It's not that I've left you...

...it's just that I've taken my blogging show on the road. Well, more like DOWN the road, to LA blogging uber-site LAist. So, whenever there are large posting gaps here, you will usually find me over there. I will continue to update my links section, as well as posting some interesting YouTube videos here (before YouTube is sued into oblivion). For starters, enjoy this classic Living Color sketch from the 90s. It's one of my favorites.

Pit Stop

Hey blogosphere, long time, no see. To my friends who have been emailing wondering why I've not updated since November, many apologies. There simply hasn't been enough time to keep blogging as of late. The holidays were super busy, and the period from Thanksgiving to New Year's kept me running around at a ridiculous pace. Then there's this terrible "bug" (the universal term for sicknesses including flu, pneumonia, spontaneous combustion, etc.) going around. The bottom line is that day-cares, no matter how nice, are sickness factories, and I can count on one hand the number of days Mingus hasn't been sick since mid-December. I finally succumbed and was down for the count from Christmas Eve until about...I don't know...NOW. And I'm still coughing. Ugh!

But despite the sicknesses, things have been well. I'd like to thank the folks at Mr. Ramen in Little Tokyo for soothing the winter blues with some excellent ramen. For those who don't know, it has been freezing in LA for the past week. No, SERIOUSLY. It has gotten down to the 20s at night in some parts of town. For a city where most people don't even own a scarf or pair of gloves, that's like Minneapolis weather.

The only good thing about sprawling on my couch with Kleenex for a few weeks is I really gave my Netflix queue a workout, and found some pleasant surprises. I usually totally ignore the suggestions on the website's home page, but since my head was too foggy to remember what new releases were coming, I gave in to its benevolent wisdom, and came away with a few gems, including A Scanner Darkly (which I really loved), Born Rich (far less offensive than anything on My Super Sweet 16) and many others. Ah, Netflix, what would we do without ye?

I Need A Hero

The season finale of Weeds on Showtime left me dejected (worst...cliffhanger...EVER), no Curb Your Enthusiasm or Sopranos on the horizon, and still a little ways to go before the second season of the amazing Sleeper Cell. Thank goodness that NBC, of all networks, has the best show on television running Monday nights. If you haven't seen it, you must check out Heroes. It's basically the weekly television show version of Alan Moore's Watchmen. Those who know what I'm talking about know how good that makes it. Do yourself a favor and watch the best original program on TV so that they don't fill the slot with MORE reality shows.

Save the cheerleader, save network television.

Food Wars

Had lots of visitors from NYC in town the past weekend. Too bad the stomach flu I caught from my son floored me for most of it (thanks Mingus). Still, after one of my buddies mentioned that a sushi restaurant he patronized in Venice was some of the best he had ever had in his life, I was reminded that LA is not a bad food town at all. In fact, there are some cuisines that (dare I say it?) LA actually kicks most other cities' collective asses in (including New York's). I don't think I'll ever not miss the great Jamaican food all over Brooklyn and the great Chinese all over the city, but if I left LA, there are certainly some foods I would miss just as much. As far as I can tell:

LA kicks NYC's ass in-

Korean
Japanese (Sushi)
Mexican (duh)
Burger joints
Argentinian
Thai
Armenian
Ethiopian

NYC kicks LA's ass in-

Chinese
Jamaican
Spanish
Indian
Cuban
Hot Dogs
Pizza
Steak houses
Seafood

That's not so say that there aren't some great places to get all of these foods in both cities. I love Electric Lotus Indian restaurant in Los Feliz, for example, and one of my favorite Korean restaurants in all the country is in Sunnyside, Queens. I just think each city has definitely developed more of an expertise in some kinds of food (many LA car washes have sushi bars attached, and they're damn good), and its surprising to the uninitiated what kinds of grub one can find here in LA.

Random thoughts on San Francisco...

Just back from a stay in San Francisco, where I haven't been in a few years. Great trip, and I saw more of the city this time out than I had in my previous several trips combined, including a great little excursion up into the Marin Headlands for some great bird-watching (of the raptor variety), watching an unusual water sport that combines flying a kite and wind-surfing and finishing the first draft of my script assignment, which has now been turned in to my producer. Some parting thoughts on LA's northern neighbor...

-San Fran is one of the most beautiful cities physically in the United States.

-People should stop equating Los Angeles with traffic, because the gridlock in SF is just as bad.

-It's hard to think of another city on Earth (Moscow maybe?) where pedestrians are in more danger of being run down by automobiles. For a pedestrian-friendly town, SF drivers sure seem to have a hatred of those on foot.

-The Bay area has smog too.

-It's virtually IMPOSSIBLE to find good Chinese food in SF, which I find really odd since the city's primary tourist neighborhood is Chinatown.

-I hate Pacific Heights. The people, the shops, the whole neighborhood. Now I'm totally not surprised by them calling the cops on Walter for birdwatching in the neighborhood park. Pac Heights residents, y'all suck.

-I still love North Beach. Best walking neighborhood on the west coast. Period. Cafes, parks, bookstores, restaurants, views...just great neighborhood, and the years have been kind to it, because it is still as awesome now as when I first visited years ago. Just lots more gentrified, but not pompous like the aforementioned Pac Heights.

