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A Halloween Post Mortem

Life in Angel City
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Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. I guess it still is, but I just don’t seem to enjoy it as much nowadays.
The past several years a busy work schedule usually kept me on the road for the holiday. No costume parties, no Day of the Dead processions at Olvera Street, no ghosts, ghouls or [...]

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Back From the Dead

Cryptic L.A.
Halloween Thumb

The pumpkins are carved, the skeletons are hanging from the rafters, dusk has descended, and the witching hour is upon us.
Yes, it’s the Eve of All Hallows, and at long last the resurrection of this blog after its recent crash. Most of the infrastructure has been repaired, so, fittingly, I plan to recommence regular posts [...]

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Forest Lawn, the Ultimate Celebrity Neverland

Cryptic L.A.
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This week it was announced that pop-singer Michael Jackson will be laid to rest at Forest Lawn, Glendale, on what would have been his 51st birthday, Aug. 29.
Dateline>City of Angels can’t think of a more appropriate choice of cemetery, given how for nearly a century Forest Lawn has served as a virtual Neverland for [...]

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Introducing the Cute Little Puppy From Hell

Life in Angel City
Diablo

Allow me to introduce Diablo, the latest addition to our Echo Park household.
While our entire family still very much misses Ramses — and realizes no dog can ever fill the void left by his passing — life must go on. Plus our surviving Dobie Isis desperately needs a companion, having slipped into an obvious funk [...]

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Goodnight and Goodbye, Ramses, My Big Puppy

Life in Angel City
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Your humble blogger hasn’t felt much like blogging lately. This past week our household had to say goodbye to our proud red Doberman, Ramses, roughly a month short of his eighth birthday.
We knew this day was coming. On average, Dobermans live about nine years, making Ramses a senior dog. Yet even in his advancing age, [...]

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Where Were You When the Eagle Landed?

Odds and Ends
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I count myself fortunate to have been a young witness to one of humankind’s proudest achievements. Forty years ago I, like millions the world over, gazed in awe as the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle touched down at Tranquility Base.
A boy of seven, I was gathered with my brothers in our family living room along [...]

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Old News: When Those Freaky Circus People Come to Town

Odds and Ends
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There’s a certain historical irony in this month’s return of Cirque Berzerk (left) to the Los Angeles State Historic Park with a schedule of weekend performances. Over a century ago, L.A.’s City Fathers faced quite a conundrum over how to prevent such big-top hijinks from disturbing the Sunday peace.
Reporting on City Hall’s daily antics, the [...]

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Running With the RC Crowd

Odds and Ends
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Whenever there’s a lull here at the ol’ blog, you can bet I’m pouring all my energy into some paid writing gig. One of the great things about being a writer is the opportunity to learn all sorts of interesting stuff about a variety of subjects and then share those discoveries with readers.
Take for instance [...]

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Tea’d Off in Glendale

Life in Angel City

Joyce Meadows (left) of Canyon Country hoists her “Don’t Tread on Me” flag as Tea Party participants begin to gather at Glendale City Hall just before noon today.
One of many such Tax Day protests held across the nation, the Tea Party was organized by Debi Devens, a self-described “average American housewife” from Glendale’s La Crescenta [...]

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L.A. in Quotes: Tax Day Stimulus Edition

Odds and Ends

“We are taxed for schools — taxed as no people ever were — and the reason our children cannot go to school is because our money has not been properly used.”
–Major Horace Bell (1830-1918).
Major Bell was publisher of The Porcupine, a famous 19th Century weekly L.A. newspaper dedicated to skewering civic corruption and hypocrisy.
The above [...]

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Hey!… You!… Nightriders!

Life in Angel City

This rant’s for you! Yeah, you know who I’m talking to…
The less responsible bicyclists “ridazzing” through Echo Park and Silver Lake any given weeknight without regard for the traffic around you…
Your after-dark excursions may have you feeling oh so hip, smug and eco-friendly, but you know what would really demonstrate  social consciousness?
Some friggin’ lights.
And [...]

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For Lease: 2 Bdrm Echo Park Split-Level With Views!

Life in Angel City

At first the thought of using my blog’s main column for advertising seemed almost sacrilegious. Then lo and behold, yesterday the Los Angeles Times caved to exactly this sort of journalistic iconoclasm. So why not join the trend? After all, I have an apartment to rent ASAP, and these are tough, recessionary times…
Considering a Large, [...]

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Spirited Getups for the Easter Season

Life in Angel City

I like Halloween as much as the next person, probably more. But when it’s over, it’s over — right?
Not for the good people at the Spirit Halloween Co., who’ve become incredibly innovative in their attempts to keep the seasonal marketing going, and going, and going.
Back in October I purchased a hanging skeleton at their Silver [...]

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Yet Another Ill-Fated Hollywood Dream?

Life in Angel City

Here we go again… Yet another attempt to “bring Hollywood back to Hollywood.”
Ever on the lookout for L.A. stories that might inspire me to blog more, my Atlanta-based writer pal, Hilda, alerted me to this New York Times piece about the new five-star hotel going up at Hollywood and Vine. The article details the plans [...]

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Taking in the Prose Parade

Odds and Ends

Now that I’ve come to the end of my documentary film class (more about that later), it’s time to play catch-up here at the ol’ blog. Let’s start with a new addition to the Dateline>City of Angels blogroll: Prose Parade.
Launched a few weeks ago by my friend Linnea Hunt-Stewart, Prose Parade’s  focus is grammar and [...]

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Stuff My Grandma Knew, No. 1: Use a Breadbox!

Odds and Ends

With another Great Depression potentially looming over these United States, I’m discovering the simple stuff my grandma’s generation did to stretch a dollar.
For example, two weeks ago I got a breadbox, which is already proving a surprisingly nifty little investment.
Beyond the aesthetics of a tidy countertop, there’s a science to breadboxes, and Grannie knew it. [...]

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So Much for SoCal’s ‘Deadly’ Shake and Bake Reputation

Odds and Ends

Quakes, wildfires, flash floods, mudslides, and now Storm Watch 2008. Amid all the local media hype that invariably goes with natural hazards like these, you’d think Southern California was the nation’s most dangerous place to live.
Not so, according to a new “Death Map” (left) prepared by researchers Kevin Borden and Susan Cutter at the University [...]

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BlogoBuzz: The Halloween Edition

Odds and Ends

Dateline>City of Angels would like to take this opportunity to wish readers a Happy Halloween and announce a special treat: Before dusk descends and the little costumed urchins hit the streets, I’ll be posting this site’s very first Podcast Report. (Be sure to check back here shortly!)
Technologically challenged as I am, this podcast was a [...]

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BlogoBuzz: Urbanization, Poachers Eat Away at Venus Flytrap

Odds and Ends

Did Venus Flytraps captivate you as a child?
Carnivorous plants may not have been the fascination of every kid on the block, but I was admittedly geeky enough to have a whole terrarium of them.
I could try to justify my offbeat hobby by claiming it was educational, but the truth is it was just plain cool [...]

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BlogoBuzz: Ghosts in the Weight Machines?

Odds and Ends

Do the dead need to tone for the afterlife? Apparently so, if you can believe the security cams at the Anytime Fitness center in Overland Park, Kan. Sometime, somehow, in the late hours when the building was otherwise vacant, someone or something tripped the motion-sensitive cameras into action. When staff later inspected the surveillance footage [...]

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