Nails in the Streets and Bike Lanes

Daily nail pickup

Lets start this blog with an explanation. Three maybe four years ago while walking my dog DeDe I noticed several nails in the street.

These nails were at a turn around on Miner Street South of 22nd Street next to the new marina, Cabrillo Way. Miner Street runs north and south while 22nd Street runs West to East.

Flat tire in Marina Parking Lot
Most of the nails I pickup are around that intersection of Miner and 22nd. I may have failed to mention that I live on a sailboat in San Pedro with my two dogs. San Pedro is about as far south you can get in Los Angeles.

Daily nails on top of jar lid

 At first I threw the nails in the trash but I kept finding them in the same spots. With DeDe we would walk to the beach one day and the next toward the Main Channel so our path were in opposite direction every other day.

Street Corner here

After collecting about a thousand nails in a Von's paper bag I took them to the District 15 Supervisor office in San Pedro's old city hall. Two young staff members listed to short story of the nails and then told me unless they could prove intent on the part of the person tossing the nails nothing could be done. I left them with the nails with the feeling that nothing would be done which is now the case.

I have shown the nails to the Los Angeles Fire Department, The LA County Sheriffs, several LA Port Police officers, Harbor Department Security, various Harbor Department employees, several business owners where the nails show up on a regular basis, two local news papers, Channel 5 and then 11 while a reporter was filming after a fire .



In the calendar year 2016 I posted several nail pictures on Instagram then decided to count the number of nails picked up that year, it was just a little over 2,000 nails.After that I stopped counting but didn't stop saving. When my dog got to old for longer walks we stopped. Then one day she stopped completely. So I started running in the mornings and discovered nails around Ports of Call and various other streets like Crescent Street.

Then nails started to appear at our Marina parking entrance which is Watchorn Walk. Usually they appear next to the mail box beside the office building past the Double Tree Inn on Via  Cabrillo  Marina and contine north along the street. The count can be five or six and as high as twenty.

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another sample below of a daily find

For a while this year there was a drought of nails where I would find four or five but recently the tosser changed his pattern from Miner to mostly 22nd Street. There were 52 this morning between the drive way entrance to Cabrillo Way Marina and Miner mostly on the North side of 22nd. That is where the filming production companies park their trucks and crews here. I have spoken to their security, their vans drivers (after I saw one run over several nails) and the LAPD motorcycle officers that moonlight for the studios.

We (my neighbors) have several theories about the nails and recently we have been trying to establish a time frame to see when the nails get tossed. 

My lovely daughter got me a German Shepherd puppy two days before Christmas and the pup was too young to chase nails which gave me a break. Well Happy is just a year old now and we walk between 7 to ten miles each day. Then Happy ate some people food three weeks ago and had to make a midnight visit to the bushes. Happy loves to chase feral cats and in the middle of the street he spotted one but it was not a cat but a scared little pocket dog. Happy followed it to the bushes below the Fort (we are docked east of Ft. MacArthur)

We now have a Yorkshire mix we have named Lucky. With the GSD I was able to pickup nails in the street without many problems but with Baby Dog and two leads and morning traffic you might hear a lot of cussing.

A work in Progress (To be continued)

Free Fall by Robert Crais

I was given this book by a sailing neighbor that enjoys reading LA detective stories. I have been criticized for being to hard on the fact checking and directions given driving around the streets of Los Angeles by noir authors. It seems common in Los Angeles fiction to describe the various routes around Southern California using the various freeway names or numbers. Some locals use the numbers and some use the names and it is hard to keep track of all of them. Elvis Cole uses his watch and often states the exact time he is leaving or arriving. He also given the distance traveled in miles and the scenery along the route and the on and off ramp names. Many authors describe the traffic and all the problems getting around. I was born in Los Angeles and have spent many hours stuck in traffic. Elvis is magical in the fact he never seems to be stuck in traffic and get from one location to another in only minutes.

Page 17, at exactly "six minutes after one" he makes a phone call, put on his Dan Wesson, goes down 4 flights of stairs and eats lunch at the deli. He then drives to Thurman's apartment via Westwood to Northridge, talks to the three women in the front yard, gets the keys and cases the place. When he leaves they ask what took him so long in the apartment if he was only dropping off something. He then drives back south on the 405 takes the Wilshire off ramp and goes west to Santa Monica via Brentwood winding up on San Vicente where he drives two miles to Ocean Ave turns south and goes to Venice and gets to Rusty bar at 26 minutes past two. He does all that in 80 minutes. WOW, pretty cool being to get off the freeway cruise Santa Monica to Venice and do the Valley search too. He mentions the bike riders on San Vicente and the bike path through the park along Ocean all that description is correct.

When Elvis is going through Thurman's apartment he notices his high school football pictures and that he was a "sixty minute" man. California High School football do not play 15 minute quarters they play 12 minute.

Elvis stops to buy bottled water and puts one bottle in his trunk. Elvis drive a Corvette (yellow 66) and trunks were not offered after 1962.

