The voter turnout was not very high, but a decision, with 51% of the vote, has been made! We will hit the Westside this Saturday, April 24. Here’s the plan:

5:00pm at Johnnie’s Pastrami for some outdoor lounging near their firepit, some meaty meat sandwiches and apparently chili cheese fries to melt for. (I’ll be saving up my weight watchers points for the rest of the week!) If you recently tried the pastrami at Langer’s, then you can make an official comparison.

6:30 or 7 we will mosey over to the Apple Pan for dessert. The Apple Pan will be a tad tricky as it is not a small place and seating will be hard to come by. We may need to order “to-go” and eat our pie on the sidewalk outside. No matter what, it will be a great time!

Important Fact for both establishments: they take CASH ONLY!

Johnnie’s Pastrami
4017 Sepulveda Blvd
Culver City, CA 90230

Apple Pan
10801 West Pico Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90064

See you on Saturday!

Saturday April 24 is Classic Eats #10 and you can keep voting! Polls will close on Monday.

Westside Counter Intelligence is pulling away from the pack!

Click here to vote for Classic Eats #10.

The options are:

1) Classic Eats #2 REPLAY – Downtown Delights: Traxx at Union Station and Phillipe’s.

2) Hot Dogs and Hamburgers: Papoo’s Hot Dog Show and Bob’s Big Boy.

3) Westside Counter Intelligence (with a respectful nod to Jonathan Gold for that title): Johnnie’s Pastrami and The Apple Pan.

Click past the jump for more info on all of our choices.

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Saturday April 24 is Classic Eats #10 and the polls are still open.

Downtown Delights-Replay and Westside Counter Intelligence are neck and neck!

Click here to vote for Classic Eats #10!

The options are:

1) Classic Eats #2 REPLAY – Downtown Delights: Traxx at Union Station and Phillipe’s.

2) Hot Dogs and Hamburgers: Papoo’s Hot Dog Show and Bob’s Big Boy.

3) Westside Counter Intelligence (with a respectful nod to Jonathan Gold for that title): Johnnie’s Pastrami and The Apple Pan.

Click past the jump for more info on all of our choices.

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Here is why Speed could not have been filmed anywhere other than Los Angeles: You need enough city space for a bus to go 50 mph for a whole movie without running out of city and 2 of the big action plot points count on a) a major freeway being under construction and b) a subway being under construction. Where else but Los Angeles in 1994?

You all remember the plot: Crazy Bomber (Dennis Hopper) is pissed off at LAPD hot shot Jack Treven (Keanu) for fouling up a previous hostage crisis and is taking revenge by putting a bomb on a bus that activates when the bus hits 50 mph and will explode if the bus slows below 50 mph. There is also plucky heroine, Annie (Oscar™ winner Sandra Bullock) and Jack’s LAPD partner Harry (Jeff Daniels).

After a lot of cars being smashed up on surface streets, they get the bus onto the 105 — it’s under construction with no traffic, there will be plenty of room to solve the bomb problem. Everyone relaxes for a moment until they find out part of the freeway isn’t finished and they’ll have to jump the gap, physics be damned. Later in the subway from Pershing Square to Hollywood/Highland, Jack and Crazy Bomber fight it out, (spoiler alert) Jack wins, but Annie is still handcuffed to a pole, the subway driver is dead, the controls shot to hell and the tracks end in a construction zone around a bend up ahead. What do you do? What DO you DO?

Obviously, you speed up the train (though why you could speed it up but not slow it down seems confusing…), make it jump the tracks and hope for the best. “The best” being the train flying up a ramp right onto Hollywood Blvd in front of the Chinese Theater. I love LA Mass Transit!

Click past the jump for some images and tangential info. Find the rest of the LA Plays Itself Series here.

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Saturday April 24 is Classic Eats #10 and no matter who you vote for, it’s going to be a doozy! You may have noticed by now that Classic Eats is not for the faint of heart of weak of stomach. These are not evenings with many (if any) veggie options — this is food made old school. Be prepared!

This being our 10th anniversary, I wanted to bring back one of the earliest evenings we had as a choice on our ballot. The other two choices are new and will be oh so awesome.

