The Fake Angeleno

Pumpkin Picture: 2011 Edition

Hard to believe it's the fourth year running for the annual posting o' the pumpkin picture.  

For those of you unfamiliar with this grand tradition, the goal here is to either hold (or photoshop) the previous year's pumpkin picture in the current year's offering.  This procedure is inspired by a noble tradition started back 19 years ago by our friends Chris and Alysia.  They've put a tremendous amount of care, dedication, and art direction into creating one of the best things you can look at on the internet.

Every year since 1992, they've taken Chris's picture at a pumpkin patch -- while he holds a copy of the previous year's picture.  It's a Halloween tradition like no other and highly recommended viewing...[LINK: Legend of the Pumpkin Pictures]

My own pumpkin shot was taken this year outside the Farm Store at Cal Poly Pomona.  We stumbled across a huge pumpkin patch there at the university's Kellog Ranch this weekend on the way home from Palm Springs.  

For those interested, you can see the Fake Angeleno's whole series of pumpkin pictures here.

That's it for this year. We'll see you the week before the election in 2012.  

Angeles Crest Highway (Route 2) Above La Canada Reopens

 

Great news for Southern California hikers: The western entry to the Angeles Crest Highway has reopened to vehicle traffic.  It's been a two-year wait since the station fire ravaged the front range of the San Gabriels, closing the main thoroughfare into the range and leaving a vast swathe of burnt forest. 

The highway's re-opening means the end of circuitous, lenghty detours to prime trails.  

Even better - the forest service re-opened half of the burn area last month. For a complete rundown of which areas are back in business, see the Moder Hiker's list and coverage.

[Angeles Forest: Re-Opened Trails]

Also see Patch's Dan Abendschein's article on how you can help the area continue to recover from the station fire: [LINK]

Hiking to The Bridge To Nowhere - East Fork of the San Gabriel River

Hidden above Azusa is the rushing current of the San Gabriel River - which flows year-round with a force and rapidity that's surprising given the surrounding desert lowlands.  There are all kinds of great trails up here, including Bear Creek, Smith Mountain, Crystal Lake, Rincon OHV, Bichota Canyon, and many more.

This weekend, we finally got around to taking the absolutely delightful, 10-mile Bridge to Nowhere out and back.

To reach the Bridge to Nowhere trail, you take highway 39 straight up into the mountains, passing two giant dams and reservoirs. Looking at these structures, it's easy to imagine how L.A. was prone to cataclysmic flooding in its early years.  Proceeding North on 39, you'll take a right on 'East Fork' road about 12 miles into the hills.  You'll follow this road all the way to the East Fork fire station, park, and then proceed on foot up the East Fork of the river.  Be ready to get your feet and lower legs soaked to the bone. This hike features at least 10 different river crossings over the course of 10 miles.  

As always, you can get a comprehensive trip report and great directions and tips from The Modern Hiker. If you're interested in taking this hike, use his post as a resource.

[Modern Hiker on The Bridge to Nowhere]

Here are a few of our choice snapshots from the trail:

 

Still dry at this point... 

Fake Book Review: The Long Embrace By Judith Freeman

If you follow Harold Bloom's logic that Shakespeare invented the human personality, then you could make an equally sweeping claim that Raymond Chandler invented the city of Los Angeles.  In the Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, and down many other sinister alleyways in his noirish writing, Chandler took the proverbial "seventy-two of suburbs in search of a city" and imbued them with a dark, highly original cohesion.

At such an outrageous suggestion as his novels calling L.A. into existence, Chandler would no doubt have pitched a serious chuckle -- probably over afternoon highballs at some magnificent, sun-drenched gin joint, now long abandoned. 

He was a wretched alcoholic, Chandler, who produced his best work over the 10-year period when he swore off the sauce and labored over creating his style.  Then, Hollywood came calling.  Things went downhill from there.  Big surprise. 

Freeman spins a great biographical yarn about Chandler, and she manages to illuminate some interesting corners of L.A.'s past and present while she's at it. 

She approaches at Chandler's life story by way of two defining themes:

• Chandler had a 37 year marriage to a woman 18 years his senior. 
• Chandler lived in something like 50 apartments and houses during his life in Southern California.

Much of The Long Embrace's narrative involves Freeman tracking Chandler and his aging wife as they move from downtown, to the Westside, back eastward, out to the desert, down to La Jolla, back near downtown, etc, etc...  It was a great way for a writer to get know his material, and it's a great way for a reader to get a feel for the rich, mysterious history of modern Los Angeles.

Hey New Yorkers: Check Out the Dead Sextons

One of the very few frustrations of not living in New York any longer is missing out on the new music/performance pursuits that my friends are up to. 

Case in point -- The Dead Sextons...  Joe Sullivan on sax.

