A city of Contrast. A center of entertainment. A center of music. A center of cool trendy things and wealth? The city with the highest homeless population in the United States of America.
A little more information
The two main activities in my life: Helping the hungry in the late hours of the night and helping guitar players sound better one amp at a time.
I always try to remember that in order to do good one has to take action and actually do something.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I have watched the city and Southern California change for well over half a century.
As of late 2019 the music related links and prints noted on this page which had their links to by GAB (Guitar Amplifier Blueprinting) website are no longer accessible. I grew weary of updating my GAB website and let it go away. You can contact me on Facebook. Saunders Stewart Models continues full operation but we are not accepting new clients without a referral.
Los Angeles Architectural History
1935 Art Deco at some of its finest: No. 168 - Griffith Observatory- (click on the photo for information)
The other day I posted the link above on my facebook page. I was concerned with the traffic and tried to stay out of the politics.
Here are a few of the comments and dialogue from my facebook wall.
My first comment which I posted with the link: Remember his last L.A. visit? Stopped folks for HOURS and gas was half the cost that it is today. The traffic, the delays, the idiot folks that planned this and after utter chaos finally used a helicopter at the end of the debocle.
I added: If his idiot staff does not use a helicopter (plenty of places to land on a movie lot) and asks for ANY street closures in a city which already has record breaking traffic issues, I will start my own campaign against the man in the next election. If he repeats his mistakes it means he either does not learn from past mistakes, does not care how he impacts millions of people or has no control over his staff in how they plan these things.
The original piece at the above link are some of my own ATT issues which started in November of 2010.
The focus of the piece is multi-faceted and includes my own service problems on a variety of problems, customer service ineffectiveness, policy changes by ATT which announce limited service at increased costs, Uverse changes, DSL policy changes, service interruptions and more.
This piece takes more of a focus on ATT buying up the competition and reducing service, raising prices and changing contracts.
I am surprised that any corporation such as Netflix, Hulu, Skype, World of Warcraft or any folks whose business is any sort of online gaming, video streaming, music streaming or our government would allow ATT to change their original agreement for unlimited data for what is in essence, the world.
As our economy is trying to climb out of the abyss I cannot believe that our government is allowing ATT to buy up competition to raise prices and reduce services. It is the job of ATT to grow their network, not to take away service, raise prices and eliminate competitors buy buying them.
Shame on ATT. Shame on our Government for allowing one of the few places business is growing in this economy (Internet based businesses) to be smacked down by ATT with their newly implemented data caps. These caps impact their DSL services, Uverse services and cell based services.
ATT - some news on Sam Brownback, Governor of Kansas. ATT is the second largest contributor to Govenor Sam Brownback's campaign. ATT is also moving to Kansas. Makes you think? Our government is watching out for us? Yeah, right.
Some folks might ask me; if the service is so bad why not switch? Well, as the old phrase goes, evil can only take hold when good men do nothing. In reality, I can only be a direct observer if I continue to be a customer. I have met a few good people at ATT over the course of my ongoing journey and hope that they can influence the direction of a company which was once a company in America where our country had pride. Unfortunately this is not the case today. Survey after survey rank ATT customer service as the worst in any industry. At the height of the BP oil disaster the perceived service view of many might have been that BP retained a better customer service image than ATT.
Click on "read more" for the entire ongoing story.
It is over 90 degrees today in Burbank. Last week we had rain and cold. I thought I would take a few moments and post a few cell shots on what has gone on over the last few days. Below are a few moment from the last few days or week.
This is the Leslie out of the Gilbransen President which is being scrapped for parts (and for destructive entertainment I suppose). The unit works great for guitar.
As I mentioned, it is about 90 degrees. This was taken 3/31/11 at 3pm local time in Burbank.
As a point of interest, the guitar above belongs to Steve Kirk ( http://stevekirkpop.com/ ) Steve Kirk is the most listened to guitar player in the history of amplified guitar music. Am I crazy for making this statement? Seems that I am on track, there were even a few news stories on this fact. Steve Kirk wrote and performed the theme to FarmVille, a game played on facebook by millions of people each day. The theme runs in the background of the game as it is played.
In this blog post are some of the photos I have taken in the last few weeks. Most were taken from my cell phone. There are a few photos which have sent me from some of my friends as well. The photos were put together in a little slide show rather than post them individually in a very long post.
The photos show a bit about some of the things I have been up to. Some of my thoughts are posted below which are from comments on facebook in response to news items or in response to the comments of others or posts of others on my page.
