The Fake Angeleno

Kids! Mary! Clarence! Yay!

Not too many Christmases have gone by that I haven't checked in with my old building and loan pal George Bailey and the rest of the gang in Bedford Falls.  Yet I'd never seen the Capra classic on the big screen ... until last weekend.  What a treat.

 

The Aero theater was packed to capacity, and the audience applauded with delight for Jimmy Stewart's introduction in the luggage store.  Spontaneous applause also broke out when Stewart discovered his mouth was bleeding again and ZuZu's petals had found their way back to his pocket.  By the time the end credits rolled, the whole place had erupted into a full-throated, recession-be-damned roar. "Attaboy Clarence!"  Christmas spirit in L.A. was alive and well on this night.

I snapped this picture before the show, fully intending, after the movie, to make a real idiot of myself by having Jessica film me reeancting George Bailey's celebratory run down the main drag of Bedford Falls.  Alas, the marquee had already been changed by the time I got outside, so the humor slack in this post will have to be taken up by the totally random appearance of the "Mitzva Mobile" at the lower right of the frame.

And in case you're surfing by this blog and need a holiday pick-me-up: Here you go.  Merry Christmas!

2008 Highlights

Wondering what we've been up to all year here in L.A.?  I've tagged some key posts from the past year for your blog-reading pleasure.  Please feel free to browse them at your leisure. 

Fake Angeleno 2008 Highlights

Weekend Hike: Kenneth Hahn State Recreational Area

Baldwin Hills looms over Culver City kind of like a hulking older step sibling of limited intelligence and dubious social skills.  What you see is mostly blighted oil derrick wasteland, dusty open space, and a some weird '60s housing stock.  Still, there's something charming about the whole setup, simply because it's a huge chunk of land -- smack in the middle of the city -- that lies mostly fallow.  Nestled up there on one of the bigger hills is the 319 acres of park land known as Kenneth Hahn State Recreational Area. 

Wikipedia notes that, "as one of the largest urban parks in Los Angeles, some have called it L.A.'s Central Park."  I may well have to go in and edit that entry... 

I know Central Park like Loyd Bentsen knew Jack Kennedy; Mayor Supervisor Hahn, your park is no Central Park.  By way of analogy: Central Park is to Hahn Park as The Empire State Building is to whatever the second tallest building in Los Angeles is.  (Plugging in the U.S. Bank Tower to that equation would be giving Hahn Park too much credit in relation to Olmstead's jewel.)

Which is not to say Hahn Park sucks and isn't worth visiting.  Far from it.  This weekend, we enjoyed an afternoon of trail exploration and panoramic L.A. views courtesy of those 319 acres.  The park has two main loops you can hike, and it looks fairly bike friendly as well.  Unfortunately, there's a $4 parking fee on weekends, but weekdays are free. 

Here's a picture of Jessica looking West from the "Autumn Ridge" rest area.  Notice the Pacific glimmering in the top-left of the frame. If you're interested, there are a few more pictures after the jump.

The West Coast Time Warp

Normally, November is my least favorite month of the year.   The time change and deteriorating weather conditions don't agree with me whatsoever.   In New York, November's combination of darkness at 5 PM and spontaneously- generated-sleet-storms always had me ready to lick the third rail at Greenpoint station and wash my hands of life's sorry pageant come Thanksgiving time.

This year has been different.  The Mediterranean climate here has been ample compensation for the departure of daylight savings time. And with a Democrat headed to the White House, I'm not sure if I'd even notice if a sleet cloud followed me around like an woe-betided Peanuts character. 

Still, one thing I haven't gotten used to is being three hours behind my friends and enemies back at the center of the media universe in NYC. 

In the West Coast Time Warp:

• The Dow closes at 1PM.
• I can hear All Things Considered at lunch.  
• I wake up at 6:30 AM Pacific most days ... which is when I used to wake up in New York. (9:30 Eastern)
• If I want to call an NYC friend past 9 PM, chances are they'll be pissed. 
• My fantasy football draft happened while I was still at the office. (with disastrous results)
• Election night was more like "election evening."

And that's just me...

For a much more articulate exploration of the West Coast Time Warp, I suggest reading Gretchen's post on this subject.

Election Day in L.A.

It's a gorgeous day here in Los Angeles.  Some rain early this morning has cleared the air; people are walking around a little taller; and many folks are quick to flash a grin of solidarity. 

Dare I say it: Hope is in the air.   

Driving to work this morning, I noticed my four mile commute was strewn with polling places -- all with good-sized lines.  Encouragingly, there were volunteers with "No on 8" signs standing on nearly every corner. 

