I know its Scroogey to point fingers at who might be the most deserving of having their L.A. citizenship revoked, but Santa’s “naughty” list is likely so spammed with tazer happy cops and hate speech spewing celebrities, to start, that he might lose sight of the Grinchiest of Angelenos.

Below are five candidates L.A.’s Grinch of the Year – take a look, and then help vote on who deserves the title. If I missed someone, feel free to mention their name in the comments and also give them a write in vote.

1. Billionaire real estate mogul Geoff Palmer, who continues to fight a law that requires 15% of his downtown apartments to be designated to low income tenants. (From the Ghost of Christmas Past: “In 2003, the developer demolished a house without a permit to make way for one of his projects, even as preservationists were trying to save it.” – LA Times)

2. The organizers of last year’s Giant Village, the New Year’s Eve bash that was cancelled at the last minute for failing to have a rain contingency plan. Besides leaving thousands of people without a place to sing Auld Lang Syne, the event producers failed to refund tickets in any sort of timely or organized manner.

3. Landowner Ralph Horowitz, who refused to sell the South Central Farm to a coalition of citizens out of spite. Instead, the Farm was closed, and the farmers evicted.

4. The executives at Indie 103.1 for firing morning show host Dicky Barret, and then suing Little Radio for having a logo identical to theirs (Shepard Fairey designed both).

5. Zuma Dogg, for non-stop verbal whippings of Wendy Greuel and the rest of the City Council, and disrupting Council meetings to the point they passed an ordinance dictating Rules of Decorum and restricting free speech in City Hall. (actually, I just put Zuma here because he’d probably be better cast as the Grinch than Jim Carrey)

Vote after the jump!
Read the rest of this entry →

I know everyone’s up to their eyeballs in holiday shenanigans right now, which may or may not include shopping, wrapping, tree acquisition/erecting/decoration, dealing with overexcited kids and probably the dreaded holiday travel. I travel pretty much constantly, so I am never home and therefore never have time to take care of personal stuff like gift purchasing and shipping, so I usually order online when I’m in between airports. But this year, I wanted to give something a little more personal, so I figured out a way to get everything done in a really short period of time, and still make it on time to the airport.

Stop #1: The Christmas tree auction in Chinatown. Tammara mentioned it last year, and after talking with most of my neighbors this year I realized that almost all of them got their trees at the auction. One of my neighbors got a 9-foot tree for under $40! Crazy!

Stop #2: San Antonio Winery. We stopped in for a bit of dinner at the restaurant, which was quite tasty, and then checked out the goods in the adjacent gift shop. They carry chocolates, trinkets, and of course, their wine, which makes a nice gift for parties – it’s a unique, locally produced gift for that finicky Angeleno oenophile on your list. And they have an abundance of sweets in case you want to treat yourself. After all, you’re hard at work!
Read the rest of this entry →

I have a mercifully small holiday shopping list, most of which is easily dispensed with via consumables (booze and flan for host gifts, lunch out for the non-partythrowers), but, well, you know–there’s always a few little something-somethings you always need, if only to bolster your own spirits for another round of holiday-fracking-cheer.

For these, I give both my design and cheapskate seals of approval to Kinokuniya Bookstore, in the little plaza that abuts (heh heh) the New Otani in Little Tokyo. It’s chock-a-block with cool books, of course, but it’s also home to at least two overflowing aisles of insanely great writing pads (of all sizes), containers, drawing & writing implements and several hundred other things I Absolutely Must Have, including tons of stuff in the $5 – 20 range.

Actual address: 123 Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka St., Suite 205, L.A., 90012
Actual hours: 7 days/week, 10am – 8pm.

I found out earlier through a friend, whom I worked with at Tower in the early 1990s, that there is a “Last Hurrah” party for their employees tonight at The Viper Room (which is directly across the street from Tower Video on Larabee and almost directly across the street from the legendary Tower Records location on Sunset). He also told me that the order reportedly came down from the regional manager of all Tower retail locations in the Southern California area.

