Intersections

The year the earth ignited: Final fire notes in San Diego

* Sunset over Lemon Grove, Tuesday. Is this fire season or a nuclear winter?

Didn't Southern California feel like another planet last night? Right at dusk, I mean. The sky was ashen gray -- not foggy, but the color of a kind of Martian atmosphere we've only dreamed about in science-fiction novels. The moon was full and glowing pink, as if made of neon, or radioactive material. Are we this far into the future already?

Yes and no.

When the earth wants to burn, it's going to burn, writes Judith Lewis in this piece in the LA Weekly. The freaky thing this time around is that lately it seems like the whole world is burning:

From the Great Basin across the Midwestern United States, from Canada to the Amazon, from Greece to the Canary Islands off the African Coast, 2007 has been as wicked a wildfire season as any in recorded history (the only possible contender for a worse year was 2006).

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In July, 600 separate fires raged across Croatia in 20 days, destroying homes that had endured world and civil wars. In August, flames chewed up forests on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula, threatening ancient relics and requiring the firefighting help of 24 countries (including Canada, but not the U.S.). Greece endured the worst fire season, said BBC correspondent Malcolm Brabant, "in living memory."

Check out the link.

* A car in Spring Valley, collecting ashes from Mount St. Miguel, Tuesday.

Now we have some final notes on the fire situation in San Diego. First, at Voice of San Diego, a rare and refreshing online-only non-profit news source, there is an interesting look at how the Spanish-language media in San Diego has covered the wildfires, by Emily Alpert:

Chastened for their low-key coverage of the 2003 Cedar Fire, Spanish-language television and radio stations had another go at it in this year's disaster. Telemundo and Univision joined forces Monday, streaming life-or-death information on evacuations, road closures and shelter sites in the tongue their viewers understand. NBC offered Spanish news updates between its English broadcast, winning praise from Latino leaders.

But the major Spanish stations didn't start continuous coverage of the fire until Monday, endangering Spanish-speakers in Ramona and Potrero, where the first two blazes started Sunday and gained steam as residents went to bed Sunday evening. And Spanish speakers haven't been as well-served by city communications, some complain. Memos from the cities of San Diego and Chula Vista haven't been translated into Spanish, forcing bilingual volunteers to step in.

Link.

By mid-week, the papers started looking at whether San Diego was well enough prepared to handle the multiple fires that ignited on Sunday. Some politicians were huffing and puffing about a few firefighting aircraft that didn't get off the ground soon enough, with some media following course, but I see the issue as a silly distraction from the root problem: a population and political establishment terminally averse to taxing itself or buying bonds to better fund fire protection and prevention.

This Union-Tribune story on the topic, for example, curiously made no mention of the words "bonds" or "taxes," veritable slurs in San Diego politics. But it did make note of the fact that former San Diego Fire Chief Jeff Bowman resigned 18 months ago -- without collecting pension, mind you -- because he believed his department was not just under-funded but "under-everything." This week, Bowman actually defied an evacuation order and stayed at his home near Escondido as fire approached.

* KNSD reporter Artie Ojeda in studio after returning from the field, Monday.

At the intersection of border politics, fire season, and racial profiling and prejudice, an incident involving two couples accused of looting at Qualcomm Stadium is raising questions about San Diego's almost too-pristine reputation for its cordial and generous treatment of fire evacuees. It's just not the same if you're brown, surprise-surprise:

Since then, some Latino evacuees say they feel they are being eyed with suspicion, even when they ask for supplies. Joana Miss, a 27-year-old native of Mexico City who was evacuated from her Ramona home, said that Wednesday evening she asked a volunteer for diapers for her 2-year-old son, who had diarrhea, and was handed three individual diapers. Then "when I was leaving, they gave an American woman a whole box," she said.

Way to go, San Diego! Anyway, migrants were still attempting to cross the border this week. Six were abandoned by their coyote and suffered burns.

But could sweet fire-sparked karma be touching the border? The crossing at Tecate was locked shut when the Harris Fire started, but someone at some point broke the gates' chains, and an undetermined amount of migrants and Americans poured in, reports the L.A. Times: "After someone opened the gate, the rush was on, Nuñez said. People started walking and driving back and forth unimpeded. Most, he said, appeared to be U.S. residents who had been visiting Mexico and were rushing back across the border to get their parked cars away from the flames. Some people, however, disappeared into the hills west of town." Link.

