Dateline>City of Angels

This week’s pick for most interesting, offbeat and/or entertaining web video sharing themes with this blog…

Searching: YouTube!
Keywords: “Los Angeles + Landmarks”

The Result: How times have changed! Modern downtowners fret about hailing a cab to get from place to place. Nineteenth century Angelenos had to hoof it in every sense of the phrase, as evidenced in the above 28-second clip captured by Edison’s newly invented Kinetoscope.

The Backstory…

During the 1880s and 1890s, L.A.’s population swelled rapidly to more than 50,000, severely taxing its cowtown-era infrastructure. In his online book, Letters From the People, former history professor Ralph E. Shaffer describes the hue and cry over downtown shabbiness routinely found in the city’s editorial pages during this period:

“Throughout the 1880s letter writers, many of them acknowledging that they were recent arrivals in the city, decried traffic congestion, unpaved streets, roadways blocked by piles of building supplies, inadequate street lighting, the lack of sidewalks or of clutter on those that did exist, the need for bridges across the river and for roads to neighboring cities.”

Shaffer adds that these “intolerable” conditions continued well into the early 1900s, with frequent accidents involving horses, trains and streetcars.

Hmmm. On second thought, maybe times haven’t changed all that much.

Talk about art imitating life! When Echo Park’s famous lotus flowers mysteriously vanished from the lake this year, a local photographer came up with a quaint solution: replace them with pictures. Which also promptly began (gasp!) disappearing. Honestly, neighbors, what did you think would happen?

And in Other News…

… I may have been too hasty recently in branding East Coast transplants as a bunch of whiners. Here’s one who actually has found good things to say about his newly adopted City of Angels.

… Meanwhile, the OC’s Coast magazine has been caught red-handed mimicking (perhaps parodying?) an Easterner publication. Did Coast’s editors think New York is so far away that such blatant copy-catting would go unnoticed?

… Don’t you just love celebrities continually reinforcing La La Land stereotypes? This time it’s Anne Hathaway, star of the new Get Smart movie, placing herself into the gentle, guiding hands of a “psychic masseuse.” Still, she insists she’s just your typical girl next door in every other way.

… I can’t stand Starbucks coffee. And I especially can’t stomach the chain’s snooty baristas who inevitably respond to requests for a simple “small coffee” with a smug, “We don’t have small, medium or large. We have tall, vente and grande.” Apparently I’m not not alone in my disdain. Turns out a whole lot of people are expressing glee in the company’s brewing financial woes.

… Looking for unusual summer vacation destinations that save on gas? Consider Nevada, where you can take advantage of this rather novel pump promotion, courtesy the Shady Lady Ranch, which is offering $50 toward your next fill-up.

… Of course, many are opting to stay at home, fix up the garden, and maybe even add that new deck they’ve been contemplating for summer entertaining. Not a bad idea, as long as you don’t wake the dead…

This week’s most interesting, offbeat and/or entertaining web video sharing themes with this blog…

Search: YouTube!
Keywords: “California Missions”

The Result: This time I thought we’d go beyond city limits in search of something with statewide recognition — and few historical sites are more synonymous with the Californian landscape than its chain of 21 missions. While sifting through dozens of the usual YouTube visual tours, I discovered this… A kid obviously very proud of his class Mission Project.

If you’re a California native like me, chances are you also had to build a clay or sugar-cube model like this in grammar school. So let’s all take a trip together down memory lane and admire the effort this little guy put into his assignment…

For this week’s most interesting, offbeat and/or entertaining web video sharing themes with this blog, I thought I’d Google up a little more background on the William S. Hart Regional Park to accompany the previous post…

Source: YouTube!
Search Criteria: “William S. Hart”

The Result: How can we ever resist a video by Huell Howser, the PBS host enjoying what has to be television’s greatest job? Imagine wandering here, there and everywhere armed only with curiosity, a microphone and a folksy drawl — and getting paid for it, to boot! Anyone else’s simplistic interview style and repetitive banter would probably insult our intelligence, but somehow Howser manages to pull it off, continually fascinating us with each new place he visits.

Honorable Mention: For another interesting perspective, after catching Howser’s visit to the park, see how a student project tackled the same topic.

And now for this week’s choice for the most interesting, offbeat and/or entertaining web video sharing key themes with this blog…

Yesterday Dateline>City of Angels explored the forgotten history of Griffith Park’s Crystal Springs adobe, along with its possible link to the legendary Feliz Curse. I also took the opportunity to announce I’m writing a book on the curse. Today, on a lark, I decided to search for any related web videos on the topic.

