About, but not limited to, Van Nuys, CA.
I saw “Disturbia” today at the S.O. Galleria. A very well done thriller, with natural, uncontrived acting, a well-written story, great cinematography, editing and music.
But in at least half a dozen scenes, the boom mic is visible. Is this the fault of the theater, which projects it onto the screen incorrectly? Or was the film shot & edited with nobody noticing the mics?
Anyone with technical expertise please respond.
Last night in Sherman Oaks, Kent Minault hosted a viewing of Bill Moyers’ extraordinary documentary about the selling of the Iraq war to the American people.
I found myself feeling the usual anger and dislike of such pricks as Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice; but it was even more awful to see the enablers of evil like Clinton, Kerry and Powell as they attempted to justify the pre-emptive war against the nation of Iraq.
We were sold a tall tale and only our love for profit and power blinded us.
Just this morning, I was pulling out of my driveway, when I saw a sticky used condom and a ripped open box of Ramses laying near the gutter. We had had “overnight guests” on our street.
Usually, the roadside trash is just a McDonalds wrapper or maybe an empty bottle of orange soda. This is how most of Van Nuys feeds itself, it seems. Late night appetites are satisfied by other means.
How can we stop johns and their ho’s from using our street for their illicit nocturnal satisfaction? By the time we get a license plate off the back of a car, the car will be gone. “311” or “911”…both might arrive within an hour. The only LAPD response time that is ever quick is when you make an illegal U-turn on Sepulveda near Costco. (not that I mind enforcement of our traffic laws).
The resignation of Rosie O’Donnell from “The View” has elicited the predictable reaction from her public enema number one: Donald Trump. He said she is a disgusting loser and self-destructive. Trump compared her to Don Imus and said that people have to be more careful in what they say. He calls her a bully and says, “you have to hit a bully between the eyes.”
It seems that O’Donnell, while speaking to a roomful of young women the other day in New York, grabbed her crotch, in reference to Mr. Trump and said, “Eat me.”
She is gay, she is fat, she is a mother, she lost her own mother, she fights for disabled children, and based on all these external labels, she gets a pass for acting gross…and for what might in another “less tolerant” era, have merely consigned her to a nuthouse.
We all know by now that the name “Van Nuys” is about as prestigious as JC Penney is to clothing. But the effort to wipe away and tear apart a community by renaming oneself “Lake Balboa”, as West Van Nuys proposes to do, is a cop out.
Driving east along Victory, from Woodley, the blight does not begin until Sepulveda. This is already “Central Van Nuys” not “West”. From this point on, the shopping carts, graffiti, Spanish signs, men on the street, and old smog emitting cars reaches a crescendo at Van Nuys Boulevard. Van Owen is blighted from Woodley east all the way to the Hollywood Freeway! But is the solution to rename every little pocket of Van Nuys and North Hollywood into inane and meaningless places such as “Lake Balboa”, “Valley Glen” and “Valley Village”? Do the social problems of a geographical region just disappear with a new name? Is genocidal Rwanda a better country than when it was called the Belgian Congo?
The more courageous plan for nomenclature is to BUILD upon the history of a place. How about “Old Van Nuys” or “Van Nuys Gardens” or “Redfordville” in honor of Robert Redford who grew up here?
Why “Lake Balboa”? I’ve seen that lake, and it ain’t a lake, but a pond with bird droppings all over. It’s not even that nice looking. It would be appropriate next to an insurance headquarters in suburban Omaha where fat secretaries could take their hourly cigarette breaks and throw their discarded butts into the water.
Is Los Angeles still so dysfunctional and provincial that we cannot work together as a community to make our city better looking? How about ripping down the ugly billboards and wooden electric poles that disfigure so much of LA?
Better yet, how about the city planner of Los Angeles unveiling a new architectural plan for Van Nuys that would make people want to live and work and dine in Van Nuys instead of speeding through?
Last night I saw a remarkable segment on “Frontline” about an internet non-profit called Kiva. Kiva allows someone with resources to go online and use their credit card to make small loans to start-up businesses in such far off places as Togo, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Uganda. Frontline visited some of the people who used as little as $500 to create fruit & vegetable stands, a brick making business and a tailor shop.
Over 50,000 people have so far given $5 million in loans and remarkably 100% of them are paid off! The business is very young (founded 2004), as are founders Matthew and Jessica Flannery. They combined their expertise in web design and finance, respectively, to create a new type of bank that is founded on humanitarian ideals.
You think about what you might spend in a week living in Los Angeles and some of the dumb purchases you could make: ($60 candles; $20 bottle of shampoo; $75 for SUV gas; $80 for a sushi dinner). Then imagine that $50 could be the start-up money for a young entrepreneur in Cambodia. How much good America can do when we put our resources in the right places.
Here in Van Nuys 
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