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What, No Tarzan Yell?!

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Vicki Lawrence as Thelma Harper and Carol Burnett as Her Daughter Eunice

Vicki Lawrence as Thelma Harper and Carol Burnett as Her Daughter Eunice

As you have heard me say on a number of occasions, I do not watch television—but I used to. That was back when the audience was less fragmented and less monopolized by navel-gazing “indies.” And, as the siege of furnace-level heat continues in Southern California, Martine and I decided to pay a visit to the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills.

The last time we were there, about four or five years ago, it was call the Museum of Television and Radio. A lot has changed since then. For one thing, it is much easier to use the library. Instead of just calling for videotapes to be mounted by some operator in the basement, some 40% of the content is now digitized and can be accessed by an interface similar to YouTube.

While Martine sat at one console watching the old Lassie show, I was watching 1970s comedy in the form of the Carol Burnett Show and Saturday Night Live. From the same console, it is also possible to call up old radio programs.

We enjoyed our visit so much that I signed Martine and I up as members, which gives us additional privileges.

If you perchance find yourself in Beverly Hills, the Paley Center is worth a visit—particularly if you enjoy old television and radio. An extra bonus: It’s located on the same 400-block of North Beverly Drive as Nate ’n Al’s, a Jewish deli that is as old as I am (Pleistocene Era) that has managed to maintain a high level of quality.

On the Road to Mordor

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Deserted “Jackrabbit Homestead” in Wonder Valley

Deserted “Jackrabbit Homestead” in Wonder Valley

Today, Martine and I visited the Autry Center, the L.A. museum dedicated to the American West. In addition to an excellent exhibit on the American West in the Civil War, there was an intriguing show featuring the “jackrabbit homesteads” of Wonder Valley.

Martine used to live in this area when she worked at the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in the hospital. It was not a happy time for her, and she has retained zero interest in living in the heat of the desert, even at a couple thousand feet altitude.

I remember one time after tax season in 1995, just after the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing, I picked Martine up in Twentynine Palms and took the road through Wonder Valley, Amboy, Essex, and various other obscure desert towns on the back roads to Las Vegas.

Deserted Homestead Cabin

Deserted Homestead Cabin

Kim Stringfellow, a resident of the area, has done a brief documentary for KCET-TV about the “jackrabbit homesteads” of wonder valley which can be accessed by clicking here. Originally, the area was settled by First World War veterans whose lungs had been damaged by poison gas. It was thought the desert air would help them. It didn’t.

The next population bump came around the 1940s and 1950s after the Small Tract Act of 1938 was passed. Settlers could lay claim to five acres of high desert for as little as $20 an acre if they put up a shack on the property and lived there. These homesteads are now mostly deserted. What could a settler do with five acres of desert and, for all intents and purposes, no water? There was, however, no shortage of hot and cold weather, scorpions, rattlesnakes, coyotes, and—oh, yes—jackrabbits.

Thanking the Dead

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Bon Dancers in West L.A.

Bon Dancers in West L.A.

This is not something that Christians are likely to do, but it has ben an integral part of Japanese Mahayana Buddhist practice since the Seventh Century. It is a belief that the disembodied spirits of the dead return to Earth to visit around July and August. According to the Rev. Patti Usuki of the West L.A. Hongwanji:

Obon season is a time to express our gratitude to loved ones who have passed on before us. Without them, we would not be who we are today, due to the basic tenet of interdependence. We would not be where we are and we would not be able to do the things we do to enjoy life. Just think about the number of people involved in creating each of us. If we go back just thirty generations, we can calculate that there were over two billion parents, starting with our two parents, their four parents, and so on—and that’s just the physical part.

So on different weekends during July and August, the many members of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Buddhism travel to the different Hongwanjis in Southern California and do the traditional bon dances. Represented yesterday at the West L.A. Buddhist Temple were parishioners from  Venice, Sun Valley, San Fernando Valley, Senshin (Downtown L.A.), Pasadena, and even from as far away as Ventura, Orange, and Santa Barbara counties.

