51 Comments

1. Barry Dauphin:

Stay safe, Roger, but I blame Bush.

Nov 15, 2008 - 5:51 pm 2. Sam Spade:

Sorry you weren’t at the 100th year party at John’s Grill yesterday. Well, you can’t be in two places at once…right?

Nov 15, 2008 - 5:54 pm 3. glenn:

Like Barry said, stay safe, but recognize that our ancestors built LA in the wrong place. You are surronded on all sides by mountains so your pollution stays right where it is generated. You don’t have enough water or good farm land to support 100,000 people, much less 13,000,000. And if you can’t fool the folks in Northern Cal into letting the state build the Peripheral Canal you are going to run out of water for development soon. And the whole LA basin is paved so when is does rain it doesn’t replenish the water table. Wish I could make it rain and solve your immediate problem but the long term one has no solution. Mother nature is always the boss.

Nov 15, 2008 - 6:06 pm 4. Roger L Simon:

Yeah, I was on an airplane. But I would have rather been at John’s. I see on their website that the drinks were cheap.

Nov 15, 2008 - 6:06 pm 5. Roger L Simon:

You’re right, glenn. The Indians knew. Before the advent of the motor car, called Los Angeles “the land of the many smokes.”

Nov 15, 2008 - 6:08 pm 6. Barry Dauphin:

…land of the many smokes.
So did the hippies (and Hollywood producers!)

Nov 15, 2008 - 7:10 pm 7. Allan:

The thing is that the fires are because of not having a sensible brush management program. IE small controlled burns to keep the brush down. It was like that when I lived out there over thirty years ago and they still have not learned that lesson. So my sympathy is somewhat limited.

Nov 15, 2008 - 9:36 pm 8. flicka47:

Loco LACA

The City of the Crazy Angels!

Nov 15, 2008 - 10:04 pm 9. Carl H:

That’s my favorite Raymond Chandler opening. Yeah, he could write a little. I rate it right up there with the opening sentence of Crumley’s ‘The Last Good Kiss’. Note that my favorite hardboiled opening lines both revolve around beerdrinking. This is not a coinkydink.

Openings aside, good luck to all y’all in firetime.

Nov 15, 2008 - 10:07 pm 10. Another Chandler:

California was the mystical land you saw on “Dragnet,” the home of the movie stars. I envisioned it as some golden land where beautiful people lounged around swimming pools, sipping tall, frosty drinks and plucking ripe fruit off nearby trees when hunger struck. And out on the warm, palm-lined streets guys like Joe Friday walked around with Camels hanging out of the corners of their mouths, fedoras cocked at a jaunty angle, characters out of a Raymond Chandler novel looking for bad cats to dust with the .38 Special snug in holsters under their armpits.

Nov 15, 2008 - 10:12 pm 11. Evan:

Hmm, he sure could write, but is it pendantic of me to wish folks would get the spelling and prounciation right? It’s not “Santa Ana”, it’s “Santana”, the “devil wind” (which fits the effects a lot better – I know, I lived out there for 16 years). Seriously, I do hope no one gets injured by this but what do folks expect from an environment that in it’s natural state would be classed as as a ’semi-arid pleateau’ 9from a lecture I attended when I lived out out there)?

Nov 15, 2008 - 10:52 pm 12. ColumEx:

You can get both of the pluses in NY, but no fires…

Nov 15, 2008 - 10:54 pm 13. ALEXISTAN:

I blame burning bush. Stay safe, indeed, Mr Simon.

“She smelled like the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight,” I think, is from “The Little Sister,” and may be single best line I’ve ever read.

Nov 15, 2008 - 10:59 pm 14. NahnCee:

News story earlier this week about flooding in the streets of Seattle from weeks and weeks of too much rain.

Glorious bright blue and gold morning this morning, before the smoke found its way inland.

I’d still rather be in LA than in Seattle.

Nov 15, 2008 - 11:01 pm 15. g.e.Taylor:

Will this be the creative destruction that stops the decline in house prices?

Nov 15, 2008 - 11:23 pm 16. ed:

I think of Ross MacDonald more than Chandler when the Southland burns.

