[sic]

Caught you! You lousy… paper… thieving…

Cat?!

Alas, after putting out the decoy paper this neighborhood feline proved to have the most interest of any of the parade of beings that my surveillance camera caught passing by between about 8:30 p.m. last night and a little after 9 a.m. this morning.

The switch-and-bait manuever occured around 5:40 a.m. and even though I finally declared the covert operation unsuccessful and shut it down about four hours later, I had fun reviewing the video clips captured from the cam to the computer and have compiled a sequence of stills for your viewing pleasure:

Better luck next week.

I first learned about the art garden of Silver Lake’s Alberto Hernandez when I read about it in the L.A. Weekly back in 2004 and then again in an L.A. Times feature that came out around the time of Quinceañera last year thanks to the garden’s use as a location in that film.

After seeing the movie Susan and I were very curious about the remarkable place, but having no idea where it was we gave up on discovering it even before we got started searching… besides, we thought it was in Echo Park and even if we did find the place it’s not like we’d just barge on in to take a gander and set a spell. By all accounts this place is private and personal and only on occasion does Hernandez open things up to the public instead prefering to pretty much keep the garden to himself and his circle of friends, family and neighbors.

So it was with much pleasant surprise on a morning walkabout to the Silver Lake farmers market that I charted us a course that brought us past a house in the midst of a big yard sale and the first thing we noticed was the decorative mosaic-y stuff along the sidewalk. Then after entering the property to have a look-see, a man who we later realized turned out to be Alberto saw Susan’s camera and invited her to explore the wonderous garden and it was even more marvelous than we could’ve imagined.

Pix from the walk and the garden are here in this Flickr photoset.

Last Sunday morning, whoever the putrescent scumbag was didn’t actually steal the entire L.A. Times, just broke into the pocket containing two freebie razors that were part of promo package in which the paper was wrapped.

Upon discovering the break-in I shrugged and let it go not only because at least the bastards left the paper alone and because the idea of a four-bladed (or was it forty?) razor seems silly and expensive to refill, but mainly because I’m a simple dude with simple shaving needs and I’m entirely satisfied with the Gillette twin-blader I’ve been rocking for so many years.

This morning I got up early and at sometime around 7:30 a.m. looked out the front window pleased to find the Sunday paper sitting a couple steps up from the sidewalk, and — my bad — I left it there to have some coffee and sweep up the couple dozen unripened figs that had plopped to the patio overnight, as well as assorted other menial tasks. A short while later out the front door I went only to find the steps empty.

An online request at latimes.com for a replacement was fulfilled within a half-hour, but regardless of how easy it is to get the theft rectified, I’m on the warpath. And whether or not the cheaptastic maggot is the same one that hit me last week or if there’s two such slime-trailing subspecies walking the neighborhood stealing my newsstuff by the dawn’s early light, let’s just say I’ll have the webcam set up next weekend and be ready for some red-handed catching should they feel emboldened to go for a third theft next week.

Stay tuned.

Now that daybreak is coming early again, Susan and I have reinitiated our 1.3-mile dawn patrols these past two mornings, ascending the Music Box Steps and descending those from the Micheltorena ridge back down to Sunset Boulevard, like so:

One of my daily must-see sites Boing Boing has linked to an excellent article in London’s Daily Mail newspaper that explores how drastically less free-range we’ve allowed our children to become, as parents and guardians and technology restrict them to perimeters much tighter than their own when they were young.

When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere.

It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision.

Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas’s eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom.

He is driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride his bike and can roam no more than 300 yards from home.

Boing Boing’s Mark Frauenfelder recalls walking a half mile unescorted to kindergarten every day and how he would now never let his kids do such a thing.

As a latchkey kid raised by a single mom I have plenty of recollections of stepping out solo, beginning with walking to school my first day of first grade at Beverly Hills’ Horace Mann Elementary (although my mom later admitted she anxiously tailed me in the car). Granted it wasn’t six miles backward and shoeless through the snow, but it was still a grand one-kilometer adventure for a 7 year old.

