Eavesdropping the FC: Sierra Madre Edition

The journey of this long weekend took me a lot of places I’ve never been before . . . I have never been to an official tea party or in Sierra Madre before. Quaint little town full of rich people it looks like. Heh.


She spins a tale of Downtown Sierra Madre: Beantown, Starbucks, the Village Pizzeria, and her lost car keys.








I used to wear all sorts of vintage skirts and dresses from the 50's and 60's for dancing. The petticoats added to the authenticity of my outfits. I would find them in thrift shops at flea markets and at Square Dance Land in Sierra Madre.






The Folee is a bag produced by the company Booq, based in Sierra Madre, California.





I reach the intersection — downtown Sierra Madre. There’s not much, only things that matter the most — Starbucks, ColdStone, Curves, Dominos…but no signal. There are none. Locals call it Sierra Mayberry . . . I never would’ve thought that I’d ever fall in love with this city. How can you resist? It’s almost perfect.


The Treasure of Sierra Madre lies not underground in gold veins but above ground with a lavender blooming vine. Even more pics here.




The Sixth Chamber, a new-but-old rock band checks out their own press from the Pasadena Weekly: "The music starts at 10 p.m. Wednesday at the Buccaneer Lounge, 70 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. Call (626) 355-9045."




Today Cathy, Jeff, and myself met at Alverno High School in Sierra Madre to start off their engagement photos. I’ve shot at this location a few times and I absolutely love it! It has such great architecture and amazing light. More of Tammy's wedding/engagement photo shoots set in Sierra Madre here.

Your Friends and Neighbors...

Ouch:
Last year I did not renew my subscription to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, and this year I will end my delivery of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, I have opted to subscribe to an online news source instead.

My subscription to the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly will continue, with no plans of stopping delivery this year.

I wonder if this guy found the place he wanted:
I got off on Azusa Ave./SR-39 and went up to take a peek at Azusa, one of the more working class suburbs in the area. It wasn't too bad, actually. A little more ethnic, but no different than Riverside. I cruised East on Foothill through Glendora, also a pretty city. The eastern edge of Azusa (closer to Glendora) was pretty nice...Initially I considered as far West as Pasadena...

What kind of shows?
We have shows in San Dimas, Pomona, San Gabriel, Norwalk, Glendora, and Covina.

They finally open up Glendora Mt. Road, and look what happens:
...got stuck offroading today in the mountains. Mr. Wilson and I decided to try to take a walking trail that was located about halfway thru Glendora Mt. Road; it was gated off...

He don't like Glendora:
I Don't think I want my kids living here.
:-/
Too much .... "Glendoraness"
Those of you that live here know what I'm talking about. There's too much hate, racism, and drama here. I would give anything to move out of this city.

Is he talking about Glendora, CA?

Glendora v. Los Angeles: Donuts

The LA City Nerd needs your help. He needs to know where the best donuts in LA are. (Via the LAist.)

Don't take our word for it: Listen to Erin's KitchenWell folks, thankfully the county of Los Angeles extends beyond the borders of the city of Los Angeles. Of course, out here, we know the answer: it's the Donut Man, stupids. Don't take our word for it: check the magisterial Chowhound out on the matter.

People all over the 50 states have heard of the place:

On the road trip back to Phoenix, Arizona my mother-in-law and I stopped on old Route 66 in Glendora to try Donut Man's donuts. I had recently read about Jim Nakano, the owner of the shop and the inventor of the fresh strawberry and fresh peach donuts and was hoping against the season that just maybe the strawberry donut was in production...

Flocking Glendora

Time to listen in on your friends and neighbors...

Ah, the traditional Easter hangover[?!?]:

Forget the traditional egg hunt and ham on Easter Sunday, let alone a church service. This weekend was all about hitting up five different bar scenes in three days. It was exhausting.

We hit up a hooka bar in Glendora, Eden Garden Cafe, which is owned by a Jordanian family, on Thursday.

Guess it's not as bad as an Easter prostitute run. Anyhow, there's also the too-much food hangover:

Called Petrillo's, it's a nice Italian place in Glendora. As restaurants go, it definitely has a neighborhood vibe and seems to be the sort of place that local families frequent.

Their pizza was...impressive. A more apt term might be "meat cake". Strong italian sausage on thick pepperoni slices, all carefully balancing on a shifting layer of real mozerella.

The size of it also caught me off guard. A medium there is the equivalent of an extra-large anywhere else.

But is Petrillo's anywhere near the Arcadian eatery of the pizza gods? Anyhow, back to Glendora—what manner of town is this?

Back in high school, while at a party in Glendora (not a partying town), between Kate raiding the medicine chest and Damien guys trying to impress girls, I wondered aloud why I seemed invisible to the male of the species.

I dunno. If it's "not a partying town," what is with all the flocking? It's all a part of the Life and Times of Glendora FRIENDS Church:

The other day, as Gina and I were driving around old town Glendora, she looked down a street and said, "Look at all those flamingos."

I didn't think about it much until I was walking around the same area a few days later and walked in front of a house whose yard was full of flamingos--the pink, plastic kind. In amongst the lawn ornaments was a hand written sign: "Warning: You've Been Flocked."

Bill and Ted Will Haunt St. Dimas Forever

Ok, so instead of pointing you to Angelenos mocking San Dimas, this episode of Eavesdropping the FC provides you with more neutral online chatter relating to the little city formerly known as "mud springs."

