methodwriter85

So, on Throwback Thursdays, people can post things that are throwbacks to earlier eras. Here's my Throwback Selection....a look at the Jersey Shore, Circa 1994: [media] [media] If I remember correctly, the Shore was a much sketchier place back then. And yeah, these people are sketchy as hell. LOL. It's just funny to watch this and remember that back in the early/mid-90's, clothing like this seemed normal and much more sensible than the crazy clothes of the 1980's. Also, my 12 and 13-year old sisters spent the summer of 1995 at the Jersey Shore, around Point Pleasant/Belmar/Seaside Heights, with just an old family friend as supervision, and I really wonder what they got into. LOL.

Well, the idea seems to be removing the concrete on the bottom, and then replacing the concrete bank with terraced steps, so that it'll keep its flood control ability but look more attractive and let wildlife grow there again:

LOL. It's all about perspective. I grew up in Suburban Delaware, so I like greenery. We only really have pockets of greenery around here- it's all mainly about the cookie-cutter housing and retail developments here. Anyway, to change it up... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6CaKX9O8kY I really wish I could've been around to see the Sherman Oaks Galleria in its Hey Day and original form...it was probably the ultimate hang-out space for the 80's mallrat. Fast Times At Ridgemont High made it look so damn cool. I was also obsessed with Valley Girl...I mean, the movie wasn't actually FILMED at the Galleria, but it did take place there. Outdoor malls are fine, but I miss the old-school, 1980's indoor malls full of neon colors. Though it does look like they did a good job of updating it. Although you apparently have to pay for parking. Paying for parking at a mall doesn't compute with me. I thought the whole point of a mall was that you ddn't have to pay for parking. LOL.

Hey though Blue...check out this Friends of the Los Angeles River Promo: I mean, doesn't this make you feel warm and fuzzy inside? It really is strange to me how ambivalent this makes me feel. I think 20-year old Jeremy would have jumped up and on this "Revive the River!" deal, but 28-year old me...half really thinks it's an awesome idea, the other half thinks it's going to be a boondoggle and disaster for the city of Los Angeles. Here's a mini, 12-minute doc on Los Angeles River kayakers: Do you kayak, Blue? That does kind of look fun. It seems like the ability to kayak was the reason why L.A. River was declared a navigable waterway.

I'm just saying that St. Louis has stopped bleeding population- they've settled in at the 300k mark after decades of massive population losses. Very true about the Pittsburgh skyline, Mark...it really is magic at night: I think the varied topography of Pittsburgh really adds to the magic of their skyline.

Chapter 18 -When Brad goes to New York City to get Robbie's rings and finally, deep-down accepts that Robbie is really and truly gone. "Gymnopedie No. 1" by Erik Satie

60's/70's public buildings. Ugh. I hate that cement brutalist style so much. I'm glad that shit is often getting torn down. St. Louis seems to have stabilized itself...not quite as well as Pittsburgh has, but they seem to have stopped the bleeding out. I think Pittsburgh has the win for the better skyline if we're going to do a "Battle of the Rustbelt Cities With Populations Currently in the 300k Range", though:

It really is a conversation that people of Los Angeles need to have. There is a dedicated movement going on, and there is significant investment going on, with a lot more likely to follow, even if neither the 453 million or 1 billion plan don't go through. This could either turn into a major turning point for the city into a more "Green" city, or it could become a major boondoogle with consequences that will be felt for decades.

Their album Disintergration turned 25 today. To celebrate, I'm going to make a playlist of my favorite tunes by them. The Cure Playlist 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Pictures of You

Disintegration by The Cure turned 25 today, so I'm posting this:

Alright, so the first trailer has garnered 16.7 million views, and the EXTENDED trailer came out: Seriously, Ansel Elgort is perfect. He conveys lanky-teenaged hood, pretentious teenage ticks, and a sweet face that makes you just want to reach over and mess up his hair. Augustus's monologues could have been torture to listen to for someone with the wrong kind of voice. If this hits as big as people are saying, Ansel will definitely become a star. I LOVE that they kept in the "take pot" line. They're predicting the movie is going to make 120 million. I'm not sure I buy that, but there IS a feel in the air about this book and the excitement the trailer has engendered. Check out the Entertainment Weekly Cover: It's our Hazel and Gus. They look so fantastic together! I can't wait for June 6th!

I'll start. Theo Jamaes, the ill-fated Turkish diplomat on Downton Abbey and now Tobias Four in Divergent. GAWD, the things I wanna do to him. What about you guys? Edited to add: Please keep the pictures PG-13. Thanks.

