The Kogi Truck Is Coming! The Kogi Truck Is Coming!!!

FINALLY!

The Kogi BBQ Truck is going to be in GRANADA HILLS tonight!!!

From 10:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., Granada Hills residents will be able to savor the goodness of Korean BBQ in Mexican form right in our own backyard: at the corner of Zelzah and Chatsworth.

Their web site lists the location as "Northridge," which I would find unforgivable if their tacos weren't so damned good. Believe the hype: go.

The Granada Hills Street Faire: The E Is Silent!

This Saturday, the Granada Hills Street Fairy will wave her magic wand over Chatsworth Street to once again bring us the Granada Hills Street Fair! E!


What to look for:

• KRTH, a/k/a K-EARTH 101, will be on hand to drop the funky fresh beats, with DJ's spinning trip-hop, trance, and techno, or so I have been told.

• Three stages of entertainment, including dance troupes and a music revue curated by Blue Ridge Pickin' Parlour.

• The L.A County Earthquake Simulator Truck! That's right: if this truck's rockin', please come knockin! You can take the kids inside and let them experience what things were like back in the days when we had earthquakes. Thank god that will never happen again.

• Emergency preparedness info and freebies. But seriously, folks: we went 23 years between the Sylmar and Northridge quakes, so if that pattern holds, you'd better get ready by at least 2017 -- or sooner.

• Over 100 pre-1975 entries in the car show.

• A pie-eating contest, brought to you by Du-Pars. If you want to compete, stop eating NOW.
  

• Crafty vendors.

• Bouncing, jumping, climbing and pony riding for the kids.

• Hula Dancing for the dads.

• A fashion show courtesy of Alley Cat Boutique.

• Aikido and sword demonstration by North Valley Aikikai (please keep your hands and arms away from the stage).

• Other stuff that no one has told me about yet.
  

• Yours truly, out there begging more people to read this site! Stop by and say hello.
  

This event is, to me, one of the things that makes Granada Hills Granada Hills. The forecast promises nice weather, and chances are you can probably get there on foot or on bike, so parking shouldn't be an issue. So come on out and get your face painted, and then smear it all off with with kettle corn and fried twinkies. There's no better way to spend a Saturday.







For grammar nerds who are as fascinated by the topic of spelling as I am, click here.

The Sludge Report: The End Is Nigh For Balboa Boulevard Youth Sports Complex Location

It's official: the lease extension has expired, and the kids' baseball and soccer teams that use the Balboa Boulevard Youth Sports Complex must vacate the premises by November 1, 2010.

On that date, Metropolitan Water District, the property owner, will reclaim the land for use as a sludge spreading field.

At present, arrangements for a new Youth Sports Complex location have not been finalized. Mitch Englander, Chief of Staff for Councilman Greig Smith, told GigaGranadaHills, "I haven't heard that they have a signed lease yet, and it will be a long term lease at that. Basically, we brought everybody to the dance, identified property, and now we're moving. Everything's still in process."

Englander said that funds to cover relocation expenses have already been set aside, to cover costs for infrastructure, landscaping, and other necessary improvements to the new location.

The youth groups' lease on the Balboa Boulevard property expired in 2004, but an extension has allowed them to continue using the current location as they continued the search for a new one.

Englander declined to specify the exact location of the new ballfields, but multiple sources have reported that the new Youth Sports Complex location currently in lease negotiations is in Sylmar. Englander would only say that the new location is "in the same vicinity, not far from there... but it is not in Granada Hills."

For Geno DeVandry, that's just the problem.

DeVandry is a former volunteer soccer coach who still serves as an advisor to local soccer teams, and his wife is a member of the Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council.

"DWP has worked with us and tried to be very helpful and suggested some alternative sites which are not in Granada Hills, which is not a good thing. We're losing a recreation center for our community, and there's precious few of them around."

DeVandry says of the proposed Sylmar site, "The location is workable, but do you know what the traffic's like at 5:00? It's really tough. A lot of us snake through side routes to get where we're at now, much less get to Sylmar. We're losing this precious facility... and every piece of land in this city goes to housing or something. It never goes to the kids. My biggest disappointment is that we haven't maintained facilities for our children to play in. I think we need something for our kids; these facilities are needed to keep our kids active and involved and out of trouble."

Others, however, might welcome the relocation to Sylmar. Once source knowledgeable about the proceedings who declined to be identified by name said, "Keep in mind that a good percentage of players at the fields are from the Sylmar/San Fernando area, which doesn't have their own AYSO soccer/PONY baseball league. The new location would have lights and is much bigger, so it's not such a bad thing."

But DeVandry feels that it's important to keep the athletic fields in Granada Hills, if not at the current location, then at another location in town.

