The Real "Los Angeles 2013"

Side-by-side comparison of Syd Mead's 1988 illustration of 2013 Downtown Los Angeles, and the real-life photo of March 2013 DTLA, looking west along 1st Street at San Pedro Street in Little Tokyo. No super-tall towers to dwarf the stately City Hall, nor split-level streets (Whatup with that?!), but we do have the "Death Star" Caltrans building and zebra crosswalks.

The whole local Intwerwebz lit up last week when the Los Angeles Times decided to open their published time capsule from April 3, 1988 of the Los Angeles Times Magazine article on what the city would be like in 25 years -- That is, 2013.

The Militant, still a teenager, actually remembers reading that article with eager curiosity, and marveled at the supertall towers and rail transit tubes that may or may not be common sights in Downtown Los Angeles. But all this talk about robots was pretty awesome stuff. Man, the future. That was pretty rad.

Because back in '88, The Militant was listening to music like this:


PURE ENERGY!

It was a bold new future, a brave new world.

But 25 years later, we read the article with much amusement. Predicting the future will always turn out both correct and incorrect. Take, for example, the city of Detroit, which has been victim of urban decay and corruption in local government, but still lacks a cybernetic officer in its police force.

There are lots of variables. For no one in '88 could predict, say, the Rodney King incident and the subsequent 1992 Riots. Or the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. Or the NFL moving out. Or the Lakers and Kings moving Downtown. Or 9/11. Or climate change. Or the demise of the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Or blogs. Or social media. Or CicLAvia. Or the fact that the Dodgers only garnered one World Series championship since then. Or...(Okay, the Militant will stop).

The Militant went through the article and noted down some of the innovations listed in writer Nicole Yorkin's fictional account of a day in the life of the Morrow family of Granada Hills.

The Militant has each of those "innovations" listed under three ratings: "Yes," "No" and "Sorta" when it comes to how prescient it was.

Mandatory staggered work plan (Sorta) - Back when Los Angeles was a more white collar town, working 9-to-5, so to speak, this was talked about back in the day as a way to mitigate traffic. But in a more service-based workforce, there are people working around the clock.

Computer printer printing out news (No)  - The Militant knew years ago news would be computerized, but more like the home-printed version in the article than the wireless, mobile digital form we enjoy today.And man, what a waste of paper!

Domestic Robots (No) - Cylindrical vacuum cleaners aside, no, there are no domestic robots in 2013. We're still a far way from the Jetsons Era, and such robots will remain to be limited in the science fiction film realm. Though if you could tell the people back in 1988 that there will be a Star Wars VII sequel coming out in two years, their minds would be blown.

Home Gym (Sorta) - Many people own their own workout equipment, especially computerized treadmills, that give you accurate counts of calories burned and whatnot. They don't (yet) function like personal trainers, and people in 2013 still go to the gym (The Militant doesn't, he has his bike...)

"Los Angeles-based multinational Corporation" (No) - The world in 1988 had a feeling that Japan owned everything and Los Angeles, across the pond from Japan, would be the financial center of this side of the Pacific Rim...since then, the big overseas capitalist power went to China (ironically, a communist country) and the Fortune 500 companies based in Los Angeles either merged with other companies based elsewhere or just moved out.

India cigarettes (No) - Though India is the 2nd-largest tobacco producing country in the world (595,000 tons annually as of 2000), it's far surpassed by China, which produces 2.3 million tons per year. Unlike coffee or tea, the origins of tobacco products is largely unknown to most consumers.

Denturinse (No) - With modern tootbrushes boasting advanced forms of bristle arrangements, and even some disposable models being battery-powered, ain't no way a rinse product is gonna clean yo teefs.

Video intercom (Yes) - Skype. FaceTime. Need we say more? Although we use these over long distances. Within the household, people just send texts...

Robo-pets (No) - Y'all blew your chances 15 years ago with the Tamagochi.

Nutrition plan (No) - Our kitchens still don't automatically provide these to us. Actually, with so much GMO food, would we really want that?

