Eli Broad's New Museum - Or - Even When Eli's Wrong - Eli's Still Right!

Below is a slightly expanded version of my recent CITYWATCH article about Eli Broad. LACMA and the Los Angeles Times:


Eli Broad has just donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art a new $56 million art museum designed by architect Renzo Piano. He added to that gift an additional $10million to buy art for it. For this craven act he was, of course, properly reprimanded by the Los Angeles Times.

My first run-in with Eli and his 'misguided' concept of the public good was at the start of the Grand Avenue project process. He had the foolish idea that selecting a developer with deep pockets and the ability to survive downturns was more important than hiring the developer attached to the best architect. For that reason, I attended numerous meetings to denounce the third rate architect his favored developer, the Related Companies, had proposed.

Unfortunately, Related won. But two architect changes later, Frank Gehry was hired for what may be his only major commercial project in LA and, at a time other projects are being canceled, Grand Avenue will rise, notwithstanding current misinformation. So Grand Avenue ended up with a deep pocketed builder, a first rate local architect – and a project that will be built.

Eli Broad's most current crimes against nature, according to the Los Angeles Times, start with his showing part of his art collection at LACMA some years ago without his committing to donate the collection to LACMA. This was considered a mortal sin by the LA Times since some collectors have gotten the imprimatur of showing their collection at a museum – and then sold off their collections at auction. Except, Eli has been buying and not selling at auctions and he has promised to keep his collection intact in a foundation. He never profited from that show.

Next, he had the nerve to hire his own architect and pay for all the costs of the new museum building himself when no one else would.

As background, some years ago, it was realized that LACMA needed considerably more exhibition space and that the existing campus had to be redesigned. A plan by Rem Koolhaas was commissioned and approved and Eli promised the first $50 million of the needed $300 million that had to be raised.

The problem was - the fund raising started – and ended - with him.

Then a public bond issue to help fund the project failed at the polls.

So Eli committed to a $50 million-plus building as part of the first phase of the redesign – and to also pay for a master plan so that future projects could be funded by others in the future.

With that jump start, the needed $156 million for phase one was soon achieved – and over $200 million has now been raised. The extra money will go into programming, endowment growth, and art acquisitions.

He also agreed to have the galleries in 'his' building (BCAM - the Broad Contemporary At Museum) to be named after other donors, he did not restrict what art could be shown and he did not ask for curatorial influence other than some input in the initial show.

Clearly an out of control ego here.

Christopher Knight of the Times then finds the show offensive because all the art in it looks… expensive. He is also appalled that much of finest - and the most expensive (which is not always the same thing, of course) - work of the last century was created by white males (with not enough local women or artists of color in the collection) and that the Broad collections reflect the tastes of… the Broads.

All of which is… total bull shit.

There are dozens of local collectors buying local women and artists of color – and our museums will soon be filled with their works. But no one in LA is buying – in quantity - museum quality work of the most expensive artists of the second half of the last century. The Broad's collections also have many younger LA artists and many younger woemen aritsts and aritsts of color. But LACMA director Michael Govan chose instead to show the unique strengths of the Broad's collections; the masterworks that few oteher people are buying and donating to museusm.

The Broads are filling a gap no one else is filling for LACMA while others are buying the artists Knight feels the Broads should also be buying.

As for the collection having the Broad's taste – again, there is no requirement that the new building has to show any of their work. The museum is free to select – or reject – anything from any of the Broad Collections.

That brings us to the final attack. Eli has decided – for now - to keep his 2,000 works of art – 600 of which were purchased in the last two years – and he is still buying – in a foundation museums can borrow from – with LACMA always having first choice in selecting what to borrow.

Now, I have to admit when I first heard this, I was a little put off – until I saw the small fraction of his collections within the new building. I then realized how many of even these works of art would not be on view once the building was recurated a year from now to tell the story of 20th Century art.

I also thought of all the paintings I have seen over the years at his foundation that were not on display – and which would never be on display if they all belonged to LACMA.

So, reluctantly, I realized he was right.

Art should be seen. And at the rate at which he is buying, no museum will ever be able to show but a fraction of his art. So under his plan more people will be able to see…. more art. Now I don't know about you – but that sure sounds like a hanging crime to me.

Ironically, by not donating his collection, but allowing LACMA to borrow whatever they want from it, Eli is removing his personal taste from the equation of what is shown in the building – and he allows LACMA director Michael Govan – and all future directors – the maximum artistic freedom – and flexibility.

So this solves all of the reasons why Christopher Knight has for attacking Broad’s collections. Assuming, of course, those reasons have anything at all to do with the real reasons for the always highly personal attacks by the LA Times on Broad. (Brady Westwater is a writer, community activist and a regular contributor to CityWatch. ) _

Downtown FREE Comedy Walk - TONIGHT!

First, come Downtown for the ART WALK - www.downtownartwalk.com and then see the new Comedy Walk.

Six Simultaneous 90-minute Shows, 30 Top Comedy Acts!

Valentine’s Day Feb. 14, 8:30pm-10pm, downtown Los Angeles

FREE TICKETS: www.comedywalk.com

Come early and check out the Downtown Art Walk: www.downtownartwalk.com from noon to 9 PM and then join us on the Comedy Walk from 8:30 - 10 PM all within one block and a half of Fifth and Spring Streets.

HOSTS: Garrett Morris, Ernie G, Melody Murray, Stefany Northcutt,
Claudine Guerrero, and Kimberly Douglas.

COMEDIANS: Nidhal Arbaza, Chris Adams, Amanda Alva, Joe Bartnick,
Competitive Awesome, Ernie G, Rene Garcia, Michael Goldstrom, Mark
Gonzalez, Hair of the Mangy Dog, Erik Lundy, Martha Marion, Annie
McKnight, Rebecca Meisl, Dave Mishevitz, Garrett Morris, Alex Nussbaum,
Sal Rodriguez, Melanie Reno, Iliza Shlesinger, Todd "JT" Thomas, Scott
Vinci, Joe Wilson and more.

VENUES: Downtown Comedy Club, the Palace Theatre, the New LATC, the
Wyatt Earp Room at the Alexandria, and the Onion Room and the Backstage
at Spring Arts Tower.

COMEDY WALK performers have appeared on Carpoolers, Pushing Daisies,
Saturday Night Live, and Seinfeld. They've appeared in televised comedy
performances on Comedy Central Comic Groove, Comedy Central Live at
Gotham, Comedy Central Premium Blend, Comic's Unleashed, BET Comic View,
and HBO Def Jam. They've been on radio with National Lampoon Radio, The
Playboy Morning Show, Sirius, and XM Radio. They've appeared live at the
Comedy Central Stage, the Comedy Store, the HA HA Club, The Ice House,
The Improv, and the Laugh Factory.

* Parking in the garage at Main and 6th for $5

Venue #1
Downtown Comedy Club
501 S Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
200-seat club
Hosts: Garrett Morris & Kevin Garnier
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Rene Garcia
3. 8:40 TBA
4. 8:50 Todd Thomas
5. 9:00 Rebecca Meisl
6. 9:10 Joe Bartnick
7. 9:20 Melanie Reno
8. 9:30 Sal Rodriguez
9. 9:40 Annie McKnight
10. 9:50 Garrett Morris

Venue #2
Palace Theatre
ALL LATINO COMEDIANS TONIGHT!
630 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,100-seat theater
Host: Ernie G
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Amanda Alva
3. 8:40 Sal Rodriquez
4. 8:50 TBA
5. 9:00 TBA
6. 9:10 Mark Gonzalez
7. 9:20 Rene Garcia
8. 9:30 TBA
9. 9:40 TBA
10. 9:50 Ernie G

Venue #3
The New LATC
Los Angeles Theater Center
514 S. Spring St., Theater #4
Los Angeles, CA 90013
80-seat cabaret
Host: Kimberly Douglas
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Mark Gonzalez
3. 8:40 Melanie Reno
4. 8:50 TBA
5. 9:00 Iliza Shlesinger
6. 9:10 Erik Lundy
7. 9:20 Competitive Awesome
8. 9:30 Joe Wilson
9. 9:40 Alex Nussbaum
10. 9:50 Joe Bartnick

Venue #4
Wyatt Earp Room
Alexandria Building
212 W. 5th Steet
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,000 sq. ft. SRO
Host: Melody Murray
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Alex Nussbaum
3. 8:40 TBA
4. 8:50 Joe Wilson
5. 9:00 Nidhal Abaza
6. 9:10 Hair of the Mangy Dog
7. 9:20 Michael Goldstrom
8. 9:30 Chris Adams
9. 9:40 Martha Marion
10. 9:50 Dave Mishevitz

Venue #5
The Onion Room
Spring Arts Tower
207 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,400 sq. ft. SRO
Host: Stefany Northcutt
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Erik Lundy
3. 8:40 Competitive Awesome
4. 8:50 Michael Goldstrom
5. 9:00 Annie McKnight
6. 9:10 Dave Mishevitz
7. 9:20 Scott Vinci
8. 9:30 Todd Thomas
9. 9:40 TBA
10. 9:50 Iliza Shlesinger

Venue #6
The Backstage
Spring Arts Tower
211 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
1,600 sq. ft. SRO
Host: Claudine Guerrero
1. 8:25 Host Warm-Up
2. 8:30 Hair of the Mangy Dog
3. 8:40 Scott Vinci
4. 8:50 Chris Adams
5. 9:00 Martha Mason
6. 9:10 Amanda Alva
7. 9:20 TBA
8. 9:30 Nidhal Abaza
9. 9:40 Rebecca Meisl
10. 9:50 TBA

For details see www.comedywalk.com.

Classy Credit By Nikki Finke To Joel Stein!

Last night when Joel Stein, as a WGAW member, heard in Shrine Auditorioum that the writers would - after all - be allowed to vote on the new proposed contract before returning to work - he messaged that to the Los Angeles Times and gave them the scoop.

Nikke Finke then got the email from the Times and, rather than texting someone in the Shrine - and waiting for a response - she went with the breaking news - and credited it to Stein.

A classy gesture from the lady who has owned this story from the beginning.

Getty Gets One Of 20th Century Photography's Greatest Series Of Works!

I had no idea Irving Penn's 252 full length photos of people at work he began in 1950 and continuing for decades was still in his possession. But it no longer is; instead it belongs to the people of Los Angeles, thanks to the Getty.

