The Model Shop

i was wrong, it was not Agnes Varda that directed this film, but rather her husband noted Umbrella of Cherbourg director- Jacques Demy. ok, women lose again to the prevailing male talent-but this film created in 1968 near the ever beautiful airport beach called El Segundo, with its oil derricks sez it all about Los Angeles in all its evanescent beauty, crumminess and squalor. Gary Lockwood never looked better.
Dockweiler State Beach features a three mile long shoreline with a picnic area and concession stand. The wide beach is beneath the takeoff path from Los Angeles International Airport.
 Location - Directions
The beach is located at the western terminus of Imperial Highway in Playa del Rey.

cubix sf - 262 sq feet for $199k on Harrison and 3rd

http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2010/03/03/cubix_microcondos_looking_for_buyers_again_starting_at_199000.php

I dont have a down payment, and I dont have the credit score, nor the income, but i wanted to see what you would get for this price in SF. According to the Saleswoman, when the original architects had to foreclose on the property they were asking $299k per "microcondo" - 19 units sold at that price - now they are selling fast at the reduced price. They are tiny, with no in unit washer and dryer and the bathrooms are integrated into the living space with only a frosted glass partition for privacy. The west facing units might get pretty hot, some with only one window that opens, some with only the patio "door" that opens, no window opening. Still how else could anyone come close to owning property in this city? According to their math - payments might only come to $1200 /month.

avoiding reality - new york housewives-Ramona's great malaprops

in the spirit of avoiding reality - Ramona's great malaprops:
"she was on me like white rice"...
and
"she is making a bigger mole out of a hill"
(and props to Alex for not wearing fur - at least in this photo- and since Bethenny did a nude photo shoot for PETA, I guess her coat here is faux fur-maybe it is all faux?)
These shows are bittersweet. It's fun to be a voyeur; it is sad to see what women will do to try to fit into some pre ordained slot in the world. How does a rich woman behave? We can't exactly make fun of these women; they are bright; they are privileged by accident in most cases or by the result of their beauty. Not all beautiful women are rich so there is an element of luck and something else. The elusive "success" in our culture. We are always chasing it. Do only sociopaths achieve it? Not all sociopaths are wealthy. So again. It's what keeps us going. that Elusive element. Maybe we can grasp it; maybe we can achieve it and capture it. The ugly secret of capitalism and why it prevails - maybe somehow some way i will be the one that wins the lottery called capitalism.
But beyond that there is a fascination with the women to the extent that there is any reality to the series. How do marriages compare? How do marriages survive? There are levels of privilege. Jill Zarin gives the impression of high privilege and is perhaps one of the most unhappy. Alex and Simon have a mysterious and to me puzzling relationship. She works full time and seems to experience financial pressures that the others do not. Does she also suffer from an insufficient marriage? What is going on with Simon? It is a puzzle that is maybe obvious to others - but I cannot figure it out. To the extent that it is real - it is an opportunity to peek into how the other half lives. With greater and greater class stratification and the widening gap - one looks upon these women in wonderment, looking for answers. Why do we live this way? Why do we accept a "royal" class. These women are our Queen Mothers. In our worship of "royalty" we are no different than England. We accept that a class of people will have obscene wealth and the rest of the citizens will struggle to survive. We agree that the infirm will fend  for themselves.

Odetta

 Please click on the green links below to hear Odetta:

 House of the Rising Sun sung at age 77 by Odetta

"No more auction block" - Odetta

Slave "Lullaby" - Odetta in the 1960s on vinyl

Rock Island Line age 77

Down by the Riverside- Odetta and Robert Sims

Odetta sings at the Newport Folk Festival 1960s

the tri-colored push button transmission 1956 dodge

 

My father died of a heart attack, in the Central Valley of California, on Valentine's day, 1987.  (My father was a stoic in many ways, and though he was a wanderer and an adventurer in his way, he and my Mother had returned to California after a restless yet accomplished lifetime which took him from Pennsylvania to Boston to Palo Alto to Naval office training to the South Pacific to Hawaii to California to a one year tour of Europe in 1958 (just Dad and Mom went-sending us to live with a childless couple we barely knew for a year-to mixed results) to Illinois and finally back to California for his final years.) I remember because I was 5 months pregnant at the funeral and they played my favorite church hymns - were they also my father's favorites? Or were they my Mother's? Did she choose the funeral program- or was it their standard scripted funeral home fare? (I seem to remember that the funeral service itself took place in one of those "temporary" buildings that they use for overcrowded schools- they are really like mobile manufactured homes. It was an open casket, but I could not look at my father laid out to rest in that trailer. Didn't he deserve better? No matter, I could never have looked at him in death. Such a private man in life should not be inspected on his death.)

 Photo above of Main St., Coopersburg, PA

The old time ones that were also my grandparents' favorites and the hymns that were sung in the beautiful old church out in the country of Old Coopersburg, PA- the one we walked to every Sunday during the early years when we three sisters summered at Nana and Popop's house, so as to give our parents a break.