I haven’t been able to find confirmation of this party online, and a check of The Viper Room’s schedule doesn’t indicate anything of the sort either. (For what it’s worth, doors are @ 8:30 PM and the bands performing tonight, as part of an Indie 103.1 presentation, are Protection, The Spores, Year Long Disaster, and Lana Now Fell).

Apparently Tower’s parties have been legendary in the past, and if this news is true, I’d imagine that tonight’s will be one for the record books.

The BF, his brother, his brother’s girlfriend and I trundled over to Pan-Pacific Park last night for L.A.’s first participation in Unsilent Night, and I’m happy to report that it was ultra happy-making.

Turnout was impressive for a first year; at one point towards the end, after our winding walk through the park brought us to the little amphitheater towards the north end of the park, The BF counted somewhere around 200-250 celebrants. And there is something really uplifting about (a) that many people gathering together to share in an artistic experience and (b) hearing the same lush music (in four harmonizing parts) emanating from so many amplified devices all around you.

My hat’s off to L.A. organizer Behnoosh Khalili, who hooked up with the NY Unsilent folk during her five years in NYC, and who did a banner job pulling this one together. I’ll be back next year for this awesome holiday tradition.

(Chennessey, who dressed as Santa, has her Flickr photoset up here.)

Paul Kopeikin Gallery is our number six (what a fab number) LA Booth in Miami gallery…continue reading

Hard to beat Trader Joe’s prices when it comes to getting orchids and just about any other flowers for the house. This beautiful piece of love was only $12.95. Compare that to prices in flower shops and even at the farmer’s market, where they start at $25.00. I love orchids, but have a hard time keeping them alive after they bloom. At this great price, I don’t feel guilty about tossing them once they’ve bloomed in all their glory! And they’re a great Christmas present when you don’t want to bring wine!

Did anyone else get to watch the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Discovery cross the sky yesterday? It happened at about 5:18, traveling from the southwest to the northeast. (I had no idea until about 5:15 or I would have posted!) It looked like a big (slightly larger than Mars) glowing ball traveling straight across the sky (it does not follow the earth’s curve, so its path looked slightly off to anyone accustomed to watching airplanes move across the sky). So very cool!

And it may be visible again today at 5:42. (See additional sighting times here and find out when it will pass over other cities here.)

Today was the annual Venice boat parade, through the canals! I went with a couple friends to watch the craziness just behind my apartment. I love the boat parade, because it’s such a grassroots event: locals dress up their dinghies, kayaks, rafts, motorboats, whatever floats, and bring it through the canals. Some of the floats are more extreme than others, incorporating lights and music, and others are just families in a dressed-up dinghy, singing Christmas carols at the top of their lungs. It’s so much fun to watch!

I also love it because the canals are a true community. The Christmas decorations are up in full force, and in varying degrees of extremes. Even the public bridges are lit up at night. And today, there were parties going on in houses, spilling onto the walkways. There were families everywhere, watching the boats together. Everyone was saying hello to their neighbors, and waving at their friends on the water. It’s one of those really heartwarming experiences I love seeing, every year.

By the way, if anyone wants to experience living by the canals, my room in my shared apartment is up for rent. Master bedroom and bath, with a view of the canals out the back window. Right now, I can see the lit-up bridges and lanterns strung along the lengths of Carroll Canal, which is extremely cool. But I still need someone to take over my place here, so please leave a comment if you’re interested and I’ll send the details. And then you, too, can revel in the seasonal joy that is what I think is one of the most unique homegrown celebrations possible.

With the rainclouds dissolved into big fluffy cumuli and the sky utterly washed clean and crystalline, I decided–right in the middle of all my holiday errands–to make a drive I haven’t made in a couple years. Stunt Road is a winding, rapidly ascending old road that climbs westward into the Santa Monicas from Mulholland, cutting back and forth into the mountainside with stunning views threatening to distract you into driving right off the edge with every hairpin turn. It dips through this little sylvan vale that, I think, is actually called Sylvan Vale (could be wrong), weaves its way upwards through autumn-bronzed sycamores into the sky, and abruptly reaches an apex at a cut through the top of the mountain–the “saddle” of Saddle Peak.