Now we only need a building big enough to display the photographic riches of the Getty Museum.

Stay tuned.

February 7, 2008
Getty Museum Acquires Penn Photographs
By RANDY KENNEDY
The subjects of the velvety black-and-white pictures are not exactly Irving Penn’s elegantly dressed, or undressed, regulars: a plump charwoman with her bucket and brush; a bespectacled seamstress draped with her measuring tape; a deep-sea diver disappearing into his monstrous helmet and suit.

But Mr. Penn considered these blue-collar portraits, called “The Small Trades,” some of the most important of his long and influential career. He began taking them in the summer of 1950 for Vogue, the magazine with which he has become synonymous, and now they have finally found a home together at a museum. On Wednesday the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles announced that it had acquired the entire series, 252 full-length portraits of workers — waiters, bakers, butchers, rag-and-bone men — that it called Mr. Penn’s most extensive body of work.

“This is a set of images that the Getty has been thinking about and wanting to get for several years,” said Virginia Heckert, an associate photography curator at the Getty, who helped negotiate a deal with Mr. Penn, who sold some of the pictures and donated others. “In the last year it finally managed to come together. It’s a very exciting acquisition for us.”

Mr. Penn, now 90, began the portrait project in Paris for a Vogue series on that city’s workers. He continued it for another year after the assignment, seeking out workers in London and then in New York, where he lived, asking them to come to his studio in their work clothes and carrying the tools of their trade.

Unlike the photographs of August Sander, who took more naturalistic, anthropological portraits of German tradespeople and professionals usually in the settings where they worked, Mr. Penn’s portraits, perhaps owing to his training as a painter and a fashion photographer, are more formal and personal. He posed each subject against a neutral background and tried to use natural northern light.

“There is something quite theatrical about the presentation of Penn’s subject to the camera,” Ms. Heckert said. “They’re basically on a stage.”

But because of the isolated setting, the pictures also seem to reveal something about the people as individuals, not just as functionaries. “It’s really about the subject presenting himself in a more intimate setting to his photographer,” she added. “It’s a more psychological relationship between the artist and the subject.” She added that, at a time when abstraction was becoming the dominant mode in the art world, Mr. Penn’s decision to dedicate himself to art portraiture was important and made the series even more significant. “He didn’t want to go away from the subject but to find a way to describe it in utter detail,” Ms. Heckert said.

Weston Naef, the Getty’s senior photography curator, said that the museum had been working to acquire the series for more than five years, but the sticking point had been copyright ownership of the images. In many cases, he said, Mr. Penn and Condé Nast, which owns Vogue, share the copyrights to Mr. Penn’s images. And the Getty, which had long insisted that it be given copyright power over the trade series, along with the master set of the photographs, decided in the end to abandon the copyright demand.

“This was a real advance for this institution to be able to do that on such a large scale,” said Mr. Naef, who added that when it comes to copyrights for Mr. Penn’s work, “it is always a complicated story.” (He and Ms. Heckert declined to say how much the museum paid for the silver-gelatin and platinum prints, whose sale was negotiated by the Pace/MacGill Gallery.)

In recent years Mr. Penn has been engaging in negotiations that have placed important pieces of his work at prominent institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. Mr. Naef said that the Getty made a compelling case that the workers’ portraits would be well served at the museum, which has extensive holdings of Sander’s work, for example, and one of the best photography collections in the world. The Getty plans an exhibition of the images in September 2009.

“We think he’s one of the greatest living artists in any medium,” Mr. Naef said. “And we like to focus on whole bodies of work. We’re seeing these pictures as if they’re Monet’s waterlilies, a single coherent body of work.”

And in the span of Mr. Penn’s work, he said: “They’re absolutely seminal. They’re like Jasper Johns flags or Rauschenberg’s ‘combines.’ ”

Is Matt Drudge Dead?

While I still check Matt Drudge throughout the day and clink on his links, when it comes to breaking news - he's increasingly not the place to go. Tonight's election returns coverage painfully demonstrate the gap between the old Drudge and the new Drudge.

Until recently - he would have sneaked leaks about exit polls during the day, had constant coverage of incidents at polling paces around the country (instead of just a few) and then - once the vote counting started - he would have been the first to list the first calls from networks and wire services.

But tonight...

Tonight there was little updating and the list of called states was at times... hours... old. There was also zero unique informtion on the results.

Maybe it's too many hours spent in the Miami sun and too many years in exile from LA in a resort town. Or maybe it's just when you're on top for too long - the hunger is gone.

But, whatever the reason, the old Matt Drudge is dead and he will be missed.

If You Only Read One Article All This Week...

Read Jill Levoy about her LA County Homicide blog. It tells the story of how political correctness and a fear of honestly dealing with race both at the Los Angeles Times - within the city and the county as a whole - has allowed so many neighborhoods to become unscrutinized killing grounds.

And still the Los Angeles Times newsroom - even today - is always far more interested in pandering to demagogues on any issue involving race and taking the cheap shot rather than asking any of the hard questions that need to be asked if we are to ever have any solutions to our collective problems whenever race is involved.

Below is just the opening of her piece:

This newspaper typically covers about 10% of the homicides in Los Angeles County each year. They are often the most sensational or shocking: a baby hit by a stray bullet, or a celebrity murder.

But for the last year, the paper's website, latimes.com, has recorded every homicide. It was my idea. I reported on crime for the paper, and I wanted readers to see all the killings -- roughly 1,000 violent deaths each year, mostly of young Latinos and, most disproportionately, of young black men. The Web offered what the paper did not: unlimited space.

So the Homicide Report, as it was called, began with the simplest of journalistic missions: exposing a painful, largely unseen problem.The first list of homicide victims, published just over a year ago, contained the names of 17 people. Eight were Latino. Six were black. Two were of Cambodian descent -- killed in a double homicide. None were white. Most were in their 20s.

Readers responded strongly. "Oh my God," began one of the first posts by a reader. "The sheer volume is shocking," wrote another. "Almost like they're disposable people," wrote a third.

Two or three homicides occurred in the county per day, on average. As the report developed, I filled notebooks with police jargon, scrawling the same details over and over. "Male black adult" or "Male Hispanic" -- accompanied by addresses in Compton, Florence, Hawthorne, Boyle Heights or Watts.

The coroner provided a basic list of victims. But much of the information about the killings had to be wrung from police agencies spread across 400 square miles, or from crime scenes or victims' families. I worked mostly out of my car, fanning to the south and east of my office.

Many agencies were not used to releasing details. One police press official was surprised to learn that victims' names were public information: No reporter had ever asked him for that, he said.

When I first presented a list of victims to the state Department of Motor Vehicles for photos, the clerks were baffled. Twenty young people every week? "What is this?" one asked. "Did a plane crash?"

One could know the numbers in the abstract yet still be unprepared for the sheer volume, similarity and obscurity of the victims. Los Angeles County's homicide rate was on the decline, and 2007 was destined to be one of the least violent years in a generation. Yet the concentration of killings remained the same -- a pocket epidemic of violent death among black and Latino men in neglected corners of society.

There was Manuel Perez, 17, whose homicide I chanced to hear mentioned in a detectives' staff meeting. As soon as I put his name on the site, a comment was posted: "I miss you so much, Manuel."

There was Fernando Tello, 15, Latino, stabbed, who took a week to die at a hospital. Isaac Tobias, 23, black, had no DMV record. Valdine Brown, 28, also black, seemed to have disappeared altogether: The coroner had a record of his death in a hospital, but the detectives had never heard of him. Eventually it was revealed that Brown's killing was filed under one of his many aliases.

At a crime scene in the Los Angeles Police Department's Newton Division, lifelong friends of a victim said they knew him only by a nickname. At another scene, a family had no recent photographs of their 19-year-old son. For some of those victims, a police mug shot was the only record of their presence in the world. A detective in Watts once asked me to run a photo of an elaborate norteño-style belt buckle, the only clue to the identity of a victim whose body had been burned.

Detectives routinely admitted that the names and ages they had recorded for victims were, at best, conjecture: Many victims, including illegal immigrants or career criminals, had lived entirely underground.

And...

The Homicide Report made no distinction between a celebrity and a transient. Each got the same typeface, the same kind of write-up. If you were the victim of a homicide, you made the blog.

The report included the race of each victim. Newspapers traditionally do not identify homicide victims by race. But failing to include race also served to disguise the disproportionate effect homicide has on blacks and Latinos.

I had met many people -- most of them black -- who had been bereaved not once, but twice -- and, in a couple cases, three times -- by the slaying of an immediate family member. Giving readers anything short of a full and accurate picture of this surfeit of bereavement seemed indecent. Some readers, though, were critical. The practice "just feeds into stereotyping of minorities," one wrote.

The blog's readership slowly grew. The death of "Sinister" drew more than 100 emotional posts at the end of the year as readers segued from grief and anger into an impassioned debate about race and murder.

Police agencies gradually grew more cooperative. A sheriff's deputy who throughout the year had been exceptionally helpful sent an e-mail in December praising the effort. He closed: "My younger brother was murdered . . ."

And more at the linked article above....

Giants Win Super Bowl - But LA Times Front Page Still Says - Patriots on verge of perfection

Not only did they miss the end of the game - but they also missed - by considerable time - the winning touchdown.

LA Times Front Page SuperBowl Coverage Now One Quarter And Two Touchdowns Behind New York Time's Front Page!

And LA Times sports section still missing Patriot's last touchdown.

LA Times 15 Minutes Late In Updating Giants Last Touchdown!

I wonder if the Times will update its website before the game is over. Begining to look doubtful.

UPDATE!

Turns out the story on sports page has been updated - but the incorrect score still shown on front page of website.

San Zell Sells Tribune Studios To Locally Based PE Firm... Hudson Capital!!

This deal makes sense for both sides. It enables Sam Zell (and the employees of the Tribune empire) to pay down the debt on the recent acquisition and it transfers one of the oldest studio lots to private hands that are committed to running film and TV studios in Hollywood.

In the long run there undoubtedly will be some mixed, higher density uses on these old lots - but as long as the amount of square footage dedicated to actual production remains the same - or increases - everyone wins.

This example shows how preserving appropriately zoning industrial land can create jobs as opposed to the job destruction currently happening downtown by a misapplication of the same concept to no longer appropriately zoned land.

