Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Last night, we had a rare evening out. We dropped Lucinda off with Aunt Maggi and then headed over to Hollywood to see Varla Jean Merman’s new show, “I’m Not Paying For This!”.

We first went to dinner at the French Market Place in West Hollywood. We had a nice dinner and browsed a bit at our favorite gay gift shop, Dorothy’s Surrender. Then we headed over to the Renberg Theater at the L.A. Gay Center.

“I’m Not Paying For This!” is Varla’s new show, and it’s her tribute to the Seven Deadly Sins. She had a song for each, and it was very entertaining.

According to Varla, Lust leads to “guilt, a fractured tailbone, and a soiled clown suit”.

Varla also displayed a new talent, playing the theme from “Star Trek” on the theremin.

At the end of the show, she did one encore, singing “Girl With a Pearl Necklace” and also her “Schoolhouse Rock” medley.

Afterwards, we bought her new CD and she signed it for us. Overall, it was a very fun evening.

Her show runs through February 5.

Route map and photo locations

Today’s ride was a tour of the west Los Angeles oil patch. It’s a little-known fact that most of Los Angeles from downtown out to Century City lies on top of an oil field. In the 1920s, the area near the La Brea Tar Pits was a forest of oil derricks. But years ago, the Los Angeles city council mandated that oil wells in the city have to be hidden. So they are disguised behind walls and inside fake buildings. And today Gene and I went to see just a few of them.

Starting at Victory Park in Pasadena, we rode down Sierra Madre Blvd to Huntington Drive. Then we turned right and headed towards downtown L.A. We turned on Mission and then on North Main St to get into downtown proper. Then we took Spring St past the homeless camp and City Hall down to Olympic Blvd.

It was a chilly morning, and I had suited up appropriately, even to the point of putting paper bags over my shoes. Who needs high-priced cycling-shoe-covers when a paper bag can do the trick? Besides, we can send pictures to the Weekly World News and tell them that we’ve found “Bagfoot”.

Turning right on Olympic, we headed out of downtown and into Koreatown. This is one of the special things about L.A. We can feel like world travelers, even on a simple bike ride. One shopping center had signs almost exclusively in Korean. The only exception was a big sign for “Porno Mania”. I tried to take a picture, but sadly, the lighting was wrong and we were too far away.

We took Olympic all the way out to just past Doheny, where we turned south to Pico Blvd and our first sightseeing stop. It was a pair of fake buildings, one which looked like a church, and the other that looked like a bank. But neither one had signs or a front door. There was just a small sign for Breitburn Energy on the side doors, some mechanical noises, and the smell of petroleum.

Heading back up to Olympic, we entered Beverly Hills. And at the edge of town we came to the second oil well. This one is inside a decorated tower just behind the playing field at Beverly Hills High School. The tower used to be just plain gray, but it’s been painted with flowers now.

From there, we went north on Spaulding to Charleville, and then east a bit to Crescent, which we took north past Wilshire to Foothill Rd and Burton Way. We took a left on Robertson and then a right on Alden to get to Cedars Sinai Hospital. That was where we saw the intersection of George Burns Rd and Gracie Allen Way.

Next, we stopped at the Beverly Center mall, between La Cienega and San Vicente. There is an oil field there, in a little crescent-shaped patch of land between the mall and San Vicente. It’s behind a wall, and we had to go up the parking garage ramp on the mall to see inside.

A left on 3rd St got us heading east again. At Fairfax, we stopped at the Ross Dress For Less store. This is the store that exploded back in 1985. Methane gas from the oil field had seeped up into the store. The explosion blew out the windows and for a time there were flaming cracks in the parking lot. Now the store has been repaired, and there is a vent pipe in the parking lot to safely release the methane.

We turned left on Stanley Ave and headed up into Hollywood. I stopped for a photo-op at the Villa Stanley retirement home. I always take pictures of things that have my name on them. Then we crossed over Melrose Ave and then went west two blocks to get to Genesee Ave, which we took north some more.