 The land just blocks from Main St., Coopersburg, PA

Or was it just a coincidence? I didn't know my father well enough to know his favorite hymn, although we all went to church every week that I lived in his house. At his funeral they played "How Great thou Art"" and "Our God our Help in Ages Past," on a tape player. It was funeral home muzak I suppose. My mother wore a royal blue brocade dress; I seem to remember after the service, my Mother was negotiating the delivery of the funeral floral displays- to where was she sending them? I don't know.  There are things that you remember. Small things that mean nothing.
Stoic though he was - he never spoke of the war - one of his few obvious and improbable pleasures was buying the car on the "showroom floor". He had a weakness for the car on display. So if he might give in and buy a flashy car one year, years later for his next purchase in penance he would buy a stripped down white Rambler with no carpet, no air, and even no radio! My father could be unpredictable. This last car made him cross when he had to take our family on one of those awful road trips and this time he couldn't listen  to sports radio! what was he thinking? he had gone too far this time buying a car with no radio even!
Before he bought that stripped down Rambler

He fell for this 1956 tri tone Dodge beauty- but in shades of mint, pine green and cream.

Salton Sea - 1960

a southern california childhood included many desert scapes.

here is the Salton Sea.
In 1960 my father decided to drive my two older sisters, my mother and me to Palm Springs for a summer weekend. I think we lived in Claremont at the time. A college town near Pomona. To further his career, my father moved us to different towns frequently. My father grew up near Bethlehem, PA where his father was a career city politician and his mother inherited some money to sustain them all. He was on a PT boat in the Pacific during WWII; he was a bright man, but he wouldn't stoop to ask anyone for directions and he didn't seem to know how hot the desert is in the summer. He probably knew, and liked the lower prices hotels offered vacationing families in the dog days. All we wanted was a swimming pool. We ended up driving past Palm Springs, we took a wrong turn and began driving into nowhere. My father drove us into nowhere a lot when i was a child instilling in me a lifelong hatred of car trips. But my parents were infatuated with the romance of the open road and didnt want it tarnished with something as pedestrian as preparation or maps. So we drove  on past Palm Springs until we came upon the Salton Sea! Huddled on the edge of a saline lake, lights twinkling forlornly in the desolate darkness, it was well past midnite. there was no pool; there was a cheesy gambling casino, but it was too hot to leave the hotel room; all five of us sweltered in our tiny dark hotel room, drapes closed against the sun and the in-the-window air conditioner futilely blowing warm air full blast and dripping water on the dingy carpet, for two days. My father paced the floor emitting his false bonhomie, counting the hours until he could escape back to his job. ahh the romance of the open road when it leads to the Salton Sea...

invasion of the body snatchers

finally it has come true - the U.S. has been invaded by pod people other wise known as Tea Partyers or Republicans. Our liberties will continue to be curtailed until we succumb completely to malarkey.  They aren't coming - they are Here. Don't sleep. Ever.

the first buds of spring and the lilting sounds of pg&e 24/7

preparing for the building of new "affordable housing" in one of the parking lots. here's hoping it is better than Yerba Buena commons affordable housing. with PG&E here the streets will probably be quieter than usual overnite...we'll see..it's been quiet and underground, but now at 10:30pm they start hammering on something metal. now is as good a time as any. which is your preference? -crack addicts on a tear, under-the-influence folks cussing each other out and worse, mentally ill people lamenting/haranguing/screaming/shrieking, old ladies crushing soda cans with their feet, drunken folks in a swearing match and/or volubly ill, young folks hanging out at 3am listening to their car radio rattling and booming from their open car doors, people loudly buying, offering, smoking, preparing and enjoying drugs, but mostly, loud, lonely, abusive, angry early morning 3 a.m. arguments/shouting matches. take your pick. i know i know. it's awful. it's awful that old ladies have to crush cans to live. i know. i know it's awful that that little old man that plays guitar for change has to do it. it's awful that elderly women have to cheerfully sell grapefruits and egg noodles from their luggage on 7th and mission sts., and it's awful that we have shoved people into a neighborhood with no prospects. it's awful.

SF Annual Royalty Roast

time once again to compare SF's stultified class system with the more fluid caste system of the city to its south.
The end.

Mayor Richard M. Daley and Chicago’s renaissance: newyorker.com

Mayor Richard M. Daley and Chicago’s renaissance: newyorker.com

http://www.nibbi.com/experience/housing/market/yerba/index.html
Not any expert on the Mayors Daley - i know that despite their Democratic credentials they are considered perhaps redneck bigots? born and raised in white separatist Bridgeport in Chicago. However Daley the younger did demolish the infamous housing projects including Cabrini Green that housed "poor people" as if they were cattle awaiting the slaughterhouse. In their place were built townhouses that would be nice for anyone. Meanwhile here in the socalled bleeding heart capital of the liberal world, this Yerba Buena Commons SRO was recently built to fulfill a PR need but not a human need for decent housing. Check it out: the rent is $800/month. Your window opens directly onto the highway, but the worst part is that there is no shower and no tub in the "bathroom" of this one room "apt." Instead, there is a shower nozzle on a wall of cement with a drain on the floor. No enclosure, no tile, just black painted cement. Sir Gavin has something to learn from Daley regarding providing humane housing to humans.
Let's all take another look at Gavin's million dollar home in the Haight district:

I wonder if his shower is just a nozzle on a cement wall painted black?