Plastic key-card (Sorta) - The protagonist in the 2013 story opens and runs his car with a plastic key-card. Though such things are mainstream in hotel rooms, they're not used in automobiles, especially since the whole wireless thing blew that usefulness out of the water.

Electronic map system (Yes) - Yes. Or more like GP-yes.

Commutes 3x long (No) - You complain about the traffic, yet don't even know it's not as bad as we all thought it would be. The average freeway trip forecasted for 2013 in the article was 47 minutes. In the real 2013 its around 29 minutes, only twice the 15 minute commute from the 1980s. Of course, though the article predicted Metro Rail (which was two years into construction at the time of writing), it didn't predict things like Metrolink, rapid buses, bicycle commutes or the recession, all of which reduced the number of automobiles on our freeways.

Automobile Trains with Inductive Couplers (No) - Oh no, that's kinda wacky. We're just getting used to those ExpressLanes with those fancy transponders.

Computer pen pals (Yes) - It's called Facebook, anyone?

Future Rock (No) - The big music wave in the 2013 Grammy Awards was folk music. Rock has gone retro for quite a while. And no, dubstep doesn't count.

Christa McAuliffe Elementary School (No) - With the space shuttle Challenger disaster still fresh in the minds back then, this was an inevitable assumption. But though the perished space-bound teacher was immortalized in other school districts, the LAUSD has yet to honor her (Not surprised...)/

Pilot program schools with scale down size, community-based operation (Yes) - They call them charter schools.

Smart Cards, Fiber optics and artificial intelligence in schools (No) - Are you kidding? the LAUSD is far too concerned with dumbing-down education via their obsession with standardized testing to invest in any of that.

Large Screen Displays (Yes) - Though not necessarily in LAUSD schools, colleges do have video projection and large LCD monitors at their disposal.

Toy Ultra-Laser (Yes) - One of the kids in the article has his laser confiscated from him. You can, too, if you aim yours at an airplane or a helicopter.

Telecommuting (Yes) - Though not nearly as widespread, telecommuting is commonplace enough in the industries that are compatible with it.

Electronic Mail (Yes) - E-mail was around in the 1980s, so it was a technological inevitability. The Militant was even using it, as a member of local bulletin-board systems (BBSes) which people called via their 1200-baud modems. Of course, the article probably didn't predict e-mail spam...

"Condensing and synthesizing information form all over the globe" (Sorta) - One of the characters does this for a living. In the real 2013, we have computers doing this for a living. It's called Google.

 "Flashing his monthly metro rail pass at a uniformed guard" (No) - Guess they couldn't predict TAP cards. Though you still have to show (tap)  yours to uniformed guards every once in a while on trains or stations.

Elevated Track (No) - While some of the Metro Rail lines run on elevated structures, it's not nearly as used as the article predicted, possibly assuming that subway tunnels "wouldn't work in earthquake country." The 1989 Bay Area earthquake and every earthquake in Japan proved that was wrong, and that tunneling was the way to go. Not sure how those Beverly Hills folks think about that, though, if we built an elevated Metro Rail line through their town, they'd scream bloody hell 10 times louder.

Computer Banking  (Yes) - Online banking is totally mainstream in today's world, but video-conferencing with tellers isn't even necessary.

Downtown population (Yes) - Perhaps an inevitability, but yes, tons more people live in DTLA than back in 1988.

Speaking of the Downtown population, it's interesting how this article focused on a family in suburban Granada Hills. Today, it would either be people living closer to the city, say, in Silver Lake or Palms, or farther away in now-suburban communities like Santa Clarita, Rancho Cucamonga (yay Tongva) or Aliso Viejo.

Another interesting thing was that lower-income communities were totally overlooked. Whether they would be eventually gentrified or ceased to exist was galaxies away from the tone and scope of the article. But history has a funny way of working; had it not been for the '92 Riots, and their lasting impact, both positively and negatively, we wouldn't be talking about lower-income communities today. And aside from the (assumed) mixed white-Latino marriage of the Morrow family, we saw little of how  Los Angeles, already a very diverse multicultural metropolis back in '88, would turn out in terms of culture.

