris collection will probably wind up on display in a new location at some point.  No word on that yet.  For the moment, as I write this, (Sept. 4, 2021) the Barris Kustoms shop still has photos  of several cars on the front, and a mock-up Batmobile, and James Dean Spyder replica, and the Munster Koach are still visible through the shop windows.  So that's today's interesting location here in Crazy California 43 blog, a shop that expanded everyone's ideas of what a car or truck can be, for well over 50 years.  

The Batmobile revealed- with George Barris

Motor Mavens interview with George Barris (2011?)   

"Hot Rod Herman" - The Munster Coach on The Munsters

Grandpa builds and races Drag-u-la on The Munsters

Knight Rider TV show intro, featuring KITT car, built by Barris Kustoms 

A walkaround video of several of the classic Barris Kustoms cars and creations, taped in 2016, shortly after George Barris' death.

 

Grandpa's casket turned dragster, the Dragula, from The Munsters TV show.  My photo of the photo on the front of their shop.

All good things must come to an end.  Around the corner from the Barris Kustoms shop is this mural of the Batmobile, painted on the concrete culvert wall.  #steveemigphotos