This weekend Tyler Green pointed out to me that LACMA’s Construction Webcam was ripe for photoshippin’! The camera pans the entire construction site offering countless possibilities. e-mail submissions to me ( seanbonner AT gmail DOT com ) and I’ll update this post with images as they are sent in.

Everytime I make one of these posts I’m shocked that I’m making it. Today we’ve launched our 47th Metroblogging city (and 4th in India) – Hyderabad! Go check it out and welcome them to the metblogs family!

Who knew that the guards in the Union Station parking lot use Segways to thwart car thieves? According to this article about the pending IPO of the Segway company, there hasn’t been a break in since they started using them a couple years back. MTA in total uses about 19 Segways.

By “F”, I mean should campus police be given an F for Failing to uphold the rights of students of Santa Monica College, and, instead be given an A for aggressively violating their free speech rights?

SMC student Jeff Higley describes a number of incidents at his blog, The Siege Online, of campus police abusing their power and intimidating students, among them Jeff Higgins himself. In his most recent entry, Higley provides video to a recent encounter with SMC PD where they told him he couldn’t record a public event.

During a recent May 18 event, I tried to videotape an Associated Student sponsored performance of “the spoken word” in the public “free speech area” at the Clocktower for some positive coverage to put on The Siege, but SMC officers shut me down. When I redirected my videotaping towards them as I tried to discover the basis for their order, they became hostile and repeatedly threatened me.

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Occasionally, I see an all-white Cadillac SUV on the street outside my house, with the window lettering “SALTY SALT – NEW ALBUM – AND NOTHING BUT THE SALT – OUT NOW!”, and a website: saltysalt.net The first time, I wondered about this vehicle, but guessed that it was a one-time promotion for a music artist, visiting the world-famous Venice Beach.

Then I saw it again and again and wondered – does this artist live in the neighborhood? It was always parked on the street, daytimes on weekends, and I wondered why. So when I saw its owner getting into the car yesterday, when I was descending from my apartment, I ran down to say hello and find out who he was.

He was, of course, Salt himself – a rap/R&B artist from Alabama, with a new album coming out next month. And the reason I see his car here on weekends is because he’s “bringing his music to the people” – actually going out to talk to people and give out or sell his CD on Venice Beach. And I think that’s actually pretty awesome. That’s some serious grassroots promotion, right there – and a lot of devotion, given how often I see him on my block.

So I’m wondering – is this an LA phenomenon, because this is where the recording industry is? And does anyone else see local artists promoting themselves and their album on the street? I know record companies rarely give artists the promotion they need, save the major-radio-airplay ones – are there many (signed!) artists promoting their albums at this level of grassroots?

Kim Cooper takes a break from crimeblogging 1907 Los Angeles to report on some unannounced and undeliberate excavation work being done near the Brewery downtown.

It is more than two weeks now since the graders came and removed the surface layer of the asphalt on Avenue 20, between Albion and Broadway, then went away without finishing their work. For all that time, the NO PARKING signs have hung on the telephone poles, and the regular parade of shortcutting commuters have bounced along on their unhappy shocks, as the street beneath them grew more uneven and dilapidated…

After a week, a flash of red edged by corroded silver was visible on Avenue 20 just before Broadway. A careful peek between passing cars revealed a long-buried light rail track, with a row of handsome, narrow brick placed alongside it.

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I have to admit that I find Steven Seagal fascinating. Even more so now that he has fashioned himself into a blues musician. And is now on tour. And this Wednesday he will be performing at the El Rey Theater. Mind. Blowing.

I am not sure what to make of it. One minute he is breaking the forearms of Jamaican drug lords in Marked for Death, and the next he is on stage singing the blues. Who know that he had this whole other side to him?

So that leaves us with this Wednesday, when you can go see him. Unfortunately I cannot make it as I have prior engagements, but I thought I would spread the word in case anyone out there is willing to check it out.

Yes, I admit I’m one of those a-holes who try to drive on just any old street that suits me. So when the route that I’d take when exiting the 2 to get to Silverlake Blvd was blocked off last fall, I simply did what water does … found the next most logical route.

Today we drove up Baxter towards Apex only to find that route now blocked too. (I don’t know how long it’s been like that, I actually don’t try to go that way more than twice a month so I can legitimately claim that I wasn’t part of the major traffic problem to begin with and I do live in the neighborhood, albiet on the other side of Silverlake Blvd.)

You want to know a secret … you can just make a U turn at the intersection of Baxter (as the two people did after us) and then go back to Waterloo and make a right.

I’m not usually excited when I see a celebrity here in Los Angeles, but sometimes they appear so out place it deserves mention.

Such was the case today at the West Hollywood Target, where Al Pacino walked by me pushing a shopping cart with a young kid inside. At first I thought it was just a really bad Pacino impersonator – oversized suit, badly in need of a shave, slight hunch, chic sunglasses, etc. … but I sent my skeptical girlfriend to reconfirm that it was, indeed, Pacino.

Not as strange as when I found Gary Coleman working at my local Blockbuster about six years ago, but odd enough.

Feel free to share your own unique celebrity sightings in the comments.

