The California Files

Intoxication

Back when the world was still real, most of the San Fernando Valley was covered by citrus groves and my grandparents, Frank and Esther Dunnington, lived in Van Nuys.

Driving from the ranch in the Mojave Desert to Van Nuys, we'd use Highway 14 and Sepulveda Boulevard. For miles, Sepulveda ran through those groves. In the spring, the perfume of the blossoms was intoxicating.

Today, the Valley is a textbook example of blight comprised of strip malls and slums, an example of how completely screwed up Los Angeles is. But we have several citrus trees in our back yard, including an ancient grapefruit tree that is now blossoming. I spend most afternoons sitting out there with a book.

The perfume is absolutely delicious. Reminds me so what of what the Valley used to smell like. The only thing better, I think, is Laura's Arpège.

-JFT

Gone Fishin'

Well, no, I've not gone fishin'. Not exactly. Not yet. But I am preparing to do so. In pursuit of that activity, I spent the morning at the first of three fly-casting clinics presented annually by the Pasadena Casting Club.

This has to be the best deal in outdoor sports. Forty-five bucks buys you three three-hour sessions of individualized instruction with experienced fly fishermen who have been taught by experts how to pass their prodigious skills on to others.

I took this clinic about five years ago and it was fine. But life intervened and I never went fishing. Now I'm retired and have the time to indulge myself in this fine art. And I find that this clinic has grown immeasurably. Casting, flies, knots and more. Just in the first session. And presented in a lucid, well-organized, easy-to-remember manner.

This instruction was aided by the rain. Casting instruction did indeed continue in the downpour that hit the casting pond on Saturday, but when it became the sort of waterfall that chased Noah aboard his boat, we repaired to the clubhouse to learn - well, all that other stuff.

Part of what's going on here is that as a Christmas gift, Laura presented me with a really nice rod and reel and the pronouncement that I was going fishing. (Hm, part of a plot, obviously.) And part of it is that I yearn to be streamside in the Eastern Sierra, an area I know and love from many years of camping, hiking and skiing there. So I'm looking forward to the next two sessions, and after they are complete, to hauling myself up there where the fish are to see if I can annoy them at least a little.

Meanwhile, I find myself cruising the Web studying flies and the claims of guide services. All, apparently, is lost. The plot progresses.

-JFT

The Crest

I went up on the Angeles Crest, that difficult, twisting stretch of road between the L.A. Basin and Wrightwood, yesterday. I used to go up there every Sunday morning, back when I was Ducati-mounted. But that bike has been gone for a long time and I'd not been up there for something like 15 years.

Good reason for that: It became far too dangerous, with far too much crazy traffic, far too many accidents, and far too much enforcement patrol.

But yesterday the entire stretch of road from La Cañada to Newcomb's Ranch was virtually empty. Still, I stuck to the speed limit - 45 mph from La Cañada to Red Box, and 55 mph from Red Box on up. Hey, I didn't really plan this, so did not have my V-1 along.

Too slow? Not a bit of it. The challenge became holding my car, an MCS Clubman, right at the speed limit the whole way. (You can click on the photo so see it a little larger.) What fun. Doing this keeps speeds down on the straights, but means that the corners still are challenging. Plus the lower stretch of the highway has been significantly upgraded, thanks to repairs of washouts from past storms. Those repairs changed some of the lines, at least in small ways.

Corners? I'm talking about the Horseshoe, the Steps, Spinning Heel and more. And this time I did not see the Sheriff's Dept. helo that once gave chase to a colleague and me during a spirited ride up there. Probably just as well, right?

I used to know this stretch of pavement very well, but yesterday I found it to be even more of a challenge than I had remembered. Doing it right requires some subtle knowledge; I found that I'd forgotten which corners tighten up, which ones require double apexes, and much more. I drove a very conservative street line - but then, I always have done that, especially up there.

The incredible damage from 2009's Station fire still is very evident. Much of the forest remains a charred wasteland. What a shame. Still, it was a fun Wednesday field trip. Turned out that Newcomb's was closed, so I had to drive back down to Mijares, in Pasadena, for lunch. A shame about me, right? And so goes retirement!

-JFT

California's Drought and Much More

I'm interested in the drought the state is experiencing. - and sure, if you live here, probably you are too. I saw an item yesterday saying that it may be the worst one since 1580. But how do the scientists know? Who kept records back that far?

Nature did, in the form of tree rings. When there's plenty of water, trees grow quickly, so there's distance between the rings. When there's no water, they grow slowly, so there's very little distance between the rings. Want to know about drought cycles? Study tree rings and the distance between them. Interesting, no?

