GO! By CJ Gronner is now live on Substack

 Hi Friends!

 

It's been a while. I haven't posted stories here for quite some time because Blogtown was created to tell stories about Venice, California ... and I'm not there. I've felt a little strange about telling stories under the Blogtown umbrella when most of them weren't taking place there now. Blogtown is for DOGTOWN!

 

As I'm in Minnesota now taking care of family, I needed to figure out how to keep telling stories. I just finally decided to do a Substack newsletter called GO! By CJ Gronner, since that what I'm always telling people to do anyway. Go here! See this! Try that! It's all about finding the fun in these crazy times we find ourselves in, and I'm happy to help with that in any way I can.  

 Please know how MUCH I miss Venice, and writing about it ... but there are SO many cool places in the world. We just have to GO! See you there. 

 Much love, and so much gratitude for reading all of these year! 

 

XO, CJG

 

 

Blogtown Is 12 Today!

Blogtown is twelve years old today, and I just wanted to acknowledge that. It has been a privilege and an honor to tell the stories of Venice, California - and in more recent days, Minneapolis, Minnesota - in an effort to shine a light on the cool people and places that are doing good things and making our world a little better. 

 I hope you will continue to read along as I keep spinning the yarns that matter to me. Thank you!

A Decade Of Blogtown 9/9/09 - 9/9/19!

What. TEN YEARS has gone by since I posted my first Blogtown story back on September 9, 2009! It's hard to believe ... but here we are. SO much has changed in Venice - and around the world - that it's a real trip to read back over the years and really absorb how much we've lost ... but also how much we've gained.

Writing these stories has built bridges for me, and opened me up to so many new friendships. I can see in my analytics how Blogtown (Rhymes with DOGTOWN!) has grown to have readers all over the world ... and that was one of my intentions when I set out to do this - to make the world a little smaller for us all. To get to know each other all a little better, and to learn that there are so many cool people that come through Venice that it will always remain special, no matter how much it changes.

I recall a guy telling me once that Blogtown was important because it was really capturing the disappearance of one of the world's last Bohemian surf/skate culture places - in real time. You can go back through the years and see how many places have left Venice in the last decade, and how many of its citizens too (whether they died, couldn't afford it anymore, or just thought it wasn't the same and had done their Venice time. You can also go back and attend some pretty great shows with me over the years ... !

I asked my brother to tell me off the top of his head what his favorite story of the last decade had been, and he said, "The World's Greatest Wino" - and that tale of the late, great Bobby Brown was definitely one of my favorites too.

The beautiful send-off day for Jay Adams sticks out to me as a highlight  ...  and who can forget my bike Delores being stolen ... and then getting her back!

I was the first journalist to write about the Venice Freak Show - which lost its home on the Boardwalk a few years ago, and we're still trying to get it back there where it belongs. The farewell to Abbot's Habit was a special one ... as was the one the very next day about getting to be the Neptune Queen! 

The story about Venice's Bordello Alexandra house was one of my favorites ... as was a simple little story about a friendship I had with a little old man at the beach, Leon. Often the little things/stories have been the best things.

There have been SO many stories about so many people and places, and there is going to be a book one day soon (Please help me find my publisher!) of all of my favorites that have already been written - and the ones to come. Though Venice is not the same Venice it was when I started Blogtown, it still has that magic dust that we all know and love it for. It lives inside of each of us that care about it, so it can never be truly gone. We love our Venice, and that love has gone into every word I've ever written in Blogtown - and will go on.

Blogtown will be getting a new look soon for its new decade (I'm just waiting on the art work!), but the stories will always be about the special people, places, and events that have made an impact on myself, and on Venice - a place like no other in the world. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to share its stories with you, and I hope you will keep visiting Blogtown in its new decade of fun, creativity, friendship, community, and heart.

It means so much to me when someone shares with me that they enjoyed a story, or were moved by it in some way (either to tears of being touched or mad at an "epic rant" of mine, usually). That they learned something, or tried a new place because of a story that they read here. That they made a new friend, or learned a new skill. That they were inspired, even just a little bit, to appreciate the little things that make us all connected.

