When I was growing up, my parents never took me to the dentist unless it was an absolute emergency, so I consider myself very fortunate to have had consistent, company-sponsored dental insurance for the past 10+ years. However, many people are without insurance and can’t afford to go to the dentist, even if it is an emergency. That is why the Hollywood / Los Feliz Kiwanis Club, the same people behind the Annual Pancake Breakfast, have partnered with Queens Care and the Hollywood YMCA to hold a free dental clinic for kids and teens throughout the summer.

The only problem: They need another 50 children (ages up to 18) to sign up before Monday, July 5 to keep the clinic open past the second week of July. That’s where you come in! Help us spread the word to families and organizations that can help. Parents will need to fill out an application (available in English or Spanish) before Monday, July 5.

For an application, please contact Robert J. Menz, President of the Hollywood / Los Feliz Kiwanis Club at robmenz31@yahoo.com or visit hollywoodlosfelizkiwanis.org for more information.

Every now and then we Trojans have to join up with those annoying Bruins on some things (and not just hating on Cal). This weekend, we join together on a sad note – mourning the loss of former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

John Wooden and Bill Walton, 1970. Photo courtesy Vedia on Flickr.

I’ve been making some plans lately for the upcoming World Cup. I don’t follow soccer (football?) but I wanted to take part in the magnificent exercise in sports fandom that will be USA vs. England. Whatever their sport, fans tend to unite over great communal experiences like the World Cup, the Olympics, the Super Bowl or the Lakers in the finals.

We, as lovers of sport, also unite in recognizing legends, regardless of rivalry or affiliation. We all recognize the greatness that was John Wooden.

And all of us, Bruins, Trojans, whatever, felt our hearts sink a bit at the news that Wooden was “gravely ill”, and then when he eventually passed away last night. He may have been 99 years old and hadn’t coached in decades, but the loss of Wooden still leaves a big gaping hole in the sports world. Coaches with his level of success and, more importantly, his level of influence are one-in-a-million.

Well before I moved to California and learned about Trojans vs. Bruins (and on which side I stood), I learned about Wooden. I remember my 7th grade basketball coach preaching his wisdom to us in the locker room. His name is all over buildings in Westwood. My favorite monument to him is the bust carved out of wood that sits in the lobby at ESPN Zone in Anaheim (the “wooden Wooden”). He’s practically required reading for teachers and coaches of all levels.

Wooden represented the best of UCLA, of basketball, of Los Angeles, hell, all of sports in general. While normally I would be reveling in seeing the Bruins cope with a loss (like, say, in a football game), this time, I, and fans everywhere, will be right there with them.

This information is all just starting to roll in but it seems on Friday night the LAPD swarmed and attacked a group of cyclists on Hollywood Blvd. In the video above you can see an officer kick a cyclist as he rides by, and when the person filming it shouts at the officer he gets tackled and thrown to the ground. There are many other reports coming in on BikeSide LA some claiming officers drove cruisers into a crowd of cyclists, and that they stuck batons into the spokes of passing riders causing people to fly off their bikes onto the street. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see anything myself, but this sounds extremely messed up.

The Brooklyn Sandwich, with SMOKED Turkey is the bomb-diggettiest.  Actually I got in trouble for taking pictures of the pickles.  Well whatever.

The LA Foodbank box is filling up.  REALLY filling up about half way already, the cash box needs a little help.  Times are tough I know, but if you got a spare dime or two to help them out please stop  by and see us and the other nearly dozen enjoying the food and fun times at Canter’s.

ps…this is my post #700. I’ll be returning control of my log-on to RUTH666

Me, and my ... sandwiches

Yikes!

Nothing like the Last Days of Metbogs to get all us old glue horses out of retirement to post.

It’s been So Long since I posted anything here, though, that I can’t remember my danged password, and even when the system tries to give me a new one I can’t get in.

So I knocked Frazgo over the head and stole his login info!

Here we all are, blogging out hearts out for you -

More to come… at least until May 31, when the whole damned thing gets shut down.

(in the neighborhood right now? with some extra canned food for our food drive? Well Bring It On In!)

“I wonder if getting a PhD in American studies is going to prove I’m an American?”

– Tam Tran, quoted in an article in the Los Angeles Times

I suppose death is the time to reflect and celebrate a life – but what of the black void leading up to accepting the fact that a life should be celebrated because of a death?  Shrug.  I knew of Tam Tran for quite some time before I finally met her, at a party in which we bantered about the best way to serve cheese.  I also met Cinthya Felix then, and I snapped a few photos of both her and Tam with their best friends.  The picture still lingers in the electronic halls of Facebook like a Post-It reminder waiting to be appreciated, if only I were brave enough to look at it again.

