Don't Text While Driving

This message has sprouted over the last week on our wonderful information displays on the Southern California freeways. If this works as well as the "no holding a cell phone and driving" law, the amount of texting-while-driving should go down 10 or 20%.

Thank God we have a law against texting-while-driving. Now we need a law to ban biting your toenails while you drive, and trimming your eyebrows while you drive, and reading books while you drive (I suspect there's no law against this....) How about taking photos while you drive?

I was a bit concerned about these signs however. Usually at this time of year, they say "Don't Drink and Drive". Just think of all the people who will die because they didn't see a sign that reminded them not to drink and drive. But I guess the texting thing is pretty important.

Memories with no one to remember them

This photograph was taken in 1925 or 1926. The girl on the left is my grandmother, Adeline Hellwig Kreiner.

Adeline died just over a year ago, and as my family was gathered for Christmas we were sorting through a cache of her photos. I thought I'd seen them all before, but this one, which initially was in the pile "nobody we know", jumped out at me. When I suggested the girl was Adeline, everyone agreed right away. That flirty, mischievous smile stayed with her to the end.

We threw out a big stack of old photos - friends of my grandmother, proud school photos of children and grandchildren of her friends... photos that might be memories for someone but not for us. My son A. did grab a selection of photos that he liked.

I wonder about that day on the beach. I imagine it was summer in Cleveland, Ohio or at least somewhere along Lake Erie because I don't think my Grandmother went anywhere further than a trolley ride from her home when she was growing up. It looks like a fun, happy moment - but there's no way to know, because there's no one to ask. It's a memory that is now gone.

We Used to Send Out Christmas Cards

A song, written and recorded on Christmas Day 2008. Thank you to all my many wonderful friends. I don't think I could have made it through this year without you. I hope you find joy in this season.

Browsing for Records With my Son

I spent many many hours in my youth browsing through record stores. Big stores like Tower in Hollywood, small ones like Field of Zaad in Venice, looking for new records, imports, cut-outs, boot-legs. The rhythm of flipping through the records, pulling one out, showing it to your buddy, shoving it back in... out of one store, on the road to another... the enjoyable or awful music blaring over the store P.A.... friendly and helpful or snotty and obnoxious clerks in the stores... it's a memory of a time that has certainly passed. Tower is gone, Rhino Records is gone, nearly every decent "record store" is gone.

Fortunately there are a couple of decent ones left in LA, and oddly enough my 17-year-old son A. actually likes to spend time in them. We started out this afternoon at Rockaway Records in Silver Lake, where he picked up an Electric Light Orchestra album and one by XTC. "If I'm going to get music, I'm either going to buy it on vinyl or pirate it," says A.

Later we ended up at Amoeba Records in Hollywood where he picked up another ELO album. He'll add it to his small album collection that includes a couple of Zappa albums. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the Voxtrot EP he wanted. As we were digging through the records, he commented that "if it wasn't for the Internet, this would be REALLY fun..." We managed to have a good time anyway.

A. was never really that interested in baseball, or hiking, or many of the other things I did with my Dad and I had imagined sharing with him. I certainly never imagined watching my son buy an ELO EP. You don't know where the connection is going to come, you just have to be ready to let it happen when it does.

When I was a boy in Mar Vista, my parents used to take my sister and me out one evening in December to see Christmas lights. We used to go up to Grand View Blvd, which at the time had a line of houses with impressive displays.

"We ought to go where the rich people live," I remember suggesting to my Dad. "They would have the best lights."

"Naw," he replied. "They didn't get rich by wasting their money of Christmas lights."

Generally he's right, but the Balian Mansion in Altadena is an exception. The Balian family made their money selling little cups of ice cream to LA City Schools. I think they were a nickel, and came with a wooden spoon.

I don't know how the neighbors can stand it. I wonder if the real estate agents have to disclose this when someone buys a house on the same block. And I don't know what the appeal is - but I enjoyed taking my daughter there nonetheless.

Riders on the Storm

A long slow slog through Monday traffic in rainy L.A., and then just as I was getting to my destination, the crash of distant thunder and the sound of rain drops coming from the radio, then Ray Manzarek's haunting piano line, and Jim Morrison singing "Riders on the Storm"... a perfect morning.

(photo by Lee Kelso, some rights reserved)

Welcome to the Hotel California (not)

For the past few weeks I've had the pleasure of spending a couple of days a week at California State University, Channel Islands. Despite the name, the campus is not on an island - it's in Camarillo. The campus is nestled against the hills at the western end of the Santa Monica Mountains, surrounded by an alluvial plane that stretches to the ocean just a few miles away.

The campus opened about 10 years ago on the site of what was the Camarillo State Hospital, the main hospital for the mentally ill in Southern California. Before I visited the campus the first time, I had imagined a cold, industrial, prison-like setting, but instead it's a beautiful example of California Mission Architecture. Given our embarrassing history of mistreating the mentally ill, I'm sure it wasn't such a great place in its heyday, but it feels like a peaceful resort, a place to get well.


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The history of Camarillo State Hospital is rich - many of the people on campus and in the community have friends and relatives who worked there in its previous incarnation, and there are many stories about the early days of the campus when it was common to find former residents who had returned looking for sanctuary. Of course, there are lots of ghost stories. I'm only there during the day but people get spooked at night.

The most persistent rumor is that the hospital was the original "Hotel California", the place where "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave". This has been denied many times by members of the Eagles, but the myth persists, and people say they know someone who knows someone who's seen the secret register of celebrity patients, and they are certain Don Henley stayed there despite any evidence to the contrary. (But jazzman Charlie Parker did spend time there, and wrote a piece "Relaxin' in Camarillo".)

Whatever the history, it's a beautiful campus, and the people I meet there mostly seem happy to be there. It's a nice place to spend some time, and a wonderful place for a student who wants a somewhat bucolic campus to think and learn and grow.

Why is it called CSU Channel Islands if it's not on an island? That's a story for another time.