Hermosa Beach City manager left standing
Hermosa Beach City Manager Steve Burrell was left standing following a special closed-door meeting that was called for City Council members to evaluate his performance, and possibly fire him. The two-hour meeting in a City Hall conference room came Friday morning, a week after Councilmen Kit Bobko and Michael DiVirgilio charged that the city’s staff […]
The Fast and the Prettiest: Restoring the VW Bus
Mark Machuszek didn’t intend to become a car restorer. The dusty Porsche languishing in a garage is what changed his life. “When I was a teenager, my dad had a Porsche 356 that he bought from a neighbor and always intended to restore. He never got around to it, so I inherited the project. Porsches […]
Wild Things: The Masters of Motionlessness
It’s a statue, it’s a fake bird, no wait, is that a real bird? This is the series of thoughts that ran through my mind the first time I saw a stout, squat, perfectly still bird sitting on the Redondo Pier. This bird didn’t move an inch, even when I was standing less than a […]
Hey, Leroy: “I always thought Leroy Grannis was first a surf photographer and then a surfer”
Every Tuesday night when I was 12 years old Don Craig, Sparky Hudson and I would run down the street after dinner to go through Leroy Grannis’ trash cans. We separated the surf photos Leroy had thrown away from the rest of the trash and ran down the hill to Don’s house to fight over […]
The Devil’s Dictionary: A Century of Exemplary Effrontery
By: JB Kennedy “COPYRIGHT 1911 BY ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI, INC.” Among the book in which this notice appears is The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. Bierce was an honored veteran of the Civil War who, as a tenacious journalist, literary critic, and unconventional lexicographer, waged a personal war against hypocrisy, dishonesty, pretense, euphemism, yahoos […]
Events Calendar: June 2 – June 7
Thursday, June 2 RH Prep Presents: This year’s annual Rolling Hills Prep School Author’s Luncheon, geared for middle schoolers, features Rachel Reilich, author of “The Trend Set,” about a gaggle of girls who end up with their own fashion label. Ms. Reilich will discuss the writing process and sign copies of her books. The talk […]
“This Wind”
By: JB Kennedy This vehement wind is the down-swerving wake of fugitive, sky-wide wings, whose ravishing passage was effusive, but unseen. And the fervent wind convulses, veers, delivers a vociferous river of leaves as a verdant rain.
On Local Government: the state of the States has become abundantly clear. It is all about service implosion.
Over the last few weeks, I have spent much of the time on the East Coast. From New York to Virginia, the underbelly of the state of the States has become abundantly clear. It is all about service implosion. Here in California, we naturally focus on our own problems and think it is as bad […]