midday downtown

August 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I'm working from home today and needed to return a DVD to the library (The Madness of King George, which Kathy and I rented and watched last night... Her pick; I hadn't heard of it, but liked it), so D4, Miggles, and I walked over there at lunch. On the way we ate ate the Yorkshire Grill, which I had seen many times but never been inside. It was very much like Canter's in menu and price. Canter's pickles are a lot better in my opinion, but I had no complaints about my sandwich. I ordered the Yorkshire Special, rye bread around layered turkey, pastrami, and cole slaw. The sandwich, a little cup of potato salad, pickles, and a coke came out to $12 with tip. Not bad at all.

Never one to leave the library empty-handed, I checked out Rosey's cd Dirty Child and the self-titled cd by Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise, who you might remember I saw at the Viper Room back in May.

PJ Harvey in-store at Amoeba?

August 10, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Just noticed over at blogging.la: PJ Harvey will be doing an in-store this Thursday, 6pm, at the world's greatest music store, Amoeba Music. The gig isn't listed on the Amoeba site or PJ's site from what I can see, but that doesn't mean it isn't so. She is in town next week playing a couple gigs, so it wouldn't be at all surprising for her to show up a bit early. And if any music store could score a PJ in-store, it's Amoeba. Definitely worth a little subway ride Thursday afternoon.

Last year I went to Amoeba for an in-store by The Sounds. It's not a great venue acoustically, but really, for a free show you can't complain.

"thank God for TiVo"

August 09, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Oon account of a free magazine I had a subscriptions to I get some random email that's not quite spam, but that I usually don't read. Today, though, I happened to scan one and this caught my eye:

Brian Teasley, a percussionist in the two-dozen-plus-member band The Polyphonic Spree, caused a ruccous last week at Dallas Fort Worth-International Airport, when a custom-built microphone in his luggage shut down five gates due to terroism suspicions.

Read the whole article here at ProSoundNews. The best line:

"I told them we had just used it when we were on Craig Kilborn's show. I still had it on my TiVo, so I was like, 'Come watch it with me.' After they figured out I was telling the truth, they were pretty cool. I was talking to them about music. But thank God for TiVo."

no such thing as a free lunch?

August 09, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Yesterday I got offered free food twice. I accepted once.

The first time was mid-afternoon, when I stopped at 7-Eleven for a Dr. Pepper. The ice dispenser on the fountain drink machine wasn't working, so they had a little bucket with a scoop in it. It was empty. I told the guy this, and hung out holding the scoop while he complained about how he had just filled it 10 minutes ago and went through the whole process of opening the machine up to get at the ice inside. Once he was finally finished I filled up my drink and took it up to the counter. He had a little crate of sandwiches behind the counter, and he asked me if I wanted one -- "no charge". I appreciated the offer, but I had just eaten lunch. So I thanked him, paid, and left.

Later, around 10 or so last night, Miggles and I decided to stop by the IHOP just off Wilshire/Vermont on the way to Ralphs. He ordered an omlette and pancakes, I ordered a waffle and hash browns. We waited. After 10 minutes or so they brought Miggles his food and me my hash browns. The waffle machine was acting up, they said, and they were still trying to get it to work. A couple minutes later the manager came over and told me that his waffle machine wasn't working and asked was there something else I might want. I got blueberry pancakes. The manager told our waitress not to charge me for them. I was happy.

in search of new music

August 09, 2004 by Eric Richardson

KCRW has their twice-annual pledge drive running this week, so I'm having to explore other options for Internet radio to listen to at work. It looks like BBC's Radio1 might satisfy my needs, though I don't really have any sort of a feel for their shows or what comes on when. The only name I knew going in was Steve Lamacq, a Radio1 DJ who makes a weekly call-in appearance on Nic Harcourt's Morning Becomes Eclectic.

a busy friday

August 07, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Busy day yesterday... I worked from home, which allowed me and Miggles to meet Kathy, her sister, Magilla, and D4 at McCormick's and Schmidt's for lunch. They were celebrating 12 years downtown by selling lobsters for $12. I'm not normally a lobster person (too much work... give me a steak any day), but $12 is a steal so that's what I got. The place was packed, as you would expect. The wait wasn't bad at all to get seated, but our waiter really wasn't on top of his game. He was slow, dropped a couple things, and brought me a pepsi after I asked for a coke (if you say, "Is a pepsi ok?", I'll say no and get something else, but I'll like you a whole lot more than if I ask for coke and you bring me a pepsi bottle). But whatever, $12 lobster.

