Results tagged “Los Angeles”

Some more visual evidence of Saturday's Revlon Run/Walk 2010 in Los Angeles:

As always, after parking, we headed to the grassy area opposite the Coliseum's Peristyle End to see what the booths had and for Fran to pick up her survivor's cap at the Macy's tent. That's always a big deal; she has four now, each one another little milestone. This year's was red.

These folks are always there:

I have no problem with using whatever means to get people to fight breast cancer. Tatas it is. If someone wants to start an organization that uses the terms "bazooms," I'm fine with that, too.

Radio represents!:

Yes, radio -- KLOS and KBIG -- was there with a couple of tents manned by bored, distracted-looking interns doing nothing. Meanwhile, KABC-TV, channel 7, was all over the place, not only reporting on it but with a zillion balloons and banners and their own water stop with a Jumbotron and live interviews as the mob passed. That's how you do it.

This year, they moved the stage for the pre-race festivities. It used to be here:

That's the fabled "Peristyle End." I don't know the story behind the headless statues, but they were usually obscured by the stage in past years. This year, we got a clear shot at the stadium and the Olympic flame, which was lit for the event.

Here's some of the crowd:

It didn't seem like there were as many people at this year's event, but as we left at the end, having gotten our medals and bags of junk food (!) and had our "survivor's picture" taken and climbed the 638 rows to get out of the place, we had to walk out of the stadium into the midst of the race route, and there were still thousands of people streaming in. Even in an off year, that was impressive.

Meanwhile, before the race, they had, as always, some aerobics instructors attempt to loosen everyone up:

I, naturally, would have none of that.

Look, celebrities!:

That's James Denton of "Desperate Housewives" in the middle with the white t-shirt. We've met him before; he's a shareholder in the same minor league team of which a friend of ours owns a share, and he's always at stuff like this. He took pictures of the crowd on his iPhone as we walked under, and if he finds this while Googling himself, he can pick me out of the crowd by looking for the blue and red Phillies alternate cap. I was, I'm pretty sure, the only one wearing that in Los Angeles Saturday.

Also up there, that's Lilly Tartikoff yelling to the crowd, and Marg Helgenberger next to her. Julie Bowen of "Modern Family" is up there someplace, as is Carrie-Anne Inaba and Rachel Leigh Cook and some next-generation Disney person and Ellen Leyva and Michelle Tuzee of KABC-TV. No A-listers, but there are plenty worse celebrity assemblages to imagine, and their participation -- all of them seemed to have family reasons for supporting the cause -- is appreciated a lot.

The biggest celebrity of all, of course, is this guy:

He's there every year.

Some shakycam video from today's Revlon Run/Walk 2010 in Los Angeles, featuring the incomparable Chaka Khan, sort of. Not really. Just a few seconds at the end, and you can't see her. Enjoy!

Oh, and do feel free to continue to donate here.

The planned obsolescence of cell phones is, I suppose, more tolerable when you aren't paying $250 or more for the equipment, on top of two year commitments to expensive plans. I bought my current phone, an HTC Touch Pro, on the day of release less than two years ago, and it never really worked right from day one; it overheats to the point of boiling the coating off the back cover, it randomly calls people without human intervention (not butt dialing, but just turning itself on and calling while sitting on a counter), it has battery life that ranges from poor to one-call-and-you're-done, and the resistive touchscreen sometimes just won't recognize any touch, finger or stylus.

Other than that, it's fine.

The Touch Pro was replaced by the Touch Pro2 shortly after the initial release, and now we're into the Android phones and waiting for the next iPhone. So I'd like to replace it. But my contract with Sprint isn't up until October, and my full 2-year new handset discount isn't until October, either. I've had Sprint for a long time for two reasons, one being that it was the only consistent signal in my neighborhood and the other being that the plan I have, grandfathered, is cheaper than I'll get from anyone else, including Sprint if I upgrade. That's one thing to consider.

But Sprint's not happy with people like me who have old plans, so they've stipulated that their better handsets -- all the Android phones, for example -- require one of the present "Everything Plans." That'll cost me at least $30 more than I presently pay. And in the last year, the GSM carriers, AT&T and T-Mobile, have finally built out my area and have, from what I can tell, solid 3G service all over the Peninsula. Verizon has improved, too. So it's not a matter of sticking with Sprint because nobody else serves the area. It's about the cost of the plans and the best handset for the job.

