Dateline>City of Angels

A shrouded figure keeps its mournful, graveside vigil at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery. Countless old monuments like this lend the historic boneyard an “authentic” atmosphere that you won’t find in our modern commercialized cemeteries.

Los Angeles’ first “fully integrated” graveyard, Angelus Rosedale dates to the 1880s and is the final resting place of many of the city’s most notable (and notorious) characters. Each year, the West Adams Heritage Association resurrects the past with its popular Living History Tour in which costumed actors portray the dead as they were in life. This year’s event is set for Saturday, Sept. 29.

Angeleno sightseers rejoice! Below you’ll find two more posts on the city’s heritage. The first, Fr. Crespi’s Beautiful Storm Drain, is a brand-new one dedicated to our mighty flood control channel, aka the “Los Angeles River.” The second, At Least You’ll Die Laughing, is another favorite from my former Website that recalls one of L.A.’s first (but now long-gone) movie studios…

This month in 1769 a small but intrepid band of Spanish explorers encamped in the L.A. basin near present-day Elysian Park. Led by Gaspar Portola and accompanied by Padre Juan Crespi, the contingent was charged with surveying the vast California wilderness between Mission San Diego and Monterey Bay. Their long trek met with many discoveries, but few apparently as enchanting as this one. Fr. Crespi’s journal reads:

“[W]e entered a very spacious valley, well grown with cottonwoods and alders, among which ran a beautiful river….which we named Porciuncula.”

Just a few days prior, the group had celebrated the Catholic feast of St. Francis Assisi’s Porciuncula, or “Little Portion,” an Italian chapel consecrated to Mary, Queen of Angels. Following custom, they named the river after the feast. And though he felt the jolts of three earthquakes during his stopover, Crespi effused that the locale offered a pleasant climate and “all the requisites for a large settlement.” Read more

It’s not the safest landmark to visit, but this lonely obelisk recalls a significant milestone in movie-making history. Here in Echo Park, along the 1700-1800 blocks of Glendale Blvd., once stood the five-acre Keystone Pictures Studio of Mack Sennett, silent filmdom’s King of Comedy.

Before the rise of Hollywood, the Echo Park/Silverlake area (then called Edendale) was the epicenter of the fledgling Los Angeles film industry. Focusing his vaudeville experience on the new medium, Sennett founded the studios with backing from Adam Kessel and Charles Bauman in 1912. He then churned out a steady stream of comedy shorts, entertaining movie-goers via the slapstick antics of the Keystone Kops, Fatty Arbuckle, Marie Dressler and eventually that “little tramp” Charlie Chaplin. The studio also launched the legendary careers of Gloria Swanson, Mabel Normand and Ben Turpin. Read more

Q: What d’ya do when you don’t have time (or can’t think of anything truly original) to post on your blog?

A: Write about all the fun tidbits to be found on other local blogs, of course. Let’s check in, shall we? Read more

The big buzz this side of town is the huge pot farm authorities busted this week in the Verdugo Hills. Ironically, the field of approximately 5,000 marijuana plants (worth an estimated $10 million) was sighted by a helicopter crew performing a routine fire patrol. Checking for potential hotspots, they noticed an unusually lush green patch amid the extremely dry chapparel dotting the hillsides.

And just how did the yet unidentified growers keep their weedlings so drought-tolerant? Apparently by heeding the advice of water-conservation experts and installing an elaborate drip-irrigation system.

Being the PR flack that I am, I can envision Metropolitan water officials crafting a whole new campaign around these guys — provided, of course, authorities eventually catch them. Just picture how it could perk up those otherwise boring television PSAs in which average citizens brag about their responsible water use:

“If a simple, cost-effective drip system can keep our Chronic healthy and happy, imagine how green-friendly it can make your backyard or hillside.”

There’s only one hitch. In assembling their system, the tokers tapped into a water tower housing a 10,000-gallon emergency reserve for fire-fighting. And drained it half dry.

Too bad. The orange jump suits would’ve made a nice visual.

Yep, folks, I’m bilingual too. And while the paucity of postings since August 2 might indicate I’ve been vacationing along the Mexican Riviera, unfortunately that isn’t the case. (How I wish it were…)

The days surrounding the 15th of each month are always what I affectionately refer to as Hell Week. That’s when the trade publication I oversee as editor (aka, my Day Job) ships to press. Putting the magazine to bed pretty much sucks up all my attention, leaving me little time for getting out and about, let alone blogging. However, this last week I did manage to carve out enough time for two extracurricular pursuits.
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Lock up your kids, pets, and (if you live in Echo Park) your roosters, hens and goats, too. Word around the local blogosphere is there’s a mountain lion loose in the vicinity of Silver Lake/Edendale. Since big cats like this aren’t native to these parts, the obvious question is how he got here. Jenny Burman offers some possible explanations at Chicken Corner.

Meanwhile, until he’s caught, I’ll be wondering: If your tabby will come running at the sound of an electric can opener, what might signal meal time to a mountain lion? An automated garage door opening?