Innocent Bystander

100 Walks (#5): Polar bear attack!

Today's walk was short for a weekend one, only 6.62 miles, but I had no desire to repeat last Saturday's 10.6-mile march through the hinterlands of North Park. It was a cool and cloudy day, with the sun making an appearance late in the walk, which was along my usual path: Fourth Ave. to Hillcrest, University Ave. to Park Blvd. to home, with a stop at the grocery store at the end for pickles.

Yes. Pickles.

Along the way, I was attacked by three giant polar bears. I have no idea what polar bears were doing in Hillcrest on Saturday morning, but I have my suspicions.

100 Walks (#4): This sunset thing never gets old...

I took a "short" walk this afternoon. Short these days means 4 miles or less. This one was just shy of that mark, at 3.98 miles. I combined the urge to walk with some utilitarian concerns, such as picking up my prescriptions (hello my name is Gary and I am a drug addict...but in a GOOD way) and grabbing dinner.

It was already approaching darkness when I left the house around 4-ish and the rather balmy 68 degrees quickly plunged to 64 in the short span of an hour. Despite this abrupt change in climate, I soldiered on to my destination.

I missed the actual sunset because I was stuck in my pharmacy waiting for them to approve my $15 co-pay for my blood sugar test strips, so by the time I got out of that small portion of purgatory, the sun was set and gone.

I did manage to grab this photo on the Prado, the bridge leading in and out of Balboa Park. It was pretty purty, I think, even if the rather threatening crowbar-looking bars make it look I was doing my walk around the exercise yard at Tehachapi.

My plan for an 8-day week...

I have put much thought into this and I think it's time to consider an 8-day week.

All of us are much too busy and stressed out. Adding an extra day to each week will give us much more time. In addition, I'm advocating that we maintain a 5-day work-week, and dedicate the extra day to the weekend.

Because there's nothing better than a 3-day weekend. Except maybe a 4-day holiday weekend, which would be much more possible with my 3-day weekend plan. Martin Luther King Day? 4-day holiday weekend. See?

Plus, with an 8-day week there would be only 45 weeks per year (give or take 5 days). Think of how much your vacation-time percentage would increase! I'm no good with percentages, so you'll have to work it out yourself, but trust me...it'll seem like you have much more vacation time!

And Christmas will come much sooner!

Think it over...you don't have to decide anything right now. In the meantime, I need to start writing the companies who make calendars and get this thing started.

Umm....does anybody know who makes calendars?

The story behind the banner (#2)...

This week's banner features two things I dearly love: books and New York City.

I could not live without books. If someone--the president, God, a bankruptcy attorney--told me I had to cut spending and could buy only one "luxury" item per week, it would be a book. I've always loved books, ever since my first library book (Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff) as a kid. Over the past few years, my book love has grown even more. I'm not sure why, other than the fact that it's wonderful to escape into someone else's mind once for a few hours.

And then there's The Strand bookstore in New York, where this photo was taken. It's one of their outdoor carts, propped up against a wall, filled with books no one seems to want. I'm sure they restock them regularly, since one man's discarded book is another man's treasured read. The Strand is one of those "bring a lunch" bookstores, where you'll want to explore and camp out for a day or so. (Actually, don't bring a lunch...there's no food or drink allowed. It's a figure of speech, dammit, calculated to give you a sense of how much this store has to offer.) The store also embodies my deep love for bookstores, a dying destination in this Internet-oriented world, unfortunately.

You'll see another banner made from this photo at some point in time during the coming months. It's just a photo that lends itself to the banner format multiple times.

100 Walks (#3): An error in judgment...

I walked 10.61 miles today. I didn't set out to do that, and I know I'm going to feel it tonight and tomorrow.

After my haircut this morning, I decided I was going to walk to Hillcrest and possibly make a right on University Ave. off of Park Blvd. and maybe head up to Paras News. That's this hole-in-the-wall newsstand on 30th St. that has possibly the largest selection of magazines in San Diego. I rarely buy anything there, but it's nice to look. I didn't think it was that far off my usual beaten path, but I was wrong. It added over 3 miles to it, especially since I then walked up 30th to El Cajon Blvd., and back up to Park.

So here's the path: Seaport Village (near my barbershop) to Petco Park to Park Blvd. to University to 30th to El Cajon to Park Blvd. to University (confused yet) to 4th Ave. and home. Total distance: 10.61 miles. Total time: 3.5 hours give or take a half hour (I stopped for lunch).