So then, what would a day in the life of Los Angeles look like, 25 years from now, in 2038? Of course, knowing what we know now, it all depends where in Los Angeles and who we're focused on.

And After All...You're My Paywall...

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times initiated a paywall to their website, requiring users to pay a fee starting at 99 cents a month to read any content beyond 15 articles and the main page.

Well you could assume that didn't go over well. The entire city scoffed, and while a few thought the 99-cent fee was reasonable, The Militant doesn't think the Times deserves even a penny as long as it's controlled by its Chicago slavemasters.

A newspaper dwindling in content and soul (Okay so they signed on The J-Gold, but what else have they got now?), it was especially, and most embarrassingly shameful that even The New York Times, of all things, had much better coverage of the LACMA Rock's arrival than our hometown rag did (and it pains The Militant so much to even admit that).

Ugh...let The Militant rest for a bit. That was too heart-wrenching.

[Breathes Deeply, drinks a glass of water]

Okay. Anyways, early Wednesday evening, after innocently clicking on a Twitter link, The Militant hit the much-feared Paywall and got the "Become a member to keep on reading" pop-up. Hmmm. He didn't even think he went through 15 articles thus far...So he clicked on the "No Thanks" at the bottom.

Now, The Militant surfs with two web browsers: One for himself, and the other for his mild-mannered alter-ego, named [Ahahahaaa, you thought he'd go there, did you?].

But The Militant pulled up the other web browser, went to latimes.com and even searched for the article that was blocked from him. He was able to read it in its entirety. He was even able to read another one!

He also tried deleting the "latimes.com" and "lat.ms" cookies from his main web browser and went back to the Times' website. But he got another Paywall warning (Update: Deleting ALL cookies, rather than selectively deleting latimes.com cookies, will work! Go for it!)

So there you go...if you want to circumvent Le Paywall, just clean out your cookies regularly and have your Firefox, your Chrome, your Internet Explorer, your Opera and your Safari browsers installed and handy. Among all those, you can read up to 75 articles for free! And if you got a mobile or tablet device, let the good times roll!

Of course, you l33t h4xx0r types can use an IP faker under one browser, but The Militant didn't tell you that.

So enjoy your freeeee latimes.com content, paywall jumpers!

The Militant's Response to 'Some Guidelines On How To Be A True Angeleno'

As if in a flash, the Militant's Facebooks and Twitters blew up with people forwarding the link to Los Angeles Times columnist Hector Tobar's entry today, entitled, "Some guidelines on how to be a true Angeleno."

First off, this blog post is not about hateration. In fact, Tobar (pictured left) is one of The Militant's favorite Times columnists. And The Militant pretty much agrees with what Tobar is saying in the column. Although, The Militant may or may not be tickled that the mainstream media is finally talking about the things that yours truly has been writing about for years. But hey, even though the Hector Tobar isn't the Militant Angeleno, he certainly is the closest thing to it down there at Times Mirror Square.

This post is not so much a rebuttal to Tobar's column, but more of an addendum to the conversation. And damnit, this kind of subject matter is The Militant's virtual gang turf. So he's gotta represent!

So let's do this:

1. Don't fawn over celebrities.
True dat. The Militant never learned it in school (they don't really teach you anything that pertains to the real world at the LAUSD), but somehow he's instinctively learned not to be starstruck. First of all, it's sort of understood that one needs to respect celebs' privacy. The other matter is, when The Militant actually sees celebs on the street or at the supermarket, he isn't quite sure it's them. You'd feel like a total ass and a half if what you thought was a celebrity turned out to be Just Someone Who Happens To Look Like Them...or worse - an actual wannabe who is hoping you'd fall into their trap.

