Todd update

Three flights to make Marrakesh only reinforced my theory that flying against the sun's east-to-west path is much harder on the body and its ability to adapt. Otherwise flights were fine - mostly empty with lots of room to stretch out. Tracy's experience was worse.

Slept through much of my first 36 hours here in our enormous, cold, three-toileted apartment apart from some trekking and wandering through the nouvelle ville in search of supplies and sustenance.

Apparently these Internets do not recognize me anymore. Every site I visit offers me the French or European version.

Event Photos: Todd and Ms. Vanity Farewell at Bar Celona

Todd sported velvet. Ms. Vanity, a polka dot halter dress. Family and friends gathered last night at Bar Celona to bid farewell to the dark and sexy couple as they pack their bags for Marrakesh. Guests, enjoying Obama drink specials, included Todd's Mom and Dad, as well as current and former staffers from the Pasadena Star-News, Pasadena Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily Journal and The Orange County Register. I arrived with my sweetie after Public Editor Larry Wilson left, and snapped these photos.

Be Seeing You

Doing up a little a going away thing for our Pasadena friends @ Bar Celona tomorrow night, Tuesday ~7 p.m.

Was too busy last week to lament the death of Patrick McGoohan, best known for creating, writing, directing and starring in The Prisoner, a show blog fans no doubt have heard referenced before. Tracy and I had just finished watching the entire series on DVD two days before he died here in Los Angeles.

AMC, which just completed production of a "reimagining" of the series set to broadcast next year, has made all of the original episodes available online in full. Can't say I'm interested in an unnecessary remake when the original still stands up so well. Chocked full of valuable life lessons. I picked up the box set last year at Interact! for $40.

All the Doo Dah the day

When I last looked for an apartment about two years ago it was survival of the fittest. After a few weeks of fail, I realized it meant waking early and being the first person at the newest listings. And, ultimately, paying dumb money to live in the Playhouse District.

Today, my manager held an open house after pleading with me for days. She bought balloons and flew them. A handful of people came with an attitude of disdain. And they'd already lowered the price about $200 below what I'm paying.

That said, Doo Dah Paraders won't want to miss watching Ann Lau, bulldog in chief of human rights champs The Visual Artists Guild preside as the Thorny Rose over a much bolder parade entry than that which they fought - and were denied - to have in last year's Rose Parade. It should prove theater of the absurd,according to her release:

The Great Firewall of China Marching Brigade to appear in the 2009 Pasadena Doo-Dah Parade

WHEN: Sunday, January 18, 2009 11:30AM
WHERE: Pasadena Old Town, Raymond and Colorado

MARCHING BRIGADE: A Great Firewall of China Marching Brigade will follow a vintage car carrying Ann Lau, Chair of the Visual Artists Guild and recipient of the 2009 Thorny Rose Award. The Brigade will highlight the internet censorship in China and the continuous imprisonment of internet writers, journalists, religious persons, etc.

...

Upon notification, Ann Lau stated: “I am honored to be the recipient of the 2009 Thorny Rose Award. When I told my daughters, they said that their mother rocks. This must certainly be the closest I will ever get to receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. (smile)

Shining a light on the issues of international human rights in the City of Pasadena has been a most rewarding experience. How else would Mayor Bill Bogaard have indicated that he discovered the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the same time he rejected the recommendations of his own Commission on Human Relations to make a strong statement about human rights abuses in China? Indeed, it was a one giant step for the Mayor to host the City of Pasadena's first ever celebration of the Universal Declaration this past December.

Without the deep compassion and tremendous support of an untold number of fine citizens of the City of Pasadena, the issue of human rights in China might have been ignored. I thank them for their support and encourage them to continue to raise their voices.”

All are welcome!

What fun! Attendees should wash down the day's wackiness with perusing - and purchasing - some Relics of Todd at the Kenneth Todd Ruiz and Tracy Vanity Estate Sale from Noon to 4 p.m.

283 S. El Molino Ave. #1, yo.

The Pasadena Expat

Much like The Prisoner's No. 6, I'm often asked why I resigned from my last gig at the newspaper.

