Tag: local

Airport

Went to pick up my mother at LAX. International Arrivals is great people watching. Today was also the day of Themed Plane Arrivals:

My mom’s flight was Singapore Airlines from Tokyo/Narita. Almost all of the passengers were Japanese business guys who immediately pulled the cellphone out of one pocket and the cigarettes out of another and rushed outside to use both. One spiky haired young Japanese guy wearing stripy weird clothing and Vans was met by an obsequious limo driver.

An Aeromexico flight from Guadalajara brought what looked like about 50 Mexican art students. All of them were about 20 and most of them were carrying some kind of portfolio. I think it’s time we woke up to the danger here. All those art students are swarming across the border and taking our barista jobs and/or seats at the coffeehouse where they can whine about not making it.

Finally an El Al jet disgorged lots of beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Jew girls all of whom had long flowing dark hair, big earrings, classic Mediterranean features, and huge smiles. They strode happily down the ramp and were immediately intercepted by nervous men in yarmulkes before the rest of us could get at them.

There was also a Sikh family of about 25 who all greeted each other expansively with a factorial number of hugs exactly in the gangway so no one could get through. This happens each time and I suspect it’s the same family.

Holy CRAP. Chris? HOLY CRAP.

LA radio host arrested on suspicion of kidnapping

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — A radio host and Hollywood music consultant was released on $1 million bail after being arrested at a nightclub for investigation of drugging and attempting to kidnap a 14-year-old girl, police said Sunday.

Chris Douridas, a KCRW-FM disk jockey, was arrested Jan. 6 outside a Santa Monica nightclub after witnesses reportedly saw him put a substance in the unidentified girl’s drink and carry her out of the club, said Santa Monica police Sergeant Jay Trisler.

The girl became ill and was treated at a local hospital before being released, Trisler said. It was unclear why she was inside the club.

County prosecutors were still gathering evidence in the case and awaiting toxicology results before deciding whether to charge Douridas, Eva Jabber, a deputy district attorney, told the Los Angeles Times.

An e-mail sent to Douridas, 43, of Pacific Palisades was not immediately returned Sunday night, and phone numbers listed under his name were disconnected. A message left with KCRW also was not returned.

A second man, whose name was not released, was also arrested as a possible accomplice to Douridas, Trisler said.

Douridas hosts KCRW’s “New Ground,” a Saturday program featuring new music. He’s also a music supervisor and consultant for film and television. He helped compile the soundtracks for movies such as “Shrek 2,” “As Good As It Gets” and “Grosse Pointe Blank.”

Douridas was nominated for a Grammy for his work on the soundtrack to “American Beauty.”

He also was a one time host for the PBS series “Sessions at West 54th Street.”

bow before the HMP-288

changeng brought us the debut this weekend of this device. It’s a lot of things. A split keyboard. A dual-neck flying-V keytar. A “Sound Mixer”. A light show. $9.95 at “Big Lots!”. A really big mistake. An aleatory composition device that produces unpredictable sound patterns RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX! Ladies and gentlemen, the device Stuart affectionately calls “THE HUMP”: THE HMP-288!

The HMP-2888 (detail)

The HMP-288

The HMP-288

Stuart’s Groupies and More

overheard at Diedrich

D.Z. is standing outside looking uncomfortable in the cold in a windbreaker with the hood up. Enter MEDICATED BOB, who’s neither totally insane or totally okay today.

D.Z. looks even more uncomfortable as MEDICATED BOB approaches him.

MEDICATED BOB: Hi!

D.Z.: Hey.

MEDICATED BOB: I haven’t had a drink since Thanksgiving?

D.Z.: I haven’t had one for 22 years. It’s not something you brag about, it’s something you do.

MEDICATED BOB: [inaudible]

D.Z.: Don’t drink, take your meds, take it easy.

MEDICATED BOB exits into the coffeehouse.

D.Z.: Guys who do that shit, drinking when they’re taking, whatever, Klonopin for the psychosur.. psycho.. psychosomatic? No, all fucked-up. I tell them to stop the drinking first, then switch to Xanax or something, but no drinking, with that shit. Maybe with some Valium or whatever, not with that psycho stuff. Fucked-up.

