UnHip LA

~~Note - I wrote this a few weeks ago, but am too lazy to change the verbs. ~~

I’m here in Chicago again for my annual June pilgrimage.  Here are some new observations of Chicago (It might help to read my ones from last year to compare.  Also put Chicago into my search box above.):

1.  Downtown Chicago has great "walk" signs.  The most I’ve had to wait at one was 20 seconds.  I walked blocks and blocks without nary a break. 

2.  Fancy galoshes are popular here.  I saw many women sporting these rain boots in many different patterns.  It was supposed to thunderstom today, but luckily it didn’t. 

3.  Smoking is prevalent in the city.  People of all ages were puffing while walking and taking smoke breaks outside of buildings.  That was very weird for me to see because in L.A., I just don’t see too many smokers.  Then again, I don’t really see lots of people together either because I am not walking around with crowds of people - I am driving.  In downtown Chicago though with lots of people walking together, I frequently would have to hold my breath whenever a smoker passed by.  If I did not hold my breath long enough, I’d get a whiff of the second-hand smoke cloud.  Smoking just seemed like an anachronism, so 70s or 80s.  I really don’t experience second or first-hand smoke in L.A., just smog.

4.  Steak houses are everywhere and froyo still has not taken over the Midwest yet.  No Pinkberries in sight, but there are froyo knock-offs. 

5.  People in Chicago are as nice and helpful as ever.  Chicago is a cosmopolitan city allright but it just doesn’t have any of the ‘tude NYC has.   That’s pretty cool.

6.  Paper toilet seat covers are still not often used here.  Why, Chicago, why?  It’s like the city has a boycott against them. 

7.  Cloth towel hand driers still exist! 

8.  Cellulite is A-okay here!  It’s hot and humid - women are wearing shorts and tanks tops with no shame.  This definitely is not L.A. where toned bodies are everywhere.  I find it hard to believe Michelle Obama came from these parts because the majority of women I’ve seen here decidedly do not have Michelle arms.  I think I’m primarily looking at Midwestern tourists though.  I like it that people are not fixated by appearance here.  It’s a relief. 

UP NEXT - Riding the Chicago Water Taxi

 

Happy 4th of July!

For listing of free things to do for the 4th, go here:

http://www.freefunguides.com/?page_id=4

Sierra Madre’s 4th activities sound pretty happening!

Tonight kicks off the Levitt Pavilion’s free outdoor concert series in Pasadena.  http://www.levittpavilionpasadena.org/summer-calendar-2009.html

And this Friday begins Free Shakespeare in Barnsdall Park. http://www.independentshakespeare.com/box-office/box-office.html

You can picnic at both of these places.  When I first started this blog, I was majorly enamored by both these events and wrote about them here and here.  The Levitt Pasadena is the Hollywood Bowl without the Bowl.  Both series are a great way to have fun on a dime. 

Mark your calendar - August 21 is Bollywood Night at the Levitt!!!

We saw Up today at the AMC Barrington 30 in South Barrington, Il.  While there, I noticed two flyers for special screenings:

Summer Movie Camp - $1.00 movies, Wednesdays at 10 am for kids.  July 1st will be Madagascar Escape 2.  The money goes to charity. My sister tells me these movie days are a madhouse because summer camps come to them.  Still, it’s a great deal.   AMCEntertainment.com/smc   I just went to its site and see this deal is nationwide too. 

Sensory-Friendly showing of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on Saturday, July 11th at 10 am. "With Sensory-Friendly Films, the movie auditoriums will have their lights brought up and and the sound turned down."  This screening is for autistic children and is co-sponsored by the Autism Society of America.

UnHipLA is in the Midwest now.  There is something Twilight Zone weird about crossing the time zones from the West Coast to here.  I looked at myself in the mirror and I seem to have gained 10 pounds instanteously.  How can this be?  The Midwest makes people fat.  And they smoke a lot here.  I’m having a great time though!  More observations on Chicago to come…

The Pasadena Waldorf School is hosting its second annual Festival of Art on Saturday, April 25, 2009, 10 am to 5 pm.  I’ve been curious about Waldorf schools ever since I read that its students learn how to knit and weave even before writing.  The thinking behind this is if a student knows how to make clothes, she’ll be empowered.  I could have this all wrong though.  Please enlighten if you know.  Nonetheless, the festival gives outsiders a chance to tour the school’s wooded grounds.

http://www.pwsfestivalofart.com/

209 E Mariposa Street, Altadena, CA 91001

***** UPDATE ****

I went to this and it was great, very peaceful and relaxing.  The campus is idyllic with its shady trees and bungalows.  I was impressed by the selection of artists too; they seemed to be representing higher quality work than what I’ve seen at other art fairs (i.e. South Pasadena’s).  Also the food, though just with two vendors, was great:  vegetable fritters, healthy vegetable chow mein, potato latkes, gourmet pizzas, and more.  This was a zero-waste event, meaning all trash was either recycled or composted.  I was impressed.  I also got to visit a very cheerful, yellow classroom and see the handiwork of the students.  Yes, they do learn knitting and then progress to making clothes, dolls, and animals.  They also have a school period called "games."  The school just seemed like a really safe, protected place.  I couldn’t tell if the kids did computer projects or had computers.  A place without texting - could it be?

