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It took the better part of two days last week to dress the Hollywood Sign up in a fashion statement that read “Save The Peak,” an authorized stunt that is part of an initiative to raise money to purchase a large parcel of nearby hilltop land and prevent its residential development.

Yesterday, it came down much faster. Sensing that its end was near, I pointed the upstairs webcam  at the landmark through the palms atop the neighboring ridge, zoomed in as far as I could go and still have some sort of image,  then pushed the necessary keys on the computer to compile a timelapse of dawn-to-dark images of the temporary cloak’s final day on display (the hot take-down action begins at 1 p.m.):

PS. Yeah, yeah… the obstructed view ain’t nothing to brag about, but I cherish it.  The sign may be over a hill and through some woods more than 4.5 miles away as the crow flies, but I like that it can be seen from inside our house. And I like to imagine that whoever lived in the 17-year-old place in 1923 when the sign was built had chance to look out time and again and see its original construction.

I’m always pleasantly surprised when my slapped-together rides draw any interest whatsever, so you can imagine how thrilled I was that yesterday’s 8 Presidents Ride drew a variety of 24 cyclists  at the outset (not shown: Stephen and Alice and Foodtruck Maven Joni — and no, Bobby in the yellow shirt is not about to bop Alexis next to him).

Of course, some who came along for the 32-mile route weren’t as enthusiastic as others.  At the gathering place at Hoover just below Wilshire, there was some confusion leading to the  odd handing back of some of the spokecards I’d distributed only to have that group request them back a few minutes later. The more the merrier, I said.

By the last leg of the ride that 24 had dwindled to 8 of us making it back along Adams to Hoover, and after parting company with Stephen and Alice at 6th and Union the remaining six of us made for the absolute madness that was the LA Streetfood Fest:

All in all, it was a great day for a ride, and I hank everyone for turning out.

The What:  The 8 Presidents Ride
The When: Saturday, February 13; Gathers at 10 a.m., departs at 10:30.
The Where: Meet at Wilshire and Hoover by the tennis courts on the south side of Wilshire across from Lafayette Park.
The Where We Going: About 30 miles, pretty flat; the route is mapped here. Ride ends where it begins.
The How: This is a casually paced ride, probably averaging around 10-15 mph. There will be improvised snack/drink stops along the way and No Rider Left Behind. Helmets encouraged, so are functioning street-able bikes, along with the gear needed to fix any flats that may occur.
The Why: The why not?

It’s been purty quiet around these here blogparts this first few days of the new year/decade. Not a lot going on but chores ‘n stuff: de-cluttering of the yards, de-decorating of the house, re-vacuuming of the floors, recycling of the Christmas tree, laundry, revisiting of the Costco, reviewing of the Rose Parade, along with a couple replacings of electrical outlets from ancient two-prong to far more contemporary three-prongers. On the entertainment tip we extended our streak of not seeing “Avatar,” while instead allowing ourselves to beoh-so-visually and morally assaulted seeing “Bruno.”

Generally these first three days were filled with stuff so ultra-compelling I thought it best to refrain from subjecting you to such awesome fascinatingness.

Was I right? Or was I right?

But now it’s time to look forward to a couple happenings I’m planning to start planning, so if’n they interest you getchur pencils sharpened and calendars out:

Long ago in the final September of the naughty aughts, I conjured up the Five Presidents bike ride, but stopped short of doing it or attaching it to a specific date. Since then it’s happened only in my mind, but two things are getting it out of my head and into reality:  1) the upcoming Presidents Day weekend in Feburary, and 2) the chance discovery last week/year/decade on my way to work of two other semi-residentially, full-presidentially named streets in Culver City (Madison and Jackson) that can be incorporated into the route, thus necessitating the ride’s renaming to the “Seven Presidents” ride.

That’s friggin’ unpresidented!

But whoa: better make that “Eight Presidents” because I just found a Van Buren Place in the vicinity of Madison and Jackson. Somebody stop me!

We now pause for a moment of clarification because I can hear some of you saying “Yo Willy, what’s the big whup pedaling along seven or eight or however many streets whose names happen to be the same as past presidents?” To that I first say, don’t EVER call me Willy. Secondly I say there is no big whup. It’s just an excuse to ride bikes with other people along a pre-determined route, connected by a certain theme that coincides with a certain day related to that theme. Was there ulterior motive to the “10 Bridges” ride? No. Existential depth to my Frank Lloyd Wride? Nah. It’s mainly just a chance for people who like to get together and ride bikes to do so. So don’t hurt yerself looking for meaning or relevance where there is just a reason to have fun and perhaps a chance to do something trivial that’s never been done before in the history of civilization as we know it.

