Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Cathy and Lucinda were decorating the house for Valentine’s Day. Lucinda went around and stuck little hearts on just about everything that didn’t run away. Being that Ripley is 12 and very mellow, she didn’t run away.

Today we went to the Center for Inquiry in Hollywood to hear a talk by Marty Klein titled “America’s War on Sex: Why the Christian Right is Obsessed With Your Sexuality”. This talk came highly recommended, since Nina Hartley said he was a good speaker when I’d mentioned to her that we were going to go.

His talk was very good and very entertaining. Sadly, it was also a bit depressing, but that wasn’t due to his delivery or skill. It was just the subject matter. The most memorable quote:

“Conservatives want to make government smaller. They want to shrink it down until it can fit under your bedroom door.”

Anyway, it was a fun time, and afterward, we went to Babeland and bought a new sex toy. That seemed appropriate in some way.

And Nina was right. Marty Klein is a good speaker, and if you get a chance, go see him.

Route map and photo locations

Today’s bike ride was a nice jaunt through the Hollywood Hills to stalk Lindsay Lohan. I’d read yesterday in the gossip column that Lindsay Lohan had checked into rehab. The article mentioned Wonderland Center. So I looked it up. They have a web site and everything. But when I saw the address, I thought, “I’ve been by there on my bike a hundred times, and I’ve never even noticed that there was anything there.” So I figured a ride out there was in order, just to see how they have the place hidden.

I started out across Pasadena on Orange Grove. Then I went down the Colorado Hill, but I took the ‘shortcut’. I’d never been down Brixton before. It’s steep, so going down was a whole lot easier than going up. Then I took Yosemite and Eagle Rock Blvd down through Glassell Park.

The church on Eagle Rock Blvd had a new sign up today, so I got a picture. Then I took Fletcher down to the river, pausing to take a couple of pictures of the Muffler Men in Atwater Village.

Crossing the river, I rode through Silver Lake and over the Shakespeare Bridge into Hollywood. I rode straight down Hollywood Blvd, which is always kind of a surreal experience early in the morning. At the Chinese Theater I saw a big crowd of tourists looking at the footprints and getting their pictures taken with someone dressed as Charlie Chaplin.

Leaving the tourist-trap Hollywood, I continued on to Nichols Canyon Road. I took a right there and headed up the canyon. Nichols Canyon is easily my favorite road in the Hollywood Hills. It’s nice and quiet, it was recently repaved, and it’s not too steep. I stopped for a picture in someone’s driveway mirror, and also for a picture of the Keith Haring mailbox.

At the top of Nichols Canyon, I took a left on Woodrow Wilson to get to Mulholland. Along the way, I passed number 7734. Our house number is ‘1134’, and I tell people it’s easy to remember because you can put it in a calculator and turn it upside-down to spell ‘hEll’. But 7734 is even better. It spells ‘hELL’. So there.

Woodrow Wilson comes out on the crest of the hill right at the intersection of Mulholland and Laurel Canyon. I went left on Mulholland to pass by the rehab center gate at 8207 Mulholland. When I got to the gate, I could see why I’d never noticed it before. It’s just a little driveway, and you can’t see the gate unless you turn and go up to the bend in the driveway. Of course, there’s no sign. There was just one lone paparazzo staked out in a Land Rover with blacked-out windows parked across the street. I snapped a quick picture of the gate and then continued on Mulholland to go refill my water bottle at Fryman Canyon Park. For some reason, I felt like I needed a drink.

I filled my water bottle up at the park and then headed back down Mulholland. At the second intersection with Woodrow Wilson, I took a left to take the shortcut down to Cahuenga Pass. I also wanted to pass by for a look at Harrison Ford’s old house, which is for sale. They’re even having an open house there on Sunday if you want to see it. It’s “Reduced!” to only $1,299,000.

Coming out down in Cahuenga Pass, I took the bridge across the freeway and then went up Wonder View to avoid riding on Cahuenga Blvd. Usually, I have trouble convincing other people to go this way, since it’s a pretty steep hill. But since I was riding alone, I was free to go up any hill I wanted. And this one was it. Then, at the top, I went down Lake Hollywood and came out on Barham for the ride down to Burbank.

I rode down through Griffith Park to Riverside, and then into Glendale. I took the direct route across Glendale to get to Colorado in Eagle Rock. Then back across Eagle Rock on Yosemite, up the Colorado Hill, and back home.

