Stan’s Obligatory Blog

A few days ago, I saw a posting on Facebook from the Greek Theater. They said that they were filming some scenes for the season-ending show of “Californication” there on Thursday night. They needed an audience for the fake rock concert, and they were offering us free tickets and a little bit of a show to go along with the filming. And since this is Los Angeles, they also offered free parking. They know the way to our hearts. In any event, since we’re fans of Hank Moody and his tales of woe, we thought this could be a fun time.

The basic premise appeared to be a rock show at the Greek with a fictitious rock star named Atticus Fetch, played by Tim Minchin, as well as the real Marilyn Manson. The banners all said it was the “The Two-Headed Monster Tour”. They gave away about 1,000 tickets, so the Greek was nowhere near full, but they had us all sit in the front section, so as far as the cameras could see, it looked like a full house.

The show was a bit of a grab bag. They had one guy whose name I’ve forgotten who was not part of the show, but he played some songs for us. They had a stand-up comedian to perform while they were moving things around on the stage. Then Tim Minchin performed a bit as himself. He was really funny. This was followed by Steve Jones, who did a very strange and mellow version of his old Sex Pistols song, “Bodies“, followed by “Hotel California”.

By this time, it was dark, and it was time to make the sausages. They had Steve Jones as the announcer introducing Atticus Fetch, and then a big opening number, complete with some impressive pyrotechnics. They did that maybe three times. After that, they took a short break, and Marilyn Manson came out and did a couple of songs for us.

Here’s a little video of the first number. And check out the big Panavision camera on the boom that was gliding over our heads:

Then they moved some things around on the stage to get ready to hold a wedding. They had Charlie and Marcy Runkle on stage getting married, again, presumably, with Atticus officiating. Pamela Adlon said it was a spoiler alert, but she assured us that something terrible would happen at the end of the episode to keep our interest. After this, Atticus asked if anyone else wanted to get married, and Hank appeared to be proposing to Karen, although that seems unlikely, given the history of his character. But I guess we’ll see one of these days, when the current season is over and on DVD, and Netflix has it.

At one point, they wanted us to all sing along with the chorus of one of Atticus’ songs:

Preggers and poor
bed on the floor
wolf at the door

It should be interesting to see how that gets worked into the story.

They had said that they had to be finished by 11:00, due to city noise regulations at the Greek. But they were still going at 11:45. At that point, there was still no end in sight, so we left. It was just a bit too late for us to be out on a weeknight. They had made up T-shirts for the fictitious tour, and they were offering them to anyone willing to stay the distance. That might have made a fun collector’s item, but it was just too late for us. Still, it was a fun little evening adventure.

This Sunday’s bike club ride was a sightseeing trip to Watts to see the Watts Towers. I’ve always been fascinated by strange things that are the product of someone’s strange obsession. And since the towers were built by Simon Rodia out of junk he found over a period of more than 30 years.

The route was basically straight south to Whittier Narrows, where we got on the southern portion of the Rio Hondo bike path. That took us down through Pico Rivera and Downey to the Los Angeles river. Then we got off on Imperial Highway and rode across Lynwood. We crossed Alameda Blvd, and I took a moment to look down into the trench to see the railroad tracks that they built to carry the freight that is shipped into the port of Los Angeles.

When we crossed into Watts, we saw “111st St”. I presume that is pronounced, “eleventy-first street”.

Then we got to the towers. There is a small park around them, and there are plaques that tell the story. There are docent-led tours there, and Carla said that they are interesting. Someday I’ll have to go see that.

I rode down to the end of the block to see the Blue Line tracks there. I rode the train to Long Beach once, and I didn’t know that the tracks go right by the towers.

On the way home through Montebello, we saw some emus and llamas by the side of the bike path. That was odd. The sign said “Montebello Barnyard Zoo“.

It was a nice ride, with some cultural interest, and almost no hills at all.

49 miles.

We didn’t have time to do any more tourist-things before we left to go home on Tuesday. Gordon gave us a ride to the airport, so we didn’t have to make the epic journey by train this time. And it also gave us a little more time to visit.

When we were getting ready to take off, I looked out the window and saw an Airbus A380 for the first time. It was on the taxiway, right behind a little regional jet, which made it look even bigger, and it’s pretty comically big to begin with.

