Griffith Park, Interrupted

I’ve been invited to contribute to a group blog: Mayor Sam’s Sister City. They’re kind of raucous and wild over there. Still, I guess someone thought I was a needed voice to whip them up even higher.

I don’t know how often. I feel more at home here. But here’s my first post there. It’s about Felix the Cat, Councilman Tom LaBonge, and Griffith Park, and how the whole world is intertwined in some wonderful way.

Photo by Christine Cotter of the LA Times.

Came across an interesting story by the AP a couple of weeks ago:

East L.A. — birthplace of the lowrider, Los Lobos and Oscar de la Hoya — is to Mexican-Americans what Harlem is to the black community. Now it wants to become its own city. Commonly mistaken for a part of Los Angeles, East L.A. is actually an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, with more than 130,000 people — 96 percent of them Latino — packed into 7.4 square miles.

[CLIP] While outsiders often see the area as gang-plagued and poverty-ridden, East L.A. possesses cultural and political symbolism for Mexican-Americans.

I live in Silver Lake, right next to Los Feliz, which is certainly the East Side of Los Angeles. (My favorite story is how the former writer of the Green blog for the LA Times - www.latimes.com/emeraldcity - said she lived “all the way in Santa Monica, so I know nothing about Silver Lake…”) Hee! Yet, so far I don’t identify with this East LA article. What symbolism in Silver Lake? Let’s read on.

For decades, East L.A. has been a first stop for immigrants just over the border, though these days there are nearly as many Salvadoran pupuserias selling filled tortilla patties as Mexican taquerias selling tacos.

Photo from netstate.com. We could rename the California Poppy, the Western USA flower!

I don’t like Mexican food, can’t comment on this.

East L.A. is a fusion of cultures north and south of the border. Spanish is the predominant language, but it is a hybrid version, Spanglish, punctuated with Hispanicized English words: “breka” for break, “marqueta” for market, “cora” for quarter.

While nortena music booms from downtown stores, East L.A. has also produced artists such as Los Lobos, who have combined Mexican oompah sounds with American rock rhythms. Lowriders, often with customized Chicano-theme paint jobs, cruise the streets.

No, English is spoken in Silver Lake and Los Feliz, quite well, actually. I have seen lowriders in Hollywood, and I have heard of Los Lobos, however.

Keep Reading »

I am a Bad, Bad Blogger. But I’m back, so hold your horses.

I must tell you about this fascinating FREE seminar given tomorrow, Sat, October 18, at the convenient Riverside Auditorium, on Riverside Drive, right near the 5 entrance, and across the street from the fountain, where cheap people have their weddings.

It’s called: Re-Enchanting The City Conference V: Global Climate Change, and will have Dr. Danny Harvey, who worked with Al Gore on his book, and who won a the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. The emphasis will be on animals, for our park, but heck, we all sweat.

It will also include lots of other interesting speakers, such as Ronald Kosinski, Deputy District Director, Environmental Planning, CALTRANS, who will speak on Los Angeles “Wildlife Bridges, Overpasses and Undercrossing Changes.” I can’t wait until we get some wildlife bridges, like other, more enlightened cities, already have! Free lunch included, and it will break up into group discussions afterward with wildlife artists and photographers and biologists. Really nifty.

It starts at 8 AM. Unfortunately, due to private circumstances, I won’t be there that early, so I will have to miss the Chumash opening ceremony. But I don’t want to miss Dr. Harvey, who starts at 9:30. About 200 people are expected, nice!

I had a chance to talk with Chairperson Dr. Rosemarie White, who organized this whole shebang, today, and she said that Dr. Harvey came into town yesterday, and gave her a preview of his latest global warming news:

I warn you, the message is not good.

(cue scary music.) She told him:

That’s okay, the city needs to be slapped into attention. This is our destiny.

How can you resist a production like this? See you tomorrow.

Sponsors are:

The Sierra Club, Endangered Species and Wildlife Committiee
The Humane Society of the United States
The Recreation and Parks Department, City of Los Angeles
The Canada Goose Project / Migration Foundation
Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge

Do you feel a little bit skeevy this week, having spent way too much time analyzing Dancing with the Stars, and worrying if there is any money left in the market for ME from the market collapse, or wondering how many more Sarah Palin - moose cartoons will pop up this week - and my sympathy is with the mooses? Or is this just me? ;)  If this is you, do something good this weekend.