I didn’t even have to post to LJ, it was a good day

Went to the LA Auto Show with zebulon_y and friendly_bandit and had a good time. It was about equal parts “Wow neat!”, “Wow, that’s kind of..” and “Wow, that’s just fucked-up”.

All the car manufacturers were showing off their golf carts. I will complain about golf carts some other time.

I got a dirty look from the Dodge spokesdroid when I said “Check this out, 14 miles per gallon in 2006!” loudly at the Charger SRT. “Guess you’ve got to really like that cruisin’ lifestyle!” I bellowed at him cheerfully. I sat in my future girlfriend, the Mazdaspeed 6, and in my other future girlfriend, the Subaru Legacy GT. I was surprisingly impressed by some of the big campervan things. That mercedes van that Dodge brought over from Europe is nicely done. We did not go into the Hall of Supercars because it was stuffed with hu-mans.

The best thing there was in the aftermarket hall. Someone has made the ultimate spinner, and it wasn’t even on the wheel. It was in the back of an SUV on display. It had lights on it that made patterns, nice, but then when it started spinning the lights made pictures! Like the American Flag, and Famous Art Type Pictures, and Hip Hop Lifestyle Imagery. It was one of those things that went so far into stupid that it wrapped right back around into art. It needs to go into a museum right now.

We went to Kappo Honda and had good japanese food with Lisa. I consumed: Tonkatsu,, hamachi sashimi, special toasted onigiri with eel, and some chicken udon. It was very, very, very, very, very good.

West Side Story

So, the city next door to me has a half-assed thing going on where they want their police department to enforce immigration law. This is a terrible idea. It means more work for the cops, more risk to them from freaked-out illegals, and near total loss of any leads they might otherwise get from people with bad immigration status and good information. Plus, any illegal pulled over for a minor traffic violation is going to floor it and run now. And so on. This is right on the heels of the city closing the job center for day labor, as though by removing the official and clean and regulated place for workers to find work they can make the “problem” go away. Have they been to the parking lot of the Home Depot lately? Now, as they voted in the new rule for local policing, they had a demonstration and disruption at the council meeting.

Costa Mesa is a divided city. The east side is wealthy and mostly white, and the west side is poorer and mostly brown. It’s not as poor as Santa Ana, but it’s not an episode of “The O.C.” either. To put it in street terms, you can buy pot and coke in Costa Mesa but you need to go to Santa Ana for heroin. White Costa Mesa mostly dislikes the Hispanic immigrants on racial grounds and tries to hold them down and away. Brown Costa Mesa mostly just tries to hold down a job and get the kids through school.

The po’folks I know from West Costa Mesa are mostly upwardly mobile, hard-working, conservative family people. They’re in Costa Mesa because it’s the best ghetto in the county and their kids go to better schools and have less risk than in Santa Ana or points north. The only reason they’re shat on by the city government is race. In every other way they’re what that city has always been: lower middle class workers, small businesses, and middle-of-the-road Babbitt conservatism.

I noticed that the protester who was arrested calls himself “Coyoti Tezcatlipoca”. Nice. One problem I’ve noticed with the hardcore Mexican-American protest crowd is their in-your-face Mexican patriotism. When there were demonstrations near my job in L.A. about the Belmont school issue, for example, the marchers had a huge Mexican flag and waved little ones, and the Mexican national colors were everywhere. One small problem: the neighborhood was almost entirely Salvadoran, Honduran, and Guatemalan. The locals didn’t appreciate the Mexican invasion, and there were some minor dustups and a few ripped-up flags. It’s strange to see the activists making the same mistake that those in power do and equating “spanish-speaking immigrant” with “Mexican”. The best part was the (local) Salvadoran activist council walking carrying the huge Mexican flag banner. A coworker of mine at the time who was a Mexican citizen told me that story and spat in the wastebasket next to her each time she said “Salvadoran”. No love lost there.

We can’t all get along. Sorry, Rodney.