Los Angeles, CA

Okay, Angelinos, here’s your chance. There’s been talk of expanding the underground (Metro) to the Pacific, and it looks like a measure will be added to the November ballot for this subway expansion. At the cost of half a cent tax hike, we could finally get the $7 billion addition started and take the train to the ocean. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Admittedly, I don’t ride the Metro that much and never have since I rode it as a kid on opening day, but since moving back from a carless and public transit-fueled existence in San Francisco, the boyfriend and I are trying hard to not be so auto-reliant. It’s a lot harder in LA, though the Metro bus system has improved markedly since my time in SF, and they’re still working on it. It’s no MUNI, but with enough support, it could be. Imagine on a hot day stuck inland, with the freeways clogged and the heat coming up from the miles of twisted concrete in waves, just grabbing a towel and a cooler and jumping on the Metro. Make yourself look a little beach bummy so you won’t get harassed as much, and then you’re there! If you go in a group, you can even fall asleep on the ride back and your friends will watch over you. It’s almost like being a kid again, but if you had to share your parents car with those weirdos on the street that always made you roll up your windows and lock the doors. (Can you tell my last experience on the Metro was less than stellar?) Still, don’t just go on my word. I apparently have one of those “Pick on me!” faces, and the differences between the way female and male passengers are treated are huge.

Anyway, as fun as it sounds, there is still plenty of room for debate here. While half a penny doesn’t sound like much of an increase at all, it would bring LA’s sales tax to 8.75%, tying it with two other counties as the highest in California. Ouch. Having worked at more than my share of tourist’s traps, I know how well other people have it tax-wise, so this really is a matter of “How badly do we want/need this?” Do a bit of thinking, you still have 10 months until you have to vote. But be sure to vote!

To read more about the pros and cons of connecting LA to the Pacific, go here.

If you’ve ever gone to see the Hollywood Christmas parade, then you’ve probably seen Johnny Grant. He was a cheery, round little man who was nearly hyperactive in the Hollywood scene, and he will be dearly missed by all Angelinos.

Here’s a little history on the man for you: Johnny first came to Hollywood while on leave during World War II, and became enamored of the city. When the war was over he came back to try his luck, and over the years he morphed from disc jockey to celebrity interviewer to part of the very essence of Hollywood glitter. It was Grant’s idea to make a star’s addition to the Hollywood Walk of Fame a big deal, to draw more people to the city and get more press for the Tinseltown that had started to slip into a sort of Cracktown. He refused to give up on the idea of Hollywood as a chic and glamorous city of dreams, and I think we all have to thank him now for being so dogged and keeping the city afloat like he did.

Johnny even managed to have his own star on the Walk of Fame, in the prime spot just in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater, and lived in a penthouse in the Roosevelt Hotel, a place crawling with Hollywood history. The first Academy Award ceremonies were held in the Roosevelt, and since then it’s been a home away from home for the top celebrities.

Johnny Grant was an amazing man who proved that the American Dream was still alive and well. He came here determined to make something of himself and ended up running the place (even if it was only from an honorary position), and you should really read more of his life’s works here. He even took place in the first telethon with no less than Frank Sinatra! A pure Hollywood class act.

It would be really hard to have not heard about Megan Meier and the MySpace debacle by now. If you somehow haven’t heard, though, or need a reminder, she was the teenager who was pranked by her best friend’s mom on the social site and ended up committing suicide over it all. The mother pretended to be a cute boy who was interested in Megan, and went through an elaborate ruse of flirting with the girl and setting her up to think that the non-existent boy loved her, then suddenly turning the tables and getting Megan’s other MySpace friends to gang up on her and call her an awful person and other nasty names. One person even said “The world would be a better place without you.” Being a girl with low self-esteem who had battled with depression for most of her life — a fact her friend’s mother knew — Megan was so crushed by this mass attack from her friends that she hung herself in her closet while her family was downstairs making dinner.

Due to a legal loophole, the friend’s mother and the friend herself, who was also in on the ruse, are not being charged with any sort of crime. At least in their home state of Missouri. The anger towards this family reaches nationwide and the mother now publicly complains that their lives are ruined because the Meiers won’t let this go. Well, at least your daughter is still alive, and wasn’t driven to even consider killing herself over a grown woman who should have known better — and had better things to do — than to harass a 14 year old and stalk her.

