The official grand opening party of brand new Intelligentsia in Venice is tonight! Unfortunately the officially grand opening of the actual shop might still be a few days off. But enough of the hum drum, tonight is a party and it’ll be a blast! From 8pm on swing by 1331 Abbot Kinney to check out the new digs, and stuff yourself with free coffee. There will also be beer and wine provided by Silver Lake Wine and sausages by Würstkuche as well as tunes busted out by Peanut Butter Wolf. 8PM tonight. Be there. Tell your friends.

In celebration of that most 1950′s-esque, American-as-apple-pie, Eisenhower-and-nuclear-family-ish holiday that is Memorial Day, here I present a triptych of three Valley homes, all built in the ’60s, in the same subdivision, on the same template, and now all drastically different from one another.

Click thru for more.

Read the rest of this entry →

10AM on Tuesday California’s Supreme Court will issue its decision on Prop 8.

I just received my notice from Day of Decision.org that concurrent to the issuing of the decision there will be rallies either in protest of the decision or support depending on what the content of the decision is. Local rallies will take place in Long Beach, Pasadena, and throughout LA County.

Sometimes it’s hard to put a face on what is happening in Los Angeles. It’s probably not too different from what’s happening anywhere else. I read about layoffs and failed propositions and budget cuts every day. Still, I wake up, go to work, go home, and repeat. I’m one of the lucky ones.

Today, I happened to be at the North Hollywood Home Depot, when I overheard a conversation between the cashier and a guy in line. He asked how she was doing. She said was just making the best of it. Picking up more hours here, because they keep cutting her hours at her other job – a school.

I don’t know what she does at that school. But, it’s hard to stomach the idea that her position is in any way expendable. It’s a SCHOOL, for crying out loud. That’s where the next Barack Obama could be getting his – or her – education.

I’m going to be thinking of that woman this holiday weekend. While many Angelenos are out with family and friends, grilling hot dogs, she’ll probably be picking up whatever shifts she can. A lot of people will probably be doing the same.

Hang in there, friends.

In recent weeks, I have noticed a very large number of broken parking meters along Via Marina, overlooking the Marina del Rey Channel. As I have mentioned before, this is one of my favorite Los Angeles area spots, and is a very popular spot for people to park their cars, watch the boats come and go, eat, snooze, walk, take their dogs for walks, hit the beach, have sex (yeah, I’ve inadvertently seen that at least twice), etc.

These broken meters cause two major problems. First, they cut down on the number of allowable spots, making it impossible for many area residents and visitors to park there. Today, and two days ago, I had to pull into at least 6 different spots with broken meters, and walk along the meters, to search for one that was operating. As the picture above indicates, the signs on and near the meters clearly prohibit parking at such meters when they’re broken. Second, these broken meters lose income for Los Angeles County. As a County resident, I have an interest in knowing that revenues to the County are maximized by having broken meters repaired swiftly. That is definitely not happening at present.

Budgets and public sex! after the jump

Ok, the “uniforms” aren’t mandatory, but I’m sure planning on wearing as much wacky hot dog gear as I can to the upcoming Hot Dog Death March on June 13.

Like this hat:

If you, too, would like a hot dog hat, you can buy your very own here.

And if you, too, would like to join us in a few weeks as we rage against the dying of the weenie, as we throw our very bodies into the mustard-and-ketchup abyss, as we launch once more into the bratwurst breach, well, learn more about LA Metblogs’ Hot Dog Death March here.

I’ll see you there. How will you know me…?

I’ll be the one with the hat.

An article from this morning’s Times touches on the “annihilating cuts” that will soon hit cities across California, including our fair lady Los Angeles.

Mayor Villaraigosa, who thinks Governor Schwarzenegger plans to balance the state’s books “on the backs” of local government, is quoted as saying, “I for one will not sit idly by while this process runs its course.”

Which, for some reason, made me think of this.

And for those of you without Flash, that’s the first few scenes of The Omega Man.

I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like.

Guest, May 20, 2009, 4:31 p.m., My Commute Sucks

For an ever so brief period, I lived in Los Feliz and commuted to Century City for work – at least an hour each way, every day.  After doing this for a summer, I decided: 1) there is absolutely no optimal way to get from one end of Santa Monica Blvd. to the other; and 2) this is ridiculous.  Those of us who are weary of our crappy commutes can go the Howard Beale route and scream frustrations out of their browswer windows on the Transportation for America’s My Commute Sucks website.  Launched on National Bike to Work Day last Friday, the site gives drivers, Los Angeles and otherwise, the chance to submit their war stories as part of a bid to convince The Powers That Be (i.e., Congress) to enact sensible and sustainable transportation options.   The site doesn’t have a search function, nor does it categorize vents by city so we can compare war stories, but from what I understand, these functionalities will be coming soon.

Photo courtesy ~db~ via the Metblogs Flickr pool.

I haven’t done any drum-banging here on Metblogs about the weekend components of my personal “Bike Every Day in May” campaign, because the Saturday and Sunday rides are pretty casual… no spoke cards, no printed routes — plus they’re waaaay too early for most sensible people. But if I do say so myself (and I do) this Saturday’s ride is shaping up to be something pretty cool.

Originally, the intent of the ride was to visit the places Elizabeth Short was last seen alive and first found dead, while working in an unstructured cruise around the Historic West Adams district and taking in some of the phenomenal residences that exist there. Then I relocated a book chock full of details on structures living and long gone in the famed community  and I couldn’t help but channel my inner tour-guide and plot out specific points for us to visit.

