Fourth Street Bridge (North)

Fourth Street Bridge (South)

[click to enlarge]

It's Los Angeles 2007 although it looks like Cleveland 1964.

After The Fiesta

[click to enlarge]

El Rey Theater (June)

News Vendor On Broadway

Los Angeles Post Office Terminal Annex

Video of The Day: Pepe, a blind guitarist playing this morning at Hollywood's Farmers Market

Fireworks At Echo Park

I guess nothing burned down and no one got hurt but the fireworks last night at Echo Park made the place seem more like a war zone than a holiday event. And the ducks weren't too happy with it either.
A few more "Totally Unauthorized" videos here.

Full Moon Over MacArthur Park

[click to enlarge]

Fair At MacArthur Park

I don't imagine I'll be doing too much of this; most of my videos I'll be posting on YouTube. (Are there foot long catfish in the lake at MacArthur Park? Yes, there are. Go see.)
Many thanks to MortVark for the technical assistance.

Man In Money Hat

Brooms In Echo Park

Three Murals In Boyle Heights

Mural With Thunderbolt

Mural With Child

These murals can be found at the Pan American Bank, First and Townsend. Muralist is Jose Reyes Meza of Mexico.

Fourth Street Bridge

Car Wash (East Hollywood)

Emmett's Hands

Maria (Mexican Wedding)

[click to enlarge]

Double Shaft (East L.A.)

Last week, near the L.A. River, I came across a bridge that was being repaired. It appeared that one of the bridge's stanchions had been reinforced around the time that "Shaft" was in the movie theaters. Now, the reinforcements were being replaced and the many movie posters were again seeing the light of day. I've linked the entire wall of posters on my flickr site.

==>Friday Morning - Somehow, a worldwide photoblog has found The Jimson Weed Gazette and has linked it as one of its LA representative. Nice.

Magazines for the weekend: New York (I bought it for the Jim Cramer interview (with himself) but the whole thing looks interesting); The New York Observer (after having finished The New Yorker last night) and Shambhala Sun for its articles on meditation.

Star Wars Photo Op

I have no interest whatsoever in Star Wars but checking out their super-duper convention certainly made for an interesting afternoon.

Pico Blvd.

Strip Club on La Cienega

Empty Chair In An Empty Field

Crazy Kicking Horse

Crazy Kicking Horse ("Ten years in the penitentiary. Ten years in the penitentiary.") and his two buddies.

Yes, that's "Indian" tattooed across his chin and "Fuck You" across his throat.

Man On Sidewalk

Loco

Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell + Karl Rove = Bush = Iraq = squandered billions of $$$ and a hundred thousand casualties.

Our Lady Queen Of Angels

[click onto photos to enlarge]

Los Feliz Fire

I surreptitiously made my way up some side streets above Los Feliz until I came to Vermont. It was very dark due to the power outage although the smoke was bad only when the wind would change. Contrary to what I later heard an AM radio guy say, there wasn't "pandemonium", cars were of course leaving but there was no panic or drama. The worse part was when an ambulance came down the hill with sirens and lights at full force. Fire trucks would go up the street and later came down, headed somewhere else. At one point the silhouette of the fire was on both sides of me with the fire itself dead ahead.

Cemetery

Broken Stone

Angel Boy/Angel Girl

Woman and Cross

Cherub

"Ivory" In Santa Monica

"I'm on medication."

I'm eating Trader Joe's Seasoned Rack of Lamb.

I'm watching "On The Waterfront".

"BAGHDAD, May 2 – The Bush administration is planning to withdraw most United States combat forces from Iraq over the next several months and wants to shrink the American military presence to less than two divisions by the fall, senior allied officials said today.”

New York Times article
by Michael R. Gordon & Eric Schmitt
May 2, 2003

It's Cherimoya Season in S. California.

An easy fruit to overlook, it's got an unappealing murky green skin, a short growing season, too many seeds and its not cheap. But the custard-like fruit is delicious.

Put it in a fruit salad - one cherimoya (pitted), one sliced orange, one apple and one avocado, both cut into eights, topped with plain yogurt.

More John Fahey.

Russell In Beverly Hills

L.A. Is A Beautiful City

(click to enlarge)

Built in 1927, this building, located at Olympic and La Cienega, was originally a water treatment plant for the city of Beverly Hills. Restored in 1988 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, it is now The Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study.