(…a beautiful sycamore on the way up…)

Here a traveler can stand facing west and see the Pacific, from Malibu in the north, sweeping south across Catalina, Palos Verdes, and into a curving vista of Santa Monica; and, turning to face east, you can see the folding and crumpled mountains spreading away from you like a topo map, the shadows of clouds moving lazily across, the sheets of limestone carved into mountainsides in vertical patterns, and you wonder how the primeval ocean floor could possibly have been heaved into that sideways position; and the West Valley spreading all the way up into Northridge, the Chatsworth sandstone hills, and beyond that into Santa Clarita.

(the “saddle” of Saddle Peak…)

I take the drive slowly at first, pulling over to let locals in their SUV’s and Beemers pass me; with Mew blasting out my open windows and the chill air whipping into the car, sending icy gusts into the cab so my legs feel the cold through my jeans. The music’s great and I’m high off the ozonic tang of the post-rain air, so I accelerate faster and faster, curling Ariel the Wonder Car around each tight curve in the road, until I reach the top, where the Pacific lurches suddenly into view and the world at large–previously only visible from my driver’s side window–suddenly becomes panoramic…
Read the rest of this entry →

The LATimes has a pretty good run down of the recent lawsuit filed by X17 (a photo agency specializing in celebrity photos) against Perez Hilton.

The article brings up some interesting points by each party about what they belive is fair use for photographs. Is a photo taken of a celebrity kissing in public newsworthy to the point that it’s fair game? Does that fact that Perez Hilton alters the photographs in a satirical manner fall under fair use? Does the fact that he takes the photos when X17 has specifically told him that they were being licensed exclusively to someone else mean anything? Is a photo of Kevin Federline pumping his own gas of interest to anyone except satirists?

I’m just curious what blogging.la readers think about Perez, the paparazzi industry and the lawsuit. I fear that the lawsuit will have wide reprecussions against bloggers, but then again, maybe it will garner us greater protections against scrapers and hotlinkers.

I always think of december as a slow month in Blogistan. People are not at work, families are visiting, and life is generally too hectic. However, looking at the comments here this week you’d never know anything was different. Some really interesting threads this week I think, here’s the top 5:

• “…most criminals search for easy targets.” – the LAPD blog offered some advice about how to not be a victim of crime and of course I brought the CCW issue into it. This has been one of the most heated threads we’ve had in a while, and one of the most thoughtful as well. Lots of really detailed well thought out comments here from many perspectives. Almost 30 comments so far all of them definitely worth reading, still no reply from the LAPD.
• Dear Lady Standing on the Corner Pressing The Crosswalk Button Hundreds of Times, – Want to guess what this post is about?
• ‘Tis The Season – Will Campbell sounds the alarm that Broguiere’s Egg Nog is now available in grocery stores across LA. Watch out for the stampede!
• “You buy the tires, I’ll light the fires” – benhigh finds donuts in Los Feliz, and not the sweet bakery kind, but rather the Totally Bitchin’! kind. Aw yeah!!
• Did you see Santa? – Hundreds of Santa’s attacked LA last week, heathervescent was on the scene.

Last night, the boyfriend and I went to see A Mulholland Christmas Carol at Sacred Fools Theater, not far from our new home in SiFi. I was already really excited about it, because I love LA history, and I’ve been fascinated by Mullholland’s dual nature since reading William Mullholland and the Rise of Los Angeles last year (by his granddaughter, Catherine Mullholland). But after reading LAist Zach’s review, in which he compares the play’s author’s knowledge to that of the LA City Nerd that I knew I HAD to go.

I’m not sure what I expected going in, but the musical was far beyond anything I could have envisioned. The performers were immensely talented, as comic actors, and as singers. There was a live four-piece band, and an all-original score. The script was extremely witty, with chunks taken straight out of the classic Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” – but just enough to make it funny. The score was lively and catchy, and I’ve had it stuck in my head for a day now. And the history lesson was awesome, with lesser-known characters listing their place in history and their resumes as part of the dialogue.

