This year’s Coachella lineup has been announced and it has some tasty treats for the kids.
I’ll just post it and let you salivate over the lineup.
Use this post to let me know if you’re going. Who are you looking forward to seeing? What days if not all 3 are you going? I didn’t make it last year but I’m going to at least one of the days for sure, probably Saturday.
Every now and then you come across a story that really gets your goat. Something that makes you slap your forehead and perhaps release some expletives into the air. The type of story that makes you reach for a glass of water, perhaps something stronger, and immediately write a diary about it.
This reminds of that quote from Chinatown.
Can you believe it? We’re in the middle of a drought, and the water commissioner drowns. Only in L.A.
Next time you’re driving down La Brea and you spot an asshole next to you in a Hummer, that may just be Los Angeles’s Chief of Transportation.
Talk about not walking the walk.
From the LA Times:
Questions about the Hummer would be off-limits. That’s what the mayor’s press secretary told me as we headed to a City Hall meeting with transportation chief Jaime de la Vega, whose vehicle of choice seems odd for a man in his position.
No way, I told Matt Szabo. How can I not ask about it?
What de la Vega drives is a private matter, argued Szabo.No it isn’t, I told him. It’s now a public matter, and I don’t know how Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa can have any faith in a transit chief who drives a 2-ton monster in a city with notorious traffic and smog.
It’s like having a surgeon general who smokes unfiltered Camels while snacking on Cheetos.
Yeah, that’s LA for ya, the head of transit drives a 10 mile-a-gallon, oil-sucking, traffic-causing, eyesore of a tank through our congested streets. I don’t know, shouldn’t he be taking one of those buses he tries to push on everybody else? Or one of those subways that don’t go anywhere close to where anyone needs to go?
It’s not just that the dude drives a Hummer. They try to prevent the press from asking about it. His office knows it’s embarrassing, and politically hypocritical, but instead of correcting the problem they try to stiff arm reporters into ignoring the giant elephant in the room.
Traffic is a complex problem in LA and there is no magic solution. Yes we need more subways, and signal coordination, and bike lanes, and carpool programs. We need a lot of help. That is why this man’s vehicle of choice is so appalling and leaves me no faith in his direction or leadership.
We need better public transportation in the city, not just to relieve traffic, but also to reduce the reliance on oil. When the oil crisis comes, LA will suffer worst than New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago because we don’t have an adequate public transportation system in this town. Shouldn’t we try to have a decent system in place before that happens. At least a plan.
I don’t think De La Vega gets it. He doesn’t seem to have a clue that he is sleeping with the enemy in this state.
As the author of the article points out, Villaraigosa’s massive popularity and charm is being squandered in his single-minded attention to the the school district takeover. He has the type of personality that could move the city to action, if only he’d stand up and offer us some options.
But it’s Villaraigosa who should use his million-dollar smile to charm people out of their vehicles at least one day a week, encouraging them to use transit, bicycles, carpools and flexible work schedules. And given the depth of its problems, Los Angeles and the surrounding region ought to have the smartest and most enviro-friendly innovations in the world rather than having to read about what works in London or Bangkok, Argentina or Brazil.
I don’t want to hear that it can’t be done, and I can’t think of a better way for City Hall to show it’s serious than to have Villaraigosa take de la Vega’s Hummer and ship it to the troops in Iraq, where it might come in handy.
What’s especially painful is this is our side. I loved voting for Villaraigosa and have high hopes for him moving the city forward. Now that James Brown is no longer with us, Antonio Villaraigosa is the hardest working man in showbiz. It’s because of his overwhelming confidence and contagiousness that we expect so much to be done so shortly in his term.
But the chief of transportation driving a Hummer is outrageous.
One more example that, ultimately, it’s up to us to conserve our driving habits.
I have only driven my car once in the last month. Otherwise, if I can walk it, I do. And guess what? I get more out of the trip. Ralph’s is seven blocks away, Washington Mutual is six. This is not a heroic act on my part, it’s just a small walk.
The liquor store is on the corner. When friends come over they refuse to walk with me. They’re bums.
It’s a small, infinitely tiny, contribution to a gigantic problem. But it’s something I can do everyday. Actually, something I don’t do everyday. Drive.
When we my wife and I got the Volvo we weren’t yet married and the first weekend we had it we took it up to Big Bear during a rare snowstorm. We had to stop and buy chains at Snow Valley and put them on in the falling snow. The Volvo carried us safely to Big Bear and back down two days later even though it was sixteen years old. We stayed in the cabin all weekend and loaded log after log into the fire and watched the snow. On the second night I proposed to her.
Since then, the Volvo has been a beast of burden, something I just drove to and from work. It’s old. It’s ugly. The air conditioner doesn’t work. Needless to say it doesn’t inspire long, aimless, meandering drives.
A few days ago I had to take the station wagon out of the garage just to make sure she still worked. Also, there’s a slow leak in the tire so I decided to put some air in it and wash the windows while I was at the gas station. This was right after the cold spell. I rolled down the window and to feel the air rushing against my face after a month of walking everywhere was a comfort, like a junky back on the pipe, I was behind the wheel again. The sky pastel blue, stitched with fluffy, pillowy clouds. My favorite CD playing in the Samsung portable CD player positioned carefully in my lap.
I realized what a treat it was to own a car. WHEN YOU DON’T ABUSE IT. The only time I’ve driven in the last month was just to put air in the tires, and it was a great trip. Even the perpetual puddle flowing down Coldwater Canyon seemed like some kind of babbling brook. I wasn’t in a hurry. I didn’t run any lights. It was peaceful.
I love my car. I love long road trips. But I look forward to the day when our cars are mostly sitting ignored in our garages only to see the open road on selective, blessed days. If only we had decent public transportation for our day-to-day stuff this city could be so much more hospitable, carefree.
Maybe if the transportation chief didn’t drive a Hummer. That’d be a start.
Categories: Culture · Los Angeles
