Category: los angeles

One Large Step For A Child

A recent description of outgoing disgraced President Donald Trump as a “sore loser” reminded me of when I myself was last a sore loser. Thankfully I was 11, not 74. And it wasn’t a presidential election I lost and a Republic I then tried to overthrow, it was just a Big Brothers/Big Sisters fun softball game at a park in Hollywood.

The team that I and my volunteer Big Brother Lloyd Miller were on had run up a huge lead — something seemingly insurmountable like double digits — that we then somehow managed to blow in the last inning and lose. When their winning run crossed the plate and the game was over I was furious. I mean like ugly-crying furious. I didn’t congratulate any of my opponents, I didn’t shake any of their hands. I ran from my position at first base into the outfield almost out-of-control bawling and screaming to the point where when Lloyd caught up with me he didn’t yell and he didn’t scream. He just tersely told me to go finish my tantrum over by his truck in the parking lot, which I was more than happy to do because I couldn’t stand that everyone else was laughing and enjoying themselves and couldn’t have cared less about the outcome of the game.

When he finally came over we got inside and he drove me home. He was quiet for the first mile or so. Then he told me he apologized to everyone on my behalf. Then he told me he absolutely hated having to do that. Then he asked me why I’d gotten so upset. I told him because we lost. He asked if that was the first time I’d ever lost at something, and of course it wasn’t. Then he matter of fact told me that he hated losing too, and asked me if I’d ever seen Steve Garvey or Jack Youngblood or any of my sports heroes behave similarly when they lose, which of course I hadn’t. He said they probably hated losing more than me because it was their job to win, but that they behaved the way they did because they were Men, which if I was going be one I’d better learn and quick how to be mature and not only handle my emotions and reject such bad behavior but also be polite in treating my opponents and the sport I play with respect and decency whether I win or lose.

He finished by saying how ashamed and embarrassed he was by my disgraceful behavior and that because of it we were going to take a couple weeks break from getting together, during which time he wanted me to think long about if I wanted to be a good sport and a better person or continue to be a bad sport and a lesser person, and to give him a call ONLY if or when I made the RIGHT decision.

I called him a few days later. We remained Big and Little Brother for another six years.

Little has changed from how the field looked in the mid-1970s. Thankfully I changed plenty.

PS. I have never gone past that field still there at Cahuenga and Santa Monica Boulevard without feeling both shame and pride, the latter because of my Big Brother Lloyd, thanks to whom I left a petulant child behind in the outfield that night and took my first steps towards being a man.

April 29, 1992

As a San Fernando Valley resident at the time and far removed from the greater LA basin, it’s rather ironic how I came to experience what I did on April 29, 1992, and where; roughly a 4.5 mile straight line to the riot’s epicenter at Florence and Normandie. I was a student at Pierce College in Woodland Hills at the time and a photography class assignment to illustrate the theme of “Man’s Impact On His Environment” (speaking of ironic) was coming due. On the early afternoon of April 29 I got on my motorcycle from my home in Sherman Oaks and rode to Baldwin Hills with the idea of photographing the oil derricks pumping there along the hills and ridge lines. Dissatisfied with the compositions I found I ended up at serene oasis that is nearby Kenneth Hahn State Recreational Area at one of the horseshoe pits, taking set-up shots of my shoe print and a crushed flower in the dirt.

 

While I was doing this a woman came over, sat on the backstop of the pit and watched me for a few moments until she finally asked me if I’d “heard the news?” I stopped and shook my head. “They were found not guilty,” she said and I knew instantly she was referring to the officers on trial for the beating of Rodney King. I expressed my incredulity and then promptly went back to taking pictures of my shoe print. She waited a few more moments before standing up. “I don’t think you understand,” she said, and I looked back up at her. “I’m getting out of here.” I stared blankly. “And I’m black,” she finished, and started walking purposefully toward the parking lot.

Finally and fully I comprehended what she was trying to get through my thick white head, and when I did I offered up an emphatic “Thank you!” wished her good luck and wasted not another second getting back to my motorcycle at which time a pick-up truck drove slowly past me, stopping a few spaces down. In the cab were two young black men with two more riding in the bed and all were staring at me with a fury the likes of which I will never forget. There was no mistaking their rage and that it was focused directly at me and the color of my skin. Fortunately — no: miraculously — parked farther down past them at the end of the lot was a black-and-white — not LAPD but rather a “Safety” police vehicle, whatever that meant. I couldn’t see if there was an officer inside, but its presence made the four men hesitate enough looking from it back to me and back to it to give me enough time to get my helmet on and my motorcycle started and like a bat outta hell I was northbound on La Cienega and gunning the throttle.