At Santa Monica Blvd, we stopped to look at the “Porn Walk of Fame” in front of the former Pussycat Theater. We saw the hand and foot prints of Harry Reems, Georgina Spelvin, John Holmes, and Marilyn Chambers. I took pictures and put them in my Random Photos Gallery. Then we continued on up Genesee to Hollywood Blvd.

Crossing Hollywood Blvd, we went up Nichols Canyon Road, and it was suddenly much quieter. This is one of my favorite roads up the Hollywood Hills, and it was also recently repaved, so it was a very nice climb all the way up to Woodrow Wilson Drive and Mulholland Highway.

Turning right on Mulholland, we rode down into Cahuenga Pass, stopping briefly for water at the Hollywood Bowl overlook. Then we turned on the bridge over the freeway and got on Cahuenga Blvd for one short block. Then we turned off onto some small residential streets to get around the hill and come out on Barham Blvd.

From there, we went down the hill into Burbank and turned on Forest Lawn Drive to get to Griffith Park. Then we took Zoo Drive past the Live Steamers and Travel Town to Riverside Drive.

From there, it was the standard route home across Glendale, Eagle Rock, and Pasadena.

56 miles.
cycling

Since everyone else seems to talk about TV shows from time to time, here’s mine.

I don’t watch much TV. Hardly any, in fact. This probably due more to lack of time than to snobbishness, but I have to admit to not being interested in most of it.

But I do see a lot of filming around town, and today they were filming for “Numb3rs” on campus. Caltech gets used a lot as a location, and if you know the campus, you’ll see it a lot.

The funny thing is, when they’re filming, it usually just looks like a bunch of people standing around. Very little visible action goes on. Still, it’s interesting to see this sort of thing, particularly when a location gets dressed up as something completely different.

Addendum: They were still doing it today so I added some more pictures.

Today’s ride was the one that goes through the Mt. Washington section of Los Angeles, and past the headquarters of the Self-Realization Fellowship.

It was a chilly day by SoCal standards. It was about 45F (7C) when we started out. I wore a whole bunch of stuff, topped off by my new jacket. So I was warm enough. But for some reason, Michael was getting hot, and he stopped twice to take off layers. The rest of us were quite bemused by this.

We rode up through La Cañada and then down Hospital Hill. We took Verdugo all the way down through Glendale into Glassell Park and into Eagle Rock Blvd.

Eagle Rock Blvd brought us down into Cypress Ave and Cypress Park. Then we took a left on Figueroa and started north. A left turn on Pasadena Ave led us to the foot of Mt. Washington.

The climb up Mt. Washington was nice. The road is rough and winding, but it’s quiet and a very nice ride. At the top, we stopped by the gates of the Self-Realization Fellowship before heading north on San Rafael, back down the hill.

At the bottom, we took El Paso to Ave 50 and then went north again. They were repaving York Ave, so we had to take a detour to get around the work. Then we took Meridian to Ave 64, and then York again across the arroyo into South Pasadena.

We stopped at the little bakery and coffee shop that we’ve been to before. It’s the one with the jar of Twinkies on the counter. But this time, it wasn’t Twinkies. It was Ding Dongs.

I had a bagel.

While we were sitting there, we all had a laugh about the stickers that decorated the back of the street sign above our table.

When we were getting ready to leave, I noticed that my back tire was flat. So I got out the spare tube, and Michael took the picture, so I get to be the latest entry in the Flat Tire Gallery.

From there, we headed east some more, through San Marino and into Arcadia. Turning north, we passed a house with a funny gate on the driveway, and then the San Gabriel Mission Dam.

The last bit of the ride was up into Altadena with Brian. This part wasn’t strictly necessary, since I had already passed my house. But it had turned into a fairly nice day, so I rode up to Altadena and back before going home.

46 miles.
cycling

Route map and photo locations

Today’s ride was another ‘theme’ ride. We were going to try and visit a couple of sites associated with “Get Smart”.

We started off heading down Sierra Madre, all the way to Huntington Drive. Then we took Huntington towards Downtown. In El Sereno, we turned off onto North Mission and then onto Main St, passing by S&M Liquor on our way into Downtown.