LA 01 29 08
ZELL SELLS 2: READY FOR HIS CLOSE-UP?
Benjamin Mark Cole

Real estate titan Sam Zell will soon sell the storied 10.5-acre Tribune Studios in Hollywood for $130 million to Los Angeles-based Hudson Capital LLC, a private equity real estate house, according to sources familiar with the transaction.

The closely watched sale is the first disposition of real estate for Tribune Co. under its new owner, Sam Zell.

It is the second studio buy in five months for Victor Coleman, managing partner at Hudson, who was known for years as Chairman Richard Ziman's sidekick at the old Los Angeles-based Arden Realty Inc., the public REIT. Arden was acquired by Trizec and GE in 2005, and Trizec was then acquired by Brookfield Properties (nyse: BPO) in 2006.

Only last September, Coleman and Hudson Capital grabbed the 16-acre Sunset-Gower Studio lot (the old Columbia Pictures studio), in a $200 million transaction.

Coleman declined to comment yesterday, saying "in one or two days I can talk." Cushman & Wakefield was retained last year to shop the Tribune lot, also on Sunset Boulevard.

Some observers regarded Coleman's second act -- the buying of the Tribune studios, known locally for its KTLA-5 television broadcasts – as brilliantly written, both for short-term operational reasons, and as a long-term land banking play.

"The two lots are just a stone's throw apart," said a longtime market observer. "The movie business is like a lot of businesses, in that it is a matter of logistics. If you have that many more soundstages close by to offer a Disney, that many more alternatives to meet their just-in-time deadlines, then you are that much more competitive."

John Tronson, principal with the Ramsey-Shilling Co. brokerage, said the second studio buy reveals that "Coleman has become comfortable with the studio business, comfortable he can keep the stages rented at good prices."

Until the recent writer's strike, demand for stages was strong, and some fretted Hollywood didn't have enough to keep show business in town.

The wholesale conversion of the Tribune and Sunset-Gower lots to "higher and better uses" is not probable anytime soon, said Tronson. "The position of the (Los Angeles) City Council on this is pretty clear: they want the stages to stay, that they are irreplaceable assets."

But in order to entice Coleman to keep filming, the city would likely offer inducements, such as leniency in zonings for additional entertainment industry-related buildings on the lots, such as creative office space.

Others have speculated that outsized studio lots, in densifying urban locations, will eventually go the way of used car lots, or other land-hungry enterprises, such as the old Marineland theme park in Palos Verde, or Gilmore Field just south of Hollywood, where midget auto racers circled the oval track, back in the 1930s.

"Sooner or later, the pressures just eat up the land," said one broker.

The pressures seem to be mounting in Hollywood. For decades a backwater in Los Angeles, in the 1990s Tinseltown began to revive, boosted in part by the city-subsidized the Hollywood & Highland mall on Hollywood Boulevard. (built by Trizec, it failed and was acquired by CIM Group at a vast discount; CIM now owns many top sites along Hollywood Boulevard.) The mall was connected to a new subway stop, and there has been a residential and nightlife renaissance as well.

Indeed, more than $3 billion worth of development is slated within Hollywood's 1,107 acres, according to the City of Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.

At Hollywood and Vine alone, the former crossroads of movie and radio businesses, at least $1.2 billion in developments with more than 2,000 housing units are underway or planned, including the huge Hollywood & Vine mixed-use project by Legacy Partners, which will house a W Hotel.

Ramsey-Shilling broker Tronson reports retail rents have risen steeply in recent years, while Hollywood office priced doubles to $400 a square footin

2007 from $200 a square foot in 2004 according to reports issued by brokerage Grubb & Ellis.

Coleman's latest acquisition, the Tribune lot , is steeped in Tinseltown lore, having been bought by Warner Bros. in 1920. "The Jazz Singer," the first talkie ever produced, was shot there, starring Al Jolson. Paramount Pictures bought the lot in 1954, and shot TV shows, including the long-running serial "Gunsmoke."

Tribune Co. acquired the property in 1986 from Gene Autry's Golden West Broadcasting, which had purchased the lot in 1963. Until his recent death, veteran newscaster Hal Fishman anchored the KTLA news from the studio almost every night for nearly 40 years.

Of course, the Chicago-based Tribune Co., a media conglomerate, was acquired last year by Zell, who is now selling off assets in part to pay down debt. Sound familiar?

Since No One Else Will Post On The New Holiday Inn Downtown - I guess I have to!

I usually leave new projects postings Downtown to several Downtown blogs that have the time and energy to post all the details and photos of new developments. But since the new Holiday Inn Downtown is about to pull its permit and start demo - plus it is scheduled, if my info is correct - to somewhat unrealistically expect to open later this year - I guess I should make the announcement before it actually opens:

A long term lease has recently been signed by Holiday Inn on the... drum roll... on the newer of the two old Title Insurance Buildings on the west side of Spring Street between 4th and 5th Streets - across the street from the new hotel being permitted by Tom Gilmore for his partners.

This blog shall now resume it's regularly highly irregular postings.

Reason 4389 Why LA Needs A Museum About Itself!

It an article about preserving the historic concrete bridges crossing the the Los Angeles River in today's LA Times is the below quote:

The bridges in question, most of which were constructed between 1910 and 1930, were part of a campaign to deal with a river that was prone to flooding and had destroyed many of the metal truss bridges built in the 1840s.

The idea that the LA river had even one - much less ... many... metal truss bridges in the 1840's... is bizarre enough... but when it appears the article is suggesting the bridges built after 1910 were to replace some of those recently destroyed 1840's bridges, it verges into science-fiction.

Mayor's Business Committe Snubs Neighborhood Councils!

Below is my story in today's CITYWATCH:

LA Biz Committee Bans NCs from 21st Century Los Angeles
Economy & Jobs
By Brady Westwater

(BACK STORY-Fifteen months ago, the Mayor appointed 26 community leaders to an Economy and Jobs Committee and charged them with developing specific action recommendations for economic development and the creation of jobs. The committee’s report … containing 100 recommendations … was released. What follows is Brady Westwater’s analysis of that report. To read that report and to follow along with the analysis, visit: www.laejc.org )

When 26 people were appointed to master plan 21st Century Los Angeles's economy – not one member was chosen to represent Neighborhood Councils despite the fact we are the only group created to advise the city.

Those 26 people then asked 200 more people over a period of 15 months to participate in their discussions – and, again, not a single one of those people listed in the 141page report was chosen to represent neighborhood councils.

And in the entire 141 page report about the future of Los Angeles –there is exactly one mention of neighborhood councils. And that is their recommendation that we should be investigated.

The 141 (including the introduction) page report does not even once call for us to be talked to or worked with or consulted with – even though many other groups and organizations are being asked to participate. Instead, Russell Goldsmith and his 25 co-conspirators made it clear the only relevance of neighborhood councils in the future of this city is that we need to be investigated.

Now for the good news.

The report lists 100 action items - some which are actually realistic and specific enough to do some good, plus there are a handful of blatantly dishonest political cows of the type which drive jobs out of this city (and which need to be butchered), but, surprisingly, there are also some strikingly honest examples of just how badly business is treated in this city by every level of government – and why employers and jobs are fleeing Los Angeles.

Now due to the size of the report I'll just hit a few highlights that might be of interest to NC's and leave out the airport and the harbor sections since they can be addressed by NC's in those areas.
___
Page 18 – In the revitalization of South Los Angeles section, the report calls for rebuilding the housing projects of South Los Angeles with mixed income communities – but with at least a 1-for-1 replacement of subsidized housing and – miracle of miracles – it calls for a financially self-sustaining business model of having the market rate housing paying for the costs of building the subsidized housing. (Note: The first meeting this spring of LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee will be a forum on how to create sustainable affordable housing in Los Angeles.)
___
On Page 20, they go back to their old ways by trying to blackmail developers into subsidizing developments in less desirable areas, other than their own, before they can get a building permit, thus forcing their tenants to have to pay higher rents. Now granted, as proposed, this is only a program for city owned land – but as the CRA has shown – the law means little when it comes to individual board members expanding their powers of coercion when behind closed door.

A real world solution to this problem would be for the builder to develop a business model – with the city's help – that would make the less desirable site financially self-sustainable – but of course that would require creativity and intelligence on the city's part.
___
Page 23 – Developing a better educated workforce. There are a lot of excellent ideas here, but the biggest needed change is ignored.

Besides there being inadequate vocational training in high school – the requirements for graduation from high school make absolutely no sense in some areas – particularly in mathematics.

While students going to college, or who will be in a field that requires algebra or geometry, should be taking those classes, 90% of students have no need for either. I myself took AP algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry and physics – but not once have I ever needed to use any of that other than the most elemental of algebraic equations which I could just as easily have learned in math classes. It was all a waste of my time.

But today we are destroying an entire generation of students who are being turned off from school – or forced to drop out because they cannot handle a subject they have no need to learn. And, this does not affect our need to have scientists or engineers. If anything, freeing up teachers to teach those who really want to learn those subjects will benefit everyone. We need to keep kids in high school long enough to graduate and then decide if they want to go to college or not.
___
Page 39 – Create Creative Community Zones with live/work spaces as job incubators. Great idea, except in the one area this was organically happening – the Downtown former industrial district – live work spaces have been made illegal by the CRA and the Planning Department in their never ending quest to drive jobs out of Los Angeles.
___
Page 47, 55, 115- and many other pages. Horror story after horror story about how City Hall today goes out of its way to destroy businesses in Los Angeles. After ten years of bringing jobs and businesses to Downtown I can say that 90% of my time is spent overcoming roadblocks the city has created. And in just the last six months – this nightmare has gotten so bad I wonder if it's even worth trying any more. But page 116 also identifies one of the few heroes of City Hall – Jorge Guzman - and from personal experience I can verify he's… Greeeat!

The one major obstacle that they fail to identify – though - is the fire department's building inspectors. They can take up to a year to approve a virtually finished building by having inspection after inspection – and asking for new changes on each inspection and then a new inspector will disapprove what another inspector had approved and ask for everything to be ripped out and redone and then another inspector with show up for one day, disapprove those 'approved' changes – and then vanish forever. And it never ends.

