Hollywood Vacation

Eric near a Venice Beach emporium -- Picture by blogSpotter

by blogSpotter
I’m at the Knox Street Starbucks as I write this, sitting on the outside patio. We’re having a beautiful late Indian summer day -- 80 degrees outside. Have been feeding the sparrows; they appear to like peanut butter cookies. They almost seem more like pets than wild birds -- very cute.

I’m WAY overdue for my LA trip report. My brother Bryan, friend Eric and I went to Los Angeles and Palm Springs two weeks ago. While there, I had the “bizarre allergy attack from Hell” where my nose ran like a faucet and my eyes stung as if someone had thrown acid in them. Everyone speculates that it was the pollution. Mercifully that attack (and ensuing head cold) didn’t come ‘til about halfway into the trip. In spite of all that, I had a very good time -- especially in LA.

NOBODY SLEEPS IN LA
We actually landed in Laguna Beach, a luxury enclave where $5 million haciendas occupy green hills, overlooking a teal blue Pacific Ocean. I have total envy of these people, and had a really good peanut butter milk shake at the Orange Grill on their main drag.

In LA, we stayed at the West Hollywood Ramada on Santa Monica, perfectly situated near the most popular bars, cafes and gyms. The Santa Monica Starbucks has 10 people in line all day long. The unemployed actors need their $4 lattes. The cafes start to get crowded at 3PM and stay crowded ’til 3AM. This is a town I could love. The people are superficially beautiful which is absolutely terrible except to look at. Popular shirt: athletic fit tee shirt with plunging Vee neckline (for men). Popular car: 2010 convertible Mustang in red or silver. We dined at various places -- the Tango Grill, Bossa Nova and Skewers were all great.

THE ABBEY
This is THE most popular bar in West Hollywood. It’s a former restaurant, bakery and bar in a large court yard enclosure. There are different rooms with generous fireplaces and couches -- it looks like somebody’s sprawling Spanish Villa where you’ve been invited for the weekend. To keep with the religious theme (it is called The Abbey after all), there are some iconic statues of the Virgin Mary. The crowd is an amazing hodgepodge of West Hollywood habitués, groups of young ladies, and middle aged couples (maybe film producers and their wives?). Everyone is festive and I likened it to a crazy prom night where you’re not sure who will walk through the door next or what they might do. I could probably just live at this place, it was that fun. Maybe I’ve been in Dallas too long.

We did many of the touristy things (Farmers Market, Getty Museum, La Brea Tar Pit). We didn’t do Universal Studios because it was expensive to buy the tickets and an all-day commitment. We enjoyed window-shopping on Rodeo Drive also, but the standout for me was Venice Beach. This lengthy stretch of boardwalk has every imaginable thing you might see on a garish carnival midway. There were jugglers, musicians, magicians, weight trainers, skate boarders, contortionists and vendors galore. The LA weather was gorgeous, balmy high 70’s, so this was a perfect afternoon.

Alas the LA leg of the trip came to an end and we went to Palm Springs for the last 3 days. At this point I was battling a cold, so in fairness to Palm Springs I wasn’t feeling well.

PALM SPRINGS
Palm Springs is a sleepy retirement community of 42,000 people, one hour east of LA. In its “hey day” it was a second home for movie stars. Nowadays it’s known for golf and occasional white parties offered up by the resident gay community. It reminded me of a military base with it’s grid-like streets, and sterile look-alike Spanish-contemporary buildings. Our guest house (La Dolce Vita) was nearly a ghost house with few other visitors -- understandable since we were there in an off season.

We did a few touristy things (mountain aero tram, Palm Canyon tour) but mostly just flaked out while we were there. I was battling my new cold, and the desert air was all I really wanted for my convalescing efforts.

CONCLUSION
My cold and allergy problems impacted some of this trip, but the LA portion made a big impact. I’m currently shopping for some vee neck shirts and looking at Mustangs. I wonder if any bars around here have that Spanish Villa ambience? In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy the Knox Street crowd here in Dallas and think about what to do on my next trip to LA.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Halloween at the Bijou

I don't think Mommy likes me -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I just returned from a week-long vacation in LA and Palm Springs. As soon as I gather my thoughts and notes about all that, I may post a travelogue; I caught a bad cold halfway through the week and it has slowed down my thought process. That doesn’t stop me from doing a movie review (triple-header) however...