After lunch I worked for a bit longer. The plan was to go up to Griffith Park around sunset to show Kathy's sister the view from up there. They were going to pick me up downtown and then we would head over from there. But an hour and a half or so before they were to pick me up I got it in my head that I wanted to head over to the ALDO on Melrose (right near Fairfax) and pick up a pair of shoes I was eying last time I was there. So I decided to make things fun, and to get this done without driving. It's only about 9 miles, but I would have had to deal with the 101, parking, etc, so driving over there really wasn't going to be worth it.

So I took the subway. Now, an astute reader at this point will say, "Hey, there's no subway station near there." And they'll be mostly right. The nearest station is Hollywood / Highland, about a 2 mile trip (mostly) north. But what's 2 miles among friends? I grabbed my skateboard (purely for transportation... i suck at skateboards) and headed over to the Pershing Square Red Line stop. The train came quick enough, I took a seat (it was a pretty full train, but not standing-room only), and we were off.

I got off at Hollywood/Highland, went west on Hollywood to La Brea, and then went south from there, enjoying the gentle downhill. A right on Melrose, a bit farther avoiding the pedestrians and outdoor tables jutting into the sidewalk, and I was there. I think in the end it took me a little under an hour door to door. It would have been quicker if I had biked, but the plan was to still get picked up and that would have been unwieldy.

After buying the shoes I was still running ahead of the others, so I took back off east on Melrose, figuring I'd just get as far as I could to shave distance off them picking me up. I actually ended up making it all the way to Western, which is the street we were taking up into the park, and Kathy picked me up at Western/Melrose.

Total distance covered on the skateboard was about 5 miles, I think. It was a beautiful day out and good exercise, so I was all for it.

All together now we went up to Griffith Park, got cool pictures of the sun setting next to the Hollywood sign, and then exited out the east side of the park headed for Pasadena to see a movie.

We saw Garden State at the Laemmle Playhouse. It was a great movie that really needs to play wider.

Finally we tried to get some pancakes downtown. We ended up successful, but not to the extent we had desired. The new downtown IHOP closes at 10pm, the Pantry was too busy to start serving pancakes (even though they usually do so around midnight and it was 12:45am), so the only remaining option was Dennys. Not normally my first choice, but the food was good and they were amazingly quick, so I can't complain.

Tonight we're off to the Dodger game, which will be my first this season. I'm a slacker.

LA Blogs' Friday Questions

August 06, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Jonah is asking people a set of questions about LA this morning over at LA Blogs. I think they're interesting questions and he's been doing really cool stuff over there of late, so I figure I'll take a minute to put some answers here.

• How long have you lived in Los Angeles?

I arrived in LA on August 21, 2001.

• Were you born here?

No, I was born in Columbia, SC; home of the other USC.

• How long did you plan on staying here originally?

I came out here for college, so I guess originally would be four years. Or, at my pace, four and a half or so (though I didn't know that then).

• How long do you plan on staying here now?

No clue. Probably not forever.

• What keeps you here?

Well, school for one. But also just the idea that I live in a place that's alive with options. There's always something going on that sounds interesting. The music scene is amazing. Being able to go see any indie film I want is amazing. Being so close to the ocean, the mountains, huge parks, the desert, Vegas...

• What makes you want to leave?

I don't really see LA as a place I'd want to raise a family. It can be done, and I know plenty of native LA people who came out just fine, but I don't really know that it's the life for me. The south beckons me to return...

• What is your biggest suprise about living here?

I guess just the random people I've met outside of school. And I guess the the sense in which there really isn't a single "LA". There's downtown, the westside, the eastside... It's all "LA", but there's no way to umbrella it all together.

• What is your biggest disappointment about living here?

Not living at the beach. I want a beach house.

Music: Yardley @ Hard Rock Cafe, Citywalk

August 06, 2004 by Eric Richardson

When my mom was here I made a one line mention of going over to the Hard Rock Cafe in the Beverly Center to see Yardley, the ever-evolving band put together by Lee Beth Kilgore. Last night Hard Rock was again the scene, but this time it was the other LA Hard Rock, the one in City Walk. Kathy and her sister had been up in SF for a few days, but they made it back into LA just in time to meet me there for the show.

I've expressed before how much I hate Citywalk. The expensive parking... The crowds... The knockoff versions of authentic LA establishments... But whatever, sometimes you do things you don't want to and what I did want to do was go see music. I took the Red Line, too, which meant I got to avoid the outrageous parking charge.