There is one exception, and that is celebrities who you truly, totally, admire. The Militant met an unspecified celebrity randomly once while shopping at an unspecified store. He was shaking in his boots. But he got his composure together and, in a casual manner, approached the unspecified star during an opportune moment after the salesperson left that unspecified celeb alone. But there were no autograph or photograph (well, this was the days before everyone had digital cameras and smartphones) requests. The Militant just wanted to have a brief conversation with the unnamed famous person, shake their hand and tell them how influential that person has been to him. Done and done and done, and it was one of The Militant's greatest experiences.

2. Use your turn signals.
Word. You paid for your car, right? So get your freaking money's worth. Use the turn signals.

3. Barbecue, garden, enjoy the outdoors
Definitely. Barbecue? Check. Garden? That's not The Militant's thing, but one of The Militant's operatives keeps preaching the gospel of California native plants. The Militant is gradually learning about them (if only for the historical perspective), so he may or may not cover this subject later. But this Militant Angeleno will not drive 20 miles just to go for a walk. He can walk, bike or Metro there. It's part of the adventure. You can, however drive just an hour away and be in the mountains, or on a farm. Because we can do that here.

4. Be cool with ethnic diversity.
Be cool? This is part of the Militant's freaking life! He lives ethnic diversity. If diversity is some foreign concept you have to learn how to merely "be cool" with, The Militant does not want to waste his time on your podunk n00b Why-Is-There-No-Cheese-In-My-Taco ass. Next!

(Although people do ask the Militant in person, "What are you?" He chooses to have lots of fun with that...)

5. Know your shortcuts.
If you use your GPS for anything other than locating a house on an obscure sidestreet or finding the nearest applicable ATM, you need to be slapped. The Militant has the Thomas Guide memorized. BOTH VERSIONS.

6. Appreciate Vin Scully.
The bigger Militant issue is more like, how can one actually appreciate a Dodger game when it's not called by Vinny? And, when the time comes where Scully retires or meets The Great Dodger In The Sky (later than sooner! later than sooner!)...Will AI technology be advanced enough to replicate the legendary announcer's voice, diction, prose and idiosyncracies?

7. Acknowledge and respect local traditions.
Yeah. And this includes spelling Silver Lake as two words, and knowing that "The Eastside" is east of the Los Angeles River, damnit.

8. Don't ever say: "L.A. doesn't have any seasons."
Because, as you might have been noticing lately, we can go through all four seasons in the span of a week or two.

9. Don't wear your civic pride on your sleeve.
Okay, this is the only one where The Militant vehemently disagrees on. The Militant will dissect Tobar's explanation:

Your typical Boston or Seattle resident can get pretty snippety about how great his city is. A real Angeleno, however, is too world-wise to claim his city is perfect.

Yes, we all know about the snippety transplant. But does civic pride always have to mean one's city is perfect? Of course not, and shame on you Tobar for assuming that. Of course a transplant, as proud as they are, wearing their stupid little Yankees cap around this town may not admit openly that their hometown is perfect, but the fact that they live here is an unspoken admission of its imperfectness. After all, if it were perfect, they would still be living there.

But what is wrong with having civic pride? The Militant has long believed this is something we need to change. Don't let yourself be drowned out by the civic pride of the transplanted on YOUR TURF. That is an insult to you. Stand up! REPRESENT!

We know ours is a flawed paradise. We recognize and complain about its faults, but we still wouldn't live anywhere else.

Is any place free from flaws, really? Even the most Liveable Cities According To Forbes Or The Economist Or Mercer's has their own problems and issues. But you don't know about them because you don't live there.

But recognizing and complaining and complaining about faults shouldn't just be the end of the game. You can get involved, you can do something about it. The Militant is, why aren't you?

10. Define it your own way.
Yeah, it's called http://militantangeleno.blogspot.com. BOO-YA!

Guess there are Angelenos, and True Angelenos. But then there are Militant Angelenos.