ORPHAN
This morning I watched a movie made for Halloween -- Orphan. The movie is basically a retelling of 1956’s Bad Seed which has Patty McCormack as the evil, possessed child. Orphan features less well-known actors, and has a very talented 12 year-old named Isabelle Fuhrman in the role of the disturbed 9 year old orphan, Esther. The movie has received some bad press because it seems to cast shadows on the whole adoption process. The movie company had to change it’s ad campaign as a response. "It must be difficult to love an adopted child as much as your own," was switched to "I don’t think Mommy likes me very much."

I wasn’t too keen that (early in the movie) she was singled out as potentially evil for being precocious or having a large vocabulary for her age. What are we implying? Must you be a dunce to not be evil? There I went and used a word like “dunce” -- hoping that doesn’t put me in the evil category. The movie has you believe that the step siblings wouldn’t report Esther’s bizarre, violent behavior to the parents. I guess movies need incredible events to proceed. Have to confess that I enjoyed some of the sillieness -- it's easily worth a $1 redbox rental fee.

WHATEVER WORKS
This small-budget Woody Allen movie challenges our assumptions about what normal really is, when a “normal” family from the deep south dissolves. The daughter seeks life’s answers in Manhattan, rooming with an old, acerbic retired physicist played by Larry David. The mother tracks her down, soon followed by the father. I won’t divulge what happens but each person experiences self-discovery in the unfettered setting of the Big Apple. I can’t say that the movie is ground-breaking since Allen and others have done similar topics in movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan.

MAIDEN HEIST
Can’t help but think that this was a “straight-to-video” movie since I never saw theater ads for it. It features three museum guards who scheme to keep a new curator from moving some of their favorite exhibits off to a museum in Denmark. They work up a plan to substitute forgeries for the real items and all manner of buffoonery ensues. With Morgan Freeman, William H Macy and Christopher Walken, even this “B” movie was an enjoyable use of time while I was answering the door for trick-or-treaters. I am reminded of what Carrot Top said on Jay Leno: “I make my movies right in the video store, and cut out the middle man”. While that makes no sense it still made me laugh out loud.

OK, I’ve had my 3rd dosages of Wal-Phed and still feel like crapola. Have done all the usual things -- fluids, rest, chicken soup. Maybe about three more movies will bring me around. I have a busy week at work next week, as well as my first on-call rotation so we’ll keep our fingers crossed that everything works out OK.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Fear No Evil

Nurses in training during the 1918 Pandemic -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
With all of the attention being given to H1N1 in the media, it’s interesting to compare this pandemic to the notorious Spanish Flu of 1918. The Spanish Flu was named for Spain because Spain (which remained neutral in WWI) is the only country that would give flu updates during the war-time news blackout. Spanish Flu was actually world-wide. It was a form of influenza A and a subtype of H1N1 – the same lovely bug we have now.

There are lingering arguments about whether it was avian or swine, and how exactly it started. Spanish Flu raged from 1918 to 1920 and is thought to have killed 50-100 million people worldwide. A third of the world’s population was infected and it’s deemed by some to be the worst epidemic in medical history. In the USA, 500,000-675,000 people died. The statistics are sketchy because some people struck by the flu actually died from more immediate causes – like preexisting diseases or accidents.

It’s thought that the disease originated in China, came to Boston, MA where it mutated and then forged on to Brest, France. The ongoing World War I abetted the virus due to frequent troop movements, and troops living in close quarters. Some historical perspective has probably been lost, because so much more focus was given to World War I (another kind of “pandemic” where humans kill humans for territorial reasons – another blog entirely).

There are some things about Spanish Flu that were oddities in 1918 but mirror the situation today. Many of the 1918 victims were healthy young adults. Half the fatalities were people between 20 and 40 years of age. A rapid response (called a “cytokline storm”) from a healthy immune system caused young peoples’ lungs to fill with fluid. Other symptoms differed from now and were quite alarming -- bleeding from mucous membranes and the ears. The Spanish Flu was at its worst during summer months where “normal” flu outbreaks more typically happen in the winter. Spanish Flu came in two waves. The first wave was more innocuous – the second wave of late 1918 was far deadlier.

Very oddly, the Spanish Flu ended as suddenly as it started. In Philadelphia, 4,597 died one week in October; one month later there were no fatalities and almost no one with any lingering illness. Some people speculated at the time that treatments improved dramatically – but there’s no real evidence of that. More recent speculation is that the virus might have done a “self-limiting” mutation to quit killing its human hosts. It’s actually in the interest of the virus for its host to live a long life (for viral reproduction) – hence the non-fatal staying power of viruses such as chicken pox and various herpes strains.