By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, the Fedco at Rodeo and La Cienega (now it’s a Target) was already on fire and being looted, and I split the gridlocked lanes between cars many of whose drivers looked terrified stuck there in the gridlock as if a tsumani was bearing toward them from the rear and they had no escape.

When I got home to the relative calm of the valley I turned on the television and the Los Angeles I had earlier been in the middle of had turned into a living burning hell. I locked the doors, loaded the gun, and stayed glued to the newscasts broadcasting the horror and the heartbreak of a city seemingly hell bent on burning itself down.

I watched the endless replays of the attack on Reginald Denny, and who’s to say what might have happened to me if that woman hadn’t warned me or that police vehicle hadn’t been there, but I’m thankful either way I didn’t have to find out.

Days later after the chaos had been quelled and a certain order had been restored, I was in the dark room at Pierce College developing images from those few frames I snapped for the photo class assignment (I believe I got a C grade for the passable quality of the photos as shown with comments that I took the assignment too literally), and it dawned on me that the image’s subject matter was something I could have easily recreated in the comparative safety of my own backyard instead of in the midst of the waves of rioting that flooded the city.

The Story Of The Traffic Reporter And The Pedant

ped·ant – noun: a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules.

Here in the greater Los Angeles area we’re blessed with not one, but two excellent public radio stations, KCRW at 89.9 FM and KPCC at 89.3 FM. The former operates out of Santa Monica College and the latter out of Pasadena City College.

I’ve personally always been a KPCC’er, I guess ever since my stint in the mid-to-late ’90s first as a freelancer and finally for a spell as editor of a local weekly newspaper in Pasadena — my allegiance probably had a lot to do with location and also the fact that one of the station’s “stars,” Larry Mantle, would occasionally have me on his public access TV program to discuss issues facing the area. But in the ensuing years since the dawn of the new millennium as a satellite radio subscriber, my commercial radio listenership of any channels had fallen off dramatically.

A few weeks ago, though, I was driving home from work and because I hit a deadzone that blanked out the Sirius satellite music channel I typically listen to, I clicked over to the FM band on my stereo and found myself at KCRW. It had been awhile since I’d listened to public radio and found the news and views a welcome change.

But whether it was that specific day or one shortly thereafter, their traffic reporter came on and referenced an accident on the “east” 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley, and though I had a minor physical reaction to the error at the time, I really thought nothing of it until over the course of several days and reports she did it again and again; “East on the 101 at White Oak there’s a collision blocking the No. 1 lane,” West on the 101 at Coldwater Canyon a stalled vehicle has been moved over to the shoulder…”

What’s my problem? Like any and all of our nation’s roadways, The 101 Freeway runs a specific direction, in this case: north/south. Period. To my knowledge there is no highway anywhere that officially changes direction just because it doesn’t happen to literally go in the figurative direction it is originally designated.

My other problem is that I’m a proud and entirely unapologetic card-carrying member of Pedantics International whose motto is “There Is No Detail Too Small Or Meaningless Upon Whose Error We Will Not Fixate.” Or is it “Miniscule” instead of “Small?” See what I mean?

As yes: That Pedant, I was compelled to go that extra step of seeking out and finding the traffic reporter’s email address on the KCRW website and thus send her a polite attempt to redirect her to correctly refer to the 101 Freeway by its proper directions, like so:

I enjoy and appreciate your afternoon traffic reports and the enthusiasm you bring to them, but I would like to respectfully point out that every time you refer to incidents on the 101 Freeway as occurring on the “east” or “west” sides, the traffic gods disable a Prius. The 101 has been, is and always should be referred to as a north/south thoroughfare:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_101

Humbly submitted,
Will Campbell

To which I received the following polite reply:

Hi Will! I’m glad you like my reports! Thanks for taking the time
to write! I hardly ever get to engage one-on-one with listeners.
Technically, you are right, the 101 is a North/South freeway. However, due to the topography of the State, like in the San Fernando Valley & Conejo Valley it literally runs east and west from Burbank into Ventura County. It runs North/South geographically speaking at the 134. You may or may not know the 134 runs east and west. In Studio City if you stayed straight on the 101 and didn’t take the turn into Hollywood it becomes the 134. By turning South you stay on the 101. It is that section, as well as the area of northern Ventura county into Central & Northern California that it actually runs north and south. Even the on-ramps onto the freeway, say in Thousand Oaks for example, are marked East 101 and West 101.