Win A Shiny New Dime!

Be the first person to correctly identify where this picture was taken and I will send you a shiny new dime.

Actually, this is more or less an experiment. Not having access yet to Photoshop (I'm bidding for a new one as we 'speak'), I'm using some free software - GIMP, which seems to work just fine.

**We have a winner - Fairfax, north of Beverly.***

At My Desk With Coffee (#14)

• If you're sending me e-mails, I'm not getting them. (New computer...incomplete data transfer...all 'round tech troubles that I have little or no ability to solve.)
• This morning I washed my kitchen floor at 7:45 and had Trader Joes chicken mini-tacos with peach salsa for breakfast.
• Also this morning I did my good deed for the day (I'll skip the details) and this evening at my door was a small bag containing a large can of baked beans and a small can of creamed corn. Kinda sweet but kinda ridiculous.
• I'm contemplating three double-features in three days. Tomorrow film noir at the American Cinematheque followed by Westerns at LACMA.

Saturday eve - slowly getting back up to speed. No Photoshop but I've got my e-mail running and Napster is back. Listening to Lightning Hopkins so things aren't too bad.

Feet, No Shoes And A Cane

April 6, 2007

Betty and Dahlia

They've been together for eleven years.

Beware of Wells Fargo*

Last week, unbeknownst to me, someone hacked into my bank account four times in four days. First they called Wells Fargo and checked my balance (something I never do), then they went to Van Nuys and Pasadena (places I never go) and maxxed out the withdrawal limit (something I never do) from a non-Wells Fargo bank (something I have never done). Four times in four days.

I asked the Fraud Dept how so many huge warning signs could have been ignored.

"I really don't have an answer to that."

__________
What does the I Ching say?
"Be willing to trust."
_________

*I've been reimbursed. All's well that's ends well.

Friday Fire In L.A.

Click to enlarge...you can almost see the Hollywood sign about an inch to the right of the fire.

Half Moon Motel (Sepulveda Blvd.)

Springtime in Los Angeles

On Virgil, north of Melrose.

Two Quotes From Werner Herzog

1. Facts do not provide illumination.

2. Storyboarding is for cowards.

March 25, 2007
Santa Monica

Capt. Johnny

"Got everything I need."

After Midnight

Last Week / This Week

Last Week - Lost keys and lost address book.

This Week - broken computer and bank account hacked into ($302).

Dinner: Trader Joes organic pasta with Trader Joes Seafood Blend and Trader Joes pesto.

Another George Packer article in the New Yorker which outlines how badly we treated pro-American Iraqis.

Laundry On Third

This week: I received a totally uncharming letter from my landlord. I had forgotten (first time ever) to send in my rent check. Eviction beckoned...This week I lost my housekeys/car keys. This week I lost my address book. This week I took the above photo and posted it just ninety minutes later. It reminds me of Billy Wilder's Seven Year Itch and everything else about the Fifties that I like. This week I donated money online and misread the word verification dialogue box and somehow donated the money twice. This week Napster quit working on me and their tech support is shut down by the time I get home from work. This week I planted three tomato plants & started listening to Amy Winehouse. Can you blame me? This week I bought a large amount of bee pollen and am taking it everyday. This week I am using Google Docs & Spreadsheets, using it right now as a matter of fact. This week I started listening to The Fall after a twenty year sabbatical. Mark E Smith = Artuad.

Quote of the Week: Apparently there is a great discovery or insight which our culture is deliberately designed to supress, distort and ignore. That is that Nature is some kind of minded entity. That Nature is not simply the random flight of atoms through electromagnetic fields. Nature is not the empty, despiritualized lumpen matter that we inherit from modern physics. But it is instead a kind of intelligence, a kind of mind.
- Terrence McKenna

Trader Joes Product of the Week: Chicken Salad with cranberries and pecans

Hotels In Hollywood

If you've ever stayed at the Mark Twain or the Gilbert hotels, you're probably not reading this.

Beware of Wine

Thought For The Day: Fear causes us to exaggerate the importance of succeeding.

I Ching (#62)

Stairs In West Hollywood

Happy 50th birthday, Mark E Smith. (Rather surprisingly, Napster has 45 cd's of The Fall to listen to.)

Also, here's this: If you've ever lived in California the state might be holding some of your money. CA Unclaimed Property Good luck

Sign (Boyle Heights)