What does this have to do with LA, you ask? As of today, plenty. A federal grand jury here in LA has started issuing subpoenas regarding the case, and want to charge Lori Drew, the mother and ringleader behind the attacks on Megan, on federal counts of wire fraud and cyber fraud. So far, employees of MySpace and some unnamed witnesses have been subpoenaed, but both Megan’s family and the Drews were taken off guard by this development in the case. While the Drews’ lawyer refused to comment, Megan’s mother was glad to have anyone take up the case and make both MySpace and the Drew family take responsibility for what they’ve done. Lori Drew had previously commented publicly that she felt no remorse or regret over what she had done, even though it directly led to Megan’s death. Maybe looking at some time behind bars for her thoughtless prank and heartless reaction will change her mind, though.

To read more about LA’s involvement in the Megan Meier case, go here.

As you may have heard by now, the Golden Globes have been somewhat canceled this year due to the ongoing writer’s strike. There will still be awards, and there will definitely be glammed up celebs in designer gowns and tuxes hitting the parties and walking away with more goodies in one night than you or I will ever see, but there will be no official ceremony, and probably nothing will be televised. Many entertainment addicts are mourning this latest casualty of the dragging strike, but I say good!

Good? Yes, because this means a superfluous entertainment award show is knocked back down to just that — an unnecessary show for overinflated egos. If any of you are interested in old Hollywood, then you know by now that the Oscars, or Academy Awards, as they were called before they earned their more well-known nickname in the 1930s, was just a short ceremony held at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles to show some appreciation for outstanding actors at the time. You can find footage of past award ceremonies on You Tube and elsewhere, and the overall attitude is very casual. No one gives a six minute acceptance speech, there were no waterworks or hissyfits if someone didn’t win. It was just a statue. Obviously, a lot has changed, but maybe not for the better. Maybe it’ll do Hollywood good to go back to a more modest mindset. With the setback they’ve been handed by not treating their writers as equal human beings, maybe they’ll finally learn some humility. Especially if the writers’ allies, the actors themselves, continue to side with the writers and boycott the Oscars as well. Is this what it’ll take to get Hollywood to take writers seriously? Or will they still think that the people who create and animate the characters we know and love are still on par with the guy who drives the catering truck?

To read more about the ongoing developments regarding the Golden Globes, stay tuned with CNN.

My Internet has been knocked out for nearly a week, and when I come back all ready to catch up on LA (since the Internet is my newspaper), all I’m hearing about is Britney Spears’s breakdown last night! The sad thing is that everyone has been able to see this coming for months now. Honestly, I’m surprised something didn’t happen sooner, especially with her need to drive all day and all night just to be doing something.

Anyway, last night at around 8 PM the police were called because Britney refused to hand over the kids to her ex-husband’s bodyguards. After a three hour standoff in which Britney was reportedly locked in the bathroom with the children, she was taken away in an ambulance and both she and the children were examined at Cedars-Sinai. The boys were released around 4 in the morning and went to Kevin Federline’s, while Britney was admitted and is under watch. There are rumors that she was drunk, or high, or both, though some are saying that she’s just erratic because she’s having a breakdown. Either way, I’m sick of people insisting on watching someone get to this point without ever lifting a finger to help, and getting entertainment out of someone else’s pain. There’s shadenfreude, and then there’s sadism, and I think we as a society have hit the latter. Most people aren’t watching that lame TMZ show every day hoping to see someone be rude to a conceited starlet, they’re hoping to see someone get punished or hurt badly.

Sorry, I’m not supposed to be here to morally lecture, but hopefully this will be the first and last time I post about any of this. If you want a gossip rag, go to a gossip rag. If you want to read about Los Angeles and all that it has to offer outside of paparazzi, come here. The two won’t mingle here any more.

And with that, we’re back from Christmas. (!) I know this isn’t really LA news, but this piece of news is all over the place nationwide, and it means an extra something to me because I used to live by the zoo and would walk there all the time on free zoo day (the first Wednesday of the month). The San Francisco Zoo is open 365 days a year, and yesterday, on Christmas Day, a tiger somehow escaped from its habitat and roamed the east side of the park, killing one man in front of the enclosure and wandering to a cafe 50 yards away before attacking two more men.

This happened shortly after closing, which is why more people weren’t hurt by the tiger, and when police arrived on the scene they found the tiger still mauling one of the three victims. The tiger looked up at the police and started to go back to her victim when they opened fire and killed the animal with their handguns. This Siberian tiger, named Tatiana, had actually mauled a keeper last year at this time. The zoo had daily feedings of the big cats at 2pm every day, and while a female keeper was throwing meat to the animals, Tatiana reached through the bars and snagged the woman’s arm, trying to pull her into the enclosure. This happened in front of a large crowd, including lots of children, and while the woman was eventually pulled away, she did lose her arm.

