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Over the many years of my life I have supported live music by attending concerts and supporting musicians both locally, and those who are on tour. Sometimes, however, I show up at a concert to support a favorite only to discover that they will not be performing.
Years ago I went to see post punk band Gang of Four from Leeds (click here) who were touring their first album. They cancelled the second night at the Starwood, and were replaced by the great pop punk band 999 (click here) who were fabulous but not what I had shown up to hear.
I made the best of the situation, and I enjoyed the ride. The alternative would have been to simply go off and do something else.
It wouldn’t have mattered to 999 either way, as long as I didn’t stand around and grumble about how they weren’t the Gang of Four. It was ok because they’d be back another day.
Welcome Home, What’s Your Face
I pulled into the front of my house about four nights after I got home from tour. It was my friend Steve’s birthday and we were going to celebrate our friendship by making some noise. We have done so for 35 years.
Granted, it was very late at night. By late at night, I really mean it was early morning. It was 4 AM. I sat in my truck for a minute to decompress. I wanted to hear the end of a song I was listening to (click here) and I was trying to get my sweaty clothes together. I could see a car pulling up and figured it was the police patrolling.
So, I stood up and waited, and sure enough the car pulled up. “How are you tonight, where are you coming from?” Polite enough, and sans the light in my face, it seemed reasonable enough to me. It was dark out, late, and I was still sweating crazy because it was hot. I would’ve wanted to know what the hell I was doing out, too. I mean if I didn’t know.
“Well, I was at my friends birthday party until the bar closed where we were playing a show.” Ooops, too much information. I tried to do a quick repair
“See the damn 405 is closed so they can do God knows what, so I got rerouted to the 605, only I was confused and I ended up driving from Long Beach to Fullerton by streets, and then I got on the 5 North, but then it was closed at the 605 for God knows what reason, so I took Rosemead Blvd the rest of the way. A forty-five minute trip took me two and a half hours.”
“Have you had any alcohol tonight?”
By this point I am sure I’m going to be asked to walk the line.
“Nope. I haven’t had anything but Coke and Gatorade.” Great. Here it comes.
“What is your name? Is this your vehicle? What was your last address?”
“Um. Tony Brandenburg” and I paused. “Uh, I lived in Temple City awhile back. I’ve lived in that house for like twenty years. It’s mine.” Now technically, this wasn’t true. It belongs to the bank, but I was in for a pound by this point.
“There have been some burglaries on this street, and ...”
I interrupted, “... yes, at that house, and that house in broad daylight. Crazy. Thank you for stopping me, and thanks for looking out for my house.”
It hadn’t dawned on me that maybe all that information had just established me as a suspect, doh! I scurried off toward the porch asking myself if he was just testing my reflexes and responses, or if he really had no idea that I had lived in that purple beast for ages.
Brandenburg Concerto #7 in Fu Major part one: “Distraction” or, The Customer is Rarely Right
I was away for a long time. Like six weeks. I came home and went to the store to buy a few things. If I forget my bag, and I usually do, I simply say, “Oh, never mind. I can’t carry all of these things.”
Alas, I had too many things on my first day back. So I did this.
I said, “Tell you what. I’ll take these three things here, and y’all can restock the other thirty. Sorry about that. Oh, and don’t forget your bags.”
What I am learning is to buy far less. Thank you, Mayor Bogus and the rest of the Pasadena City Council. You may not be a world class city yet, but you sure are sassy (click here).
Censorship on the Patch?
Say it ain’t so.
The Huffington Post AOL backed financial disaster known as the Patch, which is an estimated $100, 000,000 loser (click here), generally welcomes whatever pablum they receive in the way of comments, especially if it generates more traffic. In fact they allow flame wars and personal attacks whenever that benefits what they are about, and that is generating sponsors.
I recall one time that Mary and I were censored on the Sierra Madre Patch, and it was because we criticized the Patch for blocking the voice of John Crawford. Then editor Patrick Lee called our house and yelled at Mary about the terms of service. Apparently he mixed us up with his buddies in the Superman costumes.
