No parade unless Lakers pay

Can the City of L.A. really afford to pay $1 million for 1/2 of a victory parade to fete the Lakers? The mayor says to forgo this opportunity is "untenable," but laying off teachers and city workers, cutting essential services - that he can live with.

Is Villaraigosa completely tone deaf? Is he aware of the hungry teachers camped out at the school district headquarters? They're on day 20 of their strike. What about the student walk-outs. (He's famous for participating in such an action, when he was a student at Roosevelt High.) These stories are all over the paper and easy to find on YouTube.

Earlier on Sunday, the mayor covered himself in a rainbow flag and rode in West Hollywood's annual gay pride parade - traditionally, one of the most creative occasions in our fair metropolis - a veritable celebration of crepe paper and extra large cheerleader uniforms. (Think about what the girls of Christopher Street West could do with a million bucks!)

Ironically, about a week before His Honor vowed to "put the [gay marriage] issue back on the ballot," protesters gathered at Hollywood Forever cemetery to voice their discontent about cuts in the fight against HIV/AIDS, estimated to be $80 million, state-wide. Villaraigosa wasn't even there. Will he miss the $2 million Laker parade? No way, Kobe.

We have real needs in this community - gay, straight, kids, the elderly, fighting crime, saving our schools, zero waste, creating jobs. I think turning away from our citizens is "untenable." Will we sleep any easier in our beds if we have a parade?

And why can't the Lakers pay for the whole thing? Why quibble about money at a time like this, when to be magnanimous would go so far in solidifying the devotion of fans throughout this city? People are nuts about their Lakers, with the flags and the outfits, the car rocking and the bonfires.

They should take a page out of David Cooley's book, a WeHo cafe owner who donated $5,000 to the Fairfax High School band instead of spending the money to build a float for Gay Pride. The Laker victory parade will cover a two-mile route through some of the most distressed neighborhoods in this city. Pay for your own parade, Jerry, Kobe, Phil.

Sign the petition saying NO to an LA-paid parade.

Call the Lakers' senior VP of business operations and marketing, Tim Harris, (310) 426-6000.

Bus stops in the middle of Sunset!

Who thought it was a good idea to route a bus - much less a double-long one - around a hairpin turn from Sunset to Santa Monica, straight through the heart of Sunset Junction? This poor unfortunate bus is in a photo snapped by Blaire-with-an-e, one of the many Hollywood friends. This was taken and sent from a Blackberry, not an iPhone. I just want to make that clear. No rational reason for this - just pointing out that we liberals are not all Volvo driving, latte sipping, iPhone twittering lemmings; some of us have T-Mobile.

In the photo, we see another example of how the people who work for the MTA and with bus routes and schedules and public transportation don't actually understand public transportation - most of them don't even actually ride the bus. It's always in the L.A. Times when a public official or a reporter experiments with public transportation. (This is part of the reason I felt it imperative to stop my subscription to the Times - which I subscribed to since college. I just couldn't stomach one more reporter telling us how he rode the bus all the way to work from the West Side and it took him two whole hours!)

Mayor Villaraigosa should appoint grass roots organizer and environmental activist Ann Bradley to a new post: czarina of mass transit. She truly knows this system because she's been a dedicated bus rider for years. She's my own personal "commuter concierge" - the person I call for the up-to-date information on fares, points of interest along the route, how to transfer, etc. It's sad that in L.A. we have to to have a bus riders union to make known the needs of the people who ride the bus. In any other business, the people who use the product or service are called "customers." Shoppers don't need a union to make their needs known at Nordstorm's, eaters don't need a union to get service in restaurants, and drinkers don't have to organize to demand fair treatment at bars. In successful businesses, the needs of the clients are anticipated, not met with begrudging acquiescence.

So here's this bus, looking like a broken down "picture car" from a remake of Speed. No idea what happened or why. There were plenty of firemen around but no passengers. It was around 1:28 p.m. on Friday, 08/08/08. Send any further illuminating details...

See Seven McDonald's LA Weekly "24/7" column about Ann Bradley: The Unconsumed Life.