* Scorched terrain at Camp Pendleton, Wednesday.

That's it for now. I'm finally bouncing to Mexico City next week, just in time for Dia de los Muertos.

With hellish fires, did San Diego have this coming? *

The San Diego wildfires are still burning, but now that the worst of the blazes appears to have passed, and authorities and civilians are congratulating themselves on an orderly, large-scale evacuation response that saw a minimal loss of life, it's time to assign blame. Could these fires have been prevented? Who could have prevented them?

The Washington Post tiptoes around this topic in a comprehensive catch-all in today's edition, suggesting that our appetite for development in fire-prone rural areas is, in the words of Mike Davis, like "building next to leaking gasoline cans." Davis told me this morning in an interview from his home near downtown San Diego that it's not only a development issue, but a Republican-led political culture that traditionally strikes down initiatives to increase funding for better fire protection.

"Two of the major attempts to deal in some structural sense with the causes of fires in San Diego County, which is restricting development and building a county fire department, have been shot down and endlessly postponed by the Ron Roberts types who are now claiming credit for everything," Davis said. "The results obviously are megafires."

San Diego is the only major county in California without a countywide fire department. Wildfires in inland areas here are fought by small volunteer fire brigades, a patchwork system that led to communication mishaps that led to the catastrophe that was the Cedar Fire in 2003.

The North County Times recently noted that between 1979 and 2004, "rural voters had rejected 32 of 50 measures asking them to approve new fire funds." Which makes you wonder why little of the coverage I've seen so far bears any mention of the name Jeff Bowman, the San Diego fire chief who resigned in frustration in 2005 specifically because he felt the city had not properly financed fire prevention. Here's a 2006 op-ed in the Union-Tribune on the topic, reminding readers that "shrill politicians" and idiot shockjocks like Roger Hedgecock actually blamed the firefighters for the deadly results of the Cedar Fire. "Bonds and tax increases designed to improve funding for the Fire-Rescue Department are continually voted down," wrote Richard Halsey.

Then there's the issue of why San Diego and California at large resist embracing the occasional wildfire. Daniel James Brown writes in the L.A. Times opinion section today that "Fire is an integral element of the human and natural ecology of California and, indeed, of most of the nation. Instead of being surprised, traumatized and victimized by fire every few years, we need to learn to expect fire and to manage it more realistically and effectively." Link.

And then you gotta wonder if these particulars even matter. In a morbid bit of foreshadowing, the San Diego Reader last week ran a cover story about the historic drought scenario that most people in San Diego appear blissfully unaware of: "Drought? What drought? If you're a townie, you'd hardly know. If San Diego were Baghdad, we'd be living in the Green Zone, a secure, artificially watered paradise, a gated community sealed off from the real world. " Link.

* This post will be updated with more on these topics and others later today. * Flirck image above by Anechoic Chris.

Tuesday update: 'Another dangerous day' in San Diego fires *

*** Updated at 7:30 p.m: The winds are calming. Reporters on TV are now filing pieces following evacuees returning to their neighborhoods to see if their homes have burned. Electeds are showing up. Fire died down near my relatives' homes in Spring Valley. Tijuana fire authorities are sending reinforcements north. Traffic jammed at Qualcomm. Many evacuation centers no longer need supplies and donations. Still, fires remain active and some new evacuations are being called. Six people have now died, four of them eldery evacuees. The estimates of people displaced and acreage scorched are just astronomical. The Union-Tribune also has a scenes blog. The L.A. Times too.

EARLIER TODAY:

Driving home late last night from the downtown area to City Heights you could finally see the flames of these fires standing down on the core of the city of San Diego. I gotta say it was a pretty awesome sight: a snake of glowing, steamy red laced around Mount San Miguel, which is visible from much of San Diego.

My cousin Martha and her family are preparing to evacuate right now from their home on the reservoir in Spring Valley, right at the foot of the mountain. My brother Sergio's house is less than two miles from there, in Lemon Grove. They're calling voluntary evacuations for east of the 1-805 and south to the border, the area where my own family lived for years.

"We're in for another dangerous day today," an SDG&E official is saying right now at a live 7:00 a.m. press conference. Mayor Jerry Sanders is telling San Diegans to stay home and stay off cell phones. Fire Chief Tracy Jarman is saying the winds remain unpredictable and many of the San Diego fires are out of control. The situation is so intense authorities don't even know the boundaries of the major blazes.