"There's a possibility we could get something in Granada Hills -- we've looked at a site -- but it would be a big undertaking, it would take some money to move a lot of earth around to make it work for us, and we'd have to talk to the community in the neighborhood to make sure they'd be happy with it. We haven't even talked to the owner yet, but we know it's available." DeVandry declined to specify the hoped-for location. "If I did and the neighbors found out before we could present it to them properly, it could be disastrous to the program."

There is disagreement as to what would be ideal in a new location, but everyone seems to agree that the current location, which the teams have used for about twenty years, will be sorely missed.

“I'm really proud of how we've affected a lot of young kids, who probably would have been in real trouble if they hadn't had this facility. We've kept them busy and active and actually gotten involved with their lives in many ways. You just get to know them, encourage them to go to college -- I'm real proud of what we've accomplished up there and I just hate to lose it,” DeVandry says.

Jeff Tobias, a parent of two young ballplayers and former North Valley Youth Baseball executive board member, also feels that the relocation would be a great loss to the community. "I may be taking my son down to Encino to play, because there's not going to be anywhere left to play in the North Valley. Sylmar is on the other side of the freeway -- it's not even my neighborhood."

Says DeVandry, “I don't want to make MWD out to be the bad guy, because we all know that water is a priority to our city. You've gotta have it. The question is, could they do it a different way? They're already putting sludge somewhere else, on DWP property, but apparently it costs more money to do that. The question is: is the money a priority over the children and the community that has to have sludge behind their homes? And who's going to make that decision?” Tobias expresses a similar sentiment: "They shouldn't put the sludge there. It's more important to have the kids there."

Residents have expressed concern that the sludge fields will produce odors or be an unsightly addition to the neighborhood. Some background research reveals that there also may be health concerns for residents of nearby homes:

Khuder, Milz, Bisesi, Vincent, McNulty, and Czajkowski (as cited by Harrison and McBride of the Cornell Waste Management Institute in Case for Caution Revisited: Health and Environmental Impacts of Application of Sewage Sludges to Agricultural Land) conducted a health survey of persons living in close proximity to sludged land. A sample of 437 people exposed to sludge (living within 1 mile of sludged land) - and using a control group of 176 people not exposed to sludge (not living within 1 mile of sludged land) reported the following:

"Results revealed that some reported health-related symptoms were statistically significantly elevated among the exposed residents, including excessive secretion of tears, abdominal bloating, jaundice, skin ulcer, dehydration, weight loss, and general weakness. The frequency of reported occurrence of bronchitis, upper respiratory infection, and giardiasis were also statistically significantly elevated. The findings suggest an increased risk for certain respiratory, gastrointestinal, and other diseases among residents living near farm fields on which the use of biosolids was permitted."

—Khuder, et al., Health Survey of Residents Living near Farm Fields Permitted to Receive Biosolids

The article says, "Although correlation does not imply causation, such extensive correlations may lead reasonable people to conclude that precaution is necessary in dealing with sludge and sludged farmlands."

It is difficult to know how close the sludge will be to nearby homes, what class of sludge will be spread on the fields, or what form of treatment the sludge will undergo prior to spreading, as Metropolitan Water District did not answer multiple requests for comment.

Councilman Greig Smith was involved in the effort to retain the Balboa Boulevard location, but opinions vary as to the value of his contribution. Once source who declined to be named said, "We're all disappointed in Greig Smith. He promised us he would take care of this and he hasn't. He pushed us off into another facility that is not in our community. Has he worked hard at it? I think he has. But he hasn't been successful, because he did promise, and he came to our board meetings, he came to our soccer fields opening day, and said we will take care of you. But the results are that he hasn't done the job."

GigaGranadaHills contacted Greig Smith’s office, but the councilman declined to respond to the charge that he failed to keep a promise. Yet Tobias, who has taken an active role in protesting the move since it was first proposed, had nothing but praise for the Councilman's efforts to keep the Balboa location, even if ultimately, they were unsuccessful.

"Councilman Smith is one of those few people who really cares about his constituents," Tobias says, "but he can only do so much. He gets opposed by council people who are crooked, so what can he do? Look at all the council people and how they have special interests in their pocket. Councilman Smith's special interests are his constituents. That's who he cares about. He fought the big housing project by the 14 and the 5, he fought the dump, he fought the Kohl's, and he successfully delayed the sludge fields for four years."

After talking to a number of people who use the athletic fields, it becomes clear that the complex doesn’t function just as a ballfield, but also as a community gathering place, where neighbors meet and long-term friendships are forged.

Says DeVandry, “That facility is almost like a church because we've all become so close. How would you feel about your church being taken away and you don't have anything else? My two closest friends, I met them from those fields. That's just the way it is. I'm not the only one. There's a lot of us like that. You go to their kids' graduations, you go to their weddings, you're involved with their lives, because you grew up with them.