Find out on April 4th and 5th, 12 pm - 4 pm, at the Petco in San Gabriel.

 

Petco

7262 N. Rosemead Blvd.

www.mybunny.org

(626) 576 - BUNI

Just don’t let your Easter bunnies wind up here.

The San Gabriel High School Parent Teacher Student Association wants your electronic waste - old TVs, computers, toner cartridges, mother boards, vcrs…etc.  Check out their flyer on the SGHS website for more details.  Microwaves will be accepted for a $5 fee.  This is a great way to get rid of junk in your home and benefit a public school.  I’m planning to discard an old heater that doesn’t work and some laser cartridges. 

San Gabriel PTSA will be hosting a FREE eWaste Collection Event at the school’s south parking lot on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8, 2009 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm each day.

Could the Long Beach bunnies ever reach this rabbit’s 4-foot stature?

Thanks to Super Punch for the link.

M took me to this hilarious place.  Long Beach City College is overrun with rabbits, big, fat, brazen ones who will run up to strangers and beg for food.  

  This one hopped up so fast that he almost knocked into my camera.

At first, I was just so delighted by their cute-ness:

 

 

The rabbit above was right in front of me and sat still enough for macro shots.  

 

But then I started to see the rabbits as larger rats, campus squirrels and cats, and other campus blight.

 

Apparently the rabbits have been around since the college’s founding when it was on fields of beans, alfalfa, and carrots.  They’re indigenous rabbits!  Some rabbits there are pets who were dumped after Easter.  These rabbits then get jumped or "thumped" when they’re in the wrong territory. 

"We rule this skool!"
The rabbits made the news two years ago when there was a strange slaughter of them.  The story is too sad to repeat.  

One article I read said there were around 200 rabbits on campus. I saw at least 30 lazing about.   The rabbits seem to be quite content as the campus puts out food for them.  I was amazed by how tame and unafraid of people they were, and how many holes they have dug around campus.

"What recession?  We got it good here."

This truly was one of the strangest L.A. sites I have seen.  Thanks M!

Long Beach City College

4901 E Carson St

Long Beach, CA 90808

(562) 938-4353

www.lbcc.edu

For the raw footage and more cute rabbits INCLUDING VIDEO, visit UnHipLA’s Picasa page here.  The videos show just how close the rabbits get to people.  This blogger has great pictures of the baby bunnies on the campus.

*** UPDATE *** 1/27/09   This bunny post, thanks to LAObserved.com, has multiplied onto other blogs and news sites.  NBC Los Angeles’ Kevin Sullivan’s blog post provides more information on the bunny blight and what the campus has been trying to do about it.  Thank you everyone for the views!

*** UPDATE ***  1/29/09.  The bunny post hops on.   LBPost.com gives the history of Long Beach City College and its rabbits.  CurbedLA linked to the LAObserved story.  Then on YouTube, I found this hilarious clip from a 70s film called "Night of the Lepus," in which mutant rabbits the size of trucks galavant through towns, wreak havoc, and kill humans.  Hilarious.

 The Facts of Life….are online!

http://www.hulu.com/the-facts-of-life?c=Comedy/Sitcoms

Yippie for hulu.com, a YouTube-like website, run by television networks which offers free TV shows - current faves like 30 Rock and nostalgic ones like Diff’rent Strokes and One Day at a Time.  Blast from the past!

 

A message from Santa Anita Park:

FREE FRIDAYS
We know times are tough, so every Friday, beginning January 2, you will receive FREE General Admission!

Not only do you get Free General Admission, Santa Anita will also have $1 specials on Hot Dogs, Beer, Soda and Popcorn. The first 100 guests will receive FREE Box Seats as well.

—-  I’ve always been curious about this racetrack since it’s right in my ‘hood, but I didn’t want to pay admission because I have no interest in horse racing.  I actually think it’s cruel to make animals race like this. But now with this free admission promo, I might just wander down there and try to pet some horses. The site says there’s a tour you can take of the grounds. You still have to pay a few bucks for parking, but perhaps this can be avoided by parking at the mall and walking over. 

