Spotted in San Pedro: AssHigh Gaming Computer

I was shopping up on Western the other day and I came across this mildly humorous, but not "I want to buy a computer from you" inspiring ad in the window of a local computer shop.

Not to be a jackass, but so far as I know, unless you like to batch process photos in Photoshop while fragging your opponents in Quake, having as second processor in a gaming machine is a lot like buying an extra engine for your car that just sits in the garage, in case you need it. This $2400 monster also comes with a new piece of advanced technology called a "Netword Card", which was spelled wrong in several other posters as well.

what's wrong with this picture?

in January the Vincent Thomas Bridge got it's fancy new LED costume, but the hem doesn't match the collar. hard to get a good photograph of what i mean, but look at this "mock up" provided by LEDtronics before the lights were actually turned on:


that is what the bridge should look like, but in reality, the lights on the road bed are blue/green, and the lights on the cables are more blue/purple. why? two different south bay LED suppliers; LEDtronics and Farlight.

why two different suppliers?

LEDtronics was slated to do the entire job, but somewhere along the line, then-mayor Hahn began to pressure the bridge lighting committee to use Farlight as the supplier for the bridge lights. The committee didn't want to turn their backs on the supplier they had been working with, but they also had to appease the mayor, so they compromised and used lights from both suppliers.

that explains why the lights are two different colors, but why did Hahn want to switch to Farlight in the first place?

well...(you know what's coming, don't you?) Farlight was a Hahn campaign contributor! imagine that.

this may be old news to many of you, but every time i see those different colored lights on the bridge, i feel like i live in such a half-assed place. the fact that it took seventeen years to put up some damn lights is embarrassing enough, but then the added cringe brought on by the color mismatch just drives home the whole underwhelming, Charlie Brown sad-christmas-tree aspect of the project.

but what do i know?

we the people - who have no say

i recently wrote to janice hahn about the annoying, arbitrary stop sign that was recently placed on the corner of carolina and shepard in pt. fermin. this stop sign has caused much grief to the people who live around here because of the massive sound pollution it has created (or rather, made much worse).

plus i’ve already witnessed 3 crashes in this intersection since the sign went up, & more than half the cars screech to a sliding halt because it's such a wrong place for a stop sign.

and oy vhey with the noise pollution! bikers from walker's cafe ride back and forth along shepard all day on harleys as loud as divebombers. revving out of 1st gear from that sign is enough to rattle all the windows in the house. it rattles my spinal column too, nearly giving me seizures. we can hardly have a conversation on the phone it's so loud. hell, it’s even too loud to fight over.

anyway, it’s such a major issue - and every neighbor i know is worn thin about it - so i wrote a letter to janice hahn. and believe it or not, i got an answer. the office of jancie con says there’s nothing we can do about it!

it was placed there in the first place because of ONE resident’s complaint of speeding traffic. according to caroline brady-sinco, advocate for hahn, this one person is more powerful than the 20 that want their peace back, and are pissed off enough about cutting the thing down ourselves!

"Unfortunately, once a stop sign has been justified by a traffic study, it is almost
impossible to remove it for legal and safety reasons. The stop sign was installed after one of your neighbors lodged a complaint about speeding in the area and the difficulty of turning onto
shepard from Carolina.”

i was flabbergasted and returned her note with the suggestion that i’d get a petition together to show them just how unhappy everyone here is (because of that stop sign), and that it is LESS safe around here. i demanded a new traffic study. but caroline replied that she could only forward my message to yadi hashemi at the dept of transportation here in the sp office - and that, “All of the conditions are specifically set down in the warrents as determined by the law..

basically, "you can try, but it won't do shit."

nice to know who really determines the laws in our communities. what a fucking rip off. ...it really makes me want to smoke pot and cuss.

yadi hashemi: (310) 732-4599

janice hahn:
(310) 732-4515 phone
(310) 732-4500 fax

The Future Comes to Town

While driving yesteday afternoon, my passenger and I spotted this pair of super-secret Toyota prototypes crusing the Harbor Area. Over the years, I've seen a lot of cars get their first public rides in Pedro, does any one know why they test here? I was figuring because it's close to the port, for easy transport to Japan, but what do I know?

sign, sign, everywhere a sign...

i wonder when they are going to remove the sign on the 110 Harbor blvd exit that warns of construction from a couple of years ago?

makes me think i could cut down the new four-way stop signs on the corner 20 feet from my front door and it would be many years before they managed to put them back up...

