CITY OFFICIALS ANNOUCE PLAN TO ANNOY DRIVERS IN SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

            Not to be out done by the Los  Angeles City Council, Temple City's officials have decided to plan a little "carmageddon"  of their own.  I doubt you will hear a thing about it on the evening news.

            What they have in mind is the continued revamping of another two mile section of one of the most traveled street arteries in the valley, Rosemead Boulevard.  Their grand vision is to create a draw to the existing businesses in the area and attract more businesses to fill the empty store fronts. They think this can be achieved by installing some new street lights, bike lanes, and foliage in the medians. Bike lanes? Really?

             Granted, this is still in the planning stages and will require some serious funding, but it appears to be on the fast track so it does warrant our attention and concern, especially if you drive.  Personally I remain doubtful that it will make its projected 2012 start date.

            Why? Well for those of you who live in the SGV and are familiar with the speed of construction around here, you know what I mean. If you don't, may I direct your attention to two of our valley's most recent abominations.  

            First  is Rosemead Boulevard's current road construction going on between Huntington Drive to just south of Duarte Road at Callita Street. TC's new planned construction is to start where this construction stops and go to just north of Lower Azusa Road. Just as a little reminder, this project started in 2008 at Foothill Boulevard and has worked its way South down Rosemead to its current location like an arthritic turtle and still isn't anywhere near being finished.   

            I find it hard to remember a time when I even thought to use Rosemead as my first choice as a viable route.  I avoid the entire area, the street and  businesses, like it's radioactive. Which is what I'm sure will be happening during this proposed new construction.

            Second  is the legendary corner at Rosemead Boulevard and Las Tunas Drive that has been nothing but a dirt lot for the last six years since tearing down a working multiplex movie theatre.

            The  problems I have with this new "vision" proposed by TC's officials begins with that corner. City officials, please don't take this the wrong way, but FINISH THE DAMNED CORNER FIRST! New street lights or flowery medians that will make it more difficult to make left turns on Rosemead will not attract new people. It will just irritate the ones that have to navigate through it.

             If you want to attract new businesses and patrons to the area give them a reason to want to be here.  Your current scaled down version for the corner is absolutely ludicrous.  Office spaces, a couple of restaurants, and a "major retailer", all to be named later, are not what anyone would call a draw and certainly not as much of a draw as a movie theatre would be.

            We, the citizens of the San Gabriel Valley, all get it. You are trying to take the easy way out and throw whatever you can get in there so you don't have to hear about it anymore, but your legacy will stand every time we drive by that corner on our way to shop or eat in another town after going to a movie.

             Now that Cathe Wilson has done her Fred Sanford impersonation for the court and been shuttled off to the gray bar hotel you guys are fresh out of excuses for not wrapping that thing up.   Even though the current council in Temple City isn't responsible for the bad reputation they inherited, the stench of that last council hasn't exactly left the air yet.  You can always get a good whiff of it when driving by the corner of Rosemead and Las Tunas .

            So if you want all of us to forget about the follies of councils past you need to exhibit some logic in your actions now. The old council will  get the blame for tearing down the theatre, but you guys will carry the weight for not replacing it. Get your priorities straight and take care of the old problem before taking on a new one.

            Just like the old adage  says, "Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it." No wait, let's make that "Forget the damned street lights and finish the corner first!"

            Yeah that's more like it.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

            We humans can be a very gullible group when we choose to be. If more than two people believe that something is true, it becomes a movement or at the very least, it warrants producing a reality  TV show.

            The other night, when my daughter Rachel was home from college, she wrangled my wife Stacey and I into watching a reality show called  "T.A.P.S. - Ghost Hunters". T.A.P.S. stands for The Atlantic Paranormal Society. Apparently it was a marathon, which initially I thought would be fun.

            Having always been a sucker for anything dealing with the paranormal, I bought the ticket and was in for the ride. All I could do was hope for the best. Who knows, maybe there would be some startling revelation or a way to get a message to the other side. There are a few folks over there that I wouldn't mind having a chat with if the possibility arose.

            The show follows the usual format of investigative shows. The investigation, the pursuit, the analysis, and the findings. The one thing I kept wondering about is all the very high tech equipment they were using. The biggest question being is where do they get all this stuff?