As far as your Prius is concerned, she may just need a spa day. Take her to a nice car wash and get her insides vacuumed. And tell her to pull it together – you’re the one in charge.

While she is certainly correct that the 101 does follow an east/west trajectory through the San Fernando and Conejo valleys, I was surprised that she’d sacrifice accuracy in truly believing such a deviation qualified as an official directional change, and frankly I was entirely blown away at her insistence it was signed accordingly through those stretches.

So of course I wrote back proving her wrong (images biggable if clicked):

I appreciate the response, but with your rejection of my attempt to correct your error the Prius has sadly committed hybridicide. The 101 is in its entirety officially designated and posted as a north/south roadway, regardless of segments that you point out do indeed traverse along an east/west course. Case in point, attached is a Google Streetview image, say in Thousand Oaks for example, of a 101 SOUTH onramp. Show me a single 101 Freeway entry point that says EAST or WEST and I’ll show you a Caltrans sign hanger who made a mistake.

south101

Unwritten at the end of that last sentence was “…and a traffic reporter who believes it as fact.” Curiously the only thing she responded with was… this:

image1

Huh. Anyway, a few days passed with no other contact and I was surprised to hear her refer on-air to incidents involving the 101 as occurring in the north or south lanes. The rub was those incidents hadn’t occurred in the valleys so it was unclear if she had come to see the light or hadn’t. Then came this to my inbox:

Hi Will. Hope you are doing well.
Here are a couple of screen shots from two of my traffic sources I thought your Prius might find upsetting. California Highway Patrol considered the authority regarding traffic information. Better put the hybrid on suicide watch. 😉

image1

Sigh. Should you click on the above screen shot you’ll find the CHP does indeed and wrongly refer to an incident through the valley as occurring on the “US101E / Las Virgenes Road. EB101” Below that is another incident “US101E / Coldwater Canyon. EB 101.” That explained a lot, which I elaborated on in the following farewell:

Prius, still dead. Buried even. In your honor I now have a 1968 Chevrolet Caprice convertible with an eight-cylinder 404 engine and I actually put a dose of lead additive in the tank every time you call the 101 wrong. On the good side, it’s a relief to know it’s not your fault, but on the bad side the old adages of “you’re only as good as your source,” and “if it’s on the internet it must be true” stand up. I appreciate knowing that you’re blaming a law enforcement agency because the police are never wrong and almost always justified even when they are.

I personally recommend Caltrans, which would be the actual authority on our state’s roadways. They also have an awesome traffic mapping system (http://quickmap.dot.ca.gov) that you should check out some time.

But in case you’re too busy with the CHP you’ll note in this latest edition of Disproving Your Misinformation, I’ve attached a screen grab of the Caltrans Cam on the 101 SOUTH at Los Virgenes. It’ll also be my last attempt because frankly it’s time for me to humbly surrender the fast lane to you. I’ve given you concrete proof that refuted your initial all-too-confident assertion as to the highway’s signage, and you give me pixels on a screen that allow you to proudly perpetuate in the east/west myth. I gave it my best shot and failed. You go girl.

caltrans

I said at the top, we here in the greater Los Angeles area are blessed to be able to choose between two public radio stations. The subtext in surrendering the fast lane is that I also surrendered the station to her and moved (south, not west) down the dial to good ol’ KPCC. Of course in doing so, I run the risk of hearing their traffic reporter make the same mistake. It hasn’t happened yet, but if it does, I’m thinking I’ll be able to refrain from picking that same battleflag up again. In fact, I’m pretty sure. Mostly.

Hyperlapsed! Labor Day Bike Ride

Here’s a 5-minute hyperlapsed version of the roughly 18-mile, 105-minute casual bike ride I did Labor Day morning that went from Silver Lake and back via Atwater Village, the Los Angeles River Bikeway, Boyle Heights, the Sixth Street Bridge, the Scrap Metal District  and back up Central Avenue across downtown and through Echo Park:

Looks Like It’s Time To End An Unintentional Life-Long Boycott

titoHaving never been to Tito’s via automobile (nor ever planning to), should I find myself attending tomorrow’s CicLAvia and pedaling past it with anything resembling an appetite + a desire for their style/version/class of tacos, I’m of a mind not to continue my unintentional life-long boycott of the place and instead ignore its owner’s stupidity and order up something just to make the ironic point that despite having motored past it scores of times throughout my loooong life, it took a CAR-FREE event they hate to get me to patronize the place.

