I often write about my hometown, Chicago, being the most beautiful city in America. Over the years, I’ve lived in or spent a great deal of time in New York City, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Washington D.C., but I’ve always considered Chicago home. When I moved to Los Angeles 9 years ago, I never expected to like it as much as I do. L.A. isn’t exactly known for its beauty. It is urban sprawl defined and I could never live here if I had to drive every day. But if you take the time to explore, there’s a lot of hidden beauty in the City of Angels. With sweeping mountain vistas and lush beaches, it’s hard to compete with such natural beauty. Couple that with world class cultural venues and the glamor of Tinseltown; and Southern California really shines. I might even say it has become “homey”. Here’s some recent proof. All photos by me, for use under a Creative Commons license:

To explain how the week ended with me in the back of a police car, we have to back up to the beginning.  It was another busy week at The Hotel Careyfornia.  Mike was in town on yet another stop on his trip around the world.  Darlene came home from her summer in Michigan with fresh pasties.  I took Arielle to the pumpkin patch, which has become somewhat of a tradition.  The night before Halloween was spent at Griffith Park Observatory with Sam & Charlotte.  It was an unusually clear day in Los Angeles and as the sun set into the Pacific, Halloween was upon us.  As I wondered  how I could top my outfit 2 years ago, when Sarah Palin was running for vice president and I was a moose in a bulletproof vest; and last year, when I was Balloon Boy’s dad, taking pictures with all the cute Balloon Boys; it struck me.  This year I would take the conservative route, and dress as a nice, Midwestern, pedophile priest!  It was a lot of fun.  Surprisingly, no one was offended by my costume.  Even the (real) cops asked to take my picture.  The best costume of the night for me was the BP Oil Spill.  There were lots of Chilean miners and Snookies and of course standard Lady GaGa fare.  Let the fun begin:

I’m out of town on a business trip until March 2nd, but before I left this morning, my new camera was delivered!  My old Canon SD850 has been very very good to me.  It’s been through a lot and still takes great pics (as you can see below) but you may have noticed the big scratch on the lens these past few weeks.  I’ve tried to crop it out of most of the photos, but the camera was on its last leg.  This is my new camera:

Because of the sheer amount of photos I take, (I took over 450,000 with my SD850), I needed a lightweight, powerful pocket camera with a big screen and Canon’s vivid colors.  I chose the brand new Canon PowerShot SD3500 IS.  It’s got a touch screen for all of the controls and some neat features like a fisheye lens setting and a “wink or smile controlled” self timer.  I toll this photo by winking:

What follows, are two completely unrelated stories that are ultimately about hope and inspiration:

I would like everyone to grab a box of tissues and read this story.  I want you to think about it the next time you get angry while driving.  I know I will.  I’m an admittedly terrible driver, and have been guilty of road rage many times.  I’ve been working on driving more calmly for several years, but living in Los Angeles, relapses are easy.  I hope that the memory of what happened to this family and their little boy will forever stay with me when I’m behind the wheel. Life is indeed too short.

When a porn star and a college student driving through the San Fernando Valley fell into conflict, a Bangladeshi American family suffered the consequences

Los Angeles magazine, February 2010

On the Internet you can watch a four-minute video clip of Ayman Arif dancing. The venue is a bedroom in his Northridge home; his stage, a comforter patterned with sunflowers. Taking his cues from a Bollywood spectacular playing on the television, the four-year-old Bangladeshi American boy wriggles, twirls, and bounds. On his bare chest he wears the pink string sash of the Brahman jester he is pretending to be. His mop of brown hair gives way to a wide forehead, and his dark brown eyes are bright with fire as he sings along to the Bengali-language soundtrack. One moment he’s wagging a stern finger, the next he’s clasping his hands to his heart or pumping an outstretched palm toward the heavens.  