For month after month after month, they will never tell the builder what it is they want him to do. The only possible answer is that the LAFD is on the payroll of competing cities to bankrupt every business in Downtown Los Angeles.
___
Page 57- Just when you think that intelligent life might exist in this city – you run across something like recommendation number 80; the proposed "Economic Prosperity Element' for the General Plan – not to be confused with very similar prewar 'Japan Co-Prosperity Sphere' or 'Mao's Great Leap Forward'. This terrifying proposal would require anyone who builds anything in LA to be responsible for providing for the 'life goals' of everyone in the area they are building. Yes – 'life goals".

It is the kind of innocuous camel's nose in the tent proposal that is meant to seem harmless when you read it, but which is really meant to be a tool for special interest groups to cripple business in this city. So I'm curious as to which special interest group slipped this Trojan Horse into the plan. And if anything remotely like this passes, every shakedown artist in LA will be lined up whenever anyone wants to build anything, making LA the new Detroit.
___
Page 59-Preserving appropriate industrial zoned land is a good idea –but two horribly bad policy suggestions are made here which are then 'supported' by the report's dishonest manipulation of the facts.

The proposals are: freezing the amount of industrial land in Los Angeles –whether or not it is creating jobs – and permanently outlawing both parks and live/work housing starting at the end of the Arts District for the entire length of the LA River through Downtown Los Angeles.

Yes - not a single park will ever be allowed within Downtown proper along the river nor will any housing or jobs for the creative live/work communities, the report claims to be interested attracting to Los Angeles, ever be allowed. This will condemn the most densely populated part of the city, the most park poor part of the city on a per capita basis – to a parkless future and a river lined with concrete, railroad tracks and warehouses filled with a handful of low paying jobs.

The report begins by falsely stating there are only two reasons for the flight of manufacturing jobs from LA – the lack of properly zoned land and the lack empty industrial buildings.

Not mentioned is that the biggest demand in LA is for warehouses with very few and very low paying jobs.

Not mentioned is that the real reason factories are leaving LA is that it is no longer economically feasible to manufacture most items in any high cost city such as Los Angeles.

Not mentioned is that most of these jobs are going overseas since even low cost rural areas in the South and the Mid-West can no longer support those jobs.

Even more dishonest are the false comparisons between retail jobs and 'high paying industrial jobs' given for Downtown when the real choice is between much higher paying jobs created by live work creative and light industrial mixed use communities and the far lower paying jobs that are already leaving those areas.

In parts of the city such as Downtown – this plan will drive high paying jobs and creative industries out of Los Angeles and will kill countless future jobs. In fact, both the Planning Department and the CRA have refused to publicly debate charges their salary comparisons for Downtown are totally fraudulent when they announced that all public workshops on this subject were canceled. They cannot afford to allow the truth to get out.
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Page 63 – Trying to get LA's proper share of State and Federal funds. Excellent stuff – except it misses that LA is also shortchanged when it comes to getting money from major private foundations. They need to go back and review how much cities such as San Francisco and New York get from the large foundations compared to Los Angeles.
___
Page 70 – The need for Los Angeles to have an actual city department for economic development. Now there's a no-brainer. We are likely the only major city without such a department and we have the lack of jobs and businesses to prove it.
___
Now even though I have largely covered items which I have questions about – that doesn't mean that 90% of the report isn't pretty good stuff; it's just that any item that needs to be publicly debated by the Neighborhood Councils needs to be identified ASAP. So let me know what ticking time bombs I may have missed – or other suggestions for improvements concerning the report's recommendations.

And since this committee appears to have gone out of its way to make certain no one they spoke with was asked as a spokesperson for the neighborhood council movement (even though they did speak with individuals who inadvertently had NC connections), we must be pro-active on this subject … particularly since the process for implementing these proposals appears even more top down driven than the process that developed the 100 recommendations.

Ironically, that could be the Committee's ultimate failure, if fail it does; their failure to engage the public in the process and their failure to allow for any public participation in the debate before determining their recommendations; and now their current failure to call for the NC's – or any community based groups – to help in evaluating and implementing these proposals.

So read the report and let me know if you think we should get involved in a citywide debate on this report and if we should ask to be formally represented on the implementation committees.

Or, if we should just 'receive and file'.

(Brady Westwater is a writer, a long-time downtown and neighborhood council activist and Chair of the LA NC Congress Economic Development Committee. He can be reached at: bradywestwater@gmail.com

Read the complete LAEJC report at: www.laejc.org )

And Besides The New Map Book...

... the LA Times might want to invest in a new server.

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Forget The Style Book - What The LA Times Needs is a Map Book!

Every major magazine, publisher or newspaper has its own style book or uses a standardized style book to settle questions of punctuation and grammar. As for issues of civic geography, though - Los Angeles Times reporters are clearly on their own. Reading the names they 'creatively' append to the neighborhoods of this city, it is clear many of them need GPS to find their own homes.

Cluttered conditions hindered firefighters, L.A. authorities say.
By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 22, 2008
City firefighters discovered a man's body after extinguishing a fire early Monday morning at a Westlake home with "extreme pack-rat conditions," officials said.

The blaze in the 500 block of North Westmoreland Avenue was reported shortly after 1 a.m., said d'Lisa Davies, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman.

Now I grew up on Westmoreland - 312 S. Westmoreland - eight blocks south of that location - and at that time my neighborhood was called Mid-Wilshire. It was considered well west of the Westlake District which was largely east of the former Westlake, now McArthur Park. Today, the neighborhood seems to be increasingly part of the ever expanding Koreatown, though the new Thomes Guide now calls it Mid-Wilshire.

The subject property, though, is not only eight blocks further - it is even north of the Hollywood Freeway, an area no one living there back then, much less now would ever dream of calling being the Westlake District.

But just to make certain the city had not somehow designated that area as 'Westlake' - I checked out the fire station that serves that address on the city's website. It turns out to be just blocks from the fire (the Number 6 Station) and is called - Angeleno Heights - even though it is located at 326 N. Virgil which is not particularly near Angeleno Heights, though the old station might have been in that area. All other city agencies call the area either Hollywood/Wilshire or Rampart.

So even the City of LA knows better to call that area Westlake.

So here's my solution.

Granted what any one neighborhood is - or should - be called is a bit problematic (which is why CURBED LA sometimes runs 'name that nabe contests'). So this is even more reason why the LA Times - with community input - should put together a map with the most accepted name - or names - of each neighborhood so clueless reporters don't have to look at a Thomas Guide and make wild ass guesses.

Because this happens way too often and said reporters all too often end up looking like... assess.

LA Times Scoops Drudge and New York Times On Actor Heath Ledger's Death In NYC!

The LA Times, citing the AP, says the NYPD reports actor Heath Ledger, was found dead.

What Really Happened At The LA Times! He Just Wasn't That Into You!

After reading dozens of stories both on and off-line on the sudden mutual parting/firing/resignation of now former Los Angeles Times Editor James O'Shea due to proposed staff reductions/no staff reductions/refused staff reductions plus proposed budget cuts/budgets not being increased/budgets not really being cut, but still effectively reduced - it finally appears that each of the stories/spins/rationalizations have some degree of reality/non-reality.

But the bottom line appears to be pretty much what was first said by Publisher David Hiller:

While Mr. O'Shea insists that he was fired, Mr. Hiller said it was a mutual decision, but he said that "at some point it is more semantic. The fact is we didn't see eye-to-eye." Mr. Hiller said even before their disagreements he had expected Mr. O'Shea to be a transitional editor at the paper, serving only a year or two. "It was a question of whether we do it now or six months from now," he said, adding that he expects to soon make additional changes at the paper.

While I met Jim O'Shea a number of times, I never really got to know him as I've gotten to know other people at the Times. Nor did any of the people I talk to most at the Times ever really get to know him, which could have been part of his problem.

But, more likely - it was a generational barrier. Print is dying and the web is the future. Increasingly news aggregation is going to be as much of the future as news gathering and a somewhat new set of editorial skills will be needed to separate the wheat from the chaff, and the bloom from the bluster, to mix a metaphor.

Even more importantly, though, will be the necessary ability to customize what news each individual reader can receive, the ability to create a greater interactivity and integration of the Times into each reader's daily life - and the hunger to want to take advantage of all those new realities and challenges.

Artists Showing At Zero One Tonight!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
ZERO ONE GALLERY



NOTE NEW ADDRESS & PHONE:


746 S. Los Angeles Street
The Santee Village
Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213) 984-4901

EMAIL: info@01gallery.com

WEBSITE: 01gallery.com

GALLERY HOURS: 12-6PM, Tuesday-Saturday, and by appointment

SHOW TITLE: “Dysmorphic Visualization Syndrome”

OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday January 19, 2008, 8PM - Midnight


SHOW LENGTH: January 19 through February 29, 2008

ARTISTS IN SHOW: Recent work by Mear One, Michael Knowlton, Retna, Sandow Birk, Saber, Anthony Ausgang, Yem, Dave Leamon, Raul Gonzalez, Mark Heresy, Axis, Daniel Johnston, Haze, Van Arno, Chaz Bojorquez, Gomez-Bueno, Nuke, Christof Kohlhofer, Mark Gash, Tomata du Plenty, Richard Duardo, Kalynn Campbell, Vyal, Steve Olson, Brian Smith, Rudy Calderon, Robert Williams, Bad Otis Link, Jerzy Skolimowski, Gary Baseman, Jim Ganzer, Robert Williams, Wahorn, Lisa Adams, Eloy Torrez, Eyeko, Jeffrey Valance, Greg Jezewski, Germs and Vyal.

MEDIUM: Paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculpture

DESCRIPTION: What these artists have in common, apart from their long association with the groundbreaking Zero One Gallery, is that they are pioneering members of the current D.V.S. movement that is rocking today’s art world. This exciting new movement that is influencing growing numbers of young artists around the world like a snowball inexorably rolling down the mountain-getting bigger, badder, and bolder-is, in effect, telling us that the effects of technology do not merely occur on the level of concepts and ideas, but, far beyond that, they alter your sense ratio and patterns of perception.

This is the inaugural show in the stunning new Zero One Gallery space in downtown L.A.’s“gallery row”.

Zero One Gallery Opens Downtown TONIGHT!

The Art Party of the Year happens tonight when over 25 year old Zero One Gallery reopens in Downtown Los Angeles. John Pochna has assembled a who's who of LA aritsts for his debut show - and many of them will be in attendance. More details later!