There are many photos so I will post them in a single slide show below. Some of the dialogue from facebook I will just cut and paste in this blog post.
Every blog entry has a photo tied into the identification of the particular blog entry. I thought this shot of Mike Franceschini would be about as good as it could get for an initial photo! Mike is a great amp designer and amp tech. I am a bit older than he is but I still learn things from him almost every day whether it is about amplifiers, life or humor. If you have an amp that needs a bit of help you can find Mike in my friends list on facebook and send him a message.
I suppose I can be talked into some drinking since she is driving. - my thought on the night of 3/4/11. My friend Cindy was driving. She is a very bad influence. Since I was just talking about Mike Franceschini I will comment that Mike has some of his own feelings on some of my friends. He likes some of them. He has some disparaging comments on some of the others.
There are about 70 photos in the slideshow below. Not a lot by my standards. You can view them all in a few minutes. If you click on any individual photo you will be directed to the photo on flickr in my album where there may be more info.
On 3/7 I updated this post as I had received a comment to something I posted on Facebook. On Sunday evening 3/6 there was a show on 60 Minutes about the number of children in poverty today. A story of the homeless and the economic situation. I posted the link to CBS piece that was posted on the Internet. I was asked:How do you think the situation would have been with a republican president? Better or worse?
The short answer? Probably no damn difference at all. Perhaps the biggest fault in my eyes of our system of government is that nobody is in a position of responsibility. The buck doesn't "stop here", it never stops anywhere. I am not talking money. I am talking about leadership.
If something goes wrong does the President take responsibility? No. He may be blamed by some but the news media and press will tell the story how one direction should have been followed but it was not possible due to Congress or the Senate or ....
It took this country decades to fall to where it stands today. Both parties held office. Both had their high and low points.
In the past I have written about America. We used to produce some of the finest products in the world. Our cars were some of the finest. Our electronics such as television and stereo equipment were some of the finest available anywhere. Our design and engineering was at the pinnacle of the industry.
Over the decades our elected officials cut education. They removed art classes, vocational classes, music classes. The classes that taught our youth to be creative. Our education scores dropped in all subject areas.
Schools became areas where parents expected teachers to watch over their kids. School was a place to send a sick child as they could not be left at home alone. Discipline was left to the teachers. In the sixties teachers could punish students who were disruptive or misbehaved. The tools of discipline were taken away. Now kids bring weapons to class, listen to their iPODs and text in classes.
We grew into a nation that expected to be paid much more than an honest day of pay for an honest day of work. $50 an hour with full benefits to turn a wrench to produce a second or third rate product.
We lost our basic education that taught us to be artistic and creative for the most part. Thankfully there are some younger generation people who are developing their own technology via their own education via the Internet. There are still some artists, writers and musicians but as a collective nation we are not in a very good place.
You can argue to me all you want but I have a lot of proof. Look at the jobs which have been outsourced. Look at the car in many of your driveways. Where did your guitar or amp come from? Your television, washer, furniture? Most of you will be able to illustrate my point.
This is not a government issue of Republican or Democrat. None of you have taken responsibility. Too many people on both sides of the political fence spend too much time defending some obscure position and stalling rather than working together for a solution to our nations problems.
It has taken decades to sink to our current level as a country but there are people in America that have spirit, ability and the desire to move forward. Hopefully they can overpower the polical machine. Seems as if that is being done in other parts of the world right at this moment. Then again, it may take a bit longer to fix things here because there is no single person to blame as nobody takes responsibility. That is a bit different than things are done in Libya as an example. Perhaps that is why nobody in America is willing to lead the country by taking responsibility. Safety in numbers. Business as usual.
Back to my previous writing...
Rule number one. Always associate a name and a face to any target if you want to take things to the highest level of proficiency. ;-)
latimes: Dow off 88 points, or 0.7%, to 12,169. S&P 500 off 10, or 0.7%, to 1,321. Nasdaq off 14, or 0.5%, to 2,784.
Darryn - once you run out of benefits on unemployment you are no longer counted. I once published the number at the time, I believe it was between 250,000 and 450,00 people EVERY TWO WEEKS that became what are dubbed "99ers", no more benefits after 99 weeks of unemployment.
What did I say the other day about stock prices falling sharply after a big rise?
What did I say about our government leaders and country having no direction as the economy flounders? There is some nonsense about the employment picture getting a sliver better but by now you might all know that these reports are shown to be nonsense as real information comes to light.