"My first choice is I'd love to stay there. It's a very family-oriented place, and everybody knows everybody. But my second choice, if we have to move, is to keep it in Granada Hills.”

Show your support for quality local journalism by advertising with GigaGranadaHills. Thank you.

Victory Over Verizon!

Verizon has agreed to move those pesky FiOS boxes!

Contra Costa Times story here.











*Update* 4:31 p.m.

Here is a letter on the issue from Jerry Askew of GHSNC:

Good News! Verizon has tentatively agreed to relocate all of their low-mounted FiOS boxes in the City of Los Angeles. This is a huge win for our community as it will eliminate the graffiti nuisance and various hazards presented by the boxes. The agreement will be finalized at the Board of Public Works meeting on Friday, September 25th (see meeting information at the end of this email).

Many cabinets can simply be raised above 8ft. on the pole. Some cabinets will need to be moved to another pole or converted to a ground-mounted cabinet (aka an Above Ground Facility or "AGF"). AGFs require a permit, notification of adjoining property owners and a public hearing. Accordingly, those may take some time to complete. There will be a minor interruption of service for Verizon's customers while their box is being raised, moved or converted. In short, this is a complex process and will take some time to complete if it is to be done correctly.

Here are some highlights of the plan:

Engineering and planning will begin immediately. Some boxes may be moved immediately.
By 1/1/2010 (apx. 90 days), Verizon will deliver a complete inventory, identifying any locations that cannot be raised on the same pole. At that time, Verizon will begin requesting permits wherever AGFs are needed.
Relocations will begin in earnest in January 2010.
Verizon will make their best effort to schedule appointments with affected customers in order to minimize any service disruption.
All boxes, including AGF conversions, will be complete by the end of 2010.
Verizon will accept input from the community in prioritizing the relocations.
We will meet with Public Works and Verizon in January, June and December 2010 to monitor progress.
I believe that the proposal is fair. Although I would like to see the boxes moved immediately, I realize that there is more to it than raising the box and coiling the excess cable. As proposed, Verizon will be moving four or five boxes per week. This schedule is actually quite aggressive.

There has been some news coverage of the issue If you would like to read more, please see the article on the Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council website. There are links there to a story in the Daily News and CBS video.

I would like to thank the National Federation of the Blind, the California Council of the Blind, Therapeutic Living Centers for the Blind, the Braille Institute, the American Council of the Blind and Guide Dogs of America. Their involvement was what made this agreement possible.

The Board of Public Works will hear this issue at their regular meeting on September 25th at 9:30am:

Edward R. Roybal BPW Session Room
Room 350 City Hall
200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
Thank you

Jerry Askew
Member, Board of Directors
Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council

Sports Or Sludge?

A reader recently contacted me with a news tip: a plan is in place to terminate the lease on the Granada Hills Youth Sports fields up at the top of Balboa, and replace them with sludge from the water processing plant.

Apparently, Metropolitan Water District owns this land and leases it to the Granada Hills Recreation center so the kiddies can have a place to play soccer and baseball. The tipster said that this season may be the kids' last at this location, and the sports fields are to be relocated to the other side of the freeway.

So I did some searching, and found this Daily News editorial about the very topic. Trouble is, the article is more than four years old.

It seems that this disaster has been imminent for some time now, but no action has taken place. My inquires to MWD and Granada Hills Recreation Center have not yet been answered.

Anyone out there have the straight dope on this PR disaster?

Tonight in Granada Hills: A Kirtan Evening

Kirtan is call-and-response chanting performed in India's devotional traditions. Kirtan practice involves chanting hymns or mantras to the accompaniment of instruments such as the harmonium, the two-headed mrdanga or pakawaj drum.

Refreshments will be served.

Suggested donation: $15

North Valley Aikikai,16901 San Fernando Mission Blvd.
(818) 652.5025

Strays, Not Schools: Why The GHSNC Should Be Abolished

In a stifling hot room at First Baptist Church of Granada Hills (not to be confused with Granada Hills Baptist Church), Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council meeting attendees munched pizza and chatted freely amongst themselves during a presentation by representatives from the Deaprtment of Sanitation on a city plan to make biofuels from black bin waste.

The whirring of box fans and ambient chatter made it difficult to hear details of the plan, as did problems with the room's sound system. As I strained to hear, a woman sitting next to me loudly groused, "Idiots. What do they spend all that money on microphones and they don't even use them. Five thousand dollars on that sound system and it doesn't even work. Disgusting."

When I began Giga Granada Hills, one of the first things I did was email all of the members of both the North and the South Neighborhood Councils, inviting them to write guest blog entries. No one responded. However, Linda Romney, who has regularly attended Neighborhood Council meetings for about two years and seems to have positioned herself as their arch-nemesis, was more than happy for an opportunity to share her views.


How long have you lived in Granada Hills?

My parents bought their house in 1965.


