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Every once in a while you just have to get out of town. I like two-lane country highways and winding narrow roads.
Fire
season started early this year. That is the first fire in the Hollywood
Hills, just above Warner Brothers studio lot. There was another, bigger
one a few day later that threatened the Observatory for a while, but
it all worked out at the end. Non-locals don't quite understand
that fires, mudslides and earth quakes are the local version of the
weather.
The
cliche of this town is the wannabe actor, and I did spend on afternoon
listening to unconvincing renditions of Fredo's "I'm not stupid,
I'm smart..." speech coming from a neighboring apartment, but
more than anything, it seems - and sounds - that everyone and their
dogs believe themselves to be budding musicians ripe for discovery.
People living in apartment building should not play drums. It's just
bad manners. One of my neighbors got one of those computer applications
that allow the instrumentally challenged to imagine themselves to
be musicians. He has spent the last two years rearranging canned sound
effects. At first he sounded like he was trying to send a message
to the mother ship, then it got progressively worse.
While
not a sight for vegetarians, it's nice to know that the world is not
completely homogenous yet and the old world still exist. Unfortunately
the price tags speak of scary inflation.
Five
star hotels look the same all over the world. Cheap motels have much more personality. I still remember that amazingly bad painting that i saw during a stopover somewhere
in Nevada, or possibly Utah: black plastic, sort of 3D painting of
a pirate ship at sunset, with gold highlights. More memorable than
the crispy white sheets of the Shangri-La in Beijing.
I
like to travel, I just don't like being away from home.
Let
us mark your grave,
And
the time you'll take
To
get there.
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10/19/07
Urban Landscape
Finally gentrification has crept into The
Valley, hit North Hollywood and started spreading. The
whole neighborhood is a curious mixture of dilapidated old commercial
buildings, furious new development, graffiti, and out of whack real
estate prices.
Links
of Interest:
Photographs
of Protests
Flora
Fauna Fortuna
Scientific
Dog Doodle
Porto's Bakery is a singularly superb Cuban bakery that aside from a large and mouth watering selection of pastries and cakes also serves breakfast and lunch menu and most of all the best sourdough bread in town.
Sam
Woo's - couple of ducks and half a roasted pig hanging in the window.
Fuzzy Devil
Combine with ice in a martini shaker and shake.
Photos
from the old country. I wish I could go back for a year and just photograph.
Crap
television knows no borders. Sitting in the right spot in Europe you
can catch the same dimwitted game show in half a dozen different languages.
Movigrump's
Guide to Zen - Sort of a movie recommendations page. It
is subjective, unscientific, unqualified and likely to contain snide
remarks of your favorite flicks. Still heavily under construction
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