-I love, LOVE SF's great Wi-Fi connectivity. Getting a signal anywhere in the Bay Area is a cinche. And there are even entire towns with free Wi-Fi thanks to "patrons" like Google. I really hope LA gets on that bandwagon.

-The lovely Palace of Fine Arts building is hollow. It might look like stone and marble, but it's not. It's a fugazi.

-Don't fuck with swans. They look pretty, but they bark like dogs, and they won't take your shit.

-Everyone in the Bay Area is an engineer, a software deisgner, or a student. Weird.

-I didn't bother riding it, but I thought it was wild that Cable Car fares are up to $5 ONE WAY! Wow, that seems steep.

One final parting thought...why do people in San Francisco hate LA so much? I've heard rumblings of some kind of "rivalry" between the two cities, but I have to say the rivalry is completely one-sided. Kind of like the supposed "rivalry" between New York and Chicago that only exists in the minds of Chicagoans. Sorry, but folks here in LA don't sit around bitching about San Fran, so why don't folks up in the Bay enjoy their pretty city, have a Coke, smile and shut the fuck up?

I have a new least favorite word!

For the past few years, my least favorite word in the English language has been emulsion. Maybe it's because I love the dish arroz negre so much (particularly the kind served at AOC on 3rd), and I'd rather think that I'm eating squid ink than squid emulsion.

Still, after watching a Food Network show on how "junk food" is made, I now have a new least favorite word, and that word is slurry.

Seas of change

It was quite an eventful July, in both good and bad ways. Mostly good, but the bad is still very significant. Daryl Nickens, a wonderful screenwriter, mentor and person lost his battle with cancer. His passing came as a shock to a lot of us. I had exchanged emails with him just a couple of weeks before, and he seemed to be in good spirits. He will be missed by many people, and my thoughts are with his family.

The heat finally broke this week. Everyone knows that the brutal heat wave seemed to hit Southern California worst of all. It got up to 119 degrees in the Valley, and rarely dropped below 103 here in the city. It was hard enough to get ANY work done, so there was no way I was going to sit around and sweat over a keyboard to add to a blog. Unfortunately, regular trips to the beach didn't help one bit. It was 100 right on the waterfront. Ugh.

Speaking of the beach, the LA Times has been running a
series on oceanic changes that is an absolute must-read, no matter where you live. Anyone who frequents the beach has noticed some major "issues" at the waterfront. Here in LA, the dreaded "red tides" have increased dramatically in frequency and intensity only in the time that I've lived here. This series offers an explanation for many of these occurances, and it's pretty damn scary. I'm talking An Inconvenient Truth scary.

In better news, I just got word that two close homies are going to be making moves at the end of the year. I won't mention you guys by name, since I know you haven't told many people (including in one case, your boss), but one good friend will find himself moving from NYC to London for at least a year, while another will be moving from NYC out here to LA! I'm really proud of my boy for the opportunity he's receiving in England, and I'm absolutely THRILLED that one of my Brooklyn guys is going to be out here by the end of the year. It's a bit sad to see the New York delegation shrinking, but plenty of the fellas will still be there to hold down the fort.

I have friends and associates in cities all over the world. But it's funny how the vast majority of my very closest friends are congregated in such a small group of cities. Basically New York, LA, Washington, DC, Minneapolis/St. Paul and a couple of stragglers up in San Francisco. My family is almost all located in NYC metro (including Jersey, Long Island, etc.) and down in the Hampton/Virginia Beach area or Virginia. My heir land is in North Carolina, but I've been there only once since my teenage years, for my father's funeral. Planning the Thanksgiving holiday now, and it's looking like I'll be spending it in Hampton (visiting mom), with a little side trip up to DC to both get caught up with some folks and to take my daughter to some of the Smithsonian museums. My career started as a Smithsonian, then Smithsonian Magazine intern, so I can't wait to show her around the museums.

Speaking of my daughter, Mackenzie turns the big 8 on Saturday. Man, these kids grow up fast! Going to pick up her gift this afternoon.

And finally, the tides of progress seem to be going full speed ahead here in LA. Construction is underway on not one, but TWO new Metro rail lines. The first line is an extention of the Gold line from downtown east into East LA. The second is the brand new Exposition Line, which originates in downtown and travels west, through USC (yaay!), Exposition Park (yaay!), the Crenshaw district (yaay!), and terminates in Culver City. If having Metro access to USC, the Coliseum, the Expo Park museums and the Crenshaw District wasn't good enough, this will be the first Metro line to travel west of the 405, and plans call for a phase 2 that goes into Santa Monica.

It's refreshing to see the city buying into mass transit. One of the more interesting things I've read in the past couple of weeks is news about the many new residential developments popping up around Metro stations. One particular high-rise, a condo building across the street from the Wilshire/Western Metro station, would be a great buy for city dwellers, if not for the fact that units will start at $700,000 and top off at $2.5 million. Anyone who has been in the Wilshire/Western area knows that those prices are nuckin' futs. Who can afford that? And why would the people who COULD afford it move to the Wilshire and Western instead of Hancock Park, Laurel Canyon, Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, or Venice? It's like for every step forward in urban development, there always has to be two steps back. Thanks a lot greedy real estate developers.