Santa Anita Park
285 W Huntington Drive
Arcadia CA 91007

(626) 574-RACE

www.santaanita.com

Advertised in the Palos Verdes Library:

 

 

Get organized and laugh in the new year!

Here are Christmas lawn decorations from the South Bay, found on Human Google Day.

 

 

 

Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!

UnHip LA roamed around the South Bay, vowing not to use Google as a resource.  We decided to use our eyes and ears and become human Googles instead.  Look what we found:

 

 

 

 

By following good ol’ street signs, we wound up at the South Coast Botanic Garden, which is "one of the first gardens to be developed over a sanitary landfill."  That doesn’t sound too appealing, but the gardens were nice.  The day was drizzly and a tad gloomy, so the ticket taker let us in for free!  Normally it’s $7 for adults; $5 for students and seniors; $2.50 for children 5 - 12 years old; and free for kids 4 and under.  I enjoyed the small lake, pretending I was in a bayou.

If you become a member of this garden, starting at $25 for seniors, you get free admission to 15 other botanical gardens in Socal, such as Descanso Gardens, the L.A. County Arboretum in Arcadia, and a slew of UC gardens.  Unfortunately, the Huntington Gardens is not part of this hit parade.

South Coast Botanic Garden

26300 Crenshaw Blvd.

Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA 90274

(310) 544-6815

www.southcoastbotanicgarden.org

 

Much media attention lately has been focused on budget ways to have fun and get by.  Take at look at this LA Times series of well-known designers, such as Philippe Starck, shopping at Big Lots and coming up with great looks:

Starck and the other designers emphasize finding simple and basic items and steering clear of the tacky.  I’m impressed by Starck’s place setting for $5.50 each. He also walked away with underwear, towels, and children’s art supplies. 

If you’re jonesing to dine out, I Google-stumbled upon this site, Entertainment.com, which offers a free 14-day membership that contains coupons galore for restaurants, stores, movies, and more.  In particular, I enjoyed their long list of Indian restaurants; Mezbaan, a new favorite Indian restaurant of mine in Old Pasadena, offers a buy one, get one free entree coupon.  Also, there are movie tickets for $6 (plus handling)!   The catch?  As soon as you sign up (with only your email address), the coupons are only good for 14 days, and you’ll most likely get spammed with advertisements.  So be sure to check off the box saying you don’t want ads and/or use an email account that you don’t care about.  Entertainment.com publishes those big coupon books that students sell as fundraisers and are in bookstores.  I have one and have been getting pretty good mileage out of it.  This is how I discovered Mezbaan, their delicious food, and $8 lunch buffet. 

So if you’re budget entertaining or dining out, you still have options! 

I just hope things don’t get so bad for you that you’re eating on $1 a day.

 

This Saturday, November 15, the City of South Pasadena will be hosting its Fall Arts Fest, featuring artist open houses, holiday boutiques, art-making workshops, music performances and much more.  Check out the South Pasadena Chamber of Commerce’s site for details.  Mission Tile West (853 Mission) will host a free tile-making workshop from 2 pm to 5 pm.  Woopie!

Location:  Mission Street between the Meridian Iron Works Museum Plaza (at the Gold Line Station) and Fair Oaks Avenue.

Starbucks will give you a free cup of coffee if you tell them you voted on election day. What I really want is a free banana chocolate Vivano.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2J8KJDsqqY

This reminds me of report card rewards in Ohio. Local businesses (Friendly’s) would give free ice cream and food for good report cards.  I wonder what else I can get after I vote.   

Vote Vote Vote, Tuesday, November 4th, not just for the freebies, but for a better America. 

Learn about the Port of Long Beach at the Green Port Festival, Saturday, October 4, 2008.  Free boat and train rides and a WHOLE LOT MORE.  Visit the site for details.

http://www.polb.com/community/portfest.asp 

Go ride a stagecoach!

Los Encinos State Historic Park

On Sunday, October 19th, Los Encinos State Historic Park in Encino will host a unique living history event. It will be "Stagecoach Day", which celebrates the 150th Anniversary of the start of scheduled stagecoach service in California.

This program will feature an actual stagecoach with horses, traveling the old Overland Mail route (Ventura Blvd) from Campo de Cahuenga in Universal City to Los Encinos and then to the Leonis Adobe in Calabasas. It is scheduled to arrive at Los Encinos around mid day.

In addition, the program at Los Encinos will feature two 19th Century style bands (Los Californios and the Band of the California Battalion), Victorian dancing, a blacksmith, a telegraph office, children’s games, tours of the restored 1849 adobe and participants in authentic Victorian costume.