Though I wish I could spend this election day with my old friends in New York and my family in Illinois, it feels great to be here in Southern California with new friends, looking forward to a new President. 

For anybody that's interested, the L.A. Now blog is keeping a nice running commentary going today. 

Also, don't miss this explanation of why one liberal blogger didn't vote for Obama.

Fake Angeleno friend Adrienne Crew has a great post on L.A. Observed about prepping to be a poll worker in Culver City.

Pumpkin Patch Picture: Mesmer Ave. and Jefferson Blvd.

Inspired by our friends responsible for The Legend of the Pumpkin Pictures, Jessica and I decided to start a legend of our very own.  Here is our inaugural snapshot, with me modeling our fine looking pumpkin selection and Jessica behind the camera. Something about the lighting makes it look as if it could be the mid 1970s out there...

The pumpkin patch itself was a site to behold.  Not only could you select a pumpkin to take home and carve, but if you were the parent of any child under the age of 10 you could be hijacked for the price of a choo choo train/bus ride around the patch's perimeter; face painting; a romp with some assorted halloween ghouls; and various other genius ideas for drumming up incremental revenue dreamed up by the patch proprietors. 

Stay tuned for the "after" photo of our pumpkin carved up into some sort of yet-to-be-determined Obama propaganda statement...

NAMI Walk 2008: Thanks For Your Support!

A belated thank you to all the friends and family who supported Jessica and I on the National Alliance on Mental Illness Walk the Saturday before last.  The morning was initially rainy, but the weather got progressively better until the sun peaked out at the end of the 5K around the Santa Monica bluffs. 

Over 3,000 walkers came out to raise awareness for issues like mental health insurance party and to combat the social stigma surrounding mental illness.  For a more complete account of the walk, Urban LA NAMI has a nice recap up on their site...

 

Thanks to Fake Angeleno friend KM for the photos. 

LINK: [NAMI -- National Alliance on Mental Illness]

Have You Seen This Woman? If So...

Wish her a happy birthday today!

In Which Ted Kaczyskni Dates The Fake Angeleno

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a lecture at one of L.A.'s two major universities, (I won't say which.) marking the first time I've sat in a formal college lecture since ... the late '90s.  The biggest change I noticed?  The students, mostly freshmen and sophomores, were all glued to their laptops and cellphones -- presumably updating their Twitters or Facebooks or Myspaces or whatever it is the kids are using to keep in touch this month.  Back in my day, a couple well-off scions had enormous laptops in class and the rest of us scrawled out meticulous notes with pen-and-paper 'til our fingers bled ... and we liked it!          

I couldn't have enjoyed myself more during the lecture.  Unfortunately, I can't tell you much about it out of courtesy to the professor whose guest I was.  Suffice it to say, I think this person is one of the most brilliant minds I've ever encountered.  A couple months ago, the professor generously invited me -- random guy at a book signing -- to sit in on a few lectures.  This had about the same effect as Jimmy Page asking some guitarry-eyed kid to drop by and watch a few private rehearsals for the latest Zepelin album...      

At any rate, during the lecture, the students were asked, "Are you old enough to remember the Unabomber?"

Mostly crickets ensued...

I immediately felt older than Methuselah.  Or Robert Byrd.  Or Shia La Bouef. 

Who wouldn't remember the Unabomber?  I guess kids born in 1990 wouldn't... They were five years old when Ted Kaczynski got smoked out of his dystopian 20th century Walden.  (And I was a freshman in college.) 

Thilling Weekend Recap: Outdoor Dining in Mar Vista

I suppose I could have theoretically eaten outside on the stoop of my Brooklyn apartment.  But that would have involved a constant vigil against drunken old Polish men and the occasional stray subway rat.  So it ought to come as no surprise that my excitement about our new outdoor dining equipment is rather disproportionate to its actual "wow" factor.  

Still, when we were sweating it out amidst another humid New York August last summer, we hadn't yet imagined that something as simple as grilling some veggies out back and then dining al fresco -- with the setting sun and Pacific breeze as dinner guests -- was possible. 

In other weekend news, we had been planning on attending the launch party for the new Angel City Press book, Paradise Promoted, but we had to cancel at the last minute.  The subject of the book is the L.A. "boosterism" movement that flourished here between 1870 and 1930, inducing fatigued Easterners and Midwestern rubes to migrate West by the hundreds of thousands.  

In many ways, boosterism is still alive and well, wouldn't you say?