Today the zoo is closed while the police and zoo officials further examine what happened, but I have the feeling that at the end of it all it’ll boil down to human error of some sort. Initially reports said that all four tigers had escaped, which leads me to think someone saw an open door somewhere. All the same, you can read more here through the LA Times, and read the updates as they’ve happened on Metroblogging San Francisco.

I remember when recycling machines first made their appearance in front of grocery stores. I was still a kid, and one day there were three new machines about the size of soda vending machines in front of our Smith’s (wow, that was a long time ago). You could recycle your 2 liter soda bottles, aluminum cans, and small glass bottles there, and for every two plastic bottles, you got a nickel. My sister and I would divvy up the money, and it was about the coolest thing ever. You could hear the machine grinding up your recyclables, and we loved hearing the glass break the best. The machines didn’t seem to last long, and soon the city forced you to participate in their own recycling deal. We had a big red trash bin with DART written on the side — Downey At-Home Recycling Team. We didn’t get paid anymore and it wasn’t nearly as fun, but we were able to recycle more, like newspapers and plastic bags.

Later on we discovered the recycling center nearby in Paramount, and we started making money again. Then I moved to San Francisco and wasn’t able to, especially because I didn’t have a car up there, and had to just watch other people pick through our garbage and steal our recycling. It irritated me and still does, but after today’s article in the LA Times about the increased payouts for recycling, I can see why. Every time you buy a six-pack or a bottle of wine, you pay a CRV. It may just be four or five extra cents on your bill, but that adds up quickly. Why not get that money back? A few years ago your month’s recycling could have paid for a tank of gas, before a gallon of gas cost more than a gallon of milk. (One of my economy teacher’s arguments that Americans gripe too much about gas was the fact that milk cost more than gas — now can I complain? I don’t even drink milk!) If you have kids and they’re always nagging you for more money, why not put them in charge of recycling and let them have the cash? It’ll teach them to be more conscientious about their trash and cleaning up after themselves, and they’re earning the money.

Here’s some news you probably missed during the first few rounds of the Mel Gibson “sugartits” debacle: the drunk actor was given star treatment during and after his DUI arrest. A panel of six attorneys have been reviewing the way LA Sheriff’s deputies handled Gibson’s arrest, and have decided that they were decidedly unprofessional and biased towards the actor. Mel Gibson was not printed, at least not forced to provide a palm print like everyone else, and was even personally driven by the deputy to the impound yard to pick up his car, another big no-no. The most surprising information was that Mel’s drunken ravings, which made news worldwide, were left off of the original police report, and were only added on later as a note to be seen only by the district attorney. The memo was leaked somehow to gossip websites, and that’s how it became known. I still find it surprising that people insist on covering for celebrities who don’t really care about them as human beings and treat them like garbage, just because they’re famous. If they’re getting in that much trouble, it’s probably for a reason, and not because they’re such a nice guy or good person. Don’t make it worse by whitewashing their mistakes. Make them learn from them!

In another bit of surprising news, the same panel agreed that Paris Hilton did not receive any preferential treatment during her arrest and incarceration. Sheriff Lee Baca came under a lot of fire for his treatment of the celebutard, especially when she was released after a couple of days in prison and allowed to spend the rest of her sentence with only an ankle bracelet monitoring system. She was subsequently ordered to finish out her sentence in jail, when she cried and screamed as only a rich, spoiled heiress can. The report by the panel of attorneys, however, found that two doctors did in fact examine Hilton and recommend she spend the rest of her sentence at home. While having female misdemeanor prisoners released after a few days was normal, what was abnormal was the fact that Paris had to serve her full sentence, apparently.

This is only a small part of the report. To read more, go here.

By now you’ve all heard about California’s efforts to regulate smog and pollution, and our efforts to pass our own emissions laws to help cut down on greenhouse gases. Yesterday President Bush and the EPA denied our bid on these proposed legislation, claiming that because Bush had recently signed an energy bill that would help cut down on emissions. Their reasoning? The bill Bush signed into law would be good enough, for them, and that they want a nationwide emissions policy, instead of state by state regulations. The latter half of that would sort of make sense, I guess, but mostly to shipping companies who have smoke-spewing semis crossing state lines on a regular basis.

