Saturday early afternoon I filled my tank at Magic Gas, the independent gas station at the cross road of Morton and Echo Park Avenue. While the pump was running I noticed that outdoor the tables had been moved to the outer sidewalk next to the street on Delta. Next to the brick wall was a guy spray painting the wall. No one was trying to stop him. In fact, he appeared to have at least one assistant. At the tables, Chango patrons were business as usual, having coffee, dogs laying at their feet. I surmised that the graffiti art had something to do with the planned opening for Saturday evening for the two-person artist collective or duo of Vague Robot. A press release that had been forwarded to me promised a dejay and snacks. It was planned for 7pm to 10pm, just early enough that I could go to the opening with my two-year-old daughter and three other friends, one of whom is one year old.

We were among the first people there. In time to get a look at the art, which was a mixture of installation and paintings hung on the wall. Paintings of robots and other creatures, other-worldly, influenced by comic book art, a little weird, a little beautiful. I learned that Vague and Robot were two different people. Vague is an Echo Park resident, while Robot lives in San Diego. I had a brief conversation with Robot, who looked like he was probably Latino. He said that he had spray-painted the mural on the side of the building that day.

A guy at one of the tables was busy putting together brown paper bag packages that had names and numbers (as in #1, #15) written on the outside. Inside were maps, info packets, t-shirts. It turns out he was prepping for a vintage car rally, the Soc Cal tt, for which several dozen drivers and their seconds were planning to leave from Chango the following morning. Breakfast at 8 am. Already, it was pointed out to me, there was an orange Datsun parked outside, along with vintage Porsches and American muscle cars, Barracudas and the like.

Around 8 pm, Chango was beginning to fill up – as were the boutiques on Echo Park Avenue, which were having openings, too -- but it was getting late for two members of our party, and so we left before the music started. But not before I got a chance to hear a friend of mine saying that some of the skateboard kids who are suspected of various acts of unsanctioned graffiti may have been standing around watching Robot spraying the wall of the Del Mor Apartments building, which is home to Chango. A couple of the group of Chango oweners also expressed anxiety over the “mural” when I asked them about it. Content was not the problem. The problem was in the materials and the means of application: the aforementioned spray paint. They said they didn’t know for how long the mural would be up. In this case, the fear was the medium truly would be the message, they feared (and I agreed). To the "real" graffiti-doers how to explain: our mess is okay, but yours is not.

Meanwhile, inside the coffee house, some of the cinder-block pieces of the original chickens that gave Chicken Corner (the place as well as the blog) its name were laying on the ground, having fallen away from the low wall to which they were attached.

The following morning, I returned to Chango at 8am with my daughter and Cindy Bennett to see the vintage rally cars take off for the hills. Auto-wise and demographically, this was a different kind of show than the Chevy event I wrote about recently. This crowd was white, middle-aged; they acted as though the had all the time in the world. There were no on-duty cops. The “mural” sat on its brick wall, pristine. Inside Chango, regulars were enjoying their coffee, while early Bob Dylan sang them good morning. It wasn’t always easy to tell the difference between the drivers and the people who just happened to be buying coffee. The biggest tell for a non-rally driver was that they were alone and reading. On one of the tables sat an unattended guide to India and Nepal. Most of the rally folks made their way outside where they milled and greeted, admiring the cars, waiting to get their numbers to place on the vehicles. They were headed for Indio via the Angeles Crest. There were VWs, a Pontiac Firebird, many old Jags, Triumphs, a Ford Falcon, a Citroen, about 60 entrants parked in every possible space within a few blocks.

Robin, one of the owners of Chango, was at the pre-departure scene with her two-month-old daughter Wyla, who slept in my arms for a while. Wyla’s father, also one of Chango’s owners, was one of the competitors.

At 9:30 am car doors started opening, drivers getting into their seats. It was time.

Photo: Chango, Oct. 7, 2006
By Cindy Bennett