Thank you for reading, truly. Cheers to TEN YEARS together! xoxo

VoyageLA Magazine Interviews The Interviewer

The very kind folks at VoyageLA Magazine posted a nice interview with me this week, and I'm re-posting it here so that you kind readers might have a better idea of what I'm trying to be about here. I was honored to be included in their "Thought Provokers" section, and hope I can manage to provoke some thoughts with each story I write. And, as ever, thank you so much for reading and caring about the stories from our Community, and our world at large. It all starts with caring. Love, CJG

Today we’d like to introduce you to CJ Gronner.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?

I’ve wanted to be a storyteller from my earliest days. Growing up in Minnesota, I always wrote stories and made up adventures for the neighborhood kids to play out, and as I grew up I realized that telling stories is what I wanted to do for my life and career too. I also grew up loving film and the entertainment business, so got involved with film production as soon as I could. I worked for the Minnesota Film Office and P.A.D on several films there before moving to the Big Island of Hawai’i to work in their film office. That led to a move to Los Angeles, the home of filmmaking worldwide. While trying to get multiple feature scripts I wrote on the screen, I also began working in journalism, for multiple publications, with an emphasis on music journalism. Living in and loving Venice, California led to the creation of Blogtown By CJ Gronner, a site that includes all the Venice and music stories I do. As more and more people read Blogtown, more and more writing opportunities arose, and I’m now writing and producing for television and film … while still trying to get those movies made! I love that writing is such an effective way of giving voice to the many people and issues that make up our world, in the hopes that we can have a better understanding of each other … resulting in world peace. Easy!

Please tell us about your art.

I write. I write to inspire, to provoke thought, to encourage, and to let people know that we’re all in this together. I write stories for newspapers, magazines, venues, my own Blogtown, television, ad copy, song lyrics, band bios, and feature length screenplays. The most common feedback I get about my work is that “you made me feel like I was there!” I’ve had people tell me that my stories made them laugh. Made them cry. Made them mad sometimes. Made them think. Made them get involved. Gave them goosebumps. If I’ve moved anyone in any way, I feel I’ve done a decent job.

Choosing a creative or artistic path comes with many financial challenges. Any advice for those struggling to focus on their artwork due to financial concerns?

I’ve never been motivated by the money part of things, and have struggled mightily over the years as a result. Having acknowledged the reality that activism and commerce don’t always jive, I do my best to stay true to myself and my ideals, while doing my best to also be compensated in a fair and decent way. This is the hardest part about having a writing career, in my opinion … getting paid. You HAVE to do it because you love it, and hope that others will see the fiscal value of your work while you’re at it. I’m great at promoting everyone else – not so great at promoting myself. This is a family trait that we’re all working on. Will write for pay!

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?

You can regularly read my stories at Blogtownbycjgronner.com, or by Google searching for all of the Freelance work I’ve done, for musicians like Tom Morello, Jane’s Addiction, Shooter Jennings, and such storied venues as The Hollywood Bowl, The Grammy Museum, and KCRW (with accompanying photography by my brother, Paul Gronner). I’m currently co-producing a documentary called 90291: VENICE UNZIPPED about income inequality in America with a zoom lens on Venice, where we feel the issue is at its most glaring example. People can donate to our documentary fund here: https://www.documentary.org/project/unzipped

I’m also co-producing a television show for Viceland called “American Junkie”, which will begin airing on September 12, 2018. I’ve also co-created a television show featuring B Real from Cypress Hill that is currently in development. Tune in!

Contact Info:

• Website: BlogtownbyCJGronner.com
• Email: blogtownbycjg@yahoo.com
• Instagram: @CJGronner
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Blogtown-By-CJ-Gronner-118888908130213/
• Twitter: @Blogtownbycjg
• Other: https://www.documentary.org/project/unzipped

Image Credit:
Black and white- Paul Gronner
Blue hair – Bubba Carr
CJ and Paul Blogtown – Venice Papparazzi
At Lollapalooza – Stephanie Hobgood

Blogtown Is Seven Today!

WHOA. I just realized that Blogtown turned seven years old today!

That's an awful lot of stories (807 so far, to be exact), and I've loved writing every single one. Thank you to anyone who has ever read anything I've ever written ... it truly means so much to me.

CHEERS! And may the good times continue to roll ... !!

Blogtown Turns 5!

I can't believe that five years have already gone by since I launched Blogtown on 9/9/09! There's been so many stories to tell, so many events to cover, so much fun to relate ... and it just keeps getting better. Thank you to any and everyone who has ever read a story, suggested a story, starred in a story, or been touched in any way by a story ... that's why I do it. My original intent was to build community/world peace through getting to know each others' stories and lives a little better. You're much less apt to be a jerk to someone when you know their whole story, and vice versa. We're all in this together, and it's our job to make sure we have the very best stories to tell.