On Tuesday, October 9, 2007, some ten months after her son’s impromptu performance made it onto YouTube, Syeda Arif was readying her family for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr—three days of gift giving, party hopping,overeating, and prayer to conclude the fast of Ramadan. At 30, Syeda was petite, with almond-shaped eyes and a husky laugh. She and her husband, Amir, lived in a Bangladeshi enclave in the northwest San Fernando Valley. Her father had been twice nominated to the Bangladeshi parliament, and Amir liked to say that she made friends with the ease of a born politician.

Around noon in the gathering heat of the day, Syeda buckled her two-month-old daughter, Ikra, into the car seat in her Honda Civic and drove to the home of Romey Islam, one of her best friends. The Islams lived in a modest gray ranch house on Sherman Way near Van Nuys Airport. Its soundproof front windows looked out onto a six-lane river of crosstown traffic that, like the row of palm trees lining the sidewalk, continued as far as the eye could follow. Read more…

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And keeping in the vain of “life’s too short”, here’s another article I highly recommend taking the time to read.  It’s an inspiring look at Roger Ebert, perhaps the best known film critic in America.  Those of you in other countries have probably never heard of him, but I’ve always had a special affinity for Mr. Ebert.  He was a fixture in Chicago where I grew up, and his movie reviews with Gene Siskel and patented “thumbs up or down” are legendary.  Five years ago, when the movie “Rent” came out, I was very excited.  Any regular reader of this space knows that seeing the musical “Rent” in 1996 was a seminal event in my life.  I went on to see the show 15 times in 15 different countries!  While I was a bit underwhelmed by the transition from stage to screen; subsequent viewings of the movie made me appreciate it more.  Upon realizing this, I wrote to Mr. Ebert to take issue with a few of the comments he made in his review of the film.  Imagine my surprise the next day, when I got a personal response from Roger Ebert from his personal email address; and he actually agreed with me!  I thought that was a very classy thing for him to do.  At the time, I had no idea of the huge medical ordeals he was facing.  I read this article last night and it brought tears to my eyes. Roger Ebert is a class act. This is the story of a life well lived and it’s worth your time. 

February 16, 2010, 7:01 AM

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man

It has been nearly four years since Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw and his ability to speak. Now television’s most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, but his words have never stopped.  Read more…

PLUS: Have You Seen All of the Essential Movies?

By Chris Jones

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It was a very busy weekend at The Hotel Careyfornia, filled with many of my blog’s namesakes, primarily dogs (4), kids (3), and sunsets (2).  Thankfully, there was little mention of Sarah Palin and her redneck teleprompter!  Friday, Seth and Hannah came by with Garbo & Ruby.  On Saturday, David & Rebecca came with the two girls and Chanel the dog (just like last Valentine’s Day, when I went to Gay Traffic School!).  Despite snow in 49 of the 50 United States, it was 75° (24° C) in L.A. and we hiked up to the “new” Hollywood sign.  It’s been covered by conservationists temporarily to prevent land development at one of the last untouched parts of Los Angeles. After a quick trip to Millions of Milkshakes, we headed to The Getty Center for sunset (it’s free after 5:00 on Saturdays!).   We capped the night off celebrating the Lunar New Year with delicious Thai food.  Sunday, Claudio, Ryan, Omar & Chazz came to dance the Valentine’s night away at Avalon.  Tonight, Tyson (who took time out of his busy TV appearance schedule), met me and Chazz for dinner at Hollywood & Highland.  I’m exhausted.  Is it the weekend yet??

  
A week of rare stormy weather was capped off by a beautiful sunny weekend full of friends, flowers and food (porn).  Picasa tells me I took 224 photos this week.  Here are a few of them:

The recent revelations about Sarah Palin in the book “Game Change” have left me giddy and completely unbothered by her recent appointment as Fox News’ newest pinhead.  Let’s face it, even McCain’s own campaign had doubts that someone as vapid and crazy (“It was God’s plan…“) as Caribou Barbie should ever hold the highest office in the land and even hatched a plan to give her a mostly ceremonial role should they win.  So keep prattling on Sarah…and show us all how dangerous, delusional and doltish you really are!  To wit:

“In the days leading up to an interview with ABC News’ Charlie Gibson, aides were worried with Ms. Palin’s grasp of facts. She couldn’t explain why North and South Korea were separate nations and she did not know what the Federal Reserve did. She also said she believed Saddam Hussein attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.”

