Dateline>City of Angels

Militant Angeleno “sort of” covers this weekend’s Sunset Junction Street Fair, an event your humble blogger also stopped going to about two years ago.

There’s little I can add to the Militant’s post — his observations are dead-on. Sunset Junction used to be a fun event with an edge: An unpretentious celebration in which rag-tag bohemians, resident gang bangers, hardcore leather daddies and other diverse locals all mingled joyously and harmoniously in the dog days of summer. A true neighborhood experience, admission was free and the food, beers and booth trinkets were cheap.

Nowadays, most daddies you spot are the stroller-pushing Silver Lake Dad variety, while the “bohemians” are all hipster wannabes. (Oh for those good ol’ days….)

L.A. Metblogger Jason Burns has the perfect recommendation for the new downtown streetcars proposed by the Bringing Back Broadway initiative: Make them vintage, à la San Francisco’s famous trolleys and cable cars.

Burns makes an eloquent case for such vehicles in his full post, a snippet of which reads:

While the very notion of a new streetcar line in Downtown Los Angeles should excite all of us, L.A. would be missing a monumental opportunity by installing a modern streetcar line that pays no homage to our fair city’s past.

Here, here! This idea is one downtown initiative that Dateline>City of Angels can really get behind — as long as the underlying mechanicals are up to date. We wouldn’t want the trolley line doing to tourists what  Sinai and Olivet did in 2001.

They say turnabout is fair play…

Having argued for years that their company has legally appropriated characters in the public domain for its cartoons (i.e., Bambi and Peter Pan), Disney officials may soon be in the uncomfortable position of fending off challenges to their own copyright on none other than The Mouse himself.

According to an extensive article in today’s L.A. Times Business Section, legal technicalities surrounding the earliest “Steamboat Willie” renditions of Mickey (pictured above) may have inadvertently left the trademark rodent in the public domain.

But first, a legal disclaimer of my own: Before anyone accuses this blog of copyright infringement, please note that low-res images reproduced for the purpose of non-commercial commentary on a work are commonly considered fair use under U.S. law. Moreover, for now at least, Steamboat Mickey remains the property of Disney and may not be reproduced from this site for any other purpose. (There. You are warned.)

Even so, if legal experts are correct, Dateline>City of Angels and other would-be copyright violators may have nothing to worry about.

“That ‘Steamboat Willie’ is in the public domain is easy. That’s a foregone conclusion,” says copyright scholar Peter Jaszi in the Times piece, which adds:

The issue has been chewed over by law students as class projects and debated by professors. It produced one little-noticed law review article: a 23-page essay in a 2003 University of Virginia legal journal that argued “there are no grounds in copyright law for protecting” the Mickey of those early films.

The essay apparently sent Disney suits into a tizzy, and their blustery reaction makes for comical reading in the full article.

Birthplace of the Controversy?

Meanwhile, while the lawyers and scholars duke it out, your humble blogger went in search of a “neighborhood angle” to the story — and found it in L.A.’s nearby Franklin Hills district.

Call it the House the Mouse Built. In fact, the home pictured at left could very well be the birthplace of the newly contentious cartoon character.

About 1925, as Uncle Walt was preparing to open his first studio along Hyperion Ave., he purchased two lots at the corner of Lyric and St. George, within walking distance of his new enterprise. The following year, he completed the construction of two $8,000 houses, one for him and wife Lillian, and the second for brother Roy. Although Mickey made his celebrated debut in 1928, film historians say the Disney brothers had been at work on the character as early as 1925, with Walt possibly tinkering on preliminary sketches in his garage studio.

Back then, he called his would-be star Mortimer, but when he shared his creation with Lillian, she suggested the name Mickey instead. Disney made the change and released two animated shorts starring the mouse in 1928, neither of which was picked up by distributors. Undeterred, Walt took another stab that year with “Steamboat Willie,” the first animated cartoon to synchronize sound and action, performing the voices of Mickey and Minnie himself. This time the magic clicked, propelling Mickey and his creator to fame and fortune.

Four years later, Walt and Lillian moved out of their Lyric Ave. home, presumably for a fancier private domain.

