My birthday roadtrip

We're heading up Pacific Coast Highway for a birthday roadtrip on Sunday to San Luis Obispo. The first stop is Duke's in Ventura for brunch, then we'll pop over to the Channel Islands farmers market before we hit Main Street. Hopefully, we'll get to visit Abednego Book Shoppe, the Book Rack, Last Chapter Bookshop, Bank of Books, Books on Main, and finally the Calico Cat Bookshop.

Then we head inland to Ojai and Bart's Books, hopefully stopping at Dennison Park for the famous view of "Shangri-La" before returning to the coast via Casitas Pass Road.

The next stop is Carpinteria and Ponce a Time Books, followed by the Tecolote Book Shop in Montecito.

I get to spend more time in Santa Barbara more than anywhere else along the Central Coast, so I'll try to limit myself to just a few choice stops. From Lost Horizon Bookstore we'll hop down to the Book Den (reportedly the oldest bookstore in California), the over to the Paperback Exchange. Then it's on to Goleta and the Paperback Alley and the Front Page before hitting the Isla Vista Bookstore in Isla Vista. Then we'll head back over to State Street and Chaucer's Books, before going up the San Marcos Pass Road.

For some reason, I have it in me to visit the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge; with any luck we'll get there when the late afternoon light is just right. As long as I'm soaking in atmosphere, it's off to Solvang and the Book Loft, home of the Hans Christian Andersen Museum.

If there's still time, we'll turn off Highway 101 in Grover Beach to visit Nan's Pre-Owned Books, then passing by the Monarch Butterfly Grove alongside Pacific Coast Highway.

With any luck, we'll arrive in San Luis Obispo in time for the closing party of the Language of the Heart Poetry Festival at Linnea's Cafe on Garden Street before arriving at the folks.

It isn't likely we'll make every stop on the itinerary; that way we'll be sure to have something left over for the next trek.

What I'll be doing for my birthday

November 17th is the National Support Your Independents Day... and the Great LA Walk down Pico Blvd!

Remember the people in charge of your security are the same ones who run FEMA

Take the Cosco Busan to the Olympics! Just don't check your e-mail while you're in China, or you may find yourself a guest of the Chinese government in a manner you hadn't planned ---better wear a hazmat suit, and bring any food or drink you want to consume with you as well...

Another Santa Ana is whipping across Southern California. Without the fires, the air is much cleaner, but the views of the mountainsides are more than a little disheartening.

It has been good for the strikers (if a tad hot) though.... Want to bring Hollywood to its knees? (Do snakes have knees?) Why not forge an alliance between the striking writers and the gardeners, housekeepers and nannies. If the immigrant workforce in LA joined forces with the WGA even Rupert Murdoch would be freaking out.

At least the LAPD has come to their senses and decided against "mapping" (or whatever their spin doctors are calling it this minute) Muslim communities in Los Angeles.

On January 28, 1982, the Turkish Consul General was assassinated in Los Angeles by Armenian extremists, who have never been low key when it comes to their feelings about the Turks; if other people get caught in the crossfire, they're considered merely acceptable collateral damage. Yet the LAPD has never mentioned "mapping" the Armenian communities in the city, nor the Turks, "for their protection" (I believe that was part of the official rationale for rounding up the Americans of Japanese descent during World War II).

When it comes down to it, the LAPD probably backed off due to the sheer logistics. LA has had their fair share of radical sympathizers and supporters from Northern Ireland (ask anyone whose been in London over the past 25 years about how serious that is!), and a lot of Irish people. There is a substantial Spanish population (those radical Basques), and LA is home to the largest Ethiopian community in the United States. Less visible than in Miami or New York are the Colombian and Venezualan communities. And if the Chinese Consulate had their way, the LAPD would be keeping close tabs on the Chinese American community (who are protesting the float from China in the New Years Day Rose Parade). There's a huge Indonesian comunity here, too, although the American news doesn't seem to have much time to report on the ongoing civil war there.