The Men’s Club Prize Pork Udon Soup

The Men’s Club Prize Pork Udon Soup

Of course, dancing is not the only draw. My favorite food on offer there is the Men’s Club’s Pork Udon Soup, seasoned with spicy Shichimi Togarashi (Japanese chili powder). Another favorite is the blueberry imagawayaki, which is like a hand-held blueberry pancake with extra blueberries. Martine, as usual, went for the teriyaki chicken.

The combination of good food, colorful kimonos, and enthusiastic dancers on a pleasant summer evening made for a good time.

 

Shot Down in the Lorikeet Forest

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Was This the Guilty Party?

Was This the Guilty Party?

Today, Martine and I decided to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. As usual, we were there at opening time, because we knew from long experience that, after lunch, the place would be crowded with strollers bearing demonic toddlers and pushed by brainless zombie parents. (And, sure enough, it was.)

The weather man had predicted rain for today. We typically ignore forecasts of rain, because the news channels are awash in dire predictions of a deluge even when the chance is less than 1%. This time, we were wrong. By early afternoon, it started to shower and, five hours later, it is still going strong.

No matter, we managed to get several hours of fun in before the stroller derby began in earnest. The highlight, as always, was our visit to the Lorikeet Forest, where one is allowed to walk among and even feed some four score of the colorful southeast Asian parrotlike avians. Two of them perched on me while I fed them from the cup of nectar I was holding. Other visitors marveled that they seemed drawn to me.

But not all of them. After the two left, one flew close to my left ear and sprayed the side of my face with his rectal effluvia. This had happened to me once before, at the Santa Barbara Zoo. But that particular bandit discolored one of my favorite baseball caps.

Isn’t that just an object ,lesson? Of what, I am not sure.

 

 

On a Clear Day, You Can See Catalina

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Saturday Was That Perfect Day

Saturday Was That Perfect Day

When Martine and I were at Old Fort MacArthur on Saturday, we had a perfect view of Catalina. It was the first time in all my years in Southern California that I was able to see the entire island at once from the mainland. That indentation toward the right of the island is the Two Harbors area, which came across crystal clear.

The island not only looked clearer, but also closer, almost ten miles closer than it usually does. The point from which I took the above picture is probably the closest point on the mainland, give or take a few hundred feet, to the island, which is some twenty-odd miles off shore.

 

Four Warriors

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From Left to Right: Hideki Tojo, Douglas MacArthur, Ulysses S Grant, and Teddy Roosevelt

From Left to Right: Hideki Tojo, Douglas MacArthur, Ulysses S Grant, and Teddy Roosevelt

One would never expect to run into the above four gentlemen in 2015 unless it were at a military re-enactment such as the annual one at Old Fort MacArthur Days in San Pedro, California.

There are several reasons why I am interested in attending this event:

  1. I am a history aficionado who delights in learning. As a result of a visit to the West Cork Flying Column of the IRA, I have begun reading Tom Barry’s Guerilla Days in Ireland (1949).
  2. Many of the units impersonating groups before the days of heavy armaments in war also practice ironwork, weaving, herbal medicine, obscure musical instruments, and other arts that have disappeared in this post-industrial world … with interesting results.
  3. Many of the groups really get into the role they are supposed to be playing, such as the World War Two Russian troops with their cans of CPAM (Spam) from Lend-Lease and the various Roman legion groups, one with the Emperor Hadrian and the other with the Emperor Vespasian.

What I do not like are the actual battle re-enactments, which are noisy, smelly, and not terribly realistic. But then I would not like to see real bodies littering the hillside. Instead, Martine and I like to circulate among the different groups and talk to the enactors at their encampments.

Martine, for instance, spent some time talking to the ladies from the Salvation Army, circa 1917-1918, as they offered donuts to the doughboys. I spent much of my time with the Clan MacColin (about which more in a future posting), the West Cork Flying Column (from the Irish Rebellion), and various Civil War groups.