Tam Tran and Cinthya Felix, both graduates of UCLA and from Southern California, died in a fatal car crash over the weekend.  Both were undocumented immigrants, brought here as children.  As they went on in their academic careers, they discovered they were ineligible for financial aid thanks to a myriad of statutes barring the release of such funds to undocumented individuals.  Private loans were not an option so long as applications required proof of legal status.  Heck, without proper ID, the pair would have had problems proving they were of age to watch The Hangover.  And so, Tam and Cinthya had to figure out some way to pay the bills in cash.  Cinthya came up with a pretty great website straight up asking the public for donations towards her graduate tuition at Columbia (she wanted to be a doctor).  Tam juggled as many jobs as she could (she wanted to be a filmmaker).  When they didn’t have enough funds, both took off entire quarters until they could re-enroll with the requisite price of admission in hand.

Recognizing they were not alone, the pair advocated tirelessly in support of the as-yet-unpassed DREAM Act, which would grant a carefully defined class of undocumented students residency in this country.  Tam testified before Congress in support of the legislation; her efforts drew the attention/ire of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who, out of sheer coincidence I’m sure, arrested her parents and brother three days after her public stance.

I didn’t know either well enough to presume that I know how they would want to be honored, but I do know that they wanted others to understand their cause, even if one, in the end, did not completely agree with their stance.  To that end, I’m posting a pretty great video Tam created called “Lost and Found (Story of a DREAM Act Student)”.  It was screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Film Festival in 2009.  It’s after the jump.

For those struggling with the loss of such honest-to-goodness great people, I suppose the best we can do is trust that the void won’t always be so dark.  And when we’re ready, the Post-Its will still be there to remind us all of Tam and Cinthya, and of our dentist appointment tomorrow at 3pm.  Don’t be late.

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Peace may have broken out in the battle between Venice homeowners and the California Coastal Commission regarding the epidemic of overnight parking by those sleeping in their recreational vehicles and cars on Venice streets. Last we left off, the Venice Stakeholders Association had sued the California Coastal Commission after the Commission denied the request by the City of Los Angeles to establish “overnight parking districts” on certain Venice streets, where parking without a permit would have been prohibited between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. (or 5 a.m. on some streets).

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Here’s the thing about alligator sex: It’s weird by mammal standards.

See, mammals like you and me have what evolutionary biologists like to call a “ding-dong” and a “what-what,” and the way we mate is that we put the two parts together until one or both of the participating parties (OK, usually just one) has a Happy Moment. Sure, things may be a little different for monotremes like the echidna and the platypus, but if you’re spending an undue amount of time thinking about platypus sex you are probably a pervert and should be locked up.

Birds and reptiles do things a bit differently. They keep their sex organs in a revolting little flesh pocket called a “cloaca” (the plural of which is “cloaca”). When birds and reptiles mate (never with each other, except in the furry community), they briefly press their cloaca together. Wildlife biologists the world over agree that this process is, from a purely evolutionary standpoint, disgusting.

So why am I telling you about alligator sex? Because there’s potentially about to be a lot more of it going on in Los Angeles.

That’s because Reggie the alligator, the LA Zoo’s resident Alligator mississipiensis, is getting a new girlfriend today. Her name is Cajun Kate, which sounds like the name of the maid of honor at a shotgun wedding. By gator standards, I’m sure Cajun Kate is a real looker, though in the interests of full disclosure I should note that I have not seen her cloaca.

Reggie isn’t your standard zoo gator. In 2005, he was discovered in Machado Lake in Harbor City; despite the efforts of city officials and professional gator hunters, Reggie wasn’t seen again for two years, when he was finally captured and brought to the zoo.

Today, in addition to getting a new sweetheart, Reggie is getting an upgraded habitat, designed at least partially at preventing his escape. Only a few months after his capture in May 2007, he climbed a chain-link fence, leaving his enclosure, and got as far as a nearby loading dock before he was recaptured.

Reggie’s new digs, as well as Cajun Kate (who, it should be noted, is twice his age, which from an alligator standpoint is pretty hot), will be unveiled today at the zoo.

At least 70 cows were killed this afternoon when a cattle truck carrying 160 of them overturned on the 10 near redlands. The wreck also closed down the freeway. Like cows to the slaughter indeed. :(
Thanks Xeni.

Last October, a year after the horrific Mid Wilshire-area murder of John McGraham I posted that I was still awaiting justice.

Today justice came. McGraham’s killer, 31-year-old Benjamin Martin, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole.

From the latimes.com article:

Martin reportedly disliked homeless people lingering near the barber shop where he worked. A co-worker later told police he had seen Martin shout at the homeless to move away from the shop, sometimes striking out at them.

A customer said that he saw Martin on a separate occasion chasing McGraham down 3rd Street, hitting him with a bag of towels and kicking him in the back. The barber yelled, “I don’t want to see you around here again,” according to the customer.

When the manager of the barber shop learned of the attack, Martin was fired. Three months later, prosecutors said, Martin returned to the area with revenge on his mind.

That was the night of October 9, 2008. On the south side of 3rd Street at Berendo Martin confronted McGraham. Dousing him with a bucket of gasoline Martin set him on fire with a flare and fled. Residents came to McGraham’s aid and tried to douse the flames but it was too late. He died at the scene of his burns.

McGraham’s gruesome end brought the diverse community together to grieve the loss of the troubled man who had been a fixture of the neighborhood and to demand his killer be found. Three months of investigation later Martin was arrested and charged with one count of murder with special circumstance; allegations of murder by torture and murder by means of lying in wait, making the monster eligible for the death penalty.