ZERO ONE GALLERY
presents:
DYSMORPHIC VISUALIZATION SYNDROME


Opening Night: This Saturday -> January 19th. 8pm - Midnight
Showing: January 19th through February 29th

746 SOUTH LOS ANGELES STREET
SANTEE VILLAGE
BTWN 7th and 8th Streets
LOS ANGELES, CA 90014
213.984.4901

Just Made Front Page Of LA Times Website!

Bit of a shock to pull up the Los Angeles Times website - and right in the middle of the page - is my name...

When it comes to proposed cuts - it's never the administrators sitting in offices in Sacramento - just the services taxpayers use.

-Brady Westwater, on Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan for state parks

I knew it was a money quote the second I wrote it... but not that money...

Wilshire Books Remaindered! Book Store Closing Major Civic Loss!

Kevin over at LAO brings the sad news that Lee has shuttered Wilshire Books in Santa Monica - the finest bookstore - book for book - of any bookstore I have ever been anywhere in the world. It was the Norton Simon of bookstores.

Lee's selective buying - though curating is the more appropriate verb - of his collection - and it did feel more like a personal collection than a bookstore - made shopping there an education in itself, a voyeur's delight. A substantial part of my collection was purchased there over the years - and as my fortunes (and health) ebbed and waned - was also sold back to him - and then bought back from him.

And added to his unparalleled quality of stock - he also had the fairest prices in town - plus he paid the highest prices for his books. Now if that sounds contradictory - it isn't. By selling at a low price, he kept turning over his stock on a regular basis - and by buying back his own stock - he likely sold many books over and over through the years.

And whenever he found the odd treasure for a particular client - it would be waiting for us hidden away under his desk when we next came in - and always at a price right for our specific pocketbook.

Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons - I have not been there or seen Lee for a couple years and do not know how he is doing - so if anyone out there knows him - please let me know.

Here is part of Kevin's piece:

An LA Observed reader who works at Cal State Long Beach stopped by Wilshire Books in Santa Monica and found the store cleared out. "Quietly closed at the end of December," he writes. The store had been there since at least the 1970s, and I found one website that proclaimed, "The world's best bookstore is Wilshire Books, on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California. It is small and perfect in every way in which a bookstore ought to be perfect. Prices are fair, never more than accurate reflections of the market; frequently bargains." The review is so enthusiastic, let's hear more:

"Its shelves are fastidiously maintained in strict alphabetical order (something ordinarily unheard-of among used bookstores, most of which are dusty if not actually dirty, and whose stocks are rarely in any order at all).

It's a small room. If you go there in search of a particular title, you may be disappointed; but if you go looking for interesting books, you'll find plenty. The proprietor, Mr Lee Peffer, exercises his taste and discernment in purchasing stock: it's varied and lively. I get the feeling that I'm in a private library, except that everything's for sale!"

Comedy Walk Turns Out To Be A Laughing Matter!

Yes, all thirty comics showed at all six venues and each time I poked my head in as I ran around taking care of last minute details - people were laughing. And many of these people had never been to our part of Downtown anytime - much less at night - and they were amazed by the packed sidewalks along Main Street during Art Walk night.

And considering this was an idea that we decided on... December 29th... that our first Comedy Walk would be on... January 10th.... and that were unable to lock down our venues until 36 hours before the event - leaving us for no time to really get any marketing out - the turnout was amazing on a cold January night.

See you all next month.

Thursday FREE Comedy Walk Line-Up Posted!

The first monthly - ALL FREE - Downtown Comedy Walk just announced a stellar line up of 30 comedy acts running from 8 PM - 9:30 PM as part of the Downtown Art Walk. Visit over 30 art galleries from noon to 9 PM - and then enjoy 30 different comic experiences at SIX different venues - all free - this Thursday January 10th, 2008.

http://www.comedywalk.com/
http://www.downtownartwalk.com/

Also available will be restaurants, bars, live music, stores and an indy bookstore. And you will get a rare chance to see the historic Tiffancy-designed Palm Court Ballroom (home of the Downtown Comedy Club) at the Alexandria, the inside of the historic 1910 Palace Theatre and the historic lobby of new LATC - again - all for free!

Comedy Walk Comes To Art Walk - This Thursday!

Yes, more free - totally free - performances by more comedians than you can shake a rubber chicken at are headed to Downtown's Gallery Row Art Walk this Thursday; January 10th, from 8 - 9:30. Among the venues are the historic 1910 Palace Theatre on Broadway, the Los Angeles Theatre Center and the Tiffany designed Palm Court at the Alexandria Hotel. A total of SIX venues in a two block area - along with 30 art galleries open from 12 noon to 9 PM.

For details go to: www.comedywalk.com and http://www.bgfa.us/daw/

And did I mention this is all - free! Now I know I am a little late in reporting this, but I've got an excuse. I've been kinda busy setting it up and haven't had the time to blog about it.

How Affordable Housing Can Triumph Over Unaffordable Government!

Can NC's Rescue Affordable Housing from City Hall? Or, It’s the Money Stupid!
CITYWATCH article
By Brady Westwater

Everyone has a wish list for 2008 – but it's useless to speak of new projects for tomorrow when we can't pay today's – much less yesterday's -- bills. Add our city's declining revenue and escalating salary hikes – and we are suffocating with a permanent structural deficit. But there are two types of feasible real world solutions.

First, regarding expenditures: any new project, prior to approval, needs to have an identified revenue stream - as much as possible - along with a business plan which – again, as much as possible – will make the project financially sustainable from earned income, other sources of funding – or from direct or indirect long term benefits from the project. Almost everyone agrees on a need for environmentally self-sustainable projects; now NC's need to also ask for new city projects to have financially sustainable business plans.

We also need to determine the long term financial impacts of all the city's actions and the city needs to find creative ways to provide services that do not involve the expenditure of city funds. We need to find ways to get other entities – public and private - to do their share and we have to stop duplicating services and facilities within the city family and with other governmental agencies.

The city as a whole also needs to examine every existing program (setting aside the sacred cows of political correctness) and honestly debate what services the city should provide and how the city can best accomplish these goals within its existing budget. Then a rigorous – and fully independent - cost benefit analysis also needs to be done for each of these programs.

If this restructuring of the city's budget should to be done through a Little Hoover style commission or through an independent of City Hall citizen's commission, is debatable. It is not debatable that our current system of budgetary priorities is broken.

Second, on the revenue side, politicians are finally realizing we cannot continually raise taxes to cover budget deficits. Businesses – and people – are already fleeing Los Angeles and California due to our unsustainably high tax structure. The only way we can increase tax revenues is by attracting taxpaying businesses, tourists and events. To do that, we need to have people with proven track records in the business world develop a realistic economic growth plan for LA. We also need to work together to change the city's current schizophrenic attitude ( i.e. saying one thing – but then doing the exact opposite) towards business.

But enough about theory; let's look at one set of specifics.

Traffic gridlock, housing the homeless and affordable housing for working class families are among the city's most intractable problems. Systemic solutions proposed for all these problems are always beyond the city's financial capacities and yet are also always totally inadequate to the problems.

So how do we develop a realistic business plan for creating affordable housing - and supportive housing for the homeless – plus also helping middle income and below families – while also addressing rush hour traffic congestion?

First, the city needs to stop spending city money on fully subsidizing a handful of units. The affect on the overall housing market is non-existent. Too few people are rewarded and it is done in such a way that it is inherently unfair. Second, we need to accept what study after study has told us – the more regulated and the harder it is for builders to develop market rate housing – the more expensive all housing becomes for all people.

Third, once we have community approved zoning plans for how much housing will be built in each neighborhood, we need to allow the market to build enough market rate housing to moderate everyone's housing costs.

Only by creating enough new market rate housing can we slow down the gentrification of the vast stock of affordable housing which can never be replaced once lost. Doing that alone will save far more lower cost housing than can ever be built though government action. In addition, we need to stop the inappropriate density bonuses that are destroying many of our already overbuilt neighborhoods.

Finally, we need a vastly larger program of subsidized housing for the homeless and for low and moderate income families. The city and the CRA need to only fund financially sustainable housing projects.

The hundred million dollar trust fund should be buying land from developers who have to sell in the current slump. That land should then be sold to non-profits – or profit-making entities- that will build and operate mixed use projects that combine market rate workforce market with lower income subsidized housing - plus retail and – possibly – some office space when appropriate. These transactions would be no money down with the city receiving a mortgage.

Now the key point is that the number apartments that will be subsidized in each complex will ONLY be determined once it is known exactly how many units need to be sold or rented at market rates to cover the subsidy for the low income units. That will guarantee that each project will be financially self-sustainable. And in supportive services buildings, enough retail or market rate units will be required to fund those services.

Once the construction loan is re-financed, the city gets paid back with interest.

This is what makes it a true revolving fund. Once the model is proven, a billion dollar bond issue can be passed to be paid off, not by taxes, but by the repayment of the mortgages.

There are many questions and seemingly logical objections to a program like this – and all of this needs to be publicly debated – as does how this type of program, when combined with an additional no cost to the city program now in the works - can reduce rush hour traffic.

And, each of these discussions – as well as discussions about how to bring more jobs to Los Angeles and how to deal with the coming budget crunch - will be addressed at a series of citywide meetings hosted by the Economic Development Committee of LA Neighborhood Council Congress, along a wide variety of other city wide and local organizations, starting this spring.

Neighborhood councils can rescue affordable housing from City Hall by providing a positive and workable plan and using their influence to get the plan into the light of day. What a year 2008 could be for NCs. What a perception-changing legacy for councils to achieve.

If you would like to work with the LANCC Economic Development Committee on these projects, please email Brady Westwater at bradywestater@gmail.com.

(Brady Westwater is a community activist and a writer. He chairs the LA Neighborhood Councils Congress Economic Development Committee and is a contributor to CityWatch.) _

Peyton Manning Can Act?

After half-watching the recent history on Saturday Night life on NBC while computer multi-tasking, I though I'd check out the current crop of 'not ready for prime time players' since I had watched the show regularly since the Eddie Murphy days.

I soon noticed one fairly tall but very low key guy had a nice dead pan delivery. Two sketches later - I discovered the cast member was... Peyton Manning (and, yes, besides having facial recognition syndrome, I do live under a rock) and that he can actually act.

