Community Corner: Checkpoint Followed by DUI Saturation Patrol

What:             LAPD’s Emergency Operations Division will staff a sobriety and driver’s license checkpoint followed by a DUI saturation patrol the following evening.

When:             DUI and Driver’s License Checkpoint       

Friday, February 17, 2012

8 p.m. - 2 a.m.

DUI Saturation Patrol

Saturday, February 18, 2012

6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Where:           The checkpoint will be at Van Nuys Boulevard between Parthenia Street and Roscoe Boulevard in Panorama City

The DUI Saturation Patrol will be throughout LAPD’s Mission Area

Who:               LAPD Emergency Operations Division Officers

Why:               Because Sobriety checkpoints are a proven enforcement tool effective in reducing the number of persons killed and injured in alcohol-involved crashes. Research shows that crashes involving alcohol drop by an average of 20 percent when well-publicized checkpoints are conducted often enough.

Officers will be approaching drivers passing through the checkpoint for signs of alcohol and/or drug impairment.  Officers will also check for proper licensing and will strive to delay motorists only momentarily. Drivers caught driving impaired can expect jail, license suspension, and insurance increases, as well as fines, fees, DUI classes and other expenses that can exceed $10,000.

“Over the course of the past two years, DUI collisions have claimed approximately 30 lives and resulted in over 2,000 injury traffic collisions harming our friends and neighbors,” said Sergeant Karmody of LAPD’s Traffic Coordination Section.

(more)

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), checkpoints have provided the most effective documented results of any of the DUI enforcement strategies while also yielding considerable cost savings of $6 for every $1 spent.  Checkpoints are placed in locations that have the greatest opportunity for achieving drunk and drugged driving deterrence and provide the greatest safety for officers and the public.

“Deaths from drunk and drug-impaired driving are going down in California,” said Christopher J. Murphy, Director of the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS).  “But that still means that hundreds of our friends, family and co-workers are killed each year, along with tens of thousands who are seriously injured. We must all continue to work together to bring an end to these tragedies.  If you see a drunk driver, call 9-1-1.”

LAPD receives funding for the checkpoint and DUI saturation patrols through a grant from the  OTS obtained through the NHTSA, targeting those who still don’t heed the message to designate a sober driver.

This information was provided by the LAPD 

Start Over Random: Community Corner: Update On Gas Station Robbery

Start Over Random: Community Corner: Update On Gas Station Robbery: After the video was aired of the robbery that occurred on January 29, 2012, Detectives received a tip from the public. On February 14, 2...

Community Corner: Update On Gas Station Robbery

After the video was aired of the robbery that occurred on January 29, 2012, Detectives received a tip from the public.  On February 14, 2012, at about 2 p.m., 41-year-old Manuel Jaime, was arrested in the 1000 block of Edith Avenue in the City of Alhambra for the robbery.  He is being held without bail.

Start Over Random: BLOUSE SHOW AT THE ECHO

Start Over Random: BLOUSE SHOW AT THE ECHO: January 22nd in LA... I can only say, why the hell did I not bring my camera?? I forgot it, and by the time I got to my friend's house out ...

BLOUSE SHOW AT THE ECHO

January 22nd in LA... I can only say, why the hell did I not bring my camera?? I forgot it, and by the time I got to my friend's house out near Pasadena... actually, I didn't even remember then. I remembered when I was all ready in LA. Oh well. It was a seriously fucking awesome night. The start-Over Queen herself even made a cameo in my night, and it was not intentional! I love that woman. She's amazing...

So me and my buddy Isaiah started off the night at the Westin Bonaventure hotel in downtown. I have a problem: I like hotels. A lot. No necessarily staying in them(always a plus when it happens. But not often because I am poor ;_;), but just going to them and walking around. I don't think we got into as much mischief as originally intended, but it was just as well. I tried impressing Isaiah with the glass elvators that overlook downtown, but I think I was much more excited. It's weird being able to see everything as you go up, and we went all the way to the 34/35 floor to the BonaVista Lounge! It's a cylindrical room that revolves and you get this beautiful 360 view of downtown LA.


(phot credit to hotelmomma.com And yes, it looks pretty much as pictured. When it is completely dark it's lovelier. Also, we sat at a table JUST like that).