And what did I see? Well, the trolleys are doing it old school, at least on the weekends. This beauty does a downtown run every Saturday and Sunday. (It may be the only old one that they have out on the rails right now.)

Paras News is in an area of San Diego called North Park. It's one of these semi-quaint (and a little rundown) older neighborhoods that has an identifying sign smack in the middle of it. Evidently it's still Christmas in North Park, too.

There is a certain amount of charm to North Park and it is up and coming again. Whatever happens to it, I hope this leftover from a bygone era never goes away. It's the Pekin Cafe Chop Suey restaurant. I want to go back and shoot this sometime at night when all that neon is ablaze.

10.6 miles. With today's walk, I've already walked over 22 miles in the first week of the year.

Yikes, I need a nap.

 

 

 

100 Walks: #2 in a series...

Don't worry...I'm not going to bore you with an elaborate graphic showing the route of my walk, my mileage, and the timespan. I realized after I went to all that trouble the other day, perfecting the (patent pending) "Innocent Bystander Walk-O-Meter," that the only person who really gave a shit about that was yours truly. Besides...by showing my Walk-O-Meter technology before the patent clears, I'm just allowing the Chinese to develop a cheap knock-off, after which the South Koreans will knock off a cheaper one. Nope. Not on my watch.

But I did take a walk yesterday, it was almost 6 miles, it took a little over 2 hours, and it was a lovely day. How lovely? Here, take a look:

This is what passes for winter here in San Diego. This photo was taken at around 4:34pm and it was 74 degrees. Yes, I'm an asshole to all my friends and readers in colder climes for pointing this out. But seriously...why the f*ck did you think I moved out here 13 years ago?

My Comics #1: It all starts with a name...

If you're going to start your own comic book company, it all has to start with one thing: the name of the company. Hand in hand with that is, of course, a logo to go with it.

When I was looking around for inspiration for this new thing in my life, almost 20 years ago, I had to look no further than my kitchen doorway. Because there, at any given moment, might sit my cat Ollie. Ollie had this habit of lurking. He'd sit in the doorway, half hidden in the shadows with one baleful (let me amend that to "affectionately baleful") eye fixed on me, watching my every move. Ollie was not only a lurker he was a starer, too...kind of a "sturker," I guess. 

So both the company name and logo came to me pretty quickly. As a kid, we would play all kinds of hide and seek and chase games, late into the night, on the street where I lived. They included a cast of thousands, it seemed (it was a big street, with a lot of baby boomer families), and at the end of the game, when it was time for everyone to come in, we would yell at the top of our considerable young lungs, "ollie, ollie, oxen free!" Looking back, that was probably more of an "All-y" than the name of a cat (or comedy team member). In my case it just fit. I was producing comics that were decidely oxen free (no ox was hurt or killed during the production of my comics...I am incredibly proud of that achievement) and the whole "press" thing just seemed to naturally fit with the whole "ollie ollie oxen free" part.

Before I had the company name and logo, though, I had the title for the comic book I wanted to write, draw and produce: Innocent Bystander. I picked that because for many years I felt like things happened around me, not to me. That's changed a bit, a hazard of growing older, I guess, but in retrospect, I know now that part of that title came out of the way I observe life happening around me. I see odd things where no one else seems to see them. The juxtaposition of a sign with an item, maybe. The awkward phrasing on a hairdresser's window. All of it adds up, I guess. But that logo and company name--coupled with my comic book's title--all clicked for me.

For more on my comics over the years, please click here.

Justified: A little hero worship, please...

My favorite show, Justified, returns to FX for its third season two weeks from today, on Tuesday, January 17. In fact, that date is a banner day in the history of deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens. Not only does season 3 debut at 10:00pm, but a new Elmore Leonard book, Raylan, comes out, too. There's also a new e-book version of Leonard's first Raylan Givens stories, Fire in the Hole, available now for only $1.99 on Amazon, for you Kindle and iPad readers. And if you're lucky enough to live in the Los Angeles area, you can go see Leonard, series creator Graham Yost and star Timothy Olyphant speak at the Writers Bloc at 7:30pm. I'm tempted to drive up myself, except then I wouldn't be back in time to watch the season premiere. (Oops...it's sold out anyway. Nevermind!)