It was a pleasant ride.

47 miles.
cycling

Today I got notice from my friend Dave that Comet McNaught is bright enough to see during the daytime. I’d heard about this comet, but it was too low during the evening to see it over the houses across the street. But the report said that it was now bright enough to see during the day. So I immediately went out to look.

I stood in the shadow of the roof of my house, but I couldn’t see it. So I got my binoculars. Then I found it. It was impressive. It was as good as the nighttime comets I’ve seen from here, since the light pollution here in Los Angeles usually makes it hard to see the comet’s tail. But this one was bright. I could see the head, and a little bit of the tail. I tried to find it with my telescope, but without stars to guide me, I couldn’t find it. Still, I was able to get a photo of it. I used my Canon S2 with about a 10x zoom. You can see the comet as a little fuzzy point in the photo. The tail doesn’t show up in the picture, but it’s still impressive that it’s visible at all.

Since I’m not a night person, it’s perhaps a bit unfortunate that I have astronomy as a hobby. So it’s nice when I get a chance to do it during the day.

Today’s bike ride was held on what will probably be the coldest day of the year. It’s the coldest day I’ve ever seen here in L.A. since I moved here in 1982. It was 28 degrees on my back porch this morning. I wore almost everything I own to try to be warm, including my bagfoot. When I rode down to the park to meet the group, I slipped on some ice. That was shocking. I’ve never seen actual ice on the ground in L.A. before. It’s something that just Does Not Happen.

We started out from the park and rode over past the Rose Bowl, and then up into La Cañada. Then we went down Hospital Hill into Montrose.

In La Crescenta, we stopped to see the Rock Haven Sanitarium. Marilyn Monroe’s mother reputedly spent some time there, as well as other screen stars of bygone years.

The ride was supposed to be through La Tuna Canyon, but none of us was looking forward to freezing on the four-mile downhill into Sunland. So we decided to do a different ride. We headed down Verdugo and into Glendale. Then we took Mountain and Kenneth over to Paradise Bakery.

At Paradise, I had my usual two chocolate eclairs. They have the best chocolate eclairs there. Then we rode down Sonora to Riverside and got on the L.A. River bike path. We took the path all the way to Fletcher. At the little cul-de-sac at the end of the bike path, I saw another abandoned couch for the Abandoned Couches Blog.

The way home went up Eagle Rock Blvd and then across on Meridian St. It was there that I noticed the Vikki and Newton were twinsies today, so I took a picture of them in their nearly-matching yellow helmets and jackets. Then we rode across South Pasadena and San Marino, and finally up Sierra Madre Blvd and back to Victory Park. When I rode home across the park, I saw that the ice had melted, so guess it warmed up a little bit today.

41 miles.
cycling

Today I went out to the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona for the winter edition of the Body Art Expo. I go to all the local tattoo conventions. I have a whole circle of friends there that I see nowhere else.

Today was a beautiful day, but chilly by SoCal standards. For a tattoo convention, this is a Bad Thing. The whole idea is to be warm and comfy so that everyone can show off their decorated skins. And that all breaks down when it’s cold.

Nevertheless, I soldiered on. I saw a bunch of my tattoo friends there, which was fun. I also met a woman with a trained rat on her shoulder. She said that it was a ‘service rat’ that would alert her to impending seizures. The rat had a little leash with a tag that identifed him as a service animal. That was the first time I’ve ever seen a non-dog service animal.

God’s Girls had a booth there. My friend Erica models for them. She wasn’t there, but I stopped in and talked to them a bit, so I thought I’d put in a plug for them here.

It was a fun day. I took some pictures. I visited with friends. Pictures are in my tattoo conventions gallery.

I’ve seen everywhere else that it’s supposed to be ‘delurk’ week. According to my statistics pages, I get something like 300 people a day visiting the blog portion of my web site. On average, the whole site gets something like 2,000 visits a day.

As Butch Cassidy and Sundance said:

“Who are those guys?”

So please to be leaving comments here. Can be just an anonymous “hi”. Just make some noise or something. I can hear you breathing out there…

Momofuku Ando has died. In case you don’t know, he invented instant ramen noodles. It’s amazing how little things can change the world.

As recounted in his 2002 autobiography, “How I Invented Magic Noodles,” Ando’s eureka moment occurred in 1957, when he noticed a long line of customers waiting for service outside a noodle shop. He asked himself if there was not a faster way to serve all those busy-but-famished construction workers and salarymen

This is a story in the same class as the invention of the tortilla chip. It’s a small thing, but one that touches many people’s lives.

