So I finally bit the bullet and booked my passage to Washington DC.  I wish I could say this was a pleasurable vacation trip but most likely I’ll be working my butt off advocating for a new park in Hollywood.  A park so special that my dream is for Hollywood residents to call it “The Park”.

This park will be 44 acres of never before used land.  Never before because until we build it, there is no land.  What? Yeah.  The plan is to build over the 101 freeway between Santa Monica Blvd in East Hollywood where the freeway runs below city grade and extend it roughly one mile to Bronson Ave in Central Hollywood.  Essentially making that part of the 101 a tunnel.  I’m crazy you say?  I’d have to agree with you except this isn’t the first time something like this has been built.  There are ‘cap’ parks in San Diego, Seattle, Chicago and Boston.  Right now the only major hurdles we have are economic.  What else is new in this town.  Thats what this trip is for.  Asking the Federal Government to fund this project much like they funded our High-Speed Rail to San Francisco last month.

How can you help?  You can write a letter of support.  You can email them to me at Alfredo@LAnative.net or get them to me in person.  I leave Saturday March 13th so get those in to me before then. Thanks. For more details on what this project is please visit: http://hollywoodfreewaycentralpark.org/

Seeing as this is my first ever trip to DC I plan on visiting a few museums and monuments and maybe some friends. 

So I guess this really will be a pleasurable trip after all.

You can see the Evil in his eyes.

Today I tried to catch up on emails and work on the Slam.  I had over 400 unread emails sitting in my inbox.  While most were informational that required no response or were newsletters containing articles that I already knew their content based on tweets, it still tool a very long time to sift through everything. I also have three months of the Slam booked.  I can’t wait till we start.

I have spent the last couple of weeks fighting a cold which has been harder than usual because I have been quite busy with rehearsals, neighborhood council, and have been forced to go outside in the cold at night.  It has slowed my recovery time but I feel like I may be over the hump soon.

I had a dream the other night that i found interesting.  Usually fever dreams tend to be pretty intense but this one was just strange.  I went to sleep very early that night because I had a debilitating head ache but when I woke up early the next morning all I could do was chuckle at my dream.  I was sitting on my front porch when two snakes slithered by having a conversation with each other.  They were speaking in English in the truest form of the definition; British accents and all.  I asked the snakes if they were really British when they turned to me and said, crooked fangs and all, “And we know Harry Potter.” At this point my cat Anakin, having seen the snakes from afar, decided he wanted to pounce on the snakes except his claws became red lightsaber claws and he mauled the snakes to hell.  No word yet on how Harry Potter feels about the death of snake friends of his.

I promised myself I would write every day in here, while I’m not sure what I will be writing about I figure it will be just about anything I can think of which means I may be getting creative which might be a little painful to read at times.

I suppose I should start with an update of the last six months. Most importantly, I was laid off December 1st from my job at the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust. Its no secret that non-profits all over are struggling to survive in this down economy and especially in Los Angeles with the budget crisis what it is. I feel I am fortunate enough to have a strong background and have a wealth of knowledge in both the day-to-day operations of parks and the creation of parks from the, no pun intended, grass roots on up. Okay maybe a little pun. Its this knowledge and experience that makes me an attractive option to consult in parks and particularly community based organizations. We shall see what comes of it. For the time being I will be dedicating my time and energy to other projects that I have, perhaps, not focused as much attention as I owe them. Such as…

I have agreed to stage manage a play at the USVAA Theater which I am currently a board member of. I also produce a monthly improv show there called “Nation of Improv presents the Culver City Slam“. A mouthful I know and I wish I could say the name wasn’t my idea but it was. The play is called “Bug” which was written by Tracy Letts. Its about a possible AWOL Gulf War Veteran who holes up with a cocktail waitress in some motel in Oklahoma and is a little funny in the head. The dude not the chick. I highly recommend everybody go see it and I’m sure I’ll be writing and tweeting about rehearsals and stuff along the way. It opens February 26th and will run for four weeks which means…

I’ll have to miss a few shows because I’ll be in Washington DC for a week in March to advocate for the creation of a 44 acre park in the heart of Hollywood. A project many of you know is very near and dear to my heart. This trip is a chance to get the required money to build which will be far less than the $2.25 million the Federal Government granted California to build a high speed rail system from Los Angeles to Anaheim and Los Angeles to San Francisco. This trip will be my very first to our nations capital and while I know I’ll be busy going from meeting to meeting which includes the Capitol, White House and other offices I would also like to visit historical monuments and such. Exciting for me and you can be sure I’ll have my…

I recently got very serious about my photography inspired by my friends Dana Arak, Alex Thompson and a few other online community friends. I began to bulk up my camera bag with better, more appropriate lenses for work and pleasure. For example, I will be taking promo shots for the above mentioned “Bug” which I won’t be getting paid for but could lead to work if somebody sees and likes what I take. I plan on using my “brand new” minolta 58mm f1.2 lens for this occasion. (look it up. Its legendary.) I say “brand new” because while I haven’t used it more than a couple times to test it, the lens is actually older than I am and of course Minolta no longer makes camera lenses. I’ll also try and leave you with samples of my photography at the beginning of every post.

Now, while I’ve only just touched on what I’ve been doing I didn’t have a proper lead to another project I’m working on so its just going to have to wait until tomorrow or another day to update on other stuff. But, for now, I think I have fulfilled my self imposed quota of writing for February 1st even though we are now well into February 2nd.