As this past weekend has again reminded us, fires have long been the scourge of Griffith Park. Devastating as the 2007-2008 fire seasons have been, however, the worst disaster in the park’s history remains the Great Fire of 1933, seen in this vintage AP photo sent by a Dateline>City of Angels reader.

Like the recent spate of burnings, arson was the suspected cause of the firestorm that erupted almost 75 years ago, with several witnesses saying they had seen a suspicious man running from a rapidly rising column of smoke at the blaze’s flashpoint.

The original Associated Press wire caption to this Oct. 5, 1933, photo reads as follows…

“Twenty Seven Known Dead in Brush Fire: A front line scene of fire fighters building breaks to stop the raging brush and timber fire in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, October 3. Twenty-seven persons were known to have lost their lives, and officials expected the death list to mount higher.”

Remembering the Tragedy

The official death toll did indeed rise to 29, but during the aftermath inquests some citizen groups challenged those figures, arguing that the number killed was almost certainly higher.

Being the Depression Era, there were more than 3,000 men in the park clearing brush and maintaining trails as part of a workfare program when the fire broke out. As the flames spread, the workers were pressed into service to battle them. Inexperienced in fire fighting, their foremen often barked conflicting and dangerous orders, and many found themselves trapped in canyons by wind-swept flames that suddenly turned on them. Assessing the missing, injured and dead took days.

To honor the victims, a memorial cedar tree and bronze plaque were erected Nov. 23, 1933, near the park’s Vermont entrance. That plaque has since disappeared.

Next time you see two Jeeps approaching each other in traffic, be on the lookout for their drivers flashing the Jeeper gang sign.

Known as the Jeep Wave, it’s a common greeting among Jeep owners, usually reminiscent of the Victory symbol from War War II. This, of course, makes sense because the vehicle’s roots can be traced to that conflict. During the 1950s, soldiers returning stateside bought up surplus models to explore our open country as recreation, spawning the off-road craze. It’s not hard to imagine that the Jeep Wave was exchanged way back then.

Since getting my Wrangler, I’ve been totally oblivious to this custom. Occasionally, I’d catch other Jeepers flashing a sign and a nod, but thought they were just being oddly polite.

The past few months, however, as I’ve begun to customize my vehicle beyond stock, I’ve noticed the waves increasing. Lo and behold I come to learn that there’s actually a protocol at work here. The more badass the Jeep, the greater the onus on “lower rankers” to initiate the countersign. When unsure of another Jeep’s stature, the official rule is “When in Doubt, Whip it Out.” (Incidentally, whipping it out at Hummers is a big no-no.) Apparently, my recent mods have made my Jeep more worthy of salute. I’m so proud.

And also embarrassed: For the last year or so I’ve been totally snubbing my Jeeping counterparts, and perhaps contributing to the Jeep Wave’s slow demise. You’d think as the former editor of an off-roading magazine, I’d know better.

Fellow Jeepers, forgive me. I promise to show better manners from here on in.

Posters and fliers in search of lost pets are a common sight in any neighborhood, but this is the first time I’ve seen a fullsize billboard.

This one overlooks the corner of Sunset and Alvarado in Echo Park and seeks the return of Hedkayce, a 10-pound mixed breed who vanished from her front yard in the Hathaway Hills near Silver Lake.

Not only am I guessing she was stolen, but I can identify with the desperation her family must be feeling right now.

When I first moved here about three years ago, my two Dobies escaped from the new house while I was out to dinner. (Strong Santa Ana winds were blowing that evening, and the door latch was apparently faulty.) Unfortunately, I’d given them both baths earlier that day and hadn’t put their collars or tags back on either of them.

It’s bad enough knowing your dogs are loose without ID. Worse is realizing no one is likely to take in two scary-looking Doberman strays until the owner comes looking for them. For 45 minutes I searched as night fell, convinced I’d never see them again. I probably would’ve splurged on a billboard too, if it had come to that.

Thankfully they were found several blocks away, exhausted from exploring their new neighborhood, but otherwise safe and sound.

I sincerely hope Hedkayce makes it home in similar fashion. She’s obviously very much loved and missed.

Believe it or not, right now, the “hottest” spot in Southern California is someplace outside Fillmore in Ventura County, but unless you’re a thermogeologist, it’s probably no place you’d want to visit.