When we got to Downtown L.A., we went through Chinatown to get to New High St. Then we passed a homeless camp before reaching the Hall of Justice on Temple St. This was the building used as the exterior for CONTROL headquarters in the title sequence for the third and fourth seasons. The building itself was damaged by the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, and it’s red-tagged and slated for demolition.

From there we went up Temple to Grand and then turned south. We passed the new Disney Hall and then passed between the towers on Bunker Hill. There was some filming going on there, but it wasn’t clear what they were doing.

When we got to Wilshire, we took a right and were immediately transported to Tokyo. The last three blocks or so of Wilshire are currently dressed up as Tokyo for filming “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”, AKA “The Fast and the Furious 3”. It’s always fun to see our city dressed up to play a new part.

Going west on Wilshire, we went through MacArthur Park and Koreatown. Then we passed the old Ambassador Hotel, which is perhaps best remembered as the place where Bobby Kennedy was killed.

We took a right on Alexandria and went north to Second St. Then we turned left and took Second out to Larchmont Blvd.

We stopped for a bagel at Noah’s in Larchmont Village. Then we continued on north a bit, going east on Clinton so that we would come out on Melrose by the front gates of Paramount Studios, since that was where most of “Get Smart” was filmed.

Continuing west on Melrose, we turned right on Gower and went up to Santa Monica. Then we went into Hollywood Forever Cemetery to look for Don Adams’ grave. Sadly, the directions we had were not clear, and we were not able to find it. I asked at the front gate and at the flower shop, where they sell a map to the stars’ graves. But their map had not been updated yet, so they didn’t know. So we left. I guess we’ll have to come back again some time.

Going north, we went up Bronson to Franklin and then went east to the Shakespeare Bridge. Then we took St. George and Rowena to get to Fletcher, which we took through Atwater Village up to Eagle Rock Blvd.

We rode up Eagle Rock all the way to Yosemite. Then we took that over to Figueroa, and then took a right on La Loma. A few hills later and we were on San Rafael and then Linda Vista to go past the Rose Bowl. By this time, everyone else had turned off to go home, so I just continued on to just below JPL. Then I took Woodbury back across Pasadena, and some little streets to get home.

44 miles.
cycling

Yup. It’s time for another tattoo convention. This time it’s the winter edition of the giant Body Art Expo at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds. Today was a perfect day for it. The sun was out and it was warm.

When I got to the Fairplex, they were having the Easyriders bike show and an RV show, too. So the parking was packed. But that’s normal for any event that’s held there. There’s always something else going on.

When I got there, I saw my friend Stormy and her dog Nakai. Nakai is a service dog in training, so she get to go places where ordinary dogs don’t. She was also very cute and smart.

When I got inside, I saw David and his friend Justice. Justice recently moved back to L.A. after moving away after the Northridge Earthquake, and she had some concerns about Los Angeles and earthquakes. Since I’m in the earthquake business, I did my best to allay her fears.

A bit later, Mandy and Rob showed up. They were my ‘straight friends’ for the afternoon, since they don’t really fit the freak mold. But it was nice to see Mandy again.

I saw Rick at the Mermaid’s Tale booth.

Anna was at here Anagram Fine Art booth again, so we had to visit and take a picture.

They had a fashion show, which was amusing. The outfits were from the Folter booth, and they were very nice. Brought out lots of cameras. The funniest bit was the first two girls who came out and posed. Then they turned around and flipped up their short schoolgirl skirts to show us their panties that said “PERV” on the back. Sadly, I was not able to capture that moment, due to digital camera lag.

There was also a booth for Utilikilts. I stopped in to just say hello. (waves to KarlElvis) And while I was there, two of the girls from the Folter show stopped by.

So it was a fun afternoon. All the pictures are here:

http://www.1134.org/stan/tattoos/gallery/bodyartexpo2006jan

I thought it might be interesting to make a note of the books I read this year. I’ve found some interesting books by seeing them mentioned on other people’s blogs, so I thought I’d just stick my little book list in a virtual bottle just in case anyone else might enjoy one of these.