Below is a re-post of my first Blogtown article/mission statement. Please feel free to chime in and let me know what stories you'd like to hear as we keep on rolling here in our beloved Venice. 5 ... I guess we go to Chuck E. Cheese or something tonight? Cheers!

*And Congratulations to Lacey Kay Cowden whose debut ep, Go Great Guns, is available today! Exciting!

###

A nickname for Venice, California is Dogtown. A nickname for me is CJ. I am a writer. It didn't take much thought to get the animated light bulb over my head saying, "BLOGTOWN (by CJ)". Of COURSE! Over the years I've written a lot of articles, and people keep asking where to find more of my work, ala "Do you have a Blog?" I did not. So when that kept coming up, I realized I'd better get with the times (um ... really. I've got a lot of work to do in that vein - you should see my phone. I keep pleading, "It's Punk Rock", but it's truthfully more that I'm just slow with things like technology. That's a topic for another day, however.), and here we are.

I grew up in Minnesota, listening to Garrison Keillor and his Prairie Home Companion radio show. My hope for BLOGTOWN is that it can be a bit like the work of a younger, wilder, female Mr. Keillor, who tells stories and rants about the happenings of not Lake Wobegon, but the ones the little city next to the Ocean Pacific ... Venice. I've lived out here for 14 years now. I've supported local businesses pretty much exclusively. I've volunteer taught many of the neighborhood's children through Venice Arts. I stand in line to vote about street permit parking (Against, fyi). I am an involved Citizen, for sure.  Most importantly, I've befriended everyone from my Can Collector folks to Famous Artists, and have found that all have equally fascinating tales to tell.

There are so many people/characters I've seen around over the years that I've always wondered what their back-story is. There are businesses and shops and houses and gardens that I've longed to know how they began for ages. There are urban legends and true stories and events and community celebrations to get to the bottom of. This will be a place for all of that, but also whatever I feel like. Sometimes I get all riled up about something and just have to get it out. Sometimes I'll go on the road and tell you about other places and scenarios, which always serve to illuminate how nice it is to return to Venice (even just from Hollywood), no matter how outlandish the adventure. Sometimes I'll eat somewhere great and pass that along to you. Sometimes I'll see someone (or a Government) being a jerk and call them out (but I hope I won't have to). Sometimes I'll ask for help for someone or their Cause. I will invite you to things, and give you the heads up for things you don't want to miss. Sometimes I'll see a film or read a book that moves me to my core, and I'll beg you to see or read it. Sometimes I'll tell you about music shows I've been to, and try to pass along the same chills I've felt seeing something wonderful, and perhaps turn you on to something new. And I hope you'll do the same for me, dear readers and friends. We are a COMMUNITY, after all. If you live nowhere near Venice, or haven't even heard of it (Really?), then WELCOME! Enjoy. You'll get here eventually ...

To be born on 09/09/09 means in numerology that you will be filled with truth, justice, compassion and success (so says Google). It is my hope that this is true, for both babies and blogs. I'll look forward to sharing with you, and seeing you out and about. If you see me, please tell me YOUR story, because everyone has one. Thank you so much for visiting my life here, as we're all part of the same poem. As an old Venice saying goes, "Poetry is what Venice is all about. It ain't the only thing, but it's the fundamental thing." And away we go!

Yo Bret! Farewell To A Great Friend Of Venice

Yesterday was truly a sad day for Venice, California. We lost our friend Bret Haller, founder of Yo Venice, the website that kept you in the know all the latest about what was going on around town. Bret and I became friends when he wrote to me complimenting me on a story I wrote here on Blogtown. That began a friendship, and mutual respect, with both of us caring deeply about our Venice Community, and doing our best to bring our fellow citizens together to keep that Venice bond strong.

Bret and I would stick up for each other when someone (usually nameless, using some lame troll handle in a forum) would go after us for something we'd written, we'd re-post each others' stuff, give each other more (or correct) information, and make electronic introductions for each other with people that shared our orbit that we thought the other should know. We had different things going on with our sites, so we were never in competition, and both thought our work complimented the other's.

