Beverly Hills Paper Warns About ISIS Attack on Unbuilt LA Subway

As reported on the Curbed LA website (la.curbed.com). One comment on the story caught my eye. Now it’s not just NIMBY it’s NUMBY (not under my back yard). For those of you not familiar with Los Angeles and Beverly Hills there is no space between the two. You have to watch the signs carefully to know you have entered Beverly Hills.

Here’s how the lead story begins in this week’s Beverly Hills Courier (“the Newspaper of Record for the World of Beverly Hills”): “Add terrorism to the list of woes future Beverly Hills High School students may have to deal with if the L.A. Metropolitan Transportation Authority doesn’t shift course on plans to run two subway tunnels beneath the City’s only high school.” Terrorism was actually added to the “list of woes” years ago, when Beverly Hills first began its rabid and expensive campaign to kill the Purple Line subway project (or at least change its course so it wouldn’t run under Beverly Hills High School), but it became front page news for them again yesterday when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told reporters that there was “an imminent ISIS plot against United States and Paris subways,” as CNN described it. “Imminent” means “happening soon.” Construction on the Purple Line Extension is just beginning and will not arrive in Beverly Hills for years; the portion of the subway running through Beverly Hills is set to open in 2026.

The Courier, a frequent ally of the Beverly Hills Unified School District and Beverly Hills City Council in the war against the Purple Line, goes on to misrepresent the facts regarding the safety of Metro’s planned subway route and to imply that the billion-dollar subway route has been shaped purely for the benefit of a single Century City developer. The school district has spent $3 million in school repair funds to fight the project; together with the city, four lawsuits have been filed to stop the train (with one already lost). The city also stalled on issuing permits for work on the first section of the Purple Line, which extends just to the city limits.

Anyway, now that you have the backstory, please enjoy some Hall-of-Fame-Level, completely hypothetical Thinking of the Children from BHUSD Superintendent Gary Woods: “The symbolic nature of a school holding our children, our hopes and dreams for the future, if that is attacked, in essence they’re attacking the core of our being, of our culture.”

And this logical gem from Board of Education President Noah Margo: “By [building a subway tunnel underneath BHHS], we may then be eligible to join an elite group of international cities with easily accessible targets that will result in larger catastrophes. In this case, our student population … In the mind of a terrorist, placing a subway directly under a high school is like pushing a baby stroller into rush hour traffic.” That’s Beverly Hills, vigilantly fighting to keep Los Angeles from the terrible fate of becoming an elite international city.

Mel Brooks in Concrete

Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, etc.) finally has his hands and feet in the cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Notice his left hand.

More here.

Try to Remember

THOUGHT SOME OF YOU MIGHT ENJOY THIS ...

‘Someone asked the other day, ‘What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?’
‘We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,’

I informed him.

‘All the food was slow.’

‘C’mon, seriously. Where did you eat?’

‘It was a place called ‘at home,” I explained. !

‘Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.’

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.

But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.

In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck.Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck.

Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer.

I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow)

We didn’t have a television in our house until I was 19.

It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.

I was 21 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called ‘pizza pie.’ When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It’s still the best pizza I ever had.

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home but milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers– my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6 AM every morning.

On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren

Just don’t blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES from a friend:
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother’s house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it.. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to ‘sprinkle’ clothes with because we didn’t have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.

Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.

Real ice boxes.

Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.

Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.

Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

Older Than Dirt Quiz:

Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum

2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water

3. Candy cigarettes

4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles

5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes

6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers

7. Party lines on the telephone

8. Newsreels before the movie

9. P.F. Flyers

10. Butch wax

11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels…[if you were fortunate]

12. Peashooters

13. Howdy Doody

14. 45 RPM records

15. S& H green stamps

16. Hi-fi’s

17. Metal ice trays with lever

18. Mimeograph paper

19. Blue flashbulb

20. Packards

21. Roller skate keys

22. Cork popguns

23. Drive-ins

24. Studebakers

25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You’re still young, If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older, If you remembered 11-15 = Don’t tell your age, If you remembered 16-25 = You’re older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

Dilbert on Apple

Today’s cartoon immediately struck a chord with me. Apple Computer (Apple Inc – AAPL) split every share into seven. The value of those split shares has not increased by any significant amount. The new technology from Apple? Well there has not been any of late. Their last new idea was the iPad.

