Coma como en el D.F.

The OC Weekly has a good read about Santa Ana's taco trucks. Check out the postings from Los Hermanos Lonchera sin Frontera at twitter.com/loshermanosLSF. They've certainly taken their cue from the Kogi folks.

I lived in Japan for a year in the '90s, and I spent an inordinate amount of Tokyo time searching for a half-decent burrito. The best I found was at a restaurant called El Sol in the Umejima district, but the most interesting was from a beaten up roach coach in Shibuya. The owner had decorated the green truck with Don't Mess with Texas stickers, and he was quick to warn me that "Japanese no like beans," so naturally the burrito was beanless. I'll have to dig up my photo and post it up, but in the meantime the photo above is from Garden Grove's Korean District.

Santa Ana LiBarely

I'm still upset with the Santa Ana Library. The old bad news...we're down to two libraries in a city of over 350,000 residents.

Now I'm looking at the budget approved by the Santa Ana City Council for the fiscal year starting July 1st, and it looks like the axe just kept chopping away. The department will be merged into the Parks and Recreation Department, music CDs will be 50 cents for each checkout, adult funding will be reduced 24%, children funding will be reduced 40%, adult material acquisitions will be slashed from an already low 5,400 items to a paltry 2,200 new items...and on and on...

Last week I stopped by the Main Library, and the house was packed! In these shaky economic times we need more library materials and services, not the barebone joke we've been served.

Fashion Victim

In Santa Ana we have a decent last-chance movie theater...Picture Show at the MainPlace Shopping Center. Can't beat the $1.75 price, and there's always something to laugh about. On Saturday an older woman had no qualms asking for a senior discount. And the ticket taker decided to take a stroll..."I had to pick my 'fro," he casually explained.

MainPlace is an enclosed mall. It used to be Santa Ana Fashion Square, an open air retail center that was demolished in the '80s. Now plans are kicking around to raze the north Macy's and build a roofless entertainment-shopping area. Funny how shopping trends go...from traditional downtowns to open air malls to enclosed malls and back to open air malls and "lifestyle centers" that try to mimic traditional downtowns.

Take a look at the plaque celebrating a parking garage built in 1978 with city funds for the Fashion Square. You gotta love how the mayor and city council wanted a pat on the back. I doubt they paid as much attention to Santa Ana's downtown in those days...

Bageldonutburgerburrito...Smell Yes!

There are days when you crave just about every type of food at once. That happens to me a lot. Fortunately, there's this crazy eatery in Santa Ana that serves bagels, donuts, burgers, Mexican food and what have you. Never been to the place myself, but the sign down Bristol always gets me. I'll check out the restaurant soon, but I'm afraid of the intermingling scents. Carne asada with a whiff of donuts and bagels? I can imagine it already.

I'll Bee There

I've been stung by a bee twice in my life. The first, a neck sting, happened in first grade, just as I was boarding the yellow submarine at the end of the school day. One more step and I would've been in the clear. A few years later I was hanging by my hands from a wood trellis beam in my backyard (just accept it for what it is...I was a strange kid), and a bee took umbrage and took me out. I fell, I hurt. Today I take solace that at least I didn't suffer the fate of my classmate Danny, who was actually stung by a dead bee just lying in a grassy field.

Ever wonder why you don't hear too many bee sting stories anymore? Simple answer...there aren't as many bees. Most likely because of pesticides screwing up nature's delicate balance, bee populations all over the United States and other parts of the world are collapsing. No bees = reduced crop pollination = farewell to some types of fruits and vegetables.

I just read about an awesome group in Orange County called the Backyard Beekeepers. The members are doing a kick-ass job saving honeybee colonies from extermination, and they're quick to diffuse the myth of Africanized bees taking over.

And speaking of bees, Thursday night's The Bird and the Bee show at the historic Yost Theatre marked the return of Koo's programming to downtown Santa Ana. I enjoyed the show...nice music, good acoustics, not-too-deafening sound. Yes, I suppose I'm getting old.

The Mexican's Mexican

On the way home from work yesterday I picked up a couple things from the new Mother's Market in Santa Ana. This supermarket has grown on me like organic mushrooms...I dig their pick-your-part burrito counter with the soyrizo chomps.