White Jazz in Los Angeles

The White Jazz Copyright is 1992 by James Ellroy and the story starts "L.A. fall 1958" and again we have characters from L.A. Confidential and real life figures inserted within the telling. Mickey Cohen, Johnny Stompanato, Lana Turner, Howard Hughes and the new to the south land Dodgers and of course Chavez Ravine. After having trouble distinguishing characters at the start of previous Ellroy novels I started a list with Dave Klein the first item.

To create a sense of the period popular names, songs and products of 1958 are added to the story. But this relish only works in my opinion if the reader knows something about it. Page 51, "Those haaarbor lights" ---pure schmaltz"....."and did anyone ever tell you you sound like a homo? Like Johnnie Ray out of work?" I remember Johnny Ray songs.

After going to the Santa Monica Pier to do some drop line fishing we would walk around Muscle Beach smelling the fried foods and the sound from the jukeboxes wailing away in the various beer joint along the boardwalk. Someone must have stuck a quarter in the slot (songs were a nickel) and Ray's Cry kept repeating.

On Page 59, I not quite certain about this, "Who's is Elston Majeska?"..."some kind of silent-movie star from Europe" My first thoughts about the name was Modjeska Canyon having lived many years in Orange County, California and Helena Modjeska a famous Polish actress living there long before films.

Page 60 The mention of Scrivner's Drive-In gets Ellroy a three pointer where Mickey finds and discovers Glenda working there.

Art Laboe had an afternoon radio show at the drive-in on KRLA radio. We went there several time to Hollywood to get on his show there. Only once did we ever get on his mike as most of the locals were already there by the time we drove over from SAMOHI. That spot was located at Sunset and Cahuenga. We also drove to the Scrivner's in Inglewood on Manchester there.

 

Page 61, Yiddish words of the day, tsuris and faygeleh from Cohen.

 

And on the bottom of the page DMV records about Glenda. Her wheels are a very cool 56 red/white Corvette and later it has clutch problems so she was not driving a Powerglide. Her plate is CAL." DX 413". This often happened when an author takes the time to add lengthy details to a description then fail with the facts. California started using six places on licenses in 1947.

The 56 Vet had a 265 V8 and a power pack option that added a second 4 barrel carb and a hotter cam but those details are not included in the story.

 

Page 62 another local drive-in "Stan's Drive-In" is mentioned.

Through-out Southern California almost every city had a drive-in some had more than one. Jack's in Santa Monica was the regular hangout with good service a cute car hops. Goody Goodies farther east had male car hops, you figure. Certain nights were cruise nights and we would all hop into someone cars and go cruising. Gas was real cheap by todays standards at around thirty cents a gallon and most hot rods had to use ethyl for the higher octane, add another nickel to the cost.

 

Page 74, "forty-one hot-sheets flops Adams to Florence." The expression "hot sheets" is in reference to a one hour rental motel room used by professionals/street walkers. Last Sunday I got on the 110 at Orange Grove headed south on 1941 designed scary curved freeway towards Chinatown

exiting Hill Street, swung over to Broadway at Ord then drove the length of Broadway to Rosecrans. From what I saw there are not too many hourly motels left. (see I can talk L.A. street noir too)

 

Page 75, "High Yellow" and "colored man" You don't hear that much these days.

 

Page 75,"mousy little white girl ho' roun' here" Using hoe in place of whore doesn't fit in with my memory but I can't be sure if  this is a prochronism.

 

Page 117, "Vampira" gets mentioned as a TV hostess. I was unaware that there was this earlier Vampira and only watched the later host. Here is Marla Nurmi.

 It is nice to learn things.

 

Page 154, "Lester stirred and gargled T-Bird". Not the car but Thunderbird wine. Search Thunderbird on this blog for previous reference.

 

Same page, Glenda Bledsoe is under contract with ,"Variety International Pictures" a clear legal breach of her contract with Hughes Aircraft, Tool Company, Productions et al." Howard Hughes started in the movies business at a young man in his twenties. His father Howard Sr. was a partner in starting the tool company making oil drilling bits. His partner died and he renamed it Hughes Tool. Howard Jr. was born on December 24, 1905 and at the age of eighteen he became heir to the tool company. If you lived in Los Angeles during the forties and fifties there were no shortages of Hughes's urban legends. Howard owned RKO studios between 1948 and 1955 and he did make independent productions but why would Glenda be under contract with the Tool Company or the Aircraft Company? Funny how a little searching in the information age can dig up very interesting facts.  Howard Hughes once lived in Pasadena at the Vista del Arroyo at a bungalows before the hotel was built.

He stay there with his Aunt Annette and actually audited classes at Caltech but never was an enrolled student as he never finished high school in Texas. I can not say that Hughes wasn't a strange fellow but IMO Ellroy really paints him as evil.

 

Page 185, Pacific Bell is mentioned and that is correct.

