It was an older crowd than Mikel Jollett is used to. Jollett, 50, leads the indie rock band Airborne Toxic Event. Most of the people at the Hughes Community Center were well into their Medicare years.
Jollett was speaking, not performing, on March 8 in support of his acclaimed memoir “Hollywood Park.” The Friends of the Claremont Library had chosen the 2022 book, about his abusive upbringing, part of it in the Synanon cult, for the city’s community read.
Before more than 75 bookish people, Jollett gave warm, revealing and witty replies to questions from moderator Emily St. Martin, an editor from our Southern California News Group, and from the audience.
Some of those questions dug deep, as people tried to peel back the layers of the prose and of Jollett’s coping mechanisms. Afterward, as he signed copies, an impressed Jollett was heard to remark: “You could tell they read the book.”
We would expect no less from college-rich Claremont.
My favorite moment during the Q&A was when a woman told Jollett that his song “Glory” helped her through tough times — sample lyric: “you were never born to win” — and asked when his band would next play in L.A.
Typical rock fan, right? No: She was almost certainly past 80. Clearly, though, she has a youthful spirit. Jollett was amused and delighted.
Padua Theatre
While we’re on the subject of recent talks in Claremont, Matt Garcia continues his research into the Padua Hills Theatre. That’s the White-owned venue in the Claremont foothills that drew tourists from 1932 to 1974 with the promise of authentic Mexican music, culture and food.
As diligent readers will recall, the scholar is researching a book on the theater and working with his cousin, Jessica Alba, on a possible film about it.
In a talk March 3 in Claremont McKenna College’s Athenaeum series, Garcia said Padua Hills Theatre arose in the same era as the “Ramona” pageant in Hemet and “The Mission Play” at Mission San Gabriel. All three, he said, promoted a rosy “Spanish heritage fantasy” version of California history.
“Padua was far more important than either of these projects that have received more attention,” Garcia asserted.
He showed vintage photos of Isabel Alba Martinez, one of the theater’s Mexican Players and grandmother to Jessica Alba. He’s been conducting interviews with surviving members of the troupe or their families.
And my July 21 column on his research visit to the Pomona Public Library paid an unexpected benefit.
A reader forwarded that column to a grandson of Bess Garner, the main driver behind the theater in its first two decades. That grandson, who inherited all of Garner’s materials, got in touch with Garcia to ask: “Would you like to see the archives?”
Garcia now has access to Garner’s journals, photos, posters, films and 40 hours of audio recordings.
That’s in addition to the mass of material he’d copied from library special collections departments in Pomona and the Claremont Colleges. He’s taking a year’s sabbatical starting in June to work on the project full time.
“Jessica still is very committed to making a film,” Garcia said, “and I am working on a book and thinking about the larger history.”
And I am sitting back and awaiting both. We all have our roles to play.
Archivist shredded
Colleen Shogan, head of the National Archives and Records Administration since May 2023, was fired by the president Feb. 7 as part of the wave of federal job cuts. I bring this up because of a local connection, naturally.
Shogan visited Perris’ National Archives branch in January 2024 to introduce herself to the staff, get a tour, see key records held there and observe their digitization efforts.
Your columnist was offered a chance to join her but declined, as it didn’t seem worth freeing up a day for. That seemed like a better decision then than it does now.
Let this be entered into the public record.
brIEfly
March 14 is my 61st birthday. If the forecasts are true, it’ll be a wet day, with temperatures below normal. That happens a lot on my birthday. While Elon Musk is mucking about in federal databases, do you think he could shift my birthdate to a warmer month, like July? If he wants to shave a year off, that’s fine too.
David Allen writes Friday, Sunday, Wednesday and birthdays. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.