The Fake Angeleno

Some New Year's Inspiration

New year ... newly recommitted blogging from the Fake Angeleno?  Stay tuned.

In the meantime, allow me to commend to you 100 Hikes and Passion Party. Both of these bloggers made a resolution around Memorial Day 2009 to set some ambitious goals for the rest of the year.  By their own accounts, they've stepped up and delivered. 

I stumbled across 100 Hikes today when I noticed that the guy who set up the site completed his 100th hike of 2009 yesterday - right on schedule to meet his goal of hitting a century mark's worth of long outdoor rambles during the year.  I also enjoyed his criteria for defining a hike:

1. A “hike” is defined as a trek of two miles or longer over mostly unpaved paths.  There will not be any “hikes” to the store.

2. Each hike must have a definitive end before the next one starts.  In other words, I can’t say that I’ve gone on two hikes because I stopped for water at the half way point of a four-mile hike.  However, I might go on more than one hike in a day, such as on a camping trip or before and after work.

3. Proof of a hike must be posted on this site to count.  “Proof” is defined as a photo, video, or GPS tracking.  This will keep myself from cheating (not that I would) and saying I hiked on said date when I really just sat on my ass and watched reruns of Futurama on TV or something.

Next year, I'm thinking of establishing a similar goal/benchmark, as I've recently become addicted to hiking the way men of my early-middle-age bracket often get addicted to golf.

Speaking of goals/benchmarks, my friend George Kahn at the Passion Party has been awakening at 5 AM every weekday since late May. As part of his morning routine, he posts a daily thought/reflection that I've come to look forward to receiving every morning my inbox.  Why is doing this? In George's own words:

This daily journal came from a promise. Right before Memorial Day 2009, I met with my business coach Joe Stumpf. I shared with him my total burn out in my business of 20 years. Frustrated by what my life had become, I promised to get up at 5:00 AM every day, meditate and journal and focus on bringing passion back into every aspect of my life, my work, my family and my personal growth. Instead of going to work every day and having a PITY PARTY, I have decided to have a PASSION PARTY.  

I highly recommend signing up for the daily email update from the Passion Party -- it's welcome jolt of positive thinking amidst the junk that's accumulated in your inbox while you were sleeping and George was already up writing.

 

DJ Waldie's New Blog: An Automatic L.A. Must-Read

Suppose Borges, the blind sage of Buenos Aires, was still alive... 

He might be doing something very similar to what DJ Waldie, the lyric poet of Lakewood, is up to over at the KCET website.  Waldie's blog is a treasure trove for any Southern Californian with more than a passing interest in his or her surroundings.  The guy's reminscences, reading lists, and local political observations shouldn't be missed. 

Sure, I'm exaggerating a little with the Borges comparison, but not by much.  Waldie's book Holy Land is literature of the first rank.  And, like Borges, Waldie suffers from a sight impairment.  Waldie's also numbering his blog posts -- perhaps in a nod to some arcane Borgesian classification system?

I probably need to get out more.

At any rate, here are a few of my favorite posts from Waldie thus far...

• A great SoCal reading list: [How I Fell in Love Part 2]
• A fresh take on the loaded term "suburbia": [Reasonable Qualifications]
• Explaining 'The Exiles' -- a great mid centure L.A. film: [City of Exiles]
• A slice of L.A. transit history: [Henry Huntington's Good Idea]

Getting Pretty Real

Check out the number one google ranking for city of los angeles superfical fake.

It took less than a year!

The Pumpkin Picture Series

The Legend of the Pumpkin Pictures:

For the last seventeen years, Alysia and Chris have engaged in a ritual. Every Autumn, when pumpkin merchants put their wares on display, Alysia takes a picture of Chris standing in or around the seasonal gourds. The only rule? He must be holding last year's picture in his hand.

Honestly, this is one of the greatest things you'll ever see on the internet.  I mean ... why wasn't I clever enough to have myself photographed with pumpkins every year for nearly two decades?  I suppose the best I can do is start a Thanksgiving turkey pic series this year and get back to you sometime during Chelsea Clinton's second term. 

Hotel Me More? Please Do.

Fake Angeleno reader and friend Alysia has a very special treat in store for you.  Head over to her new Hotel Me More blog and enjoy a superb writer's comprehensive knowledge and fond nostalgic love for hotel culture.  (And I don't mean the airport Marriott.)

Room service, elevator games, a fascination for ice machines. Living in the hotels my father managed was a bit Eloise, a bit The Shining and a bit magic. If you love old lobbies, fancy buffets, airy ballrooms or the mystery of a long hallway, please leave your luggage with the bellboy and check in now.

For your RSS feeding and bookmarking pleasure, here's the link:

LINK: [Hotel Me More]

LA Streets Blog

I just stumbled across a very useful (and great looking) blog... I was sucked in by a detailed post about the possibility of a citywide bike sharing program -- similar to Paris and Washington D.C. -- here in Los Angeles.

The L.A. Streetsblog is part of the Livable Streets network of city blogs.  The mother organization's mission statement aims at "re-envisioning our cities, reversing decades of automobile-dominated planning and policy to create healthier, more sustainable urban environments, better prepared to meet the challenges of the new century."

