[sic]

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took time out from his busy schedule endorsing Hilary Clinton for president to focus on a dire civic issue: traffic. Yesterday he arrived via a behind-schedule MTA bus to a press conference staged on a downtown bridge over the 110 Freeway and outlined a multi-faceted program designed to get traffic flowing more efficiently. He’s all about: traffic signal syncing; more aggressive ticketing and towing of intersection blockers and illegally parked vehicles; implementing one-way express corridors; public transit; and more. He even gives some love to pedestrians by championing strategic all-way crosswalks at certain key intersections.

And bikes? On that sorely ignored subject the somewhat honorable ‘Tonio Villagarockstar’s said the following (pick one):

A) “I pledge to fully integrate bicycles and other alternate forms of self-propelled transportation — as well as nonnuclear forms of teleportation, and most types of homebrew aircraft and dirigibles — into the future of transportation in Los Angeles. Not as bastard stepchildren who need to be spanked and stuck in a corner for a timeout, but as equal partnters who need to be spanked and stuck into a corner for a timeout!”

B) “Oh yeah, bikes, bicycles… las bicicletas. Las bicicletas fantásticas. Riiiiiight. Muy bueno. Those things. Hmmmm. Jeez. Pffft. Yikes. Tough one! Extremadamente difícilmente! Let me fake as if I give a shit and pretend like I’ll get back to you on that, but really won’t, ‘K?”

C) Absolutely, positively nothing.

The correct answer is C, which in a lot of ways is like B, which leaves those of us enthusiastic and trailblazing urban two-wheelers trucked out to Oversight County and dumped in the reclaimed toxic landfill that is now Bigfatzeroloservilletown. Again.

So of course I wrote him a letter:

Mr. Mayor,

I’ve read through your multi-level plan to reduce traffic congestion, and while I’m impressed that you’re attempting to tackle this pressing matter, I am as equally unimpressed that in all of the options you offer, nowhere and not even once mentioned is the bicycle or efforts that could and should be made to improve its presence on the civic gridscape.

Certainly you could debate that the percentage of bicycle commuters in Los Angeles is insignificant, but that is terrifically shortsighted and short-term oriented.

As a dedicated bike commuter I accumulated more than 3,000 miles across Los Angeles in 2007, in part due to my 26-mile roundtrips between Silver Lake and Westchester at least three times a week. In this first month of 2008 alone I have commuted by bike to work 13 out of 22 working days, which is the equivalent of keeping 13.5 gallons of gasoline out of my gas tank and available for use by you or more urgently Deputy Mayor Jaime de la Vega — unless he’s recently traded his Hummer in for more a more fuel-efficient and less egregious form of transportation.

But I digress. Bottom line is I am part of a growing segment of the city’s population who have made the choice to rely predominately on two-wheels to get around town, and frankly with the continued lack of a functional city-wide network of bike routes, perpetuated by your silence on the subject I feel discriminated against. You had a long-view opportunity to include bicycles and cycling infrastructure improvements in your plan and you shamefully didn’t. Don’t continue to ignore what is an important component in the future of this city’s transportation solutions.

Regards,
Will Campbell

I won’t waste any time on yesterday’s 7.5-hour interval spent waiting around the jury assembly room at the Stanley Mosk courthouse downtown. The end game is that my services as an eager and willing participant in the judicial process weren’t required and after a 90-minute lunch break spent walking around the adjacent mall and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels during noon mass I returned to wait around another hour and a half before being excused.

Oh well. There’s always the next summons.

Photo I took of Mayor Villaraigosa at Lincoln Park autographing a girl’s t-shirt September 4, 2006, during the annual Los Pobladores walk celebrating Los Angeles’ 225th birthday.

About six weeks overdue for a haircut I finally dragged my hairy self over to Tony’s Barbershop on Glendale Boulevard, my regular place for the past four years. When my turn arrived I clambered up into Tony’s chair and told him to take about 10 pounds off the top and a couple off each side.

As he went to work whittling my mop down to a more manageable level I noticed missing from the shelf on the wall opposite his chair the pictures of him and his family with Mayor ‘Tonio that have been up for the past couple years. I started to ask him about them but I realized I didn’t have to. Their absence spoke volumes.