I'm not sure who Cameron Monaghan from Shameless would play, but considering Mark's fetish for cute redheads (the one he shares with Adam Phillips) as well as slightly nerdish twinks, I figure he'd like the guy. LOL. That guy LUCKED out on puberty. He was not cute as a little kid. He's one of those lucky guys who are growing into their looks. I bet he'll probably be a total heartbreaker by age 25. (Speaking of...seriously, I could not get over how damn good Shaun White looked at the Olympics. It's amazing how much of a difference a couple of years of aging and a haircut does.)

Maybe I had Wade mixed up with Will, then. Will seems more like that. He's not in any way a slacker, but he doesn't seem all that achievement oriented- more about striving to find a balance in his life between obligations and play. He's got an A-average, but he doesn't seem like he's in National Honor Society or anything like that, which you know for damn sure Wade was probably not only in National Honor Society, but president at his school. I can't see Will as a future workaholic the way Brad is. Wade as an openly gay politician would probably be okay in California or Massachusetts, but sure as hell not Virginia. LOL. He could probably also try Oregon. That seems like kind of a wacky state. Edited to add: Okay, so it is possible in Virginia. Adam Ebbin was elected as Virginia's first openly gay senator in 2011. I checked because I knew that Mark would give me shit for making a statement and not having the goods to back it up.

What do you find appalling? Interesting, Mark. It's always interesting to see how geography affects the kind of natural disasters people have to deal with. We have flooding here in the mid-Atlantic, but because the ground is set to be able to absorb the water, it's usually not that disastrous...our real killer is dealing with Nor-Easters and Hurricanes in this part of the country. When Hurricane Sandy happened, Delaware breathed a sign of relief, but we also know that the Big One is probably coming for us someday. The Ash Wednesday Storm of '62 luckily happened when the Delaware Shore was relatively undeveloped, but it's massively developed now, and the damage will be massive if anything like that happens again.

I can't see Wade actually becoming a politician. I can see him being a consultant or lobbyist, but not an actual politician. If he were that interested in a political career, he probably would have just gone to Georgetown University Law, and he would have a bought a house in Arlington, V.A. to start establishing himself as a devoted Virginian resident. At the very least, he would've worked as a page by this point, and we've never got any indication that he has. Wade very much strikes me as the kind of guy who wants to go home at 5 p.m. to play with his kids on their yard and attend his kid's lacrosse games (It's the East Coast rich kid sport), which is something he didn't get as a kid which is why I can see him wanting that for his own. You can't do that as high-powered politician.

I thought you hated driving, though? I figured you'd be all for bike lanes and the like. Well, Blue, the Piggyback Yard Plan isn't really a go/reality the way the Glendale Riverwalk is, so I'd chill for now, but the "Restore the L.A. River!" moment seem to have had some pretty solid accomplishments so far: - Getting the L.A. River declared a "traditionally navigable river" -Opening up sections of the L.A. River for summer kayaking year-round (It started out as a pilot program but now it's here to say) -Building Riverfront Parks/Riverwalks -Getting bike lanes put in There's already some pretty significant investment being put into the River, like the 10-million dollar Water Wheel, which was just approved. It's both an art thing as well as an irrigation project to water the L.A. State Historic Park. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. I don't think Alternative 20 will happen, but even the cheaper plan, Alternative 13, is still pretty costly. And if there's one thing California seems prime at, it's grass-roots lobbying. Right. Imagine what it'll be like if the Friends of the L.A. River manage to open up the entire span to the public, which is what they want to do. For me, on one hand, the 6-year old in me who loved watching Captain Planet loves the idea of Los Angeles turning their concrete river into something more natural. However, the other part of me thinks that the lobbyists for this have WAAAAYYYYY too many expectations for something that's essentially a desert wash, and for the kind of investment they want to do to be worth it, they'd need to drain out another river in order to have the water needed. And seriously, Los Angeles gets beautiful weather, an ocean, mountains, and beautiful hills. Why are people aiming to try and turn it into a "great river city"? (Answer: Property Values! Cynical, but yeah.) I think the whole thing kind plays into the vibe I'm getting from reading about Los Angeles. It feels like they've got a "shift" going on- from being the proud anti-city (as Private Tim put it) and biggest example of suburban sprawl, to trying to build more of a dense skyscraper feel and getting more people to live in their downtown, and I guess this plays into this. The affluent 20/30-somethings they want to attract to Los Angeles want attractive recreational activities to go along with their hip lofts, and the lack of downtown public recreation space is a negative.