What’s more frustrating is that 16 other states were considering adopting our laws as their own, too, and that’s just to start with. More could have followed as they watched the results of these proposed laws going into effect, and held the government to higher standards. Governor Schwarzenegger has already vowed to take this issue to court, and it looks to be a long and bitter battle, bleeding over into the next presidency. This may even become a hot topic for the candidates, yet another yardstick to measure Obama and Hilary by. Congress is also expected to speak out on the matter, though they’re sure to get vetoed and it’s not expected that they would be unified enough to overcome the expected veto.

This looks to be a long and bitter fight, so you might want to get comfortable. To read more about the ongoing debate, go here.

I didn’t get to post yesterday because of ongoing apartment problems, and it made me realize that I should really make sure everyone knows their rights as a renter. The couple living in the flat behind us (there are four apartments here total, two upstairs, two down) apparently had a plumbing problem with their bathroom sink, and though I haven’t been home much during the day this past year, it seems to be an ongoing thing that started even before they moved in. But rather than calling a plumber to fix the problem once and for all, the cheap 80+ year old landlord insists on either trying to fix it himself or having his tenants do it. This led to the couple turning off the hot water without notifying any of us and leaving the building for over an hour with it off, and they also somehow managed to temporarily knock out our gas. I went to check the water heater, thinking that its pilot had blown out, since I didn’t know what was going on and no one had talked to us about shutting things off. I passed the bottom back apartment and their door was open, and the man that lived there asked if we had a gas leak in our apartment, since theirs had suddenly started reeking of gas. I told him we didn’t even have gas, so maybe ours was leaking into his place. I also asked him to check their water, and went off to call the landlord.

Trying to make a long story as short as possible, the landlord came out only after hearing that water was pouring from the downstairs back apartment’s ceiling, and when I called him later to tell him we were still without hot water, he hung up on me. Yesterday a plumber was supposed to come to straighten all this out, and while we have hot water again, I never heard anything about the plumber showing up (he was over an hour late by the time I left for work). After all this crap and my sister’s own issues with her landlord (he refused to fix her heater for at least three months, and also refuses to knock down a wasp’s nest right outside their door, even though it’s a hazard to all of the tenants), I want to make sure everyone knows what their rights are as a renter and what you can do to make sure your landlord isn’t scamming you. The entire California Landlord/Tenant Book is online here, conveniently broken down by category. You can order a hardcopy through the website, or simply browse for what you specifically need, like security deposit refunds (unless you’ve put holes in the wall or really trashed the place, you should get back your entire deposit, and if the landlord insists on deducting “cleaning fees,” then he must provide you with an itemized list so you see exactly how much cleaning cost), what exactly is the landlord’s responsibility, and what constitutes an uninhabitable living space (in which case you shouldn’t pay rent). Know it, study it, bookmark it!

Amidst rumors that their rerun ratings were plummeting, two late night talk shows will be returning to taping January 2nd. Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, both on NBC, have confirmed that they will return in 2008 with new episodes whether the writer’s strike was resolved or not. If you’re an Angelino then you probably know at least one person directly affected by this strike, and know what a sensitive issue it’s turning out to be. I have friends in the industry who were able to keep working for a while, but there were only so many finished scripts done, and production for pretty much every TV show has stopped for the foreseeable future. And please, don’t get me started on reality shows. They need to die in a shallow grave already.

With negotiations crumbling left and right, lines are starting to be drawn. Writers, wanting residuals from new media sales like Internet screenings of TV shows, have turned to the web to make ends meet in the meantime, while others who were affected in a different way either stand with the writers and demand that they be treated on par with the actors, directors, and producers that make real what the writers create or cross the lines and work as if the strike meant nothing to them. I was disappointed when Ellen DeGeneres so quickly ignored the writers and returned on air, especially after going ballistic over a dog and then not shedding a tear for the writers that made her funny and enjoyable (not that I’ve ever seen an episode of her show, I’m just sayin’). But it’s even more disappointing to me that Conan would potentially cross the line, too. Out of all the late night hosts, I thought he would hold out the longest and show the most solidarity with the writers who have dreamed up some of the most hilarious moments in recent TV history (whoever thought up the Walker, Texas Ranger lever, above, was a GENIUS). Not only that, but Conan (and Jay Leno) are actually members of the Writer’s Guild, meaning that they will cross their own picket lines.