Source: YouTube!
Search Criteria: “Griffith Park + Curse”

The Result: A trailer for a cheesy (so say the reviewers) 2007 horror flick based on the “true story” of the Feliz Curse. If you’re squeamish or easily offended by cinematic blood, gore and bad acting, you may want to skip this clip…

The Backstory

Created by Julian Higgins, son of rocker Bertie, and recently released in the U.S., The Wrath takes some curious creative license with the already fanciful tale, adding a lost treasure and a vengeful beast who dines on trespassers. The film’s plot and other details can be viewed here. Especially brave souls can order/download the full movie from Amazon. Finally, there’s also this Inmag interview, in which Bertie Higgins discloses:

“Julian and I did a short film in L.A.’s Griffith Park in early 2005 and we became very interested in the history of the park. After a great deal of research, we discovered the back story about the haunting of the old Feliz estate (which is now Griffith Park) and the screenplay began to take shape. We felt that the story was very compelling and that it had to be told.”

No offense to the two, but considering how the film seems to mostly parrot the popular urban legend, you have to wonder what passes for “a great deal of research” in Hollywood these days. The Tale of the Feliz Curse is indeed compelling, but the real story behind the myth is even more so. Too bad the research team didn’t dig a little deeper.

This week’s choice for the most interesting, offbeat and/or entertaining web video sharing key words or themes with this blog…

Source: YouTube!

Search Criteria: “Los Angeles + Haunted”

The Result: A poignant film noir reenactment of Peg Entwistle’s legendary suicide by writer, director and producer Hope Anderson, creator of the documentary Under the Hollywood Sign. Unfortunately, the video embed is disabled for this clip, so I can’t show it here. To view it, you’ll have to click over to this link.

The Backstory…

For many, the Hollywood sign spells fame, but for Peg Entwistle, it became the ultimate suicide note. Erected in 1923 as a real estate gimmick, the sign originally read “Hollywoodland” and was fitted with thousands of glitzy lights to lure dreamers to the new town…

The seduction worked on Entwistle, a young Broadway actress hit hard by the Depression. Setting her hopes on filmdom, she moved to L.A. and joined her uncle in a small Beachwood Canyon apartment below the sign, whose billboard temptations must have loomed brighter than ever.

But months of auditions went nowhere. Finally, after much struggle, Entwistle landed a bit part in RKO’s Thirteen Women. She called it her big break. Critics called it a bomb. The studio’s calls stopped altogether.

Devastated, Entwistle trekked up the canyon the night of Sept. 18, 1932, scaled the 50-foot “H” and jumped. Legend has it that, ironically, a few days after the star-crossed actress’ body was found, a letter arrived offering her the lead in a picture about a suicidal woman.

Over time, the Hollywoodland sign fell into decay. Eventually, the city lopped off the last four letters and rehabilitated the landmark. Public access has been restricted for years, yet neighbors and city workers say they’ve sometimes spotted a ghostly blonde in 1930s attire wandering its footings, still apparently drawn by the sign’s cruel promise of immortality.

This Week’s Source for the most interesting, offbeat and/or entertaining web video sharing key words or themes with this blog: YouTube!

Search Criteria: Los Angeles + Angel’s Flight.

The Result: A January 2007 KTLA-5 report on the scheduled summer reopening of the historic Angel’s Flight funicular depicted in this blog’s banner, featuring of all people, Star Trek’s George Takei. (Not to be impatient or anything, George, but here we are coming up on Summer 2008, and still no 25-cent ride up Bunker Hill in sight.)

Some Added History… Read more

Welcome again to Friday Flix, Dateline>City of Angel’s weekly feature showcasing my pick for the most interesting, offbeat and/or entertaining web videos sharing key words or themes with this blog. (Sure, you could sift through the vast online wasteland yourself, but why bother when I’m more than happy to do it for you?)

This Week’s Search: YouTube! Keywords: Los Angeles + History

The Result: An incredible exploration of the mythic stature that Hollywood has bestowed on numerous Southern California landmarks, created and posted a year ago by Blair Erickson. Inspired by a California Geography class, Erickson and company managed to create a video so compelling that it even caught the attention of CNN. Whether or not you’re seeing it for the first time, I’m sure you’ll agree the flick is still as captivating today as it was in April 2007. Roll ‘em!

Google up web videos with the keyword Los Angeles and what do you get? Mostly a lot of junk. But search hard enough and you’ll also find a few gems. Welcome to Dateline>City of Angel’s new Friday Flix feature, where I offer my picks for some of the most interesting (or unusual) web videos referencing key words or themes shared with this blog.