 

In Amongst the Enemy

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The Tomb of President Ronald Reagan

The Tomb of President Ronald Reagan

Today I was surrounded by hundreds of Republicans as I visited the library of their sanctified hero, Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States.

While he was Governor of California and President of the United States, I hated him with a white-hot heat. With hundreds of fellow UCLA students, I jeered him at an illegal screening of Bedtime for Bonzo (1951), in which the widely disliked Governor of California was paired with a chimpanzee.

But times have changed. Although I disagreed with him on a number of counts, especially the Iran-Contra affair and the sending of U.S. troops to be blown up by one of the first suicide bombers in Lebanon. And yet, I would prefer him to any of the Klown Kar GOP candidates for 2016. There was a certain intelligence and sincerity to him that I would now find refreshing. He could also whip them all in a debate with his hand (and tongue) tied behind his back.

The words on his tomb (above) read: “I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.” That’s not a bad line to be remembered by.

Curiously, Martine and I showed up at the Reagan Library on June 5, 2004, the day Mr. Reagan died. We were interviewed by the Press (though I never saw my interview on TV). At that time, I said I thought that, although I did not agree with many of his policies, I thought he was a superb communicator. I still stand by that opinion.

 

 

 

 

Princesses of the Dance

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Beauty, Grace, and Danger

Beauty, Grace, and Danger

This weekend was the 40th Annual Big Irish Fair and Musicfest, which was held at El Dorado Park in Long Beach. One of the highlights, especially for a dirty old man such as myself, is watching the young girls compete in traditional Irish stepdancing.  With their hands held rigidly at their sides, they went into an astonishing series of high kicks.

As I told Martine, most of these girls could kick me in the balls twenty-five times before I had time to react to the initial kick.

The dancer pictured above was particularly good. I would be very surprised if she didnt leave with a handful of trophies. Below is a photo of her in motion:

On Stage

On Stage

You may remember not too many years ago the fame of one Michael Flatley, who toured the world doing stepdancing in shows entitled “Riverdance” and “Lords of the Dance.” Today, he is retired with severe injuries to his cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, not to mention his sacroiliac. I wonder how far these lovely young women have to go before encountering similar injuries.

In the Swamp

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I Thought This Was a Desert Here!

I Thought This Was a Desert Here!

For most of the year, Southern California is a desert. In June and July, however, it turns into a swamp. Mexican hurricanes send moisture across the border and make the air sticky and wet.This condition leaves local weather forecasters nonplussed, if only because they do not acknowledge weather that sneaks over the border. Thanks to my friend, Bill Korn, there is a website that shows the Canadian and Mexican effects on our climate.

IThis morning, I felt as if I had slept in a swamp. I just could not get up until around one in the afternoon. Although I am at work now, I still do not feel very good and will probably leave early. Humid weather just never agrees with me.

 

Sliced Off at the Knees

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The Weather Stops at El Border

The Weather Stops at El Border?

On many counts (almost too numerous to mention) the news is a partial and usually misleading travesty. Take the weather, as represented by this morning’s precipitation map off the Weather Channel’s weather.com. We are approaching the time of year when our weather comes not from the west or north, but from Mexico.

Even as I write this, Hurricane Bianca is threatening the State of Baja California Sur. What does that mean for Southern California? It means that we get the northern edge of whatever monsoonal weather is hitting Northwest Mexico. Stray clouds, winds, and precipitation do occasionally sneak across the fence at the border and make their way to El Ciudad de Los Angeles.

So what use is it to us when we get a weather report that ignores everything south of the line? No, the earth does not change color at that point, and the weather does move around by laws that do not respect national boundaries.

Over the next few weeks, we expect humid weather with possible light showers—not sufficient to rain on our parade or affect the drought in any significant way. But it nonetheless is a factor we should not ignore.