I have six months. Right now -- and six months is an eternity -- it's between the iPhone on AT&T (or whatever carriers they add), the Evo on Sprint, or the Incredible on Verizon. I'm certain this will change before October. Or I might end up holding onto my Pocket Hand Warmer for a little while longer, because, well, money isn't growing on trees. Suggestions are encouraged, especially from folks in Southern California who have AT&T, T-Mo, and Verizon and who can pinpoint the dead spots and 3G holes. I've had enough of this almost-brick, October seems like an eternity, but, really, I need a new phone. Please.

We'll take a break from the obscurity for now and just talk, you and me, okay? Great.

I decided this morning to go green. All right, not quite. I mean, we faithfully recycle, we swapped bottled water for Brita filters, we use CFBs instead of incandescents, but we're not Ed Begley Jr. by any means. Still, when I saw that the Los Angeles area's environmental heavies at the South Coast Air Quality Management District would be doing their Lawn Mower swap program again, I decided, well, why not?

The idea is to trade your old un-green gas-powered mower for a clean electric job. The procedure is that you sign up, take your old mower with a check to a designated place on a designated day, and they take your old carbon-spewing monster right out of your trunk and drop a brand-new in-the-box rechargable electric mower in there. You hand over a check for $100 or $160, depending on the model, and you're done. Now, we have a small lawn and we have a gardening service, but we also have a rarely-used old mower that's ridiculously large and noisy and smelly and overkill for the postage-stamp patches of half-dead grass in our yard, so we're ideal candidates for the electric mower. It seemed like a good idea -- the old mower is functional, but it's taking up space -- so I decided to give it a go.

The first step was to research the models being made available. This wasn't easy. Most of what's out there involved reading Amazon reviews, which weren't all that reliable. All four models were rated roughly the same, and the top and bottom reviews were similarly dismissable. I found another site that had a lot of reviews of the Neuton mowers, many of which were fairly savage and warned of service troubles. The Black and Deckers had some similar problems, but slightly less on the negative side.

Okay, so I picked one. The next step was to register, and that was set for 8 am this morning. The procedure was to go to the AQMD website, fill in a form, pick a date, location, and model, and print out the result. Simple, except that at 8 am, I went to the site, clicked the link, and...

And...

And...

And nothing. Couldn't get through. I tried the phone number offered as an alternative. Nothing there but a fast busy signal. I tried for about a half hour before giving up and going for a run. When I got back, I tried again. Still nothing. And then a message: The servers aren't working. They're preventing everyone from signing up. Come back later in the morning.

I came back at 10:30. Still not working. No luck. And then, suddenly, miraculously, paydirt. I got through, filled out the form, picked a location and model, and...

And I don't know. I'll do it -- I'll load my old mower into the car, haul it to the Coliseum, make the trade, charge the new thing up, and give that new sucker a try. Will it cut the lawn well enough? Will the battery last more than a few months? Will I regret trading raw power for something that looks like it should have "Fisher-Price" emblazoned on the side? I'll know in about a month's time. I don't feel all that green yet, but I'm leaving the possibility open.

I have a tendency, as you may have noticed, to remember stuff vividly that nobody else does. (I also have a tendency to forget important stuff, but bear with me) But this comic ran from 1958 through 1985, and there's practically nothing about it on the Internet:

"Carmichael" was a panel from the Los Angeles Times that ran in many newspapers across the country. It was simple: A miserable guy, a dead ringer for Rodney Dangerfield (predating Rodney's rise to fame), just stood there in a sad-sack stance while "saying" (no speech balloons, just text under the picture) stuff in the very same "I don't get no respect" vein as Rodney. I used to wonder if Rodney ever saw the panel; the resemblance and similarity of act were uncanny.

The panel was drawn by a guy named Dave Eastman, and it launched in 1958:

That's how the Pittsburgh Press introduced the feature. If he was 34 in 1958, he's around 86 now. I couldn't locate any information about him, though.

A month earlier, the panel launched in the Milwaukee Journal, too:

I guess "Mr. Everyman... generally smiling, even if it's through his tears" was part of the syndicate press kit.

I didn't say it was funny.

Yes, it went on for almost 30 years. I didn't read it, because as a kid I didn't like that creepy closed-mouth, furrowed-brow look. But someone did, because it ran for a long time. And it's weird that there's practically nothing about it anymore.

Until now.

From the Pittsburgh Press, April 11, 1958:

It's interesting that they didn't seem to realize exactly how ridiculous the Coliseum was going to be for baseball until 7 days before the 1958 season was to start. I would have thought that the moment they decided on using the Coliseum and not, say, Wrigley Field (the one the Angels used, also a home run paradise), or Gilmore Field, they'd have laid things out and seen that the left field line wouldn't go more than 250 feet. It didn't take actually building the "Chinese Wall" to know that, did it?