But why drought? It's simple, really: The state contains more water customers than there is water. This is not helped by all the water that is transported to SoCal from NorCal, west of the Sierras, by the California Water Project, and it's not helped by all the water transported from NorCal, east of the Sierras, to SoCal by the Los Angeles water project. Too many people down here. Too many water hookups.

But what about the signs along Interstate 5 that claim "Congress created dustbowl"? Well, that's the lunkhead farmers up there in the San Joaquin Valley protesting court decisions upholding the Endangered Species Act and more. Those decisions have served to limit the amount of water pumped from the Sacramento River delta. Here's why:

First, the delta smelt. That's a tiny fish said to be a prime environmental indicator. They were being sucked into pumping stations to the point where they became endangered. So the courts limited pumping. There's a lot about this on the Web. If you want, you might start here:

http://www.acwa.com/news/delta/water-supplies-curtailed-once-again-protect-delta-smelt

Second, salmon. They need a supply of water so they can swim upstream - I mean far upstream - from the Pacific Ocean to spawn. Here's more on this. And again, there's much more on the Web:

http://www.cacoastkeeper.org/news/drought-conditions-threaten-sacramento-river-salmon

Finally, saltwater flowing from the Pacific Ocean into the Sacramento Delta, thus contaminating freshwater supplies. If too much water is pumped from the delta, ocean water flows in. Can't drink, or irrigate with, salt water. Here's more on this - and yes, again, there's more on this on the Web:

https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/pdf/Madani-Lund_Delta_Conflict_A.pdf

Those lunkhead farmers mentioned earlier want to paint this as a simple, "people are more important than fish" problem. But it is not simple. We've got to see past that kind of simplistic, no-brain thinking and look to solutions rather than finger-pointing.

Yes, agriculture needs water - it keeps the farmers in business and it feeds millions of people. But there are other needs as well. I don't envy the people whose job it is to balance those needs.

-JFT

Field-trip Wednesday

Wednesdays are when our housekeeper comes to swab out the place, frighten the cats, and generally hide things from us. So Wednesday is a good day for me to be outtahere so that I can be out of her way while she goes about her business. I visit museums, shoot a little trap, visit book stores, like that. Laura calls these activities field trips. And I guess they are.

Recently I went on the best field trip yet. I went down to the California ScienCenter, adjacent to USC and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. I thought I'd poke around, see what they had on display, and maybe look in on the Endeavour. Right, that Endeavour. The space shuttle.

The place was crawling with busloads of children and it seemed to me that it was geared toward the younger set, which was fine. I became entranced by the shuttle, and also by an A12, the forerunner of the SR-71 Blackbird, on display outside.

First, the A12. Built by Lockheed's famed Skunk Works in Burbank, now replaced by a parking lot, the thing is huge. Absolutely enormous. It contains so many interesting angles and details that it's a photographer's dream. And its mounted in such a way that if you stretch your imagination just a little, you will swear that it is airborne at near-space altitudes. That's it here to the right. And as always, if you want a larger image, just click on it.

Inside, things were even better. Endeavour came to Los Angeles in October of 2012 and since then it's been housed in its own building adjacent to the museum. It is, in a word, stunning. My breath was taken away when I walked in the door of the place and took my first look - I instantly forgot the kajillion school kids that polluted the place.

Endeavour has to be the most noble machine I've ever seen - better even than a Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing; it just seems to exude pride as it rests on its stands. And well it should. Built in Palmdale and launched in 1992, it completed 25 missions into space carrying 173 astronauts and traveling more than 122,800,000 miles over the course of a total of 299 days in space.

Among other things, it is the shuttle that carried out the rescue/repair mission on the Hubble Space Telescope. And now it sits in its temporary space - the museum is building a permanent building - looking just as it did when it was unloaded from the 747 that brought it to us here in Los Angeles.

It's not possible to go into the thing, but there is a simulator that takes you on a "mission." This costs $5 and is worth every penny. Obviously, this photo to the right shows the business end of this incredible craft.

If you're a local and you haven't visited the Endeavour yet, go on your own field day to pay it a visit. It's something you won't forget.

-JFT

 

"Monuments Men"

We saw "Monuments Men" today. Liked it a whole lot. So will other students of history, art and the war years, as well as will anyone who just likes a good movie. It's a simplified version of what really happened, naturally, basically the story of eight guys who try to find and return art stolen by the Germans during the war. In reality, the Monuments company, as it was called, comprised a whole bunch of people. For the whole story, check out "The Rape of Europa," by historian Lynn H. Nicholas. Great read. You can get it from Amazon.

I suspect that testosterone-fueled lunkheads expecting a "war movie" may disappointed in this film, but Laura and I both thought it was a very entertaining deal.

