Email Elizabeth
Elizabeth Weintraub
Hamilton at the Hollywood Pantages Simply Astounds
The entrance to the Hollywood Pantages for Hamilton.
Although, I was not planning to see Hamilton at the Hollywood Pantages, that’s how it worked out. Not everybody is a big fan of musicals. My husband is one of those people. He lets me drag him to shows that he otherwise, left to his own devices, would not see. Such a good sport. Mostly we go to shows in San Francisco at a Sunday matinee. We can drive into the City for brunch, catch the show and be home in time for dinner. However, we could not get tickets for Hamilton when the show was in San Francisco.
Now that it’s traveled to Los Angeles, it was a little bit easier. My husband signed on from his cellphone carrier, and I used WiFi on my computer, and he got the better seats. Still, it wasn’t cheap. It was four figures to see that show. And we were definitely not front and center to see Hamilton at the Hollywood Pantages.
The set of Hamilton at the Hollywood Pantages.
I am also not a big fan of hip hop nor much rap. Not exposed to much of it. Too old and crotchety. I prefer alternative, punk rock and 1960s. But I can tell you I didn’t even notice the style of the music. Some of the songs are still going through my head, they are THAT catchy! Yes, yes, I want to be in the room where it happens. Some day, fight as you may, you can say all you want that I’m not throwing away my shot, but you know what? You will.
This musical was mesmerizing. So much energy. From the opening number to the intermission to the closing, it captures your imagination. There is not enough time nor space in my blog to give a review of this show — you can find plenty online — but I will admit it was better than I had imagined. I imagined it would be great. I would see it again.
One of the unique aspects of the show was most of the characters were black, not white. Portraying white people from history. I know others say the intentional casting was to create color blindness, and in many ways it did. It sucked me in regardless. I didn’t notice it until I had left the Hamilton at the Hollywood Pantages and reflected more on how the show made me feel.
The beautiful 1999 remodel of the Hollywood Pantages cost $12 million
It gave me hope for our country, I guess. After all of this crazy mess with Trump goes up in flames or whatever happens to make it go away, maybe we can return to our democracy. If you get a chance, go see it. I found discounted tickets online the day before the show available through the theater. On the other hand, if you’re looking to sell a home in Sacramento, please call your Sacramento Realtor, Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
Yamashiro Restaurant Offers Splendid Views of Los Angeles
Sunday brunch at Yamashiro Restaurant features a buffet of seafood, prime rib, sushi and omelettes.
With such limited time in Los Angeles last weekend, we were very lucky to squeeze in time for Sunday brunch at Yamashiro Restaurant. We were there about noon, and the place was empty. I wondered if it was because they charge $10 to valet park. We grabbed an Uber from the Hollywood Dream Hotel to the top of the hill in Whitley Heights where Yamashiro Restaurant is located. It was only $6.00. But the brunch itself was expensive as compared to a brunch in Sacramento, for example. Our tab, without mimosas, just soft drinks, was $120 for the two of us.
Yamashiro Restaurant is steeped in history. The name in Japanese means Mountain Palace. It was built in 1911 by two brothers from Germany as a residence. Supposedly it was a re-creation of a palace in Kyoto, Japan. History says it’s not completely Japanese. The architecture and design influences are also Chinese and incorporates elements from other Asian areas. Over the years it’s been a speakeasy of sorts, a military school for boys and was purchased by Thomas O. Glover in the ’40s. Glover planned to build a hotel but discovered all of the beautiful silkscreen wall coverings and carved wood walls had been covered up during WWII — due to the country’s horrible attitude toward Japanese back then. Instead of building a hotel, Glover restored the place.
The Magic Castle is located at 7001 Franklin Road in Hollywood.
Thomas O. Glover, by the way, also purchased The Magic Castle, at the bottom of the road. That place is now a nightclub and restaurant.
Adam Weintraub samples the seafood selections at Yamashiro Restaurant.
