It Caught My Eye…dustly little plaster cake meant as a prop at a local store as it shows what is part of a kidlet party package. Note to self give the shopkeeper some pledge to clean it up and shine it up as part of their stocking stuffers from me this holiday season.

pic by me from the trusty cell phone, get’s bigger but what the heck..its a cell phone so don’t expect miracles.

As seen along the curb of what may very well be the plaza of Cameo Plaza, which is basically just the traffic island in the intersection of Rodeo and Jefferson (click to doublify):

I could see the red shirts from about half a block away. I glanced in the rear-view mirror at my son, sleepily gazing out the window.

“There’s going to be honking,” I warned him. “Loud beeping.”

We joined a truck and another car, just us three out of at least a dozen vehicles, in honking at the strikers in front of the Paramount gate.

As we continued down Melrose I tried to explain to my son, who is only one and a half, why we honked. And I began to cry, because the men and women in the red shirts are my heroes. They’re not just striking for 4¢ or for online residuals – they’re striking for me. They are fighting for something that I hope to benefit from. Someday, hopefully not too long from now, I will join the WGA. Thanks to the members striking now, I will get a fair share then.

So thanks, guys. I know my honking is inadequate expression of how grateful I am. It was the best I could do today. I hope to do better tomorrow.

Suzanne Vega at the El Rey Theatre, November 14th. Tickets

I have Suzanne Vega tickets for you
And a free CD for some lucky whore

I know my rhyming is crappy
About that I’m not too proud
So if you’re feeling scrappy
Leave a comment and you could be a ticket winner

If you want to see the show tomorrow night
Its at the El Rey on Wilshire with the big neon lights
So don’t ask me where it is
So don’t ask me where it is
So don’t ask me where it is

…deepest apologies to Ms. Vega… feel free to shame me with a better rhyme in the comments… three winners will be randomly selected tomorrow at 11am, one gets a free CD as well…

The Inaugural Winnies Awards are taking place in Los Angeles at Cinespace (6356 Hollywood Blvd) on Nov 30, and the winner is you! No really, you won. For real. To get in you need to register, and show up with a trophy, which will probably be given out to someone else later in the night, and at some point you’ll get one for something as well. Probably. Unless you really suck. Just kidding. Maybe. Lots more info here so go check it out, sign up, and claim the prize you rightfully earned.

Seems like yesterday I was bitching about my Halloween costume, and how I didn’t want to be the guy that had to explain what the hell he was all night. As it turns out, I was, and I did.

Halloween has come and gone, and Thanksgiving is next week. Yep. Next week.

This means that it’s time for a Los Angeles tradition: The lighting of the tree at The Grove.
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Coincidental to Jason Burns’ November 9 post in which he referenced Manzanar in response to the disconcerting news of LAPD plans to target map Muslim enclaves in the city, two days later (returning from Death Valley’s Eureka Dunes) my wife Susan and I paid a somber and sobering first visit to the infamous place (on Highway 395 a few miles south of the ironically named town of Independence), referred to all politely as an “internment camp” or a “war relocation center,” or “reception center,” but with eight guard towers erected around the barbed-wired perimeter staffed with military police manning machine guns trained on the 11,000 men, women and children kept here against their will (more than 90% of whom were from the Los Angeles area), I’m in the mood to call it what it was: a prison. One that should forever be remembered as a testament to the freedom-destroying power of fear and an abominable insult to the United States Constitution and the civil liberties it guarantees us as citizens of this country. Pardon my righteous indignation.

An American flag installed upon the fence surrounding the cemetery at the Manzanar War Relocation Center with the memorial obelisk at its center. The characters translate to “Monument to Console the Souls of the Dead,” and on the back the characters translate to “August 1943″ and “Erected by the Manzanar Japanese.” Of the 150 people who died at Manzanar, most were cremated and 15 were buried here. Nine of those graves were relocated after the war, leaving the remains of six still on the premises (click image to doublify).

Out here where I took the above picture it was easy to keep it together. But as I approached the monument and saw an origami necklace draped from one of the the posts with ribbons upon which were handwritten the words “peace” and “forgive” it got a bit tougher. Then along the tiered base of the obelisk were coins and trinkets that had been placed by visitors. Pennis, nickels, dimes, quarters. A fish hook pushed through a cigarette, a beaded necklace, a ring, a lighter, pebbles, a pine tree twig, a bit of abalone shell… nothing overly dramatic but all of it personal and touching and contrite.
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I miss being greeted by Angelyne while driving. Good times.