What does this mean for the rest of their careers? Will you boycott their shows when they return, until the strike is over? Or forever? Or do you even care? This is a big gray area and open to a lot of debate, but it just doesn’t feel right to me. Maybe the strike will be resolved quickly and this will be a moot point.

You can read more about O’Brien and Leno’s picket line crossing here.

If you haven’t heard already, officials are mulling over the possibility of converting some carpool lanes on major freeways into a toll lane. Why? So frustrated single drivers who want to get where they’re going faster can pay to do so. While the proposal may sound like a good idea at first, earning revenue while clearing up some congestion on the perpetually packed freeways, most drivers are actually against this idea. It seems to be poorly thought out at best, and actually gives no breaks to carpoolers who have been using the special lanes for years, or for motorcycles or hybrid cars, who have also been given special access to the current fast lane.

When interviewed for the L.A. Times, most regular freeway drivers balked at the idea. Some carpoolers would even be willing to pay for the continued privilege of using the fast lane as needed, but not at the high prices that are being discussed, and certainly not on a daily basis. Others believe that if the city and state as a whole is really interested in cutting down gridlock and pollution from traffic, then they should put their money towards more — and more reliable — mass transit that is appealing enough to be a viable alternative to single driving.

I have to agree with that last statement. Having lived three years in San Francisco myself, I was tired of always being stuck on one freeway or another and relocated to a city where I could get around reliably without a car of my own. The car was sold in LA and we took a U-Haul up, and I rode MUNI and the occasional cab for three years. There were some definite downsides, like waiting for a bus in the rain, squeezed under a drafty, small bus shelter with fourteen other people, and the buses certainly didn’t run on time, but you had options. If one bus was slow or overpacked, you could get home at least two different ways, and I lived clear across town by the ocean, where the buses aren’t so far reaching. I was impressed at how LA’s Metro system had grown while I was gone (I still freak out every time I see a Metro where I’d never seen one before in my life), but there’s still a lot of improvement to be had in the greater LA area. There are still empty and abandoned bus lanes on freeways that could definitely stand to be used regularly, and if the Metro rail were cleaned up, I’m sure plenty more would take it. It came in handy to get to Union Station when I was taking Amtrak across the country a few years ago, but I was so worried about being raped by the bizarre, short little gangster molesting me that I couldn’t really enjoy the trip. C’mon LA, get your act together! If San Francisco can do it, you certainly can.

To read more about the proposed toll lanes, go here.

If you haven’t heard already, the nominees for the Golden Globes were announced this morning, and of course everyone’s already spouting their opinions on who should have been nominated, etc. I’m going to try and steer clear of all that (though probably fail miserably) and instead just list the nominations for you, and you can judge for yourself who should win and who was unfairly omitted.

Best Motion Picture, Drama
Atonement
American Gangster
Eastern Promises
There Will Be Blood
Michael Clayton
The Great Debaters
No Country For Old Men

Best Motion Picture, Comedy/Musical
Charlie Wilson’s War
Across the Universe
Sweeney Todd
Juno
Hairspray

Best Actor in Drama
James McAvoy, Atonement
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
Denzel Washington, American Gangster

Best Actress in Drama
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
Keira Knightley, Atonement
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Jodie Foster, The Brave One

Best Actor in Comedy/Musical
Ryan Gosling, Lars and the Real Girl
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Savages
Tom Hanks, Charlie Wilson’s War
John C. Reilly, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Best Actress in Comedy/Musical
Marion Cotillard, La Môme (or La Vie En Rose)
Ellen Page, Juno
Nikki Blonsky, Hairspray
Amy Adams, Enchanted
Helena Bonham Carter, Sweeney Todd

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
John Travolta, Hairspray
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Julia Roberts, Charlie Wilson’s War
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone

Best Director
Joe Wright, Atonement
Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd
Julian Schnabel, Le Scaphandre et le papillon
Ethan & Joel Coen, No Country For Old Men
Ridley Scott, American Gangster

Best Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Ronald Harwood, Le Scaphandre et le papillon
Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Wilson’s War
Joel & Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men

I’m just going to stick with the film nominations, at least for today. And now that I’ve at least listed all of those, I’m going to break my weak promise to remain neutral and say that I really, really hope Marion Cotillard gets some recognition for her astounding performance as Edith Piaf in La Môme. She did an absolutely amazing job of channeling the temperamental singer and it’s nearly impossible to tell she’s lip syncing to Piaf’s recordings. I don’t think the lip syncing should be held against her in any way, either, as it’s practically impossible to imitate or recreate Piaf’s extraordinarily unique voice.