I’ve written before about the proposal to designate all of Griffith Park a City Historic-Cultural Monument. Who would actually OBJECT to such a proposal, to protect our park? Duh. I’ll give you one try: 2 1/2 words.

If you guessed Tom La Bonge, you’re right! It’s really Councilman Tom LaBonge. (I disagree with much of his actions, but I respect his position.) But the strangeness continues, because apparently the Cultural Heritage Commissioners just don’t bother to SHOW UP when there is an important resolution like this. I guess they get a little anxious when there’s confrontation. Especially from a Councilman. And if not enough of them show up, no meeting. So the next meeting is October 30, and everyone is invited, costumed or un.

George Grace, who organized the badly needed only animal website about Griffith Park (besides this blog!), has put together an online petition for you to express yourself and tell the city you want the park protected.  We only have 53 people signed up so far, and we’re trying for at least 1000. It’s short and sweet, so do it.

Great historic photo of Griffith Park from the 1930s. By permission of Chuck and Bernadette Soter.

EXCLUSIVE REPORT: Inside Silver Lake!!

The Silver Lake monster reported in the fifties(?) turned out to be…not so much, so let’s hope this works out as smoothly.

As I investigated the composition of the Silver Lake walkway, on the east side of Silver Lake (finding out in the process that instead of soft dirt, it’s dangerous granite) I had several conversations with the LA Bureau of Engineering. Eventually this led to an invitation from the BOE project manager, Michael Haddadin,  to examine the new walkway going in Silver Lake right now. (And this is their opportunity to make the new walkway healthy, instead of rock.)

This is as close as I’ve ever gotten to the Silver Lake water. It’s about as exciting as a bathtub, but it’s still a treat to stand at the edge of a big body of water. Refreshing to look at, too!

Getting in was a  struggle. I’ve never been inside the Silver Lake gates, nor have most people, and there’s a good reason: this is protected drinking water for several hundred thousand people in Los Angeles. The two BOE men were with me at all times. (Nor will I go into the fact that the biggest danger inside Silver Lake is one they put in there themselves, the black bird balls, which are just plastic, and have never been tested for heat, cold, nor for any length of time beyond 17 days! No, I won’t go into all of that again, because, you know, I hate to repeat myself.)

Two stands of juniper trees. Yes, they look like bushes, but they are really very low-lying trees, part of the cypress family. These have probably been there for 100 years, since Silver Lake was built. They are extremely drought-tolerant.

So Michael Haddadin came to the guard gate to pick me up in his big bouncy truck, and immediately two LADWP guards got mad and started shouting. Apparently they were supposed to have some kind of advance notice about visitors, but he kept saying he was responsible for me, and they got even madder, and moved to stop me, and to block the truck. He started to wave frantically at me, and opened the truck door. I had to run and jump in!

The stand of junipers on the right that makes Tom LaBonge anxious. Apparently the other trees have already been vetted.

      Keep Reading »

I was thinking maybe this is true everywhere. But now I don’t think so.

Back east they have to predict snow, rain, hurricanes, thunderstorms, and big extremes in temperature.  That’s a lot to know. But we could read the weather, too..like if the leaves turned inside out, big rainstorm coming. The smell of snow. Like that. And if the weather forecast said snow, we usually got it. And if they said it was over a few inches, we did get snow days off from school! If they said rain, you better be prepared, or get a really big soaking.

We don’t have any of that, unfortunately. Same old, same old. From the weather maps, it looks like SoCal gets weather only from the North/ocean and East/desert. We ignore Mexico. Shouldn’t it be  easier to make predictions when the weather is always the same?? Apparently not.

And the errors usually all go in one direction: the weather people predict cool, and it stays hot. They all predicted a really nice cool week, and I was really looking forward to that. Instead, it’s a scorching depressing 98 degrees.

They now predict it will drop 25 degrees in the next 5 days. Get ready to crank up the air conditioning.