Train Crashes

Every five minutes, sometimes less, there are helicopters overhead.  There's no point in leaving the house because virtually anywhere we would go would be along the route from Chatsworth to one of the two local trauma centers and who wants to get in the way of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars.

ABC 7 hasn't veered away from the train wreck.  I wish I could change the channel, but I can't.

If you're from the Valley, this story hits really close to home.  The Metrolink runs from Ventura, through the San Fernando Valley and then into Burbank and Glendale before it hits Downtown.  I've taken it before.  My brother rode it every day until very recently and my father also took it frequently.  

According to news reports, there were 222 people on the train when it crashed.  That's after it stopped at the last Valley station, so let's estimate that altogether, there were over 400, maybe even over 500, people on the train-- everyone from salarymen to students.  Since its inception, and particularly since the recent hike in gas prices, the Metrolink has become crucial for people trying to get somewhere between the Valley and Downtown.

What struck me as strange throughout the evening, was that the reporters seemed sort of astounded by the concept of people riding trains.  One asked, "Are there seatbelts?"  If anyone has ever seen a seatbelt on a train, let me know because I certainly haven't seen them in L.A. or any of the other cities where I've hit the rails.  Plus, the Metrolink is a commuter train, meaning that it's standing room only at the busiest times of the day. 

Then there was some tangent about homeowners Chatsworth disliking the railroads because, to paraphrase the report, the noise and traffic of trains really don't gel with "a nice neighborhood like this."  So now, we have this horrible accident that resulted in a still-unknown number of deaths and severe injuries, where people are still trapped inside the cars, and people are trying to bring the homeowner groups-- organizations that are often cited in conversations with locals for contributing to the  abysmal state of public transportation in the Valley-- to politicize the situation.  That's sort of tasteless. 

Late Bird Special

T. was in the 'hood today, so we decided to meet up for lunch at DuPar's, not because Adam Corolla loves it, but because it's a Valley institution.

It was 3 p.m., and there were all of ten people in the restaurant, staff included. We were also the only patrons under the age of eighty. We were eating lunch. The others were eating dinner. I always associated DuPar's with old people, maybe in part because my late great-aunt swore by the restaurant, maybe because it's always old women inside the joint.

"So Golden Girls," I said to T. on the phone before we met.

"So camp," he said in the restaurant while eying the oversized white plates with the name of the eatery etched around the edges in brown.

Our waitress had dyed red hair even though she was at an age where she probably shouldn't be dying her hair red anymore. (To paraphrase my mother, when your hair is so gray that color fades after a week, you need to either let it go or force it blond.) She wasn't surly, but had this weariness about her, like she hated being stuck in this restaurant during the afternoon dry spell. The other waitress on call, the one who rung up our tab, was younger than us and almost too happy.

"I hope your food was delicious," she said.

It certainly was. That mushroom and jack cheese burger melted in my mouth.

T. is the second person I met when I started college. We liked to drink and smoke while watching movies like Pink Flamingos and tv shows like Absolutely Fabulous and we liked to drive into Hollywood and West Hollywood while listening to the B-52s or anything else that screamed 1982. Sometimes, we would go out to Beverly Hills so that we could get drinks at the martini bar inside Neiman Marcus and play Spot the Nose Job or Spot the Boob Job or both. Then, during summer vacations, we would retreat to the Valley and hang out at one of the million Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf spots on Ventura Blvd.

Back then, T. said "I'm so 310 and you're so 323."

And then one of us said, "And we're so stuck in the 818."

I was thinking about this as we sat in the restaurant and chatted. Twelve years have passed since we first met and we're still meeting up on Ventura Blvd, still bonding over John Waters and still watching the retirees who all seem to live spitting distance from the Valley's main drag.

Are There Any Valley People at the LA Times?

As you may know, LA Times' Calendar Weekend section was replaced with The Guide, which runs in the Thursday edition and maintains its own spot online. Now, go to The Guide's page and look at the sidebar where it reads "Browse Neighborhoods." You might notice that the last entry in this section is called Sepulveda. Now, you might believe that this is in reference to the boulevard that runs from the north San Fernando Valley through the South Bay, but it isn't. Click on the link and you will see that this is the section for the West San Fernando Valley.

Huh?

But, wait, it gets better. Look at the neighborhoods included in the West SFV and you'll see both North Hills and Sepulveda. The thing is, Sepulveda, as a neighborhood, doesn't exist.

Many years ago, the neighborhood known as North Hills was called Sepulveda. (If I remember correctly from my childhood habit of eavesdropping on adults, the nicer part of Sepulveda decided to go by North Hills, which might have something to do with the hills topped by LA Baptist High School and the VA, respectively. Not too long after that the whole of Sepulveda followed suit, which I suppose defeated the initial purpose.)

Per Wikipedia, the name change occurred in 1992. That's 16 years ago. So, either the people setting up The Guide's website have not been to the Valley since 1991, or have never been to the Valley and haven't even bothered to look at a map.