A recent post on Facebook hinted that the Echo Park- Silver Lake Patch editors may be censoring the voices of people who opposed the actions of councilmembers at a September 4 meeting regarding the Echo Park area gang injunctions recently proposed. These injunctions are part of a larger gentrification in the area.
I know a little bit about nothing, and I am always ready to spread it. I recognize the slippery mud wrestler moves employed by slick investors, politicians, and developers. Using the model I watched happen in Sierra Madre and the world class city of Pasadena, first come artists who are attracted to the funky neighborhoods and the unique pre-code structures, then come the fixer-upper-lites, i.e. people looking to do a quick buck turnaround sale, then come the yuppies and urban professionals with their desire to chase out the people they don’t want there and increase the value of their own and adjacent properties.
Naturally, they are supported by the city council who have a desire to booster for money and new stuff to replace the old stuff. They are bolstered by code regulators, and all sorts of government funded flunkies, shysters, associates, albatrosses, and, most importantly, politically charged allies and monied interests.
It’s all about the buck.
Brandenburg Concerto #7 in Fu Major part two: “Dissatisfaction Guaranteed”, or What Exactly is the Deal?
Santa Anita Blvd southbound is torn up. Rosemead Blvd is torn up in both directions, and has been for two years. Somewhere in the middle of that they tore down the Del Taco and replaced it with another Starbucks. Baldwin Ave is torn up in both directions and will be until Summer 2013 for the new train depot in El Monte. Go Team Bart! San Gabriel Blvd is torn up again. I think they are looking for Jimmy Hoffa.
Ok. I surrender. Let me just stay home.
Meow
On August 21, 2013, Deputy City Attorney Jim McDougal tried to move forward with a June 2013 injunction against six alleged gangs in the Echo Park and adjacent areas. This move was initiated just days after the opening celebration for the renovated Echo Park Lake. A group of concerned citizens (who are generally called protesters when the opposition wants to devalue them) showed up at the courthouse to have their voices validated. The judge will rule on October 30 on whether the gang injunction restrictions will be approved (click here).
At a meeting of the Silverlake Neighborhood Council on September 4 such a brouhaha erupted regarding the council vote (click here) that the whole fiasco was deemed an unlawful assembly by the police (click here). Of course, it seems that the deciding vote wasn’t based on any merit, but rather on the council member being perturbed with the audience. Nothing like a decision not being based on merit or worth, but simply to be vindictive.
At a similar meeting a week or so earlier, the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council voted“not to support” the proposed Echo Park area gang injunction and to play “an active role in developing positive solutions to the problems that exist in the community.” The governing board ….. also voted to send a letter expressing their views to the City Attorney and other city and police officials as well as Judge Abraham Khan…... (click here)
Yes, I believe this is all just posturing by business, landowners, and developers to gentrify these areas, homogenize them by color, and chase out people who fail to fall into line.
Deputy City Attorney McDougal has run people…... oh, I mean gangs…... out of their respective towns since 1995 or so, and has become quite good at it. Apparently he was surprised by the pushback from the community regarding the Eagle Rock injunctions stating in the Brian Charles article (click here) “You would have to go back to the 1990s to find the last time you have seen this many people opposed to an injunction.”
Yes, but that’s simply because you and your pals didn’t try serving one on my child.
Lost on Park Place
It’s always an amazing thing when the smart guys get together to drum up schemes for the business of raising money. My favorite is ye olde publick standby, parking meters. Of course, parking meters are not there exclusively to raise revenues but there's no denying that parking infractions and meters do, indeed, bring in more than a few coins for the cities that use them. Cities like parking restrictions such as “No Parking between 2 AM and 5 AM” because it keeps people like me from parking in one spot for five years without ever starting the car.
In World Class City Pasadena, for example, there are meters AND overnight parking rules (click here): Over 1,200 parking meters are operational in five areas in the City........ Parking meters provide an effective tool to encourage drivers to keep parking as short as possible...... Parking is not permitted on City streets between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. except where posted otherwise.
Pasadena began using this money grubbing idea back in 1993 (click here) and apparently it is successful because, twenty years later, they are still using them to raise money. Big money (click here) that even the property owners and retailers in Old Town Pasadena seemed to appreciate back in 2004.