This was the last email I got from Bret last month, and one that is a great example of exactly who he was ... always trying to connect the Venice dots, this time between myself and Paul Chesne:


Paul, you put out a new record and you didn’t email me a copy to review for Yo?

You on a bender of epicness?

Anyway, CJ, since Paul is such a Paul, can I use your writeup of “Downright Up & Left”? I wanna help him out even tho he didn’t send me anything! No morphine for you next time we hang Paul!

HAHAHHAH

I am sure the new one is great, as yer the best boogie band in these parts!

Cool that you two are friends, I should have assumed so!

B

Of course it was cool. It always was. I texted Bret a few weeks ago to tell him I thought it was finally time for me to write a story about HIM and his Yo Venice that kept so many of us informed with what was going on up to the minute. He didn't get back to me, unusually, but I knew he was dealing with late stage cancer, so anything could be going on. He was so positive and upbeat every time we spoke or emailed - funny, even - that I thought he was probably just on a particularly rough bout of chemo, but he was for sure gonna beat that stuff.  For sure. Soon, we'd go meet up for that beer we kept talking about getting, and I'd grill him for a story. I'm sad that I'll never get to tell it now. Sad for me, and losing that supportive friend, and sad for Venice, that we have lost such an important member of our community. Someone that truly loved his home, and made it his life's work.

Rest peacefully now, Bret. You can be sure we're pouring some of that beer out all over Venice turf for you. Cheers, Brother.

Blogtown Birthday! Locals, Rock, Russian Spies?!

Well, with all the fun and life happening in and around Venice lately, I didn't realize until after the fact that ol' Blogtown is a one year old! Man, time sure does fly. My awesome friends made me this painting for my birthday and Blogtown's Birth last year, and it doesn't even feel like the paint should be dry yet.


In the past year I've met so many wonderful people and heard their stories. Some people I knew already, but didn't know their background or how they got here. Some people I knew all about and wanted to share their greatness with the world. So many people, places and events, yet I don't even feel like I've made a DENT in the surface of how many interesting characters and tales there are teeming around me here in Venice, California.

There's a little stat data website that lets you see which stories of yours are most popular, and where, and all that, and while The Venice Beach Freak Show, Jane's Addiction, Gjelina, Moods Of Norway, Shooter Jennings, Tom Morello, and all of those stories rank high with me as well ... it's the little ones that stand out in my heart.

Like my Russian boyfriend, Leon. The update on him and I ... is that one day at the beginning of Summer, he completely disappeared. But not just him - ALL of the little old Russian ladies and gentlemen disappeared! No one seems to know where they went or what happened ... making me think ... Hmmm ... I wonder if they were part of that whole Russian spy thing that came to light around the same time?! Maybe they were all deported and Leon had no time (or English) to tell me what was happening? Maybe they found a different spot at the beach to watch the world go by? I think about him every day on my morning beach walk, and regret that I never got the chance to tell his whole story before the KGB (or whatever it's called now) came for him.

{wistful sigh}

There's also The World's Greatest Wino, Bobby Brown, who is now a real friend. We greet each other every morning, and one of my favorite moments of the last year was when my high school bff, Missy, was here visiting with her kids, who wound up getting their picture taken with Bobby. Later on, Missy texted me saying that her daughter said that when she grew up she wanted to "live in Venice and be friends with everyone like CJ is." That was so great to me, that a young girl from suburban Minnesota can GET IT, and understand that there are places and people who are open to everyone and everything, and that it can all get along together. The update on Bobby Brown, World's Greatest Wino, is no, not that he's got a new song to sing (still "Jingle bells, Jingle bells, help me get drunk!" over and over), but that he's a "medical miracle" and believes he has fathered - at 74 - a baby with his young girlfriend in the Philippines. Stop down and see him at the Boardwalk and put something in his cup, as he's saving up to get down there and meet his baby (once he finds out for sure if it's his)! I love him.

Amid all the goodness and fun, there's been all sorts of rumors of petty in-fighting in Venice recently (which I'll soon address) about different little things grown bigger (RV overnight parking, First Fridays, Who is really Venice, etc ...), which makes me a bit bummed. I like to think we're all in this together - which we are. Not just in Venice either, of course, but the whole entire Planet.


So on that note, I'll say that I think my favorite little story of the first year of Blogtown is one of the earliest ones. It is also a fine salutation to kick off a new year ... Good Luck To Us All!!!

*Update: I think the bird might be an American Oystercatcher.