Not nearly of the same Kafkaesque dimensions, my motives were driven by a happy convergence of imperatives. Push and pulse of the same restlessness that keeps me moving and reluctant to root. Also had planned a two-yearish lifespan there. And certainly in part the erosion of the profession as expressed in daily print form running up against my ideas of standards for doing a thing. More than erosion; corrosion at the hands of very smart MBA holders with the hubris to believe they're the first to "treat it like a real business." Despite the fact it's always been about profit. By being about product. That thinking has reached irreversible tipping point and all your blogs can't put Humpty's democracy back together again.

That said, it was in no way the crew at 911 E Colorado - they were more or less family (good and bad implications intended) nor the onerous leakage of testosterone and misplaced hostility from the Home Office in West Covina. They just made things churn unnecessarily and unhelpfully.

For me, it proved the right time to leave and pursue the next thing. In a macro-sense, turned out not to be the best time to make a big career move, such as realizing my long-held desire to join National Public Radio. But it is the right time to execute the alternative plan. My initial motive for returning school at 27 after a couple years of outstanding adventure.

So before the month is out, I'm moving to Marrakesh. With Ms. Vanity. Should make for compelling blog fodder.

No extra credit for Crosby, Stills and Nash references in the comments.

Rose Parade Photos - Views From the Playhouse District

These Rose Parade photos shot tiptoeing above parade watchers on the corner of El Molino Ave. and Colorado Blvd. The sky was blue. Temperatures climbed into the 70s. Still, southern Californians(below) watched the parade in ski hats, jackets and scarves.

Pre-Rose Parade Photos

People and pets this afternoon staked out their curbside spots along Colorado Blvd. for the 120th annual Tournament of Roses Parade. This year's parade is smaller and smoke-free. One kitty wished he could be there.

Synchronicity

What a wonderful blogging opportunity for the just-launched, official Old Pasadena Management District blog!

PASADENA - A man who didn't provide a hand-out to a panhandler was stabbed in the hand near Colorado Boulevard and Pasadena Avenue in Old Pasadena, police said.

The attack occurred about 8 p.m. Wednesday, after the panhandler approached the victim and asked for money, Pasadena Police Department Lt. Randell Taylor said.

When the victim said he didn't have any money, the panhandler pulled out a knife and tried to stab him. The victim put his hands up to protect himself and was stabbed in the hand, Taylor said. He was treated at a hospital.

The attacker had a long beard, a military jacket and a military hat and appeared to be in his 20s or 30s, Taylor said.

No folo on that story since Thursday? I don't know whether to blame the fine minds in West Covina or the miserably understaffed satellite bureau they've made of the Star-News through the years.

The headline though ... how do we know the transient was "angry?" I know my share; psychological and emotional problems are one of the few commonalities.

But that, again, is facts interfering with a good narrative. Fear the angry homeless! Fear the angry poor! Their knives will soon be at your daughters' necks.

UPDATE: Was it a year or two years ago the Steve Mulheim last had an ulcer after a drug-deal-gone-bad shooting happened in the middle of the day and boulevard?

Pasadena: Center of the Universe

The Crown City, Pasadena has a rich history and many sources of local pride.

Like John Muir High School, which has produced esteemed alumni such as Jackie Robinson, John Van de Kamp and a football program that keeps the ranks of the Pasadena Denver Lanes well stocked with fresh initiates. My pops - who would go on to launch and head the low-temperature physics department at JPL - attended the school for some time before being kicked out.

Some might not be aware of other famous Muir graduates.

Like Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, who murdered a second Kennedy's White House aspirations with three bullets at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968. Sirhan squared also attended Eliot in Altadena, according to the 'pedia.

Or, even more relevantly, the Muir campus served as the proving grounds for someone many would agree has earned the sobriquet as the "Most Hated Man in America."

I'm talking about Fred Phelps, head of the Westboro Baptist Church, the brilliant mind behind that whole "God Hates Fags" thing. Phelps inspired an entire nation to hate him when, along with his family and a few like-minded believers, he began protesting funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq with signs like "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "Thank God for IEDs"



"They turned this nation over to fags; they're coming home in body bags"

On June 11, 1951, Time Magazine published a short profile about Phelps' early years cutting his teeth on that Old Time Religion and disseminating the finer points of Christianity as a Muir student:

Fred Phelps's talks drew crowds of up to 100. Over & over he denounced the "sins committed on campus by students and teachers . . . promiscuous petting . evil language . . . profanity . . . cheating . . . teachers' filthy jokes in classrooms . . . pandering to the lusts of the flesh." Such strictures sent Dr. Archie Turrell, principal of John Muir, and most of his faculty into a slow burn. Not only was Evangelist Phelps attacking them, they decided, but conceivably he was violating California's state education code, which forbids the teaching of religion on any public school campus.