There were thunderstorms most of the way across the continent today, and some of the thunderheads went up to over 40,000 feet. So the airplane spent a good deal of the trip sort of slaloming between the big thunderheads. This went on all the way to Nevada, where the clouds ended. I saw the big solar power plants that are under construction in the desert just inside the California border.

And finally, we were home. It was a fun little trip.

Monday was our big playing-tourist-in-New-York day. We had a short list of things to see, and all day to go see them. Since Gordon is effectively retired, he was able to come along for the sightseeing.

We started off with a ferry ride across the river from Hoboken. That was actually the first time I’ve ever taken a ferry across the Hudson, despite having grown up in New Jersey and gone into the city countless times. We stopped off at the World Financial Center to admire the palm trees in the atrium. We’re used to seeing palm trees growing like weeds everywhere, but it must be quite a sight to go there on a winter’s day in New York.

Our first stop was the 9/11 Memorial. I’d gone to the World Trade Center back in 1976 when the observation deck first opened up. And I’d been there a few times more over the years. So it was more than a bit jarring to go back to the site and see the memorial. They did do a good job with it. It was nicely done, and it really seemed appropriate. They had the names of all the people who died in the attacks written around the two waterfall pits that took up the spaces where the towers had been. Just like the Vietnam War Memorial, it was just wrenching to see all the names of all the people whose lives were cut short. I saw the Luis Eduardo Torres, and I recognized his name from having read his story not long ago. I also saw Todd Beamer, the “let’s roll” guy from United Flight 93. The edges of his name were polished just a bit more than all the others. I think that because he’s become something of an American hero, people must be taking rubbings of his name at the memorial.

Moving on in our tourist quest, we walked over to the Brooklyn Bridge, only stopping to get some iced tea at a Starbuck’s. The ice was a wonderful thing, since it was hot and muggy, and I find it hard to believe that when I was growing up, I just thought that feeling like that was just normal. Yick.

We got to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked about 1/3 of the way across. We read the plaques telling the story of the bridge, and it was pretty interesting.

Our next stop was the Museum of Sex. This was up at 27th St, so we took the subway. I was always fascinated by the beavers on the wall of the Astor Place subway station. I know that they’re there because the Astor family started out as fur trappers, but it’s still weird to think that there used to be woods and beavers living in Manhattan.

The museum was pretty fun to see, although the air conditioning wasn’t working in some of the rooms. So it was a bit of a steam bath in most of the galleries. But it was still fun. And it was kind of odd to see some people we know in some of the exhibits.

After the museum, we walked up 5th Avenue to 34th Street and the Empire State Building. I’d been there once when I was about eight years old. I remember that they took us up to the observatory to look at the view, and I thought that there must be a staircase going up there, and I wondered what it would be like to climb it. Maybe someday I’ll get the chance to try it.

Our last stop was for pizza. By then it was raining, and we were very tired. But the pizza was good, and after that, we headed home to Gordon’s house. It was a fun time, even if we were tired, hot, and sweaty at the end.

On Sunday, we began the second part of our trip. A visit to Hoboken to see my old friend Gordon, and then to play tourist in New York City.

We started with a short cab ride from the hotel to the Park Ridge train station. While we were waiting for the train, I noticed Cyclesport across the street. Back in the ’70s, when I was racing for the North Jersey Bicycle Club, Cyclesport was the headquarters for our arch-rivals, the Italian Cycling Association. It appears that they still have a racing team, although it’s under a different name now.

This was my first time riding the New Jersey Transit Pascack Valley Line. I always remember seeing it when I was out on bike rides, but I don’t recall ever seeing a train on the tracks ever before. I always wondered how they did it, since most of the line is single-track. So while we were riding the train to Hoboken, I paid attention, and I saw that there were about two or three places where there were passing tracks built along the line to allow trains in opposite directions to pass each other. It was a pleasant ride, and pretty soon we were in Hoboken. I’ve been through the Hoboken station countless times before, but never before have I actually gone out the door to the town outside. But this time, that’s what we did. We walked outside, and Gordon met us there to give us and our suitcases a ride to his house.