I saw this situation outside my office building last week. It boggles my mind how selfish drivers can be about their cars like the driver of this Subaru who boxed in this Nissan in front of him/her.

So if you’re the driver of that Nissan what do you do when you’re boxed in like this?

Part of me would be tempted to go ahead and force my way out of that space, banging up both cars in the process (especially if I was driving an older car I gave a rat’s ass about).

For some people, Topanga is usually only associated with brushfires, and unbeknownst me to until recently, “The area is known as a bohemian enclave attracting artists, musicians, and others.”

Last weekend was the annual Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest and Folk Festival, and this weekend is the annual Topanga Days Country Fair:

Old hippies, young hippies, poets, painters, musicians, movie stars, moguls, cowboys, school teachers and normal folk with normal jobs invite you to come celebrate the splendor of Topanga style. Once a year Topanga opens its arms and welcomes its neighbors to join us for this huge celebration of music, dance, performance art and the chance to unite with friends, old and new. From Bluegrass to Latin Funk to World Music and everything in between sponsored by INDIE 103 FM, this year is sure to be an incredible celebration of our unique and culturally diverse community.

Recently dubbed the Biggest Bohemian Bash in Southern California, Topanga Days Country Fair now features three stages of diverse nonstop music, belly dancing, fun and games for all ages, over 80 unique craft vendors and a variety of mouthwatering food from Cajun to hot tamales to comfort-loving sausages. Since 1973, Topanga Days is a three-day festival Fundraiser for the Topanga Community Housein the heart of Topanga State Park.

The festival runs through Monday and tickets are $15 (with tickets for children 6-12 and seniors $7 and children five years and younger getting free admission).

Last month, I wrote about UFC 59: Reality Checked at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim and how it was the first mixed martial arts (MMA) show in Southern California sanctioned by the California State Athletic Commission.

Tonight is UFC 60 at the Staples Center in Downtown L.A., headlined by Welterweight Champion Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie (the winner of the first UFC in 1993 and a member of the first family of fighting, as his father Helio Gracie is the founder of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu). To the best of my knowledge, it’s the first MMA show in the local Los Angeles area, and interestingly enough UFC apparently overestimated demand, as tickets were reportedly overpriced ($200.00-$1,000.00 on Ticketmaster) and the show is still not sold out.

Dave Meltzer provides his perspective on the main event:

If you care in the least about UFC, you’ve seen as much hype for this as any fight in history. It’s three rounds, which favors Hughes. Almost all the smart money is on Hughes, but one mistake and it can be over. Hughes wants to stand. Gracie has more reach, by far, but has never shown much standing. He’s also 39, and looked bad in his last outing. This is more a curiosity fight than what looks on paper to be a great fight. For a lot of reasons, I wish it was five rounds, because Hughes winning a decision, the most likely outcome, is going to make it feel anti-climactic. Truthfully, it would be quite surprising for this match to live nearly up to the hype, and nobody is buying the show for anything underneath.

More after the jump.
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Yes, Buzznet let Tony Pierce go.

He’s unemployed again.

Like him but not in a position to hire him? Hey, take out a blog ad on his site.

I do my best to remain unaffiliated politically, and am accordingly registered undeclared, but I did vote in the Democratic primary two years ago, and someone told the Dems.

The mail the other day brought a flier telling me how great Mike Davis is. He is running for Assembly and claims to be The Democrat Who Unites Us. OK, fine.

But.

The mail also brought an envelope from Supervisor Yvonne Burke, containing a FREE GIFT. (Davis is Burke’s Senior Deputy.) The gift? A pot holder.

Yes, a pot holder.

It says “Mike Davis, Democrat for Assembly,” and don’t think it escaped my notice that it arrived immediately before one of the biggest barbeque weekends of the year (though a mitt would have been smarter).

Is it just me (after all, I have avoided the party mailings until recently), or have politics gotten weird?

Biking by a florist shop this morning in between Toluca Lake and North Hollywood on its tiny marquee over the front door, instead of “2 Doz. Roses – $22.99″ it read “God Bless Our Troops” in crooked marquee letters. And my first thought is well maybe not necessarily those particular troops from our own Camp Pendleton that I read about this morning who have been found to have gone house-to-house last November killing innocent Iraqi men, women and children in retaliation for the death of a fellow marine killed by a roadside bomb — and then trying to cover what they did up. No, maybe I won’t be blessing them.

I’ve paid annual visits to the Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood each Memorial Day since 2002, and I encourage everyone to do so. It’s somber and beautiful and heartbreaking and breathtaking. Mighty powerful stuff, to be sure.

But I won’t be going back this time around — not in protest or anything, but because I have to admit it’s getting tougher each year since the war in Iraq began to see the new gravesites and gleaming marble headstones of the local young men killed there, and because I just won’t be in the viciniity. I’ll be far away this weekend hiking up to the top of the 11,000-foot Telescope Peak in Death Valley.

But I’m going to bring a little flag with me on the climb, and when I get to the summit I’m going to plant it in the ground as best I can and I’m going to have a moment of silence filled with respect and gratitude for the men and women of our armed forces who have honorably served their country.