I headed straight to the seafood buffet. On ice were delectable king crab legs, split in two; fresh oysters and jumbo shrimp, paired with an assortment of sauces and clarified butter. After completely pigging out, I wandered over to the hot station and ordered an omelette with mushrooms, cheddar cheese, and spinach. They don’t make you wait for it; a waiter brings the omelette to your table. However, the waiter also showed up with a quarter of a waffle, piled high with glossy sweet strawberries in a sugar sauce and a healthy dollop of fresh whipped cream. I felt guilty if I didn’t at least taste it, even though I did not order the waffle.
The koi pond was incorporated in the original design of Yamashiro.
After I completely consumed the waffle, I thought about sampling the sushi, but passed that display by. It had been sitting out for at least an hour by now. Not only that, but it would taste weird to switch from something sweet. This meant I went for the only other viable option available: chocolate cake. It seemed dry, not very chocolate-y. Then, as my Sacramento real estate job requires, somebody called me about a listing. I grabbed my cellphone and headed out into the courtyard where I discovered a gorgeous koi pond.
The sign in front of Buddha warns visitors not to sit on Buddha in the summer house.
My husband’s plan was we would walk back downhill to Hollywood to wear off some of the calories from brunch. Before we started that journey, though, I wanted to visit the Buddha in the Summer House. He faces west to ensure good luck and good fortune. Darn, I regretted dumping all the pennies out of my bag at the hotel. There is a pot of coins between his legs.
The Yamashiro Restaurant sits 250 feet above Hollywood Boulevard with impressive views to the ocean.
Yamashiro Restaurant is now owed by the JE Group, based in China. They are hotel operators. The group purchased the property on 7 acres in 2016. Fortunately, the Yamashiro Restaurant received its historic recognition in 2012 and was placed on the National Historic Register. It offers views of Los Angeles all the way to the ocean. You can also spot the top of a 600-year-old pagoda peeking over the tree tops. I bet it’s a very pretty view at night.
Photos from the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles
Griffith Observatory is located on Mount Hollywood at 1,134 feet above sea level.
Another place I had never visited in Los Angeles when I lived next door in Orange County is the Griffith Observatory. Named for a guy whose mother couldn’t come up with a better name than Griffith J. Griffith. I don’t know why I missed this as a place to go because it’s such a fascinating experience. Odd as it may sound, in the middle of planning my future while in 5th grade, I had developed an intense desire to become an astronaut. Or, at least to study astronomy. My mother pooh-poohed that idea. She said it required too much science, and I would never stick with it. So, the decision was clear to me. I would become a bank robber. That was the other choice in my grade school kid’s mind. I suppose that’s not so far off today since I sell Sacramento real estate.
We also didn’t have a lot of time over our weekend in Los Angeles for extracurricular activities. Apart from our dinner reservations and tickets to see Hamilton at the Hollywood Pantages, that is. The day we grabbed an uber to Griffith Observatory was also the day the Dream Hotel let us use the hotel car to take us to the La Brea Tar Pits. That was probably to make up for causing us a 3-hour wait for our room. Little did I know the room they gave us was right over the entrance to the nightclub, so we had to change the second day, and that took another 3 hours. Insane. The staff means well at the newly opened Dream Hotel but they do not have their act together. Their hotel car is a Lincoln Continental, featuring an entire console in the back seat. One of the controls operates a built-in back massager, too.
The view of Los Angeles from Griffith Observatory is extraordinary.
All of this means we didn’t make up the hillside to Griffith Observatory until late afternoon, which gave us about an hour to spend on the site. Lots of exhibits to see. There is a planetarium. I studied an exhibit about the sun. Somewhere in school many years ago, I probably learned about the sun eventually burning up and taking the earth with it. It will become a red giant. That’s because our sun burns hydrogen like no tomorrow, resulting in higher temperatures. Every billion years, the sun gains another 10% of energy. In 3 1/2 billion years, the sun will be 40% hotter.