After a short rest, we decided to start our sightseeing. We took a walk down to the waterfront, passing the “Cake Boss” bakery and the line down the block of people waiting to get in. There is a park built on one of the old piers where we had a nice view across the river to Manhattan.

Next, we walked back to the train station and took the PATH across the river to the 14th St station. From there, we walked west to go to the High Line. I’d read about this park some years ago, and it sounded interesting. It’s certainly a good way to reuse an old structure.

We walked up to the end of the High Line at 30th St, and then we took a cab back to Greenwich Village. We passed by the Stonewall Inn, which was where the gay rights movement got its start in a riot on a hot June night back in 1969. Then we walked around Washington Square Park a bit until it was time to head over to Houston St to meet up with my friend Thaddeus for dinner.

We met with Thaddeus and his family at Veselka Bowery. We had a nice dinner there, and we got to talk and catch up on stories. It was a nice evening, and afterward, he showed us to the subway entrance so we could make our way back to Hoboken. It was amazingly hot and stuffy down in the subway stations. I know I’ve been in the subways in summer before, but I don’t remember it ever being quite so totally uncomfortable. But the trains were air conditioned, so once we were moving, it was all right. We rode the train back to Hoboken and Gordon’s house, and we planned our sightseeing for Monday.

The second day of our New Jersey adventure was a full one. No traveling, but some activities.

It started off in the morning with a tour of our old school, led by a classmate who is now a teacher there. For the most part, the inside of the school looks pretty much the same. They replaced all the leaky old windows years ago when they put in air conditioning, but aside from that and one small new wing, it was pretty much the same. And looking at some of the graffiti on the walls confirmed that human nature hasn’t changed at all in the last 35 years. Still, it was fun to see the old place again.

The afternoon was our off time, so we could rest some from the long day yesterday. And then when evening came, it was time for the main event. The big party at the hotel ballroom. Paul had set up a reception, buffet dinner, and bar service for us. And we had a good turnout. Out of 600-something graduates back in 1977, we had about 120 or 130 show up. That’s not bad for 35 years later. And I wasn’t even the one who traveled the farthest. There were at least five of us I met who had come from the west coast.

A big part of going to things like this is to tell stories of adventures we’ve had over the years. I told everyone about winning the baking ribbon at the Los Angeles County Fair, and I’d brought along a batch of my award-winning cookies to hand out to everyone. I told stories about running up skyscraper stairs, and also about the old days of bicycle racing. I got to see some more old friends from way back when, and got to hear a lot of good and amusing stories from others there, too.

Overall, it was a very fun time.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 35 years since I graduated from high school. So when I found out that there was going to be a 35-year reunion this weekend, I figured it would be a fun thing to go to. Even if it would be an epic journey to get there.

‘Home’ in this case is Ridgewood, New Jersey. I lived there starting in 1972, and graduated in the class of 1977. I haven’t been back there to visit since my father retired to San Diego after my mother died in 1994.

I was able to get a good deal on airfare with jetBlue for a flight from Burbank to JFK. Now, JFK is on the wrong side of New York City for a trip to New Jersey. But it was a good deal, and it was worth it to not have to fly out of LAX. I figured that flying into either Newark or JFK would involve dealing with a mega-airport, so being able to go out of Burbank, with its cute little 15-gate terminal was worth it. Also, it’s closer to my house. So we set the alarm for early, and we headed over there for the 7:15 departure.

The flight out was pretty easy. We only flew in a circle over Pennsylvania for a few minutes before we got clearance to come into JFK. It was raining, and I think that had incoming traffic backed up a bit. But we landed pretty much on time, and after we collected our bags, we headed off for the next leg of the journey.

They built a train to JFK since the last time I was there. That was convenient. We rode that to the Long Island Railroad’s Jamaica station, where we caught the first train into Manhattan. That was easy, aside from having to carry our suitcases up the stairs to the platform. It’s well-known that I believe elevators are for wimps, but I’m willing to make an exception when I have to carry a 37-pound suitcase.