And there isn't enough time or space to recount the reasons that they should be mapping the English communities. There are still enough gay folk around who remember how the LAPD used to operate when it came to the gay community, too. From long before Stonewall (read Stuart Timmons and Lillian Faderman's "Gay LA") through the AIDS activism of the 80s and 90s, there was a lot of bumping heads, to put it mildly. Now that I think about it, I remember when the LAPD was caught with illegal files on minority teenagers that they had been ordered by the courts to destroy. And I couldn't not mention those pesky Americans, while I'm at it, who are causing mayhem all over the planet.

The only solution would be for the LAPD to keep close tabs on everybody. Not that Cheney and his gang haven't tried. The LAPD has long been known to have the most sophisticated intelligence system of any police force in the United States since the days of the Communist witch hunts.

Enough so, in fact, that I would take any official announcement that they are reconsidering their "mapping" of Muslim communities with a grain of salt. Very bitter salt.

One of these things is not like the other...

The networks are almost acting like suicide bombers, willing to destroy themselves in order to keep a few paltry dollars out of the hands of the writers as new media is developed.

Ironically, that same new media will be the prime venue for entertainment as original programming declines in quality and quantity.

The headline that grabbed my attention this week was about the 15,000 (!) Americans on the no-fly list who shouldn't be there and the government doesn't seem to be able to figure out who should or shouldn't be allowed to fly. They aren't trying to keep us from leaving the country, are they? With the falling dollar, they've made it even more difficult for foreign tourists to get visas to come here to spend their money as the US becomes a travel bargain. Are they trying to shoot our economy in the foot?

Locally, the news that the LAPD is trying to profile and map Muslim communities in Los Angeles hasn't been getting nearly the attention from civil libertarians it should.

And all the while, the Chinese are poisoning our kids, spilling oil in San Francisco Bay, and generally tripping up our economy...

A City on Strike

Bands of people walk together and speak conspiratorially, or with dread, or a detached bemusement.

The elderly at the market are at a remove from the immediacy of the crisis. They gossip and chat and mutter amongst themselves the same as always; one might think they were oblivious to what is going on all around us.

Workmen stand or slouch uncomfortably idle. If they were working, they would pray for such a break. Now it is all they can do, and they can do nothing but wait for the work that will not come.

A Rolls Royce glides by, the driver on the phone putting on a show typical of those who like to presume themselves aristocratic. Normally he would be stuck in a long line of traffic, yet today he makes it seem as though he had the traffic cleared for his convenience.

I surf the news channels, taking account of who reports on the troubles, or how; and mull its significance.

There are a number of unimportant news items that I suspect would not have been aired filling the broadcasts; they only serve to draw attention to what is not being said.

Support the Writers: Turn Off Your Television!

A Hollywood Writer's home

A Hollywood producer's home

How the studios would like to pay their employees

US BOMBS VIRGINIA; IS IRAN NEXT?

The Navy dropped a bomb from an F/A-18C Hornet fighter jet on the resort community of Virginia Beach, Virginia this week, damaging a warehouse.

Since they haven't proudly trotted out the evidence for us to see, we might safely presume that no weapons of mass destruction were found.

Some of those rogue states nervously watching the US military might have notched up their alert status. After all, we did invade Virginia once before...

When stuff like this happens, it gets me to thinking that it was probably a good thing that President Bush (allegedly) spent his National Guard service partying while someone else forged his attendance records. For all of us. The thought of Dubya anywhere near guns, bombs and planes, especially during his college partying years, boggles the mind with the potential for damage that might have incurred.

What's next... War is Peace?

Now that the dust is starting to settle and at least one head is rolling following the phony FEMA press conference, I'm thinking that the Bush administration probably provided an invaluable service to journalism instructors everywhere. Of course, one hopes that it will always fall under the category of what not to do.

The news item that slipped by most of the English language media that most concerns me is the report that US Border Patrol agents were at the evacuation centers in Southern California looking for people without documents.