For what it's worth, when they weren't murdering people and invading neighboring countries, the Kraut bastards were also stealing the great wine collections. For more on this, check out "Wine & War," by Donald and Petie Kladstrup. Interesting stuff; also available at Amazon. And no, I have no financial interest in that company, though for all the money I've spent there I should have.

-JFT

Ukuleles for Lunch

A couple of weekends ago I finally succumbed to long and repeated entreaties from my cousin, Paul Thompson, to visit he and his family in Hood River, Oregon. The bait he finally used? Live music and a visit to the shop that builds what may be the country's premier ukulele. This would also be a chance to mix pleasure with pleasure by having dinner with my son, Matthew, while I was up there. So I went.

Now, OK, when it comes to stringed instruments, I'm always interested. But this turned out to be far more than just a visit to a lutherie. It also included the most incredible lunch with which I've ever been presented.

Turns out Gordon and Char Mayer, the people behind Mya-Moe Ukuleles, are also accomplished chefs. Attired in full regalia and working in one of the nicest private-home kitchens I've seen, they served a lunch for 12 people that even the most ambitious cooks I know would not have attempted, I don't think. That's cousin Paul down there at the end of the table, with Char Mayer standing next to him. And as always, if you want to see a photo larger, just click on it.

OK, so far so good - time for music, which was supplied by Char Mayer and several others, some of whom work in the shop and some of whom are were friends who are also area musicians. Fun stuff from a variety of disciplines.

But you want discipline? That's practiced in the Mayer's shop, just a few snowy steps away from their home. It's small, but efficiently organized so that a crew of three (two work in the morning hours and one works in the afternoon hours) can crank out an instrument a day. This comes with the help of at least  one other expert woodworker who crafts necks in his own shop.

Gordon Mayer - that's him here on the right - has refined the process to 14 steps. The team accomplishes one of those steps every day. Hence, it takes Mya-Moe 14 days to build a uke and have it ready for shipment. And ship them they do. Mya-Moe is backordered for a year - no worries, they have enough tonewood on hand to last them for 10 years.

These things are not toys, not just plunka-plunka, Tiny Tim-style ukes. They exhibit the finest craftsmanship and playability and find their way into music's top performers, including Dave Matthews, Eddie Vedder, Ben Harper, Marcus Mumford and Trey Anastasio, to name a few. Here are just a few of them, all with Mya-Moe's distinctive harlequin headstock pattern, as they near completion.

The instruments are all basically custom - after scanning a wide range of options, which includes several sizes and many different woods, you tell the Mayers what you want, they build it for you. The average price, Gordon Mayer told me, is about $2,000. That's a lot of loot, for sure. But the top artists are playing them. Who can blame them? I can't.

And no, I'm not tempted at all. I've already got enough instruments that I play badly.

-JFT 

The Art of the Fly Fisherman

I went over to the casting pond in the Arroyo Seco this morning to try out my killer new Orvis flycasting rod and reel, which Laura gave me at Christmas. (Surely your town has a casting pond nearby, doesn't it? No? Ah, well....)

What I discovered is that while the hardware is gorgeous and will work beautifully, this business of fly casting is way harder than it looks.

What I am really adept at, it seems, is managing to tie the seven-foot leader into Gordian knots without so much as touching it. I even managed to put a slick half-hitch into the main part of the fly line. Hey, everyone has to be good at something. 

But after a while, I kinda/sorta started getting it figured out, and that's without applying the Alexandrian solution of cutting my way through the knots.

I mean, this should be easy, right? Four years or so ago my pal, Jim Thomas, and I visited this very same casting pond to take a three-day fly-casting course from members of the Pasadena Casting Club. Neither of us has been fishing, or even to the pond, since; hence my rustiness. But I'm signed up for another round of the course, starting in March, and after that, a course from the local Orvis store that will include several sessions of instruction and then a day of actual, you know, fishing.

My goal is to get into the Eastern Sierras this summer to (try to) catch some fish. A number of businesses up there offer beginner's sessions, and that's what I am to do. I plan to drag Laura along with me, and also my pal Jim. And if I can lure Matt, my son, on down here from Washington, we'll do the same instructional deal. Should be fun.

Do I plan to catch fish? Well, the catching is much more difficult than the fishing. So we shall see. I'm just looking forward to being out streamside in that gorgeous eastern Sierra environment. Actually, it's nice just being pond-side down in the arroyo. Without knots in my line, I hope. But I'll take my Swiss Army knife, just in case.

-JFT

 

School Daze

I must be completely crazy! Disregarding the fact that I (almost) never have been a good student, I have enrolled in school.

