"Pale barbarian rock dude" at the Wiltern: Another triumph for the Garden State

For someone who doesn't own any Misfits albums, at least not that I can locate at this time, I sure am becoming a quasifan of New Jersey native Glenn Danzig. I guess I'm a fan more of his essence, his Glenndanzigness, than of his actual performances. For me, he just has to BE.

However, he makes his living playing music. (Gotta keep that house up.) So what a delight it was for me to read today's review by Steve Appleford in the LA Times of Danzig's concert with his current band at the Wiltern LG last night. "Pale barbarian rock dude," Appleford calls him, "stomping across the stage mucho-macho like" (maybe he's been lifting...bricks).

Bravo, Glenn! The accompanying photo was rather fetching (paleness works on stage; he's a Goth, after all) but wasn't on the website. Use your imagination.

Not so fast with those bricks...

Well, I guess it was too good to be true. Or, if not good, then too much of a sign of progress at the Glenn Danzig Haunted House. Remember the bricks I saw the guys loading off about a week and a half ago? While the guys and their pickup may have taken a few bricks, the big neatish pile is still in Glenn Danzig's front yard.

Why, oh why? Let's speculate.

1. Glenn still intends to build a patio one of these days.
2. Yes, the bricks will be ballast, but the ship hasn't been built yet. It's coming in. Soon.
3. If the bricks were gone, he'd miss them.
4. Too much change at one time is more than Glenn can handle.

Personally, I vote for #4. Ya know, you come from Jersey, you get used to things a certain way, even here in Sunny California, and then people (and who the hell are they?) want you to move your bricks. Sheesh!

Don't worry, Glenn. Los Feliz accepts you, your fine haunted house (the overgrowth is doing really well!) AND your bricks, wherever you choose to keep them.

Glenn Danzig moves his bricks

On Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz, in between Vermont and Hillhurst, on the south side of the street, stands the Haunted House of Glenn Danzig. (I can't take credit for the name; for that, see Losanjealous.) The house isn't quite the Munsters mansion, but it's close in its decrepitude; it's totally grown over with vines and flowering plants, and encircled by a cast iron fence with spikes.

Sounds gothic and scary, although usually the Jaguar of Lodi, New Jersey native Glenn Danzig is parked outside, and in fact, the flowering plants are attractive. Not everybody has to have a lawn, and just growing up in New Jersey, where lawns are an obsession, is reason enough to let your house go. For me, anyway.

In the five years I've lived in Los Feliz, there has been a large pile of bricks on the dead grass in Danzig's front lawn. The first time I saw them, I thought, ooh, a patio. But the stack stayed there, not moving, not being built into anything.

Suddenly, things are different. Late last week I was moseying by, heading to Alcove for afternoon snacks, when what did I see but Glenn Danzig himself, all pasty-faced and in black, directing two guys with a mini pickup who were....loading the bricks into the back of their truck. I did NOT call out, "way to go, Glenn," or even, "Garden State, represent!" but slithered quietly by.

I figure I have to go back this week and see if the bricks are gone. Maybe he just had them moved around the yard.