Your Stimulus Dollars At Work

This has nothing to do with anything other than it's my old stompin' ground. Nice header photo of the last strip joint on the route. Been there, hope it ain't got the same gals...

Pensito Review

The Sunset Strip Is Being Resurfaced for the First Time in 75 Years

My first thought when I saw that, and it popped up out of a mighty deep recess in my mind, was, "Well, it hasn't needed it. It was made out of concrete."

The Strip has not been resurfaced in all these years primarily because it hasn’t needed it. The original concrete surface had held up well, mostly because the ground below it is never subjected to freezing. [...]

Damn, I'm good!

Back in the '60s, the Strip was the place to go cruisin' on weekend nights. Once each way was enough for me usually and then on to somewhere else, but it was fun. The Strip runs along the side of a hill, so a quick dive to the south into the heart of WeHo or a couple mile run to the north to the Valley, a coupla blasts on the throttle and you were back to sanity. Relative sanity, it's L.A. after all.

There was bumper to bumper traffic, lotsa people and cars and bikes, the new phenomenon of long hair and hippies and gals with no bras, an emerging music scene, plenty to see. Almost never stopped there because there was no place to park. That changed when the first topless club appeared - I found parking! Heh.

I got my first street bike in the late '60s and that made it a lot easier. I got cut off by a car once and, quick thinker that I am in matters of survival, took a handy driveway and rode about a block on a pretty crowded sidewalk. Folks just grinned and waved. My pal Barbara Anne was on the back seat stoned outta her gourd and didn't even notice.

Memories.

Pretty good post. Go read. This is a political blog, so here's some politics:

Not everyone is happy about these long overdue improvements, of course. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who is facing reelection and running scared that he’ll be targeted by tea baggers who hate any government spending that doesn’t suit their own selfish needs — not to mention the fact that he’s facing voters for the first time since it was revealed that he has had a predilection for prostitutes — called the project funding “wasteful pork barrel spending.” The Senate Republican leadership put the project on its hit list, sneering at it as “a free million-dollar nose job from Uncle Sam.”

For the record, the congressman who represents the Strip is Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The senators are both Democrats, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

Diaper Boy v Hammerin' Hank. No contest.