See, I kind of hope that DOESN'T happen, because when it's 2028 in our World and 2016 in CAP world, we need to have teenaged legacy characters that aren't related to each other. LOL. It's why I'm hoping that Cody eventually decides to raise Maddy, because damn it, I want the Riley/Maddy 2014 ship to sail and them thinking of each other as siblings would derail that. LOL. She also had sex with Darius. By the way, Mark FINALLY signed off on a Mary Ellen: Margot Robbie from the Wolf of Wall Street.The scene where she cockteases Leo was funny as hell. (I would link to it, but it's VERY Not Safe for Work.) She took what could have been a really thankless role and made her into a little scene stealer. I girl-crushed on her quite a bit after watching the movie.

A college acquaintance of mine posted this photo of St. Louis from the Gateway Arch and it made me think of you, Mark. Just think, this was the view that Tony and Will saw on the trip. LOL.

Well, this seems to be a general outline of what they're trying to do: 1. Create soft-bottom riverbeds and replacing the concrete bank with terraced vegetation where possible, thus allowing for the re-establishment of the riparian habitat, adding wetlands and improving water quality. This will also become a draw for kayakers.The blueprint for this seems to be Glendale Narrows, which did not have a concrete bottom and was able to stay more natural. 2. Open up access, build riverfront parks and then connect them with greenways (hiking paths, bike paths, etc) along the River, thus establishing the River as a recreational draw. Glendale has already created a Riverfront Walk. Special projects: 3. LA River-Arroyo Seco Confluence- This proposal calls for widening the river, improving foot and bike paths, re-vegetating river edges with bio-swales, and encouraging redevelopment of surrounding neighborhoods. (However, this is a proposal that was done by a college student, though it seems like this is an area that the revitalization plans have a focus on.) 4. Chinatown Cornfields Area- This proposal plans to add to the Los Angeles State Historic Park.The 660-acre Cornfields-Arroyo Seco Specific Plan calls for river greenway area and nature preserve on an artificial island, parking reform, and dozens of miles of bikeways, amid transit-oriented high density residential and commercial development. Unfortunately, land assemblage and real estate realities keep this project in the “maybe” category. Another proposal is for a 60-foot water wheel, called “La Noria,” set to move 28 million gallons of water that would actually help irrigate the state park. (The Water Wheel seems like it's already in progress.) 5. Piggyback Yard- In a plan put forth by FoLAR, the Piggyback Yard Plan intends to create a thriving transit-oriented business district and 130-acre public park just with connectivity to downtown, Union Station, Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights. The site at present is a 125 acre intermodal rail facility where containers are humped between flat cars and 18 wheelers. The plan calls for reshaping the river channel, creating a soft bottom, slowing down its flow to allow vegetation to grow within its banks and filtering water, forming a thriving ecosystem. So on and so forth. Here's the article that I took this from. The Army Corps of Engineers have backed a 453-million plan for restoration that focuses on the 11-mile span of the Los Angeles River beside Griffith Park to Downtown, while the advocates are pushing for a Billion dollar plan, called Alternative 20 which includes the Piggyback Yard Plan. The 453 million plan calls for: -- restorating the channel along much (but not all) of the 11-mile length of river -- widening an 80-foot stretch along Taylor Yard terracing the banks and adding "vegetated with overhanging vines and implanted vegetation," plus "significant" restoration of the freshwater marsh there -- restoring of the historic wash at Piggyback Yard (but not a full redevelopment of the site) -- increasing the amount of restored habitat by 104 percent -- restoring connection to the Arroyo Seco watershed by "softening of the bed and banks with development of a riparian corridor in the tributary confluence and for one half mile upstream" -- adding four miles of trails, a pedestrian tunnel at Taylor Yard, three bridges, two parking lots, three bathrooms, and 19 trail access points. Advocates are saying that this doesn't do enough to add access to the River, which is why they're pushing for Alternative 20, the billion dollar plan. That one is expected to restore 719 acres instead of the 500-something acres that the 453 million plan does. I mean, people from this city really should learn more about this no matter what side you're on, because this is a massive project that will unfold over several decades if it goes through, either in the less expensive form, or the billion form. This has the potential to turn into the Los Angeles version of the Big Dig. In any event...if you got a bike, Blue, it seems like you'll probably be able to bike along the River since it seems like the bare minimum of what they want to do is create a bikeway spanning the entire River. THAT actually seems like a pretty do-able idea. Can't you picture yourself at 40, Blue, biking along the Los Angeles River and stopping off at the latest cafe to open up for a quick breakfast before going to work?