I haven’t felt the need to comment on the mayor and his troubles. Though I’m ashamed of how he’s comported himself so as to make his private life public, I’ve always had issues with him as a politican since his campaign for the office and never bought into him being anything but a power-hungry opportunist who’s pretty much getting by on his looks and charisma — but certainly not anything regarding accomplishments.

Moving beyond the affair itself, media coverage is now looking at the potential long-term negative effects his adulterous relationship might have not only on a second term as mayor but also on his future chances at higher office. I’m jaded enough to look at the re-elections of Schwarzenegger and Duhbya and think that if those two could keep their offices in the face of their shortcomings, a tawdry affair ain’t much of a big thing to overcome in the grand political scheme.

But then to see a reaction like that of my barber Tony eliminating the evidence of his approval and I may be wrong about that. In so unceremoniously divorcing himself from the support and pride he’d previously displayed for Villaraigosa it makes me consider that there may be enough Tonys out there who feel duped and betrayed, and repairing their trust in him will be tough if not impossible no matter how good he looks or how much charisma he projects.

For my birthday in May I got the gift of a jury duty notice from the L.A. County Superior Court and as I’m one of the few and the proud who are motivated by the opportunity to do my civic duty, I wasted no time registering and looking forward to my start date of July 9. Per the instructions I was to call the weekend before and check in and I just did. Turns out they don’t need me Monday and I’m to call back Monday evening to see if they need me Tuesday. Pfft.

There’s a snap in there along the lines of “You’re so unemployable you can’t even get a seat in the jury pool,” but I remain somewhat hopeful that I’ll get hauled into court at least some point this week.

But whether the legal system exploits me or not, well… the jury’s still out.

Looks like the Superior Court of the great state of California just can’t get enough of me. In the mail yesterday came a letter summoning me to jury duty July 9. I last answered the call in January 2006.

The new folks over at L.A. Voice want to know just how bad L.A. is at historic preservation. Linking to a Preserve LA post that links to a Preservation Online article by Chris Epting titled “Lost in Los Angeles,”  L.A. Voice’s Ryan Knoll takes issue with Epting’s characterization of L.A. as one of the worst cities in the country in terms of preservation of its historic landmarks. Knoll sites Epting’s examples of the Ambassador Hotel and the Garden of Allah residential complex as just not being very heavy hitters in the history ring:

The Garden of Allah was a compound of bungalows that served as pieds a terre for celebs like Gretta Garbo, Humphrey Bogart, and Ernest Hemmingway. It was built in 1927 and bulldozed in 1959. Does a 32 year old apartment complex merit the “Historic” tag? If so, I want a tax deduction for my house.

You can make a strong argument for and against the Ambassador Hotel. It’s greatest claim to fame (or infamy), of course was as the spot of Robert F. Kennedy’s assasination. But the Kennedy family (I believe) wasn’t all that fired up about saving the building, and if you remove the Kennedy factor from consideration, the Ambassador becomes just another hotel that hosted famous people.

As an issue near and dear to my heart of course I started posting a comment in response to Ryan but it quickly rambled and so instead I decided to pop it up here, as follows:

Ryan, I would be interested to know where the line is to be drawn. If we look at a landmark and shrug about it not being old enough or that its only claim to fame is that it housed some celebs or hosted the murder of a presidential candidate then it shouldn’t be too difficult to shrug off all those vacant theaters on Broadway or that Frank Lloyd Wright house up on the hills or that luggage shop on Vine Street.

You can make the argument that historically speaking there’s not all that much going on and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree — not because few things actually qualify, but because there are so few things left. L.A. may be 225 years old but in the last 100 or so this city’s become the capital of reinvention and make-believe where the automobile is king, and our sprawled out drive-through cityscapes can’t help but reflect that.