And I always thought it was sad that the inventor of the tortilla chip did not become fabulously wealthy. It only seems right that someone who changes the world should be rewarded. And in this case, it’s a happy ending:

The focus on convenience, taste and price turned Nissin Foods Co., his small Osaka company, into a $3-billion multinational corporation with 29 subsidiaries in 11 countries.

The full story is here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-ando7jan07,1,1366040.story?coll=la-news-obituaries&ctrack=1&cset=true

Route map and photo locations

Today’s ride was a sightseeing trip to see Powers Place. This is reputed to be the shortest named street in Los Angeles. It is 13 feet long.

Setting out from Victory Park, we rode down Sierra Madre Blvd to Huntington Drive. Then we went right and rode almost all the way to downtown L.A. Forking off on Mission Road, we skirted the east side of downtown, passing through the warehouse district. I saw my first abandoned couch of the day there. Then we turned right on 4th St and rode across the bridge. We got a nice view of the downtown towers, as well as the Metro Red Line yards.

Coming in to Little Tokyo, we went left on Central Ave and headed down into the industrial underbelly of downtown. There was a strong smell of food processing there. Then, at Pico, we went right, and I took a picture of the Coca-Cola building there. This is a famous building that was built to resemble a ship.

Riding west on Pico, we went through the garment district, and also passed the site of the oozing oil last year. Then we rode through the convention center and on to Powers Place.

At Powers Place, I stopped for a couple of pictures. It really was that short. Then we headed north on Hoover to 11th and over to Vermont.

Vermont Ave was really wretched to ride on, but the whole point of it was to get a picture of the “Porno Mania” sign at Olympic. It’s not every day that you see a store with such a straightforward name.

Turning on Wilshire, we got off of Vermont and then took some smaller side streets to get up to 2nd St, which we rode all the way over to Larchmont. Along the way, we saw the second abandoned couch of the day, as well as the Harbin Deer Antler Trading Company. We were happy to see that the health department gave them an “A”, so they are handling the deer antlers in a sanitary manner.

At Larchmont, we stopped for a bagel at Noah’s. Then we continued north, passing by Paramount Studios on Gower. Then we heard a tremendous “POP!”. I looked back and saw Jon stopping and looking at his back tire. The tire had come off the rim and blown out the tube. There was a rip about four inches long in the tube. So I took out my camera and took a picture for the Flat Tire Gallery. Jon replaced the tube, and we were on our way again.

The rest of the ride home was the standard route back from Hollywood. Across the Shakespeare Bridge and then home by way of Fletcher, Eagle Rock, and Yosemite. That was the site of the third and final abandoned couch of the day. Then we got to the Colorado Hill. We climbed the hill and then rode back across Pasadena to the park.

Aside from the traffic on Vermont Ave, it was a very pleasant ride.

43 miles.
cycling

Today we took Lucinda out to Santa Monica to Magicopolis. They have an afternoon show on Saturdays.

Inside the theater, I was glad to see that the building had been retrofitted for seismic safety. And in between the steel beams, they had had various famous people sign their names on the bricks. That was kind of fun. David Bowie’s note was just behind our seats.

The show was a lot of fun. They did most of the standard magician’s tricks, but with their own spin. The show stars Steve Spill and his wife Bozena Sparrow, and part of the act centers on her being from Eastern Europe. In one bit, she comes out on stage with a box labeled “Acme” and talks in her fractured English about how she ordered a trick from Acme Magic. It is the ‘disappearing bandanna’, but then she pulls out a banana. She follows the intructions, folding it over and totally squishing it. Then she makes it disappear. This was a new twist on an old trick.

Overall, this show was a lot of fun. They also have a little magic shop in the front of the theater. Lucinda got a set of foam balls, complete with instructions on how to do a few tricks with them.

After the show let out, we decided to walk down to the beach. It was a nice day, and it was only a few blocks away. When we got there, Lucinda ran around in the surf and collected shells until the sun went down. Then, on the way out, we saw a seagull resting on the sand next to an empty malt-liquor can. We figured he was sleeping it off.

At the top of the bluff, I got a nice picture of the sunset over the beach. Then we went home. It’s days like this where I just marvel at how much I like living in Los Angeles. It’s really and truly my most favorite place.