I'm pretty sure I saw Gustavo Arellano, the OC Weekly rockstar who cranks out the regular Ask a Mexican column, stocking his yellow shopping basket. He was at the opposite end of Aisle 7, so I could be mistaken, but he sported the signature guayabera shirt.

Nice timing because the previous night I had read his carefully researched article, The Assassination of Sheriff James Barton by the Mexican Juan Flores. Wow...this was a clipper. I enjoyed learning more about old-timey Orange County history, and Arellano showed how facts get twisted by lazy historians, journalists, and academics.

Keep up the good work, Mr. Arellano.

Boston baked books

I had a blast in the Boston area visiting family last week. About a block away from Ray and Dan is Newtonville Books, where I took refuge from a snowy-windy day and browsed the books about local stuff.

Also while in Boston I finished up Cometbus 51, with Aaron Cometbus detailing the history behind the legendary Moe's/Cody's/Shakespeare & Co. bookshops in Berkeley. What a great read.

Got me thinking...Orange County is pathetic when it comes to book stores. So we have Libreria Martinez in Santa Ana (which announced today they'll be moving next door rather than closing up), and Reuben Martinez has worked hard promoting literacy and hawking books, but that's about the only shop worth mentioning from a short and sad list.

Leche

So Sean Penn landed a Golden Globe nomination for his Harvey Milk portrayal...well deserved, Spicoli. (Interesting how James Franco was channeling Spicoli in Pineapple Express, and here he's, uh, channeling Harvey Milk.)

I saw the film last weekend at the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, which actually markets itself as a Costa Mesa location. Sure, you can see Costa Mesa's South Coast Plaza from the theater parking lot, but I still get a kick outta how Santa Ana is considered the kiss of death.

The audience had a mass chuckle at the ribbing Orange County (ground zero for the Proposition 6 shock troops of 1978) takes in the movie. I doubt many hard-line conservatives would spend their weekend watching a movie sympathetic to gay characters, so I'm wondering if the laughter was "ha ha, we've come a long way since then" or nervous "ha ha, things haven't changed that much in 30 years!" Personally, I was laughing, "ha ha, I had nerd glasses just like those!"

Rise river rise

After almost five years of living a stone's throw from the Santa Ana River, EzraPounded and I have only recently started taking advantage of the paved bike route that runs along it. Just about every weekend we'll either cycle south to Huntington Beach or north to Yorba Linda.

Nice times...reminds me of my days in San Jose, where I grew up riding the bike trails along Coyote Creek (home of a secret colony of albinos...but that's a story for another day). In those years the path rolled through open expanses of orchards and farmland, but by the early '90s the area was dotted with tech campuses. I'm glad to see that the Coyote Valley (the most southern portion of San Jose) is still mostly open space...

Good Riddance, Ralphs

Like everyone else, I've been scouring the news for updates about the Obama cabinet appointments. All the political shuffling is fascinating, and I like to keep an eye on who's tapped to fill the vacancies opened up by upfilling other posts.

So far no biggies from California. In the Clinton days we saw Warren Christopher, Leon Panetta, and Norm Mineta pegged to work for the administration. Could it be that ever since California became a safe blue state, there's no need to reward us with coveted top spots in Washington?

My other eye is focused on local issues...like supermarket succession. The old Ralph's supermarket at Santa Ana's Bristol Marketplace is finally getting leased up. The cramped Northgate Market down the road on 17th will be relocating to the larger digs.

Good.

That was the worst Ralph's anywhere...horrible food selection. Northgate's going to liven up the retail center. They're a class act.

I gotta wonder what market will now take up the Northgate Market lease once they move out of their current building. In my fantasy world, a Primo's market will expand from their Oceanside territory into the Northgate location. Primo's...best salsa ANYWHERE!

NonTourage

More uncanny similarities...Santa Ana Mayor Miguel "Invisible" Pulido and "E" from HBO's Entourage.

As anyone with a passing interest in Entourage knows, Eric Murphy is the most dull, unremarkable character on Entourage. He belongs back in Queens managing the night shift at a Sbarro pizzeria.

Pulido has been in office since Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" topped the Billboard charts, and his accomplishments are looking rather slim these days. Try pinning down an opinion from him on any semi-controversial issue...you'll be hard pressed to even find him! He belongs out of the public sector and back at his muffler shop.

I early voted last week for his main opponent, Michele Martinez. I'll track down her twin one of these days, too...

