The time was when North Park featured only a few bright
spots in an otherwise dull landscape of second hand shops and businesses that
would cash your payroll check for a fee. The most exciting thing possible in
one of San Diego's oldest suburbs had been making your bus transfer on time.
But over the years North Park has become a vibrant community that features art
and night life. Ray at Night draws hundreds to the monthly arts celebration,
and an empty theater has been restored and revitalized together with the San
Diego Lyric Opera. Residents and visitors now have the choice of great night
life and food at the Linkery, True North, and Urban Solace, and that's only in
one block. The transformation has been so complete that last year the New York
Times, yes the great grey lady of record, published a feature describing North
Park as a great travel destination.
With her
Queen Bee's art and performance space, Alma Rodriguez is adding to this North
Park buzz. Debuting about 14 months ago, Rodriguez and her team of enthusiasts
and artists have been busy with nails, hammers, and paint, sprucing up a
colonial-modern style building on Ohio Street just off of University Avenue.
"It's been a lot of work," she says. "But it's also been exciting."
Rodriguez
had been the proprietor of Hot Monkey Love, a behemoth of an establishment in
East San Diego where dancers stepped and swayed to nights of tango, salsa, and
hip-hop. "I was getting noise complaints, and I wanted to make a change for the
community," Rodriguez says as she explains her move from the East San Diego to
her present venue. The dancing continues at the Queen Bee's, but the mix and
music has changed a bit. "I've wanted to concentrate on youth, particularly
young musicians, mostly musicians from 15 to 25 years old," she says. The
music, dancing, and other activities occur Wednesday through Monday, including
a once-a-month Steampunk concert/dance, which combines all the best elements of
Victorian industrialism with 1950s science fiction. The Zumba dance class is on
Tuesday, with an open mic on Monday that includes anything from music and
spoken-word performance, to train-of-thought improvisations, to comedy.
For close
to ten years Rodriguez has managed some sort of coffeehouse, performance, art
venue. In 2001 she opened the original Hot Monkey Love on El Cajon Boulevard in
the San Diego State University area. With its various icons of chimpanzees and
other primates adorning walls and filling up the nooks and crannies, the place
saw many nights of wonderfulness. A Thursday night jazz jam attracted jazz
lovers as well as SDSU music majors testing out their chops alongside some
greatly seasoned pros. Daniel Jackson was often there with his saxophone or
playing piano. San Diego's veteran songster Joe Rathburn hosted the Folky
Monkey, a weekly showcase of singer/songwriters. "Having a space like that was
always in the back of my mind," says Rodriguez, who had spent years working as
an event coordinator in her hometown of Miami, Florida. She saw the Hot Monkey
Love as an asset to her family. "I started the Hot Monkey Love because I wanted
my kids to grow up in a good environment. I also liked the idea of having a
family-owned business. I wasn't interested doing anything corporate."
Rodriguez
wears platform heels, but her diminutive frame is still towered over by the
Queen Bee's support staff. She has dark brown eyes, and her black hair has a
touch of grey. She speaks softly and in a slow, measured way. She says that San
Diego's best-known free weekly inadvertently christened her new venture. "When
the word got out that I was taking over the lease here, they ran a column about
it in the Blurt section of the San Diego Reader. The headline said ‘Queen Bee
moves to North Park.' It sounded like a good name, so I just thought we would
go with it."
Dancers
have an extra incentive to visit the Queen Bee's. What had once been worn vinyl
flooring is now a dance floor of new wood laminate that gives a spring to the
step of any swing dancer or hip hopper. And it's a big dance floor at that, a
1,800 square foot ballroom type of expanse. And brightening up one wall of the
dance hall are large color photographs of northern Italy, which swim with warm
hues of ochre and azure. An area almost as large as the dance floor holds the
stage, equipped with a drum set and goes-up-to-11-sized twin speaker cabinets
that loom over the room. Large and fanciful drawings that flow into each other
serve as the stage's backdrop. "The stage wasn't in the best shape when we got
here, and we had to do a lot of work on it," says Rodriguez as she examines the
structure's lip. Off to one side of the stage is another large room that
musicians can use as a green room. Couches and chairs are strewn about. The
fabric and canvases that fill up the corners and tables in the room reveal that
it is also used as an art space. Different projects lie about in various stages
of completion, and a graffiti-style mural of a female figure stretches across
one wall.
Looking
just like those bank vaults in the old movies with James Cagney and Edwin G.