As a prime example very near and dear to my heart, I site the “1,000 year old” oak tree that for the first 950 years of its undisturbed and unencumbered life was one of hundreds upon hundreds of oak trees growing in the area. But for its final 50 years or so it became isolated and imprisoned in what became the suburban bedroom community of Encino a hundred yards or so south of Ventura Boulevard until it finally succumbed to years of illness and indifference along with that winter’s relentless El Nino storms and fell in 1998. Sure, it was recognized in 1963 by the city as an historic and cultural monument (No. 74), but did that prevent the grand arbor from being relegated to a small island surrounded by the asphalt encroachment of the post-war boom? Of course not. City planners were so reckless in their disregard that they actually split Louise Avenue’s lanes around the tree, allocating a mid-sized shopping center to the north and a bank building to the south and multi-unit aparment buildings behind it. Why? Because what was it other than nothing but a big old tree. Never mind that it deserved a park of its own and even the slightest in protective distance from the pavement and pollution, this historic and cultural icon couldn’t even get the slightest consideration beyond being acknowledge for its longevity in a city whose residents ceaselessly strive to ignore the clock rather than recognize its forward progress.

And now it’s gone.

So while historic significance might be an oxymoron in L.A., it would be from a perspective of cultural significance that I would definitely say L.A. qualifies as one of the most ignorant cities at preservation. On a small scale countless are the landmark businesses that are nothing more than memories and pictures: Perino’s, C.C. Brown’s, Wallach’s Music City, Pickwick Books, Jay’s Jayburgers. Hell, rather than restore it the city came very close to razing downtown’s central library after it was torched by arsonists in the 1980s.

And the erasure is easily evident on a larger scale, too – and not without some irony. Union Station is an untouchable landmark in its own right, but it resides on what used to be the original location of Chinatown. Same with Dodger Stadium. I would throw myself in front of any bulldozer that threatened my beloved House of Blue, but it was built on the dirt that buried the barrancas and canyons and history of Chavez Ravine. And what they couldn’t fill in they chopped down. Bunker Hill used to be much more of a hill than it is now, but it was lopped off and trucked down and leveled and with it went so much of one of the city’s most historic residential cores.

The bottom line for me is that be it historic or cultural, Los Angeles’ past is a slate that’s historically been far more easily and regretlessly cleaned than most other American cities.

I’m glad Tony Pierce can see the humor in Martini Republic’s chiding of him for “failing” to dive LAist into the exclamated blogoblather brewed up over the inevitable eviction of the croppers from Ralph Horowitz’s property yesterday. It took me a second read to get the sense that it was a good-natured jab, and still only somewhat.

I suppose like a good southpaw I should just be righteously indignant that these little people who worked the land and made something of nothing were so summarily and inconsiderately given the boot, but I’m finding it hard to blame Horowitz for his actions, or to consider him the bad guy in all this. I’m waaaay more inclined to look back a couple years and point my middle finger at the city itself for putting the property up for sale in the first place.

In the L.A. Times article today, Horowitz is quoted as saying that he was fed up with the insults and the legal battles and all the bullshit and even if the farmers or their benefactors had come up with $50 million he would have told them all to go to hell. Frankly, I don’t blame him one bit.

Sure, it would be far easier to accept if it were a homeless encampment being disbanded from some derelict wastefield, but instead it’s a plot of land so infused with the symbolism of self-sufficiency, cooperation, hope and renewal. It was from the ashes of the horrible 1992 riots that this site rose to flourish with life and sustenance brought forth by the hands and hearts of its area residents. And now that’s all going away to be replaced by warehouses.

It’s easy to despise that end result, but again I don’t blame the land’s lord. Nor do I blame the people who worked that land (though I think they’re playing the exploited card a weeeeeeee bit too hard). Neither do I go on without saying it is far more complex an issue than to boil it down to the city as the bad guy. Nevertheless whoever over at City Hall back in 2003 failed to recognize the importance of this agricultural cooperative and instead orchestrated and architected the sale of a whole lotta heart and soul for a few million dollars is the entity that gets my enmity.

And now that we’re in the post-game Mayor Villaraigosa, it would really be best if you would stop your whining about Horowitz being the roadblock to the farm’s survival because he refused to take the way late bait.

The Midnight Ridazz route brought us around the farm and its tenants last Friday night.

