Batman & Robin 1967

Batman & Robin 1967, originally uploaded by Here in Van Nuys.

This is a slide I scanned from my parent's collection of Kodachrome images taken through the years.

This is South Haven, MI in the summer of 1967. Two young people are dressed as Batman and Robin. This was the era of ABC-TV's "Batman" and the show was quite popular with kids.

The way people are dressed, still adheres to that neat and preppy propriety that hung on through most of that decade. Granted, this is the Midwest, and trends never happen first in this area. So this picture is not emblematic of the "swinging sixties".

Look at the boy on the lower right. He is wearing a madras plaid pullover shirt. That is something one hardly sees these days.

Some of the girls are wearing sleeveless shirts and the tall one on the left is in white oxford cloth. The men's hair is Brylcreemed: not short, but neatly parted and combed.

"Robin" wears a gold colored blouse and small ladylike watch and short skirt. She almost looks secretarial in her businesslike attire.

These kids drank whole milk and ate ice cream, but nobody looks particularly fat.

The Fart Billboard.

For at least a year, this degrading billboard advertising "Power 106" Hip-Hop Radio has stood atop this equally nauseating mini-mall near Sepulveda and Victory.

Perhaps it's a coincidence that it sits right over the beans and burrito El Pollo Loco.

This is the free market at its finest, where freedom of expression, for enormously wealthy outdoor advertisers like Clear Channel, takes precedence over the civic quality of life in Los Angeles.

We live in a sea of grossness, surrounded by the absolute lowest quality of commercialism and we are supposed to just turn a blind eye to it and move on.

But this is our city, where we live, raise children and hope that our urban surroundings might have just the slightest elevating effect.

The joke is on us.

Clean Up on Victory.

On Victory, just east of Sepulveda, a community-minded property owner has painted and landscaped five one-story residential rental buildings. The units were previously painted uniformly bland beige, and the new colors, in various shades of autumnal hues, provide a unified and clean presence in this area of Van Nuys.

This kind of housing, circa 1950, with single paned windows and back entrances for milk delivery, garbage and hanging wet clothes, is from a time when people didn't live in fear. Van Nuys was once largely self-policing and law abiding, so builders erected apartment units where people could socialize on front porches and leave their screen doors open to cool down on a hot summer night.

The Van Nuys of 1950 had many newcomers, just like today, but they came from Oklahoma, Ohio and New York. These buildings are clean, modest and well kept. One can only hope they are a harbinger of better days to come here in Van Nuys.

Taco Truck Law Dumbness.

Leave it to Los Angeles to make a law that will endanger small businesses, create more air pollution, inconvenience people, and waste gasoline. The "Taco Truck" ordinance will require these mobile restaurants to move around and will forbid them from staying in one location for more than an hour.

The NY Times reports how this started:

“They are a blight,” said Omar Loya of East Los Angeles who took his complaints about the trucks to the office of his county supervisor, Gloria Molina.

Ms. Molina’s policy director, Gerry Hertzberg, said the trucks had become “a big quality of life issue” in some neighborhoods.

“Businesses with a fixed place of business complain about unfair competition and the spillover effects mobile vendors have on the surrounding area,” Mr. Hertzberg said, citing litter, noise, public urination and excessive parking space hoarding as typical complaints.

I live in a neighborhood near Sepulveda and Victory without any taco trucks. Yet we also have litter, noise, public urination and excessive traffic.

Taco Trucks provide a cheap and easy way for people to feed themselves. They bring life to the sidewalk and neighborhood, far more than the ugly sight of the mini-mall restaurant that typically blights much of Los Angeles.

Just today, I ate a fresh shrimp Cerviche taco at the wonderful "Mariscos El Manglar" in East LA near E. Olympic and S. Downey Road. It cost me all of $3.00.

Next month, this wonderful business will spend half the day driving around, burning gas and adding to the air pollution in an already poisonously smoggy neighborhood.

Good work Ms. Molina.

The "Never Finished" Tower in Hollywood.

shameless, originally uploaded by jeremy!.

I've wondered about this building, which is on the corner of Sunset and Vine.

