Angry Badger

At the end of my run I was greeted with this; the beginnings of a sea of Wisco Badger fans at Santa Monica Pier.  Now I know how minorities feel -- when every average looking white dude puts on the same red t-shirt they really do all look the same.  Tough to make out, sorry, but enough to make a guy want to buy a TCU T-shirt.

There is a three story tall inflatable badger down there.  No joke.  Subtle.

Of all days universe, really?  I sure hope there's a point to all of this.  Wish I could e-mail this to Boondock so we could have a laugh.

Turtle Time,

-I Heart Palindromes

It Gonna Rain!

The reports of my death were only moderately exaggerated.  I have returned to the annals (stop laughing The Hammer) of the inter-web to share some incredibly important information:  It is raining in Los Angeles?!?!

Are you scared-to-death?  Flabbergasted?  Bamboozled (yes, Bamboozled, as in the slang term, not the terrible Spike Lee movie)?  No?  You're not?  Well that makes exactly one person in the entire world.  It has been raining, rather literally non-stop, for the past six days.  Houses are falling off of mountains, beaches are empty, roadways are flooded.  The Governator has declared this a State of Emergency, dude.  The only frequently cited upside to these events?  Lots of snow in the mountains (think 12-25 feet, yes, that much).  That's so LA of you Los Angeles; you're rewarding yourself for surviving such a perilous bout with moderately inconvenient weather with a ski trip to Tahoe.  You go right ahead LA, it's the holidays and you deserve it, don't forget to leave the Prius at home and take the Escalade -- the roads are flooded after all.

Now, I want everyone here to keep in mind that when people in Southern California freak out about rain, it isn't the kind of rain that you think of when you think about freaking out about rain.  The evening news dedicated five minutes yesterday to attempting to define a "thunderstorm", meaning what makes it different than a "rain shower".  No joke.  These people have never even seen a thunderstorm this side of a Marky Mark film.  The best part?  The weatherman implored people to stay inside if there was thunder and lightning lest they tempt fate and be struck by it.  I. Can't. Make. That. Up.  Clearly he's wrapping up his Ph.D. in math at USC with a thesis on conditional probabilities of things that will absolutely never happen to you!

Deep Breaths.  In good news, this set of events has allowed me to learn all new things about the city in which I live:

1) Despite a massive budget deficit and untold billions of dollars of Federal funding for make-work infrastructure projects, only seventeen dollars and twenty-eight cents were spent on engineers.  That's right, there are almost zero drainage spouts on any of the major expressways here.  Even if there were, unlike every major city outside of sub-Saharan Africa, the six-lane roadways here aren't even graded in order to run water off the roadway.  Instead, they opted for the "put in bowl-shaped low spots that create lakes" method of concrete'ing.  Hydroplaning is tremendous, especially at 75 miles an hour in a city where you know damn well that the car you hit/the one that hits you is not going to have insurance.  Golden.

2) Operating an umbrella is evidently not an innate skill for some adults.  I have seen people hit other people in the face as they pass by on the sidewalk.

3) It doesn't stop at umbrellas, women here don't seem to understand the concept of rain-appropriate shoes.  Six inch heels probably aren't the best.  Though you're dramatic fall was very entertaining, I should probably cut you some slack.  Oh no, don't cry, please?

In any event, the weather is supposed to revert to normal today and through the weekend (i.e. 72.138 degrees and sunny).  We'll have to go back to having the weatherman talk about Lindsay Lohan then.  Or Lindsay's mom, who gets a surprising amount of press attention for someone who has never done anything that is even remotely interesting.  At least I'll be in Chicago by then, now where did I put those gloves that I moved out here with?  Word.

Ducktales Woohoo (h.t. Boondock)

-I Heart Palindromes

On a scale from One to Awesome...

... That was totally Tony Danza.  If you have to ask me which extremis of the scale that Mr. Danza falls at, we are no longer inter-web acquaintances.

We all know that all Californians have a number of inalienable loves:

1)  Running or riding their bike along the ocean
2)  Being mellow, especially in situations that call for excessive amounts of alarm
3)  Inexplicable sources and aggregate amounts of income
4)  T-shirts

Well, you can add another thing to that list:  "shopping malls" near the ocean.

You may have noticed that I placed the shopping malls in mocking air quotations.  This is because I grew up in the real world (Chicago) where the concept of a mall was inseparable from teen angst, bad perfume, overweight mall cops, and food courts that made you question if OSHA really had any power or oversight.  Not out here in Santa Monica, the above article references a monstrosity that currently resides approximately twenty-five feet away from my toaster (yes, note that the immovable quarter-of-a-billion-dollar structure resides in reference to me and my belongings... I was here first dammit).