Miguel PuliDope

A couple hours ago we pulled the early voting lever at Santa Ana's Main Place Mall. Sure, it's an important presidential election with the usual long list of state propositions latched on, but I was also eager to cast my vote against Santa Ana's forever mayor...Miguel Pulido.

That guy's been in office since 1986 (when Police Academy 3 and Karate Kid II were in theaters), and we're still short on parks, down to one real library, neighborhood streets are crumbling, crime is up in comparison to the adjacent cities, we're running a $28 million budget deficit, and my street gets flooded every winter because somebody forgot to plug in storm drains!

So my vote went to Michele Martinez. Out with Pulido, please!

Zero

It's election season, so naturally I get a crapload of political mailers. Anyone ever notice that Carlos Bustamante, gunning for Santa Ana City Council re-election, eerily looks like Parkman from Heroes?

Buck the clucks

I had heard that public schools maintain student cumulative files for years, so the summer after graduating from high school in San Jose, I decided to check the damage. I have no idea why the administration reacted so defensively, but man, I practically had to make a Freedom of Information Act request to look at my own records. They finally relented, and some chump pencil pusher sat at the same desk watching my every move as I pored over the file. Oh yeah, for kicks I brought along a couple friends, Dave and Ted, and had their files pulled, too.

What was the big secret? I have no idea...there was hardly anything in there but a couple report cards and a goofball photo. The whole mystique of looking up top secret files was shattered.

This Friday my inner snoop compelled me to check the City Hall records of my little piece of the earth in Santa Ana. Again I found myself sitting across from a bureaucrat eyeing my every move while I paged through documents...public tentative tract map and conditional use permit documents in this case.

Guess who came along? Dave! Hehehe...he stared down the city worker and checked the plummeting Dow numbers.

Meet the Mathlete

We often wake up on weekends and take in a morning run at the Santa Ana College track. Today I was feeling kinda under the weather, so I tagged along and brought a book. Instead of reading I looked at the new (well, about a year old) athletic complex. As I admired the row of exterior metal fins, I was struck by the mathematical soundness of the design. Equal spacing, structurally correct. Maybe I was having a Beautiful Mind moment...

I used to be a math whiz. Numbers and new mathematical concepts would come easy to me, and I actually had fun solving equations. My last hurrah was probably in 9th grade when I won a tricked out HP calculator in a math competition held at Stanford University. Then I can only chalk my stagnation to laziness...spent too much time listening to the radio, fell behind on my homework, started taking long naps after school. I coasted my way through high school, and in my undergrad years I didn't take a single math class. I tested out on day one, and never looked back.

And that calculator...EzraPounded sold it on eBay a year back for about $15o. Even my depleted, laughable mathabilities of today figure that's not bad for a 20-year old contraption.

Bananas for Santa Ana

Santa Ana is the Barney Rubble of Orange County. You know, after about five television seasons in the '60s, the producers never even bothered to tell the viewers where poor Barney worked. No respect.

One of OC's more depressed cities, Santa Ana is also one of the most neglected. We have one library, for instance, and we have to pay $2.oo to rent video tapes - that's right, 2 bones for VHS! But BaddicusFinch wrote extensively the library issue, so I won't spend any more time belaboring our sad state of affairs.

While crime has let up in most OC cities, Santa Ana's went down from last year but at a lower rate compared to other cities. A few high visbility shootings have rocked the town in recent weeks. This may all sound depressing, but I have to say that I love this city. I'd lived on the Westside most of my adult life and when we moved here I was depressed as hell until we started exploring.

There's downtown Santa Ana where the Artist's Village, the Spurgeon clock tower, and my favorite pupusa spot are located, Santa Ana College where I run the track every morning, the wild parrots I see and hear everyday, and sundry other joys this city brings me.

I have to say that I despise two things about SA. One is the Bowers Museum which charges New York museum rates and screws Santa Ana residents by not giving us enough free days despite millions of dollars in grants they're getting from the city.

The second thing I hate are the stupid taggers the make our already messed up streets more crappy. I don't mind tagging - good artistic tagging like the Urban Guerrillas type with giant eggheads and such. But just ugly initials for pissing territory, forget about it. BaddicusFinch has the graffiti hotline programmed on his phone. The first sign of tagging, he calls them up.

Anyway, enough about the negative. We're near all sorts of good places like Little Saigon, a Korean enclave in Garden Grove, the Middle Eastern hub along Brookhurst in Anaheim, and a lot more. For foodies this area is Mecca.