Pack a picnic and stay the day–admission is free. Old West attire is encouraged (no weapons please)

Los Encinos Website
(Directions, park history and archives of historic photographs)

"Stagecoach Days" are being celebrated throughout the California State Parks system. Ft.Tejon State Historic Park is having their "Overland Mail Day" on Saturday, October 4th.
Print a flier

 

 

 

From http://www.larrytt.com/celebrities_playing_tt/, a web page dedicated to images of celebrities playing ping pong.

Also, Ping Pong Playa, the movie, is opening on September 5 in NY, SF, and LA.  It’ll be at the Atlantic Palace in Alhambra, the Mann Chinese 6 in Hollywood, and in Glendale.  How fun!  Click the link to see where the movie is playing near you.

I love watermelons and find it really funny that there is a 3-day festival dedicated to them in Tujunga - Sunland, starting August 8th.

Info here:  Watermelon Festival

and from Yelp: 

Featuring Free Watermelon for all, a Watermelon carving display, a Watermelon eating contest with exciting prizes, and a Watermelon seed spitting contest!  Can you break the world record of 68 feet, 91/2 inches, set in Luling, Texas?  

Also, a Watermelon hat decorating contest, and the much anticipated Watermelon Festival Queen contest. International food court, beer and wine gardens, festival marketplace featuring arts and crafts vendors and live musical entertainment and dancing each day.

It’s their 47th annual festival ode to the melon.  $1 admission, benefits charity. 

Run, don’t walk, over to the Alhambra Public Library as they are currently checking books out for 10 weeks.  This is great geeky fun!  The long time span covers the library as they move over to their new building opening September 13.  Woopie!  Summer reading for the rest of the summer!  This includes books on tape too, but not DVD rentals.

From www.alhambralibrary.org: 

ALHAMBRA PUBLIC LIBRARY WILL BE

CLOSING ON AUGUST 11, 2008.

Starting July 21 we will begin checking all books, audio materials and educational DVD’s out for 10 weeks, so they will be due on October 1, 2008 at our new site.

The New Civic Center Library will open on

September 13, 2008

101 S. First St

Alhambra, CA 91801

 To see the new library plans, visit here.

I guess I’m not the only Angeleno who’s recently been wowed by Chicago.  LATimes columnist Steve Lopez opines today about how the Windy City has its act together better than us.  Afterall Chicago beat us out for the 2016 Summer Olympics bid.  Lopez writes, "So we landed in Chicago, where folks in museums, hotels, restaurants and shops seem to have formed some kind of a pact to be helpful, polite and welcoming.

If we’d stayed more than three days, I would have had to start slapping people."  Hahaha!

For more of my Chicago posts, please type in Chicago in the search or just scroll down.  Here’s another Angeleno who enjoyed his recent trip to Chicago too.

 

Try heading up into the San Gabriel mountains and enjoying Wrightwood in the off-season.  You’ll see lots of trees and nice town folk; however, it could still be hot up there.  Check the weather report.  Wrightwood has its charms and surprisingly a lot of free summer programming. It’s about a one hour drive from L.A. 

 

I remember on the last day of elementary school in Ohio, the bus driver would make a special stop at the ice cream store and treat us all to a cone.  Today, fast forward a few decades, I was riding on a trolley in Illinois with my sister and her children.  We got on the wrong trolley but the driver said he would take us to our stop anyway. (The trolley is really a bus decked up to be a trolley with real wood seats.)  After a few stops, the trolley driver said over his rock and roll music, "Oops, I forgot to take you to your stop."  We said, no problem, as the kids seemed to enjoy sliding around on the wood seats. 

Well, a half an hour later, we were all getting kind of sea sick, the kids had fallen silent, and finally, we made it to our stop.  I saw my sister and the trolley driver exchange some money and I was like, Why is she giving him a tip?  The trolley is free. I looked at the driver who smiled back at me through his rear view mirror.  Ooh, creepy moment, I thought.  Turns out, he gave us the money to get ice cream for the kids because he felt bad for our long ride.  Can you believe that?  I feel bad for thinking he was creepy.  He was just nice.  He was missing a few teeth though.  This happened in a town where the Costco employees get hugs from shoppers’ children, and shopping at Ikea is a peaceful experience rather than a chaotic one such as in the Burbank Ikea which, to me, always seems like a packed street fair, and a major shopping ordeal to be avoided.

