Superstar

Yesterday I picked up a cake at the Porto's Bakery in Downey and had a few minutes to stop by the to the apartment buildings bought in the '70s by Karen and Richard Carpenter. Only Just Begun and Close to You face each other on opposite sides of the street. Not sure if the properties are still in the Carpenter family, but they're in great shape.

Aside from snippets on the radio, my main memory of the Carpenters songs is from the mid-'80s when Richard Carpenter was hawking a best-of compilation (probably K-Tel) on television. When you're a kid watching those commercials every day, you eventually expect to hear the songs in a specific order. Did he get crap for those ads in those days? And look up the old footage...he looks like Mark Wahlberg.

Portos call

The 17,715 square foot Portos in Downey that opened on Tuesday was packed today. I saw the unending lines for Cubano sandwiches and cakes and knew I wouldn't get back to work in a reasonable time. So I admired the mixed-color windows and drove away. Cities of Los Angeles County...if you want to pump up your tax base and revitalize your decomposing downtowns, start wooing the next Portos location.

McConfused

I admit it. I spend a lot of time thinking about fast food restaurants. And the crazy part...I haven't had beef/chicken/pork/duck/lengua/cesos in ten years. Not intentionally, at least, unless you count the time in Japan when the owner of the Mexican restaurant in Umejima surprised me with beef tamales.

Here I go again. I swung by the Tacos El Gavilan on Central and Washington and saw that the old sky-fly McDonald's arches by Stanley Meston had been neutered. When did this happen?

I may have to take a drive by the alive-and-kicking McDonald's in Downey, but the McVeggie doesn't exactly sizzle my grizzle. Grimace.

Bob Bablah

I've been getting rid of my accumulated junk, simplifying and getting ready for a move to a smaller home with less storage space. I sold off my records, donated bags of clothes, and threw away useless scraps of paper. I'm still asking myself why I hung onto GTE phone bills from the '90s for so long. On the packrat scale of 1 to 10, I'm somewhere in the 7 or even 8 range, so it's a good feeling to finally let go.

Amongst other holdovers, I'm now down to one box of comic books. My old DC favorites, including the Perez/Wolfman era Teen Titans and Earth-2 titles like All-Star Squadron, are awaiting final judgment. I didn't realize I had so many Bob's Big Boy comics from the days when the restaurant would hand them out to customers.

I took another drive by the almost completely demo'd Johnie's Broiler in Downey that's being restored to a new life as a Bob's Big Boy. I caught the sign contractor in action...

The Adventures of Big Boy in Downey

As a kid I loved Bob's Big Boy. I could care less about the food, and I wasn't the type to run up and hug a plastic statue with a pompadour. I was in for the free comic book, the Adventures of Big Boy. I'd grab a copy on the way into the restaurant, and I'd read front to back. I even read the letters to Big Boy...funny, I remember one from a girl oddly named Keith.

You don't see too many Big Boy restaurants anymore. Aside from the historic Bob's in Toluca Lake, you won't find too many thriving locations. And last month the one on Wilshire in Los Angeles was demo'd to make way for a BMW lot.

But...Bob's is coming to Downey, on the site of the Johnie's Broiler restaurant that was almost completely demolished without permits January 2007. The restaurant will be rebuilt to recapture the original Googie design, and with luck should be up and running next year. The mess is finally cleaned up, but those pesky taggers have had their way with the chub sign.