Dilbert by Scott Adams

A Duck is Dead

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird’s chest.

After a moment or two, the vet shook his head and sadly said, “I’m sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has passed away.”

The distressed woman wailed, “Are you sure?” “Yes, I am sure. Your duck is dead,” replied the vet…

“How can you be so sure?” she protested. “I mean you haven’t done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something.”

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador retriever. As the duck’s owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.

The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room. A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, “I’m sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck.”

The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman…

The duck’s owner, still in shock, took the bill. “$150!” she cried, “$150 just to tell me my duck is dead!”

The vet shrugged, “I’m sorry. If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20, but with the Lab Report and the CAT scan, it’s now $150.”

ABC’s ‘Modern Family’ house in L.A. sells for $2.15 million

Exterior shots of the home, found in Cheviot Hills, were used to portray the family residence of Phil and Claire Dunphy. (Media Carrot Photography | Inset: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

The Cheviot Hills (West Los Angeles area of upper middle class families) home is used as the fictional family residence of Phil and Claire Dunphy on the sitcom. And no, Phil was not the listing agent. Only the exteriors of the house are used to depict the Dunphy residence on the show. Interiors scenes are shot on soundstages.

Cheviot Hills is located about between Sony Studios and Fox studios. Median household income of $103,165. Close enough to the beach to feel a cool ocean breeze without too much morning fog. There is a nice pitch and putt 9 hole golf course nearby. When single, I lived nearby. Lots of memories.

More pictures of this house here

L.A. Versus N.Y.C. – The Payoff

City officials closed 7th Street in front of the MacArthur Park-area landmark as crowds lined up for what is known as the deli’s No. 19, its most popular sandwich. Normally, it sells for $15.20.

After the Kings took Game 5 Friday night in a thrilling double overtime win, after the New York Rangers went home, after the cup was kissed and the red carpet removed from the ice, there was still the matter of the pastrami sandwich.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton (a former LAPD police chief) bet a pastrami sandwich that their home team would win the Stanley Cup. At stake was bragging rights over which city’s hockey team was better – and which city’s pastrami.

On Saturday morning, Bratton signaled his intent to honor the bet. He tweeted a photo of Katz’s Deli in New York and tagged Beck’s Twitter account.

“Do you take your pastrami sandwich with or without mustard? Congrats!” Bratton tweeted.

Beck’s response, after telling Bratton he was looking forward to having lunch again soon, was to tweet a picture of L.A.’s most-revered pastrami sandwich, the Number 19 at Langer’s Deli.

The sandwich – tender, hand-sliced pastrami, cool Russian dressing, crisp cole slaw and Swiss cheese between two slices of pillow-soft, crunchy-crusted twice-baked rye bread – is a favorite of the Los Angeles Police Department.

New York City loves it too – the New Yorker magazine once called Langer’s Number 19 “the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world.” Even Bratton admitted the corned beef at Langer’s was better than any in New York.

“Hold the mustard please, slaw inside, just like @LangersDeli #19,” Beck tweeted along with the picture.

Bratton isn’t the only New York official who will have to make good on his bet. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has to send Gov. Jerry Brown a basket of buffalo wings, Italian sausage and oysters from Long Island. Brown had wagered a book of California history and lightly salted organic brown rice cakes.

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio has agreed to sing Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” on “The Jimmy Kimmel Show,” a relief for those who hoped to avoid listening to Mayor Eric Garcetti sing “New York, New York” on the same show.

‘FUN Factoids’ of Olde Time Jewish Celebrities

* Who was the First Movie Star?

