You CAN go home again, and have a pretty good time...screening my doc in Riverside
This is a blog for all you Riverside ex-pats who haven't made the trip back home in a while...
I found myself walking the wide, sunny, sidewalks of Riverside last weekend, drumming up support for an unplanned screening of my doc "Rebel Beat" at the Riverside International Film Festival...this film is three years old, yet the Riverside Film Fest programmed it anyway...I think because of this pic I sent in my email pitch of me, circa 1979 at Riverside's De Anza Theater:
Yeah, well, ten years in Hell-A and I'm no more glamorous...just more chubby...despite the fact that -- ironically -- my years behind a candy counter made me hate snacks!
Once I got the news that "Rebel Beat" was slated for the Riverside Film Fest, I headed back out to good ole Riverside to promote "Rebel Beat" at every "hot spot" in the city (there are, in case you're interested, exactly 12).
I was inspired by how charming Riverside remains to this day, and determined to make a kwel video blog for y'all the weekend I returned for my screening...only that weekend my LA drive took THREE HOURS...I just barely made the screening! So nostalgic vlogging be damned...
I'll revisit the wonders of Riverside another time. Today, you're only getting an update of the Riverside Plaza, home of the Riverside International Film Fest.
As most of you know, I grew up a mile from the Riverside Plaza. Since my day, the Plaza's reinvented itself many times. People I met on this visit said, "Did you know the Plaza used to be covered?" Really? I turned into a total old fart. "Yeah?" I said, "Back in my day the Plaza was an open mall before it was an open mall! And we had to use this thing called an 'answering machine' to leave someone a message!"
Today, the Plaza is once again open and working hard to be the hippest spot in Riverside. It not only has...
a clown for the kids and Japanese cuisine, but this:
A Cinderella carriage ride down...well, I guess its one block.
Today, the conundrum of the Riverside Plaza is this:
How do you combine a place for hipsters who would actually pay for a valet and...
THE RIVERSIDE PLAZA'S DREADED TEEN SCENE!
Apparently, the Riverside Plaza has become the city's coolest teen hangout. It's so beset with frightening Riverside teens, in fact, that somebody actually determined a Riverside Plaza Teen Curfew. All teens lingering after 10pm must pool up in front of Borders:
Actual Riverside Plaza teens pooling up in front of Borders.
I met the Riverside Plaza teens (I'm street that way) and, frankly, I found them pretty adorable:
I live in LA and I've been rushed by teen gangsters. These kids are no gangsters. For the most part, they're cute and courteous! They spend their time picking out awesome outfits, giggling, loading up their arms with beaded bracelets, and doing each other's make-up:
I even earned my own beaded bracelet after partaking in a Riverside Plaza Teen Handshake:
The bracelet I got at the Plaza after a secret teen "peace, love" handshake. No, I can't tell you!
So the Riverside Plaza wants to be the Inland Empire's hipster hot spot -- it even has a Trader Joe's -- but it doesn't want to embrace its teens. Do they know know how much people pay these days to infiltrate a teen scene?!! Thank your lucky stars and give those kids a juice bar!
As far as the Riverside International Film Fest goes, no filmmaker could ask for a better time!
Film Fest Prez, Dr. Harki. Surgeon by day, film fest creator by night!
Thanks to my good Poly High friend Kris Lovekin (aka Kris Williams), "Rebel Beat" landed on the front page of the Press Enterprise. A lot of Riverside Rockabillies helped out on MySpace, too, and we had one of the biggest turnouts of the festival!
I was thrilled to see many old friends that night, but the highlight for me was this:
...the latest mustache of Inland Empire rockabilly artist Constancio
Constancio always brings it! Check out that Hasil Adkins T!
I was also thrilled by the Riverside entrepreneur gals who donated beautiful items to my drawings, especially the hair jewelry from Cynelena.com...she specializes in weddings, ladies!
After the screening, a few of us met up at Lounge Thirty Three at the Plaza.
Riverside Plaza's exotic entrance to bar Lounge Thirty Three
I chose this spot for our after party because this bar is run by the kids of the parents who owned the bowling alley by my house, Tava Lanes. The kids behind Lounge Thirty Three were awesome, but I have to say their bar was a little too Hollywood, even for me! Their techno was loud and their martinis were ten bucks a pop...seriously? Ten dollars for a martini in Riverside? I don't think so!
