The Dodger Schedule - Then and Now

My 1976 Union Oil Dodger schedule, more than likely torn up after an aggravating defeat and then immediately taped back together.

Ricky and I - standing to the side of my Sunset Junction house on our way to a Sunday Dodger game - 1979

In the 1970s nothing entertained me more than following the Dodgers and listening to Rock N’ Roll music. My guide to navigating my pre-teen and teen social calendar during those wonderful Summers was a yearly issued Union 76 tri-fold Dodger schedule that I religiously kept in my pocket at all times, assuring me that I would never miss the start of a game.

Homework, friends, teenage rebellion and spinning records on the family’s turntable played second fiddle to listening to the great Vin Scully call the Dodger games night after night on my portable Japanese transistor radio. If the game was televised, I would have the luxury of turning down the volume on the Zenith console television for a an inning or two and play KISS and Rolling Stones records while I watched the visuals of the game and kept the score in my head. Listening to “Detroit Rock City” to the muted whack of a home run or “Cant You Hear Me Knocking” to the silent whiff of a strikeout made watching the game a unique experience.

When we got a little older, my friend Ricky P. and I would catch the 42 Sunset bus just down the street from my Sunset Junction family home and arrive at Elysian Park Ave in less time than it would take to hear The Who‘s “Wont Get Fooled Again“ on the radio. Upon exiting the bus we would gaze up at the foreboding task before us and subsequently eclipse the steep hill leading to the stadium by foot without ever breaking a sweat. After the game ended, we would review it inning by inning as we walked home on one of those cool and breezy Los Angeles nights through neighborhoods that are much different today.

Times change. Today, I still keep one of those Unocal 76 tri-fold Dodger schedules in my car at all times, but the schedule has an entirely different function for me as an adult living in the densely populated metropolis of Los Angeles. In 2010, that tri-fold Dodger schedule acts as my Summer traffic consultant advising me of the dates and start times of Dodger home games so that I can strategically make alternate driving plans around the gridlock that forms on the Golden State and Arroyo Seco Freeways and on Sunset Blvd during game days. Planning ahead and avoiding the gridlock makes my drive to the Westside to visit family and friends or my arrival at a social event in Downtown Los Angeles, EchoParkLand and SilverlakeLand more timely and enjoyable.

On any given night Dodger Stadium still seats 56,000 Angelenos much like it did when it first opened in 1962, but we live in a more congested city today than we did 35 years ago thus making the commute around Dodger Stadium before and after a game much more challenging. I am still a fan of the Dodgers much like I have been my whole life, but at the end of the day whether they win or lose, my life the next morning remains unchanged as I live, work, and play in the great Southern California landscape.

The Sunset Blvd Bowling Alley and KTLA Studios

The stylish Jack and Peggy Ament on their Honeymoon in front of the Sunset Bowling Alley - Hollywood, CA - August 1940.

Back of photo with Peggy's notes.

Longtime KTLA news anchorman, Mr. Hal Fishman

Located at 5858 Sunset Blvd in midtown Hollywood, The Sunset Bowling Alley was once known as the world’s largest bowling alley with 52 lanes to choose from and hundreds of bowling shoes to fit any size imaginable. One could bowl in a different lane every week for an entire year just to avoid the monotony amongst the happy hour social gatherings of struggling screenwriters, union gaffers, studio secretaries and sound stage runners. With its Roman columns, this massive structure was originally built in 1922 for the Warner Brothers to function as their West Coast headquarters. In 1927 this location was used as the filming site for the first “talkie“ film, The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson but when Warner Brothers acquired the First National Pictures property in 1929, Harry, Al, Jack and Sam packed it up and moved their operations from Hollywood to Burbank. The building remained unused until it was purchased in 1939 and turned into the "mother of all bowling alleys", where Jack and Peggy Ament spent part of their Honeymoon knocking down pins almost 70 years ago. In 1964 the singing cowboy Gene Autry purchased the building and made it the home of KTLA studios where it still operates to this day. Today, KTLA and KCET are the only Los Angeles broadcasters that are still based in Hollywood, California. Slowly over the decades, CBS, NBC and even ABC once located in the sleepy Franklin Hills area of Los Feliz have all moved out of the “Wood” and onto greener more suburban pastures.