Maxwell Henry Aronson aka ‘Broncho Billy Anderson’ (March 21, 1880), had three minor roles in one of the first movies, the 10 minute 1903 ‘The Great Train Robbery. Soon Max began to write, direct and act in his own westerns. Founding his own studio in 1907, Anderson acted in over 300 short films but gained huge popularity as Broncho Billy in 148 silent western shorts.

***

* Why Did ‘Jack Benny’ write his Autobiography in the 1960’s and then buy the rights back from his publisher and hide it?

His daughter Joan says she found the manuscript after her mother died in 1983¦the story she heard was that Jack’s wife Mary (Sadye Marks) Livingstone objected because Jack (born Feb. 14, 1894) had so many stories of his olde girlfriends in it! Joan published it.

***

* Who was a catcher for the Boston Red Sox, spoke 7 languages and a spy for the OSS?

‘Moe Berg’ (March 2, 1902) played 15 seasons in the majors mostly as a back-up catcher¦ In the off seasons he traveled extensively around the worldâ¦.including two trips to Japan. It turned out he had been working for the OSS as a spy for the U.S. on those trips. In 1943/44, and speaking German like a native he was touring Nazi occupied Europe, on a spy mission. He had to determine if the Germans were close to an ‘A’ bomb, in which case he was charged with murdering the Nazi scientists who were developing it!

***

* Who was BEST Ventriloquist ever and created the First Artificial Heart?

The most famous ventriloquist was Edgar Bergen he was also the worst. The Best was ‘Paul Winchell’ (Dec. 21, 1922) Paul Wilchinsky who as Paul Winchell with his wooden partner Jerry Mahoney had their own TV Shows in the 1950’s and made many appearances on all the popular variety shows of the time¦.Paul NEVER moved his lips! Paul was also an actor and inventor. He has many medical patents including the device which was exactly the same as the ‘Jarvik’ heart.

***

* Who was the FIRST ‘Method Actor’, the FIRST ‘Bad Boy’ Movie Actor & had the ‘Largest Funeral’ of any celebrity since Rudolf Valentino?

Jacob Julius Garfinkle aka ‘John Garfield’ (March 4, 1913) grew up in poverty on the Lower East Side. If I hadn’t been an actor I might have become Public Enemy #1’. ‘Cutting his teeth’ at the Group Theatre. Garfield on Broadway and in the Movies was an early great proponent of the ‘Method’ acting. He was the predecessor of the Monty Clift, Marlon Brando & James Dean school of acting. With a bad heart and the stress of possibly losing his career because of being named to the ‘Black List.’ John Garfield died of a massive heart attack at 39. Over 10,000 people crowded outside the cemetery at his funeral.

***

* What Famous Movie of 1942 cast 4 Jews, an Irishman & a German as California Mexicans?

Tortilla Flat, from the famous book by John Steinbeck, was a movie about a bunch of poor Monterrey, CA. Mexicans that just sit around and ‘kvetch’ all day. The cast consisted of 4 Jews: ‘Hedy Lamarr’ (Nov. 9, 1914) a Viennese Jew with a strong German accent, ‘John Garfield’ & ‘Sheldon Leonard’ (Feb. 22, 1907) both Jews with strong New York accents and ‘Akim Tamiroff ‘(Oct. 29, 1899) a Russian Jew with a strong Russian Accent. In addition the very Irish Spencer Tracy and the German American Frank Morgan!!!…. not a decent Mexican accent in the bunch.

***

* What Film played a N.Y.C. neighborhood theatre in the early 1950’s that put this up on it’s marquee: Starring ‘Bernard Schwartz and Rosetta Jacobs’?

‘The Prince who was a Thief starred ‘Tony Curtis’ (June 3, 1925) and ‘Piper Laurie’ (Jan. 22, 1932). Both were locals born on the lower Eastside of N.Y.

***

* What nice Jewish girl left Darren Aronofsky to marry ‘James Bond’???