(Source: below)

I remember a long time ago when I was riding the RTD bus on Wilshire Boulevard, when the driver actually pulled over and yelled at us (adults) for something.  I think it was because people were standing in the stairwell.  I also remember sitting with cockroaches on that bus.  Anyhow, I digress.  $4 for ice cream and a free trolley ride!  Thanks Midwest!

If you’d like to take a trip down RTD bus memory lane, go here http://members.aol.com/gsoma/labuspage.html.  There’s actually a site for L.A. Bus fetishists.  Could someone actually love buses more than this pigeon?

with Jazz Fest Weekend, June 21 - 22.  You can’t go the summer without stopping by the Levitt at least once, where you can picnic, boogie, and listen to great music.  It’s a free concert season five nights a week in Pasadena, with over 50 concerts planned.  Wednesday is Children’s Night, Thursday is American Music, Friday is World Beat (my favorite night), Saturday is Musica Latina, and Sunday is the popular Jazz Night.  But it all kicks off this weekend with a Saturday and Sunday Jazz fest.  Last year, I had a fabulous time listening to DJ Cheb i Sabah.  Check out that post for tips and where to park for free.

http://www.levittpavilionpasadena.org/summer-programs.html 
The Levitt Pavilion is located at 85 E. Holly St. in the heart of Old Pasadena at Memorial Park, right off the Fair Oaks exit from the 210 freeway, and on the corner of Walnut and Raymond.

Here’s a video on youtube.com about the Levitt.

Here’s Cheb i Sabbah last summer.  Good times.

 

 

I had a great time at this last year.  Click here to see my pics of this mongo living history festival. If you like festivals, this is the festival of festivals, and it’s a good walking day because it covers a lot of ground and is right next to the ocean.  It’s worth the $10.  If you want to save some money, bring your own grub and avoid the food lines and prices. 

http://www.ftmac.org/OFMD2008.htm  

(From their website) 

Old Fort MacArthur Days 2008
Sponsored by Associated Foundations Inc.

Welcome to the home page of the west’s largest continually running re-enactment and living history timeline event!

For more than twenty years now the Fort MacArthur Museum has sponsored what has turned into the west’s largest multicultural celebration of world military history. What began as a small gathering of cannon enthusiasts has blossomed into a truly spectacular event showcasing the history of military activity from around the world and across time.

When & Where?
Saturday & Sunday
July 12 - 13, 2008
10am - 4pm both days
The Fort MacArthur Museum
3601 S Gaffey St. San Pedro
California, 90731
310-548-2631

Admission:
$10.00 Adults
$ 5.00 children under 12
 Your admission fee helps support the Preservation,
Restoration, & Interpretive programs of the museum

 

 

Pasadena on Lake Avenue was a madhouse today, a Friday afternoon.  People and crowds everywhere; it was worse than a weekend.  I couldn’t find a place to sit at two establishments, so I headed to Alhambra, Pasadena’s dirty little sister, and the Bun-N-Burger on Main Street.  Aaaah,  bliss.  An almost empty restaurant.  Sure, not good for the business, but great for me.  I was surprised that the broccoli, bacon, and cheese omelet was as tasty as it was ($6.50).  Love the deer on the wall.

 

 

Bun-N-Burger
1000 E. Main St.
Alhambra, CA 91801
626-281-6777

Hours:
Mon.-Sat. 6:30 a.m.-9 p.m.;
Sun. 8 a.m.-7 p.m.

Here’s what the LATimes wrote about the joint:

This sounds like fun!  I am not sure why I think such things are fun, but I do.  Where else could I go play with a fire extinguisher and meet Smokey the Bear?

From Pasadena Now:
Emergency Preparedness and Safety Fair
Sunday, October 7, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Make this a fun-filled and educational day for the whole family. This will be an awesome (and free!) emergency preparedness and safety fair in the auxilliary parking lot at Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge. Participants can take fire extinguisher training, watch a jaws-of-life extraction, see the children play in firefighting foam, ride the Quaky-Shaky van, visit Skeletons in the Closet, meet Smokey Bear and Sparky, watch heart defibrillator demonstrations, see search and rescue equipment, canine demonstrations, and much, much more. You can connect with a very wide array of public agencies, non-profits, and private sector vendors who are involved in community preparedness. Refill your fire extinguishers at a discount. Collect useful information and purchase emergency kits and other safety products. Teens will love the Skeletons in the Closet exhibit. This event is co-sponsored by the Honorable Anthony Portantino (CA State Assembly), the La Canada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce, the City of La Canada, Los Angeles County Fire Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s, and Descanso Gardens. Descanso Gardens is located at 1418 Descanso Drive, La Canada. For more information call (626) 256-7900.

This kind of reminds me of the Memorial Day fair I went to.