            During the show they broke one of their E.M.F. gages. (F.Y.I. : E.M.F. stands for Electro Magnetic Field, but don't ask.) Well, when it broke their reaction was one of "Oh well, we will just run out get another one."  Where? Target?  Kmart?  Best Buy? Ghosts 'R Us?

            Now "T.A.P.S.-Ghost Hunters" is not the only game in town and should not be confused with the other spirits haunting the television airwaves.  There are quite a few. You've got "Most Haunted", "Haunted America",  "Haunted Travel",  "Celebrity Ghost Story", "My Ghost Story", "Ghostly Graveyards"  and my son Alex's favorite "Ghost Adventures". Trust me this is nowhere near a complete list.

            As I discovered after a brief conversation with Alex, people have a tendency to become loyal to their paranormal shows. In his mind, Ghost Hunters couldn't rattle Ghost Adventures' chains.  Having watched both shows I wasn't exactly sure why his loyalty was based there, but to each his own.

            But back to the gullible part of this article. Granted, believing in ghosts, spirits, and the paranormal is a tough sell. It requires a giant leap of faith for most.  According to the latest poll, 78% of us don't buy into it. But that also means that there are 22% that think that it is true. Despite the number of shows on cable the ghost movement needs to get some hardcore press in order to move it to the front of the world wide consciousness.

            You know like the recent waste of everyone's time over the pending end of the world or "The Rapture" to those in the apocalyptic know.  I was absolutely stunned and annoyed by the amount of coverage it was receiving the week before our impending demise.

            It always mystifies me when the news media sets their sights on a given story regardless of its origins. In this case it was because an 89 year old ex-Sunday school teacher named Harold Egbert Camping, who  happens to have a radio show, said it would happen. He came to his revelation by taking a few passages from the bible and applying some good old fashion numerology mumbo jumbo to it.

            When it didn't happen on the date and time planned, which it obviously didn't, he did what every good con artist does, he changed the date. Until everyone loses interest and by everyone I mean the press, we will keep following his predictions blindly.

             Why anybody would listen to this guy's babbling in the first place is amazing to me. Since when does teaching Sunday school qualify somebody to predict anything except maybe what time the class will end?

            As much as I want to believe in ghosts, for me there needs to be more definitive proof.  So far all we have witnessed from any of these shows are blurry shadows, garbled disembodied voices, and goofy hosts running around like a bunch of giddy kindergarteners. Trust me, when there is something that is even close to proof, the news media will be all over it.

            Until then I will have to be stuck between two worlds. Somewhere between Ghost Hunters and  Adventures.

KEEP ON TRUCKIN'

            I am a fan of the latest culinary craze, the food truck. I have always been a fan of food trucks, even before they became the stop du jour for the young crowd and the terminally hip. The current version of food trucks, or roach coaches as they were once called,  are not the ones of my youth.

             Today, if you approached a food truck and it had the word roach in its name, it would probably be called  "Le Roach Coach" and offer up a gourmet variety of roaches on mini corn tortillas with 10 types of dipping sauces.

            While patient zero in this movement is said to be the Kogi Truck, which serves a Korean/Mexican hybrid taco, I believe that it really took off with the TV show "The Great Food Truck Race."  Regardless of which popularized it, the cork is out of the bottle and the genie has taken over.

            The entrepreneurs who run these trucks have harnessed every bit of technology that is available out there in order to meet the increasing demands of their ravenous public. Foodies follow their every move on their web sites, Twitter, and of course Facebook, creating lines of fans waiting and wanting to buy every little tidbit they offer.

            This following, the sense of community, and the money that they generate is usually something that most cities want to court. That  is, unless you are the City of Monrovia. 

            As I read in this paper last week, Monrovia is being sued by a collective of food truck vendors over the City's ban of food trucks. The group is called SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Association or SoCalMFVA, a name that nobody seemed to put much thought into. If they wanted to be as innovative as the food they serve, they should have a name like Friendly Order of Outdoor Diners or FOOD for short, but what is done is done.