More details to come posted here, and crossposted at LA Metblogs, Midnight Ridazz, Twitter, et cetera (but not MyBook or FaceSpace), but for now the most important thing you need to know if you’re thinking of joining me is that it will happen the morning of Saturday, February 13.

Nextly, in the wholly appropriate month of March (tentatively scheduled for Saturday the 6th, but that could change), I’ll be doing the next in my occasional series of urban walks, this one involving Jefferson Boulevard between the Shrine Auditorium and the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook Park.

Stay tuned for further, less sketchy details.

And in the meantime before getting my ass in gear and back into work mode, here’s my first photo of 2010, whose subject is brought to you by our potted tomato plant who worked hard these past few months nurturing this proud little fella until it dropped this weekend. Clearly the plant doesn’t know the concept of seasons or the meaning of the word quit. Ladies and gems I bring you:

Wintermater

There were tickets in those days…

It’s late-breaking but I’m suddenly very very excited by Sunday’s long-awaited opening of the Gold Line rail extension from Union Station down through Little Tokyo and then across the Eastside. So much excited am I that my double-darned damnedest will be required so that Susan and I may include an exploratory excursion all the way out to the end of the line at Atlantic Boulevard — even if it’ll be a bit redundant seeing as how we’re planning a trip out to Montebello tomorrow morning for a seasonal visit to Broguiere’s Dairy to load up on the best egg nog in all the world directly from the source.

This amongst various other regular responsibilities such as sunrise porch-sitting, the requisite yard and house work, a Costco run, some bike riding, watching Alabama whup some Mississippi State tail, and shaking my head at the fact that “2012″ is probably going to meet or exceed box office expectations.

Oh yeah: After learning about the BikeGlow bike frame lighting system in my favorite bike mag, Bicycle Times, I found that Chubby’s Cruisers near the office on Sepulveda carries them, and splurged on a pair of strands that I wrapped the frame in before leaving work tonight.

Whatcha think?

Even better: here’s a little taste of BikeGlow’s groovalicious blink mode:

Wow: A tool that exponentially increases both motorist awareness and FUN. That is so absolutely chock full of win I can barely contain myself.

You’ll pardon me if I’m not going all “golly gee!” over your new Stadium-To-The-Sea course route you’ve been crowing about this week. I’m still too bitter about the bike tour being dead to get all knee-deep in the rah-rah.

What’s that, you say? The Bike Tour: still not dead? Ohhh, riiiiiiiiight. Sure, sure… I remember a couple months ago someone there responded to my frustration about the bike tour being assassinated, and attempted to placate me with some rationale that you weren’t killing what next year would have been the 15-year tradition of the popular marathon-day fun ride (aka: “cash cow that regularly drew 10,000-plus bikies such as myself”) so much as hoping to reinvent it out from the shadow of the marathon and make it a “world class” stand-alone event, which probably involves a whole lotta Lycra and some riders with Ls in their names like Lance and Levi.

Trouble with me is I’m one of those “If it ain’t broke don’t fuck with it” types.  And while at first blush your quote/unquote idea (aka: pipedream) sounded good to me, since I’m all for increasing exposure and awareness and interest in urban cycling, ultimately my guess is that you went to the drawing board and whatever good intentions you had disappeared when you realized what an expensive and inconvenient bitch it would be to shut down the city a second time for a bunch of bike riders. And maybe — just maybe — in retrospect you realized why the Bike Tour was such a success hiding and happening in the shadow of the marathon.

Well, whatever has or hasn’t happened or been scrapped, here’s what I know: the total lack of communication on the subject since makes it seem like a whole lot of smoke-blowing and posturing and in the end its RIP Bike Tour.

I’d probably have to begrudge you a bit of respect if you had the ballbearings at least to come out and say as much, but instead you kind of skulk around hoping it’s really no big deal to anyone but meaningless blowhards like myself. And it very well might be, because the Bike Tour rarely got any respect. Yet it kept on happening and drawing thousands upon thousands of bikes every first Sunday in March and even that final Sunday of the month last May.