For those of you not in California, remember that a million people at one time or another had to flee the fires --at times leaving with no more than the shirts on their backs, sometimes in the dead of night. lf you were to turn your pockets inside out at this very moment, how would you be able to prove that you were in the country legally?

"I find it tedious to detail the savagery of the enemy..." -Ann Coulter*

NPR reported today on the proliferation of cluster bombs used in the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah rebels in Lebanon.

Most Americans are as yet unaware that the US government was the source of these cluster bombs as part of our $2.2 billion support in military aid. That's $21 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

So you, as it would turn out, are a terrorist. At the least, you --through your government-- are the reason that 'they' hate us. Among the most noted manufacturer of cluster bombs in the US is Alliant Techsystems of Hopkins, Minnesota. Their product doesn't exactly fall out under the category of Minnesota nice, does it?

As it turns out, most of the unexploded ordnance is about the size of a D battery. In Viet Nam, some 300 people are still being killed every year from unexploded cluster bombs-- 30 years after the war ended! There are millions of them, scattered in fields and roads and even around houses, schools and hospitals, all over the world in over 70 countries. And all this time you thought the US was just giving out powdered milk or candy bars.

For those of you not faint of heart who can stomach the gruesome sight of children with amputated limbs, click on the header at the top for a link to the Cluster Munition Coalition.



*as quoted by the LA Times during remarks made Wednesday at USC. Ann Coulter was wearing that same old tired past-its-expiration date black cocktail dress that she's worn once too many times. Halloween isn't until next week! Is that a Freudian cry for help or what? Seriously, girl, that dress is like week-old fish! The vampire drag queen prostitutes in my neighborhood dress better. Someone needs to do an intervention on her, but that's a subject for another day.

Turn off a light tonight, and pick up a book on November 1

My first thought was to suggest that fans send in their own scripts for their favorite television programs in light of the looming writers' strike.

Now, however, I'm more inclined to suggest that we all teach the giant conglomerates that own the networks a lesson by turning off the television set altogether, and pick up a book. Better yet, go to a reading at your local independent bookstore or library. Heck, do both. This is America, after all, and more is better.

The LA Public Library is offering an incredible array of lectures, readings, panels, performances and exhibitions. ALOUD at Central Library has enough going on over the next few months that I wont miss watching television ...maybe by then they'll have even caught up on filming all the Lost episodes for the season.

Lights Out LA

Image: Dark Sky Association

This Saturday night, between 8 and 9 pm, the lights will go out in buildings across the country -and around the world- to focus on light pollution and energy conservation. Hopefully, I'll get home from the Miracle Mile Art Walk in time before the trannie prostitute goblins come out in my neighborhood (everyday is Halloween in Hollywood)!

Ah, shucks, we've insulted China

So the Chinese have let it be known that they are insulted that the United States is once again honoring the Dalai Lama.

We, of course, are not the least bit insulted that there is no such thing as human rights in the People's Republic of China. That the organs of political prisoners are being sold to patients around the world. That they've tried (not on purpose, of course) to poison us with tens of millions of tainted products in the last couple of years --including foodstuffs. That they've somehow bribed the International Olympic Committee to host a travesty of an Olympic Games (ironic, isn't it, that athletes suspected of doping are subject to greater sanctions). That shortly after the I-35 bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, a bridge collapsed in China with hundreds of fatalities (think about that when you sit your ass down in one of their brand new stadiums if you should decide to attend the aforementioned games). And --this is my favorite-- one of their generals openly bragged how they could paralyze the entire United States with a push of a button, bringing down our entire power grid. Actually, as a child of the cold war era, I'm kind of glad that the computer age now makes those pesky ICBMs completely obsolete.

............