Check out her MySpace Page. Says she’s 39. [laughing hysterically] I saw her in real life, close up, in 1989 and she was on the far side of 39 then…And yet, I still love her.

I’ll make it real easy on y’all.

The first two people who email me the original stage name of Lyrics Born will each win a pair of tickets.

Otherwise, you can purchase tickets at the El Rey box office, or through Ticketmaster.

I’m pretty excited about Lyrics Born. “I Changed my Mind” is one of my favorite songs in the universe. I honestly don’t know much about Ryan Shaw other than what his MySpace tells me, but he seems like a very fine soul singer. See you there, folks.

Lyrics Born w/ Ryan Shaw
Friday, November 16
Doors @ 7pm
Show starts @ 8pm

UPDATE: the winners have written in. that was quick. :) which goes to show: lyrics born is awesome!

Nope it ain’t no fancy schmancy spa. It’s artists, in this case musicians doing what they do best working the crowd on the boardwalk. Today we were greeted by D. Starks with Camp Bully before we even got to the the boardwalk itself. Normally I pretend to speak french and blow them off. I don’t know what it was about these guys but they struck a cord and I had to hear their story.

The better half rolled her eyes and walked away, the kids were mixed as these 3 guys approached with ‘pod’s in hand asking if we wanted a listen. I grabbed the headsets first. I liked it, kinda hip hop (in the band stand days I’d give an 8 outta 10 for danceability) and kinda rappy, without it being totally sexual or violent. Kid safe, or at least safe for my teens.

The rest after the jump.
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Last November, the Griffith Park Observatory re-opened after being shuttered for five years of renovations.
It’s new look was spectacular, but the bummer was soon obvious. You couldn’t park in the lot and had to take an $8 per person shuttle. The entire parking scenario took up to an hour.

As a result, attendance dropped dramatically. A full 60% to be exact. So last week the powers that be decided that free parking up on the hill is the way to go. You can now check out the observatory and events and park close by. Probably a little crowded on weekends, but much easier for a drop in visit.

Yesterday was Veterans Day and today some stores and offices are closed to commemorate the event. One store was open and it seemed appropriate to visit and see what $20 could buy me. So in honor of those who served or are serving, I spent $20 at The Surplus Store. (Venice Blvd at Motor.)

Click the photo to get a good view of the booty:
Digital Camo bandana
Canteen and belt
MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat) “Chili and Macaroni” flavor
Compass
Bullet keychain

Before tax, I had $19.43, but I had splurged on the bullet keychain, so my grand total was $21.03.

March past the break and see the receipt, photos of the MRE in action and more items at the store we didn’t buy (and a few others we did outside of the assignment.)
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Why go to Amoeba and fight the Arclight crowds and the underage hipsters? Why not vinyl hunt the way your old man taught you to?

My dad used to take me and my brother to the swap meet. Usually, this was to find me books, to find my brother WWF rubber wrestler toys, and for him to find new junk trophies to torture my poor mother with. She usually stayed home (glad to have us out of the house, but in fear of whatever tchotchke he might bring home). Eventually, I ignored the Roald Dahl books and started hovering over the record trader’s stall. My dad didn’t mind, since I would usually buy records he wanted anyway– a consequence of listening to KRTH and KRLA in my impressionable youth, watching my mother sing “Angel Baby” while washing dishes, and watching “La Bamba” on KTLA with my brother.
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This weekend I missed my third consecutive Midnight Ridazz, then the 3rd annual Tamale Festival, as well as a chance to hop onboard the “No, David Markland Is Not A Racist Pig” bandwagon, all because instead my wife and I with our two dawgz drove out Friday Night to Death Valley National Park’s remote Eureka Valley and basically lucked into the Best Camping Trip Evar by having that vast magnificent expanse — including the 700-foot tall Eureka Dunes — all to ourselves.

Click to triplify Ranger, Me and Shadow trekking across a Eureka Dunes plateau. Photo by Susan Campbell.

Literally: to us alone. It was as if someone installed a velvet rope, a doorman and a posted sign at the head of the road some 10 miles north that read “Dunes Closed For Private Party.”

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When there isn’t much traffic on the freeways at 9am, something is wrong.

Or, maybe it’s a national holiday that gets observed by businesses at the state and federal level, and I’m one of the lucky ones who still have to go to work.

To the men and women who keep us free, thank you. Happy Veterans Day.

To the rest of you, get back to work.