In light of the news coming out about Wednesday’s assault and robbery committed against the cyclist riding Ballona Creek’s Bikeway, I’ve read comments to various posts about the dastardly crime that detail additional incidents that have occurred with a certain serial consistency along that stretch of off-street bike path roughly between Inglewood and Sepulveda boulevards:

“The last time I rode it (2006) there was a mattress across the path and a suspicious looking gentleman approaching. I turned around, got off the path and never went back.”

“I was running on the bike path last Thursday morning heading west. Just at the 405 underpass a cyclist stopped me to warn me off as two guys had just tried to attack him. I could clearly see the two up ahead hanging out on the path by that park watching us talk.”

“I bought a bike back in 1992 and took my first ride on the BC bike path. On the way back to Marina del Rey, heading west in this same location, I was rushed and pushed over by two thugs who wanted my wallet. I refused and they took my bike, crumpled tire and all.”

To further detriment is the alienation of the bikeway from the community. Accesspoints have been closed to placate crime-frazzled residents adjacent to the creek with next to no consideration for the impact such shutdowns have on the safety of those who use the bikeway. It’s no wonder pedestrians and cyclists are willing to just give up on the waterway as some sort of exiled and lawless zone of doom.

I don’t fault anyone making such decisions to protect themselves, but I for one am not so ready to let the thugs and bureaucrats win and instead plan to increase my presence by extending my inbound and outbound bike commutes to include this roughly one-mile stretch (map), like I did this morning as shown in the following brief image sequence, after the jump:

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Today’s annotated timelapse finds your intrepid urban cyclist on his way home hungry from a long day and late Monday night at his Westchester office. His stomach, as vacant as the city’s midnight streets demands sustenance! So what will it be: Midnight tacos at East Hollywood’s El Gran? A Tommy’s double-cheese in Hi-Fitown? Or will a flagrant flat tire doom the destination?

So the last couple of my bike commutes I’ve been goofing around with the timelapse capabilities of my handlebar-mounted digicam and the results have been interesting… to me, at least.

There’s no envelope being pushed here, just your standard low-res, potentially motion-sickness-inducing timelapse that condensed my 60-minute 14-mile crosstown journey into four stopmotion-filled minutes. Contrary to what we’ve lately been finding in the media, the trip wasn’t a death-defiant one. I didn’t get doored or get cursed at, or get drenched in flung beverage, or get a ticket, or get shot, stabbed, run over or run off the road. I just get on my bike and get to work — but not on any freeway. Instead I traverse thoroughfares far more frightening than a gridlocked 405: Fairfax Avenue and the boulevards of Venice and Sepulveda. Anyway, I hope you come along for the ride below and enjoy it. My philosophy is that any day I can ride a bike is automatically a better day.

It’s that time of year again, when the neighbor’s tall cactus busts out with its gorgeous night-blooming flowers, and this morning I was drawn to the activity going on at one of the blossoms as a group of bees tried to frantically score some last-minute pollen before the bloom called “Last call!” and closed up shop for the day. I was just amazed at how the bees just wallowed around in there, gettin’ some.

UPDATE (8:10 a.m.): Well, after dozens of minutes and thousands of braincells wasted trying to get the @#$%&&*!@ YouScrude embed link to go from FAIL to function, there’s a still from the clip above and you can take your pick from  the YouTube link and  the Quicktime vidlink.

PS. You might recall this timelapse I compiled of one of the flower’s last year sloooowly opening across an evening.

I was thinking of starting an email campaign to implore the LA Times to make The Envelope a weekly (or at least a regular monthly) PRINT section, as it brilliantly covers Los Angeles’ main industry — film and television production. (Any takers with an itchy forward finger?)

It was included in today’s print edition as it’s Emmy season (read, “mucho network ads”) and I devoured it in its entirety this morning, which strikes even me as odd because the only programming I watch is Mad Men, Project Runway and a slew of political and public affairs shows.

So where else but on Countdown with Keith Olbermann would I have caught Paris Hilton’s hilarious response ad to the McCain campaign’s absurd, ham fisted attempt to denigrate Obama by linking her to Barack in “celebrity” stature?

I don’t know much about Hilton beyond the fact that a lot of teenage girls and, sadly, a sizable contingent of my gay brothers hang on the WeHo denizen’s every mono-syllabic utterance and crotch flashing. Is there more worth knowing? I thought not, but her ad, wherein she also declared her candidacy for, like, the presidency of the United States made me reconsider.

If you’re a layman law dweeb and patriot like myself AND you’re outraged by the US government’s shameful acts of torturing prisoners at Guantanamo, trumped up charges against said prisoners and the devious propaganda that was generated to sway public opinion in defiance of facts, then you should catch channel LA 36’s broadcast of LA Public Library’s Aloud Lecture Series interview with Steven T. Wax, a public defender who took on legally representing two men that he believed were being framed by the US government.

It is an infuriating episode in one of this country’s most shameful eras, i.e. the last 7 years. The interview centers around his new book, Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror and the stories he told from the book read like a script for a Hollywood movie about government corruption at the highest levels. (Hint, hint to studio book optioners.)

Meet Pete Handelman.  Actor, comedian, sports blogger and video blogger.  He loves LA.   He is here by choice and not leaving anytime soon.  A New Yorker by birth he has been here since the early 70’s except for a 6 year sting in Boston.  The latter has given him a perverse adoration of the Celtics that I’ll explain a bit later.

For more of his videos and stuff with a short interview you have to make the jump. (more…)

Wherein the Laker’s Kobe Bryant tries to jump over a pool full of snakes to make a dunk.

Apparently a clip from “Jackass.” (via Uberazzi]

The heat in LA can sometimes cause people to behave strangely. Take this video post we made for example!

Drugs off batman

Pickles “}

Hello friends! In a previous post, we broke the news that Pixar is re-making the 1986 screwball, robo-comedy hit, Short Circuit.

Not only are they making a movie about Johnny 5 in the future, called Wall-E, the wizards at Pixar have a taken a cue from Short Circuit 2 and are actually producing little Johnny 5s to explore the Los Angeles sidewalks!

Click the picture for the video, courtesy of io9.com!

We here at the Mark and Steve Foundation applaud Pixar’s efforts to stay so true to the franchise while totally reinventing it for the next generation!