(09.08.08) Recommends:

Signs of the Time.


It was another weekend of beautiful weather, so we woke up early and went for a walk. We noticed that, from certain vantage points, it appears that Hollywood High School is sponsored by TV Guide.






This, we figured, probably helps explains a lot. Such as, why there are very few bookstores in the area. We know of three: Book Soup and Borders, neither of which offers a very reasonable parking situation, and Counterpoint Record and Books which doesn't offer a very reasonable, you know, selection of books. As such, we usually just walk down to our neighborhood newsstand [as can be seen, the newstand is international and, thus, cosmopolitian, and therefore all watchers of television may infer that Rudy Giuliani does not approve.]






High-school-brought-to-you-by-television probably also helps to explain trends such as, people who live in an area known for lots of traffic and not lots of parking buying vehicles such as this:






People who buy Hummers are unquestionably amoung our easiest -- and most deserving -- citizens to mock, but even so, isn't there something terribly sad about that "For Sale" sign in the back of the window?

There are multiple ways out of our Hummer days, and Hollywood is embracing at least two of them. While we firmly adhere to the notion that art made with mission statements is not art, we nonetheless enjoyed coming upon this:






But street messages are a routine part of life here. We were a little bit more taken aback when we saw this:






Maybe as a result of the renewed energy debate that our country seems to be undertaking, we'll no longer have to rely on David Browne Berds to remind us what the real things look like.






A Note For Those Who Yearn To See More Wildlife in the City: for the next two weeks, you have a chance to see the City of Los Angeles put 100 goats to work downtown. We're completely serious about this. Read more here.

Of course, without TV sponsoring high school, how many of us would not know about Arby's? That would be an unequivocal disaster, for we all know that Arby's roast beef sandwhiches are, in fact, delicious.