What's your opinion about what goes on here?

First off, they hold what's called secret meetings because of the fact that when the board was elected, there were about 54 votes to put these people in. And the stakeholders, who are the taxpayers and represent everyone, we have no say in anything that occurs whatsoever.

They have $50,000 a year, and there's 58 different neighborhood councils. Each one of them gets $50,000. Plus the bureaucracy that goes with it, plus we're supposed to be having hard times, the city's having a problem with money? They can't spend money fast enough!


What kinds of things have they spent money on that you disagree with?

One of the things is that they're constantly buying computers for elementary schools.

As you know, there hasn't been a bond measure that the public hasn't voted in for schools. There's all kinds of money available for schools, but they constantly come here. The Rotary Club, and the Chamber of Commerce -- anything that they want, they get us to pay for it.

For instance, there was a man that came for a food bank, and it was in Sylmar/San Fernando. And on the agenda today there's another person from Sylmar coming here, and it's gonna be used in Sylmar. They have these neighborhood councils all over. Sylmar should go to Sylmar, not Granada Hills.


Have you thought about joining the council yourself?

No. What I want to do is, there is no recall procedure. You know, in any other office the city sponsors, there's always a recall procedure. Did you know that with the neighborhood councils there is no recall procedure, which is illegal. The taxpayers should have a suit against all the neighborhood councils because there's no recall.


But how long is their term? When their term is up, could you run?

I wouldn't want to run. The base of how they're set up is totally and completely erroneous. The stakeholders, the citizens, don't have any say in anything that's occurring here.

It should be abolished. And so what what I want to do is I want to abolish them.


But let me ask you: maybe if you asked the board members, they would say, "We are citizens of Granada Hills, and we have a say, because we got on the board." What would you say to that?

I would say that fifty-four people elected them. So they're not representatives of Granada Hills. Because if you know how many citizens there are that live in Granada Hills, not to mention the others that work in Granada Hills, they don't represent fifty thousand.

You think fifty-four votes represents fifty thousand constituents? I don't think so. And when we voice our concerns, in one ear and out the other, and it's run as if it were a dictatorship by Dave Beauvais.



If you were somehow in charge, if this were done away with and you had the power to have your say, what would you do with that $50,000?

I would spend each of the $50,000 for each of the 58 councils, which comes to about 1.2 billion dollars,* I would use it to make sure that all of the animals were spayed and neutered and that they were never killed. The runaway pets.

The other thing I would do is you know how they're putting the taxes on our tax bill for the schools? I would make sure that the money went toward that. It didn't go on our property taxes. I would say use that money, and make sure that money goes toward the schools and it's not put on the individual taxpayers. Which is what they're doing -- they skirted Prop. 13 with this latest proposal that was voted in.


As far as Prop. 13 being about not having a tax without taxpayers' approval...

Right, two thirds approval. And we voted for a proposition just recently , and in the fine print it gave them authority to go ahead and add any amount of money that they needed that they didn't' have, any deficit, straight onto the property owner, and that's what they're doing. And it amounts to, I think they said between 124 and 300 dollars per every property, and we can't afford it.


So you said you've been coming to these meetings for two years?

Yes, and I'm on the Outreach and City Planning Committees. City planning they do listen to what you have to say, the Outreach, in one ear and out the other. The only people that are here are the people that are wanting to get money, that are on the agenda.



(*58 times 50,000 actually equals 2.9 million --ed.)

Football News

(click on the picture)

Dang, What A Cool House: The Laner Eichler

Brad Laner will tell you that he's not a rock star. Don't believe him. He is.

And if you ask Nydia Laner what she does, she'll just say, "Oh, I'm in sales." Uh huh. I won't blow her cover, but trust me, she's not about to hand you an Avon catalog.

The Laners may be modest about their career achievements, but they don't mind letting their fabulous Eichler house be a star. It's been featured in a number of location shoots, but most recently played the role of itself for the Los Angeles Times Home Section.

The Laners, along with their kindergartner son Julian, are only the second occupants of the house; its original owner was a WWII vet who rejected a higher offer from an Asian couple because of their race, preferring instead to sell the house to the Jewish/Puerto Rican Laner family.

"He was a selective racist," Brad explains.

A self-described "architecture nerd," Brad is a supporter of the plan to make the Balboa Highlands Eichler tract into a Historical Preservation Overlay Zone, a city designation that makes it extremely difficult to alter the facade of a house, as some Eichler owners already done to depressing effect. I mention a nearby house with faux Greek McMansion-style columns strapped to the front. "Oh, the Taj Mahal," Brad says. "You have to admire that one with the columns because it's just so grandly fucked up. But the saddest ones are those that are completely sprayed with stucco and just have some fluorescent lighting tubes on the outside."