...

Students were delighted with the story that Phelps had been ordered to consult the school psychologist, a middle-aged lady, and that he had turned the tables on her by "psychoanalyzing" her. Gloated an admiring coed: "I hope he did. They had no right to suggest that he's off his stick. Just because you're religious, it doesn't mean you have to be crazy."

Sure. But the correlation is hard to argue.

As a caveat, I asked PUSD school boarder Scott Phelps - a bundle of human empathy and Bahá'í Faith adherent - if there was any relation. So sad was I to be told there was not. It's terribly annoying when facts get in the way of a good story.

An open haiku to David Bontempo

Sole draw in Old Pas
14 years you've cut my hair
David where are you?

Seriously, I'm beginning to look like Rod Blagojevich.

Informative Post

So that postcard in the mail advertising the Dec. 2 District 6 Town Hall Meeting lied. It is, in fact, from 7 to 9 p.m. on Dec. 3 in the Maranatha High School Student Center, 169 St. John Ave.

Steve Madison and recently installed City Manager Michael Beck will be representin'

"Free parking is available in the covered lot on St. John Avenue between Green Street and Del Mar Boulevard," says Ann Erdman.

Welcome to Nicetown

A long time ago there was a place called Nicetown. Not to say everything was perfect in Nicetown, but it was a very nice place to live.

There may have been some crime. Not everyone did as well as their neighbor, and the schools were shamefully bad. But it was a community, and it took some bad with its good. For there was boldness in its culture, spirit in its diversity, vitality in its struggles and vigor in its youth.

But the people who made the rules in Nicetown (Who were neither diverse, struggling nor young) dreamed of something more. Nice wasn't nice enough for them and their friends. They tried using their trusted authority as rule-writers to edit out the errors and fix the broken syntax of a community. To correct the dangling participles of its residents and eliminate any unscripted ad-libbing.

Essentially, their singular obsession: Remaking Nicetown into Supernicetown.

Unfortunately, they had long forgotten what it was to be young, or poor or human and for the most part, sexually active. So with bulldozers and sweetheart deals, minor graft and a lazy myopia, they peeled away the soul and the occasional slop and unintended rougher edges one layer at a time, like an onion. Without the crying.

Their only opposition came from flawed antiheroes and fringe voices who only served to reinforce the rulemakers righteous certitude.

And soon it was Supernice Town. A Supernice town for soulless consumption by Supernice people. Supernice town did so well, it could fly silk banners from every lamp post. It did so well, the rulemakers could spend much of the people's money not on the people -- but on making and remaking greater monuments to themselves and insuring there were no tits to be seen anywhere in town. The social complexities -- once shouted in vigorous debate -- were laminated and hung from a wall as relics of the past. Not the "Nicetown Way."

Problem was, most of the nice people who lived in Nicetown had left. Their unique businesses gave way to corporate outposts peddling bland experiences. Fewer Supernicetown residents had any notion where they were and stopped investing in its future. Things grew kinda stagnant. Social division and ignored ills of the community fueled anger and unrest. Although crime became less common, it became more vile, desperate and ugly.

And the schools? They were still shamefully awful. Despite more than a decade of leeching blood and treasure with platitudes and promises, the hangers-on so dear to the rulemakers had only improved their own futures. But the Supernice people and their friends were either too old to care or placed their children into corporate academies.

Still certain of their mission, they tried to divert attention elsewhere. If only they could unearth the sources of such unpleasantess, dig them up like earthworms and leave them to rot in the sun.

So, they crusaded against everything they could find left that some people considered Not the Nice Way. Issued hastily considered Final Solutions for the Real Ills of Supernicetown! Throw out tits! Snuff smokers! Clean out coal! Move out massages! Shutter liquor stores! Quash protest and dissent! Eliminate anguish by hosting biannual Art Nights and adding a marathon!

In the end, they got everything they wanted. A Supernicetown for themselves and their friends, as long as they stuck to certain streets at certain times of the day and tuned out the voices of dissent. A Supernice town for themselves and their friends, at least for as long as it would take them to die.