Experts are reportedly still baffled over the “thermal anomaly” that caused ground temperatures on a small patch of terrain to soar to more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit, sparking a three-acre brush fire. Even now, several weeks after the incident, temperatures remain high enough to melt the rubber off the sneakers of anyone who tries to get too close.

Whatever the cause, it seems we can rule out space aliens, the CIA, Bigfoot, global warming and all the other usual suspects behind weird natural phenomena. The leading theory is that some type of hydrocarbon caught fire deep below the surface and is seeping up through fissures in the earth.

Just the usual housekeeping note to advise readers that posts here will remain sporadic as I focus on a looming deadline for the automotive trade magazine, Styling and Performance.

The article, due this week, is on the emerging Chinese automotive market and the opportunities to be found there for American makers of aftermarket parts. It’s a business piece, but my research into the topic may actually be interesting for general readers as well — especially if you’re a car buff.

For years American manufacturers have been outsourcing to China. Many have kept their overseas operations on the QT, however. Hardcore car enthusiasts tend to be true “red, white and blue” buyers, and recent media reports about shoddy and even unsafe Chinese products have only helped to reinforce their “Made in America” buying habits. (The truth, though, is a surprising percentage of aftermarket styling and performance components are sourced from China, with American companies enforcing rigorous quality and assurance standards.)

Nevertheless, for about a decade there has been a trade imbalance with China. They’ve sold parts and knock-offs into our marketplace, while we’ve scarcely penetrated theirs.

All that’s about to change. With its emerging middle class, China’s automotive industry is exploding. And with automobile ownership comes a natural desire for customization and enhanced performance. Given their expertise in these areas, American manufacturers are ideally poised to deliver such goods to the Chinese. Interestingly, Peter MacGillivray, vice president of events and communications for the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), predicts that makers of off-roading accessories will be among the first to prosper.

Turns out that, similar to Americans in the 1940-1950s, China’s growing middle class is developing quite a yearning to tour the countryside from the seats of their autos. (Think “See the USA From Your Chevrolet,” but in China.) Outside the major cities, China’s underdeveloped highway structure makes off-road-capable vehicles the perfect choice for sightseeing and outdoor recreation.

Yes, folks, this is some of the stuff I write about when I’m not blogging here. As you can see, one of the great things about being a freelance writer is all the fascinating things you learn with each new assignment.

If this past week’s 5.4 Chino Hills quake rattled your nerves, you’d best brace yourself for The Big One that experts say has a better than 99 percent chance of striking California by 2038. To help prepare you, here’s an 8-minute excerpt from a PBS documentary focusing on the San Andreas Fault and highlighting a few of the real shakers from our past.

I feel soooo left out. I missed Tuesday’s “big” seismic event.

No, I wasn’t out of town, but rather on the road with the Daring Doberman Duo in my Jeep, which is seldom a smooth ride to begin with. Thanks to all the shakes, rattles and wind noises of open-top driving, I and the dogs remained blissfully ignorant of any earth moving under our wheels.

Not that there weren’t clues. Cruising along Riverside Drive I passed a few businesses where people were rushing out the doors with weird looks on their faces and wondered what the commotion was.

Then the radio began blaring the news of a 5.8 quake centered in the Chino Hills. (Later downgraded to a 5.4.) I rushed home to check the house, but not a knick-knack was disturbed.

Damn, I thought. Another missed blogging opportunity. After all, who could possibly care about a relatively minor quake and/or my non-experience of it? Certainly nothing to write home (or blog) about.

Shows how much I know.

This morning my writer pal from Atlanta contacted me asking if I was OK. She’d called yesterday, but the lines were jammed, leaving her a little concerned.

I had to explain that the switchboards always get tied up after light quakes if only because the first thing we Angelenos do is call everyone we know and ask, “Did you feel it?”

“No damage, nothing toppled,” I reported, joking that “while a 5.4 may seem big, here in L.A., it’s just a minor annoyance. We don’t usually start panicking until they hit a least a 6.0 on the Richter Scale.”

“I think it’s kinda funny that a 5-something doesn’t hardly rate in L.A.,” she replied. “I experienced a minor quake while visiting L.A. back in 1989 or ‘90 and I didn’t like it one bit.” Plus, she added, images from the temblor were still all over the news.

I rushed to the TV to survey the cable-news channels. Sure enough, a full day later, our little jolt was still the talk of the Global Village.