Well, actually, I've enrolled in a class - Conversational Italian 1, a couple of hours a night one night a week for six weeks. It starts in January.

I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, though I would have preferred to find a Conversational German class, since I took such a class years ago when I was traveling auf Deutschland frequently on assignment, and have retained at least a bit of what I learned so many years ago.

But Italian will do. I'm not at all sure that we'll get to Italy again, if ever, but at least when the class is over I will be able to sit at an outside table at Starbucks up in Montrose and make comments in Italian, pretending that I'm actually at an outdoor cafe in Rome. All I need now is a scooter....

-JFT

Christmas Music

I've been unable to play music on audio system in the living room for about two years now, and that's a shame, because it's a really good system. But the CD player has been napping on the job. I've tried everything I could think of to awaken it, but no.

This is a bit like a death in the family. This thing is the first and only CD player I've ever bought. Did that in maybe 1985, '86, back when I was a reporter at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, sick to death of the hassle of LP records. Now it's out in the rubbish bin, replaced by a new unit - it wasn't really what I wanted, but lemmetellya, not a lot of places these days sell audio equipment.

But the thing is, while I'm not sentimental at all and I'm certainly not a slave to the Christmas season, I've had a hankerin' to play a few of my favorite Christmas records. And that will be de rigueur on the evenings during the holiday season when guests join us.

So the whole point of this is to play my five favorite records, which I now can do without having to leap up and change them when each of them is finished - this new unit is a changer.

What are the five? Well, for sure there's no der Bingle, no Perry Como, no "Rudolph the Red Knows Rain, Dear (cash and prizes, virtual, of course, for the reference - and yes, Kent, I know you know)," no "White Christmas," none of the schmaltz. What there is, is good stuff; at least I think so. Here's the list:

"O Tannenbaum - Christmas on the Rhine." Performers not listed. This is one I discovered back in the 1970s. It's a very plain, but warm - the Germans might call it "gemutlichkeit" - piece of work featuring traditional Christmas songs done by a small choir, sometimes with a children's choir. After wearing out my LP version of this, I looked for years to find this on CD and finally found a dubbing service that was selling discs. It sounds dated, especially over modern equipment, but that doesn't detract from the excellence of the music or concept. This one was my dad's absolute favorite, too. Available from www.christmaslpsoncd.com, 888/384-6970.

"Christmas with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus." Well, what can I say? Shaw just may be the finest choral master ever produced in the U.S., and this CD is another one that made the trip over from an LP record - but this time, through conventional corporate means. I found my first LP version of this way back in the 1960s, and like "Tannenbaum," this one also sounds dated. But this is huge, important music, folks, a mix of choral Christmas standards with classical choral works with a Christmas bent. It is simply wonderful. On the Vox cum Laude/MMG label - though for some reason, I've also got a copy of this on the Allegretto label.

"An Old World Christmas - Holiday Favorites from Europe." OK, this is maybe revealing more about myself than I'd intended. Am I a music snob? Maybe. But this is a recent one that contains wonderful music by the great composers given a terrific performance by a wide variety of ensembles. It's on the Musikfest label.

"A Baroque Christmas, the Heinrich Schutz Choir conducted by Roger Norrington." Norrington, of course, is both a stalwart of early music and of music performed on original instruments. So you get all of this in this wonderful disc, which features work from Schutz, Purcell, Gabrieli and more. On the London label.

And finally, "The Majesty of Christmas," featuring the Longwoods Garden organ and the Ambrosian Singers, both of England. This is a CD of a different color in several ways. It features most all of the traditional Christmas carols, and it is performed in a homey, down-to-earth way that can't help but leave you feeling warm and happy, like there are stockings hung in front of the fire that's burning in the fireplace, the one you're sitting in front of with your sweetie on Christmas Eve. I don't know if this is true, but I get the sense that the singers aren't professionals, but rather are enthusiastic amateurs. As an enthusiastic amateur myself, that's right up my street - they make a wonderful effort and the result is a must-play Christmas disc.

What didn't make the cut? Three excellent discs of American, Baroque and Renaissance Christmas music from Joel Cohen and the Boston Camerata didn't; Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" didn't, Handel's "The Messiah" didn't, Britten's "Ceremony of Carol's" didn't, and, oddly and perhaps most significantly, the Kingston Trio's very excellent (really, no kidding) "The Last Month of the Year, recorded and released right before the original and finest iteration of that group broke up for good, didn't. But really, as good as all these excluded items are, the five that I added to the changer are even better. Give 'em a try - you'll see what I mean. Er, unless you absolutely have to have Crosby, Como, Elvis, God help us, and the rest.

But whatever you're listening to, Merry Christmas and the best and fondest wishes of the season from Laura and I.

-JFT