The Annals of the Former World by John McPhee. This is his magnum opus about the geologic history of North America. It’s composed of five books, two of which I’d read before. While the subject sounds dry, it’s really quite entertaining. The stuff about conodonts was quite interesting, and the story of how California came to be was also very good. But that’s just because John McPhee is a very good writer.

Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants by Jill Soloway. It’s her memoir about growing up, chock full of funny stories and little rants. And reading it was great fun.

How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale by Jenna Jameson. Her story about how she became the well-known porn star. It’s kind of sad at times, and hilariously funny at times.

Lights, Camera, Sex! by Christy Canyon. This is another ‘how I got into porn’ story. I met Christy once, and she was quite charming and funny in person. And her book is the same way. It was tremendously entertaining.

Collapse by Jared Diamond. An examination of history and the reasons why societies collapse. Part historical tome and part cautionary tale for the present, it’s quite readable.

Conduct Unbecoming by Randy Shilts. The full history of gays in the military, told in minute detail.

Stiff by Mary Roach. All about uses for human cadavers in research and education. Tremendously funny, although that might not be immediately apparent from the subject material.

Astro Turf by M.G. Lord. A history of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but from a viewpoint of examining its male-dominated culture and the women who now inhabit it.

Finding Fault in California by Sue Hough. I work with Sue, and her book is intended as a tourist’s guide to seeing the scarps, hills, and sag ponds formed by fault movements around California. I’ve found that going to see them makes for some nice little bike trips.

The Bone Woman by Clea Koff. This is a personal memoir of a forensic anthropologist who worked exhuming the mass graves of genocide victims in Rwanda and Kosovo. Well-written, but it’s ultimately a grim story.

Candy Freak by Steve Almond. A somewhat personal story about the history of candy in the United States, and in particular about the few remaining independent candy companies still in business. Tremendously funny.

Bare by Elisabeth Eaves. This is her memoir about being a stripper at a peep show in Seattle. Full of interesting stories and some introspective talk about why she felt drawn to stripping. Very entertaining.

And one re-read of note:

The Control of Nature by John McPhee. Three stories about how man tries to control natural forces. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I had go back and read the section about the Army Corps of Engineers and their attempts at controlling the Mississippi River.

books

Today was the Rose Parade here in Pasadena. And it rained on the parade for the first time since 1955. So we didn’t go, and I’m told that lots of other people didn’t go either.

In the past, they parked the horse trailers on our street to collect the horses at the end of the parade, but this time they had the trailers at the St. Luke’s parking lot up the street. So I just got one soggy-horse picture.

The National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning for Los Angeles County today. The rain was bucketing down for a while here. When it stopped, I went outside and snapped a picture of what passed for storm damage on our street.

Later, we took our dogs for a walk. We passed the shuttle buses for people who came to see the floats. I had to take a picture of the ‘Live in Baton Rouge’ advertisement. It’s always odd to see places advertising for people to move there. And the ‘viva mas barato’ just clinched the deal. Back when we lived in Hollywood, there was a store near our house called ‘Las 3-B: Bueno, Bonito, Barato’. So we always get a little laugh from stuff like this.

Since today is the first of the year, I looked at my records to see how much I used my car last year. I have a little notebook in the car where I record every time I do maintenance or put gas in the car. And according to this, I drove my car 1705 miles in 2005. I was actually a bit surprised by this. I thought it would be less. I guess that the 274 miles I put on going to San Diego this week made a difference. In any event, I guess I’m about due for an oil change. The last time I did it was May 1, 2004.

This afternoon, I went to Downtown Los Angeles to meet my friends Kathleen and Richard and Kathleen’s daughter Jenny. I used to work with Kathleen at Hughes Aircraft back in the late 1980s. At the time, I remember her saying that I’d have to meet Jenny some time, because she thought we’d be friends.

So yes, I like Jenny a lot. We’re a lot alike in many ways. I once taught her how to pick locks for fun. We used to go to the astronomy club together when she was in high school. I’ve known her now for something like 15 years, and she’s gone from being a little kid to being an actual adult. She lives in London now, sharing an apartment with her boyfriend. She was back in L.A. just for this week, so it was a treat to get to see her again.