& the house shook to the timbers. It didn’t feel like an earthquake, but that can never be discounted in SoCal. I was convinced it was an explosion. Nothing was broken, just a few paintings were askew. No sirens, helicopters or electrical outages. Life went on as usual outside.
It turned out I was at the EPICENTER of a quake that hit in the ocean, just one-mile off the Venice Pier. It was tiny, just 3.4 on the Richter scale.

I have been in many tremors & earthquakes, a hurricane in Fla., a cylone, going down the other side of a fairway on a golf course in Ohio, & a typhoon in China–but this one spooked me.

NYTimes: “Obama Takes Oath, Nation in Crisis Embraces The Moment.”
LA Times: “Calls For Hope In Face Of Cold Reality. ‘The Work of Remaking America’ Has Begun!”

Pornmeister/ Gardena,Cal. gaming kingpin, Larry Flynt, & “Girls Gone Wild” guru, Joe Francis, had the chutzpah to ask the Feds for $5 billion to help bail out their industry. NO, NO, NO!!!
A mob museum, a la Cleveland’s Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, is slated to open in Vegas next year. The vintage building needs more renovations & a modest slice of the bailout pie is wanted. The project has already received Fed funding & carefully examines the facts—remember, most people think Warren Beatty’s or Ellroy’s fictional riffs are true —surrounding this dark, fascinating segment of our nation’s history. The FBI has participated & supports the project, while local pols say it will stimulate Sin City’s economy by attracting hordes of tourists—something that, unfortunately, didn’t happen in Cleveland w/ the H of F.
I don’t gamble–except occasionally w/ the thieves of Wall St.–& I’m not dazzled by offshoots of the Cirque du Soleil, but this I’d want to see.

Reknowned Venice-based sculptor, Robert Graham, whose stately, iconic works grace this city & many others, was buried this past Wed.

And the Sunset Strip has lost a prominent figure. Book Soup’s, Glenn Goldman, probably the most nation’s most innovative independent bookseller, passed away last week at age 58. The store is now for sale. I hope it will survive the turbulent times.