Nov 15, 2008 - 11:39 pm 17. Elroy Jetson:

Stay safe, Roger and the rest of you in the LA area.
We recently set a record when it rained for 34 consecutive days here in Juneau, Alaska. I guess its a trade off. We don’t have to worry about forest fires or traffic jams but we seldom see the sun this time of year.
Prayers go out to everyone in SoCal. May the winds die down and rainfall comes.

Nov 15, 2008 - 11:51 pm 18. Annabel:

Guess you don’t live in Sylmar, NahnCee. I’d rather have to wear a raincoat every single day, then lose everything I own to a fire. You can always take a trip to someplace sunny. But you can’t bring things back from ashes. Not to mention the people who are hospitalized from burns and smoke inhalation. I’ll take the rain, and just buy a light box, thank you very much.

Nov 16, 2008 - 12:08 am 19. Alan Kellogg:

Truth is, the Sylmar Fire even now hasn’t covered all that much territory. It’s the potential that has people worried. That fire breaks out into a heavily built up area it could mean the death of the LA basin.

We’re talking a lot of build-up, a lot of flammables. We’re talking roads burning and power lines collapsing in the heat. Houses bursting into flames 20 yards or more from the nearest flame. When you see you car start to smoke, and you’re across the street from the fire, you’ll know what I mean.

Nov 16, 2008 - 12:59 am 20. Bruce Lagasse:

My favorite Chandler line (don’t remember the book): “She was the kind of blonde that could make a priest kick a hole in a stained glass window.”

Or, if not that one, “He was as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a wedding cake.”

Nov 16, 2008 - 1:02 am 21. Burgman:

Roger,

Other delights are dim sum on Sundays, creative people, weather that passes for perfect summer in november.

The “Santa Ana” winds that blow through Santa Ana canyon, (not santana who is a guitar player) are bitches that chandler got right. Today the sky was black, the ash fell like snow in one of those christmas globes and the smoke was thick as the fires came toward us. Some neighbors lost their homes. Nobody has been seriously hurt though.

Nov 16, 2008 - 1:02 am 22. Hucbald:

I enjoy visiting LA – it’s like doing speed-laced acid that lasts the whole time I’m there (I know of that which I speak) – but I wouldn’t ever think about actually, you know, living there. As if the fires and earthquakes weren’t enough, there’s all those spoiled leftists to deal with. *shudder*

Stay safe, Rodge.

Nov 16, 2008 - 1:39 am 23. MarkL:

Stay safe, fires can move very fast. I am not belittling your problems, but these are quite small fires compared to what we get here. But you are getting them in bad country where fighting them is extremely difficult.

From the media coverage, the problem is obvious – whatever passes for your local government has permitted housing in areas where it should never have been built, and your house does not appear good in terms of fire design. That’s a disaster waiting to happen, and it’s obvious, so the relationship between your property developers and local politicians needs VERY close scrutiny. Someone is getting paid off.

We get a lot of this sort of thing out here, so I feel for you. We think that fires on 50 mile fronts are not unusual. Nearly lost the western and southern sides of this whole city in the ‘03 bushfires. As it was the wind died just as the orders to abandon the city to the flames were being decided, and only 500 houses were lost. And this is our capital.

MarkL
canberra

Nov 16, 2008 - 2:47 am 24. Bozoer Rebbe:

Motor City’s burning (at least figuratively) too, but at least the Pistons beat the Lakers.

It’s ironic. A Detroit bailout is supposedly rewarding bad decisions, while people build hillside homes on fault lines on the edge of the desert and expect taxpayers to provide them with fire protection and insurance.

We have forest fires here in Michigan sometimes, but they are real forests with year round precipitation, not arid high chaparral.

Nov 16, 2008 - 4:00 am 25. OldOzzie:

Interesting, you have a lot of Australian Gum trees in California, and over the last 2 days, the local volunteer fire brigades here in Sydney, have been doing large controlled burns to minimize the risk of out of control bushfires during our summer.

Gum trees need to be burnt on a regular basis to regenerate, and minimize the risk of an out of control bushfire by burning the floor fuel.