 

Page 288, Hollywood Ranch Market is mentioned. We used to cash out Hughes paychecks when I worked there after work at a 24 Hour Market off Jefferson in Culver City but not sure if it was the same company as Hollywood.

 

Page 313, Yeakel Olds gets a mentioned. It was a dealership in Los Angeles that did a lot of on air ads including television. "Radio hum: Starfire 88's at Yeakel Olds". Again another faux or prochronism. It is what I like to call an "faux auto tech:"

The Starfire model was not available as an 88 only a 98 and it was a couple years later the 88 Starfire actually became available.

 

One of the many bad guys is found at his Airstream in a trailer park where he lives.

I usually thought that the Airstream was a travel trailer and would most likely be used for recreation not as a home but it is possible. Page 314 in the "Monster den:.... Dodger T-shirts"

 

I watched the Dodgers play with the shorted fence before they moved above Chinatown.

And again at the Ravine where they forgot to put in drinking fountains. In 1958 silk screening on cotton t-shirt have not been invented.

Warhol in 1962 started with his Campbell Soup Cans and the dissemination of commercial messages followed and I remember running in a local 10K event and the finishers were all given white t-shirts with the sponsors name on the front and I wore the t-shirt one day to play tennis. Several people asked why I was wearing a shirt with printing on the front. They had never seen anything like that and that was in the early seventies.

 

 

 



 

Non-Fiction in 56

Picked up this title at the Los Angeles Branch library on Gaffey in San Pedro. L.A. '56 A DEVIL IN THE CITY OF ANGELES by JOEL ENGEL. The story is about Detective Danny Galindo one suave Latino in the department. The inside cover mentions Ellroy's L.A. Confidential and Walter Mosely's Easy Rawlings which I hav  recently read. 1956 was the year I got my learners permit and started driving around in my yellow Ford coupe. My 39 didn't have any back seat or opera seats. Ellroy has the LAPD using forty Ford coupes as patrol cars and they  put the passengers in the back seat but that is in another crime noir.

At page 37 Hunter Hancock arrives via the radio station KPOP. That radio station is no longer on the air. Not quite certain how old the author Engel is and I can't find his year of birth using Google so I am not sure if he was around when Hunter was on the radio. "We're gonna be goin' strong till two o'clock this morning." I started listening to"Hunting with Hunter" when I was in junior high in Santa Monica at John Adams. Hunter was on the air in the afternoon and on Sundays he would play his top ten list. In 1954 Sh-Boom by the Chords was on the list for a long time as number one. The Chords were Negroes or colored then not black and the music was Rhythm and Blues (Race Music) not Rock and Roll. Seeing the mention of Hunter in the book activated unused neurons in me poor brain.

KPOP was in the middle of the AM dial and couldn't be on the air late at night or after sunset for that matter. AM radio signals start to skip and travel greater distances at night so many small local station were required to stop transmitting when the sun went down.

On Page 38 Hunter reads off a list of sponsors and Dolphin's of Hollywood. Then Willie Fields who is in Hollywood heads over there. "He heads south on Highland....east on Wilshire to Crenshaw, south to Olympic,  and east again the five mile or so to Central." Legendary Los Angeles R&B producer John Dolphin was one of the first and most well respected and successful black businessman and independent record label owner. His contributions to the formative years of rock & roll are often overlooked. A mini-mogul who had nearly every facet of the record business covered. A former car salesman, Dolphin first entered the music business as a retailer — sometime during the Korean War. In 1948 he opened Dolphin’s on Hollywood, a record store on Vernon Avenue that remained open 24 hours a day to cater to the late-shift workforces necessitated by the conflict overseas. Dolphin’s of Hollywood record store even featured a DJ broadcasting over local station KRKD from inside the store’s walls, beginning with Ray Robinson and most famously including Hunter Hancock and Dick “Huggy Boy” Hugg. His marketing genius would serve Dolphin well in the years to follow, through his radio show he could instruct the DJs to play the records his labels produced. (His motto: “We’ll record you today and have you a hit tonight.”)

In Santa Monica I lived at 988 Olympic Blvd and there wasn't any Santa Monica Freeway then and if I wanted to drive from Hollywood where we did drive to or to Watts where I didn't go often I would not take the crazy route given by the author in this book. Olympic does go to downtown Los Angeles but it stops at San Julian Street then starts again replacing 9th Street as East Olympic Blvd..  Taking Central south will get you to Dolphin but if use Western Ave south to Vernon then east to Central that would be the best way but gas was very cheap then at about 30 cents a gallon.

Page 65, "Fields is sitting alone...scarfing down a combo plate with a cold Colt 45." Colt 45 malt liquor is an iconic beverage. National Brewing Company introduced the drink in 1963 and since the story line in this book takes place in 1956 Fields must have been one hip dude to score this. The popular malt liquor in 1956 was Country Club and the a six pack of the short cans would set you back $1.35.