It's not just his own neighborhood that Brad loves, but our whole town. "I believe in Granada Hills," he says, praising its "different, non-L.A. attitude."

"It's a friendlier, less poseur attitude around here, than even Northridge or Van Nuys. People here are humble because they know it's a forsaken corner of the Valley. But I point to the Eichlers -- what other part of the Valley has this type of architecture that they can be proud of? -- not to mention some of the only surviving Neutra stuff."

Brad has long dismissed the L.A. hipster tendency to pooh-pooh the city's northern reaches. "Los Angeles has that large city anti-provincial attitude, looking down on the suburbs the way New Yorkers look down on New Jersey. But in reality, the Valley is a huge part of Los Angeles and is not a separate thing. It developed concurrently, and so many great things that people associate with Los Angeles are of this area. I see it as one and the same."

Back To School

Photos taken September 9, 2009.














Oh, joy.

This sign says, "School days can be the happiest days of your life provided the children are old enough to go." What does that mean?




























Shari Moelter, Principal of Tulsa Elementary welcomes students back.

Attention Mustang Owners

The Mustang Owners Club of California has its monthly meeting tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Dupar's, corner Zelzah and Chatsworth. Speaker is CHP's Leland Tang on "pursuit training." Pants required.









*GigaGranadaHills.com is not to be held legally liable if actual Mustang Club members look nothing like the model in the above photo. Photo is provided for illustrative purposes only. GigaGranadaHills.com does not expressly warrant or guarantee that any members of Mustang Club are models or even female. Please direct all complaints to Mustang Owners Club of California or to Dupar's Restaurants, Inc., 12036 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604.

Get Ready For A Boom Boom

The Space Shuttle will land in California, at Edwards Air Force Base at 5:53 p.m. today, so don't be alarmed if you hear a double sonic boom here.

If you head out to the desert from Granada Hills now, you might be able to see the shuttle. According to my sources:

They're using runway 22. The ground tracks are over north base. There are two possible final approach circles - one CW centered over the 20 mule team offramp off the 58; one CCW centered over the rocket test site. I'm thinking we'll park on the shoulder of Rocket Test Site Road as far south as they'll let us. STS-117 orbit 219 ground track used the CW approach. Today, they're describing a CCW approach.

Link

Former Pet Zone Owner Quits, Joins LAPD - DailyNews.com

"Officer Curt Logan used to own a pet store in Granada Hills, but given the state of the economy, he decided to get into law enforcement. Now, Logan is set to begin his new career as one of L.A. s finest. "
(click photo for DailyNews.com story)

Not A Restaurant Town.

Image courtesy public-domain.zorger.com

Granada Hills is just not a restaurant town, and apparently, I'm not the only one who's come to that conclusion.

It's not a hopeful sign when an entire magazine's restaurant listings don't even allow for the possibility that there might be someplace worth eating in your neighborhood, but that seems to be the position that Valley Magazine has taken. In their recent Restaurant Guide, listings are sectioned off by neighborhood:

Chatsworth/Northridge
Encino/Mission Hills/Tarzana/Valley Glen/Van Nuys
Santa Clarita
Sherman Oaks/Studio City
Burbank/Glendale/Pasadena
North Hollywood/Universal City/Toluca Lake
Agoura Hills/Malibu/Simi Valley/Thousand Oaks/Ventura/Westlake
Woodland Hills/Calabasas/Topanga

Notice anything missing?

The magazine that's supposed to be all about the Valley (but is actually little more than a Jane Boeckman vanity project/Galpin Ford advertorial/ plug for The Horseless Carriage) goes all the way out to Santa Clarita and Ventura with its restaurant listings but completely writes Granada Hills off.

Hey, haven't they ever been to Frosty Queen? And our Jack In The Box is pretty good... and then there's Two For One, which ranked first in the Giga Granada Hills "Best Pizza" poll....

Aw, who am I kidding? We're the town that restaurants forgot. We get excited when something new opens in the neighborhood, and then find ourselves disappointed again and again -- with dusty Veggie Delite, with that blink-and-you-missed-it Korean BBQ place, with underwhelming Pampas. We've got A&W BBQ Seafood, they're pretty good, and if you need a place for a beauty pageant or a Bar Mitzvah there's always the Odyssey, but more often than not, when a GranadaHillsian wants a good restaurant experience, they hightail it out of here.

I wrote an email to Jonathan Gold, the L.A. Weekly's Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic, to ask if he's ever come across anything worthwhile in our forgotten backwater, or if he has any theories as to why the restaurant industry as a whole has forsaken us, but he didn't deem my message worthy of reply. I think that pretty much sums things up.

Oopsie

The fence in front of Valley United Presbyterian Church, corner Woodley & Chatsworth

Onward, Christian Cyclists

Open just two weeks, the brand new Joseph's Bikes and Books on Chatsworth (near Encino Ave.) offers an interesting combination of wares: Bicycles and Evangelical Christian literature.