There is a long list of well-known people who suffered from the 1918 pandemic including Walt Disney, Lillian Gish and English prime minister David Lloyd George. The Spanish Flu has resurfaced in pop culture – in David Morrell’s If I Die Before I Wake (1997) and Thomas Mullen’s Last Town on Earth (2006) which both speak to the impact on small American towns. The H1N1 that we have now is alarming by 2009 standards but has taken a comparatively paltry 5000 lives worldwide. Still, we have to wonder “what evil lurks” not just in the hearts of men, but in ordinary proximity to poultry, pigs and other well-meaning humans.

© 2009 blogSpotter

DART Has Arrived

Look a-yonder comin'... -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
DART is the Dallas Area Rapid Transit – it came into existence in 1983 as a regional replacement to the more local Dallas Transit System. Featuring 45 miles of track (not counting another 45 miles under construction) and 115 Kinki Sharyo rail cars, DART is the nation’s largest and most rapidly expanding light rail project.

DART had a dodgy beginning; many Texans didn’t think that light rail would work for a Texas maverick state of mind. Coppell and Flower Mound even voted themselves out of the project early on. With the advent of the blue/red lines in the mid-1990’s and the green line in 2009, the rail system has proved the naysayers wrong – daily ridership is currently at 228,300 and going up as we speak.

I’ve already shared my feelings of civic appreciation and amazement in one of my earlier blogs (“Dallas Under the Wrecking Ball”). In that blog, I lamented the destruction of Dallas’s historical landmarks but held DART as a saving grace for an otherwise commercially oriented city. Also, I marveled at the fact that a Bush/Perry-loving red state could have such an exemplary mass transit project. Mass transit after all, is vaguely socialistic in its goals. It’s the ultimate democratization of transportation. The irony, the irony.

How do I love light rail? Let me count the ways….

ECOLOGY
Clearly, the fewer cars on the road, the less the air pollution. Even beyond that, you can reduce the need for highways, parking lots and parking garages. Also fewer unsightly auto-related enterprises – service stations and oil change shops. In Dallas, that should be no great loss to our suburb-oriented economy but a great boon to the visual appeal of the city proper.

ECONOMY
Transit oriented development is a fact in established Northern cities like NYC and Chicago. Dallas has had major transit development at Mockingbird Station, City Place and Eisemann Center in Richardson. To borrow from Kevin Costner: if you build it they will come. People who dread parking downtown or fear having their cars towed at the State Fair will now hop on a train.

TOURISM
I’ve traveled to Paris, France and Sydney, Australia. In both cities, I must confess that I didn’t do my homework and figure out a visitor itinerary. Each city’s subway map gave me an excellent start in spite of that. The city’s promoters make sure to put a stop at anything remotely interesting. Museums, parks, historical monuments, trendy bar areas and shopping districts will all get a stop as well as informative blurbs in the maps about what all to see at each station. People can get off at a station, explore the local ‘hood, and hop back on.

STRUCTURE
A transit system gives structure, even meaning to a city suffering from urban sprawl. A “what are we about” and “where are we going” discussion is the very literal precursor to any new track being laid. What’s that you say? There’s no DART train going to Lancaster Avenue or La Prada in Mesquite? Well, it could be that those areas lack the potential ridership or places of interest. Also, could be the member cities cheaped out on the DART tax. Planning, discussion and more discussion – all are required to put rail into place.

CONCLUSION
What to make of all this? It’s very nearly socialist in nature. Every committed DART rail user is flipping a finger at Ford, Audi or Shell Oil. Any opportunities lost to the auto or oil industry are gains to transit-oriented construction, general retail, the arts and tourism to name but a few. If you haven’t already, set aside one sunny afternoon to check out the exhibits at Fair Park in Dallas – and by all means take the Green Line to get there.


© 2009 blogSpotter

Redbox Killed the Video Store

The little red box that could... -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Redbox LLC is a company that specializes in vending machine retail of DVD's. I recently started seeing these "red boxes" popping up at various familiar places around town -- HEB, Walgreens and Wal-Mart to name a few. Thought nothing much of it; I currently rent movies from Apple TV which is the ultimate in butt-on-the-couch convenience if you don't mind the $2.99 rental fee for a standard-definition movie. Netflix offers a similar service with the Roku set-top box -- customers can rent and stream a movie to the TV without leaving the house (or even the couch).