But then he did a sketch about a basketball player not wanting to return to the court after the first half and then doing a crazy ass dance to Herb Alpert's Casino Royale (and you had to have been there for that to make any sense). A Steve Martin type of goof ball zaniness that was - if anything - even looser than Martin.

I mean - who'd have thunk? Peyton Manning - physical comedian extraordinaire? So I decided to see if the clip was on YouTube, but it wasn't any more. But what I did find was an entire genre of Peyton Mannning dance imitator videos. And one of the better ones is linked to up top.

OK. Fun's over. Back to writing Op-Eds and heavily footnoted policy papers on... Downtown Industrial Planning Directives...

It's... Curbed Gate! Curbed LA Has Contest With Non-Existent Prize!

Yes! The bitterly fought contest among various Los Angeles Neighborhoods for the title of the most improved neighborhood of 2007 - said by some to be the most horrendous carnage since the War of The Roses, the most blood letting since the final ninety days of the Thirty Years War and the least important war since.... like forever - was all for naught!

The once prized Curbed Cup turns out - not to exist!

Yes! The whole contest turned out to be a fraud!

Well, that cup may not not exist now, but by next Tuesday at 6:30, when the next board meeting of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council takes place - something resembling a cup with the names Curbed and Historic Core on it better be in the lobby of the Los Angeles Theatre.

Or else.

And as far as... what else.. can mean.... go over to Luke Ford's blog and type 'Brady Westwater' into his search engine.

www.Lukeford.net

Consider yourself warned!

Judge Crater, Loch Ness Monster And Big Foot Still Missing - But Methuselah Appears On CBS!

Or at least that was how old a newly bearded David Letterman appeared on his show tonight. Older yet, alas, were his jokes. Now for the reviews:

Round one - Surprising, Leno was a lot funnier (with 'no' writers) in his monologue than Letterman was with his monologue - and it was also two or three times longer. Leno by a landslide.

Round two was Leno with a Jib Jab tape and Letterman with some bantering with his crew. Clear edge Leno.

Round three was questions from the audience with scripted questions setting up skits for Letterman - and an open mike with real questions from the audience for Leno. Hard to call, but at least a tie; but with degree of difficulty added, slight edge to Leno.

Round four Letterman's top ten list delivered by striking writers, weak to decent material (but a lot weaker than what's on Nikki Finke) but with horrible delivery by writers. Leno brought out Huckabee. Winner Letterman, by default.
Round five - Leno still Huckabee, Letterman Robin Williams. Landslide for Letterman.

Final Results - who knows? But Leno showed that for at least one night - no one would know there was a strike from his material. But when it comes to his guests, well, that's another matter.

Unless You Want to Gamble with Your Life - Better Have a Heart Attack in a Casino - And Not a Hospital!

There are some interesting reasons why this is true in the above link, but as someone who barely survived a recent trip to Downtown's California Hospital emergency room where the attending doctor seemed intent on torturing me to maximize the hospital's profits (and then lying about it afterwards), the last place anyone should get sick at - is at a hospital....

Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

January 2, 2008

People who suffer a life-threatening alteration in heart rhythms are more likely to survive if they are in a casino or airport than if they are in a hospital, researchers said today.

Doctors already knew that more than half of those who suffer such attacks in airports and casinos survive. But a new study in hospitals shows that only a third of victims there survive -- primarily because patients do not receive life-saving defibrillation within the recommended two minutes.

Nearly 40% of hospitalized patients who received defibrillation within two minutes survived to leave the hospital, compared with 22% of those for whom the response took longer, researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

LA Observed's 2007 LA Obits

Kevin has his usual year end list of prominent Angelenos (Kevin's spelling - not the one I prefer) who have passed in the last year and I was stunned by how many of them were friends of mine - and many of them, good friends.

Some like Steve Criqui were so young, I'm still shocked to see their name on an obit list, others like Cathy Seipp, despite how long they were ill, my brain still defaults to them still being here with us and with a few others like Carol Baker Tharp, their passings are so recent that the grief is still with me.

The one obvious missing obit, for me at least, was Downtown and Arts District activist and leader, Joel Bloom, but I am sure there are others.

A Historic Downtown New Years Eve!

It's been well over ten years I've been down here - but sometimes it seems like just a few years.

Other times, it can feel like a lifetime.

I headed out to a New Year's party in the San Fernando Building - just a block away - which was the very first of the new loft buildings to open up. But before I got there, I got waylaid by a small party in my building, then was dragged to another party in a restaurant I passed on the way for a bit, then heard my name yelled from a third floor window of one of the Hellman Buildings (my black cowboy hat makes me instantly visible at any distance) and ended up there for a while and, just as I reached the San Fernando, I was pulled over the railing into the patio of Pete's Cafe and when I finally reached the exterior lobby, I ran into some more old friends there.

In less than one block, with the intent of only attending one brief party - I spent an hour and a half with five different groupings of friends and acquaintances.

At the party I had been trying to get to, I met a lot of the old timers in the 'hood, some of them dating almost back to the fall of 2000 when Tom Gilmore first opened the San Fernando. I also met people who knew about me and people whom I knew about - but whom had never met - and I also met some new people, including a grappler - who - alas! - lives too far away in Long Beach.

I also was asked for my help on three new civic/neighborhood projects before I left and found a person to work with me on one of my projects. Then on my way back, I ran into groups of friends walking at both Winston and Main and at 5th and Main and then dropped by at a party at INMO's Art Gallery on 5th before making my way back to Cowboy Central.

And when I tried to recall what that walk would have been like even last New Year's Eve - much less the year the San Fernando Building first opened - much less the year I first moved down here - it can all seem like a fantastic dream from which I will all too soon wake up.

And My Most Popular Post Of 2007 Was....

... Mr. Cowboy's Great Adventure!

And it was no contest.

Even though only one person was brave (foolish?) enough to post a response, I got hundreds - and yes, I mean hundreds of responses by phone, email, IM's, shouts out from passing cars, etc. - and you name it about Mr. Cowboy.

Even now, rarely does more than a day or two go by without someone mentioning the post - or inquiring about Mr. Cowboy and his health. Well, Mr. Cowboy is doing just fine, and he thanks all his many fans for their continued interest in his activities.

For awhile, though, the recent relocation of Cowboy Central from the 7th to the 10th floor of the Spring Arts Tower did leave the little cowpoke somewhat... crest fallen. He was unhappy to be deprived of all the lovely young production staff of the Magic Elves - particularly those involved with PROJECT RUNWAY.

But as we were setting up our new office, Mr. Cowboy discovered only twenty feet across the air shaft from us were two photographers who endlessly photograph beautiful young models wearing very little clothing

Mr. Cowboy is now very happy with his new office.

Our little cowhand has also been on a lot better behavior since the... quite unfortunate... incident at our gym mentioned in the above linked post. And the one recent... problem... of ours was not his fault, for once.

My old - and only - swim suit was getting a bit loose around my waist to the point it was starting to slip off, so I grabbed one of my wrestling trunks before heading to the gym. And they seemed a perfect fit. Alas, when I wore them in the shower before I hit the pool, there was a minor... glitch.

Checking the mirror before heading out to the pool area, I discovered when wet this particular fabric didn't just... cling... to Mr. Cowboy, but it completely shrink wrapped every single inch of him. Even worse, both of his two closest friends were each equally well wrapped in a rather unfortunate shade of Myer lemon yellow.

We skipped our swim that day.

Vote For Downtown! TODAY!

Even though they call it by the old name of - the Historic Core - Vote for Historic Downtown on the CURBEDLA poll for best nabe of the year. Deadline tonight!

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2007/12/curbed_cup_fina.php#reader_comments

You Know It's Really Time For A Year To Be Over When Joel Stein Writes a Funny, Witty Column!

Some highlights below. Seriously!

So here is my set of predictions for 2008. Clip it, laminate it, drop it in your time capsule and let it be some future generation's problem:

Housing market: Home prices drop an astounding 15%. Far more disheartening to Americans who bought homes in the last three years, stainless steel kitchen appliances go out of style.

Presidential election: Barack Obama wins the general election but does not carry the Northeast, due to New Englanders' increasingly implausible excuse, "It's not that we're racist; it's just that the South would never elect a black person."

Writers strike: The Directors Guild accepts a crappy deal from the studios, and a week later, the Writers Guild agrees to the same terms, calling it a "major victory for the proletariat." Studios are then flooded with 150 comedy scripts about an out-of-work dad who drives his wife and kids crazy. Michael Keaton once again commands $20 million.

White House: In late December, no longer intimidated by the power of the vice presidency, Dick Cheney's friend shoots him right back in the face.

Los Angeles Times Op-Ed page: Rosa Brooks, after a long coffee with Jonah Goldberg, decides that she is not only for the invasion of Iraq but also the invasion of Jonah's heart.

New York Times Op-Ed page: Thomas Friedman adopts a strident voice of urgency on topics ranging from carbon emissions, Middle East democracy and globalization to carbon emissions, Middle East democracy and globalization.

Music: A major rap star retires, and, two months later, unretires with a new hit album. Also, the big summer hit is Amy Winehouse's "Seriously, Dude, I'm Not Going Back to Rehab."

Food: Every new restaurant in America serves only small plates. Patrons remain blissfully unaware that four small $12 plates equal a $48 entree.

Sports: The Patriots win the Super Bowl again, and the Red Sox win the World Series again; the city of Boston is set two more steps back from realizing its utter irrelevance.

Environment: Al Gore agrees to head a beefed-up version of the Environmental Protection Agency. His first act: Condemning Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's front lawn.

Russia: In the final months of Vladimir Putin's term, Garry Kasparov is imprisoned and becomes the undefeated prison checkers champion.

Diplomacy: In December, President-elect Obama and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad walk away from their first meeting with one significant agreement: No more neckties!

Online: In the space of three weeks in the late fall, Facebook loses almost all its traffic to some other social network site that seems exactly the same to anyone older than 15

Staggeringly Beautiful Photos Of New Police Headquarters Building in LA Times!

Photojournalism has had a number of periods where one or more newspapers or magazines had a series of great photographers. Henry Luce's Fortune Magazine in the 1930's, starting when he first hired Margaret Bourke-White in 1929, is a guilty pleasure of mine. I never miss a chance to see the original photographs and have lusted after many of them.