I’ve also been avoiding seeing Atonement, mainly because I’m so wary of book adaptations, especially when the writing is so nuanced and delicate as Ian McEwan’s always is. Also, I really don’t like Keira Knightley and can’t stand her gaping mouth passing for acting, but that’s a different story.

To see the full list of nominations, go here, and you can read more opinion pieces on the politics of being nominated here and here.

As I mentioned yesterday, I grew up in the small town of Downey, California, where a surprising lot of big things happened. When I was still in elementary school we had Rockwell [turned Boeing, now Downey Studios], the space shuttle building company that supported our schools, and in return us band geeks would go over to Rockwell every few months and perform (badly) during their lunch breaks and they’d feed us pizza. We got to walk through a life-sized model of the space shuttle and play with the giant booster rockets that always scared me, and it was awesome. My AP English teacher my senior year of high school claimed that because of Rockwell, Russia had 20 megatons of nuclear warheads aimed at Downey, but I still don’t know if I believe that.

Downey also had Johnie’s Broiler, a famous greasy spoon that you may not have been to yourself, but it’s a pretty safe bet you’ve seen it before. In the 90s, while I still lived in Downey, the diner was home to quite a few film crews, who used the location as a retro hometown diner. What’s Love Got To Do With It was filmed there, and I still remember when the X Files crew came to town to film an episode (it’s the Groundhog Day-type episode, I’m too lazy to look up the title right now), because the X Files was my favourite TV show EVER and I couldn’t believe that Mulder and Scully were hanging out about a mile away from my house.

Sadly, at the beginning of the year most of Johnie’s Broiler was illegally demolished by its greedy owner before the entire city intervened on the building’s behalf. Considered a landmark, every single Downey resident was appalled that this piece of history was going to be paved over for a used car lot, or whatever ugly, useless thing the owner was planning to put in. All that remains of the once famous diner is the iconic fat boy sign and a pile of splintered timber and rubble. I was in town over the holidays and drove past Johnie’s by accident, and it was so saddening to see that fenced off pile of debris just sitting there sadly. It may have looked unloved at the time, but people still care. Downey’s city council voted to let the moratorium on construction at the site expire, and vowed that they would work closely with the current owner and any future investors to carefully restore Johnie’s to its former glory. There’s hope for old Johnie’s yet! I can’t wait to see what it’ll look like when it’s redone, and I hope it looks as timeless and slightly seedy as it did when I went. (The food wasn’t all that great, but I’m a vegetarian and not much one for greasy spoons. Don’t believe a word I say.)

To read more about what’s in store for Johnie’s, check out the Press-Telegram (the newspaper I grew up reading), and Eric Pierce’s blog for more backstory on the Johnie’s brouhaha from the point of view of a Downey resident.

Here’s a piece of news I can really get behind: L.A. officials are currently debating over a new law that would limit the size of new and rebuilt homes to keep the new house in proportion of other houses in the neighborhood and the home’s lot size. Over Thanksgiving weekend I drove around my old neighborhood of Downey and was appalled by the number of gaudy new McMansions slowly taking over the cute bungalows and sprawling ranch houses that had characterized the city and its overwhelming 50s style. These ugly giant Cracker Jack boxes are dull, utterly characterless, and take up every available inch of the lot, leaving no room for a yard or any other outside beauty. The architectural design is completely lacking, too. Most of the time it’s a giant box with peach stucco slathered over it — how much did you get paid to “design” that? Those hideous monstrosities are ruining the character of the city and the neighborhoods and have the added bonus of being too expensive for anyone but drug dealers to buy in this market. (And I wish I was overexaggerating or joking when I say that, but the Downey police force themselves said it.) Why would they keep building houses no one can afford to buy?

Anyway, I’m glad I’m not the only one complaining over these nasty things. As early as January of 2008 we could see new laws coming through that would affect over 100,000 housing lots, but to some Angelinos this still isn’t enough. Residents keen on preserving the looks of their neighborhoods point out that privacy and existing views are another factor that should be seriously considered. Most people buy houses and get out of the rental market so they have more privacy and a better home life than they would in a shoebox apartment or a tiny rental house, but if they’re powerless to stop their greedy neighbors from throwing up a McMansion that would literally block out the sun, then what happens to all of their own hard work?

Read more about the new proposals and what residents have to say here.