Yardley was debuting a new drummer for this show. He auditioned Saturday, learned his stuff, and played the show yesterday (Wednesday). He did his job well, and everything sounded great. The Hard Rock's really not a venue designed for music, but they did have nice equipment, and that helps immensely. Lee Beth is really hoping that this will be the line-up they can finally say "this is Yardley," and if it is I think it's a good one.

I was noticing yesterday that Lee Beth is very straight to business running a show. Very little talking, just straight to the music and little breaking between songs. She can fit a lot of songs into a little set that way, so I guess that's good.

All in all, a fun show.

following up on the busway

August 05, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Just following up on yesterday's post about stopped work on the Orange Line. The Daily News is the source of good morning reading today, with an article on one man leading the busway opposition and an editorial decrying NIMBY opposition to the construction. Both make the point that NIMBY concerns already scuttled both subway and light-rail plans in the valley, forcing Metro to go with the busway.

But Tom Rubin, the subject of the aforementioned article, doesn't just think the valley busway is a bad idea.

He said he sees faults in the MTA's other projects, the trains to the Eastside and Santa Monica, but has to pick his battles -- though he's already criticized the Santa Monica train proposal, saying it, too, should have considered the Rapid bus alternative.

Now wait just a minute... There's already Rapid bus service to Santa Monica. The 720 bus heads from downtown to the ocean along Wilshire, a street with some of the worst traffic in the country. And what happens to a bus in that traffic? Oh, right, it doesn't go very fast. And what happens when Metro tries the only thing remaining in its power and wants to make one lane on Wilshire buses only? Oh, right, people complain. Shop owners complain they'll lose valuable curbside parking that -- wait a minute -- isn't even legal in the times Metro wants the bus-only lane.

Local blogger and Trojan fan BoiFromTroy wraps up a post quoting from the Daily News editorial with this:

With a partial assist from the Daily News, Mayor James Hahn has turned Los Angeles into a BANANA Republic, where we build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody. Expand the airport? Bah...bog it down in a convoluted "security" plan. Build solid waste storage? Why bother when we can ship it 70 miles to someone else's landfill. Fix the freeways? How come if all people will do is drive on them!?!

a little xs fun

August 04, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I spent most of my night tonight trying to figure out how to write Perl XS bindings for Edb. Partially, it was because I felt (and feel) that my knowledge of the XS black arts was (and is) lacking. Partially, though, it's because both Edb and EET are really cool libs that I could see using.

The result? I got it to where I could open the db file, set a string, get the string, and close the file. That's enough for tonight.

poor Metro

August 04, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Metro's having a rough little run of late. First they have an appeals judge order work stopped on the valley busway, and now today's LA Times has an article talking about how South Pasadena residents hate the Gold Line and want to file a lawsuit (South Pasadena residents hate everything, but I'll get to that).

Though it shares its naming convention with Metro's rail, the Orange Line is actually a busway. The 14 mile long route runs west from the North Hollywood Red Line station, and includes only one mile of city streets. The remaining miles are dedicated lanes, built along former railroad right of way. Construction began last year, and the plan was to have the line open sometime in 2005.

But sometimes the legal system comes back to haunt you. A few years ago a group of Valley residents filed a lawsuit against Metro, alleging that the environmental report filed failed to adequately examine the possibility of just adding more Rapid buses instead of building anything dedicated. The lawsuit was thrown out. But they filed an appeal, which at the end of July the appellate judge granted. Now busway construction has to stop while the case takes its course. A Daily News article on the shutdown includes this quote:

Residents said all they wanted is for the MTA to study putting in a network of red Rapid buses as an alternative to the costly busway a study now being done by MTA.

"We truly believe more Rapid buses is a better alternative for transportation," said Valley Glen resident Diana Lipari, chairwoman of Citizens Organized for Smart Transit, the group that filed the lawsuit.

How can you say that without laughing? Now, I think Metro's Rapid bus program is cool, but let's look at what Rapid buses can and cannot do:

• Plus: Rapid buses make limited stops, cutting down on the stop-and-start that contributes to much of the running time of any sort of transit. The buses have special transmitters that can signal lights to hold green if a Rapid is coming, allowing it slightly less obstructed travel.

• Minus: They run on city streets. This is Los Angeles. City streets suck. City streets are too crowded all ready, without more buses clogging them up. If you're going nowhere in stop-and-go traffic none of the Rapid improvements are going to help you, at all.