The options are:

1) Classic Eats #2 REPRISE – Downtown Delights: Traxx at Union Station and Phillipe’s. This was one of the funnest nights we had! Great group of people, we could walk to Phillipe’s from Union Station, great company, great food, great architecture, great signage.

2) Hot Dogs and Hamburgers: Papoo’s Hot Dog Show and Bob’s Big Boy. We can start at Papoo’s and then have dessert at Bob’s. Or not. You do it however you like.

3) Westside Counter Intelligence (with a respectful nod to Jonathan Gold for that title): Johnnie’s Pastrami and The Apple Pan. Seating being oh so very limited at the Apple Pan that I figured, eat at Johnnie’s, then pie at the Apple Pan. Or not. You can eat whatever, wherever you want. I’m not the boss of you!

As ever,we’ll start early, around 5pm the first location, then about an hour or two later we’ll mosey to the 2nd location. More details when the votes are in. The polls are open now and will stay open until Monday, April 19th.

Click here to vote for Classic Eats #10!

Click past the jump for more info on all of our choices.

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The economic crisis has hurt a lot of people, especially children and families. There are social-safety net programs that are helping as best they can, but more than 2.2 million children live below the poverty line in California alone.

And did you know that diapers and wipes are not covered under WIC or food stamp programs? Poor and especially homeless families often have to make tough choices between food and diapers, forcing them to reuse old diapers or to keep their kids in dirty diapers longer than is healthy or sanitary.

On May 1st Help A Mother Out is hosting a Wine and Cheese Date Night. All you need to do is register here for your free ticket (hurry, the numbers are limited!), buy a package of diapers to bring with you (or 2 or 10!), get dressed up and come on over to the party! Yours truly will be one of the many lovely hostesses. Tillamook Cheese, Barefoot Wine and Fresh & Easy are donating food and drink, so you don’t even have to bring any money. Just bring those diapers!

If you can’t make the party, find other ways to help and lots more info at the HAMO website. They make even make it super simple to donate diapers online.

See you on May 1st!

Blue Thunder was released in 1983, and shot (I assume) in 1982. My first reaction watching this movie again for the first time in a while was Oh The SMOG! This movie is a time capsule for Stage 1 Smog alerts among other things.

Blue Thunder is about Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider), a Vietnam vet and police helicopter pilot who is assigned to test the most advance helicopter ever built. The cover story is that with the Los Angeles Olympics around the corner, they need a machine to quell potential riots, terrorism and crime. Frank is, uh, an interesting choice for this mission as he suffers from PTSD triggered flashbacks and, as other characters mention in the first act, has recently had a “wig-out” and should be on leave. These were different times. These were real men.

Soon the truth is revealed about the real reason Blue Thunder has been brought to Los Angeles….

Fly across the jump to read more and to see the trailer and a helicopter chase scene through the LA River.

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You know LA plays a role when you see the Bonaventure...

Starting on Monday (April 5) your LA Metblog authors are starting a new series of posts called: LA Plays Itself In The Movies. (Similar to our series last year called Songs About Los Angeles.) We’ll write about favorite movies in which LA is not just a backdrop or a random location or even doubling for somewhere else, but in which the city plays a role. These are movies that could not have been made anywhere else other than our awesome city.

As with last year’s song series, this is not a “Best Of” or “Top 25″ list, it is more fun and personal to each author. The series will last about three weeks and we encourage you to tell us about your favorite movie in which LA is a star!

(The photo is my own.)

Click past the jump to see the full list of posts in this series.

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Dual Pendant Style

While looking for images of Los Angeles to use for a different post, I ran across The George A. Eslinger Street Lighting Photo Gallery on the City of LA website. Have you ever looked up to see what kind of art was lighting your evening commute? You might now.

On the site you can see images of some of the first street lights used in LA and combo pics of original poles and lights and their updated, more modern replacements. There other street lighting department images, things like crews replacing poles from the early 1900′s and today, fleets of repair trucks then and now, light poles used on bridges and historic night views of LA.

From the main gallery page:

This gallery is a tribute  to George A. Eslinger, former Director of the Bureau of Street Lighting.  Through his dedication, leadership and vision he was responsible for spearheading the implementation of  information technology solutions to make significant operational improvements in the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting.