Ever wonder why the Metro Gold Line doesn’t go anywhere near the busiest part of the Pasadena Old Town Business district? Nah, I never wondered why either.
Ever wonder why someone had the great idea of building a housing structure (click here) right over a train line through the new and improved skid row, and who would want to live there? Nah, me either.
What I do know is that after long nights at the Loch Ness Monster that I used to be able to sleep one off in a shrub in Memorial Park for free, but nowadays the rent there is out of my range (click here). So much for affordable housing off the train line
What else do I Know?
I know a couple of things. I also know that I for one can’t wait until Pasadena and Azusa are finally linked by rail (click here). I can’t get there fast enough by car, and I would just love to walk a mile or two in either direction to go to my favorite Azusa hotspots (click here and here).
Parking meters may be the bane of retailers, or the salvation. I dunno, but what I do know is that if I want to eat somewhere and I have to search out parking, throw coins into it, and then be done in 32 minutes for a dollar seventy-five, chances are good that I am going to look some place else for a Spam Bistro Burger Surprise. Just sayin’.
Apparently, the wiseguys of South Pasadena figured it out before their world class city neighbors did: if you lay off of people, they might actually use the stuff you are trying to peddle. March 5 they decided to ease up on the Gestapo parking rule (click here). Hoping to spur economic development, the South Pasadena City Council on Wednesday approved an ordinance that will require fewer parking spaces for commercial properties.
Well, at least they don’t park on the sidewalk like it’s done in Europe, right?
Pasadena could learn something from its southern neighbor about how to encourage commerce. Try to lighten up on the parking.
Oh and ditch the goofy bag ordinance.
Mervin, We Hardly Knew Ye
So, there have been a couple of major shifts in our everyday musings on the hierarchy over at the PUSD district office. Two more administrators whom we have enjoyed frequent interactions with have left.
Mervin Leonard McClaren, the once Coordinator of Special Education, has now taken a position elsewhere. Unlike many other stellar administrators who have moved on after a tour of self-congratulatory glorifications (Eddy “the Phone Guy” Diaz, Gayle ”Pinnochio Auditorium” Bluemel,” Liz “Bucking” Blanco, and Mr. Ed “the Talking Horse” Honowtz), Mervin Leonard McClaren sometimes did the job he was hired to do. Until the day he left, he tried to tie up loose ends.
Well ... sort of.
I can forgive the vacations he was sure to take in the middle of the school year when my family was able to meet. After all, spring break only hits the Caribbean once a year. I will sincerely miss the guy like I miss having the flu. Unlike the other four mentioned, I believe that he actually believed in the Special Education program. Kinda.
Steve Miller, who I have discussed a few times on The Tattler, thankfully has also left. This following about three formal complaints against him, all of which no doubt found in his favor. Mr. Miller’s swansong at PUSD was my complaint against one of the union leaders, Rosette Aghoian. Old Steve Miller ducked out on that one and kicked that complaint upstairs to Yolanda Mendoza. Then he took a new job in Lawndale, which is fantastic. I have lots of peeps in Lawndale. I will let them know he’s on his way over.
I suppose I should just count my blessings and chalk another one up to quality people get quality positions, and not to “The Brandenburgs chased another deadbeat out of town.” Ultimately it can simply be filed with the rest of the Go Team Nada - i.e. the Crappy Administrator Clearinghouse. Crappy administrators don’t retire, they just become crappy administrators somewhere else. More realistically - they become educational consultants advising the future leadership of California.
That my daughter’s history book says that a Bush is in the White House does not concern me too much. After all, Jeb could roll in … and the book could be good for eight more years.
At least the obsolete science books no longer proclaim “One day man will travel to the moon.”
Brandenburg Concerto #7 in Fu Major part three: It’s MY Party and I am the Celebrant, or Renatta, Queen of the Britons
Her Majesty stormed out of the first board meeting. Pretty funny, really. She should have simply abdicated. So sorry I missed the fun. I am certainly excited to watch as the party disintegrates again since Her Majesty can’t control the board room.
The burning question, of course, is to wonder how long it will be before she calls the police on me again. Oh, help, help. I’m being repressed (click here).
Is it any wonder that Johnny can’t think?
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