Punk Rock Tonight!

Toys That Kill, Killer Dreamer, Almighty Do Me A Favor, Federation X and possible others will be making time and quaffing brew down at local watering hole Harold's Place tonight.

Pedro Openings Saturday, May 21!

I spent last night breathing through an organic filter mask, watching Tiki Jay One do his magic thing with giant sized stencils at Walled City. Maybe it was the fumes, but I am declaring this some must see stencil work. With the largest stencil topping out at 12' x 8', even the most jaded graffiti artist will be giving props to Tiki Jay after seeing this work!

The THM Gallery over on 6th Street is also having an opening for The Theory of Color on Saturday night, featuring the work of Dane Heathcock, Dar Horn, Violet Parkurst, Beau Damon Richards, Steven Wang and Saul White.

Not that this is news...

...but Mayor Hahn just got demoted to out-of-work status. I guess he'll soon have more time to shoot pool at Godmothers. What does this mean for Pedro? After the neglect of the Svornich era, Pedro has begun a turnaround under the bother & sister Hahn team. Will Hahn's negative campaign and the obvious ill will between Villaraigosa and Hahn make it hard Pedro to get the support from downtown that it surely needs? Well, we get to find out.

Will Villaraigosa keep local leadership on the Harbor Comission, or will his buddies get to tell us what quality of air to breathe?

How many months is it before the Department of Cultural Affairs is either gutted or saved? Will he bring in new leadership to the Department? Will he implement the budgetary suggestions of the previous Mayor's Blue Ribbon Panel?

Will Tony V. acutally stay on as Mayor, or is he just going to make time at City Hall to qualify himself for a run at the Governorship? After Arnold's recent popularity slide, every major politico in the state is sharpening their knives for a run at Sacramento.

Who's 1st Thursday is it?

Yesterday, I had the privledge of attending the 1st meeting of the newly formed 1st Thursday Committee of the Business Improvement District. Mike Cacavalla of Downtown Subs and Boca Activewear was chair, and there were a suprising number of folks there. James Allen of the Random Lengths, Andrew Silber of the Whale & Ale, Derek Takeuchi of THM Gallery, Dar Horn from Union Artworks, a whole bunch of other local business folks and myself, wearing my Walled City hat.

Noticiably absent were members of the Chamber of Commerce 1st Thursday Committee, as well as Elizabeth Brazil, Chamber Executive Director. Also notably absent was any sense of order or agenda, although a printed one was provided. The meeting centered around a lot of focused shouting, broken up occasionally by well spoken points, mostly by Andrew Silber & James Allen. The basic conflict here is the artists & restarunts VS. the Street Fair. From an informal vote taken it looks like the artists and restaurants have the support of the commitee, with the Street Fair aspects being almost univerally disliked and viewed as a failure.

I also found out why the booths at the Street Fair are so shitty. We think (no accurate info was available, no financials, at all!) that the cheapest booths are $15 and the most expensive are $35. When you reach for the bottom...

here in my car, i feel safest of all, i can lock all my doors, it's the only way to live...

spotted while driving southbound on Gaffey St. on Sunday:

a woman furiously brushing a small section of her hair, while driving, who then pulled that section up through the fingers of her left hand - barber-style - and came up with a scissors in her right hand, snipping off the ends of the section that stuck out a bit.

yes, she was giving herself a haircut in a moving car.

now that's something i'm quite sure i'll never see again, in San Pedro or anywhere else on earth. but if you are behind an old Mazda on Gaffey and spot the roaming stylist, you can say you read it here first.

then you can tell your friends, and they won't believe you, just like you probably don't believe this. and i don't blame you. i barely believe it, and i witnessed it.

