Something cool in downtown LA, after far too long:



Story here.

We have had a good time talking about flags with our son, watching the Olympics. He now knows the flags of many different countries. I like flags.

So but then this is the flag of the City of Los Angeles:



According to something I read somewhere, "The flag of the City of Los Angeles was designed in 1931 for Los Angeles' 150th anniversary. The red represents the vineyards shouldn't that have been purple?, the golden-yellow depicts the orange groves, and the green symbolizes the olive trees WHAT olive trees? Nobody EVER grew olive trees here!. The center of the flag features the City Seal, which dates from 1905. The center features the four flags that have flown over Los Angeles: Spain, Mexico, the California Republic, and the United States. The olives, grapes, and oranges represent Los Angeles' agricultural roots. The rosary around the seal symbolizes the role played by the Mission padres in the city's early history. Looks like a bunch of yellow circles to me, not a rosary, but whatevs, it's the city seal, I'm going to leave it alone for the moment."

For those of you who were LA residents, could you have picked this flag out of a lineup?

As a comparison, the flag of the city of Chicago:



Now that is pretty. The two blue stripes represent the two branches of the Chicago river, and the four stars represent some historical events - Two Columbian Expositions, the Chicago Fire, and some other damn thing that happened some time, but point being: Good flag. So much so that you see it flying all over Chicago, you see it on patches of the cops. Who wants to wear an LA flag? Who the hell even knows what the flag of LA even looks like?

So LA needs a new flag. A good, simple, and strong flag. We live in an international city, let's have a really bitchin' city-state flag.

So what elements do we represent in an LA flag? The vineyards and orange groves are pretty much out, these days. My wife had a good suggestion with a star for the entertainment industry, I personally might add that it should be a gold star. Perhaps there could be other stars to represent other aspects of our troubled, yet fair, city? We do have some form of river, and we totally snagged us a harbor, a valley, and even some mountains (in the form of Sunland-Tujunga.) And we are certainly a gateway city - the international jumping-off point, and landing point, for so many.

What elements should the new LA flag represent, and how should they do so? If you can provide me with a picture, that would be aces.

Also please spare me the nyuk nyuk, okay? "How about a crashed Mercedes for Paris Hilton, hardy har har" and the like. I can't really stop you from doing it, but I ask you all, especially you non-LA residents, to rise above.

For those who provide pics, I will hold a contest with voting and all, and hey, maybe I'll even take a day off and present our proposals to the city council, just for shits and giggles. (Not that they'll listen - the LA City Council is pretty notorious for not paying a damned bit of attention to public comment. Thanks, elected officials! I'd suggest incorporating that into the flag but perhaps it's not quite what we're looking for, also, hard to really suggest in a bold and thematic format.)

_{I'm working on an entry myself, but it's getting way too late, so I'll post mine later.}

5.4? Pshaw. That's like a little mini-massage. Especially a little roller like that.

1) Wall-E. I seem to have enjoyed it more than most, but then having read dozens of opinions from folks about what the supposed message was, I was able to realize that as with the news, your objections or kudos to a given media product say more about where you stand than the actual message. Yes, there were one or two overt messages, largely about overconsumption and the need to get out and do something. They're not invalid messages, but they were so incredibly overt that they quickly became funny. As such, I immediately just got over it and simply enjoyed the movie. Anyway, no matter how much you might scowl, you'd have to be cold-hearted indeed not to be charmed by the, let's call it the "dancing" scene so as not to be spoilery.

2) This is probably only of use to folks in the LA area, but, the Americana at Brand is just as irritatingly pleasant as the Grove is. In fact, it's kind of better in its' use of space. The trolley (yes, they have a trolley here too) is completely useless except for cuteness' sake, as it doesn't take you anywhere except on a loop through the entire property, and there is only the one stop at the beginning, or end. At least at the Grove, you can theoretically use it to go from one end to the other. More problematically, there are far fewer shops, and *all* of the shops are upscale, as opposed to the Grove where a few of them are actually useful. And of course there is no Farmer's Market, or as my wife put it as we were getting ready to leave "But there's no meat shop! There should be a meat shop attached!" Which indeed there should always be. To date, we have found no better butchers than those located in the Farmer's Market. If you, whoever you are is reading this, know of a better butcher in the Los Angeles area, I am absolutely soliciting your advice. I'd prefer advice from folks who have actually purchased meat from these butchers, of course.

3) John Adams. Good book, good documentary on HBO. Read it, watch it. I never would have thought that I would find more respect for one of our founding fathers (and, for that matter, lose respect for one who I had largely considered a genius), but I did. Mr. Adams is sadly overlooked in our history. Our revolution would almost certainly not have happened if it were not for him... although perhaps it was inevitable.

There's an alternate history story, if anybody wants to write it: Boston, 1808. The cod fisheries are producing, industry is flourishing from Philadelphia to Boston, the cotton is flowing, and now the crown wants money to fight Napoleon - who steps to the fore? Come now, the British Isles are months away. We can and will have our own country! The sheep farmers of Australia had a revolution 20 years ago and the UTA (United Territories of Australia) is now a free and independent country! Will we sit idle and watch the pointless wars of Europe financed upon our backs? Nay, I say nay!

So you're thinking to yourself "hey, dude, it's 2:09 AM - shouldn't you only be conflicted about whether to go to bed right now, or a minute from now?" And you'd be correct.

Except that some time in the past 40 minutes, the flag-stickers have come by. In our neighborhood, there is a real-estate agency which takes it upon itself late on the night of July 3 to stick plastic US flags into lawns across the neighborhood, with, of course, an advertisement for whichever agent they wish to promote this time. This year, it's one Bella Kay.

The trouble with this "patriotic" display is that it puts people in a difficult position.

