Category Archives: Southern California Stuff

musings on LA, Palm Springs, and other parts of SoCal

WeHo 30th Anniversary Readings, Part 3

I just realized that I forgot to post the actual text of my WeHo memory! The photo of it blown up to poster size will not do, as I don’t imagine everyone has a magnifying glass.

So, here it is. It’s reality, not fiction, so perhaps not as exciting as it would be if I embellished. I erred on the side of truth as I remember it. Text below photo.

My memory of WeHo birthday

MY FIRST BIRTHDAY IN LOS ANGELES/WEHO

I moved to Los Angeles in January 1981, back when there were no computers, no Internet or mobile phones, or any other recent innovations like marriage equality, gay community centers, or the ability to serve openly in the armed forces.

I’d packed everything into a rental car. I didn’t have much, but I did have two crucial items for my new life in L.A.: my bicycle, and my Damron Gay Guide.

Every day was adventure, learning the city and doing my work at the university. But I hadn’t made friends yet, and I didn’t know how to navigate the overwhelming gay community.

I lived in Echo Park and was carless. I rode the bus, so the main gay districts of Silver Lake and West Hollywood were either a semi-short ride or an excruciatingly long ride away.

I’d ventured into West Hollywood once to get my bike fixed. Old Pacific Red Car tracks were still visible on Santa Monica; those storied outdoor burger shacks still open everywhere. Hot, shirtless hustlers, channeling classic surferboy looks, “hitchhiked” along the Boulevard.

I got the bike repaired and fled!

But my birthday arrived in March and I was 26 and I wanted to do something. I’d never been to Beverly Hills, so I told myself I wanted to see Rodeo Drive—why, I have no idea, it was just a place I’d heard of.

I would ride my bike. It’s 10 miles. A straight route all the way down Sunset, then a quick turn down Rodeo.

That was to be my birthday celebration. I rode out there by myself on a dark Saturday night. Once I got there, all that greeted me were closed, if glittery stores. A few pedestrians were out; certainly not many: no cake shop was around to assist.

To say this was anticlimactic is an understatement. I was lying to myself. I didn’t want to see Beverly Hills; I didn’t care about that. I wanted to see what was always there for me in West Hollywood, and I knew this land of desire was just blocks away.

I’d copied the WeHo pages from Damron’s and brought them with me just in case. There was a place called the Blue Parrot (where Revolver is today). It sounded tropical; I’d had a fantastic gay time in Key West a year before this so I figured this might be a theme.

I tethered the bike to a pole in front. I went into the crowded, boisterous bar and the smiling, flair-juggling bartender made me my first ever West Hollywood birthday drink. I don’t remember what it was and I didn’t stay too long—I had to ride home.

I got the sense that I belonged in this place where gay bars fronted main streets and had picture windows looking out—and which also looked in. Although it took more time and more experience, that for me was the seed to loving this spot where one could hope to live a gay life free and authentic. — Jim Arnold

WeHo 30th Anniversary Readings, Part 2

From the West Hollywood 30th Anniversary Celebration in Plummer Park June 27, 2015: Memoirs and readings at Fiesta Hall. Some pictures for you! I wrote about my first birthday alone in L.A./West Hollywood. Bittersweet, that’s what it was. Things did get better. But not for a long time.

The Gay Pride Parade Day Post 2015

Yes, I'm not sure what the Men's Health Foundation is either, but I'm down

Nothing says WeHo like spandex and an old California friar.

Do you detect a bit of weariness in my title? I was going to add the word “obligatory,” but decided against it. I realized I hadn’t been to the parade in a couple of years, not since 2013, so I went to it this year.

It’s become even more corporate if that’s possible — many contingents representing companies who want gay dollars and want to show their “gay” loyalties or whatever — and I suppose that’s good. This was not always the case, not even close.

But then I do think of how evil most of these companies are, in other ways: Bank of America, Disney, Comcast, Southern California Edison – almost like a rogues gallery of evil bastards: Disney, shipping jobs out of country; BofA, complicit in the bankster and mortgage meltdown of 2008; Comcast, everybody’s most favorite gouging cable/internet company. So I’m not so sure about all of that.

Caveat: I did miss about the first 45 minutes of so of the parade, so perhaps all the politically correct floats, etc., went by before that. So, they used to ignore us or work actively against us, now they just want our money. I guess that’s progress.

But seriously, I still go because we can. Because we’re lucky enough to live in a place that has this, whatever its myriad faults may be. We can work on those. We’re not being thrown in jail or thrown off buildings because of who we love. We’ve come a very long way in a very short time, and I know I can’t let my (occasional) curmudgeon-leaning self throw cold water on all this wonder.

So Happy Pride, everyone! And here are the pix. I tried to get some beefcake for you, results are mixed.

The Mansionization of L.A.

I hate riding past this intersection (Radford and Landale, Studio City, CA) every Sunday on my way to the Farmers Market because I have to see this:

I’m sure the neighbors must love it, these monstrosities going up next door blotting out the sun and the stars and the view of the hills and what have you. It’s not just the one white house, towering over the cute little homes across the street, but now another one is going up alongside it, seemingly the same ginormous size.

This is a very cute, nice post-war neighborhood with small tract-size or what you might call ranch homes, probably very few of them bigger than 2500 square feet at the original construction. More and more you see these insanely huge new houses, or sometimes just horrid additions to original homes, which look so totally out of place in this neighborhood.

I guess I’m not the only one who doesn’t like this. Here’s a piece from Curbed on what’s being done to stop these awful things from going up — or at least slow them down.

