In a reader reaction roundup, people comment on my weekend escape from the heat to Santa Monica, on my watching the complete Twilight Zone, and on the 50th anniversary of the first Ontario Motor Speedway race, all in Wednesday’s column.
Monthly Archives: September 2020
Column: Heat, bad air, masks: Fair would’ve been weird
The LA County Fair would’ve ended Sunday after 19 days, had it not been canceled. Looking back, though, the fair might’ve had to close one or two days due to bad air. And remember the weekend it was 116? That would have been a blast (as in furnace). I look back at the fair that wasn’t in Sunday’s column.
Column: In the country of Susan Straight: Riverside
Lifelong resident Susan Straight writes about Riverside and the Inland Empire for national newspapers and magazines and fictionalizes it in her novels. Her memoir “In the Country of Women” is getting a push this month from Barnes & Noble. I interview her on her front porch for Friday’s column.
Column: In his final days, painter has one last art show
Father Bill Moore has a retrospective show of 50 years of paintings at the Progress Gallery in downtown Pomona. The priest once had a studio and loft in the neighborhood. The beloved figure is at the end of his life due to cancer and says he’s at peace. I interview him for Wednesday’s column.
Column: Who saw Janis Joplin sing in San Bernardino?
I pose the above question to readers concerning her concerts at Swing Auditorium in 1968 and 1970. Also: readers respond pro, con and somewhere in the middle concerning drive-thrus, and a Riverside woman appears on “Jeopardy!” All this in Sunday’s column.
This column, by the way, is more thrown-together than usual. It happens sometimes. I had forgotten that I’d received so many comments on drive-thrus via Twitter and Facebook until looking back at them Thursday afternoon and deciding I might as well make use of them.
Column: He remembers shaking hands, shaving, seeing movies…
Marking six months of the stay-at-home order (issued March 19), I write a column I’ve had on my mind for a while, one in which I remember elements of the Before Times. I probably didn’t cover everything; in fact after filing the column I almost immediately added two short thoughts that occurred to me, about art museums and shaving. Perhaps some other insight will occur to me in the coming days, as I think about doing something and realize I can’t. Anyway, here’s my somewhat different, somewhat wistful Friday column.
Column: Guitarist had a good tutor: Jimi Hendrix
Benorce Blackmon is a backing musician whom you almost certainly haven’t heard of and yet who has played on at least one record you almost certainly have heard. He lives in San Bernardino now, and he knew Jimi Hendrix in Seattle when Hendrix was just an older kid in the neighborhood. I write about Blackmon in Wednesday’s column.
Column: We’re all living in ‘The Twilight Zone’
I threatened a couple of months ago to write about “The Twilight Zone” if anyone had interest, and I can’t say the three or four yes votes represented a landslide. Then again, nobody said don’t do it, so it’s true that the sentiment was 100% among those who cast a ballot.
A month or more ago I wrote a draft of a column, let it age as more pressing topics came and went, and returned to it this week as the six-month anniversary of the shutdown nears. So, Sunday’s column: How I watched the entirety of “The Twilight Zone,” why we love it and how it relates to these times. Hope you like it!
Column: Tigers, mini golf and Nordy Bars, oh my!
Rounding up reader comment on columns as far back as (yikes!) June, I present a range of tidbits concerning miniature golf, radio station mascots, K-6 teachers, a popular tennis center and a Nordstrom snack, all in Friday’s column.
Column: As IE bakes, he flees to Santa Monica for a break
Did you make it through this weekend’s withering heat? (If you didn’t, I guess you won’t be commenting.) I survived, but that’s because I left the IE for the coast, a weekend getaway that is the subject of Wednesday’s column.