I know what you're thinking, Oh, Liz is just making a big deal out of this because she's a Val and she always gets pissed when people slight the 818. This is true to an extent. After all, no matter where I have lived in my adult life and where I will live in the future, I'm always going to be a native of the Valley. But, more importantly, a major, corporate-run paper serving the entire Los Angeles area should at least attempt to accurately document the areas it covers. You can't claim to be "the" guide and let stuff like that slide.

The Roller Rink Disaster of 1984 (or maybe '85)

Skateland now (DJ Curley, video originally uploaded by brandonnoonen)

Northridge Skateland turned 50 with a nice write-up in the Daily News.

Throughout elementary school and junior high, we were always going to Skateland, as most of us lived walking or short-driving distance from the rink. It was everything you might imagine from watching '80s films. Lots of sweatbands and lots of HiNRG, new wave and other assorted pop of the era. Over the course of the decade, Human League and Soft Cell gave way to Expose and Stacey Q, which in turn paved the road for Technotronic and M/A/R/R/S. Meanwhile, we changed from little kids in sweatbands and dolphin shorts to a motley crew of young teens that took our fashion cues alternately from Downtown Julie Brown, Kelly Bundy and Lydia Deetz.

I still have a souvenir of those totally '80s birthday parties and school fundraisers that took place as the skating rink-- a big-ass scar on my knee from when I ate it back in 1984 (or was it '85). Regardless, it was my own damn fault.

My best friend in elementary school was this girl, we'll call her Tracy, who despite being fairly small and and blond was the class tomboy. She was the sort of girl that would drink Del Scorcho out of the packet. Yeah, that kind of badass. Now being the bff of the class tomboy wasn't so bad, it kind of kept me from getting picked on for being such a nerd. The tough part, though, was dealing with Tracy's natural athleticism. See, I am what my grandfather used to call a "hoplamaz," which is Armenian for clutz, and have been since the day I was born. Amongst my earliest achievements in life were crawling out (oddly enough) unscathed from under the Christmas tree I pulled to the ground and walking into a table, a feat that left me with a huge gash in my right eyebrow (now you know why I wax them so thin). That I managed to succeed in dance class was no small accomplishment, but the biggest challenge of my childhood was being best friends with a member of Future Jocks of America. I tried, really I tried to keep up with Tracy, but the results always seemed to involve yours truly and a trip to the nurse's office (and, on occasion, the doctor).

So, this one time, when we were in second grade, Tracy decided that we were going to race from the tetherball courts to the church steps. I was running fast enough to keep us neck and neck, until we hit the basketball court and I tripped over my shoelace. My left knee hit the asphalt. Tracy helped me limp to the nurse's office, my leg a mess of blood, hanging skin and hot, black stuff that burned with every movement. Mrs. A., the best school nurse in the history of the field, cleaned me up, causing a pain worse than the initial injury(Me: "Ow!" Her: "Now, Liz, if I don't put this on, it's only going to get infected and hurt more." Me: "Thhhokaythhh").

Weeks later, the wound had healed into a large, dark scab. One of the boys, the one who, at the age of eight had already proved himself to be a major asshole, told me that I had birdshit on my knee. He did use the word "birdshit" as well, said it five times a day until I got so irritated that I picked off the scab.

"Why did you do that?" my mom asked me.

"Because I was sick of [insert name here] telling me that it looked like birdshit."

"Elizabeth!"

"Well, that's what he said."

But, this story is supposed to be about Skateland, right?

So, I had this non-scab wound on my leg and school had just ended and this other girl had her birthday part at Skateland. While we were on the rink, Tracy had passed me up and I wanted to tell her something so I sped up to meet her, at which point I fell on my left knee.

There was blood everywhere. I couldn't look around me without seeing red liquid slithering across the floor. My pants were ruined. The waxed roller rink floor was probably ruined. And everyone around me was trying to avoid a) tripping over a sobbing eight year old girl and b) slipping in a puddle of the sobbing eight year old girl's blood.

I think one of the grown-ups had to come out on the floor and help me up. My knee throbbed and at that moment, I was thoroughly convinced that I would have to go through the rest of my life feeling nothing but physical pain and humiliation.

Ten minutes later, after some bandages and a few rounds of Ms. Pac-Man, I was back on the rink. And I think we got the blood stains out of the pants too. But that scar on my left knee, it's still there.

Yes, There Are Things to Do in the Valley

Mark Frauenfelder wrote this cool travel piece on things to do in the vicinity of Tarzana for Everywhere Magazine (found via his blog, BoingBoing). Being a native of nearby Northridge, I was immediately attracted to the piece. I actually remember going to the Farm as a child. There are pony rides (or at least, there were pony rides) at the Farm as well. I have never been to Vanalden Cave, probably because, having grown up in Northridge, we were more inclined to go to ET Park (best view in the 818). Also, I should add that I wasn't much of a stoner either. Props to anyone who writes about the Valley without sounding like a jerky Westsider.

Everywhere appears to be a new mag and, from what I could read online, it looks really cool with more pieces about actual travel than overpriced boutique hotels in boring tourist traps. The cover story for this issue is on Tokyo street culture.