I know this because I did every LA Bike Tour from its inception in 1995 to last year. E.V.E.R.Y. O.N.E. After the second one in 1996, I vowed that no matter where I was in the world or what I was doing in it: I would pedal the bike tour every year until I was either dead or couldn’t ride anymore.

I upheld my part of the bargain, but pardon my disgruntlement: fuck you for failing to uphold yours. Seriously, you people sure know how to mess with a guy’s personal traditions.

So like I said at the top, now you’ve got this great new marathon course you’re all back-slappy about and boy it looks awesome.  Especially since it so happens to pass a half-block from my house. If I was the forgiving type I’d consider forking over the $125(!) entry fee and adding next year’s route to the others I did in 1994, 2003, 2005 and 2007. And if I was  the vindictive, begrudging sort I’d think about walking down to Sunset Boulevard and standing out there by the curb next March 21 with a giant cut-out of a middle finger on two wheels or something similar that showcases my sentiments for the decision that’s been made.

But I think I’ll just go for a bike ride instead.

- Will Campbell

What a crazy busy wonderful last coupla days. If there’s ever been a 48-hour period where I’ve bitten off more than I could chew but still managed to swallow it all without choking, this was it. It all started Friday night coming home from work with an intensive trip to the market to procure all the ingredients for the Coca-Cola-Brined Fried Chicken recipe (that I wrote about here) I’d been salivating over since reading about it in the current issue of Esquire magazine.

I’d been thinking of cooking it for Sunday, but a late-breaking freelance edit/rewrite gig wasn’t going to allow that so I decided instead of just Susan and me I’d whip up a batch for us and however many cycling pals returned with us from The Village Idiot Ride (that I wrote about here). Keep in mind, I’ve never done much of anything from scratch. Also keep in mind I’ve never fried chicken or cooked for a group. As such I even had hamburger patties and brats onhand as a contingency if my culinary endeavor failed miserably — which it almost did, but more on that later.

So by 8 a.m. Saturday morning in preparation for the arrival of my friend Steve and Alice and Manny and Ingrid and everyone else who might be biking with us over to the restaurant on Melrose,  I had beers on ice in the cooler and was getting the outside and inside of the house in order and cleaned up, first tackling the front and back yards and then the weeks-overdue vacuuming and dusting of the first floor while Susan did the same upstairs.

We managed to finish all that in time for me to get down to the business of mixing the brining mixture and the batter mix and the relish, and getting the chicken marinating in time for me to get cleaned up and ready for everyone to arrive. And by everyone I mean all these cool cats who paused long enough for an awesome group picture in front of the house by Susan before we set out for the crosstown ride (click it to enlarge):

Left to right, top to bottom:
Barleye, Alice, Steve, Ingrid, Harry
Lance, Esther*, Daniel*, Dak, Stephanie, Jeff
Roadblock, John, Some Guy, Manny
*Thanks to Steve for filling in the blanx I was having with these names!

While Susan and I are generally nice people, we’re not the most social of animals and thus haven’t had this many people at the house since our wedding reception back in ‘05 — and certainly never so many cycling pals!

So off we rode to The Village Idiot restaurant, where owner and my next-door neighbor Dean greeted us, and Steve and his “guardian angel” in the form of the restaurant’s barkeep Simon got a chance to reunite under far happier circumstances (click it to enlarge):

After leaving the restaurant, a majority percentage — including late arrival Marino (who showed up while we were at the restaurant) returned home with me. In addition Manny stopped off to bring his wife Cybele over, and I commenced to almost fail in my attempt to complete the relatively simple task of thoroughly cooking some battered chicken thighs in hot oil.

Instead as it turned out, I only half-cooked most of them. Fortunately Marino cut his in half and showed me the trouble before anyone could ingest the undercooked meat and Cybele came up with the plan to recover the distributed food and toss them in the oven for a spell.

