I’m guilty of more than a few.  You?  I particularly like the dig about moving to the West Side…a place I barely know as there is simply no easy way to get there from where I live and there is never any parking.  There, I said it.

I was unsuccessful in an attempt to leave a comment of support or of use on his blog. I was swinging too severely between outrage and sadness. Still am. So I came here. To tell you a little something about Ed — which isn’t much, but it’s better than me cursing or crying.

Probably about five or six or so years ago we first met online here at Blogging.la. In January 2007  I posted an open invite for any and all fellow lunatics to join me in making good on a long-time resolution to walk the entire 24-mile length of Sunset Boulevard from Union Station to the sea. Ed commented that he was interested but had other plans. When the fateful day came in February I was joined by another B.la reader Don Hosek and USC grad student Lisl Walsh and off we went.

After the jump, Ed magically appears around Mile No. 23.

From my February 11, 2007 write-up of the trek:

A few more miles to the 405 Freeway at mile 17 or so is where Don opted to retire and await a ride home from his wife rather than continue on and get blisters on his blisters. So after a sentimental group hug photo Lisl and I trundled onward alongside the long and winding and rising and falling road until somewhere approaching the final mile a white Mercedes convertible came to a stop beside us and its kindly pilot asked me “Are you Will?” to which I said “Who the hell wants to know!?” “Why yes, I believe I am but a far more exhausted version of him” wherein he wanted to know where all the other walkers were and Lisl said “We’re it!” and then he introduced himself as regular B.la reader Edward Padgett and compimented us on our perseverence before saying he’d meet us at Gladstones and we said cool. After he pulled away I only half (OK, two-thirds) jokingly asked after him if he’d give us a ride, but deisel-powered Lisl who had her eyes on the prize had already gotten back into step and onward we soldiered until we kicked ass in acheiving our PCH destination at 4:13 p.m. wherein we proudly retired to Ed’s congratulations and his table inside Gladstones and he bought us a round of drinks and we talked until it was time to get back up Sunset to catch the No. 2 MTA bus that would bring us back from whence we’d come. And it did.

My point with all this is to demonstrate what an absolutely awesome guy Ed was to go out of his way to be there to celebrate us when Lisl and I put an exclamation point at the end of that 24-mile sentence. From that very moment when he drove up to us from out of nowhere I’ve been a card-carrying member of his fan club.

Looking back over the last almost-40 years of the Los Angeles Times there have been parent companies, publishers, editors, writers, and photographers who have come and gone. But in that span of ever-increasing disposability Ed Padgett has been there helping make every single paper that I’ve picked up and read. It was something I proudly acknowledged any number of mornings standing there with the day’s edition fresh in my hands.

With such a pro-Padgett bias I just can’t rationalize continuing my subscription to the product of a company so decidedly and dastardly anti-Ed. I expect when I call to cancel today, I’ll do so via representatives in Bangalore or Manila who’ll be obligated to ask the reason why I’m terminating. I’ll tell them, “They fired a friend of mine.”

Rex Bruce’s exhibit “Moving Violations” opens for a 2 month run at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art on October 13.  The opening reception will be that day held in conjunction with the Downtown LA Art Walk.

Moving Violations is a capture of life in LA through the windows of a moving car.  It is really a commentary on the destruction of the city and its environment done by the cars that we pretty much live in getting from place to place.  The exhibit is still images and video aimed at a sensory overload with a political message.  The full artists bio and description of the show can be found HERE.  In the artists words:

The work is pretty self explanatory—toxic SoCal overkill and maximum carbon emission, but it is informed by a particular vision of my era that has coalesced in my mind.

Deets:October 13-December 3, Reception Thursday October 13, 7-9pm, 102 W 5th Street, Los Angeles CA 90013 MAP HERE.

The number of versions of “Blade Runner“, which had already jumped the shark, has now jumped the Loch Ness Monster: director Ridley Scott plans to make yet another “Blade Runner” movie. It is not yet known whether the new “Blade Runner” will be a sequel, prequel, reboot, or otherwise. Either way, what can Angelenos expect if the new “Blade Runner” is again set in Los Angeles?

In the original “Blade Runner”, L.A. was full of digital video billboards, rain, darkness, squalor, and Asian people. What kind of future dystopic Los Angeles might be represented in the next version of the movie? With a stretch of the imagination, one could envision distracted drivers plowing into each other while texting, a city paralyzed by fear because of one road construction project, rabid sports fans beating each other nearly to death, proposals to ban circumcision of male babies, fast-food burger joints spreading like kudzu, an epidemic of elective cosmetic surgery, … oh wait …..

Oh, Liz.  You’re a long way from Burbank.

Los Angeles Herald Examiner / Nov. 22, 1963

Los Angeles Times / Nov. 23, 1963

You can bet I’ll be going carefully through these pages gape-mouthed on a slow analog ride in the wayback machine.

Weird Al in concert

Time is running out fast but here’s the deets.  If you are a male 25-45 (that’s what they are looking for in particular but will consider anyone) and want to play the role of paparazzi in a Weird Al video you need to get moving.  All you need to do is send them a picture of yourself holding a “professional looking camera” (my guess a DSLR).  Send that pic to weirdalcasting@gmail.com along with your contact info.  They have no deadline, but say that the earlier you get it to them the better as they are shooting on May 15 for release in June.  Weird Al’s blog has all the details HERE.

Now I wish I had a pic of me with my DSLR as this would be a fun adventure to add to my bucket list of things done.

Pic by computer_saskboy on flickr and used under a creative commons license.  Link to him HERE..

Dakota took over the LA edition of the popular real estate and development blog when it was barely in the terrible 2′s. After a 4-year run, she heads to the Valley to report for the Daily News.

We look forward to reading her take on the always amusing 818. Maybe she can help us get the trains rolling.

– the reality show celebrity/mom telling her little kids about the “lady with a face like plastic”;

– the actor from “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”;

– the music producer-looking guy with the very long grey pouffy hair and dark sunglasses (yeah, that guy);

– the flight attendant asking you if you’re a particular actor, and then threatening to check the passenger manifest when you say “no”; and

– the Lady with the Face like Plastic.  It really was, and I guess I’m really back home.

……..yeah. Funny right? Maybe not. Turns out she was taken to the hospital to rule out the possibility of a stroke. Inability to speak can often be the first sign. I REALLY hope this isn’t the case. I went to school with her and I seem to remember her being very nice. Hopefully it was just a quick flub. Cause if she’s OK, then we can laugh.