The bike selection is mostly second-tier -- not high end, but not Wal-Mart, either -- and the book selection is 99% for children and 100% Christian. Titles like Bedtime Bible Stores and Good Manners For Christian Children share the shelf with a glossy coffee table celebration of Mel Gibson's bloody Passion of the Christ.


Also provided free for the taking was a plentiful selection of Jack Chick tracts, those irresistible mini-comics that explain how to achieve salvation through graphic black-and-white illustrations.



Among the store's selection of Chick tracts was "Bewitched," which describes for readers the ways in which reruns of the popular Elizabeth Montgomery/Dick York/Dick Sargent sitcom lead young people to drug abuse, and "The Sissy" which follows a hunky, muscular truck driver who enjoys meeting other men in truck stops and inviting them to "prayer meetings."


I think more people should ride bikes.

Beatles Rock Band Midnight Release Party

Lackluster Blockbuster, 17945 Chatsworth St., (near Zelzah), is having a midnight release party for The Beatles Rock Band tonight.

CSUN Performing Arts Calendar -- Get Out The Geritol

Two glossy new CSUN Performing Arts mailers arrived in my mailbox last week, and although I'm sure the new Valley Performing Arts Center will be the biggest thing to hit Northridge since the quake, most of this season's Plaza Del Sol offerings skew way too lemon party for my taste.

When the Tom Waits'-written musical The Black Rider came to the Ahmanson a couple of years ago, the Ahmanson's directors were exited that it brought in a rare and desirable demographic: the young theatergoer. But a look at CSUN's schedule this season proves that despite being right in the middle of a college campus, they've no interest in drawing an audience that isn't drawing Social Security. I'd be surprised if anyone under the age of 60 would be terribly interested in going to shows like The Count Basie Orchestra, Maureen McGovern: A Long And Winding Road, The Capitol Steps, or Debbie Reynolds.

When CSUN recently hosted a talk by John Waters, it gave me hope that the offerings at the new Valley Performing Arts Center wouldn't all be so unbearably tasteful, but no one's taking any chances this year. It's all about the tried and true.

Then again, the folks at Arts Northridge probably knows which side their bread is buttered on. We who select something other than Geritol as our drug of choice aren't afraid to drive over the hill if Lady Gaga comes to town. But the Valley skews older, and most seniors I know avoid the freeways like they avoid skateboards, so they'll probably flock to Northridge performance of The Songs of Leiber And Stoller in droves. Have a good time, Grandma!

Verizon? Inconsiderate? How Shocking.

The following email from Granada Hills South Neighborhood council landed in my inbox last week, and I've got to say they've got a damn good point. These low-lying FiOS boxes are wack -- and whack, too -- as in you could easily whack yourself into one on a bike or skateboard.

Granada Hills doesn't have much in the way of bike lanes, so we cyclists often use the sidewalks -- which is perfectly legal by the way, if you're not biking "in a manner that shows blatant disregard for pedestrian safety," which I don't. But the needlessly low placement of these boxes is quite the screw you, pedestrians and bikers! move on Verizon's part.

Verizon's people need to get their lazy asses some ladders and move these things up higher on the pole, but they're probably not going to do it unless we make some noise. Don't get me wrong, I loves me some FiOS, and I'm using it right now, but jeez, Verizon, give us some room.

If you're a bum like me who doesn't have a day job (What? Writing this blog? You're kidding!), consider sharpening your civic griping stick (a/k/a pitchfork) and showing up at the meeting coming up this Friday, September 11 at 9:30 a.m. in L.A.

---------

You may have seen the equipment cabinets that Verizon has been installing in various areas in the City of Los Angeles. These cabinets are part of Verizon's new FiOS network. Many of these cabinets have been installed within the public right of way at a height that interferes with traffic visibility and presents a hazard to pedestrians. Additionally, the cabinets are a graffiti nuisance.



The Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council, along with neighboring councils and area resident's groups, has been working with Verizon and the City to address the blight and hazards caused by these cabinets.


On September 11th at 9:30am, the Board of Public Works will be considering a recommendation that will require the cabinets to be relocated - either raised to a reasonable height, or converted to permitted installations.


Your support is needed to ensure that our efforts are successful. Please attend the meeting if you can (meeting location below), or write a letter with any personal experiences that you may have. We have heard reports of children on bicycles and skateboards running into these boxes and of associated minor injuries. If you have knowledge of or witnessed such an incident, please write with information that can be presented.