Do they do regular controlled burns in California?

Nov 16, 2008 - 5:55 am 26. Roger Sweeny:

Bozoer Rebbe is right. Don’t bail out the auto companies and make people who build in “arid high chaparral” pay the actual cost of their fire insurance. If it’s one tenth the value of the home because the fire danger is so high, you get to make an honest decision–is it really worth that much to you to live there?–not force me to subsidize your risk.

Nov 16, 2008 - 6:09 am 27. Dave D.:

…Yeah, Norman wrote pretty good for the hopeless drunk he was. Multitasking with ETOH.
..Proscibed burns are not the answer, relocation is. They quit calling them ” controlled ” burns years ago because they can’t really control them.

Nov 16, 2008 - 6:57 am 28. buddy larsen:

the film footage coming in over the tv is incredible –looks like the end o the world –Satan he done bust out and he stompin around in LA –

Nov 16, 2008 - 7:14 am 29. Peg C.:

Every once in a rare while here in the Hudson Valley, we get that warm, dry windy condition with clear skies, even more rarely combined with the smell and “cloud” of a distant fire. I am immediately transported to West L.A. where I lived for nearly 32 years. I remember one memorable fall when the ash fell nearly an inch thick in Westwood and my lungs burned for days. I remember another memorable fall when my dad and neighbors watered rooftops on top of Mandeville Canyon while we watched a famous Malibu fire burn 1 canyon away and we could see flames licking towards us (Sullivan Canyon, maybe? Can’t remember).

As bad as the fires are, the mudslides that so often follow when the winter rains come can be just as dangerous.

I don’t miss this or the earthquakes, but all things being equal I’d take it over being in NY any day…

Stay safe!!

Nov 16, 2008 - 7:58 am 30. Peg C.:

As for the food, I don’t miss the sushi since I never ate it, but the Mexican and Thai restaurants….waaaah!

Nov 16, 2008 - 8:01 am 31. Charles Eaton:

It was not until I took an upper division class in California History that I “got” Raymond Chandler.
The reason was that a lot of the appeal of Chandler’s works came from California being a distant, strange, and exotic place. This was totally lost on me, because it wasn’t.
I was born in downtown Los Angeles (1953), my father (1928) was born in Los Angeles, and his mother, who recalled the big party the whole city threw when the population passes one million, was born in Las Angeles (1911). The family joke is, “Dad never tried to tell me he had to walk to school in the snow.” With LA roots that deep the exotic spell Chandler wrote about was simply lost on me.
But I do see the point of your Chandler quote. I now reside in Henderson Nevada. But one of my cousins was evacuated last night, and does not know if her home will be there when she gets back. Another is on the way to come stay with me until the fires are over because of her asthma.
A Japanese quote on earthquakes comes to mind, relative to the fires. “Is it over?” The question is asked. “Until the next one.” Is the response.

Nov 16, 2008 - 8:03 am 32. Charlie (Colorado):

But is worth it?

Depends. How many varieties of kimchi do they have>

Nov 16, 2008 - 9:15 am 33. Catch22:

There seems to be a scheduling problem.

This is supposed to be rain/flood/mudslide season. Fire season is summer/fall.

Obviously, something somewhere went terribly wrong.

Nov 16, 2008 - 9:16 am 34. Promoguy:

Go with Annabel on this one. You’d rather be in rain. I’m sucking up the smoke and rain always felt better. As would the 500 folks who lost their mobile homes these past couple of days.

And Alan Kellogg…not sure how the basin would burn up unless you’re talking about one of these mega inferno pix. I’ve lived here for over 50 years, seen many fires. They tend to cause lots of damage and move along to the less inhabited areas. The less inhabited areas are more inhabited then previous years but moving into the basin is quite a stretch.

Nov 16, 2008 - 9:32 am 35. Scott (in Colorado):

The Sauerkraut of Korea…We made it once but couldn’t bury it for fermentation (the traditional fashion) because the ground was frozen. Do not try this! It took weeks for the odor to leave the house. The kids loved it but they would put kimchi on everything – including oatmeal. Bulgogi gets my vote as the best Korean dish.