I am much more satisfied with this sentence.

Daryl Gates had been LAPD chief for about a year when Eula Love was gunned down by his police officers on January 3, 1979.

Eula Love was a 39-year-old mother living in the West Athens area of south Los Angeles near Hoover and 120th at 11926 S. Orchard Avenue, in a neatly kept bungalow on a street of neatly kept bungalows in a proud and quiet neighborhood. Eula Love was a widow. Her husband had died of sickle cell anemia six months earlier, leaving her to raise their three young daughters and make the mortgage payment and other ends meet on $680 a month in social security benefits.

Eula Love’s $69 gas bill had been past due for as long as her husband had been dead, and when a utility worker from the Southern California Gas Company showed up that afternoon to shut it off if she didn’t make a $22.09 payment, she became irrational and abusive. When he made a move toward the meter she picked up a shovel, struck him in the arm and then chased him off the property.

While the gas man was advising his superiors and making an assault complaint to the police Eula Love walked to a nearby market and purchased a money order in the amount of $22.09. Returning with it in her purse, she was verbally abusive toward a second gas company employee that had arrived and who she found sitting in a truck at 120th and Orchard. Leaving him she returned to her house only to emerge brandishing an 11 inch-long boning knife, 5 1/2 inches of which were handle.

Next came the cops.

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Is there a more leg-crossingly horrifying story out there right now than the one about the Murrieta infant who lost his testicles in an attack by two dogs? Well, thanks to some ad server’s keyword metric, this amazing juxtaposition of ad and editorial got paired when I landed on the CBS2.com page to read the story. Behold the screengrab:

- Magnitude 5.1 – SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA – 2010 April 04 23:15:20 UTC (1 mile south/southwest of Imperial, Calif)

- Magnitude 4.5 – BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO – 2010 April 04 23:09:49 UTC (32 miles west/southwest of Mexicali)

UPDATE: Revisions below:

-Magnitude 4.8 – BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO – 2010 April 04 23:09:38 UTC

-Magnitude 5.2 – BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO – 2010 April 04 23:15:14 UTC

-Magnitude 5.4 – BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO – 2010 April 04 23:25:09 UTC

-Magnitude 4.7 – BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO – 2010 April 04 23:37:32 UTC

-Magnitude 5.1 – SONORA, MEXICO – 2010 April 05 00:07:11 UTC

L.A. folks, did you feel the 6.9 7.2 quake?

-According to @ABC7: Disneyland security reports that all rides are shut down and some people are trapped in elevators after the quake.. UPDATE: Disneyland rides still shut down but no one stuck in elevators as initially reported http://bit.ly/aa4Nci

-On-air and live streaming coverage on ABC7

Here’s an updated quake map/screenshot as of Sunday, April 4, 2010 at 06:34:26 PM (PDT) – Pacific

Felt it here in L.A. as a slow shaking. (I was busy playing Wii and didn’t realize there was a quake until Yoshi told me twice that the building was shaking. And it wasn’t until I stopped playing and stood up that I realized that we were STILL swaying.)

You?

Screenshot taken from USGS:

UPDATE: USGS Upgraded the quake from 6.9 to 7.2
Here is the preliminary quake info:
Magnitude 6.9 7.2 – BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO

Magnitude 6.9 7.2
Date-Time

* Sunday, April 04, 2010 at 22:40:39 UTC
* Sunday, April 04, 2010 at 03:40:39 PM at epicenter

Location 32.093°N, 115.249°W 32.128°N, 115.303°W
Depth 32.3 km (20.1 miles) 10 km (6.2 miles) (poorly constrained)
Region BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO

Distances
* 26 km (16 miles) SSW (211°) (225°) from Guadalupe Victoria, Baja California, Mexico
* 6160 km (38 miles) SW (227°) (165°) from San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, Mexico
* 6462 (40 38 miles) SW (225°) (233°) from San Luis, AZ
* 173 167 km (108 104 miles) ESE (106°) 105° from Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 5.8 km (3.6 miles); depth +/- 21.1 km (13.1 miles) horizontal +/- 2.4 km (1.5 miles); depth +/- 31.6 km (19.6 miles)

As always, here’s the shake map and intensity map for this event and don’t forget to fill out the survey if you felt it.

Designate your driver early no matter where you are in LA, not just in Arcadia.  Let the kiss you get be on the cheeks not the one you plant on the car in front of you.  Direct from the APOA website the warning for tonight:

Members of the Arcadia Police Department will be conducting a DUI Checkpoint at a location within the City of Arcadia during the evening or St. Patrick’s Day, Wednesday, March 17, 2010, between 8:00 pm to 2:00 am. St. Patrick’s Day will undoubtedly see many celebrations and the Arcadia Police Department reminds you to party responsibly; don’t drink & drive! If you have been drinking and don’t have a designated driver, consider the use of Jan’s Towing and their free “Tipsy Tow” program. Jan’s will tow your vehicle and offer you a ride home in the local service area for free.