Yerba Buena Commons SRO

let's put carpet on the floor and NEVER clean it! go BART!

 

see how clean the seats and floors are? could it be because this Chicago commuter train does not have carpet on the floor and cloth seats? who made the carpet and cloth decision at BART and what planet are they from?

Rainy Sunday in Yerba Buena Park

F for Favorite

waiting for the F bus out of Emeryville with an El Greco sky

the SF skyline from the F bus out of Emeryville - the F bus is the limousine of mass transit in the bay area - unlike other bay area buses it is usually clean and odor free, not crowded - but it does end the ride in that Mad Max beyond thunderdome relic - the dreaded  Transbay Terminal.

the only other tolerable mass transit vehicle is the F train down Market when it is empty - when it's crowded you might as well be on the 14 Mission bus - the same bus where a child was stabbed by one of the many mentally ill street people in the neighborhood. Most of the homeless mentally ill are severely underserved nonviolent people. Thank you Ronald Reagan for dismantling so many safety nets making life for many a living hell.

early spring blooms? shots from the street end of january

message on the sidewalk corner of 4th and Mission Sts.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. memorial waterfall in Yerba Buena Park

Mr. Salinger - a grateful reader mourns your passing

The Lincoln Hwy passes through Pennsylvania - look at the trees. There are still trees some places, just not in SF. I hear that Mr. Salinger grew up in the city, sometimes on Park Ave. We know he appreciated the Natural History museum, central park and the ducks. Lots of trees in central park.
Long live J.D. Salinger.

"....thy eternal summer shall not fade..."   http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18.html

waiting for the F train

walking down Pico Blvd. past The Apple Pan in L.A.

the years of the locust

it will storm here and storm there- funny how youtube takes you back to a hill overlooking Chavez Ravine on one side and the city on the other- the days of Nathaniel West-circa 1974

 i lived in this apt. building in 1974 in Echo Park atop Sargent Court overlooking Dodger Stadium. It was so beautiful - the most beautiful place i ever lived - next door was a big long hair smoky gray cat who left me dead birds on my doormat and slinked into my apt. whenever I opened my door. She hid under my bed. She was sweet. I worked as a file clerk near MacArthur Park near downtown L.A. Later I tried working for Yellow Cab as a driver. Those old cabs were beautiful antiques but very hard to drive with manual steering and manual brakes. I wouldn't be strong enuf to drive one now. My studio apt. window looked out into a ravine that seemed totally wild- a forest in the city, but it was just one of the hillside environs of L.A. a city of hills and mudslides.  A beautiful interlude. 1974.

cheers

a small coffee shop inside a corner of an old savings and loan building that looks like one that bonnie and clyde held up. it gets seriously crowded. there is no place to sit down. take the coffe to go and walk through the beautiful Mint Plaza. Feel guilty, feel grateful, the street people like this plaza too.

right around the corner this motel, the "Americania," was recently refurbished to look like austin powers' pad. due to its proximity to 6th street it is cheaper than most motel/hotels in the city. it has a diner, the "custom burger" meant to resemble an edward hopper nighthawkish place, and the veggie burgers aint bad, and they have a shiny new orange bike rack too.

"a clean well-lighted place"

 edward hopper: nighthawks

chicago artist - roger brown

this view from the window always reminds me of the Chicago Imagist artist - Roger Brown's paintings. He was painting in the 1960s, a fecund period in Chicago, along with Jim Nutt and the "Hairy Who."

Jim Nutt, 1969

it's a new year!

 

 

 

respite for the simian soul?

i am far from informed regarding history, geology etc. - yet i wonder why in this "tree hugging" environment - there are NO trees? is is because during the goldrush here in SF, when the population increased from 500 to 150,000 in the city in one year - 1848 - all those trees got chopped down for building timber and were never replaced? did it have something to do with all the gold mining, that stripped the land, poisoned the wildlife, and killed the indigenous inhabitants? did everything burn down in the fire of 1906? you know the reason why we  have NO TREES in SF? please tell me! however, with all this save the ecology stuff we have around here, how come no one looks around and says - we NEED TO PLANT TREES- NOW!
It is a sterile environment. You go into the charming Richmond district, with all its beautiful buildings, but NO TREES. People need trees. Architecture in itself is not enough. We used to be chimps. We need the reassurance that our ancestral trees are nearby. Uninterrupted cement and housing with no vegetation induces anxiety in this simian soul.

target, target, please say you will come to the metreon to stay?