Nov 16, 2008 - 9:39 am 36. Jim Erickson:

Roger, isn’t that quote from “Red Wind”?

Nov 16, 2008 - 9:52 am 37. Promoguy:

“but is it worth it”

Roger, you know it’s something we always think about. As we travel around the USofA, we always look around for the right place to hang my hat for my last breath. Sell everything and hit the road. I can run my business from anywhere.

So we go once a year to visit friends in Louisiana. We get hit with humidity and mosquitoes. We visit friends in Texas and it’s the same. We don’t like cold. We’re not sure about rain. We love good Mexican & Thai food. We love the sun and bbq’ing in January.

So is it worth. Who the hell knows.

Nov 16, 2008 - 9:58 am 38. Peg C.:

Promoguy,
Heatwaves in December and January. Holiday shopping in shorts and flipflops, swimming on Xmas day and bragging to relatives, the twinkle of the lights of the Hollywood hills on clear nights and the blanket of lights surrounding you from the top of Mulholland. There is something to be said for snow on Xmas Day, but here in the NE winter lasts the better part of 6 months and Seasonal Affected Disorder is very real (it’s setting in as I write). Fall and spring are glorious but your car is NEVER clean (rain, bugs, snow, salt, dirt, it never, ever ends).

Yes, it’s worth it. Just prepare for the worst and enjoy the 98% of the time when you’re in paradise.

Nov 16, 2008 - 10:28 am 39. buddy larsen:

Peg & Promo, nice to hear folks who love their places and know how to say so.

Nov 16, 2008 - 10:59 am 40. Another Chandler:

I lived in LA from 1962 until 1967 and it was a lot better then than now in many ways. There were lots of times you could still drive 120 or more on the Berdoo freeway (not that it’s a great idea), but I can’t imagine that happens much now. I moved back to California in 1976 and wound up in the Imperial Valley, in El Centro and Holtville. Great place in the winter, hell on earth during the summer.

BTW, my previous comment is from a memoir and concerns my thoughts upon learning in 1958 that I would be going from Nashville to navy boot camp in San Diego, instead of Great Lakes, Illinois as I had thought. I’d never been to California and regarded it as some sort of mystical place. And it was for a long time, but now, old and retired, I find living in Tennessee much easier to manage on limited income.

Nov 16, 2008 - 11:17 am 41. Amos Franck:

When everyone is freezing their behinds in Alaska, the Northwest, back East and in the Midwest, the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day always reminds them what a great place Southern California is to live.

Nov 16, 2008 - 11:30 am 42. Peg C.:

I miss the L.A. freeways, but what I miss no longer exists. When we visit we’re newly boggled by the congestion. It regularly took us 1 hr. + to commute from Glendale to Beverly Hills (an 11 mile drive, believe it or not). San Berdoo…man I miss that! Used to drive that to visit a friend. Not too far out of West L.A. is a whole ‘nother world! (Those of us who rarely crossed La Cienega were really living in a cocoon.)

Once in a while I can do 120 on the NY State Thruway. It’s not the same. Actually I used to get up to 90 on occasion on Wilshire between Westwood and B.H. I live to break speed limits.

Nov 16, 2008 - 11:46 am 43. PC14:

I moved to North San Diego county in 1971 and there were old sections of Carlsbad, Vista, Encinitas and Escondido that sort of reminded me of Chandler. The homes were on 1/2 acre lots, small cottages with separate, single car garages…pride of ownership evident everywhere–perennials planted, bouganvilla covering the chain link fences, grass always green and mowed and cars in the garage.

By the mid 80’s, ALL those areas were ruined. There is nothing quaint anymore, just seedy and trashy, cars on blocks in the driveways, brown-weed, front lawns, rotted porches, multiple families living in the house and the garage.

Having recently retired, I would have loved to be able to trade down to one those homes—no HOA fees, no Mello-Roos(gotta be from California to know what that is)and low utility bills. Actually, because there are no HOA fees and hence no CC&Rs to possible modify the decay, contributes to the problem.

With increased illegal immigration, other areas will eventually go barrio, too.