So don't despair, Santa Ana. You are loved like our friend, Barney Rubble.

Vodie to the max

I'm sure I'm not the only one who tosses the yellow pages phone book straight to the recycle bin when a new edition appears on the front doorstep. Strange how the more obsolete the hard copy phone books have become, it seems we're bombarded with more and more versions - the "original", the Spanish language edition, the chamber of commerce book, etc. etc.

This might sound nuts, but when I was a wee lad I couldn't wait for the replacement phone books to arrive. I was fascinated by the write-ups on the local San Jose attractions, and wondered which photo would land the coveted cover spot. I'd read up on how to telephone strange sounding countries, and flipped to the z-section of the yellow pages to check out the listings under "zoo."

When I was really young and still illiterate, I'd page through the yellows browsing for ads that caught my eye, like that creepy Buster Brown and his dog, and my favorite, the auto bears. I'm pretty sure the first time I ever picked up the phone and dialed out was to the auto service shops that advertised with that damn cuddly bear. "Do you sell toys?" I asked the workers who must've thought they were getting cranked.

Here in Sana Ana we have the surviving Vodie's bear sign specimen on 17th Street, just east of Bristol. The site was developed in 1956, which fits for this type of happy bear sign. The property was on the market earlier this year, so our bear has dodged another bullet for the moment.

Santa Ana Library doesn't stack up!

As cities throughout California have beefed up their library services in recent years, as California voters approved a $350 million state library construction bond, as the neighboring City of Orange more than doubled the floor area of their main library to 45,000 square feet, the City of Santa Ana has done nothing. Unless you count slashing the bookmobile service.

Santa Ana is the 9th most populous city in California. I compared Santa Ana's library system (focusing on number of libraries in relation to population) with the 8 California cities with more residents than Santa Ana and the 8 cities just below Santa Ana in population.

The result...

The only large city in California with as pathetic a library record as Santa Ana is Modesto. Holy cows, what an embarrassment!

City	Population	Libraries	Residents per Library
Los Angeles	3,834,340	72	53,255
San Diego	1,266,731	36	35,187
San Jose	939,899	19	49,468
San Francisco	764,976	25	30,599
Fresno	470,508	12	39,209
Long Beach	466,520	12	38,877
Sacramento	460,242	15	30,683
Oakland	401,489	18	22,305
Santa Ana	339,555	2	169,778
Anaheim	333,249	6	55,542
Bakersfield	315,837	8	39,480
Riverside	294,437	6	49,073
Stockton	287,245	5	57,449
Chula Vista	217,478	4	54,370
Modesto	203,955	1	203,955
Fremont	201,334	4	50,334
Irvine	201,160	3	67,053

Library, library, quite contrary

I've heard way too many excuses for Santa Ana's failed library "system", now down to the Main Library and the Newhope Library Learning Center. Apologists point to the housing slump, bleak tax revenue, public safety funding that should override other city services, and on and on. Yes, crime is up. The recent high-profile shootings are horrible. But why can't the city leadership see the direct connection between libraries, literacy, education, and jobs?

A strong library system is a sign of a healthy city. A city council that supports improving libraries - expanding hours, adding services, staffing highly qualified librarians, rehabilitating facilities, expanding libraries, constructing new libraries - is a city council that supports creativity, child development, adult literacy, skill development, gang intervention, safe learning, and employment.

Let's look at the Santa Ana City Council. If the economy is up or down, doesn't matter, the Council has gutted the libraries to fund other priorities. Even the bookmobiles were stripped of their funding! How long do the councilmembers think the current economy will be in the doldrums? They're not even willing to start planning for better times. As long as improving the library system is off the table, we're stuck with another symbol of a sick city.

We need libraries now more than ever.

Ramen on Fire

Hapa Asian Cuisine, the teriyaki & ramen fast food stand on 17th and English in Santa Ana, is no more. From the looks of things, the electrical panel caught fire and spread. Before I noticed the scorched panel, my thought was that the bastards who kept tagging the roof parapet walls had escalated their skulduggery to arson.

I wonder if the owner's going to rebuild. I wasn't a big fan of his food...last year he got rid of the monster-size California rolls I would stuff in my fat mouth for kicks...but I felt bad every time I went by and saw another spraypaint hit.