Ask Chris

Contrails

By Chris Nichols — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Conspiracists call them chemtrails, but those long, thin clouds, says JPL climatologist William Patzert, are merely the carbon dioxide and water vapor produced when jet fuel burns at high altitudes. In 2000, the United Nations teamed with the EPA, FAA, NASA, and NOAA to issue a statement attesting to their benign nature. As for me, I’m keeping an open mind: I’ve met with Raelians, who believe that life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials, and sometimes I listen to Coast to Coast AM, the late-night radio show that delights in the paranormal. Whatever those contrails are, my tinfoil hat will protect me.

Illustration by Jason Schneider

Smiling Highways

By Chris Nichols — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Lie back on the shrink’s couch and tell us more. Those aren’t smiles and frowns. The $17 million concrete barrier is stamped with stylized evocations of the bridges that cross the freeway, which is once again going by its original name, the Arroyo Seco Parkway. The sketches repeat as you roll past. You’d do better analyzing your emotional state by wearing that 1970s accessory, the mood ring.

Photograph courtesy of gothereguide.com

Hjelte

By Chris Nichols — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 07:00:00 GMT

The word is pronounced JELL-tee. It’s Swedish, like Jake Gyllenhaal and those tiny meatballs. The softball diamonds are part of a park hidden behind trees. It is named after George Hjelte, who was head of the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks for 32 years. By the time he retired in 1962, Hjelte had increased the number of play places in L.A. from 46 to more than 300, including swimming pools, campgrounds, and baseball fields. Hjelte also was an inventor, a woodworker, and a square dancer. His namesake park opened in 1981, two years after his death.

Photograph courtesy of sepulvedabasinwildlife.org

Dining in Hell's Kitchen

By Chris Nichols — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 07:00:00 GMT

The excitable British chef stages his cooking competition at a rental studio in anonymous buildings that look like an office park just off La Cienega in Culver City, between See’s Candies and Chinese Deli. (Aren’t those two of the food groups?) The Hell’s Kitchen dining room is open during taping to anyone who makes a reservation. Meals go for the price of listening to Ramsay’s rants. You might also appear on television. The show starts its ninth season this month; go to fox.com/hellskitchen for tickets. And bring a snack, because if things go wrong in the cookery, Ramsay has been known to get angry enough to close before dinnertime.

Westside Story

By Chris Nichols — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 07:00:00 GMT

West L.A. isn’t a city. The designation is used generically to describe a region. Where it begins is open to debate. West Hollywood, however, is its own incorporated municipality, and it’s not–on the Ask Chris map, at least–in West L.A.

Graffiti Guerrilla

By Chris Nichols — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 07:00:00 GMT

“Graffiti no longer accepted here! Please find a day job.” Joe Connolly wrote those words in house paint on the side of a burned-out building in 1993. Connolly, who calls himself “the Graffiti Guerrilla,” still confronts taggers and wipes out their creations. The 55-year-old former carpet salesman is a brave guy. He spends hours daily in an orange vest and hard hat picking up trash along the Santa Monica Freeway near his “Adopt-A-Highway” sign at the La Brea Avenue exit as well as in his neighborhood.

Photograph courtesy infamythemovie.com

Missing Plaques

By Chris Nichols — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Carroll, a master showman, built the playhouse in 1938 for his revues, which were comparable to the Ziegfeld Follies. The concrete panels were affixed to the facade. The theater was sold in 1948 after Carroll died in a plane crash. In 1968, a Dutch art collective known as the Fool replaced the nameplates with a psychedelic mural of Greek muses and stored the autographed pieces in the basement. They stayed there until 1979, when Magic Castle founder Milt Larsen acquired them for his Variety Arts Center downtown. Gene Autry lassoed them for his museum later that year. Finally, Butterfield & Butterfield auctioned off 104 of the plaques in 1989 and 1990. Two bearing the names of Norma Shearer and Amos ’n Andy had been left beneath the theater stage. They were put on display until 2006, when the property was sold again—it’s now the Nickelodeon Theater—and the owner gave the pair to the handyman.

Photograph courtesy papersponge.com

Local Suds

By Chris Nichols — Sun, 15 May 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Always diligent about my research, I sampled as many as possible and found that I prefer a crisp lager to a nutty amber. Several breweries in Greater L.A. bottle their own suds for sale on the premises as well as to taverns and markets. Among them are the Eagle Rock Brewery in Glassell Park and the Skyscraper Brewing Company in El Monte. Both offer tours. At the former you can top off your day with pale ale served in a custom growler. The Craftsman Brewing Company in Pasadena sells kegs to pubs, but owner Mark Jilg says he’s contemplating starting a bottling operation soon. Since 1988, the folks at Angel City Brewing have been making German-style beer. They recently moved from Torrance to Little Tokyo and welcome visitors.

Illustration by Jason Schneider

Plane Count

By Chris Nichols — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Photograph courtesy Flickr/Moto@Club4AG

If you count international, domestic, military, cargo, and private aircraft, the airport logs 1,578 landings and takeoffs every 24 hours. That averages one plane down a runway every 55 seconds. We have the busiest airport in California, the third busiest in the country (Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson is number one; Chicago’s O’Hare, number two), and the sixth busiest in the world.

Puff Dragon

By Chris Nichols — Sun, 01 May 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Illustration by Zohar Lazar

If you were seeing lush grass in Death Valley, then I’d wonder. But the two dragons, which seem to be fighting over a large white pearl atop the Chinatown gate, do take a smoke break every 20 minutes. Built in 2001 on 25-foot steel pillars, the mythological beasts were designed by architect Rupert Mok, who says they are protecting the community. Their smoke is water vapor, like the mist that cools sidewalk cafés in Palm Springs. Not long ago the monsters started suffering nozzle congestion. The city Community Redevelopment Agency replaced the clogged plumbing in February, just before Chinese New Year.