bi [sic] le

Thanks to this post about failed parking meters I found on Atwater Village Newbie’s blog, this otherwise unrelated piece of parking meter nostalgia fell out of my mental archives so I just thought I’d take us back to the mid-1980s and share it.

Back then I worked for a company in Hollywood as a courier and one of my jobs was to go pick up the mail in the morning at its box in the post office on Wilcox south of Hollywood Boulevard.

It was a cool post office in part because there was always a chance you’d be in the line to get packages with a celeb of some sort. Once it was actor Dennis Franz who was familiar to me from his role on “Hill Street Blues.” Once it was the entirety of Guns ‘N Roses before they’d hit it big.

But the point isn’t that the place was a focal point for recognizables so much as it was for the area’s invisibles.

Most of the homeless would do the standard panhandling, but there was this one conniving and clever fellow who set up something of a cottage industry manning the parking meters out in front of the place. I got to know his con pretty well seeing as I saw him in action practically on a daily basis.

(more…)

I don’t have any REAL resolutions for this year. No definitive achievements being sought, no dietary restrictions. Nothing along the lines of “read a book a month,” although it wouldn’t hurt if I picked up a tennis racquet and swung it at least that often.

I have some creative goals in mind and a fantasy of putting myself through Rio Hondo Police Academy and becoming an animal cop with the Los Angeles SPCA, but I’m still debating the merits of such a drastic career change.

If there’s one resolution that comes close to being of the quote/unquote capital “R” variety, it’s more philosophical than physical. It’s about letting peace begin with me in an effort for there to be peace everywhere. And by that I mean that I hope to catch opportunities I have for negativity — no matter how big or small or how inward or outward — and instead release some positivity.

Tall order? You bet.

So that’s why my other lower-case “r” resolutions are far more frivolous (and of course, bike related).

Resolution No. 1: I resolve to “Crazy Ivan” on my bike at least two times a week. To what? Lemme ’splain: If you’ve read “Hunt for Red October” or seen the film version, you’ll recognize the term. If you haven’t, it’s basically the name given to an unorthodox tactical maneuver employed by the Russian sub commander, in which out of nowhere he’ll call for a sudden and drastic course deviation that brings his boat either hard to port or starboard and in a complete circle. What does that have to do with me on a bike? Well, what I plan on doing is employing that maneuver at random, basically by executing left or right turns that take me off my intended path and send me around a block or two. Why? Why not. I might get to see something I would’ve otherwise missed or most likely just explore a little bit more of the big city.

Resolution No. 2: And I have to confess, I started this one before the end of the year. I can’t remember exactly when, but on a couple of my commutes mid to late last month I found and removed nice-sized nails from the roadways upon which I was riding, later on tweeting a “your welcome” to the motorists of the city for making the streets safer by a couple less flat tires waiting to happen. From there was born the goal to attempt to remove some bit of metallic found floatsam every time I ride (maybe with an eye towards welding it all together in some sort of sculpture; but more than likely recycling it all at the end of the year), and so far here’s what I’ve procured: a AAA battery, a massive heavy sumbeech of a brass hose coupling, a sealed bearing, a sheared bolt, a crumpled wheel alignment counterweight, a round washer thing, a slotted nut, three nails (the one closest to the bottom of the frame I got today) and a weird ringed pin:

I’d say so far I’m off to a good start making the world (or at least my travels through it) a more fun and less hazardous place.

Dear Motorists,

Check out the four-inch tire assassin and general day-ruiner I found and removed from the No. 2 traffic lane westbound on Jefferson Boulevard while biking in to work yesterday morning:

You and your steel-belted radials are welcome.

Love,
Will

The Hancock Park-adjacent neighborhood bordered by Larchmont and Van Ness to the west and east, and Melrose and Beverly to the north and south is really a gem. Quiet, tree-lined streets front well-kept single-family homes in a variety of styles, along with duplexes, quads, and a smattering of larger multi-unit apartment buildings.

As a student attending Hollywood’s Le Conte Junior High I lived some of my 7th and all of my 8th and 9th grade years on Wilton Place just one block further east of Van Ness and I would regularly bike or skateboard through there for the welcome respite and change of scenery it provided. See, Wilton was something of a dividing line.  East of it to Western and beyond there was much more intrusion in the way of boxy 1950s and ’60s era apartments, and the residences that remained just seemed a bit shabbier and wearier than those standing a bit more confidently behind the much greener lawns west of Wilton where time seemed to march much more slowly.