When we got to Penn Station, we walked just a short way to find the New Jersey Transit section of the station. We had 10 minutes before the next train left. Too bad the line for the ticket machines took 15 minutes. But since it was just a bit after 5:00 PM, there were lots of trains running. So we caught the next train out to the new Secaucus Junction station in the middle of the swamp, also known as The Meadowlands. Building that station is easily the best idea they’ve had. It cut a good 45 minutes off our trip, and saved us from having to take the train through Hoboken. So after just a few minutes wait there, we got on the fourth and final train up the NJT Bergen County Line to Ridgewood. The whole trip on the four different trains had taken just under two hours, which really isn’t all that bad, considering the distance we covered. And in NYC traffic, a car probably would have taken just as long.

When we got there, we walked one block to meet up with my old friend Steve for dinner at The Office. We had some food and some beer, and we recovered from the journey. We had some laughs and just generally caught up before it was time to go across the street to the Blend Bar for the Friday night party.

The Blend had lost its liquor license and closed last Tuesday. But Paul, our fearless organizer had contacted the owners and arranged to just rent the space out as a hall for a private party. So we all just chipped in some money to cover the rental, and Paul had arranged for an open bar, as well as a band made up of people from our class. They only had about three days to practice playing together beforehand, but they were actually quite good. And of course, they played all the music we remember from the mid-1970s that was the soundtrack of our high school days.

I got to see my old friend Chris there. This was the first time I’d seen him since I went to his college graduation back in 1983. That was fun. And I got to see all the other people I knew and didn’t know from high school. I wasn’t very social back in those days, so it was good to catch up with the people I knew, and to meet the people I didn’t know, and to find out that they’re really pretty nice people after all.

By the time midnight came around, the party was still going, but we were pretty tired from the day’s epic journey. Chris gave us a ride to the hotel where we were all staying for the weekend. It was a fun day.

Last year, we hiked up Echo Mountain on the 4th of July to watch the fireworks. The big Rose Bowl display was right below us, and we could see the shows at Dodger Stadium, Exposition Park, and even all the way down to the Queen Mary. It was impressive. So we decided to do it again this year.

We set out on the hike a little earlier this time, in hopes of getting a better spot on the top of the mountain. It wasn’t as hot as last year, and the hike wasn’t bad at all. I’d gotten the MapMyHike app for my new iPhone, and I set it to record the trip up the mountain. When we got to the trail junction near the top, the sign said it was 2.7 miles back to the start, but the GPS on the phone said we’d gone 3.7. I thought this was odd. It was hard to believe that all the guidebooks compiled over decades could be that wrong. But either way, at that point, we were at the top.

There was already a good crowd up there, and we ended up setting up camp in the same place as last year. That was all right, and we spread out our picnic that we’d brought. Then, when night fell, we were ready to watch the fireworks.

On the way up, we’d noticed that it was hazier than last year, but we thought that might dissipate after sundown, when the inversion layer over Los Angeles goes away. But when the fireworks started, we could see that there was a layer of low clouds that were obscuring our view of a good bit of the show. We could see the lower fireworks, but ones that went higher in the air went into the clouds, and we could only see the glowing bits that fell down from them. And then, just as we were absorbing all of this, the marine layer decided to move in. In a matter of minutes, low clouds condensed below us, and blotted out the entire city. So that was that.

We gathered up our things and headed down the mountain, along with the hundreds of other people up there. We’d brought real flashlights this time, and that worked out well. And it made for an odd sight on the trail, with a line of several hundred people with flashlights all walking down the trail.

So overall, even though the fireworks were a bit of a dud, it was a nice time.

Tonight Kathleen and I went to the Greek Theater in Griffith Park to see the B-52s. We’d seen them last summer at a nostalgia show at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was enough fun that we wanted to see them again. It was a nice day today, so it looked like it was going to be a good night.

We got tickets in the side terrace area. I like that section, since the seats are cheaper than anywhere else except the benches in the back, and it’s raised up, so we get a good view of the stage. And as long as we get our tickets early, we get to be close to the edge, so we’re not that far off to the side. We did think it was funny that they had an entire section of seats there closed off, with camouflage netting over it, as if to try and make it so we wouldn’t even notice that there were seats there. The potted tree just added to the absurdity of it.

The show opened with Squeeze, which is another vintage band from the early ’80s. I’m not all that familiar with them, but once they started playing, I found that I recognized a lot more of their songs than I thought I would. They finished their set with their best-known songs, “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)” and “Black Coffee in Bed”. And then it was time for the B-52s.