In any event, malls out here evidently include views of the ocean, valet parking, five star restaurants and... a billion people.  For the past two days the police have blocked off the alley that serves as the only entrance to my parking garage in an effort to stop... well... me from every actually arriving at home, as far as I can tell.  What was that?  Someone from southern CA complaining about traffic?  Unpossible.  In all seriousness though, every intersection within a mile radius of my apartment resembles that to the right.  I thought I had escaped this madness when I moved off of Michigan Ave.  Evidently I was just trading in white-tennis-shoes for flip-flops and converse.

Word.

Los Angeles:  5,381 -- I Heart Palindromes:  0

Kirs Kross Gonna' Make Ya' Make Ya'

-I Heart Palindromes

My Apartment Building Is Not To Be Upstaged By My Office Building

A quick update; I received the following from my apartment building manager today:

Dear LuXe Residents

Unfortunately we have been made aware by the Santa Monica Police Department that there is a professional bike theft ring working the residential buildings in this area.

We recommend at this time you either double or triple lock your bicycles or store them inside your apartments. We will allow them to be transported inside the elevator until further notice.

We also recommend you register your bicycle National Bike Registry (www.nationalbikeregistry.com).
 
A few thoughts:
 
1)  I had no idea that there was such a thing as a "professional" vs. "armature" bike-theft ring.
2)  I am glad that the SMPD can put a notice like this out with a straight face.
3)  I am perplexed by the fact that the professionals can cut through one lock but my building manager think they will roundly give up if there is more than one lock.
4)  I can't believe that there is a national bike registry.
5)  In my head, this professional gang wears plaid and steals for the irony of the theft as opposed to chop the bike for parts.
 
Los Angeles: 5,380 -- I Heart Palindromes: 0
 
I'm wearing you down...
 
-I Heart Palindromes

There's No Silverware in Baseball

When you grow up in Chicago as a Cubs fan the experience of attending a baseball game equates to something very specific in your head and in your heart.  For me, it always meant a sip of dad's Old Style at Murphy's Bleachers, the smell of fresh-cut grass, the heavy Chicago summer air, and generally basking in life with the other 42,000 ridiculously happy white people around you.

That above vingette is what puts my first Dodgers game into such relief.  While I have been to plenty of other ballparks (including Angels Stadium, where I was offered sushi that would be brought to me in my seat and that I could pay for with my credit card) no experience was quite as out-of-baseball-character as my night at Dodger Stadium.

My Uncle #3 of 5 (yeah, that's just my dad's side of the family... what can I say... I'm Irish) asked me if I wanted to go see the Cubs play (read: lose to) the Dodgers.  Knowing that there is only one acceptable answer to an invitation to a Cubs game I accepted (you never know what game will be the game you will desperately regret missing, though with the Cubs, this is a more difficult discipline to uphold).  I made my way over to meet Uncle #3 of 5 for a drink and wait for his friends (who we will call I Make More Money Than You & I'm Bill Murray's Brother (seriously)).  Once we headed over to the stadium I was greeted by metal detectors and a pat-down by an elderly man.  Do I look like a Latin King?  Don't answer that.

The next thing I know, I am being whisked down a hallway and having my hand stamped by a girl in a pencil skirt and five inch heels (indication #1 that I was not attending a baseball game).  I was then taken down an elevator to a subteranian, all-you-can-eat restaurant.  Now, I know what you are all thinking, and I am sure most of you have had a corporate box experience at a sporting event where there is a miniature buffet in your suite.  This was not that.  This was a full-blown, 300 person capacity restaurant (complete with dimly lit lounge/bar) that had stations with every meat/pasta/sushi roll imaginable, ready to be sliced off the bone and placed delicately on your plate.  The kicker:  everything (including my numerous Stellas) was free (indication #2 that I was not attending a baseball game).  Can we all back-track for a brief moment and revisit the fact that I was served a beer in a glass bottle, no more than fifty feet from the field of play of a major league baseball game?  These people clearly did not go to state school (indication #3 that I am not attending a baseball game).  Yes ladies and gentlemen, that is a zucchini on my plate.  Yes my father just rolled over in his grave.  Yes I am blaming his younger brother and taking no responsibility.  I am sorry, but actual silverware and going to a baseball game have been, without exception, mutually exclusive events in my life.  Until Los Angeles had to go and take that from me.  Los Angeles: 5,378 -- I Heart Palindromes: 0.  I wish I had been at the game with a girl, armed with access to a purse I would have palmed the silverware just out of principle.  Home Alone style.

Eventually we actually managed to extract ourselves from the full-service restaurant in order to investigate whether or not we were actually near a major league baseball field or just on the set of CSI Tacoma.  Thanks to Uncle #3 of 5 this was the view that I was greeted with.  What can I say, some people blood-related to me are substantially more successful than I am and because my father was their hero (as he was mine), they treat me better than I deserve to be treated.  I am not above that.  Especially when it involves being this close to an American baseball game (indication #1 that I am attending a baseball game). 

I got to meet Jennifer Aniston, who showed up in the fourth inning and left in the 7th.  I hear this is a common event in Los Angeles.  I was also informed that some attractive woman from E-news was sitting behind me who was there for less than two innings.  I don't forgive that girl, but frankly, Jennifer Aniston could show up in the bottom of the ninth and talk on her cell phone for the final out while asking me why a ball that fell on one side of the foul-line was a strike and I am fairly sure that I would still be impressed with her as a person and humanitarian.  Life is fair like that.  I also got to meet a famous Jewish guy.  I have no idea what his name was or what he does for a living.  But given the fact that he had a large pinkie ring, a "girlfriend" thirty-nine years his junior, and a line of 20-something Jewish guys lined up to pay respects to him during mid-innings, I am going to assume that he is in "the business" and staggeringly successful.  Sorry Darwin.

Just as I was feeling as though I was actually witnessing America's greatest past-time ten feet in front of my face, I was handed the following.  Yes, that is the "in-seat" menu.  Because I clearly wasn't fed enough in the restaurant/lounge/brothel.  I apologize for the photo quality, I must have still been shaking in anger.  If you can make out the "Ultra Premium Selections" you will note that I was given the option of ordering a 12-year-old scotch at a baseball game (indication #4 that I am not attending a baseball game).  This is unassailable proof that the whole can occasionally be less than the sum of the parts.  Los Angeles has again taken two things that I love (baseball and scotch) and, by combining them, absolutely ruined both of them for me.  Los Angeles: 5,379 -- I Heart Palindromes: 0.

I also need to stop and address an endemic issue here in Los Angeles.  This "city" loves to attach needless and redundant modifiers to otherwise straight-forward phrases.  So I suppose if I only have a first mortgage (at 95% loan-to-value) out on my house I can only afford the "Deluxe" liquors but if I have a HELOC and an additional unsecured second-lien, I can afford the "Ultra Premium" liquor.  Thank god it isn't just premium, people might not know how important I was if not for the ultra.

There is so much else from the evening that I would like to relay (like the fact that Uncle #3 of 5 met and spoke with Ernie Banks at length, who was in town for the All Star game.  The worst part is that he had worse seats than us, which is un-American.  I should be shining Ernie Banks shoes if not for the fact that they magically never get scuffed.) but I am truly worn out just from having to re-live the above.  I hope that you will forgive me.  The only two people I really wanted to tell the fully-indignant story to already know it anyway.  Sorry inter-web, we just aren't BFFs yet.

Doug Dascenzo

-I Heart Palindromes

No But Seriously... This Happens Every Day

Re: Commercial Shoot with Full Street Closure

Parking and loading dock egress and ingress will be possible via Olive Street during the posted filming hours stated above.

Please advise your employees, vendors and guests of this filming, and to plan for accordingly for possible traffic delays in our area.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Please be aware an ESPN commercial shoot is scheduled in and around our immediate area on Sunday, July 18, 2010, beginning at 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. A full street closure of 4th Street from Beaudry Street eastbound to Olive Street was approved by the City of Los Angeles for the duration of the shoot.

Bo Knows H'wood,

-I Heart Palindromes

FW: Potential for Civil Disorder **Please read**

New band name, "Potential for Civil Disorder".  I am not sure if I have heard a more vaguely ominous phrase recently.  These are the types of things that Los Angeles sends you via Outlook Exchange, you know, just to brighten your day with the rush of the potential for physical harm.  Those asterisks alone could keep me awake for days.

excerpt from the e-mail:

 "Please be advised that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has issued an alert of the possibility of civil disorder resulting from the verdict of the Mehserle case scheduled to be announced before 4:30 pm today. LAPD has a contingency plan in place for the City in the event of any civil disorder.

Should we feel any potential danger to the occupants of the building exists, the Security staff will be on heightened alert, which includes locking all building entrance doors, the parking garage and the loading dock. In addition, no one will be allowed to enter the building."

Great, the LAPD has a "contingency plan" in case the racial tension that one of their officers provoked turns into a riot.  I hope it isn't beating more strung-out minorities to death, that doesn't seem to have been an effective deterrent yet.

I also feel much safer knowing that my building's reaction to this will be to go into Stage 5 lock-down.  I appreciate that they make a point of delineating between locking every single orifice of the building and my permission to exit and enter as well.  Did you have to insult my basic reasoning skills as well as needlessly panic me?

All a day-in-the-life of someone who works in "downtown" Los Angeles (I put this in air-quotes when speaking as well, as not to offend real downtown areas).  If the earthquakes don't get you, the riots will.  If the riots don't get you, the jaded hipsters will.

Los Angeles: 5,377 -- I Heart Palindromes: 0

"If you learn to love then you might love life" -Beastie Boys

-I Heart Palindromes