It has been at least five years since they ripped down the old facade and then sheathed the whole thing in white. Now they are putting up the curtain wall, which is taking forever.

But of course, there is always a place for an enormous billboard. The advertising appeared seemingly overnight.

Maybe the construction company needs to be instructed by the advertising people on how to get things going faster....

Buying Beans at Starbucks.

Starbucks Beans, originally uploaded by riacale.

If you want to start a panic at your local Starbucks, ask one of the employees to sell you a half a pound of beans.

It happened last week at the Starbucks on LaBrea and Santa Monica. I went in and asked for a half pound of "Pike Place" ground for a cone filter.

The front counter guy left the register to go in back. There was a commotion. An orange streak haired guy came out and asked again, "What is it that you want?" I pointed to the bags of beans on display. Supposedly, this is their new bean, highly touted.

"How much?" he asked.
"Half pound, " I said.
"Ok, dude. Hold on." he answered.

He went in back again and dragged out an unopened large amount of the beans. But then he came around in front and grabbed a pre-wrapped pound of Pike's Place from the display.

I watched him try and open the bag. It was difficult. He then asked the other worker for help in operating the scale. He didn't know how to measure the beans. Then he spent about two minutes trying to get the scale to measure it.

He poured the beans into the grinder, and then tried valiantly to seal the bag. He couldn't find something else, I don't know what.

I stood waiting for about 10 or 15 minutes. Finally, he handed me my half pound bag.

Only he had ground a pound and charged me only for half a pound.

How come I can operate the coffee grinder at Trader Joe's with no difficulty?

Homeboy Industries

Homeboy Industries, originally uploaded by ~db~.

I went to the brand new, spanking clean, glorious Homeboy Industries today. Located just north of Union Station, east of Chinatown, this multi-faceted organization provides career counseling, job training, legal services and productive work for at-risk former gang members.

First we ate lunch at the Homegirl Cafe and had some delicious fresh salads and fruit drinks. There is a copious selection of baked goods, right from the on-site bakery, and a little gift store selling t-shirts. The staff is well trained, polite, professional. Ex-gang or reformed, I don't care what they call themselves, their work ethic and dignity outperforms many LA restaurants.

We then were given a tour of the free services which include anger management, job and computer training, tattoo removal, post-prison release counseling, community service, legal advice.

As our group walked around, one young blind man in sunglasses came up to us. He told his story of how he was shot in the head and lost his sight. His sensory impaired head was positioned at an odd angle on his shoulders, but he explained that once upon a time "my gun was God, and then I found God". He had been in prison, spent 18 years in a gang, and now worked here to help rehabilitate others like him.

Next to him, another man, with his left hand missing, no doubt shot off, told us how he teaches anger management.

I come from a privileged background, though I often don't know it.

All across Los Angeles, what suffering people endure: violence, degradation, abuse. Under the shaved heads, behind the inked arms and chests, a holocaust of hopelessness.

But looking around downtown Los Angeles, there are seeds of change, like those plants which pop up in flame ravaged forests.

Special Smoke Advisory from AQMD.

Downtown LA, originally uploaded by rjmcconnell.

SOUTH COAST AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT DISTRICT

SMOKE ADVISORY

Tuesday, April 29, 2008



SPECIAL SMOKE ADVISORY: Valid Tuesday April 29, 2008



Due to the Santa Anita Wildfire in Los Angeles County, localized areas of smoke may occur. As a result, concentrations of fine particulates may reach the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups level or higher in localized areas that are directly impacted by smoke, i.e. areas that can see and smell smoke. The areas affected by the smoke the most include Area 9 East San Gabriel Valley, Area 10 Pomona/Walnut Valley, Area 33 SW San Bernardino Valley, Area 32 NW San Bernardino Valley, and Area 36 E San Bernardino Mountain.



All individuals are urged to exercise caution and avoid unnecessary outdoor activities in the smoke impacted areas. People with respiratory or heart disease, the elderly and children should limit prolonged exertion in smoke impacted areas.







Lourdes Cordova Martinez

Community Relations Manager

Public Affairs

South Coast AQMD