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26
Jul 10

I wasn’t the organizer.

Today’s New York Times ran a good piece on yesterday’s walk memorializing Marc “Doc” Abrams. I was quoted in it, and identified as one of the walk’s organizers. This isn’t the case. I was Doc’s next-door neighbor for several years, and an obsessive SIlverlake walker myself. I’m also an organizer of a public walking event with a pretty big distribution list, and my original thought on hearing of Marc’s passing was to hold a walk, and I announced that the Big Parade group would be doing so. When Verdell, of blogging.la, announced a similar idea, it became clear that she would deliver the event a lot faster, and I sent Big Paraders her way. As I stated in a previous posts, I had some objections with the way it came off, but Verdell deserves full credit for getting hundreds of Angelinos together in under 72 hours for an expression of genuine love and sorrow. That’s worthy of more congratulation than words can express.

links:

NYT story.

Verdell:

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25
Jul 10

In Poor Taste…

Note: Edited to remove hastily foul language that was as disrespectful as what I’m complaining about.

Absolutely no disrespect to the several hundred wonderful people who showed up today to walk and pay tribute to the late Marc “Doc” Abrams, Silverlake’s eccentric, legendary, marathon pedestrian, but who thought a radio station’s massive promo SUV/merch tent with skulls painted on it, semi-mandatory wristbands, and souvenir t-shirts were an OK idea?

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22
Jul 10

Memorial walk for Marc “Doc” Abrams, this Sunday

We’re joining one that’s just been announced. Meet at the Silverlake/Moreno Metro bus stop at the corner of West Silver Lake Drive and Moreno, Sunday, July 25th at 12PM. We’ll be trying to recreate his 15-mile route, but you can go as short or long as you like. Details here.

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22
Jul 10

RIP, Silverlake Walking Man

Dr. Marc Abrams, image: LAist Featured Photos flickr pool

Anyone who has joined one of our Big Parade practice walks in Silverlake – or who has done any walking in LA’s most on-foot friendly neighborhood at all – probably noticed Dr. Marc Abrams, the intent, sinewy, shirtless pedestrian pushing forward on what seemed to be endless loops around the reservoir and Sunset Boulevard, almost always alone, except for the newspapers he carried. Yesterday afternoon, the Los Angeles Fire Department Twitter feed posted an alert that a body was found in a hot tub at Abrams’ address on Moreno Drive. (I recognized the house number because I used to live next door.) This morning, the Los Angeles Times confirmed the news that the 58-year-old “Doc” had died. No cause has been announced.

I didn’t know Doc well, even though I was his neighbor for two years, and that’s part of the quintessence, I suppose: his walking – and life – was solitary, and not really about sharing (though for a while, in the late part of the last decade, I saw him actually running with a beautiful, tall African-American woman. The grimace he usually wore was gone; he was smiling, instead. But then, the girl was no longer there, and he returned to routine.) What Doc did sat somewhere in between the isolation purposely sought by solo wilderness adventurers, and the involuntary – but now organic – isolation of Southern California’s motorized way of life, as we travel, sealed behind windshields, isolated and stretched tight for hours on end, just as the Walking Man moved tautly and continuously, shielded by his Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

The Big Parade is organizing a memorial retracing of Doc’s 15-mile route; we’re setting a tentative date for late August. If you know Marc’s exact route, please let us know. (There were lots of articles written about Marc over the years. Here’s a good one from the LA Weekly, 2009.)

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06
Jul 10

SS United States, world’s fastest ocean liner, saved from scrappers..

On SS United States

When I wrote my original story on the effort to preserve this amazing ship, which took my family across the Atlantic in 1964 – I’m the kid with the glasses in the picture; the other characters are my dad, mom, and brother – Dan McSweeney, executive director of the SS United States Conservancy, described my somewhat negative take as “morose.”

He was right, and I should have had more faith: last week, the group announced – against all odds – that it had raised the money required to buy the ship and save it from the scrapyards.

Here’s the piece I wrote on the news for Popular Mechanics website. The story also contains links to my two earlier articles on the ship – including the morose one..

Congratulations to the conservancy for pulling off what seems very close to a miracle (with tons of hard work, and a lot of finesse, accompanying.)

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03
Jul 10

Watching the Tour de France live with an iPhone app – worth it?

I’m on the road for the first two weeks of this month, and my eternal frustration with July travels is that I don’t get to watch the Tour de France (I co-wrote a book on the world’s greatest sporting event a few years ago.)