There they are at right, tiny and in the abstract (click to largify). The following link will take you to the live Google maps version with more info on the specific stops:  Black Dahlia / West Adams Mosey.

The points in the upper right and lower left are the Biltmore Hotel and the location where Elizabeth Short’s remains were found. Among those markers in between  I found homes of heroes, villians, superstars and city changers and much more. I’ll be bringing the aforementioned book along to provide some brief background info. In addition, after the ride we’ll be including a stop at the Convention Center for anyone needing to late-register and/or pick up their stuff for the  L.A. Marathon Bike Tour, Monday. And on our way there we’ll be hitting El Parian on Pico near the 110 overpass, my new favorite taco place.

If you want to join, I’ll be departing from Silversun Plaza (northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard and Parkman) in Silver Lake, at 7:30 a.m., Saturday, May 23. The route is casually paced and will run about 25 miles and end back at Silversun Plaza.

Photographer: Steven Khan / From Left-to-Right: Alex Blundell, Tom Pritchard, Allan Bates, Paul Kimmel

One of my favorite parts of living in Los Angeles is the music scene.  While it’s not nearly the veritable buffet it has been in the past, particularly due to the death of Sunset Blvd’s nightlife, there are still bright spots to be found. A faint, nostalgic pulse returns any time Camp Freddy takes up residency at The Roxy but beyond that one has to dig past all the hobbyists and garage bands paying to play in various venues.

Earlier in the year I was turned on to an indie rock band called Dynamite Walls out of San Diego. While I missed the opportunity to see them during the last L.A. Fashion Week, I did soak up as much of their music as I could find on the internet.  It was good enough to keep my attention.  But that’s only half the formula for me.  They have to put on a killer show to be truly rock worthy.  Apparently, from what I can gather, Dynamite Walls delivers on that promise.  They’ve been named the 2009 break-out San Diego act by more than one source. 

Dynamite Walls has been around for a few years, paying their dues while finding their stride.  They have made the most of their learning curve, evolving beyond the typical guys in a band circumstance to garner the interest of Paul Fox – a producer with an eclectic musical pedigree.  I can only imagine what magic and serendipity has been occurring with such fertile grounds to create upon.

Dynamite Walls will be returning to Los Angeles twice in the next couple of weeks to play at the Viper Room on May 21st (11pm/$10) and June 4th (10pm/$10).  If you like what you hear, you can pick up their brand new limited run EP Stay Awake.

No kidding yellow Ford flags are out there around LA and the Valley.  They aren’t the directions to some super secret meeting place for Ford owners, rather they marked a driving route for a media event hosted yesterday (and today).  Apparently our friends at Ford thought the media types could not read a map or turn by turn directions so they tossed them up along the route as an extra precaution.

The purpose of this event was to evaluate the new Ford Fusion Hybrid.  In hybrid lovin’, CO2 conscious Los Angeles this car should get plenty of attention with its impressive numbers: 41MPG a healthy 8MPG better than its nearest competitor the Toyota Camry Hybrid. Read the rest of this entry →

As the 90-day period for California’s State Supreme Court to rule on anti-same-sex marriage Proposition 8 draws to a close on June 3rd, an announcement of its decision is expected as soon as tomorrow. The court normally releases judgments on Mondays and Thursdays.

Meanwhile on the other side of the country, here’s the new ad from the so-called National Organization for Marriage that’s running in New Hampshire, which just passed a same-sex marriage bill in its legislature and awaits the governor’s signature.

[UPDATE: Daily Kos just posted that the New Hampshire House has voted against the state senate's amendment to the same-sex marriage bill, which consisted of changes insisted upon by Democratic Governor John Lynch to protect so-called "religious rights." The bill is likely to be considered dead for the rest of the legislative session.]

I know it’s not the intention of NOM, but to me it shows how easy it would be to teach children about fairness and equality. Of course, the anti-gay crowd shudders at the very thought of it. Confused indeed, and maybe a little uncomfortable about teaching bigotry to young, trusting minds.

NOM’s last high profile ad, “Gathering Storm,” met with a deluge of mocking parody ads on Youtube. I can’t wait for the responses to this one.

Bang-on and balls-out, North Londoner Lady Sovereign’s overcome the odds to become one of the biggest talents in music today–tapped by Jay-Z for Def Jam & handpicked by Gwen Stefani as a tour opener, the girl’s got flow and style in spades. Check out her sound here if you haven’t already.

Wanna see the show? Tell me your fave Lady Sov rhyme in the comments. We’ll pick a few lucky winners to go see the show!

Info on the show is here.

Working with my friends at Karma Rescue and Bark Avenue Foundation, two LA-based animal rescue groups, I’m going to be posting a featured rescue dog on Metblogs every week (or as often as I can).

This week I’d like to introduce Darcy Kelly. Darcy is a young, beautifully brindled pointer/whippet mix, currently living in a foster home with other dogs (big and small) and even cats.

Darcy Kelly Needs A Forever Home

This gal is a serious cuddler who likes to spend the night getting cozy with her foster mom, foster brother (a big pit!), and even the cat.

During the day, Darcy plays with the other Karma Rescue dogs living in her foster home, but she will immediately calm down if you ask her to. She is up-to-date with routine shots, house trained and spayed.

Darcy is not a big gal. She’s about the same size as the 8 month old pit puppy she lives with, weighing around 35 lbs. She basically looks like a puppy even though she is full grown.