Hardly a Shocker by Comparison…

I have to admit to some surprise. California has seen more than its share of powerful temblors: Northridge in 1994 (6.7), Loma Prieta in 1989 (6.9), Whittier Narrows in 1987 (5.9), and the 1971 Sylmar Quake (6.6), for starters. Of course, the one that really made history was San Francisco’s Great Earthquake of 1906 (photo, left). A whopping 8.25 on the Richter Scale, the quake and subsequent fires left as many as 700 dead and 250,000 homeless. And before that, in 1812, a series of Southern California quakes (one reaching 7.1 in magnitude) devastated a number of California missions, and (according to legend) caused a small tsunami in the Ventura-Santa Barbara region.

Those are what I’d call BIG quakes. By comparison, yesterday’s officially “moderate quake” hardly rated. Was it really worth this much media attention?

And that’s when it dawned on me how complacent I’ve become. In many parts of the world, where structures are substandard, a 5.4 would be a big deal, killing hundreds. Here, it’s just fodder for meaningless water cooler banter. Most of us will laugh about the odd places we were when it hit, what we did or didn’t feel, the embarrassing reactions we had, and then forget the whole thing in a few days. Briefly shaken, but not the least bit stirred, we’ll put off quake preparation for another weekend, another month, another year.

We natives can always spot the transplants during mild tremors. They’re the ones whose faces still register shock long after the seismographs return to normal. But this is one area where we may want to take a cue from the newbies and stand in awe of Mother Nature: She sent us a playful wake-up call yesterday. We all know she’s got The Big One brewing on the back burner.

When she finally serves it up, I doubt any of us will find ourselves blithely cruising through it feeling left out.

They say you never really appreciate what you have until it’s gone.

Moving into the neighborhood three years ago, I was at first mildly intrigued by this old shell of a gas station along Echo Park Avenue (left).

Over time, I came to view it as just another languishing eyesore and wondered when gentrification would finally rid us of its ugliness.

Only now that it’s “finally” being torn down (below) have I learned that it actually boasts a unique claim to fame: On this spot in 1956, the go-kart phenomenon was born.

According to a former property owner (who still lives and works in the neighborhood), the lot once belonged to Art Ingels, who built his prototype “little car” in a shop behind the station. A 2006 Los Angeles Times article picks up the story from there:

“Ingels invented ‘the little car,’ which he dubbed the Caretta kart, but it was Duffy Livingstone who popularized the ‘go-kart’… According to Livingstone, Ingels told him that lawn mower manufacturer McCullough had recalled many of its lawn mowers because of a patent infringement. ‘So they had piles of engines sitting around for $25 apiece,’ said Livingston, who had the machinery to shape the metal tubing to build a frame. ‘Art put one on this little car. I thought that was right up my alley.’

Livingstone then teamed with other backers to build and promote Ingels’ clever contraptions for racing at the Rose Bowl and other venues. Today it’s estimated that there are more than 125,000 competitive go-kart racers across America and a million worldwide.

The Legacy Lives On

In recent years, a new off-road variant known as the Trophy Kart has also hit the market. Replicas of fullsize dessert-racing trucks, the Trophy Karts have become a popular way of introducing kids to off-road motorsports — so much so that sanctioning bodies like SCORE International have formed a competitive class around them.

And to think that it all began right here at a humble service station just a few blocks from my house.

Nowhere near a busy intersection, this quiet residential corner is among the last places you’d even expect to find a service station. Still, when a 1953 fire burned down the first structure that occupied the lot, the current shack was brought here from Venice as a replacement. It continued to serve the Echo Park community through the 1970s.

Thankfully, while it’s about to say goodbye to Echo Park, the station is by no means disappearing forever. Workers are painstakingly labeling its bits and pieces for reassembly at the San Diego Automotive Museum, where it will be fully restored as part of a historical display.

Now that I’m aware of its past, I’m going to miss the old relic. To me it’s become a reminder that you just never know the history behind even the most mundane of structures in your neighborhood.

Congrats to writing pal and fellow blogger Rebecca J. Lacko, author of the weblog Motherhood, Marriage and Other Wild Rides.