The Tour airs on Versus – formerly the Outdoor Life Network – and the folks there have issued an app that promises to show the same live video feed you get at home, sized down for your iPhone. (The feed is followed by a full day of re-airing the event, so you won’t miss anything.) The app is priced at $14.99 for the entire race, which concludes in late July.

Does it work? The answer is yes – if it works. I’ve just watched the Prologue stage on a trip that began on a ferryboat from Long Island to Connecticut, continued on Amtrak to Boston, and is concluding, as I write this, with a bus ride to Concord, New Hampshire – in other words, I’ve gotten to test the app under nearly every possible data scenario.

As I noted, when it’s good, it’s really good. Both wifi and 3G yielded decent (if pixillated – see accompanying screen grabs) video and clear audio. Stutters were minimal.

But when the app is bad, it is really bad. Connections were dropped fairly often, again with multiple network types. I’m guessing about a 30% problem rate – too high, perhaps, for many. For the Prologue, picture cut out just as Armstrong was reaching the finish line (maybe he snuck off for a pint of blood.) Other bummer-tent variations were picture without sound, sound without picture, no picture/no sound, and worst of all, picture with high-pitched screeching.

The best feature of the app is the all-day reruns, which – DVR-like – allow you to scrub forward and back, so you can pick up where you left off, or literally cut to the chase. The app also includes live GPS tracking, commentary, daily summaries, and profiles.

Two major caveats: The app does not stream video – EVER – on the iPad. And if you’ve got one of the new, limited data buckets from ATT, instead of the old unlimited plans, you’ll likely exhaust your allotment by the seventh stage. Buying more data would hike a dedicated Tour watcher’s toll to at least double the price of the app (consider this is preview of how it may be for all those new iPhone 4 users waiting fir the upcoming Netflix and Hulu apps, since ATT no longer sells a non-capped data package, unless you’re grandfathered in.)

Advice? Not a bad buy if you’re a Tour geek and have no other means of access. If you’ve got Versus on your TV, think hard about an app that is more than occasionally unreliable and eats data the way Contador eats hills.

THE SCREEN GRABS: See for yourself; they’re pretty blurry, most of the time, especially around the edges, though the stream does seem to be adaptive, detecting your bandwidth and adjusting accordingly. One problem is that reading the text captions on the image is almost impossible, so you’ll really need to listen to figure out who you’re watching. Static images – like the last one, of stage winner Fabian Cancellara, seem much better.

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01
Jul 10

Landacre Cabin featured in LA Times

One of the best spots the Big Parade visited (Day One) was the cabin once inhabited by Paul Landacre, a mid-20th century printmaker. His image, “Sultry Day,” is of his wife (nude, in repose) and a cat, looking out on a landscape of thistle and oak. You can almost duplicate the view today – though you need to squint to defocus the freeway.

The story featured an image that’s even more appropriate to the Parade. Here’s the image; check the feature – by Hector Tobar – here.

54682706.jpg

(By the way, I believe this might be the stairway – off Cerro Gordo St. – that leads to the equally amazing Fellowship Park passageway, also on the Day One map.)

 

 

 

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24
May 10

Practice walks return, route close to finalized..

Here’s the latest news, as of May 24, 2010:

  • Route is close to finalized. The timetable and maps will be posted on June 7.
  • Help publicize the parade by downloading and distributing our brochure.
  • Camping is still being finalized.

Practice walks:

THURSDAY, MAY 27, 8:15PM: INTRO WALK . Meeting spot: in front of Baller Hardware, 2505 Hyperion Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90027. This walk covers just two miles, but includes 14 stairways. It is a perfect way to get accustomed to stair climbing and figure out how the Parade will feel. First-timers, please come! (Note the new start time!)

SATURDAY, MAY 29, 9AM: PARK CITY: A repeat – with some modifications – of our May 1 walk. Twelve miles, nearly all off-road, in the heart of urban Los Angeles.
Meet: Angel’s Flight Stairway, 341 S. Hill St., downtown Los Angeles, 9AM.

We may add one walk the first weekend in June. After that, the Parade itself on June 12/13.

Please check back 24 hours before all walks to confirm.