A far more intriguing pediatric pedestrian event came a couple years later as a nine-year-old third grader when one morning my mom dropped me off at the long-gone Beverly Hills YMCA on Little Santa Monica Boulevard for a couple hours while she ran some errands. As she pulled away and drove off I found the Y’s front door locked and a closed sign on it (whether it was a holiday or some unexpected event that shuttered the place I can’t recall), and though I yelled after my mom she was too far away to hear me and thus I was stranded. I suppose I should’ve stayed put and been bored out of my gourd waiting there on the sidewalk for mom to return but that could’ve been forever so instead I struck out for home on my own even though I was not at all familiar with the terrain.

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So, in addition to thoroughly cleaning my desk and the bathroom off the library (leftovers from yesterday’s scrubathon), charging up every battery and packing the camera bag, I also managed to complete a rich and textured list of errands in this order:

• Orange 20 Bike Shop - To pick up the rebuilt wheel from The Phoenix that’s been done for like two weeks.
• Library - To drop off Gore Vidal’s “Burr” due back today.
• Collar & Leash - For a pair of big chew bones for them dawgies while we’re away.
• Baller Hardware - New toilet seat to replace the broken one on throne in the bathroom off the library.
• Bank - For some money (and I did a good deed by turning in an ATM card that was left in the slot of the machine I used).
• Ralphs - For dry dog and cat food and some squashesses for the tortoise nd Diet Peach Tea Snapples for my baby and Diet Pepsi Limes for me.
• Sav-On (I’m not ready to call them CVS yet) -  For a couple DV tape cassettes
• Tony’s Barbershop - For a little off the sides and top and tapered in the back
• Drycleaners - To pick up my tux shirt they pressed
• Mailbox - To drop my Verizon payment

N0w I’ve got about 2.5 hours to pack before I load up the truck with bicycles and cyclists and we motor on down to Long Beach for what I have no doubt will be a mind-blowing bike ride through the port of Long Beach.

I’m not sure what time it was yesterday. The sun had dropped behind the Micheltorena Ridge to the west but it wasn’t anywhere near dark yet. I was in the office when I heard Susan say “Oh no!” before I heard what she was saying “Oh no!” about.

Then the screaming outside amped up and I looked out the library window to find two women on the sidewalk across the street struggling with their dogs who had engaged. One I recognized. She and her two dogs live in the recently repainted craftsman to the north across the street. The other woman I hadn’t seen before and she was growing increasingly panicked and proportionally loud because she was trying to pull her big crop-earred pitbull off the neighbor’s dog and the pitbull, as they are well known for doing, was holding on tight.

I’m genetically predisposed to involving myself in these situations so through the living room and out the frontdoor I go, barefoot down the front steps, with Susan telling me to be careful while keeping Ranger and Shadow from coming with me. I start across the street but at a measured pace because first I don’t want to stub my toes (which I’m really good at doing and there are few things I hate doing to myself more than stubbing a toe), second I don’t want to burst upon everyone and freak the women or their animals any further, and third I don’t want to jump in the middle of a dog fight that I can’t break-up.

By the time I hit the curb and look around the parked car they’re behind, the woman with the pitbull is on the ground in the middle of the two dogs and screaming as if she’s the one being attacked.

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Couldn’t resist posting this. On our way up to the reservoir meadow event yesterday we passed under a bottle brush tree on Silver Lake Boulevard and this wonderful hummingbird obliged me taking forever to get my camera and long lens together by keeping busy until I could capture it (click to enlarge):

To: thetree@nextdoor.com
From: wildbell@gmail.com
Subject: Inquiring neighbors wanna know…

What gives, eh? It’s spring. Not fall. Not winter. SPRING. Please make a note of it, and stop with the excessive shedding, will ya!? The gardeners cleaned up after you Friday of last week and look (below and clickable) at what I had to sweep up today eight days later. It’s waaaaay too late for this to be happening, and certainly not this much. Thanks.