Bottom line: Rapid buses are an improvement over normal buses in a lot of cases (they don't replace normal buses, just overlay their routes). But what they aren't is a transit plan. No person who has a choice is going to give up sitting in traffic in their car to just sit in the same traffic in a bus. And I think that's where people like Diana Lipari just don't get it. For them just adding some Rapid buses is cool, 'cause I'm sure she sees public transit as a necessary evil that exists for the mobility of those people without cars who come and work the Valley's low-income jobs. Something that people might choose because separated right-of-way makes it a better choice? Never.

South Pasadena's at it again, too, according to an article in today's LA Times titled "Residents Plan Gold Line Lawsuit." The people of South Pasadena (surely not all of them, but those that do are vocal) have been complaining for a while now. When the Gold Line first opened they had signs up along the route, demanding that the trains slow to 25mph (or was it 15?) and quiet the bells at crossing gates. Never mind the fact that Metro can only obey Caltrans rules for marking intersections and runs the line slow enough most of the way already, these South Pasadena people are really just getting annoying. From the LA Times article:

Residents who have fought the extension of the Long Beach Freeway through their town see the Gold Line as another front in the war to guard their "Mayberry" way of life. The line threatens to ruin South Pasadena's quiet atmosphere, said David Margrave, a city councilman who owns a plumbing business near the line and who promised while he was campaigning to press the MTA to reduce the noise level.

"We don't want to be L.A.," he said. "We don't want to be Pasadena. We hate the idea of Alhambra."

Dude, not to spoil your illusion or anything, but you're right in the middle of the Los Angeles metro area. You are LA, like it or not. You can't sit in the middle of the road, plug your ears, and pretend it's not there. If you want your peace and quiet, move somewhere rural. Don't keep being the guy chained to the tree. Your little town stopped the 210 from connecting to the 710, or the 110, and left that weird little spur that ends so abruptly. I know you're proud of that, but do you understand that the rest of LA doesn't like you messing up our roads? But ok, I understand that a lot of houses would be displaced by construction, etc. I'd make the utilitarian argument that it's for the greater good, but ok. But the train? It's already there. It's already had to do enough for you. Adapt, or sell your house to someone who likes living right by transit. Those people are out there, you know...

variety covers downtown cinema

August 03, 2004 by Eric Richardson

As noted today in LA Observed, last night downtown held its first premiere in decades when the Orpheum played host to Tom Cruise and Collateral. Variety had a good article run in advance talking a bit about the revitalization of cinema downtown, focusing on this premiere, the Laemmle Grande, and the Linda Lea.

I wasn't here last night to snoop around down by the Orpheum, but driving by there in the last few days it's been a scene of much activity, with the parking lot in the rear transformed into a sea of white canopies covering all manner of production details.

When visiting the Orpheum a few weekends ago on the LA Conservancy's Broadway theatre tour, the guy at the Orpheum was talking about the back and forth they were having with the premiere people, who wanted to hang a larger screen than the Orpheum's stage would support (and therefore larger than what was installed). I can't remember the exact details, but I think they wanted a 60ft screen where the Orpheum only had a 43ft one (the largest that would accomodate viewing angles from all of the seating). At that point the theatre was confident they had talked the movie people into doing the logical thing and using the house screen, but with Hollywood you never know.

The Laemmle Grande bit is an interesting read that sums up well what I'd been hearing. Where Laemmles in locales such as Santa Monica and Pasadena run almost exclusively indie films, the Grande runs mostly normal first-run fare. This always struck me as odd, until I saw a great explanation from Greg Laemmle posted to the newdowntown list. Apparently indie prints are so hard to come by that they just have a hard time getting anyone to want to show an indie downtown, a place not known to be all that great for artsy movie audiences. With the new loft crowd moving downtown, though, that could be beginning to change. The Grande is currently showing Maria Full of Grace, a film that I'm only a bit interested in seeing, but probably will go check out at the Grande just because I love the idea of a theater that's within walking distance showing indie movies.

The Linda Lea is going to be a bit more work. I bike by the building on Main, and though the outside clearly shows a theater, it shows one that needs lots of work. Hopefully the interior is better preserved than the exterior, but that's hard to believe since it last showed movies over twenty years ago and doesn't look to have even benefited from the location shooting that has kept the Broadway theaters afloat.

It's always good to see publicity for the revitalization of downtown, especially such a complimentary piece in a trade like Variety.