            Anyway, to put it in a nutshell, Monrovia's City Council, in its attempt to protect their favorite lunch & dinner haunts, has banned all mobile culinary eateries. Okay, I don't know where the city council eats, but they seem to be throwing out the baby with the bath water. That or the good food with what is more times than not mediocre.

            As was demonstrated in Rosemead and Arcadia a few weeks ago, the synergy between a city and the food truckers can be beneficial for both.

            In Rosemead's case, the two combined forces to raise funds for a planned Veterans' Memorial in that city. A percentage of the proceeds raised went to the city fund during the 2 day event. It was a win-win-win situation. The vendors, the City, and the public. Having gone to that one myself I can testify to the large number of people in attendance and to the quality of the food.

            Living in the nearby City of Temple, who has long suffered from Monrovia envy, as  recently  witnessed by the newly formed Farmer's Market on Sunday mornings next to TC City Hall, they may want to jump on the food truck band wagon.

            Maybe a couple of breakfast-esque type of trucks on Sunday mornings to go along with the Farmer's Market? Maybe throw some trucks around the "Concerts in the Park" series they do during the summer months with a percentage going to our schools? Why wait for summer? Start now and designate one Friday or Saturday night a month as a food in the park night.

            Hell they should take over the long dormant corner of Las Tunas Drive & Rosemead Boulevard and make it into a food truck park. It would be a vast improvement over what they have currently planned and  a whole lot cheaper, but they would have to do it now.

            I know that city councils never move fast and "now" usually doesn't happen unless they are saying "no" to something.  The only thing we can hope for is that somebody here in the SGV, besides the City of Rosemead, is smart enough to strike while the iron is hot. If not Temple City, how about San Gabriel? Alhambra?

            Move on it now before Monrovia figures out that they've made a mistake.

KILLING THE PAIN

For the last few weeks I have attempted to knock out an article, but I couldn’t hold on to my train of thought.  As my recovery from arterial bypass surgery continues, my battle with weaning myself off the numerous pain killers that I have been prescribed continues.

            I have finally won the war and with a clearer head I am now ready to give it another shot. On my last go around, while in the midst of a Percocet haze, I thought it would be a good idea to write about the biggest news story to ever grace mankind. Yes, that’s right, the “Charlie Sheen Saga”, as one media outlet has called it.

            Spending the majority of my time in bed, alone, the television has become my best friend. Well, that and Facebook.  Just kidding.

Actually my window to the world is the never ending parade of news programs that I watch. So trust me when I tell you that the Charlie Sheen saga, situation, drama, or whatever they are calling it this hour, is the most important news of our time.

            Well at least that’s what they want us to believe. 

            At first we all watched as though we had a vested interest, as the war of words between Charlie and his producers took off. I mean after all who didn’t like “Good Time Charlie”?  If you weren’t a fan of his television work, then there had to be at least one of his movies that you liked.  Maybe not. I’m just giving you and him the benefit of the doubt.

            But who are we kidding? He didn’t earn the moniker “Good Time Charlie” because he was such a kick to be around when he was on the set. I am also going to go out on a limb and say he didn’t get it from any of his ex wives.

            No. He got it because Charlie likes to party and party a lot. As he is proud of saying, his partying is “epic”.  So “epic” and well known were his indulgences that when his rants began he felt compelled to tell us all that he had a drug test to prove that he was clean and sober. High only on the drug called “Charlie Sheen”.

            As the next week progressed, and his web casts and interviews came at us like bullets from a machine gun, it became evident that his statement was not what most of us would call the truth.

            For those of us who have known anyone or been around anyone who was doing cocaine, it was pretty damn evident what the real name of the drug that Charlie was high on.

            He has gone so far over the edge at this point that it is no longer interesting to watch him do any type of interview, web cast, or tweet. It actually makes me queasy.  At this point he is making Lindsay Lohan’s existence seem normal.

            He has left the entertainment realm and has planted himself directly in the car, train, or bus wreck arena.  Most everyone now is watching for the same reason that most people watch car races. For the wrecks.

It is time for someone close to him to slam the brakes on his little exhibitions before he has the mother of all crashes. At the rate he is going he will never see a checkered flag, only a red one.

And at that point, it will be too late.