The Board of Public Works will hear this issue at their regular meeting on September 11th at 9:30am:


Edward R. Roybal BPW Session Room
Room 350 City Hall
200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
You can reply to this e-mail or contact me at jaskew@ghsnc.org. Alternatively, you can write directly to the Board of Public Works. Be sure to include a subject line referencing "BPW 9/11/09: Request by Verizon to install pole mounted fiber distribution hubs at low height"


Board of Public Works
Room 361-P, Mailstop 464
200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012-4801



Thank you

Jerry Askew
Member, Board of Directors
Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council

Buford Furrow Expresses Remorse Over NVJCC Shootings

Whittier Daily News story.

The Granada Hills Gathering

I'm a Buddhist. Can't help it really, since half my family is Asian and growing up, it was the only "religion" I had around.

Anyhoo, you may or may not have noticed that there's a lot more churches in G.H. than Buddhist temples, so we Buddhists usually just go hang out at each other's houses. The nice thing about that is after we're done doing our Buddhist-y things, we can do stuff like swim in the pool or raid the refrigerator or pick fruit off each other's trees. That's good, because meditation always makes me hungry.

Scanning Meetup.com, I found some more local Buddhists who were kind enough to host a gathering in their home. They also promised bagels and a potluck brunch afterwards, so I was sold.

When I rang the doorbell, I was greeted by a man wearing a flowing, saffon-colored Lakers T-shirt named Bill. Here, the practice was Nichiren Buddhism, which, unlike Vipassana, involves chanting.

Bill told me that he got involved in Buddhism in his early twenties when his motorcycle broke down. Walking down the road back to his home in Berkeley, a girl pulled her car over and said, "Hey, wanna go to a Buddhist meeting?" Bill climbed in, and once they arrived, he felt strongly moved by the sounds and vibrations the unified chanting of the group created. "I felt a sense of peace and unity that I'd felt only on rare occasions in the past," he said.

When I arrived at Bill's home, the chanting was already in full swing, and I found the atmosphere a marked contrast from the silence I'm accustomed to. But when in Rome, you meditate like the Romans, so I plunked down my cushion and took a seat.

Meditation is supposed to be about quieting the mind, but sometimes that's tough when you're in a totally new environment. But here goes. Okay, follow the breath. Breath. Breath. Breath. Wow, what a beautiful quilt. Breath. Breath. They're saying Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Oh, it's just like in that Tina Turner Movie, What's Love Got To Do With It. The one where Ike is beating her up. That was so cool, how she used the chanting to gain the strength to stand up to him. What does Nam Myoho Renge Kyo even mean? In the movie, they said chanting was like a mirror. Okay, drop it. Meditation. Breath. Breath. Breath. And then she's backstage, and Ike comes to beat her up again, and she calmly tells him off. Should I be chanting too? I'm not sure I'm ready to join in. The "yoho" part reminds me of pirates. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me. Okay, stop thinking about pirates. Think about your breath. Watch the thoughts go by. Breath. Breath. Breath. Pirates of the Caribbean is about Pirates. And it's about a ride at Disneyland. And it had Johnny Depp in it. Johnny Depp is sexy as a pirate. Wait, stop thinking about pirate sex. Think about meditation. Okay, follow the breath, follow the breath. Watch the thoughts pass by. Breath. Breath. Breath. Why does that guy talk with a normal voice but chant with a nasal voice? Are they going to have bagels after meditation? I'm so hungry. I should have eaten more breakfast. Breath. Breath. Breath. They said they were Jewish, they probably have good taste in bagels. Okay, I'm going to try chanting now. Nammyohorengekyo Nammyohorengekyo Nammyohorengekyo. Ooh, vibrations! Vibrations in my chest! That feels cool! No wonder they do this. It sounds like a song. Better than any choir. It's pushing out the other extraneous thoughts. Nammyohorengekyo Nammyohorengekyo Nammyohorengekyo. Who was that actress in the Tina Turner movie? Angela something. Stop, you're here to meditate. Breath. Breath. Breath. Breath. Nammyohorengekyo Nammyohorengekyo Nammyohorengekyo. It sounds terrific! Breath! Voices! Vibrations! Harmony! Unity! Bassett! That was her name! Angela Bassett!


And then the gong rings. Yay! Bagels!

Bill Anker, Host

More Buddhist stuff:

http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/

http://www.dharmapunx.com/

http://www.meetup.com/Granada-Hills-Gathering/

Local Boy Makes Good

Joy in Mudville Granada Hills tonight.

Click photo for story on Jon Garland, formerly of Kennedy High School.

LAFD Knocks Out O'Melveny Park Fire

Thanks to quick action by LAFD, we dodged a bullet. Fifty-seven presumably hot firefighters were deployed to stamp out the blaze that broke out today at 12:48 p.m., and they did it in just 29 minutes. Thanks, guys.

Links:

LAist.com's Report

LAFD Alert Page

New Ray Romano Series Shooting In Granada Hills

The Los Angeles Times reported that Ray Romano and Scott Bakula's new series, "Men of a Certain Age," will be shooting in Granada Hills. That's because Granada Hills is way more glamorous than Hollywood. Granada Hills is also awesomer. Did you know that? It's true.