In all my explorations past though I never found The Vivian — or let’s just say it never registered. But it did after getting ticketed on my bike this summer and as a result diverting my course to avoid the stop sign at Larchmont and Clinton where it happened. Now, as I make my way north up Larchmont from Beverly I turn right at the light at Rosewood, a block south of Clinton, and take that east over to Bronson and there’s The Vivian on my left before I get to Melrose and head further east.

Besides being an old-style apartment building with an absolutely unique name, its most charming feature is its simple still-working neon sign that I’ve long wanted to snap, but didn’t until I forced myself to pull over on my way home Friday night.

Being that neon’s as beloved by me as it is a difficult thing to capture with a handheld camera it took several exposure adjustments and snaps until I got one that did it justice (click the image for the bigger picture). If any tenants chanced glances out their windows they would have seen me somewhat self-consciously trying and failing not to look suspicious. Soon I was on my way toward home and the weekend that awaited.

With its stone’s-throw proximity to the hallowed fortress of Paramount Studios to the north, if The Vivian’s sign could talk I’d bet it could no doubt tell of shining down upon the joys and sorrows of a procession of would-be stars living there while trying to storm that castle and make their Hollywood dreams come true.

In lieu of something substantive — which is a rare thing anyway — I offer up these disparate videos, the first captured on the bike ride home yesterday evening and the second this morning on my desktop:

I’ve been an L.A. City golf course reservationista pretty much for as long as I’ve been a bad golfer, which takes us on a trip via the wayback wagon to 2002.

In all that time, the city-issued cards have been pretty much the ugliest most utilitarian things I’ve ever carried in my wallet, compounded hilariously by the graphic which depicts a duffer whose crotch-level hand location allows one to easily mistake him to be fighting with his fly rather than putting to save par.

But not anymore! As evidenced via my expiring one up top and the new one that came in the mail yesterday below, clearly even in these troubled economic times someone in the Recreation & Parks Department either found the greens fees needed to hire a graphic artist or maybe had a cousin and an old version of Photoshop dress up the cards gratis.

Either way: huge improvement — unlike my golf game, which will be in evidence at the Los Feliz 3-par sometime this weekend, perhaps joined by my friend Joseph Mailander if things work out.

When in the planning stages of our remodel, Susan proposed adding a tiny window into the north side of the the rear dormer, I thought it an excellent idea. Little did I know the view it would frame from our masterbath would become one of my favorites that I actively seek out and linger over on  a daily basis because its elements and aspects ever conspire to transport me to a a lush farmhouse in Northern Italy. Of course it’s that much more vibrant in the sunlight, but on this day  that I decided to highlight it, LA’s layered with low clouds. But still, it sings to me (click for the bigger picture).

As snapped from the junction of Santa Monica and Sunset boulevards in Silver Lake Thursday evening (click for the bigger picture):

Pumpkin says “And a fine day to you! I will take breakfast in the nook this morning thankew pleez.”

If you read my somewhat cryptic first entry, “Scavenge some long-coveted discarded wood,” in the previous post listing my errands on tap this weekend,  let me ’splain. I’m a sucker for big pieces of wood. Don’t know why, but when I see a header beam or a railroad tie or something of that nature I immediately go into want mode.

Even if I have no use whatsoever for the material.

In this case, long-left alone on the corner of Jefferson and La Cienega where the Expo Line over-crossing is currently under construction, were some massive hunks of wood, at minimum 12″ x 12″ — and anywhere from four to six feet in length. They’ve been there for months, and every time I bike or drive by them I keep promising myself that one early morning I’m gonna bring the truck over and load up two or three — depending on if I could even lift them.

Well this morning was that day, and Susan and I got up early and were on our way before 6 a.m., with a plans to grab breakfast from the nearby McD’s after and go eat it atop the Baldwin Park Scenic Overlook (which I quit putting off visiting yesterday on my way in to work).

Fast forward past all that, I’m happy to report that I’m now the proud owner of two beams, one about six feet in length and one about five (we opted not to take a third one about four feet long because when I lifted it off the ground we found it was well colonized by a variety of spiders, none of them pleased to be disturbed).

Loading them up in the truck was the easy part. Getting them out of the truck, up the front stairs and into the backyard? That took a little work, as seen in the video below of me “rolling” the smaller of the two up through the northside garden and into the backyard:

Thankfully they didn’t roll back down once I got ‘em up there.