And Now A Word From The Resolution Fulfillment Division, Dept. 2015:

I typically resolve not to do anything on New Year’s Day except eat, drink and watch some college football bowl games. I was successful in all three endeavors yesterday (though left despondent in defeat with the latter, watching them northern boys from up there in O-Hai-uh beat up on my beloved Crimson Tide in last night’s national championship semifinal (Good luck with Oregon, ya Buckeyes).

But as usual, I digress. My point was supposed to be that I’m not beyond the reach of resolutioning, I’m just predisposed to waiting a day to get that party started. Or nine.

This year it was a day. My resolution? To log a total of 2,015 miles on my bike this year, part of a grand fitness scheme to reverse the silly amount of weight I’ve gained in roughly the year-and-a-half since I graduated Rio Hondo Academy (I still haven’t gotten on a scale because I haven’t steeled myself for whatever that reality is; but I don’t really need a specific number to know it’s long past the time to reverse that course). Almost two years ago going into the last module of that training, at 198 pounds I was at the best fitness level I’d been ever. I could go into the backyard and do 10 sets of circuit training (20 push-ups, 30 sit-ups, 100-revs jump rope, 10-band-assisted pull-ups, 15 TRX strap body-lifts) in 45 minutes. I would go for four-mile runs around the Silver Lake Reservoir because anything less would be uncivilized. I would bike to Whittier on Saturdays, put in a full strenuous stress-laden day at the academy and then bike home.

Those days are gone my friends and I’m now – unofficially – waaaaaay greater a shadow of that former fit and trim self.

But enough of the pity party and back to the biking. In the past, I’ve made vows to “ride every day” or for a consecutive number of days, but I always fail at that. Because inevitably one night early on I’d grumble procrastinatorily and end up doing some meaningless half-mile ride around the block at 9 p.m. just to keep the streak alive. Afterward I’d be all: Enough. It’s bull taking something as fun as riding a bike and turning it into an obligatory chore.

So this year, it’s simply a totally doable milestone of 2,015 miles pedaled over the course of 2015. And it started this morning. I woke up still heartbroken over last night’s Alabama loss and I felt that lingering depression working its way up to being an excuse to drive to work rather than get out and roll through the cold morning, but I shut that devil down and rode my standard south-and-west morning commute, which according to my Cyclometer app is 8.43 miles.

Only 2,006.57 to go.

Bonus:  Since I’ll be documenting each and every ride with my handlebar cam I’m also aiming to showcase something interesting that it captures along the way, “interesting” being relative and subjective, of course. Here’s today’s snap shot at Jefferson Boulevard and Western Avenue. The guy leaning against the post at right caught my eye, especially that he’s not focused on a smartphone but rather old schooling his intent on what he’s writing with a pen upon paper. You don’t see much of that anymore (click to enlargify):

Word

Short Storytime

Cahuenga Pass, circa 1938CAHUENGA PASS

I dreamed there was no knife in my hand after I took the punch to the side of my head.

It was a nice dream while it lasted, but I came awake with a jump at the subconscious knuckle crunch of fist against temple, much in the same way people who are falling in their sleep jolt awake just before they impact whatever hard parcel upon which they are about to land.

Blinking the blur out of my eyes, the flood of relief I felt at the absence of the knife boiled entirely away in the instant I found myself still in the jail cell I’d been placed in after being booked for murdering the road-rager who’d thrown the blow.

Because there had been a knife in my hand. Funny thing, not only do I not remember how it got there, but I had initially planned on just accepting the slug. In a way, I totally deserved it.

I’d gotten off work. I was coming from Hollywood into the valley through the Cahuenga Pass where I’d been in a hurry to drop off a package for my boss at the FedEx near a curve in the road past Barham. I was in a rush to get home to my Encino apartmetn and cleaned up for a date later all the way back over on Melrose with none other than Elie Tolsen. I’d known Elie since high school, but back then crush be damned, I was a stoner fuck-up to whom such a princess wouldn’t give the time of day. Since then, I cleaned up nicely and got a promising job at Paramount. She’d filled out nicely and landed a co-starring roll on a popular TV cop show that just so happened to film at the same studio.