Epilogue: Sometimes, You Get Something For Nothing These Days

Just hours after the Militant beyotched about the new price of a newspaper, while riding on the (M)etro-o-ooo, it seems the Angels of the City were smiling down on him and gave him a free copy...on the floor of a light rail car (pictured above).

Considering that the paper was free of footprints, food stains or any other unpleasant blemishes, good enough.

He read the paper on his ride and even shared the Sports section with a fellow passenger who asked about it.

And in the interest of good karma, the golden rule, blind reciprocation, etc., on the Metro ride back to his compound, after reading what he wanted to read, he left it, neatly folded, on the seat of his train, for another passenger to enjoy a 75-cent break of their own.

You Get Less For More These Days

The Militant awoke from hiw winter hibernation a little earlier than expected -- he thought from the nice, warm, sunny weather it was April already but was surprised to know it's still only mid-January. So he decided to take a little stroll down an unspecified east-west thoroughfare when he took a peek at a newsstand to find out what's going on in the world and exactly what day it was today.

Then he noticed it.

Los Angeles Times...Daily: 75 cents!

Okay time out, let's let that sink in.

SEVENTY-FIVE FREAKING CENTS?!?!?

The Militant is well aware of some of the recent changes to the paper, the shrinking physical mass (and local coverage) notwithstanding. As mentioned before, the Militant still digs reading a physical paper, as it's a nice way to pass the time riding the (M)etro or sitting on the can (even one of these). And the Militant loves seeing the rear page of the Sports or Business sections to see what's on sale at Fry's this week for the latest high-tech gadgetry to blow his Militant income on. And surely people will mob and claw at each other in a Black Friday-like frenzy over copies of the January 21st edition of the Times...or any newspaper, for that matter.

But...75 cents?

Zell, please!

OHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASE!!!

Well, well, well. The Militant heard today that the great almighty Midwestern colonial slavemaster of the Los Angeles Times, a.k.a., the Tribune Company, is writing a new chapter in its corporate history: Chapter 11!

The big Trib, which owns, among other properties, the Times, KTLA Channel 5, amd perennial losers the Chicago Cubs, about $12 million in debt.

Tribune is expected to zell-off the Cubbies sometime next year, and good for them. Perhaps the MLB's sultans of suck will reduce their suckage factor somewhat by eliminating the suckitude from their ownership end (As far as on the field, well, they're on their own).

Tribune also needs to zell-off the Los Angeles Times, and basically any media entity west of the Mississippi for that matter. And what's this about Tribune buying the Orange County Register and the San Diego Union-Tribune (WTF? A continuous zone of journalistic suckitude from Pt. Mugu to the Mexican Border?)

The Militant knows Sam Zell himself isn't reading this, since he doesn't get the whole blog thing to begin with, but what the hey:

Sam Zell: Dude...Duuuuude. Duuuuuuude. Please oh please oh please oh PLEASE emancip, er, sell the Los Angeles Times. You don't need it. It's not working. Really. And in case you don't know, us Southern Californians are all...umm, illiterate! Yeah, that's the ticket! So why own a newspaper that no one can read? Really. So zell off the Times. To Mr. Geffen. Heck, zell it to a goldfish. The Militant would gladly buy it, though he doesn't quite have the militant funds to afford such a venture. But if he did, he'd show up at your door with the cash.

And as for buying up papers in OC and SD? STOP. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. You don't keep buying crap when you're in debt. Isn't that the reason why there's a mortgage crisis going on right now? Please, zell off the Times, and don't buy the other So Cal papers either.

Again, zell off the Los Angeles Times.

Do it, please.

PLEEEEEAAAAASE!!!

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

Call the Militant old-school, but he still likes to read the good ol' newspaper (once in a while). It's light, it's portable, it's a good way to kill time while riding on the Metro, sitting at the doctor's office, queuing at the bank, or sitting in the can.

Yeah, nowadays we got websites, news tickers, text updates, Twitter and, you know, those blog thingies. But the traditionalist in the Militant still believes there's still something to the printed word. After all, his trademark long-winded, word-count-heavy posts are testament to that.