Loathe as most bloggers may be to admit it, blogging is a passion, not a profession. The vast majority of us pound our prose out in relative obscurity. If we’re lucky, we’ll manage to attract a small but loyal following of readers who enjoy our wordsmithing. If we’re really lucky, someone in the traditional media will stumble across us, like what they see, and hand us that elusive Big Break: Exposure to a mass audience.

Well, Rebecca has indeed landed such a golden opportunity in the form of a guest spot on a new CBS TV daytime talk show, The Doctors, to premiere September 2008. According to network officials, the show aims to present viewers “reliable and fascinating medical and health advice, dispensed daily by a distinguished panel of five professionals. Rebecca will appear in a segment focusing on the pros and cons of early potty training.

My single male readers are likely smirking right now. Young mothers, on the other hand, are probably nodding to themselves with knowing approval. Weening a kid off diapers is no easy task — and no small achievement for either a kid or a parent. Not only is successful potty training an important developmental milestone, it’s the cornerstone of polite society. Without it, civilization would come to a screeching halt, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

OK, I exaggerate, but you get the idea. Parenting is important stuff, and if anyone can speak to the joy and fulfillment that comes from doing the “world’s toughest job,” it’s Ms. Lacko.

Rebecca has been a trusted friend and colleague ever since we first worked together in the trenches of Advanstar Communications. I’ve always been impressed with the quality of her parenting essays. She manages to personalize what she writes, balancing research, conviction and humor without appearing dull, preachy or contrived.

So much of what you read in parenting magazines nowadays seems fired by the narcissistic drive to prove oneself a good mommy or daddy. By contrast, Rebecca’s family-oriented pieces celebrate the child and the “little things in life” that make their world truly wonderful, happy and empowering. It was only a matter of time before the media discovered her.

Hopefully, this Big Break will lead many more to discover and enjoy her work as well.

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…

According to Angelenic and other downtown blogs, the denizens at the heart of L.A. are growing restless. They want Hail-a-Cab, and they want it now.

The plan, which would allow taxis to pull over and pick up fares outside of currently specified zones, sounds like a good idea on paper — and downtowners are probably justified in their impatience to see it implemented. Still, I don’t begrudge city leaders for taking their time to fully consider the plan’s longterm effects on safety and congestion.

No matter how much urban boosters may wish for it, L.A. is not like any other city, nor can we merely snap our fingers and make it so. Taxis and public transportation may reign supreme in Chicago, New York, Boston or even San Francisco, but those cities have always been more geographically compact and were never built for and around the automobile as this place was. (Freeways, “Miracle Miles,” big, street-front department store windows and backlot parking malls were, after all, Angeleno innovations.)

Rushing to copy other metropolitan templates isn’t necessarily “farsighted.” Our region’s transit woes call for distinct, imaginative solutions that honor our unique character — not to mention the creativity and “out of the box” thinking that have traditionally demarcated the Angeleno “sense of place.”

That said, I’m not against the plan, except that judging from most of the comments on the local blogosphere, its biggest proponents seem to be: (a) cabbies who stand to make a profit, (b) tourism officials, and (c) transplants who come to L.A. to live its dream and then do nothing but complain about how it’s not the place they escaped from.

The cabbies and visitor bureaus I can get behind. The transplant whining is just getting old.

I’d like to say it was a desire to live to be 100 that drove me to spend more time in the garden, but really it was a nasty case of writer’s block.

After gleefully telling the world I’ve finally entered the drafting stage of my book on the Feliz Curse, I got exactly 3,225 words into the prologue, when the real curse — the dreaded Blank Page Syndrome — suddenly struck.

There’s nothing more common (or more insidious) for a writer than those painful periods when the muses fall silent. Go to any writer’s blog, chat group or forum, and you’ll find us idling for hours on the topic as we commiserate and offer each other tips for restarting our engines, all the while ironically avoiding doing just that.

My surefire solution has always been to force myself to jot a single phrase — any phrase, no matter how nonsensical. Most writers find that once they put something down on paper, they can’t stop tinkering with it, and soon one sentence sparks a second, then a third, and so on. (We’re fairly compulsive that way.)

This time the strategy failed. Hitting a difficult transition in the chapter, I just found myself editing and re-editing the same few pages I’d already spewed out and feeling about as productive as a hamster on a wheel… Read more