Long marinated but cooked fast - Caption on a meal one of my friends cooked for me.
latimes: LAPD seeks felony charges against school police officer who faked shooting http://lat.ms/dKFpTj
If folks are wondering what the #music type of stuff is doing in my post it is a "hash tag" as this is also sent to twitter.
Mike Franceschini with timecopter radio. The console radio in Timecopter was developing a bit of static around 1954 or 1955 broadcasts. Mike did a bit of tweeking. It looks as if he is happy with the results of his magic. Before you ask, the answer is YES, he can make your guitar amp sound terrific too.
Okay ... I don't get it. Where would somebody wear this? Banquet? What if you dropped your bread? The theater? Looks difficult to sit in for a few hours. Social situation such as a party or event? No peripheral vision.
Pure nonsense. Read the comments at the bottom of this article. One more story in this never ending news nonsense that I point out week after week. Question: How many people do YOU know that have been out of work have jobs now? Shame on you AP for not looking at what you posted in the last month, or year.
I have adopted a new technique when it comes to dinner photos via cell to upload to facebook and twitter. Whoever has the best cell with a flash takes the shot and sends it to my phone and then I can post a better shot. I experimented with this with my boys when they got updated HTC phones.
Unrest in the Middle East and Africa -- country by country - http://bit.ly/ge321D
Keeping Up With The Auto-Tune: Kim Kardashian Premieres Her Pop Song - Reality Rocks
Will the producer ever live this down? ..."work for other artists includes Beyonce's "Single Ladies," Rihanna's "Umbrella," Mary J. Blige's "Just Fine," and Mariah Carey's "Touch My Body." But sadly, it seems like Kim just dragged The-Dream down to her nightmarish level. He really should have known better."
19 more days. I am posting this here for Tammy Knight Gibbons and Ludovic Pierson who will be running. I will NOT be running, walking or doing anything associated with the event. I will be eating prior to the event. I will probably eat during the event and probably eat after the event. Yeah ... a tuna shashimi marathon.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable". John F. Kennedy
Feed 5 people for $10 in seconds from your cell phone - donate $10 to Union Rescue Mission, text the letters URM to 85944 #hunger @urm
latimes: Dow off 168 points, or 1.4%, to 12,058. S&P 500 off 21, or 1.6%, to 1,306. Nasdaq off 45, or 1.6%, to 2,737. Not a good day.
I guess he is covering all bases? Mr. Bernanke says while the turmoil in Libya is having an impact on the price of oil, it should be temporary and modest. But he warned if commodity prices remained high they could threaten economic growth and price stability.
Just a few folks getting their final paycheck today:
CITY OF HOPE MEDICAL GROUP DUARTE 185 people HITACHI GLOBAL STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES SAN JOSE 148 people SUNDANCE SPAS, INC CHINO 92 people
Some things in life just come apart
latimes: DUI suspect accused of killing cyclist kept driver's license despite 15 traffic citations http://lat.ms/gh1BVK - Sometimes I can actually find one example of our legal system working. Not this time. With the banks, investors, scandals, Lohan, and stuff like this it seems I have not been able to find a single example of "the spirit of the law" working in a very very very long time. As far as "the letter of the law", even using that criteria things don't look acceptable either.
I think you get an idea from the above dialogue clips. There is a lot more on my facebook wall. I also post a lot of things to twitter as well.
It looks like we are going to be able to see how Sprint customer service stacks up with the worst in the industry, AT&T. Perhaps it will be learned that customer service is also something that cannot be expected from Sprint as well. Perhaps Sprint will shine.
I initially posted this as a note on Facebook in June of 2010.
There has been a bit of discussion on the post so I thought that some folks that subscribe to this blog might find this of interest.
Older photo which shows GT "made in USA" silkscreen. Aspen was called out on this with legal action so the silkscreen was changed to eliminate this statement.
Today I received an email from my friend Rob Hull over at TubeDepot. Rob is is their technical director. He is a great fellow and has produced a lot of terrific videos about amp service and videos on many technical subjects.
Below is Rob's letter and my reply. Feel free to write Rob with tech questions as he is a great resource.
Most anybody who has read this blog has seen me write about Union Rescue Mission and their CEO Andy Bales on many occasions.
I would guess that most folks that have met Andy through nothing more than my blog entries and the reposting of his blog entries are pretty darn impressed with the man.