While Breaking Bad is probably the best show on TV right now, I think Justified is my own personal fave, if only because it's more fun, and a tad less stressful (let's face it...root canal without novacaine is a tad less stressful than Breaking Bad). Givens is a wonderful character, surrounded by a cast of characters with as much kick as Kentucky moonshine. There's his boss, Art Mullen, played by the great Nick Searcy; ex-girlfriend Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter), who wasn't looking so good last time we saw her; friend/foe Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), who deserves his own show; fellow marshals Rachel Brooks (Erica Tazel) and Tim Gunnerson (Jacob Pitts), neither of which were given much to do last season (I take that back...Tim had a pivotal role in the very last episode); his criminal father, Arlo Givens (Raymond J. Barry in the role of his career); and the sexiest woman on television (for me, at least), Raylan's ex-wife (and current squeeze), Winona Hawkins (Natalie Zea). 

Coming off an extraordinary season (now available on DVD and Blu-ray) that chronicled the tale of the Bennett clan (which won Margo Martindale an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Mags Bennett, the matriarch of the family), it's difficult to see how they're going to top that memorable run of episodes. This season sports not one, but two new villains: Neal McDonough and Mykelti Williamson. Whether this duo will be as memorable as Mags and her three sons (including Dickie, played by Lost alumnus Jeremey Davies in a role as different from his Daniel Farraday character as humanly possible). Either way, I know I'm there for this. You should be, too.

Here's a short preview:

 

100 Walks: #1 in a series...

One of my goals with this rejuvenated (well, for me at least) blog is to document my walks a little better. I realize that for a lot of people reading about my walks is like watching paint dry, but I do enjoy my times out walking and maybe if I write more about them, I'll walk more.

My goal for 2012 is 100 walks in the year, which is only twice a week or so, so it's not an unobtainable goal. I was shooting for 40 miles a month, but then I read about Mayor Jerry Sanders here in San Diego, who has lost almost 100 lbs., primarily by walking. The mayor walks about 50-70 miles per WEEK, including about 40-50 each weekend. He walks from his home in the Kensington area of town all the way down to the Convention Center and back again. It's pretty phenomenal and certainly an inspiration. So my paltry 40 miles a month seems stingy compared to that figure (on the other hand, if I dropped 100 lbs., I'd be dead).

So, using the patented technology of the official INNOCENT BYSTANDER WALK-O-METER (well...patent pending), here's today's walk:

We shall utilize this EXCLUSIVE technology each time I walk to map my route and record my distance. Another thing to look forward to is a photo from each of my walks. This time out it's that rare flower that blooms only in California: the Cheerleader Blossom, AKA the "Pygmy Pom-pom.*" I encountered this pair of beautiful blossoms along First Ave. today. Being the Cheerleader flower, they always come in pairs.

Also look for assorted photos on my Facebook and Twitter feeds as they pop up.

•(I have no idea what this pink puffball is called. I'm making this shit up. They are real, though.)

The story behind the banner (#1)...

That banner up top there? That's a photo by me. And each week (hopefully) I will be replacing it with a new banner based on a photo of mine, and running the complete photo here, with the story behind it. I know...this is kind of ambitious for someone who was whining the last few months about ending the blog, but what can I say? I mean besides the fact that I'm a Gemini...let's just look at it as the new version of "Friday Foto," but on Sunday. Okay?

That's the Nuart Theater in Los Angeles, on Santa Monica Blvd., just a stone's throw from the 405. This photo is of a more recent vintage, but the theater hasn't changed much, other than a paint job, some marquee repairs, and maybe the psychic is no longer there. I picked this photo in particular to start off my "new" blog and the banner feature because of the title of the film on the marquee. I really thought I'd be killing this blog on Dec. 31...all of this is very "unforeseen" for me.

The first time I photographed the Nuart was on my first-ever trip to the West Coast, in 1991. I was driving around Los Angeles on surface streets (the freeways terrified this kid from Pennsylvania, where a "big" road was 2 lanes in each direction) and stumbled across it. I came back just at dusk and snapped the photo below. I've never been inside the theater, but I love the outside neon on the marquee, the sunburst pavement below, and just the general feel and color of the place. Next door is a video store, around the corner, tucked away on a side street (Idaho Ave.) in what appears to be a little old house is a funky bookstore called Sideshow Rare Books, Art & Curiosities. In essence, this neck of the woods seems like a time portal in West L.A., able to take you back to an era when movie theaters existed in neighborhoods and had just one screen, paperbacks were fifty cents (and not collectibles) and a night at the movies was something really special. Both these photos have a certain "stardust" quality to me...something gone but not forgotten, longed for but rarely found. But maybe it's just me.