If Livable Streets' urban overhaul plans are as well-designed and informative as their blog about sustainable L.A. livability, then this is an organization to keep an eye on.

LINK: [L.A. Streetsblog]

A Correction and a Recommendation

Yesterday I recommended the local political blog Mayor Sam's Sister City on the strength of reading one good post and an admiration for its slick design.  A few hours later, F.A. reader Pete Warden pointed out in the comments section that "Mayor Sam" is spreading fallacious urban legends about murder warrants for illegal immigrants.   I went back to give Mayor Sam a more thorough read and, on closer inspection, discovered that his political viewpoint is very different from my own.  Mayor Sam is a tart-tongued right winger with a penchant for bashing every Democratic politician from Barack Obama down to the most junior city councilman in Reseda. 

I'll stand by my original recommendation of Mayor Sam though.  He cranks out a ton of information and opinion on local politics -- just not all of it 'excellent' quality.  If you're looking for a local Drudge with added commentary, look no further. 

And, on a much less political note, let me lend my whole-hearted endorsement to local bloggers "B" and" H."  They're new L.A. transplants from Chicago posting regularly on When Are We Going to California?  They just started posting an "L.A. Three Month Report Card" series partially inspired by my own L.A. report card posts last month!  Their first report card post deals with things they're liking about their new city.  I particularly enjoyed this item:

Bugs- Every time we toured an apartment we kept asking why there were no screens in the windows. Of course very few people had an answer but no so long after being here we realized it’s because there are very few bugs. Yeah the moths were kind of crazy during the month of April but we never see flies, no mosquitoes, nothing. Why is that? Honestly if I don’t get an answer I will be just fine because I am not big on bugs and I am glad they aren’t around as much here. For you people in other areas or recent transplants to LA - can you imagine having your window open for hours on end back home on a warm summer night without screens? Impossible.

LINK: Chicago to L.A. - Three Month Report Card: Things We Like About L.A.

A Fellow Midwestern Transplant's Open Letter to L.A. Re: Second-Hand Dress

Scanning around L.A. blogs this morning, I discovered Girl From the North Country -- a Minnesota transplant living in the Southern quadrant of the Golden State.  It seems she recently purchased a second hand dress possessing hidden powers to make her imminently visible to supervisors, sales clerks, and handsome men driving BMWs.  Little as I know or care about clothes, I enjoyed her post quite a bit - particularly this passage:

Somehow this funny little exchange filled me with a sense of belonging, Los Angeles, and perhaps this is why you brought my enchanted dress to me. Lately life here has been a constant contrast of where I grew up and where I am now. Perhaps it is like this for everyone in their 20’s who have moved far from home. I will never really be the girl that that BMW Boy is looking for, and I really don’t want to be. I don’t value things like expensive cars, I and I don’t slow down while driving to check out attractive guys (*D sighs with relief and mops the sweat off his brow*). I find that most young men who have enough money to buy BMW’s have more money than anyone in their 20’s should ever be entitled to. Beauty and strength rest in money struggles, struggles we all ought to experience while we’re young so we know what many of our parents went through to get where they are, and so we are grateful for all they sacrificed to give us life. I’m sure that guy in the BMW would have been surprised if I had told him his grandmother could have made the dress I wore, and that whoever made it probably made it because she didn’t have enough money to buy a new one.

If this dress had a slogan, maybe it would be, 'Giving beauty to destitute women for over fifty years.'

While I'm sure the North Country Girl is not truly destitute, her point is well-taken.  Most of us are struggling -- in this town and everywhere else -- and sometimes something as simple as a sharp outfit can lift us out of a lingering malaise.  The progress of her second-hand-dress reminded me of the plot of Tales of Manhattan: A wonderful old movie where a tuxedo makes its way through the ownership of six or seven down-on-their-luck New Yorkers -- lifting up all who wear it.  I highly recommend this movie: A skid-row-drunk Edward G. Robinson cleans up and dons the tuxedo for his Ivy League college reunion; Charles Laughton plays a demoralized composer who wears the tails to conduct his own symphony and regain his confidence; shy and retiring Henry Fonda puts on the coat and screws up the courage to wrest Ginger Rogers away from a jerk boyfriend...  Netflix it now, F.A. readers!

LINK: [A Letter to Los Angeles: Regarding Second Hand Clothing]

Reading Material: June 3

1. Thursday is the 40th anniversary of the RFK assassination here in Los Angeles.  Valid questions still remain about the probability of another shooter besides Sirhan. [It's a Crime]


2. Holy Robert Moses, gas is expensive!  I suggest everyone bookmark this L.A. mass transit blog. [MetroRiderLA]


3. In concert with Moscow, L.A. plays host to a triennial Rachmaninoff piano competition.  (I had no idea that the giant Russian piano genius passed the last years of his life in Beverly Hills.)  At any rate, the competition is on June 21 at Disney Hall. [Music Center]

Reading Material: May 25

1. Shocker of the month: James Frey has made all kinds of factual errors about L.A. in his new book. [LA Observed]


2. Topenga Days!  A celebration of hippie culture going on like, right now. [Witness L.A.]


3. A proposed new 101/405 interchange has hit a snag due to its possible effects on migrating geese. [LAT]