Not everyone can afford Netflix or Apple TV -- both of these services have hefty entry fees (purchase of the set-top box) or a monthly service charge. When I recently visited my Mother in Round Rock, she lamented that her favorite Hollywood Video was being shuttered. She doesn't have Netflix or Apple and the nearest Blockbuster is a ways away from her house. We were in a bit of a quandary until we saw the Redbox summoning us at a nearby Walgreens.

Several things amazed me right off that bat. The vending machine has an easy, intuitive interface with a huge selection of recently released movies available for rent. More amazing is the price structure:

$1/movie per night.
$1/night late fee.
After 25 nights, you’ve purchased the movie for $25.00.

All transactions are Debit or Credit card; you can get a receipt and track late fees if you supply an optional email ID. My Mom and I rented 3 movies (Wolverine: X-Men for me, Management and another chick flick for her). Total cost with tax, for 3 new movies: $3.25.

That same 3 movies would run about $9.71 from Apple or Blockbuster. They’d be cheaper on Netflix but since most of Netflix movies are mailed you have a very delayed movie gratification. Apple, Blockbuster and Netflix have the advantage of selection depth. If I want Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Redbox won’t have it. I discovered one other Redbox drawback when returning my movies; there can only be one person served at a time. All I wanted to do was return 3 movies – had to be patient and let the customer make his careful choices. It was lightly misting so I got to get wet while I waited.

Redbox had a little hiccup when 3 movie studios (Universal, 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers) thought that Redbox’s cheap prices would eat into their own sales. The studios put in a 28-day delay for new releases, prompting a suit from Redbox. As of this writing, the suit is still active, advantage Redbox. Looks like the studios’ actions could be seen as monopolistic although the jury is still out.

CONCLUSION
If you are a person “of means” you might like Apple TV best of all. You have a huge selection with instant streaming delivery to your TV. You don’t even have to put down the popcorn or the remote control. Netflix is a middling choice – I personally don’t want to wait for a movie to be mailed to me. Blockbuster is becoming less and less relevant (except for their own DVDPlay vending machines which compete with Redbox). Very shortly the only customer base for Blockbuster will be technology-challenged old people or the economically disadvantaged who can’t afford broadband.

What does that leave at the “economy” end of the DVD rental market? It leaves Redbox of course. People will brave the wind, rain and occasional waits to rent fantastic movies at $1 a pop. Chances are, you have a Redbox machine at the end of your street. And chances are, after you see the amazing convenience and selection to be had, you’ll be a Redbox convert.

ADDENDUM
This blog has some erroneous info and I need to amend it. First a simple factual correction -- the Netflix box is Roku not Roxio as stated earlier.

Also, Apple appears to have the 20+ day delay on current movie releases. Several movies now on redbox won't be available for rent from Apple until mid-November. Frequently the Apple movie server is slow and your movie selection isn't available to view until hours after it's been rented. This makes the "instant gratification" factor cited above way less important and less accurate. Apple is still great -- when it serves up the movie quickly or it's the exact movie someone is looking for. But redbox is looking better all the time.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Stupid Human Tricks

Say what? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Before tackling the Letterman topic, I'd like to talk about Obama. A letter today in the DMN described this term as "Yes We Can't". Obama's health care initiative stalled out in committee, he was rebuffed on his quest for Chicago Olympics, and according to Paul Krugman (in today’s op-ed), we still have a recession and need more stimulus. Also, Afghanistan is getting uncomfortably close to a quagmire status with no end in site. If I were a Sunday pundit, I’d be giving Obama a “C” right now. It’s still better than Bush’s “D-“ but not much. Obama needs to lead now, and quit speechifying.

LETTERMAN
I was really surprised last Thursday when David Letterman told his Late Show audience that he had just been victimized with blackmail and extortion. It seems Robert Halderman, a producer on 48 Hours, was threatening to disclose information about a series of sexual affairs Letterman carried on with staffers (including recently). Halderman was seeking $2 million to quiet the story and was justifiably arrested for his actions.

The story did pique my curiosity because a successful producer at the same network hardly seems like your average extortion artist. Why would he sacrifice so much for really so little? It turns out that there’s quite a bit more. Halderman was having dire financial problems, facing bankruptcy. Still, that wouldn’t necessarily push someone to do something desperate and illegal. But on top of that, Halderman and Letterman were romancing the same young woman. Apparently Letterman maintains a “stabbin’ cabin” right there at the Ed Sullivan Theater for all his staffing dalliances. This woman was a “dalliance” to Letterman, but a serious love interest to Halderman.