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30
Apr 10

Saturday, May 1 – the awesomest practice walk yet…

Tomorrow’s Big Parade practice walk is going to be amazing, I promise – but a few cautions are in order, because there’s a huge human/migrant rights rally downtown…

So…. We still meet at the bottom of the Angel’s Flight Stairway – Hill & 4th – at 9AM. From there, the route has been changed a bit, because of Saturday’s human/migrant rights rally in downtown Los Angeles. If you’re driving, parking could be difficult.

Some suggestions: The walk will end at the Lincoln Heights Metro Gold Line station, north of downtown. Parking around there would be a good idea; you can then take the Gold Line to Union Station. If you’re planning to do that, the route will pass by Union Station – please be in front of the station at 9:15AM at the latest.

Or, take the bus to the start point. The Number 2 and Number 4 buses both run down Sunset Boulevard and stops at Hill St., just in front of Angel’s Flight. You could park somewhere on Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park and bus it. The bus and the train cost $1.25 per entry; everyone should bring quarters since we’re all taking the Gold Line back to Union Station (and then the start point) at the end.

Total mileage: 12
Total awesome: Redonkulously infinite.

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28
Apr 10

New Practice Walks, Move LA summit.

Just revised the Practice Walk schedule. Because I’ll be attending – early – the Move LA summit on Thursday, April 29, and because a lot of people asked, the moonlight walk tonight (Wednesday, April 28) has been shortened to a saner and faster 7 miles. Still a good one, though. Here’s the new schedule, including a just-added series of Northeast L.A. walks led by Bob Inman.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 7:30PM – SHORTENED FULL MOON WALK, 8 MILES, LOS FELIZ THROUGH MT. HOLLYWOOD.  Meet: Red Line, Sunset/Vermont station. REVISED: By overwhelming request and the general laziness of your walk leader, this walk has been shortened quite a bit to allow more people to participate and for an earlier finish (tomorrow, many of us are attending the Move L..A. summit, which starts early.) You’ll still get three great stairways, spectacular views, and – clouds notwithstanding – a healthy dose of serious moonlight. YOU STILL HAVE TO BRING: A working flashlight or headlamp; water; a jacket and hat. Gloves, too, if you get chilly, as temperatures are going to drop into the 50s.

SATURDAY, MAY 1: PARK CITY – a special themed walk: six miles of stairways, and six miles of city park. Meet: Angel’s Flight Stairway, 341 S. Hill St., downtown Los Angeles, 9AM.

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2010, 7:15PM: INTRO WALK .  Meeting spot: in front of Baller Hardware, 2505 Hyperion Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90027.  This walk covers just two miles, but includes 14 stairways. It is a perfect way to get accustomed to stair climbing and figure out how the Parade will feel. First-timers, please come! (Note the new start time!)

Bob Inman is the author of “A Guide to the Public Stairways of Los Angeles,” the first comprehensive guide to the city’s over 250 such edifices. He possesses a wealth of historic and cultural knowledge about the city, and is designing the Big Parade’s “prologue,” a day-before-the-event walk similar to the unofficial preview race Tour de France riders undertake on the eve of that event. Bob will be leading three walks in his home zone of Northeast Los Angeles, stretching from Highland Park to Eagle Rock and South Pasadena.

SATURDAY, MAY 8, 9:30AM: NORTHEAST LA I, HOSTED BY BOB INMAN, featuring the west and south side of Mt. Washington above Glassell Park and Cypress. Distance: 8.5 miles, rigorous, nine stairways. Meet in front of the Subway “sandwich” shop (Metro Bus 84.) Bring a light snack to enjoy at the midpoint.

MONDAY, MAY 10, 7:00PM: NORTHEAST L.A. II, HOSTED BY BOB INMAN, featuring South Pasadena, Arroyo, Garvanza, and Hermon. Distance: 6.5 miles, one way, with return transit on Metro Gold Line. Start: 7PM, Metro Gold Line Mission station at the Mission St. (north) end. Walk ends at about 9:30 at the Highland Park Gold Line station. Return fare: $1.25. (Note that parking is easier at the Highland Park station, so you might want to park there at about 6:45 and take the Gold Line north one stop to the walk’s start point. You’ll finish at your car if you choose this option.)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 7:00PM: NORTHEAST L.A. III, HOSTED BY BOB INMAN, featuring Eagle Rock and the La Loma area of the San Rafael Hills. Six miles, 17 stairways. Meet 7PM at the northeast corner of the Von’s parking lot (7311 N. Figueroa – Metro bus 81/181 and the Eagle Rock-Highland Park Dash.)


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