‘Rachel Weisz’, born March 7, 1970 and now married to Daniel Craig.

***

* What Jewish girl at 19 hung out with Hitler & Mussolini, married a ‘semi-Nazi munitions dealer, made a ‘semi-porno film’ that got world wide release, ran off to Paris & London where she met Louis B. Meyer & became one of MGM’s biggest stars, was called ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in the World’, helped invent a process called ‘Frequency Hopping’ used in military code machines & cell phones AND sued ‘Blazing Saddles’ for making fun of her name?

Eva Maria Kiesler aka ‘Hedy Lamarr’ born November 9, 1914 in Austria.

***

* What famous stand-up comic saw his first movie, ‘Shane’, as a little kid sitting in the lap of singer ‘Billie Holiday’ at the Lowe’s Commodore, N.Y.C.

‘Billy Crystal’ (March 14, 1948)

***

* Who was the first & greatest Swashbuckling Movie Hero Known as the First King of Hollywood?

Thomas Ullman aka ‘Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.’ (May 23, 1883)

***

* What two famous actors of the Yiddish Stage became Movie Super Stars playing Italian Gangsters?

Emanuel Goldenberg aka ‘Edward G. Robinson (Dec. 12, 1893) with ‘Little Caesar’ in 1931.

Muni Weisenfreund aka ‘Paul Muni’ (Sept. 22, 1895) with ‘Scarface’ in 1932.

***

* Who was the first ‘Professional’ Baseball Player?

‘Emanuel Lipman Pike’ (May 25, 1845) and in 1866 he accepted $20. a week to play.

***

* What Famous Superstarâ¦as a kid in the 1930’s would pee off the roof of the N.Y.C. tenements on top of parading American Nazi’s?

Bernie Schwartz, aka ‘Tony Curtis’ (June 3, 1925).

***

* What famous Hollywood leading lady missed out on playing ‘Scarlett O’Hara’ in Gone with the Windâ¦.over her affair with Charlie Chaplin?

Marion Pauline Levy aka ‘Paulette Goddard’ (June 3, 1910). Producer David O. Selznick was afraid Paulette’s fooling around with Charlie would hurt the box office of the movie so decided against casting her.

***

* What famous TV star hung one of his young writers out an 18 story window until they agreed on whether a joke was funny?

Sid Caesar (Sept. 8, 1922) hung his writer Melvin Kaminsky ‘Mel Brooks’ (June 28, 1926) out the window until the other writers restrained Sid!

***

* What Famous Stand-up once asked Frank Sinatra to stop by his table (in Vegas) to help the comic impress a girlâ¦later when Sinatra stopped to say hello the comic said.. ‘Not Now Frank, Can’t You See I’m With Somebody’???

Only the impish Don Rickles (May 8, 1926) had the guts!

***

* What silent film star, known as ‘The Vamp’, was the first movie ‘Femme Fatale’?

Theodosia Burr Goodman aka ‘Theda Bara’ (July 29, 1885) and at her height she was ranked in popularity behind only Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplain.

***

* What Famous Movie Star had ‘Two’ of the world’s largest and finest privately owned art collections in the world?

Edward G. Robinson (Dec. 12, 1893). In 1956 he was forced to sell his first art collection, as part of his divorce settlement. Missing his art more than his wife of 29 years he immediately began to build a second collection!

***

* What Famous Movie Star ‘Hunk’ wore dresses as a kid?

Issur Danielovitch aka ‘Kirk Douglas’ (Dec. 9, 1916) was the only boy among had 4 or 5 older sisters, they couldn’t afford toys so they treated him as their own private dress-up doll. As a teen he muscled up and become macho to prove his manhood… ‘I am Spartacus’!!!

***

What Current Famous Conductor is the grandson of the King & Queen of the Yiddish Theatre¦Boris & Bessie Thomashefsky?

Michael Tilson Thomas (Dec. 21, 1944)