There was a brief break while they set up the stage, but the Greek runs a tight ship. They have to be finished by 10:30 or 11:00 due to sound restrictions in the area, so they don’t waste time.

Once again, the B-52s did a great show. It was a lot of fun, and it was almost as if it was 1980 again. Nothing not to like about that. They played all their well-known songs, although Kathleen was hoping they would play “Quiche Lorraine“, and I was pretty much resigned to the fact that they weren’t going to play “She Brakes for Rainbows“. Still, we enjoyed the show. I shot one short experimental video with my camera:

It was a good chance to quietly weep for our lost youth. All around, it was a fun evening.

Today was a new adventure. We’ve gone to San Diego twice now for the Lung Association stair climb, and that’s been fun. But it’s been mostly an excuse for a weekend in San Diego and to visit my father. At 31 stories, the climb itself just isn’t all that hard. But this weekend was the first San Diego Towerthon. This was a stair climb up Columbia Center in San Diego. We were only going to climb up to the 25th floor, but this time, the race was to see how many times we could do that in two hours. This sounded both insane and intriguing to me. After all, back in my bike racing days, I always did better in longer races than I did in short ones. So I thought this would be an interesting experience.

The climb was early on Saturday, which made it difficult to plan to come down that morning. So I hitched a ride with some of my other stair climbing friends on Friday and spent the night at one of the guest rooms at my father’s place. In the morning, I took the bus to the trolley, and rode the train downtown. This was my first time riding the San Diego train, and it was really quite pleasant.

When I got to the building, I checked in and got changed. Then we lined up, and they sent us into the stairs. They had timing mats in the entrance and at the top, and the computer was going to time each of our climbs up the building, and we had two hours to climb, starting from the time when we first stepped on the starting line mat. When it was my turn, I started my stopwatch and headed up.

At the top, we came out in the hallway on the 25th floor. There were volunteers handing out bottles of water and towels. Then they had other volunteers operating the bank of six elevators doing a continuous shuttle from 25 down to the lobby. That worked out well, and we never had to wait more than 20-30 seconds for an elevator for the trip down. One of the elevator operators was a priest, and when he had a look at us, he reminded us that he was qualified to perform last rites, just in case any of us needed that service.

I’d planned on being conservative and taking about 6 minutes to climb the building. But that turned out to be too slow. In the end, I averaged about 5 minutes each time, and in retrospect, I think I could have gone faster. After all, look at the picture. I’m smiling. So that definitely means I could have been going faster.

In the end, I climbed the building 17 times. I was pleasantly surprised by that, since I’d thought I’d only be able to do something like 15 at the most. The stairway was very consistent, and I was able to adapt the stepping pattern I’d worked out at the Aon building last spring to find the minimum-steps method to climb. And because I went up it so many times, I was able to make a chart of it to add to my collection. Sadly, it’s pretty competitive in the over-50 age bracket, and the overall winner, with 21 climbs, was Michael, who’s in the first picture. And I was fourth in my age group. The number three guy also did 17 climbs, but he did them a little bit faster than I did, so he got the medal. But that’s all right. I still got a medal for being part of the West Coast Labels/X-GYM group, which was by far the fastest team there.

After the race was over, I met up with Kathleen and Lucinda. The drove down in my car. We went and checked into our hotel for the night, and that was when I realized that I’d developed a huge blister on my left thumb from swinging around all the left turns on the stair landings. Ow. And also, I thought it was funny that our room number was 408, which is also the exact number of floors I climbed that morning:

Climbing from 1 to 25 = 24 floors;
17 x 24 = 408

What are the odds?

The 408 floors add up to 8,602 steps. That times 7 inches per step means the total climb I did was just a bit over 5,000 feet. Yikes.

Results are here: http://www.geminitiming.com/posts/san-diego-towerthon-2/

I also made a graph of how many runners did how many climbs. The bars represent the number of people who went up N times. The far left bar is the 26 people who climbed it once. And the far right bar is Michael, who climbed it 21 times. I’m fairly pleased to be pretty far out on the tail on the right-hand side of the graph: