Recently in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Category

Above: Lu Parker of KTLA interviews Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in a photo seen on the Channel 5 anchor's blog. A Channel 4 photographer filmed them together recently in the Larchmont district.

I'm just going to throw this item out there: Via LA Observed, a Channel 4 blog (which according to Kevin Roderick of LAO is "not to be confused with KNBC News") reports that L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been spotted around town in a non-official capacity with KTLA (Channel 5) anchorwoman (and ex-Miss USA) Lu Parker.

There has been no confirmation one way or the other as to the nature of Villaraigosa and Parker's relationship/connection/whatever-you-call-it.

While Villaraigosa's previous relationship with a television anchorwoman did little for his political career (or seemingly the rest of his life), he's not married now, and according to Lu Parker's blog, she "lives in Los Angeles with her cat and dog," and I take that to mean she's single, so and if there is something there, there won't be any tectonic shifts in the L.A. political landscape.

As for the L.A. journalism landscape, I'll leave it to KTLA to sort out how they're going to handle this (if there in fact really is a this).

I'll leave it to you, dear reader, to click on the Channel 4 link to see the actual picture of the two at a bookstore in the Larchmont district.

The blog seems a bit incredulous about Lu Parker having her own blog, but in the interest of photographic immediacy, check out the photo of Ms. Parker interviewing Mr. Mayor (which can be quickly found here) from that very blog.

After years of living on what by all appearances is one of the most pothole-pocked streets in the city of Los Angeles (those Mars lander photos look a bit too familiar), the L.A. street repair crew is rolling the heavy equipment up and down our little country road in Van Nuys.

Sure the entire house feels as if it's going to be shaken into a little pile of 1940s wood and plaster, but it's totally worth it.

I had a long, rambling stream-of-consciousness post that I'm sure you all would've loved, but just as I was uploading the art (thanks for the pictures, Ilene, who blogs about it here), the $0 Laptop gave up on me, Movable Type didn't autosave more than three lines, and I basically got sent back to the first square in Shoots and Ladders.

But the long and short of it is that our bombed-out-looking excuse for a residential street is getting the once over twice from the City of Los Angeles.

And while I'm in the mood, I'd like to thank, in Precise Modern Lovers Order, our neighbor Laura for keeping all the relevant feet to the fire these past many years, Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, whose tootsies must be pretty damn toasty by now, and my pothole-filling buddy A-Dog, aka Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, frequent visitor to the Daily News newsroom, who, whether he did anything or not, get his due because he's, by all appearances, a complicated man who will risk his neck for his brother man and all that.

For the foreseeable future, Van Nuys loves you all, baby.