But in a more low key, day by day way - the Los Angeles Times has today put together a team of photographers second to none in the world. Even though a daily newspaper needs instant responses as opposed to the months - and even years in the past - a magazine photographer can sometimes spend on a single project, the quality of work turned out on a daily basis at the Times is often astonishing.

Today's photograph essay - best seen on-line - of the new Police Headquarters Building by Mel Melcon is just the latest of many examples of the exemplary work at the Times.

In the past, I have been particularly struck by the memorable images done at events I helped produce. I can still close my eyes and visualize the - alas, an on-line only I believe image - shot of the ballroom at the Los Angeles Theatre (possibly by a fish eye lens) during our last March BOXeight Fashion Show, by a photographer whose name I can not recall.

I also have sitting on my desk the Calendar front page with the photo of a model at our October show at St. Vibiana by Lawrence K. Ho. What surprises me is how much they saw at the events I was at and helped put together, but did not see until I saw their photographs.

I wish I could recall all of their names, but several of the best do show at the de Soto Gallery at 2nd and Main in the Higgins Building. So stop by and ask to see their work if you are in the area.

Bizarre Fantasy Story About Pasadena's Ritz-Huntington Hotel!

In today's LA WEEKLY, the writer worries the new owners of Pasadena's Ritz-Huntington might be tempted to tear down or otherwise destroy the 'old' hotel's character.

The century-old hotel has been sold by the Los Angeles County Retirement Association to Langham Hotels International, which operates a small chain of luxury hotels around the globe, but only one in the United States. Langham’s parent company, the Hong Kong–based Great Eagle Holdings, has announced that the venerable Ritz Huntington will be quickly put to a $25 million renovation.

In the abstract, this might be seen as a benign development or even good news for an old hotel that perhaps could use a new coat of paint or some reinvigorated landscaping

.
Now this is shock because a previous owner DEMOLISHED the century old building! They then painstakingly built a brand new structure from the foundation up (in 1992) as an exact replica. They did save some of the architectural detail and much of two of the public rooms. But everything else is... new due to earthquake damage to the old structure.

The writer, though, is seems to be unaware of this when one reads paragraphs such as:

Our era has seen the triumph of paper-thin wealth and the lemming like stampede it has triggered to constantly buy or build something “new and bigger.” Like a window to our past, the very essence of the Ritz Huntington hearkens back to a less-frenetic, more-deliberate time. A little worn around the edges, perhaps, but it’s a century down the road and the Ritz Huntington still offers an air of grace.

There he clearly states the building is an old building that is worn around the edges - and not a building built in the prior decade. Plus his claims that the style of the Ritz-Huntington is in danger due to our collective culture is contradicted by fact when the prior American owners rebuilt the hotel back at a time when developers were far less likely to restore, much less rebuild, an older building, they even then recreated the old hotel.

Equally odd are his observations about two of Downtown's older hotels:

WHAT FUTURE CAN A CIVIC HEIRLOOM like the Hotel Figueroa look forward to in downtown L.A. today? As the power players’ shining new cathedral of L.A. Live — yet more restaurants and concert venues — rises just across Olympic Boulevard, the subtle 1920s grandeur of the “Hotel Fig,” with its rustic Moroccan interior and breezy Veranda Bar, may as well be on a deathwatch.

Up the street at the Biltmore, where I once parked cars as a valet a generation ago, I suspect the same pressures will come to bear. An old-world hotel is attempting to survive an era that’s characterized by people driving vehicles bigger than its rooms.

The idea that either the Hotel Figueroa or the Biltmore - two hugely successful hotels because of their character - are in danger of being demolished demonstrates a lack of understanding of everything driving the downtown boom.

The existence of these historic treasures is one of the main reasons new development is happening in the area. In fact, one of the developers of LA Live - Tim Leiweke, bought and and restored a low rise single story historic building in the area for a restaurant rather than tear it down for high rise condos.

And AEG - the overall developer of LA Live - also bought a the historic theater building (the old Variety Arts Center) with limited commercial potential and, rather than tearing it down or making it into something it was not - instead held it until they could find another developer who would restore the building and reopen it as several live theaters and performance venues.

Yes, that's right, they bought and saved an old theater building - that will compete with them - because of how much they value the historic buildings of Downtown. They are going out of their way to buy and save historic buildings with architectural distinction in their area when they could make more money demolishing them. The LA Live developers also strongly support the re-opening of the historic Broadway theaters.

Additionally, multiple American based hotel chains are right now looking for historic buildings - with small rooms, I might add - to convert into hotels rather than build new hotels; this interest is, of course, the exact opposite of what the article is saying is happening.

So how could anyone so misread the situation? How can anyone manage to get every claim in their article so wrong? How could he totally miss the fact that almost any old building of any size or any kind of distinction - no matter how rundown - is being bought by developers and being restored? Well, perhaps the answer in in the last two paragraphs:

As we have a nightcap and I listen to Cheung reflect on his first reactions to the hotel, I flirt with the notion that perhaps the Ritz Huntington got lucky when it was bought by an overseas firm.

That remains to be seen, with its fate in the hands of outsiders. But considering the meteoric ascent of the ugly American and his fetish for the overbuilt, overdone and overaggressive throughout Southern California these days, perhaps it is for the best

.
Ok. Now it all makes sense.

The fact the Ritz-Huntington is a new building that is only masquerading as an old building, the fact that when the Americans who owned it spent many more millions rebuilding the old hotel when they could have built something larger and splashier for less money, the fact that hundreds of millions of have been collectively put into refurbishing the Biltmore and Figueroa hotels he claims are on a deathwatch, the fact that American developers have bought and restored over a hundred Downtown area historic buildings for offices, stores, restaurants, and loft buildings, and the fact that overdone buildings are far more likely to be done by foreign and foreign born developers than American developers - is all meaningless.

The only thing that matters to the writer is how bad everything American is. Now there are plenty of things one can accurately say to try and make that case. But in this article, every single specific example cited Downtown is... dead wrong.

Has Craby Joe's Gone To Davy Jones's Locker?

Evidently, yes. I've been told that the depression era - and I recall hearing it opened right after prohibition ended - dive bar that everyone loved to hate - or hated to love - or... whatever.... closed for good on Christmas Eve. All the liquor was drunk up by and, supposedly, the sign was up for sale.

Now while this former Bukowski hangout was beloved by many of the regulars - others in the neighborhood lamented the drug dealers who too often infested the sidewalk in front of the bar, particularly after the main haunt... L & R Clothing(where Leroy sold 'clothes' out of a darkened store through a small sliding window all night long before he was arrested a second time) was shuttered by the police. But at least they still have their 'hamburger' stand....

Now I had heard from a police source that a sale was in the works - one step ahead of the DA's next action - and I also know Cedd Moses has long had designs on the place. So - hopefully - a good steward will soon reopen the place to keep some nighttime street life going(of the non-drug dealing type, for a change) at the corner of 7th and Main.

We're Number 8! LA's The 8th Greatest City In The World!

Actually, according to the London Independent newspaper, Los Angeles is tied with Washington DC as being the 7th (though they mistakenly list us as 8th) most powerful city when it comes to all things economic and cultural. And - surprise! surprise! - their carefully crafted criteria makes London the world's capital of culture and business, rather than... New York.

I'll examine later how bogus the survey is but to give you an idea - does anyone alive think LA and Washington DC are equal in cultural and private economic (as opposed to government) development? Or that Chicago and Madrid rank higher than LA in world wide cultural and economic impact? Or that Mexico City out ranks every city in China and India in international impact by a wide margin?

Below is the main article that links to all the other coverage:

http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article3276251.ece

(post updated in that the chart showed LA as number 9 which was my original headline, but I just noticed they mistakenly filled in the names of the topics of the columns witin the number 1 slot and so London is listed as number 2 on the chart even though it was... number 1)

The Cowboy Chistmas Colt

The first time Mr. D was bred was unexpected. Horny as hell and tired of waiting for me to arrange his loss of equine virginity (scheduled later that spring), D decided to mount a mare he had nickered after for some time the second she showed some interest in him.

Now since this was his first time (that we knew of), he appears to have skipped all the necessary steps of filly foreplay after she had initially presented him with her tentative interest. So there was some considerable conflict (the sound of which brought us running to the pasture) before she finally agreed to the consummation of the act. And the presence of two other more experienced stallions in the pasture likely contributed to his rushed sense of ‘carpe marum’.

Now this mare was in season in January only because a top stallion was in LA that month. That was because before his arrival, Tom's pard had kept her stall lit up like Dodger Stadium to trick her into thinking it was already the spring breeding season. But she still demonstrated no interest in the stallion when he was shown to her. The rejected suitor left and she was turned out to the pasture to graze upon the new winter grass (since this was the San Fernando and not the Owens Valley).

So whether it had just taken her a little more time for her hormones to kick in - or if she was really just waiting for Mr. D before she would present herself, we would never know. But we did realize, after doing some math – that we might have a proverbial Christmas foal later that year.

Eleven months later, on the morning of Christmas Eve, she was heavy with foal. A 'foal monitor' was in place so whomever was in the house - where Tom's pard and two of the others stayed when in LA - could hear her if she was in distress.

That morning I trailered over Mr. D from Lance's so D could join her and us as we all gathered together to exchange gifts and have an early dinner before retiring to our own families on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I departed before dusk, but left D in the stall next to her birthing pen to keep her company.

I got the call before eleven o’clock that night. Her increasing anxiety – which included snapping at Mr. D who then needed to be moved away from her – was a sign she was about to foal. Living on the far side of the Valley, I was among the last to arrive. Her water had broken, but no foal was appearing and she kept getting to her feet. Messages were left with the services of every vet we knew, but no one was calling back. It was clear she was about to drop a Christmas Eve foal, but that it wasn’t going to be coming out easily.

Now normally, as owner of the mare, Tom’s pard would have been attending to her, but as this was my first foal, I was to be the one assigned to assist her in the birth, this all arranged before we knew this it would be a complicated birth, this being her first foal.

D's vocal discomfit about not seeing what was going on made her more nervous so I let him out of his stall to stand and watch behind us. This calmed him down and he quietly nickered to her whenever she seemed in pain the most.