1) People who aren't particularly patriotic. For these folks, it's not all *that* big of a deal, except until they notice the little flag they're unwillingly displaying as an opinion they don't actually have. (I doubt there are very many of these folks, but hey, let's be inclusive.)

2) People who actually ARE patriotic, who now have a flag that they did not want (because they would put out their own) and must dispose of in an appropriately respectful way. Perhaps this only applies to people who have had members of their family in the military, or people who have been in the Boy Scouts, or just people who think that the flag of our nation deserves respect. I'm pretty conflicted about it, myself.

I mean look. I believe that this nation is a pretty damned good one, or at least by gumby we set out to be a good one. The legal protection of the rights of individuals is not so bad of a way to start.

Does the flag which stands for the nation which is supposed to uphold those ideas thus deserve some respect? I think it does.

Yet I'd never prosecute anyone for burning it, especially if they were doing so to protest something the nation had done. Or throwing it in a trash can if you were trying to make some sort of statement. Remember the part about the rights of individuals? Free speech is part of that.

Nonetheless, I hate to see someone just going "well fuck, some asshole threw another piece of trash on my lawn" and chucking the thing out. It seems to me that the flag of this nation, for good or for bad, should mean *something*. If you are disrespecting it as a form of protest, then hooray! But it shouldn't be just another piece of trash that shows up on your lawn.

And that is the position that this year, Bella Kay of the Larchmont office of Coldwell Banker has put us in. Worst yet, she's only put those of us who actually give a shit in this position. Most folks will just pick it up, sigh, and throw it in the trash. Only the truly patriotic folks will be all conflicted.

Thanks, Coldwell Banker.

(Is it different than, say, a piece of mail that has the flag printed on it? I'm not sure that's a flag. Does it make a difference? Man... I dunno. It's all too complicated for the likes of me.)

(Also also, there are flags of other nations which I believe stand for the same things as well. Nobody will stick a flag of say, Denmark, or Australia, or the United Kingdom in my lawn, but should I feel the same way about their goals of the Rights o' Man?)

Ganked from fullerton, this fascinating picture of Signal Hill, CA, in 1923. I don't want to break everybody's page so it's under ( a cut. )

Signal Hill is a suburban residential section of Long Beach these days. I guess it was residential back then, too, but that's probably not the first thing that will catch your eye.

From the LA City College's Winter 2008 Community Services Classes catalog comes these offerings. I present it to you exactly as published, letter for letter:

SCREENWRITING WARRIORS
There are many ways to write a script. Some of them are convoluted, some are impossible to apply, and most too much time to write (then rewrite) a script quickly and well, at a professional level of craft and ready to be marketed as quickly as possible, then come learn how not of "pain yourself into a corner". This is the quickest, most direct method of creating; writing and selling a script you'll find anywhere. And you don't have to buy software or a book to do it - it's just a common sense and a practical approach.

Fee: $35
Jack Adams
One Sunday
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon

PITCHING YOUR FILM/T.V. PROJECT
Got a chance to talk about your script?  Tried to pitch-can't get it across the plate?  There's only one way to do it well, yet many ways to fail to sell. If you want to develop a bulletproof presentation (as well as elephant ride) learn the right way to pitch, get people interested, and make a deal instead of a mess. You only get one chance to make a first impression - don't blow it!  Find our how to approach, and what to expect in (and form) a pitch meeting, whether scheduled or impromptu.

Fee:  $35
Jack Adams
One Sunday
1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

I don't know why you'd spend thousands of dollars and several years learning film at UCLA or USC when you could just plonk down seventy bucks on a slow Sunday and let Jack Adams teach you how not of pain yourself into a corner.  And give you an elephant ride, apparently.  I think I'd pay 35 bucks for the elephant ride alone.

I just stepped out onto my back porch... well, my back steps anyway. The air is heavy and somehow warm and cool at the same time, like Dublin on a summer evening, only with less diesel fumes, and also definitely warmer.

The low rumble of a few trucks on Beverly Boulevard confirm for me that the wheels of commerce keep turning, creating vast sums of money even while most folks head for bed. Our jasmine bush is giving its all for the last time before spring, and the air is thick with it. And for me, thick with remembering a perfect, still, and quiet jasmine-scented evening when I walked outside of Cedars-Sinai hospital at about one in the morning on March 27th, 2004.

It's mid-September in Los Angeles, and while other cities are gearing up for another crushing winter, around here it's just starting to get good¹. This thick warm air hushes the occasional helicopter, and can even quiet my usual complaints. This city has a lot more to recommend it than you'd normally think - but sometimes, it takes an evening like this to see it.

¹Yes, I know, in some other places it's getting nice now too, viz. The Imperial Valley, but so what? This is MY freaking journal, and I live here. Also the not-nice times here are WAY better than the not-nice times in other places. So shaddup.

LA World Airports, our city's "fine" airport agency, is putting out a newsletter to let folks know what's going on with improvements at LA International - updates on construction, changes, etc. The name of this newsletter? LAXpectations. I kid you not.

Hey, Los Angeles people: Is it just me or do all the traffic signals in LA suddenly have a counting-down feature? When did this start happening? It must be an easy change, because it seems to have happened to a lot of signals, just within the past couple of weeks. In my neighborhood, anyway.

For those of you who have noticed it (or for whom it's old news), what do you think? Do you like it? Is the countdown helpful? Is it a useful enough feature to justify the cost?

Aha. I found a press release on the City's website about the conversion. Apparently they're converting all traffic and pedestrian signals to LEDs, which use less power, last longer, and are eventually expected to save the city $2.2 million per year in electricity. So they say. The countdown feature is just a side benefit. No word on how much it's costing now, of course.