Here's how Shadowtimenyc recently described the band:

“Saw this strange, swampy band before The Hunt played a few weeks back. The Dead Sextons incorporate the croon of Nick Cave, the existential sleaze of Tom Waits, and the undead Elvis rockabilly quiver of the Cramps all steeped in the Delta blues. Not too hot on the outfits and the MySpace tracks aren’t as down and dirty as most of the stuff I heard live, but I gotta give the singer props for incorporating blood into the set. All I can say is I’m determined to find out more…”

He's not kidding about the Nick Cave influence -- a video I saw of the band recently made me think of Cave's appearance in Wings of Desire.  Speaking of videos...

The genesis of the band's name is pretty entertaining.  A "sexton," I recently learned, is the cemetery attendant responsible for making sure the bodies get buried and the graves are looked after.  Which leads us to the conundrum: Who buries and watches over the grave of the dead sexton?  An existential question fit for a rock 'n' roll band, my friends.  I hope you'll go hear them at earliest convenience.

LINK: [The Dead Sextons]    

Live From the Intersection of Brooklyn Heights and Randy Newman...

Stumbling around Jessica's old street and neighborhood in Brooklyn this morning, I was just thinking to myself what an excellent decision moving to L.A. has been.  It's about 30 degrees here and everyone looks to be suffering from some malicious combination of malnutrition, stress, and anxiety. So much for my bright travel ideas for weekend trips  Just as that train of thought arrived, I looked up and saw this street sign:

 

How's that for synchronicity?

Pumpkin Picture: 2010 Installment

Though I wish I could report differently, this year's pumpkin purchasing excursion again took place in no more exotic a location than the pumpkin patch set up in the parking lot of the Rite Aid / Albertsons on Mesmer St. in Culver City. The place was lousy with little shavers begging pony rides and sewing havoc with their radio flyers. I shuddered with thoughts that one day they would work at Walmart.

That didn't stop us from selecting a fine, orange gord while snapping a picture for the third year running.  The conceit here is to either hold (or photoshop) the previous year's pumpkin picture in the current year's offering.  This procedure is inspired by a noble tradition started back 18 years ago by our friends Chris and Alysia.

Every year since 1992, they've taken Chris's picture at a pumpkin patch -- while he holds a copy of the previous year's picture.  It's a Halloween tradition like no other and highly recommended viewing... [LINK: Legend of the Pumpkin Pictures]

At any rate, here's this year's offering from the Fake Angeleno...

See all three Fake Angeleno Pumpkin Pictures.

See the amazing 18-year run of Chris and Alysia's Pumpkin Pictures.

And, apologies, I need to link here to an Applebees Happy Hour San Diego page.

Fake Book Review: Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn

I'd been meaning to read Mother's Milk ever since Elizabeth Spiers gave it her enthusiastic endorsement back in late 2005.  Three years and $.94 plus shipping on Amazon later, I finally got around to checking out this worthy entry into the canon of English comic novels.

Turns out St. Aubyn is a master of the literary form known as "playful interor monologue of the over-educated white male with a bit of a drinking problem."

Spiers said her initial impressions of St. Aubyn's prose were Waugh-tinged, but mine ran more to the Amis (both pere and fils) side of the English comic master scale.  Some of the set pieces in Mothers Milk are straight from the John Self playbook. 

Summed up in a rambling two sentences, the theme of Mother's Milk is: "The arrival of children completely alters the marital relationship, marooning the man's sex drive on the barren shoals of the woman's re-directed affections towards the ceaselessly clamoring offspring. And what's a poor fella who's now getting on in years supposed to do?"

The book is not all middle-aged male angst though.  St. Aubyn cleverly narrates several chapters through the eyes of the protagonist's kid and wife.  The guy's clearly done his psychology and philosphy homework too. 

I endorse Mother's Milk as enthusiastically as Spiers once did.

The Sticky Monkeyflower

During a recent visit to the Descanso Gardens, I came across a most-curiously-named species of flora: The Sticky Monkeyflower.

 

Although I was disappointed to learn this plant wasn't named as a botanical cross-promotion with the Austin Powers franchise, it does have some interesting qualities... According to Wikipedia:

Mimulus aurantiacus, the Orange Bush Monkey-flower or Sticky Monkey-flower, is a flowering plant that grows in a subshrub form, native to southwestern North America from southwestern Oregon south through most of California.  ...

The Miwok and Pomo Native Americans used the Sticky Monkey's flowers and roots to treat a number of ailments, but was particularly useful for its antiseptic qualities as it expedited the healing of minor scrapes and burns.

Sixty, Sexy, and Successful (And Legally Blind?)

Jessica saw a funny ad in the New Yorker the other day for a book called "Sixty, Sexy, and Successful."  We were considering passing it on to some friends as a gag gift, so we looked it up on Amazon. 

Hilariously enough, almost ALL of the reviews complained about -- wait for it -- the tiny typeface. 

This demographic could surely use some fine ATM Paper Rolls, POS Paper Rolls, Inking Products.