Where’d they find her? Well, on the Internet, as it happens. “McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, spotted Sarah Palin while searching the Internet for possible female vice presidential candidates.” More from CBS News:

“Her foreign policy tutors are literally taking her through, ‘This is World War I, this is World War II, this is the Korean War. This is the how the Cold War worked.’ Steve Schmidt had gone to them and said, ‘She knows nothing,’” Heilemann told Cooper. “A week later, after the convention was over, she still didn’t really understand why there was a North Korea and a South Korea. She was still regularly saying that Saddam Hussein had been behind 9/11. And, literally, the next day her son was about to ship off to Iraq. And when they asked her who her son was going to fight, she couldn’t explain that.”"

Finally, a week of spectacular weather and sunsets, was capped off at the Getty Museum over the weekend, where Ryan, Lorenzo, Adam and I enjoyed a sunset for the ages after coming out of the Rembrandt exhibit.  Take a look at the photos and video:

Sabine (a founding member of the GLY Gang), left for Germany today by way of Boston (to visit Youenn).  It  was so nice having her here these last two weeks.  I miss her already.  (She just called to tell me that she saw Lauren Bacall in the airport after I dropped her off; who was in LA over the weekend to receive an honorary Oscar.  It was Bine’s first star sighting this trip and a fitting end to two weeks in LaLa Land!)  The past couple of   days have been jam packed with fun.  On Monday, we went to see the movie “Precious“.  Though I thought most of the performances were quite good; the movie left me rather disturbed.  Sadly, I fear that the situations portrayed in the film are not all that uncommon.  It’s worth seeing, but it’s definitely not the feel good movie of the year!  Last night we went to The Jay Leno Show.  Tyra Banks was supposed to be there, but she got stuck in NYC, so Kevin Nealon was the guest.  Bine and I got separated while  being seated, but I managed to smuggle my camera in and take a couple of shots before a mean security guard confiscated it.  He told me I had to delete the pictures, but I had already removed the memory card and discreetly slipped it in my pocket.  I told him the camera was “out of film”.  He pondered that for a minute while looking at the camera and realized I was fucking with him.  LOL.  Then I told him I was just using the camera for the telephoto lens!  I’m sure he didn’t buy that story, but there was no way I was giving him my memory card!  He finally got tired of arguing with me and walked away defeated.  During the commercial break, Sabine got to sing with Jay’s band.  The problem was, she didn’t know the words to Stevie Wonder’s, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered“!  After the show, we headed to the Los Angeles Film School for a special free screening of the movie “In The Loop“.  It was fantastic!!  The best way to describe it would be “as if Jane Austen and Monty Python collaborated on an episode of “The West Wing”.  It’s probably the funniest movie I saw all year.  Afterward, we sat in on a panel with the director and some of the cast.  What a great night! 

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The weather finally broke today.  It was a little cooler with a touch of humidity in the air.  We needed a break!  Saturday it was 105° F (41° C) when Lisa & the kids and I took Aunty Lulu & Uncle George out for ice cream:

The fires did make for amazing sunsets all last week:

On the way home last night this is what I saw from the car.  I’m surprised there weren’t more accidents on the freeway from people looking.  It was an amazing sight to see:

Here’s a good time lapse video of the fire.  The smoke clouds are amazing as these LA Times photos show:

Update:  the plumbing is done.  Click here for Hell’s Kitchen.

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I had a bunch of meetings in Orange County this morning, and I was running late.  I didn’t get out of the house until 10 AM, hoping against all odds I could drive 60 miles in 60 minutes (a ridiculous goal in Los Angeles on the best of days).  Sure enough there was a major accident down by Disneyland.  The highway was covered in peaches and grapes.  A produce truck had crashed with a car.  It was a nasty accident, and I was stuck in traffic for an extra hour.