In its various editions since (the last one taking place in 2010), the Watts Happening Ride’s destinations have grown well beyond the iconic towers to include a variety of landmarks involving people, places and events in and around South Los Angeles.

The 2012 incarnation of the Watts Happening Ride will be departing from Silver Lake on Saturday, February 18 at 9 a.m., and will include the addition of a couple locations I’ve recently found. So if you’re not heading out of town for the long weekend and have a hankering to get your bike-riding discovery on, I hope you’ll join me.

For the latest info and any updates, the ride’s Facebook page is here.

When: February 18, gathering at 8:30 for a 9 a.m. departure
Start/Finish: Silver Lake’s Happy Foot/Sad Foot sign (northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard & Benton Way)
Distance: 32.95 miles (route map)
Pace: Casual
Terrain: Flat
Weather: In the event of rain that morning, the ride will be canceled and rescheduled to a later date.
Approximate Time: 5-6 hours
Optional Partial Ride: If doing the full route isn’t feasible, consider joining the ride at approximately 9:30 a.m. downtown on Spring Street (anywhere between 2nd & 9th streets) for the roughly 9-mile portion to the Watts Towers. The 103rd Street Blue Line station is near to the towers and can be an alternative to get you back into downtown.
Things You’ll Need (in no particular order): A functioning bicycle; $7 for the half-hour optional tour of Watts Towers; snacks and water for along the way; money for a late lunch at King Taco.

Screencap from LA Times' LA Now blog

Bonus points for Best Mugshot Ever and a first paragraph that cracked me up. Story 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 …..

The handmade sign on the front door of mobster James “Whitey” Bulger‘s former home on 3rd Street in Santa Monica reads: “Go Away. People Live Here”. That’s the message I’d like to send to mobsters in Los Angeles and across the country. But they seem to keep popping up near where I live, or vice versa.

Bulger’s apartment in the Princess Eugenia building (3 blocks from palisades overlooking the beach and rent-controlled at $ 1,145 per month) was in the same neighborhood as a family member of mine. I walk her dogs in that neighborhood every week. For all I know, the dogs have sniffed Whitey Bulger’s legs. I walked by the Princess Eugenia with the dogs again yesterday, and a bunch of people were milling about in front, including one man with two copies of “Hitman”, a just-released book about Bulger’s Boston crew (conspiracy theorists, are you listening?) that he had purchased down the street at Barnes and Noble on the Third Street Promenade.

Back in the late 80s, I lived in Boston, where I first heard about Whitey Bulger. I remember thinking, only in Boston could the (allegedly) most notorious, most vicious mobster have a brother who was a very prominent local politician, a state Senator and then president of the  Massachusetts Senate.

Before Boston, I grew up in the New York City suburbs, where I knew some (allegedly) “connected” guys and their wives, sons, and daughters. Contrary to the stereotypes and the portrayals in movies and on tv, including Jack Nicholson‘s psycopathic Bulger-based Frank Costello in the above clip from “The Departed” (warning: NSFW language), these folks weren’t necessarily doing violence. Often, if you read the indictments, they operated like the OPEC cartel, allegedly controlling particular industries or unions, fixing prices, doling out contracts, and skimming profits.

But even if you are not a direct victim of Whitey Bulger (allegedly) or other mobsters, they’re not exactly harmless entertainment. In many cases, their activities cause prices of goods and services, such as building construction, to be higher than they would be in the free market. In New York, it is called the “Mafia Tax”. And, needless to say, these folks don’t pay too many taxes on their ill-gotten gains. “This ain’t reality tv”, indeed. Only now there is a reality tv show called “Mob Wives”, but I’m not watching.

Instead, I’m glad Whitey Bulger was apprehended and sent back to Boston, and I would be happy if the rest of the mobsters would just go away. Because people live here.

“Sure!” I said, cutting her off. “I’ll buy the pizzas for you. How many you need?”

As expected she hadn’t set up for the curveball I pitched and the words stumble out of her mouth wondering if it would be OK if I just gave her the cash. I told her all I had was my debit card at which she shook her head. Her “Thanks anyway,” confirmed my suspicions that the pizza story was a fiction, and for their sake hopefully the children were, too.

