Los Angeles Demystified

Holy Daze 1975

Hello and welcome! Happy Yule, everybody. Thanks for being here.  What follows isn’t an official episode of Los Angeles Demystified. Thanks for being here by the way. This is a companion episode.  Links and sources for all of the news stories mentioned in this episode can be found here:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/los-angeles-holy-146624154 [https://www.patreon.com/posts/los-angeles-holy-146624154] When it gets going, this episode is meant to give a sense of what was going on in the world, especially in Los Angeles, during the holiday season in 1975—50 years ago this month. It was interestingly paced stretch in that Thanksgiving was on the 27th—marked by a downed Underdog float at the Macy’s Parade—and Hanukah began on the 28th. Every event presented here happened between November 27th, 1975 and January 1, 1976.  This is an outlying episode in that the episodes of this show, the first episode of which will be out by the end of January of 2026, will typically be deeply researched and presented, whereas this episode is more or less a number of things that happened over a specific window of time. They will typically be accompanied by some level of layered sound and intentional design. What happened was I was going to do a stage version of this show I was calling XMAS 1975 at the Elysian Theater but then dicey rains were in the forecast and we postponed the show. But since the content was largely holiday themed, and because there is a lot in here I would love to share because I found it personally fascinating — and Christmas is just moments away and we already missed the hanukah deadline — I am putting it out in this form. Outside of choices regarding editing and flow, I have added no commentary to any of the events presented. A lot of the language is lifted directly from news articles, or how they were originally reported. It is presented in the present tense, as if you are receiving the news in November / December of 1975. Any editorialization is from the original presentation of the story, and left in tact to give a flavor of the time. I will do my best to reference every article in the show notes of this episode. This is presented moderately bare, with the exception of some minimal sound dimension and design applied in the mix by Carolyn Kendrick. Thanks so much for listening to this non-episode of LOS ANGELES DEMYSTIFIED. Please do subscribe if you have not already, and join us for episode one in late January. If you live in and around Los Angeles, come to the live show at The Elysian on March 3rd [https://www.elysiantheater.com/shows/demystified0303]. Thanks to Casey Calvert, by the way, for her guest appearance reading the various Hollywood sex and sex adjacent shop names. Thanks to the Los Angeles Public Library for having a photo archive that made finding these names possible. Love the Los Angeles Public Library, there’s a link to all that in the show notes. This episode was written and edited by me, pulling heavily and often directly from numerous archives attributed in the show notes. Special thanks to Retro Radio Joe on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@retroradiojoe4486] for doing an amazing job of archiving the broadcasts from which I pulled the commercials. Thanks to Carolyn Kendrick for mixing and mastering this episode. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. Thanks for being here. LOS ANGELES DEMYSTIFIED is a High Occulture Production. Subscribe to High Occulture on Patreon to support this show and or get zines in the mail. Thanks again for being here.

Introducing Los Angeles Demystified

Los Angeles Demystified is a podcast about alternative, esoteric and off the wall goings on—historic and contemporary—in Los Angeles. Alex Steed is co-host of You Are Good: A Feelings Podcast About Movies and The OC, Again. He is the creator of Los Angeles Demystified. Music by Chaki Funk Wizard.  Mastered by Carolyn Kendrick.  Come to our launch event / holiday party at the Elysian Theater on December 23rd [https://www.elysiantheater.com/shows/demystified1223]!