She finally appeared to try hard to deliver, but nothing came out. I had watched and helped in a number of deliveries to help prepare for this night so I stuck my hands into her to feel what was happening with the foal. But instead of the hooves or legs I should have felt, I felt only other parts of the body, including what felt distressingly like a nose.

As the others looked at each other, each knowing I was not remotely equipped to handle this my first time out the chute (so to speak), Lance and Tom exchanged glances and Lance gave a slight nod of assent to Tom. It made sense for Tom to be the one to intercede because were we still technically at odds with each other, so he being a ‘jerk’ and taking over for me would be expected where as Lance doing so would indicate a lack of faith by him in my non-existent abilities – plus while Tom had the biggest paws of any of us – he also had the skilled hands of a surgeon. He was easily the most qualified of us to handle a difficult birth.

Tom then made a point of shoving me aside and announced it was time for someone who knew what the hell he was doing to take over. Tom started by further opened her up with his hands to figure out what kind of mess she had gotten herself into while he muttered one of his more typical expletives.

He then got his arms almost shoulder deep into her when he uttered a convoluted seven or eight word expletive I had never heard him utter before. This indicated the seriousness of the situation. He then started to work the foal around into proper position as Lance explained to me that Tom had to first shove the foal back up the birth canal into her uterus – a couple times, it turned out - to try and reposition it while the others worked to keep her calm so that she would not move or kick Tom while he quietly (and melodically and soothingly) cursed her for making him do this, cursed Mr. D for knocking her up and cursed me for existing.

Finally, after several false starts, the first part of the foal began to appear to our quiet cheers as Tom was drenched with sweat. The rest of the foal’s body ever so slowly made itself out, not quite in the right order, until the rest of the foal suddenly popped out and Tom fell on his back, the foal partially on top of him.

The tension had been so great, we all broke out into laughter. Tom, as attending vet, then pronounced the foal a colt, even though he had been repeatedly predicting – due to its inability to decide if it wanted to leave the womb or not – that it had to be a filly.

The mare - by then totally exhausted - finally stood and began to lick her new colt while the rest of us stepped away to allow them to bond. Mr. D then tried to approach the colt to inspect him, but she firmly warned him away until he nuzzled and nickered at her enough to sneak in a couple of a couple quick licks of his new son – typical of the always totally unhorse like behavior of my totally unhorse like horse. D then walked over to my side to rest his head on my shoulder while we watched them bond until their son stood and took his first steps upon the hay of his early morning manger.

Oh, and one more thing.

After we had all laughed at Tom's pratfall, Tom's pard announced it was 12:05 Christmas day.

We had a Cowboy Christmas Colt.

A Cowboy Almost Christmas Wedding

Two things were clear from the start.

First, we would spend the rest of our lives together.

There was never a question about that.

Second, I was not remotely ready to get married.

There was even less disagreement on that.

My ever wayward – and continent hopping - cowhand career (which by then had little to do with cows other than eating them) at that time still took precedence over my nascent (and unremunerated) writing career.

So while our increasingly… adventuresome… adventures were becoming rather lucrative, I had - without realizing it - made a decision not to live off of - or save any of that money, but to instead only use my share to finance further cowboy adventures to fuel my dopamine-starved brain.

Despite this stubbornness and male pride, though, she still hung in there with me and patiently waited until I would feel financially capable of providing for her in ways other than liberating stolen airplanes from foreign governments or riding shotgun on diamond shipments along the Orinoco.

Finally, though, one day Lance, as head cowboy, decided to take matters into his own hands and decided he was going to make an honest cowhand of me whether I wanted to be one or not. So shortly before Christmas, he announced he would marry us himself in a cowboy wedding and gave us – and everyone else – 48 hours to make arrangements.

I tried to challenge his authority on this, but he reminded me if a captain of a ship was entitled to marry couples, then as the captain of our sea of horses he certainly could.

Two days later on Christmas eve, in all my finest cowhand finery, I marched down an aisle in the middle of a corral lined with all the others in their newly shined, polished, groomed, and tailored cowboy suits, boots, hats and spurs. Plus each of our personal horses was also in attendance, each of them tacked out within an inch of their lives. Said horses also shortly created considerable unintentional – or more likely – intentional – humor as our horses did all the usual things that horses are often wont to do when around other horses.

Then in a brilliant stroke that displayed his true evilness, Lance had dragooned my ever faithless horse - Mr. D - into being the ring bearer, and Mr. D trotted down the aisle after me with his teeth holding a box with the rings that would symbolize my loss of freedom though eternal bridledom. (And with all the attention given my bride and my horse, if I hadn't shown up – no one would have much noticed – or cared)

Fortunately, D did not mistake the five carats of the ring (and as we were being paid in diamonds, size was no object) for real carrots, otherwise we would have had a wedding delay while we waited for the ring to reappear.

And, speaking of dodged bullets, with Bach as my best man since Lance was performing the ceremony – (and if there was ever anyone born to host a bachelor party, it was Bach since his nickname was short for… bachelor) it was a miracle any of us had the energy left to make it to the wedding.

Then when it finally came time to close the ceremony, Lance nodded his head as he announced I could kiss my bride and exactly as those words came from his mouth – my horse gently nudged me towards my bride with his nose – to the collective vocal ... aww.... of approval of everyone in attendance.

And so I was totally upstaged not just once, but twice at my own wedding by my own horse.

Then, after kissing my bride (after which she gave my Benedict Arnold of a horse both a hug and a kiss), I had the seriously mitigated pleasure of watching all the others embrace and kiss my new wife under my watchful eye – when Lance came over and announced this ceremony was his early Christmas present to me.

But just before I could properly thank him, for a moment I saw that look of incredible sadness in his eyes, the look he had when his thoughts turned to his wife and his son.

And when he saw me reacting to his momentary mood, he turned on his easy grin and reached over and gave me a ‘friendly squeeze’ on my shoulder – which left black and blue finger imprints all over my shoulder for a full week. And between the knee weakening pain and his grin, he had changed the mood and the subject.

But now looking back, I wonder if Lance somehow, or in some way knew that in all too short a time, we would all gather together again, but this time to celebrate a life that had far too soon ended before laying her to rest on the ridge where Lance’s wife and son already lay in wait for him.

Hollywood Bowl Opens New Winter Season!

Yes! The Hollywood Bowl. Not just for summer any more.

According to their new advertising campaign - you can now take the shuttle service and enjoy late December concerts! Or at least that is what the new posters promoting their shuttle serice posted yesterday on Red Line subway would seem to suggest.

Headless Horsemen Haunt Happening!

Just when you thought the walk between Ralph's and the 7th and Flower subway stop cound't get any more forbidding - now every street light on the east side of Flower between 8th and 9th is out.

Vote For Downtown! NOW!!

Historic Core has made it to the CURBEDLA finals!

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2007/12/curbed_cup_roun_3.php

Seen Any Headless Horsemen Downtown Lately? Well... Just Wait!

Downtown’s Haunted Walk of Horror!

If you missed the haunted house attractions of last Halloween, you can still get your thrills and chills by simply walking the single darkest and scariest place in all Downtown; the two terror filled blocks between the front door of Ralphs and the 7th and Hope subway stop.

Now this surprisingly deserted pathway should be well lit to encourage people to get to Ralphs by subway rather than getting in their cars and driving; but, instead, this corridor of darkness seems to have been lit for a night shoot of Icabod Crane’s immortal encounter with the headless horseman. If CIM had deliberately decided to create barrier between the subway and Ralphs to keep us subway-riding riffraff out of their stores, they could not have done a better job.

This free of charge thrill ride begins once you leave the front door of Ralph’s and start to head east; after you pass the glass walls of Ralphs, and once the corner coffee shop closes, darkness ensues and hope vanishes. There is no exterior lighting anywhere on that side of that building that directly lights the sidewall.

Then upon turning the corner onto the ironically called ‘Hope’ Street to head north – all hope becomes extinguished since there not one exterior light that shines directly on the side walk (and only a few pale lights barely illuminating the side of the building). Not a single light brightens your path until you approach the canopy over the front door. Then, even when you do reach those few lights, they are placed so high as to be almost useless; they dispense little light on the sidewalk – even on the rare occasion those lights aren’t burned out.

And that’s the good news!

It then gets darker and darker the rest of the block. From then on – on both sides of the street – the sidewalks are just barely illumined by the dimmest of dim lights in all Los Angeles – excepting possibly a few dim bulbs at City Hall. Even by the impossibly low standards of downtown street lights – these barely provide enough light to create even a pale shadow.

So while I used to see people walking the subway stop at night after Ralphs first opened, and even though there are more people in the store at night, it’s been weeks since I’ve seen even a single person make that walk from the subway in the evening. People simply do not feel safe walking along streets when it's too dark to recognize the faces of the people walking towards you.

So what needs to be done?

First, CIM needs to attach lights on all sides of ALL their buildings that are not just decorative – but lights that actually provide enough light on the sidewalks so pedestrians will feel comfortable. Then they need to realize how dark their sidewalks are once the light in the stores have been turned out and light the outsides of their buildings so that the sidewalks feel safe even when the stores are closed.

Lastly, CIM needs to get the city to put real light bulbs in the street lights (and fix the ones that are broken) so the rest of the block (and the next block before the subway stop) is bright enough at night for people to feel comfortable walking.

It’s either that – or keep a sharp eye out for the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

Did David Beckham Buy At LA Live's Ritz-Carlton?

That's what Page SIX reports today. And I had heard a five million dollar unit is in escrow - so if one did sell for eight million - it would be a new record:

Looks like British import David Beckham has plans to stay in sunny California. The L.A. Galaxy star has plunked down $8 million for a luxurious loft space in the Ritz-Carlton Residences at L.A. Live, a testament to “ultramodern style living” that is currently being built downtown. Sounds just like Posh’s taste!

Their opulent 3000-square-foot pad on the 18th floor of the tower overlooks the adjacent Staples Center and the new Nokia Center, as well as the entire L.A. skyline. David, Victoria and their three boys will share the building (which features 224 extravagant condos and 52 stories of hotel rooms) with big names, including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and basketball star Kobe Bryant. For a cost of $20,000 per month, high-rise dwellers will have access to five-star amenities and services.

This is the Beckhams second West Coast home. They already own a $9 million spread in Beverly Hills that Victoria selected before the family moved to the United States in July.

Other units in the ten million range are also going to be available.