I took a nice spin around the Silver Lake reservoir with fellow bloggers Mack Reed and Sean Bonner this eeeeeaaaaarly morning, meeting at 6 a.m. (yikes but Mack’s the early rising man!) in the parking lot next to Spaceland for a clockwise cruise a couple times around the water to help get Sean back in the saddle of his recently tuned Kona roller and reacquainted with his long domant inner-cyclist.

It was a great way to get the blood moving and the rings around the not-so-bright water were smooth and easy save for some trouble with Sean’s shifters and chain — that and it was his first time back on two-wheels in something like four years. I hope he works the kinks out enough to make it to this Friday’s Midnight Ridazz ride.

After saying our farewells I was on the way home at a few minutes before 7 a.m. and in my infinite apptitude to be prepared I’d stuffed my sample ballot in my pack so I decided to swing on by the precinct and take care of  my right, privilege and duty in participating in the democratic process.

Turns out I was the first to vote at my polling place, something I’ve secretly always wanted to be. Another dream realized!

Well at least I got a weekly bus pass out of it. But certainly no trial, which is what I wanted.

I boarded the No. 201 bus, which dropped me three blocks away from my destination at the Civil Central West Courthouse at Sixth and Commonwealth where I arrived 30 minutes ahead of my appointed time, made my way past the baggage exam table and up to Dept. 309 on the 14th Floor… where we were told to wait outside. Apparently court was in session for the case we’d be deciding so I had to loiter in the hall with the handful of jurors who’d shown up ahead of me.

Others showed up and I recognized some from the assembly room yesterday. Not a one was pleased to be there and several vocalized hope they’d be dismissed — including one shabby looking fellow who I’m pretty sure had already consulted with Jack Daniels prior to his arrival.

Eventually a court attendant gathered us together and said that the opposing counsels were in there trying to persuade the judge to accept their mutual decision to waive a jury trial. So “unofficially” we might be going home, but we were asked to wait a few minutes for the judge’s final word.

Couple minutes go by and the courtroom doors open and all the jurors (I’d guess more than 30) are asked inside. We parade in and the four lawyers look us each over and I can almost see them making quick judgments about our viability as jurors. Had there been a change of minds? Did the judge shoot down the request to waive us off?

No. He just wanted to thank us personally for our service. When told we were free to go the drinking dude actually cheered and couldn’t exit quick enough.

Me? I looked around the tiny little courtroom and the comfy looking chairs in the jury box, wondered what might have been, and left to go walk down Wilshire Boulevard past the Bullocks Wilshire Building brilliant in the morning sun then back up Vermont to catch the No. 201 bus back home.

I feel like the nerd wanting desperately to be picked for a dodgeball team… except in this case it’s jury duty. Today should have been my first day to report to the Stanley Mosk courthouse on Hill Street downtown. I got my notification around Christmas and went through the motions to register.

Given my present unemployment sitch, for once I was actually looking forward to the process and was even hoping to get on a jury. But when I dutifully — some might say eagerly — called this weekend and plugged in my ID number and PIN I was told my services weren’t needed.

“But you don’t understand, I want to be a juror!” I yelled at the recorded voice, but all it could give me in consolation was that tomorrow was another day and I should call back after 5 p.m. today to see if I could come play then.

Sigh.

There’s the school of thought that cautions us to be careful for what we wish, and I may very well be called on to be a part of tomorrow’s pool or Wednesday’s or Thursday’s or Friday’s. But I’m cool with that. I want this new discovery. There was just something about getting it started today — Monday — that seemed so appealing. Kind of like a work week, maybe. I vaguely remember what those were like.

Anyway, I think part of the juror registration process should include a 0-to-9 scale in which prospective panelists are asked to guage how interested they are in being jurors (0 being none and 9 being gung-ho). Certainly the vast majority of citizens would punch in a zero, but I’d bet there are people like me — however few — who would actually punch the niner and welcome the opportunity. At least then those people could be given priority and that could help depopulate the pool of some people who object to the service or truly have better things to do with their time.

Doesn’t it seem that a jury made up of more peers wanting to be empaneled would be a good thing?

UPDATE (6:08 p.m.): I’m in! Checking just now I found I have to report bright and early Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. Cool!