Nov 16, 2008 - 3:01 pm 44. Alan Kellogg:

Promoguy, #34

There’s always the first time.

During our fires last year there was one that touched off a house in the Spring Valley community south-east of where I’m at now. One truck showed up and put it out. One truck, which was all they had in reserve.

The wind was turning, the humidity rising, the temperatures falling. People in the neighborhood turned out and poured what water they could through garden houses on the flames. We had just enough to put that house fire out and keep the wild fire that sparked it from spreading. We got lucky.

We almost lost all outside electricity. Our roads and highways were nearly cut off. We were facing the possibility of a massive urban fire marching down Spring Valley to the harbor and spreading from there.

Now it’s the LA Basin’s turn. You talk about how fires just don’t spread into urban areas in the LA Basin. That’s the thing, it’s not that the fires might spread into the urban areas, it’s that the urban areas have spread into where the fires happen. You get inland temperatures of 100 degrees, sixty mile an hour easterlies coming down off the hills, and 10% relative humidity, damn right you’re going to see fires blazing where they’ve never blazed before.

In short Promoguy, the past aint never been prologue to the future, it aint even a vague hint.

Nov 16, 2008 - 3:29 pm 45. Promoguy:

Well Alan, You’re right there’s always a first time. I since it hasn’t happened I can’t argue whether or not it will never happen. I certainly would have thought it might have happened within the past 30 years since there would have been a lot more open space in the basin to burn. It’s burning where folks went to built, not where the Los Angeles basin is. I don’t foresee a burning from one end of the San Fernando Valley to the other end. Nor do I see it happening from the basin of East Los Angeles to West Los Angeles. It’s all called the basin.

But like you said who knows.

Nov 16, 2008 - 4:08 pm 46. Promoguy:

Damn Roger we need a grammar check.

Nov 16, 2008 - 4:19 pm 47. Xanthippe:

Chandler was correct. It’s “Santa Ana” winds but pronounced “Santana” (as the last a in Santa is run together with the first a in Ana), named for Santa Ana Canyon.

At least, that’s what I was told growing up in the 60s.

I’m a little surprised not that people live in the hills that burn, but that people don’t put in some sort of cleared buffer between the neighborhoods and the chapparal.

Nov 17, 2008 - 8:00 am 48. RedneckJD:

After having moved to Oregon seven years ago, I now know why people stay in California. The things I miss are not made up for (bad grammar, I know), in this intellectual waste-land. What I miss are real Reuben sandwiches, Hollywood Bowl, Greek Theater, In-n-Out Burgers, Torrance, good weather (even Santa Ana winds), and intelligent people. Oregon is full of morons who truly believe they are smart. I give you Gus van Stant and Matt Goerning, who are the most overrated. Plus, in California, I was never afraid to announce my conservative Republican beliefs, but here I know I will be treated as though I announced I have small-pox. In SoCal, such an announcement is merely the fore-play to a spirited debate. Here your life will be threatened. Although I must say, the gay reaction to Prop 8 defeat is very Oregon like. Stay in California; you will miss it when you leave.

Nov 17, 2008 - 12:03 pm 49. Vicktor:

As a current resident of LA… no, it’s not worth it. Not by a long shot.

Maybe for the old folks; but ask anyone young, with no old family attachments, and who’s live here less than 5 years (moved in since the housing boom where we stand no chance of ever owning a home if we actually DO have a family and aren’t independently wealthy).

Time to go see if I can get transferred to CO…

Nov 17, 2008 - 3:46 pm 50. Alan Kellogg:

For those following this thread a bit of good news: Temperatures are expected to fall over the next few days, and the winds are shifting to out of the west. Rain is also expected, and the hope is we’re switching over to the late autumn weather pattern now.

BTW, if you hear anybody on the news say that you’re seeing atypical weather from southern California, they’re idiots. Not having Santa Anas this time of year in southern California is what would be atypical.

Stay safe, and get your furnace cleaned.

Nov 17, 2008 - 8:37 pm 51. Mikey NTH:

Red Wind – wonderful story.

Nov 18, 2008 - 10:35 am

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