The most fun I had at the bar was trying to figure out if "Lounge Thirty Three" was an underground gay bar. I went there with two cute guys from the screening, Robert and his brother-in-law, Alberto:
Robert (left), looked very hip. So hip, in fact, I assumed this Mexican native was from Mexico City (he's actually from Jalisco and, BTW, a percussionist who frequently sits in at Cafe Sevilla in downtown Riverside). Robert was so hot and hip that before long he was hit on by a Lounge Thirty Three barfly...the cute interloper approached Robert at first by apologizing for "clapping too loudly" to the bar's techno music...then he stroked Robert's leg...then he spirited Robert away to watch soccer on Lounge Thirty Three's flat screen TV...
Now, had I been in Hollywood, I would have taken this as nothing more than the birth of an awesome indie band...but since this all took place in Riverside, I had to ask myself: Was this the start of a band...or a gay hook up? Robert swears by his wife that he's straight, but I didn't go home with either Robert or Alberto, so I can't say for sure.
The jury's still out on Lounge Thirty Three's oh-so-minimalist decor and hipster hook-ups.
So the challenge for those of you who remain Riverside is this:
Gottschalks (or as we old-timers know it, "Harris"), the massive store at the heart of the Plaza, is going out of business. What should replace it? Cast your votes, my fellow ex-pats:
A: Teen arcade (with a two-story "Divorcee's Den" paint ball arena for the parents)
B: "Tibbet's Hall of Cheerful Citrus" -- a museum dedicated to the user-friendly navel orange
C: The world's biggest Trader Joe's
D: A 3-story gay disco world-famous for inventing the "cowboy-cumbia" dance craze
I promise, next I'll tour downtown Riverside and give you a haunted "Oranges and Oligarchs" tour of all the ghosts fit to blog.
I found myself walking the wide, sunny, sidewalks of Riverside last weekend, drumming up support for an unplanned screening of my doc "Rebel Beat" at the Riverside International Film Festival...this film is three years old, yet the Riverside Film Fest programmed it anyway...I think because of this pic I sent in my email pitch of me, circa 1979 at Riverside's De Anza Theater:
Yeah, well, ten years in Hell-A and I'm no more glamorous...just more chubby...despite the fact that -- ironically -- my years behind a candy counter made me hate snacks!
Once I got the news that "Rebel Beat" was slated for the Riverside Film Fest, I headed back out to good ole Riverside to promote "Rebel Beat" at every "hot spot" in the city (there are, in case you're interested, exactly 12).
I was inspired by how charming Riverside remains to this day, and determined to make a kwel video blog for y'all the weekend I returned for my screening...only that weekend my LA drive took THREE HOURS...I just barely made the screening! So nostalgic vlogging be damned...
I'll revisit the wonders of Riverside another time. Today, you're only getting an update of the Riverside Plaza, home of the Riverside International Film Fest.
As most of you know, I grew up a mile from the Riverside Plaza. Since my day, the Plaza's reinvented itself many times. People I met on this visit said, "Did you know the Plaza used to be covered?" Really? I turned into a total old fart. "Yeah?" I said, "Back in my day the Plaza was an open mall before it was an open mall! And we had to use this thing called an 'answering machine' to leave someone a message!"
Today, the Plaza is once again open and working hard to be the hippest spot in Riverside. It not only has...
a clown for the kids and Japanese cuisine, but this:
A Cinderella carriage ride down...well, I guess its one block.
Today, the conundrum of the Riverside Plaza is this:
How do you combine a place for hipsters who would actually pay for a valet and...
THE RIVERSIDE PLAZA'S DREADED TEEN SCENE!
Apparently, the Riverside Plaza has become the city's coolest teen hangout. It's so beset with frightening Riverside teens, in fact, that somebody actually determined a Riverside Plaza Teen Curfew. All teens lingering after 10pm must pool up in front of Borders:
Actual Riverside Plaza teens pooling up in front of Borders.