If you grew up in Los Angeles in the second part of the 20th century, you probably caught the KTLA Channel 5 news at 10pm with its iconic anchorman Mr. Hal Fishman. Hal was one of the most durable and well respected broadcasters of our times delivering the news night after night for 40 plus years with his somewhat dry but very likeable delivery. Hal rarely showed emotions as broadcasters are trained to do but a few times a year at the end of one of those slow news nights, he would come out of his shell as he concluded the evening’s broadcast with the segment of the surfing chihuahua in Santa Monica or the champion who consumed 53 hot dogs at a hot dog eating contest in Malibu. Hal Fishman passed away in 2007 and of course the Los Angeles nightly news has never been the same since.

UCLA Coach John Wooden 1910 - 2010

John Wooden - 1975

When it comes to Southern California Sports figures, legends, icons and personalities there are two lists:

The First List: John Wooden

The Second List: Eveybody else.

Wrong turn at Pickfair Way ? - The Pickfair Estate Beverly Hills

Al and Catherine on vacation in "Hollywood" Feb - 1946

Pickfair - Home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford - 1920

For a brief moment in the summer of 1979 I sold maps to stars homes in front of the old Famous Amos Cookie establishment on Sunset Blvd. This chapter in my life lasted about three days as it was much too hot to be standing out on the sizzling concrete selling maps to tourists searching out the homes of Milton Berle, Eve Arden and Shirley Temple. As the now famous (in my blog anyway) 42 Sunset bus would pass by every 20 minutes, I would envy my dear friend Johnny “Mac” as he made his way to Santa Monica Beach for a little surf, sun and girl chasing. On what was to be my last day selling these maps, a vacationing couple from Small Town USA purchased a map and went happily on their way, only to return a couple hours later outraged that the map that I had sold them did not have the correct address for Carl Reiner, the multi-talented actor/producer/director and creator of the Dick Van Dyke Show. I quit this gig about an hour later and headed to the soft sands of Santa Monica never looking back at star chasers again.

I recently raided the vacation photo album of tourists Al and Catherine as they toured Hollywood in February of 1946. Among the many great snapshots of the sharply dressed couple and their friends in front of all the "greatest hits" of that time period; The Brown Derby, The Chinese Theater and CBS Studios, there was an odd photo of them in front of a grassy front yard at 1148 Pickfair Way. I can only assume they were searching out the famous Pickfair Estate of silent film stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford located at 1143 Summit Drive, just around the corner from where they were so proudly posing for the camera. Al and Catherine were probably led astray by an outdated map much like that frustrated couple I encountered back in 1979. Built by famed California Architect Charles Neff and purchased by Douglas Fairbanks in 1919, Pickfair (an amalgamation of the names of its original residents Fairbanks and Pickford) was the fairytale home of the Hollywood couple until they divorced in 1936. Over the decades the estate was slowly reduced in acreage and eventually sold to Los Angeles Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss and then again to actress and singer Pia Zadora who had it bulldozed to erect the monstrosity that sits their today. Only the pool and the front gate remain from the glamorous original estate.

The Famous Amos store on Sunset Blvd is long gone today, but the vending machine at my work still sells the Famous Amos cookie brand, while I am again working on maps at my job but in a much different capacity. Mary Pickford continued to live at the Pickfair Estate until she passed away that same summer of 1979 leaving her third husband Buddy Rodgers and eventually Dr. Jerry Buss to deal with the hundreds of quirky vacationing couples that would arrive every summer at the famous estate searching out a photo opportunity. Back at home, Al and Catherine’s friends and family were none the wiser of the Pickfair geographical error made that day, as they enviously flipped through that 1946 vacation photo album of their trip to La-La Land.

Mary Anissa Jones and the Obituary Wall

Mary Anissa Jones 1958-1976

In August of 1976 I picked up a newspaper that someone had left behind on the 42 Sunset Blvd bus and read that Mary Anissa Jones, Buffy from the 1960’s CBS sitcom Family Affair, had overdosed in an Oceanside apartment at age 18. I was saddened and in disbelief that this young girl only six years my senior, had succumbed to a much different life from the one she portrayed on television. This event created the clear acknowledgment for me that people in the lime light no matter how bright or for how long, have the same limitations as the rest of us do in the ordinary world. When Elvis died one year later in August of 1977 at age 42, it created a much wider spectrum of this reality ranging from that forgotten child star to "The King" himself and everyone else in between. I promptly tore out the small photo and obituary of Mary Anissa Jones from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that day and took it home with me, thus starting a life long fascination with obituaries. Coincidentally when Elvis died I also heard about it while riding on that same 42 Sunset Blvd bus through Hollywood by a young man who announced it to everyone as he got the news from his transistor radio.