Out from the Rite Aid the young lady starts for me again until realizing she’d hit me already and sharply turns away as if I don’t exist. As I head east on Santa Monica Boulevard I wonder if it’ll ever dawn on her that duh, she missed an opp for free pizza that if nothing else could’ve helped fuel the drive to her next fix. Oh well.

I pass the stately Cahuenga branch of the library where I startle a homeless woman who is changing clothes in the relative privacy of the library’s locked-up lower entryway. I pass the Little Temple club, cross Virgil, and look down upon the shack that used to be the beloved Jake’s Jay’s Burgers, but now since its eviction is home to the latest in a succession of nondescript and noninteresting eateries.

Next I eye a small mural and double back to get this snap of it (after the jump; click for slight enlargification):

Normally I get bummed when murals are defaced with tags, but the ones scarring this — crossed out and overwritten — emphasize the work’s title: To Live and Die in Los Angeles. Further reinforcing its point came the tragic news that less than eight hours after I took this picture and about 230 feet to the west of this mural, a man was killed outside Little Temple, reportedly the end result of a verbal dispute.

The message is a good one, Crimestoppers allow you to report information on crimes anywhere in metro LA anonymously if you so desire.   Maybe this might be a way for those thugs that hammered so badly on Brian Stow, the Giants Fan who is still in a coma weeks after the fact to be caught.

Hat tip to my friends on the Arcadia PD who twatted this out a bit ago.

I remember the speaker guys back then saying that their products were “extra inventory”.  At the time, I had also read that, in additional to their questionable provenance, the speakers were really crappy, and would break after a bit of regular use.

Nowadays, we have online retailers competing with brick-and-mortar stores, we have Amazon, we have near-instant research ability to find a good home theater in a box for a reasonable price, possibly with no sales tax.  From our phone.

The white van, however, looks pretty much the same.

Well… Apparently, some unfriendly militants have been setting up shop just 136 miles South of Los Angeles, in Tijuana.

Meet Hezbollah, “recognized by many experts as the “A” team of Muslim terrorist organizations.”

The group is blending into Shi’a Muslim communities in Mexico, including Tijuana. Other pockets along the U.S.-Mexico border region remain largely unidentified as U.S. intelligence agencies are focused on the drug trade.

Happy Cinco de Mayo.

I am looking for a furniture/cabinet maker that can make a simple 4 legged round table about 4 feet tall to put into the corner.  It would need to have the feel of  something like the 40′s modern look-clean lines no ornamentation.  We’d want it in a dark wood color.  It would not be big as the corner is 2 foot by 2 foot.  Does anyone have anyone they can recommend for such a job? If so leave me a note and I’ll get back to you for their contact info or have them contact me direct at frazgo at mail dot com.  Thanks in advance for your help.

Corner of Franklin and Vermont about 12:15AM, 4/29/11

Someone was Lighting a String of Trashcan Fires late Thursday Night / Early Friday Morning

I took the picture to the right myself. Firetrucks were already on the way, and in fact, already in the area, as this was at least the third trashcan fire lit.

I felt slightly guilty snapping the pic, like I should have done something more, but my Android doesn’t have a “Fire Extinguisher” App, and I really didn’t have that much water on me at the time.

“I.C.M.E.” indeed. Eyewitness account after the jump.

I came across a group of friends having a bite outside Palermo’s on Vermont around 11:30 – 12AM. As we were chatting, someone mentioned there had been some trashcan fires around the neighborhood that night, and sure enough, just then I turned around and farther south, pretty much across from the Dresden, a trash can is fully ablaze.

We watched a few people, presumably from neighboring businesses, pouring water on it and hitting it with an extinguisher just before the firetruck showed up.

We continued chatting as the truck pulled up to House of Pies and the firemen stopped a homeless man to talk to him. Whether they suspected him, or just hoped he witnessed something, I don’t know, but they let him go and he made his way South on Vermont, down the street.

As we chatted a bit more, I look North from where I’m standing on the sidewalk and see smoke billowing up from where the 7-11 is on Franklin and Vermont. That’s when I walked up and took these pictures.

I normally can’t help but do a Beavis, “Heh. Fire. Heh heh…” at any mention of the element, but I just can’t bring myself to with this. Maybe because that’s actually someone’s mind set right now, as they light these things up. Someone is quite disturbed.

It’s unknown at this time if a suspect has been apprehended.