Private Tim's an attorney. You almost have to have a way with words, in any event. It gives them plausible deniability, though. In any event, if Troy Aikman can go this long despite the VERY long-standing reports about his sexuality, I bet Zach can do it, too. Although it might go all the way up to him having a beard marriage with some lesbian athlete that needs a cover as well. LOL. This, of course, will lead to the obligatory CAP "gay men have sex with a lesbian to produce a kid" scene when Mark decides it's time for Will to have an heir. I'm calling it- Alisdair becomes Will's beard boyfriend circa 2005. I can totally see the guy being willing to do it, and then Will falling in love with him in the process. Or maybe not Alisdair...but still, it'd be so romantic comedy if Will actually falls in love with whoever he has posing as his boyfriend. But like, with a modern-day twist to it.

True, but they're lovely to walk along to and listen to the sound of the water.

Yeah, I'm not against efforts to clean up the river, but I also feel like perhaps there's just a bit too much "pie in the sky" stuff going on. The kind of river you'd get back doesn't really justify trying to spend a billion dollars on it- the 453 million plan sounds fine. You're never going to get something like the Delaware River in Philly or The Hudson in New York City, where the river is a year-round place for recreation and living.

So have any of you guys heard about the whole "Restore The L.A. River" movement? Do you guys think it will happen, or no? The ideas seems to range from just simply removing concrete in some areas to allow wildlife in parts of it, to trying to turn the L.A. River into Los Angeles's version of Central Park. I learned about L.A.'s channeled river via a special about Los Angeles on E! circa 1997 and thought it was kind of cool that instead of having a real river like East coast cities like New York and Philly do, they have a man-made concrete one. The way it was used in 1997's Volcano was pretty awesome. And of course, the . Here's an interesting op-ed piece about it: Angelenos' vision of their river is created by made-up memory He used the term "misplaced nostalgia", which I think is interesting. I mean, when I've read about Los Angeles history, it seems like they were always about being "new" and "forward". There's some historic stuff there, but for the most part, Los Angeles is a massive collection of suburban neighborhoods that were built in the mid-to-late 20th century, which were made possible by the irrigation projects of the 1930's. I think he's saying that the L.A. River is born out of a desire for the city to have something that can be a collective part of their historic identity, but it's coming out of something that never really existed. I thought this quote was interesting: Quote As a person who grew up in the Delaware River Valley, the rivers and streams are a massive part of our identity and what it means to be from the greater Philadelphia Area. The Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers play such a massive part in what Philadelphia is. Maybe those advocates want something similar for Los Angeles- but it doesn't seem like all that viable of a plan if the bulk of the river is dry for 9 months save for sewage and industrial run-off. Can you really turn it into something like what they have with the San Antonio Riverwalk or Philly's rowing crew scene and what-have-you? I mean, L.A. does get fantastic weather, the mountains, awesome hills, and of course the Pacific Ocean. It's okay that it doesn't have much of a river to speak of. LOL. It would be funny though if the plan goes through, and it completely and totally backfires and causes such wonderful things as the introduction of floodplain insurance rates. (I'm assuming Los Angeles wouldn't have that because the flooding is controlled.) I found a bunch of pre-channel pictures of the Los Angeles River. Yeah, the Hudson it ain't. The city is apparently pushing for a billion dollar "restoration" plan, but I'm not sure it'd be worth it in the end unless they find some way to make it so that there's navigable waterways all year round. To actually bring back the river to its "natural" state would be pretty unsatisfying for river recreation and/or riverfront "district" plans. Why would someone pay a bunch of money to live in a condo on a river that's dry for 9 months of the year, and where the bulk of the water is treated wastewater? Still, I think it's interesting that there's this whole grass-roots movement going on. To the Californians here...do any of you guys have friends who try and advocate for the L.A. River? I have the fun mental image of people trying to kayak on this little bit of water in a big concrete ditch. Is this like an actual "thing" in L.A., or just something for fringe dreamers? I think the whole thing is interesting- there's the side of me that loves seeing Concrete City try and bring back more nature into the parts of it that had been paved over, but another part of me thinks that the plans being bandied about don't really seem to fit what the "river" actually is- a desert wash that floods a couple of days a year but mainly exists as a creek with little water for most of it. I think the effort to restore it might lead to disappointment when it turns out that you can't really hold regatta races in there. It's a great idea but I think the enthusiasts might need to temper expectations a bit.

JJ doesn't drive. He's content to use his driver.