I like this little San Dimas roadtrip story:

I noticed that along our route lies San Dimas. Now for you Bill and Ted fans out there this is a little geekfest for me. I beg Bill to drive us down by the High School so that I can get a picture of the sign. When we get there guess what… There is NO sign. Now knowing that there are a lot of Keanu Reeve haters out there it disappoints me but does not surprise me. So I take a picture of the building and sadly move on. Goodbye San Dimas, thanks for the memories.

300, the movie—San Dimas-style:

"This is blasphemy!" the history professor cried. "Your crack about Athenian boy-lovers makes no sense, you make no mention of the contributions of the Greek navy, your characterization of Xerxes is completely off... everything you've said is madness," he concluded.

"Madness?" Leonidas scowled. "THIS IS SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL!!!"

Even if you don't practice Santeria, this website might be your crystal ball. Apparently, as told long ago by an African slave, here's how to get San Dimas to find lost things for you:

San Dimas se me han perdido $100 aquí te amarro hasta que me los encuentres (Tie 3 knots as you are saying this), aquí te quedas hasta que aparezcan.

Smug Angelenos Snub Cities of the Foothills: BUMP

Note: In an attempt to further incite local outrage, we'll be bumping this post to the top of the page periodically. Regular posting does continue below, so repeat visitors should just scroll down for the latest and greatest.

I kid you not. One of the comments on ms2, the backyard page for Mayor Sam (one of the grand old dames of the LA blogging scene) snidely insulted all those small "independent" cities surrounding Los Angeles. Mayor Sam thought it a sufficiently serious charge to invite comments and we'd suggest you weigh in defense of our humble hometowns. I reproduce the offending comment in full:

For all intents and purposes, Alhambra is a suburb of the eastside of L.A. Without a "real" city like Los Angeles to hang onto the skirt tails of and drive their economies, these little "independent" cities that carry so much self-important pride (while they look down their noses at L.A.) - like Glendale, Alhambra, South Pasadena, El Monte, West Hollywood - even Pasadena, Santa Monica, and Long Beach might as well be Needles or Tucumcari, New Mexico.

They're as captive and indentured to the real city here, as is Hollywood and the SFV.

It's apparent that these sentiments would apply to the many other smaller communities that comprise the San Gabriel Valley and foothill cities. If you'd care to contest those scurrilous assertions, hasten over to ms2 and write a comment of your own. See also the even more scurrilous assertions made below.

More Smug Angelenos Snub FC

You think that Mayor Sam's commentator calling the FC "captive and indentured" to LA was bad? There's plenty more where that came from in the attitude emanating from our neighbors to the west.

Actor and writer Don Cummings recently said:

If the Hollywood Sign had burned down, we would have become as indiscernible as our neighbors to the East. Another Monrovia or San Dimas.

In the next sentence he admits that "Without the Hollywood Sign, Los Angeles would appear only as what it is: a cement town of car washes and 99 cent stores of pure, unplanned function." That's true. But that fact is also why, with or without the Hollywood sign, LA is nothing like Monrovia or San Dimas.

But hey, our Eavesdropping the FC category of posts lets you in on the unvarnished thoughts of your friends, neighbors, and enemies around you. Ever wonder what that person is yelling in the car next to you? Well, if it is "Motor Wilson," he might be calling you a sheep for living in the SGV!

CAN YOU SAY SHEEP? SAY IT LOUD. I did. I yelled it for the last 20 minutes of my torturous drive on the 605 north as I headed East on the 210 towards San Bernardino. Everyone lives out here. I mean, EVERYONE, but NO ONE I know. What are these people like? What do these people do?

But these are all rhetorical questions, as Wilson's all seeing eye seems to know what all these people in the SGV, and all those in "middle America" for that matter, are like:

Can I just say I hate the BURBS? For my day job I have to drive all over Los Angeles county, including the San Gabriel Valley. CAN YOU SAY COOKIE CUTTER? SAY IT LOUD TWENTY MILLION TIMES. Ok, this kind of goes back to the previous tirade about religion. The people out here are so very different from the world in which I live (read: West Hollywood, exactly one block from where the transvestite prostitutes sell their platforms for crack, and two blocks from Marc Jacobs). It's so diverse (where I live) the pendulum swinging from one extreme to the next in seconds, not to mention there is life, activity, color. Not in San Dimas, made popular by the infamous Beavis and Butthead, (read: BUTTHEAD). We could be in the middle of America, no one would ever be the wiser. Who would guess we are only 40 miles from Los Angeles. The San Gabriel Valley is the Bible Belt of Los Angeles.

I have no comment. But if you do, go right ahead. "Motor" may be an extreme example, but I'd bet these thoughts are not entirely unlike those held by many an arrogant Angeleno.

Eavesdropping the FC

A new segment in which we bring you random snippets of foothill city mentions from chatter around the internets.

Listen to whiskey-angel82 on LiveJournal:




Glendora is changing like you wouldn't believe. I know that for economic reasons ever city is going to try to bring in what the can but there is so much construction going on that it's not even fun to walk around town and enjoy it anymore. Down town they are putting up two new buildings...big cinder block ones that as far as I can tell are not going to match the old buildings that were built years ago and still have the little hometown feel. They've already put in that bus stop thingy that took up the parking lot of where my frozen yogurt place use to be. lol. The bus doesn't even run there! Someday...the prized word of a Glendoran. The rain bird building is gone. Ok, fine, so the company is gone, move someone else in. It was beautiful and on a big open piece of property. You know, they were all about preserving the community but now? It pretty much bites. If I wanted change, I would live in LA.