I've been zapping in and out of the parrallel universe created by delving into The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Putting down the book for a moment to hear on NPR about China being insulted strikes me as the height of absurdity. But then, I live in the most absurd of cities in the most absurd of countries in what must count as one of the most absurd of times in human history. I have to limit --severely-- my news intake these days because the doings of this human race on this planet is so absurd that it belies explanation. If there were to be contact with another form of intelligent life in the universe, how the heck could we explain ourselves? How we are conducting ourselves on Earth these days makes as much sense as the grammatical laws of the English language.

This is why I also have to limit my caffeine intake. And maybe take a nap. And when I wake up, sanity and order will have been restored.

Yeah, right.

On a foggy day like today...

Thanks to the fog, it felt like passing through the Laguna Honda Forest today. Amazing how many born-and-raised San Franciscans have never even gone by Laguna Honda, much least stopped there. Mention it, and most people will assume you mean the hospital.

If you ever doubted that San Francisco is a mystical, magical city, then go by there when the fog is swirling. You'd swear you stepped into the enchanted forest of A Midsummmers' Night Dream.

Since today called for some retail therapy, I treated myself to a book that had been long out of print that appeared without warning at Skylight Bookstore, an architectural study of Miami Beach Ocean Drive by ciudadcity.

Click on the header at top to learn more about Laguna Honda and impress your know-it-all-friends in the City with what you've learned of the history hidden-in-plain-sight.

So, Turkey has a problem with the word "genocide"

Accused of, admitted to, or accounted with genocide:*

Argentina
Australia
Belgium
Brazil
Burma
Cambodia
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
The Congo
The Dominican Republic
El Salvador
France
Germany
Greece
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Italy
Malaysia
Mexico
The Netherlands
Nicaragua
Pakistan
Paraguay
Portugal
Peru
Russia
Rwanda
Serbia
Republic of South Africa
Spain
Sudan
Turkey
The United Kingdom
United States

*a very incomplete, partial list

Aliens in America

I admit that I've become rather superstitious when it comes to talking about my favorites among new shows, but the new CW comedy, Aliens in America, needs all the buzz it can get.

NPR reported this morning that the pilot had a less than promising market share; yet it has been screened with great success around the country for a variety of community groups and even in college classes. And it's funny, clever and smart. And thought provoking.

Maybe, just maybe, Americans will stop for a moment to think about some of their less-than-well-founded ideas about other peoples. Perhaps they will even think about what other people around the world think of Americans --and why. And perhaps, if we can all share a laugh together, it will be a step in the right direction to getting people to understand each other.

At any rate, the folks behind Aliens in America have created something that helps television live up to its potential. They have every reason to be proud of what they've done.

A note of caution to the paparazzi

When Elizabeth I got pissed off, she imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots in this tower for nearly a year...

Now that Elizabeth II is mad at the paparazzi for chasing Prince William, they would do well to remember that the torture equipment reportedly is still in good working order.

William Donnelly's Painted Alice at the Elephant Stageworks

Sphere presents the West Coast premiere of William Donnelly's Painted Alice at the Elephant Stageworks, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.

Saturday, September 29 marks the beginning of Banned Books Week; on Sunday, the West Hollywood Book Fair will take place in West Hollywood Park.

Milk from Scotland... who knew?

My snippy rant, continued

Photo: LA Episcopal Diocese

This morning on NPR, the mixed ruling came down about All Saints Church in Pasadena and their ongoing troubles with the IRS, who seem to think the church overstepped the line into political advocacy during a sermon last year.

My mood lightened somewhat when I heard the rant by the college football coach against reporters. I wonder what tune he'd sing if the local media just decided, okay, you say we don't know how to report on sports, so we'll just unplug all media coverage of your university's athletic teams -and that goes for broadcasting the games as well. I wonder how long he'd be able to hold on to his salary, which I'm certain is likely to be more than, say, teachers as a rule.

Come to think of it, if the IRS really wanted to find some funds to help with the national debt, why don't they start investigating the tax returns of big-name college athletic directors and coaches, of which some of that little club make a lot of money. NASCAR style, Halliburton style money.

Just a thought...