This 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope is one of two donated by Celestron
At that point, the sun will suck all of the water off earth. Earth will burn to a crisp. When the sun burns up all of its hydrogen, it will begin burning helium instead and eventually turn into a red giant. Even as I type this, I can see clearly what I must have thought about all of this in grade school. What I obviously thought in my little kid mind was what the hell do I care because I won’t be around. Not only that, but this is DEPRESSING NEWS and since I won’t be around to deal with it, I should just suppress it. Who wants to think about this? Really.
The hillside view from Griffith Observatory includes the famous Hollywood sign.
Which is how this all sounds vaguely familiar to me right now. Yet, still uncomfortable and distressing information to ponder. I do not want to think about earth slowly heating up and our water evaporating, turning our beautiful planet into a vast wasteland. Even though it is absolutely true.
The Astronomers Monument recognizes Galileo, Copernicus, Hipparchus, Kepler, Newton and Herschel.
Think about that the next time you ponder climate change. Even without our horrible human contributions, you can’t change the fact the sun is getting hotter, which is making the earth hotter. Which ultimately means we are all gonna die. Every single plant, animal, bird, human and pool of water on the face of the Earth will vanish.
Assault in Carmichael on a Sacramento Realtor’s Car While She’s Driving
Driving down a street an attacker in Carmichael slammed a fist into a Realtor’s car.
There are some pretty scary neighborhoods I go into when selling Sacramento real estate but I didn’t think an assault in Carmichael would happen. Certainly not while driving down a one-block, dead-end street in Carmichael in the middle of the afternoon. But from here on out, I will be doubly vigilant about dead-end streets. If you encounter trouble on the way in, there is only way out. This dead-end street was also located next to an upscale gated community. So I don’t know what was worse, the fact the residents might not care for those who live in the gated community, or the fact this Sacramento Realtor drives a Mercedes, or a combination of both.
I fully realize there are people in this world who hate every person who drives a luxury vehicle. They especially dislike Realtors, whom they view as the 1%. They don’t realize that most Sacramento Realtors are in the 99%, not the 1%.
The assault in Carmichael was really scary. Completely unexpected. Being the somewhat trusting person that I am, I actually thought the person who attacked my vehicle was needing assistance. I was on my way to a gated community in Carmichael to meet with two sellers who live across the street from each other. My GPS told me to turn on Camino Garden, which was the wrong street. That street backs up to the complex, and that gate is padlocked. I imagine the padlocked gate ticks off the residents on that street as the demographics are not similar.
I turned around, headed toward El Camino when a guy dashed out into the street, a really big tall guy with the build of a wrestler. He waved a clipboard at me. I slowed and began to roll down my window to see if I could help when he started screaming at me, incoherently. I rolled up my window and tried to avoid hitting him, but he was right in front of my car. I pulled to the right. Then he slammed his fist into my hood. Bam! I turned right on El Camino and pulled over. Trembling. When I gathered composure, I realized I did not know the name of the street nor the house number so I drove back.
Wrong move. That was really stupid. Why didn’t I think to call 9-1-1? I don’t know. I quickly drove down the street, turned around and wrote down the house number. This guy spotted me. He burst out of his front door, still yelling, ran after my car, banging on the back of my trunk. I should carry a hand gun. Never thought I’d hear myself say that. I took a left on El Camino and drove into the gated community. Parked in my client’s driveway. When I got out of my car, this crazy guy pulled up in a white truck. How did he get into this gated community? I wrote down his license number. He screamed at me, continuously. My client seemed freaked out. I confronted him, “You damaged my car!” Really hoped he would go away. Tried not to shake.
He saw I had his license number, yelled that I could report him but he will say I was speeding down his street. See, that’s how the mind of a crazy person works. To crazy people, it’s OK to attack other people if you can somehow justify an assault. I walked into my client’s house as he continued to scream at me. We locked the door. The police officer at 9-1-1 said after the fact was too late for the police to do anything. They referred me to the Sheriff’s department because that’s the official that handles an assault in Carmichael.