This week: A well-produced historical-cultural tour of Echo Park by the Echo Park Film Center entitled Echo Park Then and Now — an especially fitting debut clip for Friday Flix, since Echo Park happens to be my hood. Roll ‘em!

Starting tonight, this blog may be inactive for a day or two. It’s come under a nasty spybot attack, which may require drastic measures to repel.

Yesterday I decided to make a few minor changes to my WordPress templates, which power this blog. While hacking my way around the code, I discovered someone else has apparently been busy doing the same. The evidence was there for all to see in my footer template… Hundreds of URL referrals to porn and pharmaceutical sites.

Well, actually, it wasn’t there for all to see. The hackers were clever enough to make sure the code included a command to keep their vile handiwork invisible. Visitors to this blog are safe. It’s not a virus that can be passed around. Apparently these parasites are attempting to increase their page ranking in Google by making it appear my site (among others) is linking to them.

So, as I say, for the next day or so I’ll be updating my WordPress infrastructure and beefing up security. There’s a risk involved. From what I understand, other bloggers who have updated or installed the necessary patches have crashed their sites. Hopefully, I won’t suffer the same fate. But in case I do, keep checking back. Even if it means starting from scratch, I’ll be back. Sooner rather than later.

Poking around the web late last night, I stumbled on a brief but fascinating video by Tony Biasotti commemorating the infamous St. Francis Dam Disaster.

For those unfamiliar with the history, back in 1926, William Mulholland completed the dam to help ensure a steady water flow for a fledgling but rapidly growing Los Angeles. Townspeople celebrated it as an engineering triumph. Ranchers downstream in San Francisquito Canyon, however, weren’t so impressed. They nicknamed it the Giant Tombstone.

They didn’t know how prophetic they were… Read more

Welcome to Monday Melange, a new (hopefully) weekly feature where I survey the L.A. blogosphere as well as greater cyberspace to bring you my recommendation(s) for a fun pick-me-up to make the first day of the work week a little less miserable.

This week’s pick? Paul Davidson at Words for My Enjoyment takes clever revenge on the telemarketers who regularly call his home. Apparently gifted with a very quick wit, Davidson turns the tables on clueless marketing agents representing AT&T and other corporate entities by adopting foreign accents, multiple personalities and other comedic devices to get them to hang on the line, chat nonsensically, re-explain promotional offers, and even re-read trivial legal disclaimers over and over again.

At a certain point you almost feel sorry for Davidson’s victims as they become hopelessly mired in the quicksand. (It goes to show just how desperate they are to earn their commissions.) The full collection of Davidson’s podcasts can be found here.

What’s in a name? Well, here in Los Angeles there’s a longstanding feud among locals over the most historically (versus politically) correct way to refer to ourselves. Are we Angelenos with an “e” or Angelinos with an “i”? As Jenny Burman points out in her Chicken Corner blog, the ultimate answer might be contained in the history surrounding Angeleno Heights, the city’s second oldest neighborhood-district.

While researching some local urban legends this morning, I accidentally stumbled across an interesting blog entitled California Folklife. Written by California native Stephen Higa, the blog is an extension of a “regional folklore night” he developed as a grad student in Rhode Island. While he only posts sporadically, what he has written is all at once entertaining and thought-provoking. Well worth checking out.

Higa’s stated purpose is to promote an appreciation of the “rich cultural heritage of the Far West.” When he introduced the blog back in July, he invited readers to share articles, songs, photos and “anything that somehow documents the grassroots culture of greater California, past and present.” No sign that anyone’s taken him up on the offer, so maybe Dateline>City of Angels readers can lend this kindred spirit a hand. I’ve added his site to my blogroll under The Great Beyond header.

L.A.’s love affair with the automobile has left a special mark on the Southland: a massive tangle of streets bearing iconic names. Some are wistfully romantic-sounding, others obviously named for historic figures or events. But more often than not for us modern-day commuters, the monikers are merely puzzling signposts to a forgotten past.

If you’ve ever wondered about the history behind your neighborhood route, click on over to KPCC’s Street Stories Blog. I ran across the site entirely by accident the other day and found myself quickly engulfed. KPCC Radio (89.3 FM) reporter Kitty Felde has amassed quite a collection of quirky tidbits about SoCal’s many roadways — a collection that continues to grow.

History buffs will especially appreciate reading/listening to the “When the Streets Had No Names” and “Long and Winding Roads” features at the top of the page. Plus, you can even suggest your own avenues for investigation via the blog’s comment section. Consider it a pleasant drive down Memory Lane.