Now we’re talking. In the “what I did for love” annals, this could be an entry. Maybe Halderman’s defense could be “crazy in love” or “insanely jealous”. He had both a romantic and monetary motive – neither one sufficient to justify blackmail or extortion.

What of Letterman’s career and marriage? Well, he’s not a politician so the bar is a little lower for showbiz types. That a talk show host diddles around isn’t nearly as momentous as for politicians who are supposed to be perfect. He made a public apology yesterday to his wife, Regina, and one just has to hope that it takes. When I look at Letterman’s bespectacled, slightly befuddled picture I have trouble seeing him as a Don Juan. This old grandpa with heart trouble was breaking hearts?!

Whatever. I still like Letterman and could care less about his private life. Hope he works it out with the wife and doesn’t let up on the Elliot Spitzer jokes. We care about the sex lives of presidential candidates and attorney generals. Talk show hosts? Not so much.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Family Stoned

Mackenzie Frenzy -- Picture courtesy of Imdb

by blogSpotter
Before I dive into the subject of Mackenzie, I'd like to talk about my weekend ...

Whole new worlds …

This has been a Lewis-and-Clark weekend for me. Searching for the Forest Lane Krogers, I came across a beautiful, bodacious new Wal*Mart at Forest and Greenville. It's been open 11 months! I grieved when they closed the Midpark store, not realizing they'd given us a nice replacement. That's what I get for ignoring newspaper inserts -- better late to the Wal*Mart party than never.

Then this morning, I channel surfed on my HD TV, only to discover that my basic cable is giving me music channels 80.5 thru 80.40. Does basic always include that?? We won’t ask questions -- we will just enjoy the beautiful music. Last but not least, I took the new DART Green Line to Fair Park for the State Fair. The train ran perfectly on schedule and we were packed like sardines on the way down. Deep Ellum, Baylor and Fair Park were all beautiful stations -- the Green Line is a smashing success if Saturday was any test.

Now to our fair Mackenzie

I loved Mackenzie Phillips on One Day At A Time back in the 70’s. I wondered why my favorite raspy-voiced, mouthy teen was kicked off of the hit sitcom midway thru its run. Now it turns out she was canned for her drug and alcohol issues in 1980. According to her latest bio, that is when the 18-year old began an incestuous relationship with her father, rocker John Phillips of Mamas and Papas’ fame. He apparently took advantage of her in a drug stupor and things snowballed from there. The on-again, off-again incestuous relationship continued “consensually” for the next 10 years.

She says that the relationship was because of drug-addled thinking on the part of her and her father. She did feel like she had been initially raped and emotionally coerced into the affair -- she also emphasizes that she forgave her father on his deathbed in 2001. You might think that Mackenzie’s confession would shed light on a verboten but relevant topic but judged on public reaction -- you would be wrong.

You’re as sick as your secrets …

The public reaction has been revulsion, outrage and anger -- all directed at Mackenzie. In looking at reader/audience responses from various articles and TV interviews, I see two general tendencies, both (I think) misguided and wrong.

“You should take this to the grave -- it hurts your family” -- She was never seeking revenge or vindication. She was trying to focus light on a deeply affecting, family and personal problem. Her aunt and Mother already told Mackenzie to take it to her grave, and mostly what that did was help to bedraggle the sick affair another 10 years. Nobody was suggesting that John should “do time” but family counseling was certainly in order -- circa 1980.

“It never happened -- Mackenzie made the whole thing up”. Total strangers presume to tell Mackenzie what happened in her own experience. The affair is so horrifically bizarre that small minds can’t wrap themselves around it. People who are not Mackenzie, or even related to her in any way have to insist that it never happened.

As someone from a dysfunctional family (albeit no incest), I can attest to lots of weirdness -- truth can be stranger than fiction. I don’t doubt her story in the least, nor do I begrudge her the freedom to speak her truth. On the Today Show, Mackenzie pointed out that many incest survivors were coming “out of the closet” to her, thanking her for the honest soul-searching and frank retelling of the events. Mackenzie isn’t writing Mommie Dearest -- she’s owning her part of the story. Let’s let Mackenzie be Mackenzie and let the truth eke its way out. If the truth hurts, sometimes we have to bear the pain.

© 2009 blogSpotter