L.A.’s Mobility Plan Draft

Bikes Take Over – well, at least this one day.

Wanted to get this posted, even though it’s draft form and requires clicking on the Curbed LA link as well as their link to the plan itself.

It’s massive, but well worth taking a look at. I believe plans of this sort, while arguably a wish list of lots of things that won’t get done, or won’t get done right away, are still the key to livability here in the Los Angeles region.

As a cyclist, my focus is first on that part of the plan, followed by the public transportation (train and bus) plans. While I haven’t looked at the entire Mobility Plan yet, one statistic that jumped out was that bicycle commuting has increased over 50% in the ten year period from 2000 – 2010.

It’s the perfect place to bicycle – great weather, practically every day it’s an option, and the landscape is something like 85% flat. We just have to make it safe for everyone – the cyclists, the pedestrians, and the drivers in their cars.

A lot of the plan is aspirational like the Curbed piece says. Something to shoot for. I’d like to live in the city that’s described here.

CicLAvia coming to the Valley! March 22, 2015

Pretty excited! Normally I try for original content here but I’m just so pleased that CicLAvia is coming to my neighborhood on Sunday, March 22, a mere 2 days after my birthday, so it’s like an extension of frivolity. If you’re in L.A. and have a bike, come on out. It’s flat, the weather will most likely be appropriately spring-like (or even hot) and it’s a great route with a lot to see along the way, from NoHo Arts District to Universal City to the Farmers Market I attend every Sunday. Will I see you there?

Here’s a photo from a previous CicLAvia:

House of Pies’ East Side Cousin

Walking in LA

Walking in DTLA, Main Street

I loved this story in The New York Times detailing what it’s like to be a walker in our town. Some of the itineraries are pretty sweet as well. (The writer, Stephanie Rosenbloom, included places even I’ve never been to in my 30+ years of wandering around Los Angeles.)

Also it kind of gave me a shot of validation — being car-free and a very often cyclist and/or pedestrian is still much outside the norm — I get the strange looks, the raised eyebrows or the subtle shake of the head, still.

But I persist. I often think, well, you can’t ride your bike forever, you can’t walk around forever — but then I think that it’s likely if I could not longer walk places I might very well no longer be able to drive to them, either. So for now, it’s that one-day-a-time kind of thing. Today’s a good day to bike. Tomorrow sounds like a great day to walk in the sun.

Anyway, Angelenos and non-Angelenos check it out, find some good walking spots. All our lives will be quieter for it.

CicLAvia, October 5, 2014

Sunday (October 5) was another installment of CicLavia, the event in Los Angeles where they close off some streets for part of the day for the exclusive use of bicycles, skates, pedestrians, strollers, etc.

The route for October 5 stretched from Echo Park in the West to the East Los Angeles Civic Center in the east. Interesting, hot and surprisingly hilly in the eastern part of the ride. Still, I had a nice ride through many parts of L.A. that I don’t get to much — specifically downtown and the Boyle Heights area near Mariachi Plaza. Here’s a few photos for you, and also a video of two clips: A little “dance” station on Second Street, and inside the Second Street Tunnel (under Bunker Hill).

heading down to CicLAvia on the Red Line

Fashion

Dodger Fan

Mariachi Station

House of Pies’ East Side Cousin

liked the typography!

Every Single One.

In 2nd Street Tunnel under Bunker Hill

“Death on a Bike” — Sobering Read

I found this opinion piece in the NY Times quite the sobering read.

I congratulate myself on having many lights and a rear-view mirror on my bike, in using streets with bike lanes, in never trusting what a car might do, and in avoiding any kind of altercation with a car or its driver (as the op-ed says, when in a bike vs. car drama you always lose if you’re the cyclist) and still I almost got totaled by a runner the other morning coming out of a grocery store parking lot laden with food for the week in saddlebags. Whose fault? Probably a little of both. Collision avoided, this time.

. . . this

I agree there are more bicyclists that ever before on American roads and that will only grow as people drive less and less in the future. One of the safest towns I ever biked in was actually Palm Springs, which is built basically like a So Cal suburb, wide streets and high speed limits — with one major difference — they built a lot of separated bike paths there on some key routes (ok, so you might have to share it with someone in a wheelchair or a walker – and happy to do so). When totally separated from vehicle traffic it’s much safer and more enjoyable to ride – and safer and more enjoyable for the car drivers, too.

Wish we could do more of that here – separate lanes with a barrier between.

Gimme My Three . . . feet, that is.

So today’s the day, motorists in California need to give bicyclists a three foot buffer when passing.

Commuters arriving North Hollywood subway station.

It’s the law. Though I suspect, like many traffic laws including the no cell phone use law, it will be widely ignored and most people will be ignorant of it until it’s pointed to them in one way or another.

As a cyclist, I like the sentiment behind the law, i.e., our society thinks that cycling is valuable and good, and cyclists’ lives are worth something. Most (but not all) motorists don’t see/don’t care/shrug when presented with a bicycle on “their” streets, so we have a long way to go.

What would be even better than this? Dedicated bike lanes, bike paths that are actually separated from the roadway — I actually support removing traffic lanes and turning them into bicycle lanes — which, of course, most drivers, at least in a place with congested streets like L.A. would simply balk at.

They (the drivers) feel that the roads are theirs, and why should they share with either pedestrians or cyclists? Here’s a reality check, my dear drivers: there’s nothing in any law or in any tradition older than 100 years or so saying that the road is just for you and your internal combustion engines. So learn to share – whether it’s with a horse or a bicycle or a kid on a skateboard – we all need access to roads.