The George A. Eslinger Street Lighting Photo Gallery

Click on through to see more images from the site.

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Spring arrives with the buzzing of the bees, the blooming of the flowers and many birthings of babies. Mazel tov to all the new parents out there and to the new babies: welcome!

Full disclosure: I’m not currently a mom, but I am an auntie and have many friends with offspring so I do know one thing. Those little guys grow pretty fast!

If budgets are tight and you love recycling then Goo Goo Swap could be just for you. It’s sorta the Southern California Craigslist for all things kinder. There are listings for everything from toys to clothes to furniture and even listings for services like photographers and mommy and me yoga classes. There is a also section for mom’s on the nest with postings for gently used maternity clothes and exercise dvds.

Goo Goo Swap looks like a good way save a few bucks (or make a few bucks) on that pair of shoes that Junior might only wear once in his easter portrait.

Click here for: Goo Goo Swap

Classic Eats #10 is upon us and that date is Saturday April 24.

Mark your calendars for a very special evening and look for a post in the not to distant future about what our very special options will be. I want to celebrate our 10th Classic Outing in style.

This Sunday, March 21, is the Los Angeles marathon. 26.2 sunshiney miles through our awesome City of Angels. If you are running the marathon, more power to you, good luck, stick to your training and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!  (I speak from experience…)

If you are not running, be aware of road closures and plan ahead, they can really mess up your whole Sunday morning. This year’s marathon starts at Dodger Stadium, then to Downtown, then heads through Hollywood, West Hollywood, West LA and Santa Monica, depositing the athletes at the ocean. Click here for a map. Streets closures will be in effect for approximately 5-6 hours.

The marathon starts as follows:
6:55 am: Wheelchairs
7:00 am: Hand Cycles
7:07 am: Elite Woman Only
7:25 am: Elite Men & Full Field (including the racewalking division)

Hat Tip to The Open Daily for the reminder!

(Photo by planetc1 and used under CC license.)

Thanks to the great gang of folks who came out to Classic Eats Number 9! We started the adventure at Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles. We squeezed 13 of us around a table for 10 and proceeded to plow into some monochromatic waffly goodness. Mmmm, waffles and fried chicken!

Much fun and laughter was had by all and after we rolled ourselves down the street to our cars, most of us joined up again at Boardner’s to look at their appetizer menu and laugh.

Alas, I forgot to grab my good camera so I only have a few iphone snaps, but clicky on past the jump to see more. And if you were there and took a few pics, post a link in the comments if you can!

Thanks again for the great turn out. Soon it will be Classic Eats #10 — a milestone!

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Just a gentle reminder to prepare yourselves for the awesomesauceness that will be Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles and Boardner’s!

The details again:

5:00pm meet up at Roscoe’s on Gower. Eat some tasty chicken and waffle goodness, try not to spill maple syrup on yourself.

6:30 (or so) head over to Boardner’s for a post chicken COCKtail (get it?!?), some great Hollywood history and look for the ghost of the Black Dahlia in this classic Hollywood bar.

Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles
1514 N. Gower (at Sunset)
323-466-7453

Boardner’s
1652 N. Cherokee (at Hollywood)
323-462-9621

I’ll be there with the Classic Eats signage, looking forward to seeing you all!

This Saturday, February 27 will be a Hot Hollywood Night! Your votes have been counted and the winner is Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles with a follow up trip to Boardner’s! Roscoe’s won with 48% of the vote, the other two contenders splitting the rest evenly at about 25% each. Clearly you all are jonesing for some fried, maple goodness and I can’t say I blame you as I voted for Roscoe’s as well.

Here’s the plan for Saturday:

5:00pm meet up at Roscoe’s on Gower. Eat some tasty chicken and waffle goodness, try not to spill maple syrup on yourself.

6:30 (or so) head over to Boardner’s for a post chicken COCKtail (get it?!?), some great Hollywood history and look for the ghost of the Black Dahlia in this classic Hollywood bar.

Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles
1514 N. Gower (at Sunset)
323-466-7453

Boardner’s
1652 N. Cherokee (at Hollywood)
323-462-9621

Did you know Roscoe’s has a Facebook Fan Page?  You do now!

Thanks for voting and see you all there!