UPDATE (03.12 - 07:14 a.m.): A couple commenters to my original Blogging.la post on this matter have opted to be patronizing or antagonistic in their responses, either intimating that I’m a hypocrite or casting dispersions about my age. One is a fellow Midnight Ridazz supporter who knows me from my participation in those mass biking events. The other I have no idea who he or she might be. But both have embraced that strange misguided belief that it’s somehow legal to disturb the peace up until 11 p.m. I challenged my Midnight Ridazz compatriot to show me that law and in the meantime I’ve gone and found what I’ll refer to as the Los Angeles Noise Ordinance, specifically the section that deals with the type and source of Saturday night’s and Sunday morning’s disturbances: 

SEC. 112.01. RADIOS, TELEVISION SETS, AND SIMILAR DEVICES.
(Amended by Ord. No. 156,363, Eff. 3/29/82)

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person within any zone of the City to use or operate any radio, musical instrument, phonograph, television receiver, or other machine or device for the producing, reproducing or amplification of the human voice, music, or any other sound, in such a manner, as to disturb the peace, quiet, and comfort of neighbor occupants or any reasonable person residing or working in the area.

(b) Any noise level caused by such use or operation which is audible to the human ear at a distance in excess of 150 feet from the property line of the noise source, within any residential zone of the City or within 500 feet thereof, shall be a violation of the provisions of this section.

(c) Any noise level caused by such use or operation which exceeds the ambient noise level on the premises of any other occupied property, or if a condominium, apartment house, duplex, or attached business, within any adjoining unit, by more than five (5) decibels shall be a violation of the provisions of this section.

The brief backstory is that a couple months agos, this guy whose property’s backyard abutts ours was out there one early weekend morning talking on his cell phone loud enough that in our kitchen we could clearly hear his side of the conversation through the closed doors and windows. This went on for several minutes until I went outside and tried to get his attention. Eventually he saw me standing there and in so many slightly exasperated but polite words I indicated he was being pretty noisy and could he dial it down a couple clicks. He basically did. Yay.

A couple days after that while I was in the backyard doing some backyard stuff and now it was his turn to get my attention and we ended up having a really nice conversation. He was apologetic for disturbing me and I told him it was no problem and he made it clear he knew how I felt about excessive noise. I did the same, telling him how I didn’t hesitate to narc on the party house a couple doors to the north last summer when there music got way out of hand.

After dark a few days later I’m just exiting the garage after parking my truck and he and his wife are passing by while walking their dog. So we talk for a few minutes. Again, very cordial and friendly. They’re nice folks. Sure, he did pointedly crack wise in introducing me to her about me being “the guy that told him to shut the hell up,” but I laughed it off (knowing he hadn’t) and later had further discussion about noisy neighbors that made it seem we were in agreement about them: they suck. Susan arrived home while we were chatting and so I introduced her and we spoke for a few more minutes about the neighborhood until we said our goodbyes and they went on their way. End of backstory.

Then last night (as ranted about on Blogging.la), a fledgling rock band of some sort but not the good sort started rehearsing from out of nowhere in this very guy’s garage, playing at full volume and emitting soundwaves that were far too strong for the rickity woodframe outbuilding and had no trouble at all traveling across our backyard and permeating our woodframe home. The same guy who’s wife told me she makes it a point to not let her tenants party to hearty on the premises. With me wondering what the hell, this went on for more than an hour, ending around 9 p.m., and bringing about a wonderous silence that may or may not have been hastened by the several rocks I chucked at the structure while they were giving an extra-special mangling Zep’s “Stairway To Heaven.”

Fast forward to this morning and no sooner had Susan and I returned from a lovely Sunset Boulevard stroll up to a lovely breakfast at Matisse when the band gets going at full blast again. I’m able to beatdown the urge to launch another volley of stones and instead manage to scale the broken block wall so that I’m up on the level of their backyard. I think about vaulting the sagging chainlink fence but decide trespassing would not be good, so I start yelling trying to get someone’s attention. Anyone? It doesn’t work. So coming down off the wall I tell Susan I’m going for a walk around the block and find out what the hell is going on directly.

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