Thus they emerged from the O’Keefe & Merritt cooked through now as Coca-Cola-Brined Fried Baked Chicken, and it was generally well received. Sure I was disheartened, but would have been decidedly moreso had anyone taken ill because of my failure. And if it’s any consolation, on Sunday Susan took the leftover batter and extra package of thighs and did them up right. Here are the thumbnails of  a photoset of the overall recipe-in-progress  (viewable here on Flickr):

Sunday was a horse of an entire different color. Whereas I was all over the place Saturday cleaning and riding and socializing and cooking (or attempting to), the seventh day found me in front of my computer from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (with only a few short breaks and a sole one-hour retreat in the mid-afternoon) trudging through a late-breaking editing/rewrite gig. But I wasn’t complaining (at least not about the job as much as about the article’s condition) because even though it effectively removed me from enjoying the last day of the weekend, it paid me for my freelance services as an editorial cleaner almost as much as what I take home for two weeks at the office.

Let’s just say it’d buy a lot of chicken. And some lessons on how to cook it.

A couple months ago my good friend and cyclist-about-town Stephen, was returning home veeery early in the morning from a group night bike ride that then went even later seguing into a party for a friend of his. In getting back to Echo Park he opted to take a route from 4th Street that brought him up into Silver Lake and down the boulevard where I live, which is really not at all a boulevard but that’s immaterial.

Heading to Sunset and gaining speed on the downhill at some ungodly hour like 3:30 a.m. or something just slightly befor 3 a.m., he passed my house where Susan and I were asleep and then the house to to the north. Just past that as the grade starts to flatten out there’s an abrupt uneven transition from the original 1925 concrete roadway and the once-newer asphalt (that’s now in crappier condition than the concrete).

I’m familiar with that transition because I’ve crossed it several hundred times and know the perfect spot to do so. Stephen? He’s bridged it maybe a handful of times and to the unfamiliar if you hit it in the wrong place it has the potential to bounce you pretty good — especially if you’re maybe positioned a little forward or off-center on your bike.

So next thing Stephen knows, he’s going ass over tea kettle, probably around 15-20 mph or so. Of course, just as I would, he tried to get up and walk it off. Maybe rub some dirt on it. But what he quickly realized was that he was pretty seriously hurt. What he didn’t figure out right away is that he was pretty much unconscious for a spell as well. But what he least expected was a guardian angel to appear from out of the dark.

Simon’s his name, and while I haven’t met him, I get the sense he’d be the first guy to say he just did what anyone would do and scoff off the term guardian angel, but I know that’s how Stephen gratefully views him — me, too — and here’s why.

First off, at 3:30 a.m. how many people are out and about on our street? Counting Simon, that makes one, and he just happened to be out in front of our neighbors’ house to the north of us. Second off, he happened to be looking at the street to see Stephen fly past so when he heard the crash he knew what had happened. No big deal, you say? Well here’s the third and most amazing thing: Simon doesn’t live there. He’s a friend of our neighbors Dean and Haley and tends bar at their restaurant on Melrose called The Village Idiot, and he was house-sitting for them while they were away for that weekend. As I understand it, he’d just gotten off work and was chilling out in the night air for a bit before turning in.

So basically without waxing to rapturous over it, there was a whole bunch of little miracles of timing and circumstance and fate and destiny that had to align to put Simon where he was. If not, my good friend Stephen would have been left alone and bleeding in the middle of the road with a broken collar bone and a cracked helmet that thankfully prevented his head injuries from being any worse, and who knows what could have happened then. In retrospect I can only hope he would’ve realized how close he was to friends and made his way up our steps to pound on our door for help that would have come a-running. But that’s neither here nor there because instead Simon was onscene, getting a call in to 911 for the paramedics, getting Stephen and his bike out of the road and specifically hastening his delivery to an emergency room where he could be checked out and his wounds could be treated.

Guardian Angel. Period.

I learned about it the next day when Stephen and his wife Alice came back to the scene to pick up his remarkably intact and unscathed bike, which Simon had graciously stored for him.

And almost immediately afterward talk started circulating that a ride was in order once Stephen was mended — a ride from the location of his crash to the Village Idiot to celebrate Stephen’s return to saddle and to toast Simon (and tip him generously) for being such a shining example of samaritanship.

That ride is today.

Nevermind their location is way in the up ‘n back and all the way over to the left, three of the coveted admissions for the “Bienvenido Gustavo!” event at the Hollywood Bowl October 3  just came in the mail yesterday! Thanks to fellow Silver Laker and LA Metblogs contributor Mykal Burns for dropping the super secret earlybird code on me so I didn’t have to get all frustrated waiting in line at the Bowl box office last Saturday.