Robinson, a marine green door about a foot thick stands ajar. With all the aura
of seriousness and commerce, Rodriguez pulls the door open, and it glides slowly
and silently on its huge hinges, opening onto a small brick lined room. Back in
the 1930s when North Park was the new and shining suburban jewel of San Diego,
this building was home to Dixieline Lumber, and this was the vault that kept
the money was kept. It's about as big as a pantry, but rolls of different
colored fabric and other art supplies fill the space instead of canned goods
and noodles.
The painted
canvases and other artwork reflect the interests of Rodriguez, who holds a
degree in graphic arts. As she points out the work that she and others have
completed at the Queen Bee, artists come and go, retrieving supplies or
dropping off their creations. Toward the back of Queen Bee's is a room that is
the workspace of Owen Burke who, going back two months ago, has become the
Queen Bee's resident artist.
Burke is a
self-taught luthier. Hanging on the dark and bare wooden walls of his workspace
are all sorts of musical instruments that he has acquired or built. They all
have strings and tuning pegs, but after that the similarities end. Most of them
are small and look like guitars with curly-cues and other curious
embellishments. Burke has been repairing or making musical instruments most of
his life. He says, "When I was in junior high I'd go and buy broken instruments
at pawn shops, ones I could get for around ten dollars, and I'd repair them. As
a kid I had been good at taking things apart, so then I was getting good at
taking them apart and putting them back together." With both of his parents
working as interior decorators, Burke was surrounded by art and other
stimulating creations. He was also drawn to the music that was a big part of
the scene during the sixties when he came of age. He learned to play the drums
and considered living the life of a musician, but the downside of a working
performer, such as spending long periods of time on the road, convinced him
that his life was better spent as a musical builder than a performer.
Rodriguez
and Burke have known each other for about nine years, the two having met when
Burke was part of the local band, José Sinatra and the Troy Dante Inferno, and
performing at the Hot Monkey Love from time to time. A bit of serendipity led
to their present collaboration. "I was painting condos downtown when I ran into
Alma at the Ralph's down there," says Burke. "She told me that she'd gotten a
hold of this great historic building. I had known Alma from performing at both
of her previous venues. I met with her and the landlord here and I liked their
commitment to the community, that they wanted a community center, not just
another bar or coffee shop. They wanted it to be an asset to the community."
Among the
instruments hanging on the walls are Burke's most recent enthusiasm, an
instrument that he both designed and now produces. It has a long fretted neck
and a body akin to a drum head, like a banjo, but its four stringed are tuned
like a ukulele, He calls his creation a banjuke. They sound like ukuleles, but
louder and fuller. "This hybrid of the two instruments has been around since
the 1920s," he says, but adds that he has come up with innovations of his own,
such as using nylon instead of steel strings. "It's very easy to play, and it
combines the best features of both instruments. It's much lighter than other
instruments, and you can take it just about anywhere."
Rodriguez's
community involvement is not confined to what she can do on her own. Next month
she will take part in the annual the ninth annual San Diego Indie Fest, in
North Park, with the Queen Bee's serving as the venue for the festival's
independent film series. "It's going to be great to be a part of the festival
with our new large room to show the films in," she says. She is a member of the
North Park Business Association and has gotten involved with the farmers'
market that North Park hosts every Thursday afternoon.
She chooses
the musicians who perform for the shoppers as they stroll the aisles of fresh
produce and hot dishes of Mexican and North African cuisine in the CVS Pharmacy
parking lot. Burke says, "We want to feature some of the local performers. We
want to turn the whole thing into a community event." Burke and Rodriguez,
along with her business partner Jeff,
share a booth with and provide a small PA system for the musicians.
Along with the performances, shoppers can examine some of Burke's and
Rodriguez's merchandise and educational material as well as take a trial strum
on a banjuke. If anyone is interested in learning the ukulele, they are also
able get their first lesson free of charge from Burke at the market. The lesson
covers the banjuke as well as ukulele.
"Originally
I started doing this with the Hot Monkey Love because I wanted to be with my
young teenage kids," Rodriguez says. "They're all in college now, but the work
continues, and we have a bigger mission now. From the business here, 18 percent
of the profits go to Photocharity, a San Diego organization that works to help
homeless children. My emphasis is always on the community, and that happens
here every day. One day this lady walks in and she sits for a long time, for
hours. Well, I went up and talked to her and she tells me ‘I need a place to
live. I have no food to eat. I have four kids.' In a situation like that you
want to help. I got on the phone and called all the businesses in the area. I
found someone willing to hire her part-time. I hired her part-time as well. I
wasn't able to take her in, but I got her work, and that got her on her way.
It's all part of the community involvement."