We wasted about two hours here just chatting and enjoying the view(s). I couldn't help but order something from the bar, and went into it knowing I'd be paying a fortune at the end of my stay. But I was, and usully am, in a not-giving-a-fuck mood and ordered four Bay Breezes, two for me and two for my friend. The drink was boozy enough to make me extra happy, so I have no complaints about too much juice. Service was meh; the lady was nice, but hardly checked on us and did two things that still make me feel sad: My first Bay Breeze had a maraschino cherry, and I love those fucking things. I used to eat bowls of them at restaurants when I was a little Green Randa (I'm too embarrassed to make that request now. Or, am I? I should try it). Well, when my friend got his it had no cherry! Not that he minded. He hates them. Whatever! But our next round of drinks also lacked the cherry, and I was confused, but said nothing (I should have complained...) Also, we got a glass of bar nuts/chex mix or something, which was complimentary but still a delicious companion to my drink. The server took the empty glass and specifically said "I will bring more snacks" and then didn't come back until it was time to go, like forty-minutes later. Which brings me to the bill: 50$ for four drinks! I was horrified, but like I said, didn't really give a fuck because I was in good company and the view was enough for me to forgive them. Next time, though, I'm going to bring my own booze in a flask and just order one drink, just so I can sit there and enjoy the lounge.

Buzzed, we went on the elevator and stopped at a random floor and left stupid notes on doors that had the little do not disturb signs (If I remember one was "Congrats on the sex!" and "They're waiting for you in the lobby"). It was exciting, haha. Then we went to the pool deck and I smoked a lot and then we went back inside and I got us lost in the lobby/restaurant/shops area. I really wanted to walk up and down Bunker Hill by that one bank building, but when we finally got there I was exhausted from walking! But it was still cool. Bunker Hill is just a lot of stairs, and when you get to the top there is a cute fountain and looking up at the buildings is a trip because they're so high up.


(Erica and Matt!)


I junked going to the Millenium Biltmore because it was getting close to the Blouse show, and neither of us were quite sure how to get to Echo Park from downtown. Again, I got us lost (Isaiah: you were incredibly patient with me! Thanks for tolerating all my stupid, heehee). So once at Echo Park Isaiah was craving burritos so we searched for someplace to eat, but everything was closed! Sad, and slightly discouraged (at least I was) from the major hipster crowd waiting in line in front of the Echo, we stood outside some pizza cafe and saw none other than the StartOver-Queen herself! She was with one of network's photographers, Matt, who I met that night. Cool guy! He flies planes. I told her I'd cover the show and we went in search of food. Only thing open was Burger King, but only the Drive-Thru. Matt was all: lets just see if they serve us when we order. I had no faith and stayed behind with Isaiah, but Erica and him tried it, and it worked! It was a major highlight that night, I took a crappy photo (two) with my phone, then took a picture of that with my camera when I got home so my evidence is extra ghetto. But hey, I think it adds to the charm of this whole ridiculous post, and that whole amazing night :)


(Erica and Matt ordering at the BK Drive-Thru! My heros...)

We sat in front of the BK and ate and talked about The whole Start Over project. Real bloggers! Real journalists! It's exciting to think about. I just hope I get better at something, and it's all been a real positive experience.

It was time for Blouse to start after we said our goodbyes's; Erica and Matt were covering another show/club, I think, so went about their bussiness. Went to the box office for Isaiah's wticket (I had mine) and the box office dude there was kind of harsh. But then he softened up when I think he realized I wasn't a hipster douche or very under the influence. Whatever. We got in and got to hear the last of the Violet Tremors set, which was real chill. The lead chick was all cute and dancey and made me feel calm. We were able to get very close to the stage! I have been to the Echoplex, but not the echo, and damn the echo is tiny, but cool because it's so intimate. Apparently I hadn't had enough Bay Breeze and ordered one at the shitty Echo bar. DON'T ORDER DRINKS HERE! MY BAY BREEZE TASTED INCREDIBLY SWEET, HAD TOO MUCH GODDAMN ICE AND I DIDN'T FEEL ANYTHING AFTER DRINKING THAT SHIT. 16 bucks for fucking iced-up cranberry juice (I ordered for myself and Isaiah, so the drinks were definitely cheaper here than the BonaVista Lounge but it is not worth it!) Ahem, so waited a while for Blouse, who came on I think about 20 minutes after midnight.


(Charlie Hilton, vocalist. She was so close!)

I beleive they opened with Firestarter, or Controller. My mind is fuzzy. I believe they sound a lot better live than they do on recordings, so I was happy, because it's always dissapointing when I live show is dull or sounds bad. I just about hadan attack (well contained!) when they played Shadow. It was beautiful live! The set list as I remember it, and most definitely not in order:
Firestarter, Shadow, Time Travel, Controller, White, They Always Fly Away, Fountain in Rewind, videotapes,Into Black, and and encore with "Roses"
Most memeorable for me was Shadow, Roses, They Always Fly Away, and... fuck yeah, Into Black was amazing, but I love that song, so maybe I have a serious impairment whe I hear it... I dunno. Roses sounded oddly chipper as a live, and I like that song so much more now (but when I listen, it's definitely not harkening back to how it sounded live. I hope they do better, less lo-fi recordings in the future). I guess because this is their debut tour, the whole group was pretty subdued, and I feel like they could have been a little more enthusiastic about their performance. They were probably just nervous. I'm also pretty certain I was the only person singing along (rather quietly, of course!) to most of the songs. I hope they come back when more people get into them. That show would be a lot more lively, I'd hope).