But that's history. The Dodgers did play there, it was a home run haven, they survived four seasons in the place (if "survival" is the right word for a World Championship and four years of record attendance), and went on to Chavez Ravine and great success. You knew that part.

Also, did you notice that it was April 11th and the season hadn't started yet? Granted, they only played 154 games back then, but they waited until the snow was gone to head north, I guess. No more. Oh, and in the other story, the Reds' triple A farm team was in Havana, the Sugar Kings. That lasted until mid-1960, when, after one game where a coach and a player were shot in 1959 (just wounded) and after Castro announced he would nationalize all American-owned businesses, the Sugar Kings became, no joke, the Jersey City Jerseys. They folded after the 1961 season. I would love a Jersey City Jerseys jersey.

Time for the annual Spring NAB Convention All Access newsletter. There was a lot more, but I can't write all night, so...:

This year's NAB Show convention included seemingly unlimited displays of cutting-edge equipment and panels of brainstorming that left attendees energized and ready to create amazing and exciting... 3-D video. Maybe web video, too.

It's almost time for the Revlon Run/Walk for Women 2010 on May 8th in Los Angeles, so please donate if you can. We (my wife Fran and I) are once again raising money for women's cancer research and treatment and celebrating another year of survival. Your help is greatly appreciated (and needed), especially in these tough times; just go to https://www.revlonrunwalk.com/la/secure/MyWebPage.cfm?pID=533458 and enter your donation. Thank you!

The drive home always takes a lot out of me. I always do it in one shot, no stops, and that's fine for making good time, but it leaves me a little staggering once I get home. The drive today was uneventful; I hit the road early and encountered smooth sailing from Vegas to the 210, where there was a little volume, and the 605, where there was a LOT of volume. But I just listened to some podcasts and enjoyed the scenery and ignored the insistence of the Garmin Nuvi that I get off the freeway and take local roads. Really, there's no reason that I need to get off a wide-open freeway to drive on dusty, stop-sign-studded roads for any length of time, yet it wanted me to do it several times in Barstow and Victorville, again in the San Gabriel Valley, and again on the 605, where it wanted me to get off the freeway, wait at a light, turn left, wait at another light, then get back on the same freeway.

Technology doesn't always know best.

Anyway, I'm back and I'll have a wrap of the convention tomorrow. I'm too exhausted for much more than this at the moment.

This week's All Access newsletter is about cutting back frivolity in favor of the essentials. Or something like that:

As it turns out, I didn't rush out to buy an iPad this week. After careful consideration, I decided I would buy a new radiator for my car instead. The radiator cost more after labor and taxes, but what's another hundred or so here and there?

Hey, have you donated yet in support of my participation in the Revlon Run/Walk for Women 2010 on May 8th in Los Angeles? We (my wife Fran and I) are once again raising money for women's cancer research and treatment and celebrating another year of survival. Your help is greatly appreciated (and needed!), especially in these tough times; just go to https://www.revlonrunwalk.com/la/secure/MyWebPage.cfm?pID=533458 and enter your donation. Thank you!

Caught this in the June 6, 1951 Long Beach Press-Telegram:

The ad is for KMPC, the original KMPC on 710 AM here in Los Angeles, and they carried, as did stations all over the western U.S. at the time, the "Lucky Lager Dance Time." What that was, was, essentially, top 40 radio before there WAS Top 40 radio. It predated Todd Storz, it predated Alan Freed, it predated, for the most part, rock 'n' roll. At the time of this ad, the show was decentralized, and playlists were based locally. A few years after this ad ran, Bill Gavin became the programmer of the show, working for the beer's ad agency; affiliates would get a playlist and format and started to exchange playlist tips, which led to Gavin starting The Gavin Report, a trade tip sheet that pretty much established a formula used by several radio trades and eventually led to the folks for whom I work.

From the same paper:

Just because I like the cheesy fish clip art. Action deep-sea fishing on TV? On a low-definition black-and-white TV station in 1951? That must have been fascinating.

For the record, KLAC Channel 13, "Lucky 13," later became KCOP, which it remains to this day as the My Network TV affiliate in Los Angeles, owned by Fox. Okay, we're complete.