I thought I would take a few minutes to post the last two pieces written by Andy Bales. I will also post the direct links. Some folks don't follow links so that is why I will also post things here.
Skid Row in Los Angeles is a tough neighborhood to say the least. If you talk to the L.A.P.D. they will tell you that San Julian Street between 5th and 7th just might be the most dangerous street in Los Angeles.
Last weekend, one of the daughters of two of my friends had a birthday party. My friends are Dan and Wendy Boul. Dan is the co-owner and founder of http://www.65amps.com/ but this is not abount amps.
This is really about how two people can raise children in today's world that are such amazing kids in so many ways. Rather than elaborate on the qualities of Dan, Wendy, their children, their dogs and their home which has made so many feel so welcome I will just take a moment to mention the birthday party.
Dan and Wendy's daughter is in elementary school but has more empathy and is more observant than many adults.
Her daughter requested that she did not want conventional gifts for her birthday. She asked for donations for Union Rescue Mission to help the homeless. Today I spent a bit of time telling Dan the best way to accomplish the donation. Going to http://www.urm.org/ and hitting the donate button would step him through the process where he could put his daughter's name in the form so she would receive the thank you letter from Union Rescue Mission herself.
Don't assume that the Boul family are strangers to the homeless situation. I stopped counting how many times they have helped me buy the snacks and items I take down to skid row in the evenings. I'd like to take a moment here to just once again say thank you to the Boul family and to the folks at 65 Amps who have also helped individually and collectively.
Wendy and Dan Boul
Thank you again to Wendy and Dan. You are darn impressive parents. I cannot impress on you how impressed I am with both of you and your entire family.
I started this blog on December 13, 2009 to raise awareness on the homeless situation which is growing due to the current economic situation in this country. Two priorities at this period in my life are helping the homeless on the streets of Los Angeles and helping musicians sound better one amp at a time.
It is said that a picture is speaks a thousand words. Here are over three thousand random photos in a slide show. This is what I do, who I know, where I go.
An emotionally draining slideshow which mixes art, whimsy, low production values, a general lack of composition, sexual tension, nausea and the feeling of foolishness you have if you can watch the entire show from beginning to end.
What could be better than an album of nothing but low resolution shots taken with my cellphone (and a few from friends cellphones as well) ... and then, take these low resolution photos and upload them in real time to facebook where the quality and size is reduced even more?
Why I do what I do
To the folks who ask why I do what I do.
For many decades I worked in the corporate sector for very large companies. I worked many hours each week.
On some occasions I actually felt as if I made a change in a life. I could help somebody in their career. I could teach somebody something technical. Those sorts of things.
40-60 hours a week or more was generally not all that rewarding other than the friends I made along the way and the occasional change as I was able to make a difference.
I worked hard to make changes in my own life as most of us do. I made money to buy a house, raise a family. Family and friends are one side of our lives. The outside world is another.
I now have two main "jobs" each day. One is to help guitarists sound better, one amp at a time. I help folks in the music business and pass on what I have learned over decades walking this planet. I also try to help other people who are building their own career. That is one of the joys of being my age. You can help those on their path of building their own lives.
My second "job" is helping the homeless on the streets on Los Angeles. Five or ten hours on the street each week helping people makes more of a direct impact on more people than a month of work in my old life. Whether I feed people a snack, listen to what they have to say, give them a card from http://www.urm.org/ or walk them down to Union Rescue Mission I feel I am making life a little better for somebody.
In order to do something good one generally has to do something as in perform some sort of action. Los Angeles has the highest homeless population in the nation. Perhaps I feel as if I needed to do something.
Union Rescue Mission - What they do.
I talk a lot about Union Rescue Mission on this blog. I also talk a lot about them on facebook. I talk about them on my GAB website.
Many of my friends have become friends with Union Rescue Mission and members of their staff. I am sure many of you feel the same way I do about what they do and are a little bit better for knowing them. videos you may learn a bit more about the work these folks do.
This blog was created in December 2009. Statistics were enabled on July 1, 2010. From July 1, 2010 to July 1, 2013 there were more than 12 million reads of this blog.
As of 9/14/2018 there has been 36,395,500 reads. There were 189,708 visitors last month, August 2018.
Posts are also seen on facebook, twitter, google buzz, blogger, digg it, atom and many other services that have opted to distribute my antics for reasons that are at times a mystery to me.
Thanks for following, thanks for reading and thank you for sending the link of this site to your friends.
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