And that was it. Didn't get to set up an interview or anything because of me being all short notice with Erica. I was also unaware that I could even get a press pass to do that, but now that I know, hopefully I can talk to some bands in the future. My night didn't exactly end there, but it was just Isaiah and I talking till 3 a.m. and then realizing we were hungry, and then driving to Pasadena in search of a bar, but Pasadena is an old bag that closes everything early before curling up with its 50 cats and Wheel of Fortune! We should have stayed in LA, but it was pretty damn late.

Green Randa is out! Until my next adventure, have a good one.

The Apple

I am transcribing from words written on physical paper. As for stories, I'm having painstaking difficulty getting anything creative out of my mind. I'm having painstaking difficulty doing anything these days. I just want to sleep, really, and smoke a lot of cigarettes and drink a lot of alcohol. Sorry for being drab. I'll get over it some day:

I have been spending a lot of time void of any deep, intellectual reflection, and more than anything I know I need to be absorbed in that which is far removed from my emotions. So, disgusted with myself, and seeking to purge myself of myself during the nights in very alcohol enriched, psuedo-cathartic sessions, I have reserved the blaring daylight hours to pore very slowly through the piles of reading that have been collecting in my room. The sight of them has filled me with so much anxiety that I can't do much else but wrench from that guilt some kind of action, and for the little time I am able to bear it, it seems to be doing me much good (that is, until I stop for the world outside me and realize that I am some kind of existence doing not much else but existing.)

My usual remedies involve some kind of violence, and it seems silent destruction is my favorite kind, as for some malignant twist of thinking I feel I must consider my place in the world, meaning I guess the affect I have- or don't have- on others, and so these considerations force me to be worse as a human being in the dark more than I think I am being well in the light. And really so much worse in the light, in the end.

I was thinking of Eve and her tasting of the apple. It was brought to my attention- and although having grown up in a fairly christian household, I never considered this, perhaps for the spiritual aspect of it has always been more emphasised- that the knowledge that opened her eyes to sin did not give her precisely the knowledge of God, but only the discernment and tendancy for evil. Maybe I don't mean tendency for evil, for her curiosity alone that led her to her actions has always made me feel that "evil" was always stirring somewhere in human hearts. She didn't inherit a tendancy for sin from the forbidden fruit, it was inherent within her the moment God breathed into the nostrils of man, fashioned Eve from the rib of that man. God had established their free will. So in that frightening moment of awareness the creation was stripped of a blindfold and saw what God saw, but was not bestowed the capacity to understand it. And thus, that itself is the downward spiral: Humanity unravels in their actions as they are not in step with the guiding hand of God. We cannot side-glance our path as we walk throught the flames He whispers will not destroy us; a lack of faith would incinerate our ties to freedom. Is it freedom? That I cannot yet determine, and it is something my mind as well as what little soul I seem to own agaonizes over (I have little mind. I am so much little of anything). But, returning back to what faith means, it is the crown God intends man to desire all his life, without, not to my knowledge, ever attaining what God knows in full.

"Adam, Eve, love me" is mostly how I feel about it, and "Adam, Eve, I rule you" is how I think about it. I'm not going to lie and say I have neutral, near-conclusions about either of these assesments, and I am embittered in my often infantile methods that I am ever so slothfully adjusting. I guess I wonder then what makes God, God, and I am reduced to many veins that connect to no properly functioning organ when I question my own challenges to Providence, casting off that ghostly diadem of faith. I know it in my heart, without more concrete justification, that my defiance will only bring more heartache, some eternal punishment, even if it is not one as necessarily outlined in these books written by man, even if it is of all the books from West or East or in the mind of man and hands of some higher thing not yet realized. It is not just curiosity, it is anger. I want my sight free of this hinderance, so that what I am looking for can be more accurately studied.

Come to think of it, what am I looking for?

Start Over Random: I need to do more stuff here! So I'm posting some...

Start Over Random:
I need to do more stuff here! So I'm posting some...: I need to do more stuff here! So I'm posting something of a short-story-veering-more-toward-flash-fiction-sort-of-piece. I don't know what ...