Throughout most of my working life I have clipped out interesting obituaries from the paper and taped them on to the wall of my office for others to read, creating a kind of tourist attraction wherever I happened to be employed at the time. People from other departments and other buildings would stop by for casual visits to read the “obituary wall” as it has since been named. Although interesting to read about the greats such as Marlon Brando, Johnny Carson or Lucille Ball when their time arrives, I find it even more fascinating to read about the not so famous such as that reclusive 1940's film noir actor, a 1950's roller derby queen from the Olympic Auditorium, the owner of the Los Feliz hipster lounge The Dresden Room, the guitar player from that forgotten 1980’s new wave band or the inventor of that 1960's rice and pasta mix, Rice A Roni. Even more interesting are the obituaries of the everyday people where a long and bountiful life is reduced to a 2 inch by 2 inch section of newsprint. One which stands out the most was that of a WWII veteran named Joe Cool, right after his name it read "Yes, his real name”. I was amused at the thought that Mr. Cool always had a bulletproof retort when someone accused him of trying to be cool, “What are you Joe Cool or something ?” Joe's response would smugly be “As a matter of fact, yes I am.”

Today I have become the "obit guy” amongst my friends and co-workers. When news hits the airwaves about a celebrity‘s passing, I immediately get a text message or an email from friends informing me of the news. Needless to say, this has been a busy week with the passings of Art Linkletter, Gary Coleman, Dennis Hopper and former Dodger Jose Lima. The obit wall gets recycled throughout the year with older ones coming down and newer ones becoming the headliners on my office wall. Over the course of time I started to accumulate boxes of yellowing newsprint with no significant use for them so rather than risk a fire hazard, I recently tossed most of them away. I kept several musicians such as John Entwhistle of The Who, Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone of The Ramones and Sandy West of The Runaways so that I could slip their obituary clippings into the record sleeves of their respected albums in my vinyl collection. For some reason I kept a few others; Esther Wong the owner of the 1970’s Chinatown music venue Madam Wong’s, Danny Sugerman the best selling author of No One Here Gets Out Alive (the biography of Jim Morrison of the Doors) and Deirdre O'donoghue the original host of Breakfast with the Beatles now hosted by Chris Carter

As far as that very first obit of Mary Anissa Jones. I placed it in a book aptly titled The Best Short Stories by O. Henry which I was reading at the time of her death in August of 1976. The small clipping remained untouched in the book from that day for the next 31 years until I uncovered it in when I was moving in 2007 and then just as quickly, it disappeared again amongst my belongings once again. Hopefully the yellowish news print of the pig-tailed little girl who left us way too early will resurface again some day.

12 minutes with Sunshine and The Chief

January 2010 - Photos by El Niño Angeleno.

I met Sunshine and The Chief back in January on the Gold Line as they were headed to the Rose Bowl for the BCS Championship game. I misplaced the roll of film along with my notes from that day but recently came across the roll and developed the film and scanned the negatives. As I recall The Chief and Sunshine were working on a film together based on a published book that dealt with being on the road. I enjoyed spending about 12 minutes with them on the Gold Line that afternoon and I promised them these photos once I had them developed. Chief and Sunshine, If you are out there send me an email and I will get these to you.

Former Dodger Jose Lima dies at age 37

photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Times

I just spoke to Jose Lima last Thursday evening at the local Gold’s gym where we are both members. Always animated and friendly and wearing an Angels or Dodger cap, he was very upbeat about the new youth baseball academy he was starting in Los Angeles. Our conversations were usually short and very casual, a greeting or maybe a quick chat about our workouts but he was always willing to talk with anyone who recognized him at the gym. In his only season playing for Los Angeles, Jose was able to win the first playoff game for the Dodgers in 16 seasons, a shutout over the St. Louis Cardinals in October of 2004.

Last week at Gold’s Gym I wanted to casually tell him what a great game he pitched that night and thank him for finally getting that monkey off the Dodgers back, but I did not want to bother him with a subject he probably frequently addresses so I decided to wait for a more appropriate time. This morning I read in the paper that Jose Lima died early Sunday morning of an apparent cardiac arrest. He was only 37 years old and the father of 5 children.

If you ever feel compelled to express your thoughts to someone about an impact they made on you or clear the air over a misunderstanding from years gone by or maybe tell someone how much you really care about them, then never hesitate for that person may be gone when you are ready to do so. I have spent a lifetime holding back my words in these situations and regretfully so.

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Rest in Peace Jose.