Word? Word.

So while walking down an unspecified major thoroughfare on Tuesday, he happened upon a Los Angeles Times newsstand - a common sight - and did a "Hello, what's this?"

The display copy was partially obscured by a wraparound, with an uncharacteristically Wall Street Journal-esque illustration of the Times' editor (the Militant keeps up with local happenings, but he admits that he's never heard of "Russ Stanton" before, although it seems the Times changes editors these days with nearly the same turnover rate as Japan changes prime ministers). It appears that the Times got itself (yet another) facelift, its third in the past decade. And so the big ed sez:

"Today we're introducing changes designed to better match our coverage to your lifestyles and reading habits."

Uh-oh.

While the state of the traditional newspaper in the 21st century is a surprise to none, the Militant took to these "UI" changes with much skepticism. "Lifestyles?" You already know how much the Militant hates being stereotyped as an Angeleno.

So here we go, comparing today's Times with last week's paper (October 14):

The Nameplate: The most obvious change. Good to know the Los Angeles Times logo banner is still in that good ol' gothic typeface, but now its...SO MUCH BIGGER. And what's with the 3-D shadow? The date has moved from the bottom center of the nameplate to the upper-left. The price, moved to the other end. In the lower right: "latimes.com" There is a reason for that.

The Headline: Looks the same as previous, though a sample front page rendering inside the wraparound shows one of those column-spanning "OMG NO WAI THIS IS IN ALL CAPS" -type headlines. Expect the November 5 edition to herald the announcement of our 44th president in that fashion.

Graphs and Illustrations: The graphic on healtchare costs looks a bit more USA Today. Of course, ever since McNewspaper debuted in 1982 with them boffo color pictures, all of the black-and-white-and-read-all-overs gradually followed suit. Over a quarter century later, that influence is still happening.

Color-Coded Sections: Speaking of color, the section flags are now symbolically color-coded: California is a dark orange/dark gold color; Sports is dark blue; Business is dark green; Calendar and Classified are red. Not that necessary, but if you wanna save on black ink in these tight economic times, might as well.

Sub-Sections: In the A section of the paper, the various subsections (i.e. World, Nation, Opinion, etc.) are presented in white on grey blocks to stand out. Okay, so much for saving on that black ink, then. But it does emphasize the sub-sections more.

Web-Exclusive: In an era where the Web is king, the new-look Times has ramped up the "web-teaser" sections, inviting readers to stories and features, such as Steve Hymon's popular Bottleneck Blog, and having readers continue their Times reading experience from newsprint to computer screen.

Other Changes: There's a bunch of other subtle, though interesting changes to the various sections. Each section now seems to feature a larger photo towards the top of the page. In terms of Tuesday's Sports section, there's one photo of the USC football team nearly half the size of the page. Speaking of whihc, Chris Dufresne's accompanying article directly below it leads off D1, filling much of the bottom half with oversized typefaces and paragraph symbols. What's disturbing is seeing the colloquial word, "Duh!" written in that oversized typeface, referencing the Trojans' single upset blemish to their season. Dunno..."Duh!" is fine for a blog, an email exchange or a text message, but in the lede of a newspaper article? Oh well.

"Change" is a big buzzord this year. Obviously the traditional newspaper has to keep up with technology and attitudes towards alternate news sources. So, yes, change is inevitable. On the other thand, the changes weren't as radical as what the Times seemed to make them out to be. Of course, if the gothic Los Angeles Times logo got changed to, say, a modern sans-serif font, then, well we might have anothe riot on our streets. Okay, maybe not. Or just a nerdy kinda riot.
So though the Militant might not be too crazy with this new Times look, it's not that bad either. Still, as long as the Times is under the wrath of Zell, and remains a mere outpost property for its Chicago-based colonist operation, the Militant still fears a day when he opens up the Times, and it looks and reads like a different city's paper. With the way things are these days, who knows?