The weather report is in

rainbow cloud

Sky is beautiful here in San Pedro today, and the weather is fine, if windy, by the coast. I was out watching as Robert and Roy finished re-installing/moving/salvaging our raku kiln in time for Perry Okimoto's raku demonstration for Satuday's Open Studios, when I shot this.

Open Studios at Angels Gate! May 14

Woo Hoo for self promotion!

Well not really, but I can't help but pimp for the big family of artists, teachers and community members that make the Angels Gate Cultural Center tick. Up at Angels Gate (where I work, in the interest of full disclosure), it is normally a quiet, peaceful place, where artists, tucked neatly into unassuming buildings, go about their acts of creation. But on May 14, it is quite another thing, entirely. 40 Studios open their doors to the public, and artists welcome a chex mix of families, kids, students, other artists, curators, collectors and other characters into thier workspaces. Free lessons in Printmaking, in our new print studio, demonstrations in ceramics, join in with the Sacred Harp Singers, a Dijeridu performance by Didjeridudist and ceramic instrument maker Susan Rawcliffe and more art than you can shake a stick at make this a must not miss event!


Participating artists include ceramist Yuichiro Roy Kunisaki (pictured above), painter Da Aie Park, photographer Jay Sheldon, painter Frank Minuto, multi media artist Jon Nakamura, painter Carol Es, painter Joyce Weiss, painter Liz Blum, political cartoonist Ann Cleaves, ceramist Perry Okimoto, sculptor Susan Hawkins, painter Hoon Kwak, glass artist Lucia Yang and a host of other characters and folks.

But there's more!

May 14 is also the day when the whole of Angels Gate Park has its Open House. There's so much stuff goin' on in town, that you just can't do it all! Maybe I'm overstating, but, regardless, there are a lot of things to do and see in Pedro this weekend. If I were you I'd start the weekend off at the historic Warner Grand Theatre, where I'd check out the Big Lebowski Friday night (6 & 8:30 PM, 7 bucks!). Now that you're properly prepared (as in White Russianed), you can take a nice nap, wake up early Saturday and check out the Spring Garden show at the Point Fermin Lighthouse, move on up to the Ft. MacArthur Military Museum, the Marine Mammal Care Center, the aformentioned Open Studios, and then cap off the afternoon with a relaxing free boat tour of the harbour, courtesy of the Port of Los Angeles. Follow that up with a classy dinner at the Whale and Ale or a booze fest at the San Pedro Brewing Company, and cruise out of town with the Vincent Thomas Bridge Lights twinkling in your rear view.

1st Thursday Art Roundup

poor al livepainting

Despite the fears of all of the gallerists on the street, a little drizzle didn't stop 1st Thursday. Although many packed umbrellas, a decent crowd came through, keeping the gallery busy most of the night. Here at Walled City, Poor Al painted furiously against the powers of mega-humidity, while answering the varied questions of the public.

I wasn't able to leave the gallery, but apparently Taso Papadakis' place had quite the shindig going on, and everyone was talking about the amazing underwater photography exhibit up at the Beau Damon Richard's Gallery. I'm really looking forward to seeing Hiroko Momii's new show at The Loft, as well.

Oh! But There's More: I totally forgot to mention the "music" coming out of Godmother's. Every 1st Thursday, a totally amazingly bad cover band sets up in their front room, and blasts recycled butt rock right out their front door, drowning the street in the sad youth of its patrons. Nowhere in the galaxy will you find a more wretched hive of totally burnt out drunks. This month, however, we were blessed with a new cover band, that managed to strategically assasinate a variety of hits. Nothing beats hearing white 40 year old dudes belt out Brick House, and then further their aural tortures with the classic Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville lyric "Blew out my flip flop."