So there I was, FedEx package delivered and putting my car in reverse there on the driveway apron, trying to make every second count. Instead of backing out, heading east and turning around safely and sanely somewhere back in the direction from which I’d just come, I opted instead to back out across the clear eastbound lanes and arc into the space for left turns in the center of the street.

While I executed the obviously questionable maneuver perfectly, it surprised the driver of a car coming west around the bend who laid on the horn as he passed me, an alarm I fully deserved. After pulling into the lane I came up behind him stopped at a red light a couple blocks down. While the driver of the car was just glaring at me in his rearview mirror, it was the passenger who’d gone totally apoplectic with anger, turning fully in his seat full-throat yelling at me and flipping me off through the rear window. Seriously, there was spittle involved. Man overboard!

The irony is not only did the driver try to calm his friend down, but I also gave it my best attempt to placate the asshole. I mouthed sincerely that I was sorry and gestured as best I could to indicate I was certifiably the worst driver in the world who shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets much less operate a motor vehicle upon them.

It didn’t translate to the guy riding shotgun. He just kept laying on with the fuckyous and the assholes and the middle fingers and the kickyerasses to the point where I had enough and returned fire. Then he gestured: let’s fucking go right fucking here, right fucking now.

Next thing, the light’s turning green, but he’s out of the car and moving towards me. Nothing about him was outwardly concerning — 5’10” maybe 175 pounds, no guns in his hands. But regardless of his lack of physical stature or weaponry, logic dictates that one should not stay frozen in a confined and hardly defensible space such as the interior of a vehicle as some stark and raving lunatic closes the distance. One should get out, the better to fight or to flee.

But for some strange reason, I stayed put — surprisingly calmly so. Ignoring the psycho as he arrived at the driver’s side window and instead looked straight ahead at the driver of the car who also remained behind his wheel but now in exasperation held his head in both hands.

I don’t remember what the fellow yelled and spit at me through the open window, neither is it important. What is important is that my failure to engage enraged him further enough to first slam his hand down on the roof of my car and then bitchslap at the side of my head, coming into contact with my left ear enough to cause an intense burning sensation.

Here’s the thing. I don’t take pain well. I don’t mean to say that I have a low threshold for it, it’s just that I woefully lack the ability to ignore whatever thing — be it animate, inanimate or in this case highly animated — that is the cause of that pain. I’ve destroyed chairs that I’ve stubbed toes on. I flushed a hamster down the toilet that bit me on the pinky. During my first year in junior high, I put a towering ninth grader in the hospital for suckering me into accepting a high five with a nail held between his middle and ring fingers. The school security guard had to pull me off him to stop me with hands full of his ears and hair from banging his head face first into the playground asphalt for the tenth time. It’s a byproduct overdrive impulse to inflict an equal or greater amount of damage to that which has been inflicted upon me.

Slim as it may have been, any chance of me not going batshit at the eird slap was taken off the table when his fist came in full contact to my temple, the force of which drove me across onto the passenger seat, upon which sat my backpack and in which resided the buck knife with a folding four-inch locking blade that was a gift from the warehouse manager of a previous employer back when I hadn’t quite cleaned up so well.  The job was in a bad part south and east of downtown and the manager told me for very good reason that I should never ever be without a knife.

In the ensuing daze of ear-ringing semi-consciousness I won’t deny going through the complicated process of opening the appropriate pocket of the backpack, removing the knife from its leather case, and locking it open. It’s just that I sincerely don’t remember doing so. All I recall is that when I felt him grabbing at my shirt and pulling me back toward him, I came up more quickly than he expected. With my left arm I pinned his right arm against pillar of the car frame and kept pushing the forearm away from me at an unnatural angle until there was a very satisfying crack and and even more satisfying a scream. Then what may have been the butt of his left palm connected with my forehead and I saw a light show before my eyes during which I drove the knife in my right hand into and out of and into and out of his midsection.

I couldn’t tell you how many times, other than I didn’t stop until he slumped and fell away from my car onto his back in the number one westbound lane just in time to be run over by a passing FedEx truck. Whether he was dead before he hit the street, or was finished off under the tire treads, I don’t know.

All I knew when sirens sounded in the distance and grew louder with each passing second was that I had killed two things, a man and my date with Elie. I was far more upset about the latter.