My friend and former colleague at KLSX Los Angeles, Larry Wachs, is, today, one of WNNX (Rock 100.5) Atlanta's "Regular Guys," waking up central Georgia with humor, politics, and unusual odors. In 1991 at WBSB (B104) in Baltimore, he was briefly the sidekick to a mercurial and sometimes out-of-control wacky top 40 morning man whose preferred sidekick had been fired. The jock eventually got fired himself, he and his friend landed in New Haven, the jock found sobriety and religion, and the rest is history. But here's what Billboard reported on October 12, 1991:

Chris Emry's been on and off the air in Baltimore and Washington, and just a few weeks ago did an interview at All Access. Wachs -- he gave up the "Larry Wax" spelling when he transitioned to talk radio -- is Atlanta's favorite Jewish radio personality, if you don't count Clark Howard. Or Mara Davis. Or Jimmy Baron. Or Bert Weiss or Steak Shapiro. (I kid, Lar, because I love) That Glenn Beck guy? He turned out to be, um, Glenn Beck. But you knew that.

Here he was in 1985:

You'd abuse whatever substances you could get, too.

Today, I did my Real Man thing, replacing a leaky radiator hose in the car. Victory will be declared only if the thing is still intact months from now and the car stops losing coolant. I am hopeful, but it ain't over until, well, you know.

It's been interesting to see the health care issue dominate talk radio and TV news today, because it's been a tremendous amount of talk by people who have absolutely no idea what's really going to happen. The legislators who voted on it probably don't know everything about it, either. I tried to read the thing; there's a lot of it, that's for sure. Understanding the impact is another thing.

TV news reporters and anchors cast their votes in favor of the law, it seemed. Diane Sawyer and other ABC folks took the "everyone who's against this is racist or misinformed" position. The local L.A. reporters I saw actually called seniors who voiced disapproval of the act "wrong," because, well, why wouldn't seniors be unanimously in favor? Look at what they get! Impartiality and skepticism took a holiday for this one.

It seemed like the radio hosts were mostly against the bill without a lot of specifics, just the generalized "it's socialism!" that you'd expect. The exception I happened to hear was when John and Ken at KFI Los Angeles handled the bill in what I thought was a really reasonable way (John will yell at me for suggesting that he's reasonable): The bill costs too much and we can't afford it, but will survive simply because there are a lot of people in situations where the bill will help them, and because there are those stories, nobody will dare kill it. Any time the law is threatened, there will be stories -- real stories, stories that will tug the heart strings -- about people and families who by no fault of their own end up at the mercy of the system. It doesn't matter whether the bill's really good or bad. It now just... is.

And that goes to what I've been saying about the bill all along. I'm fine with the idea that the bill costs too much. I don't want a National Health system that makes you wait for treatment, and I'm not crazy about the government getting involved in any official denials of coverage because a panel deems you not worthy. But just saying it's socialism or screaming that the country you loved is now gone forever misses an essential point: The current system IS broken. It's broken for people who have to buy individual coverage. It's broken for people with pre-existing conditions. It's broken for people who get sick, who have families, who lose their jobs. This bill may be awful, but the opponents have yet to propose anything better, and many refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem at all.

I have no idea whether this bill will help or hurt my family. I suspect it will not help, and it seems certain that this won't control premium increases and coverage gaps. It would have helped to introduce a totally open national market erasing the artificial state barriers to competition, and it would have helped to expand Medicare as a pay-in option to those who can't obtain private insurance for health or financial reasons -- the very people the private insurers don't want to cover and blame for high costs. The bill just doesn't do enough to address the problems. But the opposition has no plan to address any of the problems, either.

Doesn't matter, though. We now have what we have. Time to hope for the best, because the alternative is not pretty. None of this is pretty. Pretty left town a long time ago.

This week's All Access newsletter advises hosts not to forget that the really interesting stuff is happening right under their noses:

Are you a local talk show host? Cool. That's a good thing. See, the NAB is busy telling the FCC that there's no need for any kind of "localism" mandate, because stations are already fulfilling that role, and that means you, 'cause you're talking about nothing but local issues and leaving the national stuff to the big syndicated hosts, right?

I told you that I would be mentioning the Revlon Run/Walk for Women 2010 every week right up to the event itself May 8th in Los Angeles, and I'm sticking to that. Here's what it is: Lots of people gather at the Los Angeles Coliseum and walk in a big loop around the USC campus and into the stadium to raise money for women's cancer research and treatment. The walking is kind of beside the point, since the donations aren't related to how far you walk or run, but who's counting? Besides, it's always a nice day out and my wife Fran and I have a particular stake in the issue, so we do it every year. And we ask everyone who can donate to do so, understanding that, well, times are tough, but if you can do it, this is a great cause and all donations will be appreciated. Just go to https://www.revlonrunwalk.com/la/secure/MyWebPage.cfm?pID=533458 and enter your donation. Thank you!