Councilman Zine Looks to Ban Rolling Eyesores

You go, Zinester.

Curbed L.A.'s story
Fox L.A.'s story

It's -- It's -- A Classical Blitz!

Granada Hills Public Library will host a concert by the Classical Blitz Chamber Music Ensemble, who will perform masterpieces from the Baroque through the Classic era September 5 at 2:00 p.m.

I will personally give you five dollars if you can make a man in the back say "Everyone attack!"

Okay, no I won't.

The Sinatra Room at Casa De Pizza -- NSFW!

Seconds into our conversation, Vic launches into a stream of jokes.

"Why do Jewish men die before their wives? Because they want to.

"My wife was a centerfold, but the book was Field and Stream.

"Why do the Jews and the Italians get along? We steal it, they sell it.

"This one's a little off-color: A guy walks into the Walgreens, up to the girl at the counter. He's like, I'm feeling kind of embarrassed. I need prophylactics, but I don't know what size I take. She goes, 'Take it out.' She gives it two strokes. She goes, 'Aisle four, size medium.' Guy goes down the aisle, next guy's like, 'Could you do that to me too?' She says, 'Yeah, take it out.... aisle eight, large.' This little eight year old kid comes up and says, could you do that to me too?' She goes, 'Yeah yeah, take it out.' She goes, 'Register one, clean up.'"

Okay, so it's not a family-friendly joke, but the kids weren't around when he told it -- they were busy being shoved into the car as my friend yelled at her son for his bout of misbehavior in the restaurant.

Casa De Pizza's quick-thinking waitstaff had done everything they could to mitigate the situation -- rushing out with mini antipasto plates, crayons, and coloring book pages, their efforts nothing short of heroic. But when a four-year-old insists on behaving in a manner that is very, very four, and his mother has thrown up her hands in surrender, there's only so much a server can do.

Fortunately, the rest of our party, which included three other kids (who remained seated throughout the entire meal, thank you very much) completely dug Casa De Pizza's Thursday night vibe with house band The Sounds of Sinatra, who have been playing this gig for thirty years, in various incarnations, but always with Vic as lead singer. Vic makes (less raunchy) wisecracks throughout the all-Sinatra set, and the band's arrangements aren't merely copycat covers of Ole' Blue Eyes' standards, but their own original, and skillful, arrangements. This particular lineup has been at it for fifteen years, so they've had time to practice.

This venerable pizza joint is historic not simply because of its age -- although by G.H. standards 48 years is impressive -- but also because Frank himself once visited here, back in the 1970s. Yes, Francis Albert Sinatra once set foot in Granada Hills. Take that, Kruschev fans!

The legend goes that Frank was so impressed by the collection of Sinatra memorabilia on display here, he gave his permission for the restaurant's owners to dub Casa De Pizza's dining room "The Sinatra Room."

Don't think for a minute that Casa De Pizza's temple of Sinatra kitsch is mere hollow gimmickry. This place doesn't only show reverence for Sinatra, but also for pizza. The family-owned restaurant has specialty pizzas named for original owners Mike and Phyllis, as well as an extra thick crust pizza called the Tom Brown, with marinated tomatoes, and sausage, and the Mary Galati, a pesto pizza. But the pie who loved me was the Pizza Rustica, a thin crust veggie that won my heart with its garlic, Mediterranean olives, and capers. Ohh, you capers! Do we have a new winner for Best Pizza In Granada Hills? We very well might, because this one would be tough to top.

Out in the parking lot, I also met Jeff and Bobby (flanking Vic in the picture at left), Casa De Pizza regulars and long-time family friends. After Vic's round of punchlines, Bobby smiles and says, "With him you can always guarantee jokes like that," in a way that made me feel jealous that Vic was more likely to show up at Bobby's Thanksgiving dinner than mine.

"So you're regulars here?" I asked Bobby, who answered as plainly and matter-of-factly as if I had just asked an Amish family if they went to church: "Every Thursday, this is what we do."

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Update On My Friends In The Station Fire

Remember how I mentioned that I had a friend whose house is one of two surviving houses in her neighborhood? Her story wound up in the Los Angeles Times. Her name is Jane, and the story is here. Click the link to see how it feels to have your whole neighborhood destroyed.

Granada Hills High School Student's Death Was Suicide

The Daily News reports that Granada Hills High School senior Matthew Koziol shot himself "hours after being named the football team's starting fullback and linebacker."

This is the second time this week that I'm going to ask people to say prayers, burn sage, rub a horseshoe, or do whatever it is you do when you want to wish people well.

Read the complete Daily News story here.

Granada Hills News: It's The Smoke!

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Last Night, View From Odyssey Parking Lot