I met the Riverside Plaza teens (I'm street that way) and, frankly, I found them pretty adorable:
I live in LA and I've been rushed by teen gangsters. These kids are no gangsters. For the most part, they're cute and courteous! They spend their time picking out awesome outfits, giggling, loading up their arms with beaded bracelets, and doing each other's make-up:
I even earned my own beaded bracelet after partaking in a Riverside Plaza Teen Handshake:
The bracelet I got at the Plaza after a secret teen "peace, love" handshake. No, I can't tell you!
So the Riverside Plaza wants to be the Inland Empire's hipster hot spot -- it even has a Trader Joe's -- but it doesn't want to embrace its teens. Do they know know how much people pay these days to infiltrate a teen scene?!! Thank your lucky stars and give those kids a juice bar!
As far as the Riverside International Film Fest goes, no filmmaker could ask for a better time!
Film Fest Prez, Dr. Harki. Surgeon by day, film fest creator by night!
Thanks to my good Poly High friend Kris Lovekin (aka Kris Williams), "Rebel Beat" landed on the front page of the Press Enterprise. A lot of Riverside Rockabillies helped out on MySpace, too, and we had one of the biggest turnouts of the festival!
I was thrilled to see many old friends that night, but the highlight for me was this:
...the latest mustache of Inland Empire rockabilly artist Constancio
Constancio always brings it! Check out that Hasil Adkins T!
I was also thrilled by the Riverside entrepreneur gals who donated beautiful items to my drawings, especially the hair jewelry from Cynelena.com...she specializes in weddings, ladies!
After the screening, a few of us met up at Lounge Thirty Three at the Plaza.
Riverside Plaza's exotic entrance to bar Lounge Thirty Three
I chose this spot for our after party because this bar is run by the kids of the parents who owned the bowling alley by my house, Tava Lanes. The kids behind Lounge Thirty Three were awesome, but I have to say their bar was a little too Hollywood, even for me! Their techno was loud and their martinis were ten bucks a pop...seriously? Ten dollars for a martini in Riverside? I don't think so!
The most fun I had at the bar was trying to figure out if "Lounge Thirty Three" was an underground gay bar. I went there with two cute guys from the screening, Robert and his brother-in-law, Alberto:
Robert (left), looked very hip. So hip, in fact, I assumed this Mexican native was from Mexico City (he's actually from Jalisco and, BTW, a percussionist who frequently sits in at Cafe Sevilla in downtown Riverside). Robert was so hot and hip that before long he was hit on by a Lounge Thirty Three barfly...the cute interloper approached Robert at first by apologizing for "clapping too loudly" to the bar's techno music...then he stroked Robert's leg...then he spirited Robert away to watch soccer on Lounge Thirty Three's flat screen TV...
Now, had I been in Hollywood, I would have taken this as nothing more than the birth of an awesome indie band...but since this all took place in Riverside, I had to ask myself: Was this the start of a band...or a gay hook up? Robert swears by his wife that he's straight, but I didn't go home with either Robert or Alberto, so I can't say for sure.
The jury's still out on Lounge Thirty Three's oh-so-minimalist decor and hipster hook-ups.
So the challenge for those of you who remain Riverside is this:
Gottschalks (or as we old-timers know it, "Harris"), the massive store at the heart of the Plaza, is going out of business. What should replace it? Cast your votes, my fellow ex-pats:
A: Teen arcade (with a two-story "Divorcee's Den" paint ball arena for the parents)
B: "Tibbet's Hall of Cheerful Citrus" -- a museum dedicated to the user-friendly navel orange
C: The world's biggest Trader Joe's
D: A 3-story gay disco world-famous for inventing the "cowboy-cumbia" dance craze
I promise, next I'll tour downtown Riverside and give you a haunted "Oranges and Oligarchs" tour of all the ghosts fit to blog.
Love the story Betty..I've never heard of Riverside. Is that in California??
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Love that pic.. Your hair is amazing!
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Amazing story. I passed by the plaza during the film fest. I should have stopped by. I just wanted to answer your little poll at the end though. I would like to see a teen arcade, for multiple reasons. For example, there's a museum downtown that has a section about our citrus culture, a Trader Joe's in the plaza already, a gay club called The VIP right across the street, and like you said, "the Riverside Plaza has become the city's coolest teen hangout."
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I would like to see a teen arcade
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