That number, after I listened to the entire message and pressed 0 for the Sheriff, hung up on me. After I pressed 0 for the Sheriff, the recording said, “goodbye.” I then called the direct number on Garfield. Would not help to come into the Garfield station, the dispatcher said, because it’s not a service center. I needed to file a report at a service center and they were closing soon.
This type of support is probably what makes victims take matters into their hands. Granted, the immediate danger had passed. The police are short on staff. I imagine it’s true at the Sacramento County Sheriff’s office, too.
I finally called my insurance company and reported the incident. My other seller sent me a copy of the video that recorded the attacker. Say what you like about gated communities, but at least they have video cameras. A police officer, after my husband complained — which shouldn’t have to BE! — filed a report. I hope they arrest the attacker. Better yet, I hope he is on probation. Still, you can’t be too careful as a Sacramento Realtor when you drive a luxury car into a neighborhood where your very presence might be an irritant.
Why Aren’t the La Brea Tar Pits the #1 Tourist Attraction in LA?
Elizabeth Weintraub at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles
We all joked about the La Brea Tar Pits for years. It started for me in the 1970s. I lived in Newport Beach for 15 years; owned Real Estate of America and sold homes there. Whenever we wanted to downgrade an experience, pick on another person or make fun of tourists, we would suggest they visit the La Brea Tar Pits.
Granted, at the time, I don’t think I knew what they were. For one thing, I thought they were in La Brea and not on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. For another, I thought it was one giant football stadium with overturned, jumbled asphalt, like a blacktop driveway that exploded during an earthquake. In any case, yet another place I had never seen but that did not stop me from participating in the mockery. I was such a kid, in retrospect.
The La Brea Tar Pits is bringing the Los Angeles Ice Age to life. It’s not tar like the name implies. It is naturally occurring asphalt that bubbles up from the ground. It’s the crudest kind of crude oil there is, and there is a large supply of oil still underground there. Another interesting thing we learned is animals did not sink into the tar pits when they became trapped. Instead, the asphalt rose up and covered them. Prey and predators were literally stuck in 6 inches of asphalt.
The museum has removed more than 5 million fossils from the La Brea Tar Pits. Isn’t that impressive? Many are on display.
Daddy Mammoth and Baby Mammoth crying because Mama Mammoth is trapped in tar and dying.
When we entered the grounds, we spied a lake off to the left. In the lake of asphalt and collected rainwater are 3 sculptures of mammoths. I didn’t think anything of it until my husband started imitating the baby mammoth by crying out: “Mama, why are you sinking into the tar pit? Daddy, why don’t you save mama?” What? Surely he is joking around. But nope, that’s what the cute little family grouping was all about.
I was aghast. Little kids next to us were busy tossing pieces of asphalt over the fence. I asked them if that scene before us was not upsetting to them. Because it upset me. Surely it has damaged their view of the world in some manner. They glanced up, very matter-of-factly laughed, “It’s just statues,” and went back to throwing rocks over the fence.
The skeleton of an ice age mammoth excavated from La Brea Tar Pits
In another exhibit inside the museum, which I can’t show you because it was too dark for photos, is a saber toothed cat. First, it is like a live animal, with hair and those long fangs. I thought I was losing my mind because it seemed a second later it morphed into a skeleton. Nah. Couldn’t be. See, that’s what you know. It was indeed morphing. I was sane after all.
Large mammoth pit at La Brea Tar Pits near Project #23.
We were offered a 40-minute tour of the pits, which aren’t really pits, and to see Project 23. That’s a long process, Project 23, decades long, to extract fossils retrieved from the parking lot construction next door. Dire wolves, like from Game of Thrones. Ray Romano Mammoths. Saber-toothed cats and prehistoric birds. You can also see new seeps of asphalt scattered throughout, covered by yellow cones.
After all of that hard work traipsing the museum and grounds and tour, you can also grab lunch at the LACMA Cafe. If it wasn’t time to take off for Griffith Park Observatory, we would have stayed longer. Unfortunately, it was time for this Sacramento Realtor to leave.