I’ll try not to ruin it for everyone, but let me just say that one of the best moments was when the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Mulholland the skeletal boy and girl, and tells him, “the girl is urban decay. The boy is sprawl. Beware the boy. But the girl, she’s really bad too.” The moral of the story: Los Angeles wouldn’t be the size it is without Mulholland’s water, and maybe that would have been all right. The rape of the Owens Valley is one more karmic debt that I feel like the city pays for (Owens Valley, Bunker Hill, old Chinatown, Chavez Ravine…there’s a long, LONG list)

Markland asked last week if Mulholland was a hero or public enemy, and I still can’t decide. Mulholland seemed to make history without realizing it, to bring water to Los Angeles without seeing the consequences, to create a sprawling city in an era where no-one knew what worse consequences that would bring. Freeways, traffic, smog, white flight, all those things were decades in the future when Mulholland reigned. Yet none of them would have happened if Los Angeles hadn’t had the water flow to support millions of people. And I wonder if Mulholland knew the full devastation that the water diversion would have on the Owens Valley, the complete ruin it would bring to the farmers. We’re still living that history and owning up to that mistake today.

Anyways. “A Mulholland Christmas Carol” runs until the 23rd. I highly recommend going to see it. Immediately. Run, do not walk. This may be the last year it runs – and trust me, it’s the best history lesson you will ever get (if one of the hardest to accept.)

On Friday California and Florida halted all lethal injections after Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel decided that the method used in CA is unconstitutional. Last week in Florida the execution of Angel Diaz took over 30 minutes because executioners put the IV into the flesh on his arm rather than into a vein. Earlier this year the execution in CA of Stanley “Tookie” Williams was also botched when back up IVs weren’t connected. Of course lethal injection is used in many states because it’s supposed to be “more humane” than the electric chair but because of weak oversight and varying methods it’s received quite a bit of criticism. The wikipedia article on the practice cites the possibility of the prisoner being aware throughout the procedure as the biggest problem:

Opponents argue that the thiopental is an ultra-short acting barbiturate that may wear off (anesthesia awareness) and lead to consciousness and an excruciatingly painful death wherein the inmate is unable to express their pain because they have been rendered paralyzed by the paralytic agent.

Opponents point to the fact that sodium thiopental is typically used as an induction agent and not used in the maintenance phase of surgery because of its short acting nature. Following the administration of thiopental, pancuronium bromide, is given, to which opponents argue that it not only dilutes the thiopental, but masks any pain when the thiopental wears off since the patient is paralyzed.

Additionally, opponents argue that the method of administration is also flawed. They state that since the personnel administering the lethal injection lack expertise in anesthesia the risk of failing to induce unconsciousness is greatly increased. Also, they argue that the dose of sodium thiopental must be customized to each individual patient, not restricted to a set protocol. Finally, the remote administration results in an increased risk that insufficient amounts of the lethal injection drugs enter the bloodstream.

As far as California goes, Fogel said that “At the present time, however, defendants’ implementation of California’s lethal-injection protocol lacks both reliability and transparency” and that it is currently a violation of the eighth amendment and is “intolerable under the Constitution.”

Back in October I reported that Ben Meyerson Candy Company, was been sold to Jelly Belly and they’d be movin’ the production of Sunkist Fruit Gems and Big Cherry off to Fairfield or Illinois.

Well, the Big Cherry got a big reprieve. The locally famous cherry-centered-candy-plop which still retained it’s original branding under “Christopher’s” was sold to LA-based Adams-Brooks. Adams-Brooks is known for their Coffee Rio, PNuttles and the Cup-o-Gold.

In further news, Adams-Brooks also bought Ben Meyerson’s other candy bar, Good News. I have no idea what the Good News bar is (and my email to Adams-Brooks went unanswered). Anyone remember this candy bar?