Last night my friend Katie and I visited Qualcomm Stadium, where thousands of evacuees stayed overnight. Everything looked calm and orderly, with National Guard troops posted up all over the place. Here's a photo Katie took in one of the quiet concourses, which ordinarily are packed with Chargers fans. Last night it was cots and tents and people tapping away on laptops:

It's worth noting firefighters and city authorities have been working around the clock since Sunday, as have local network news affiliates, where reporters and anchors have been on fire coverage non-stop. Channel 7/39, the local NBC affiliate, has provided updates in Spanish, something I've never seen before on a local news broadcast in English. Check out this clip of beloved San Diego TV news personality Larry Himmel reporting on the destruction of his own house. If you grew up in San Diego you know his energetic, personable reporting style.

As the L.A. Times notes, this is now worse than the Cedar Fire in 2003 but remarkably only one person has died in these fires as of this morning. The vicim was a man protecting his home in Tecate.

Outside right now (12:00 noon) the streets are quiet, the sun is white hot, and the air is calm and almost colorless, as if the smoke and ash have consumed the atmosphere. They're now saying more than 513,000 people are displaced from their homes. Half a million people. So far urban San Diego, where we live, has been spared. It should stay that way, right? If the fires keep pressing in, where are we going to go? Into the surf? Here's a shot of yesterday's fire-soaked sunset from City Heights, in the center of metropolitan San Diego. All the fires are to the north and south of us:

* For some amazing pictures and helpful map graphics see And I Still Persist, authored by a former Marine. All the pertinent and useful updates are at the SignOnSanDiego fire blog, now on a platform that allows hyperlinks.

* Updates all day. Previously, 'San Diego fires may burn to the ocean.'

* A SignOnSanDiego reader supplied the very top image, of Mt. San Miguel ablaze last night, linked here. Other images by Intersections.

San Diego fires may burn to the ocean **

** Last updated at 5:20 p.m. ** For fresh updates from Tuesday see post above.

San Diego is burning. The entire county is covered in an eerie brown haze that is irritating eyes, noses, and nerves. Sirens are wailing everywhere. The smell of smoke chokes the sky from Escondido to Tijuana.

All of Southern California is under siege by flames and smoke.

In San Diego, where I'm at, one person has died, 17 have been injured, including four firefighters, and hundreds of thousands of people and animals are being evacuated as the fires rage on, fueled by the merciless howls of the dry Santa Ana winds. All schools in the county will be closed Tuesday. Hundreds of homes have burned.

Authorities, their resources overwhelmed, say some of the fires burning in the county's rugged eastern canyons and mesas may burn all the way to the ocean before dying out. The only thing standing in their way are the cities. "We have more houses burning than we have people and engine companies to fight them," San Diego Fire Captain Lisa Blake told the AP.

Let me try to contextualize how scary this is: The north and east regions of the county are largely suburban, rural, and very arid and mountainous, while San Diego city itself is concentrated in the urban southwestern corner of the county against the border and the Pacific, in a much smaller area overall. Well, imagine trying to evacuate much of the major towns in the inhabited North County and much of the inhabited East County. That's an unprecedented displacement of humans for a major American city. In many cases, people had only a few minutes notice before fleeing their homes. The TV right now is calling it a "mass migration" the likes of which the state has never before seen. People are pouring into Qualcomm Stadium.

Some are refusing to leave. "My husband stayed at home," a woman who fled the Witch Creek Fire told a local TV news reporter late Sunday. The reporter asked at what point her husband may be convinced to abandon their house. "I don't know about their husbands, but my husband won't. He's just stubborn, he grew up there."

By then the reporters in the field had donned masks and goggles and struggled to maintain their balance against the wind blasts.

As late as 1 a.m. last night the same anchors who delivered the early evening news were still in their seats, dictating the latest school closure and evacuation updates. KUSI ran exclusive footage of a surreal parade of headlights inching west on both sides of highway 94 as the Harris Fire marched onward behind them.

This afternoon, there are reports of more fires sprouting up all over the place, including in Chula Vista. Reporters on TV right now (3:45 p.m.) in front of burning homes are trying to contain the fear and awe in their voices, when they're not coughing. So far my family is safe but we're a bit worried as smoke is visible now near Spring Valley, near to where my brother lives, and cousins and relatives are leaving their houses in San Ysidro as fire appears in the South Bay.

* They're saying it's already worse than the disastrous Cedar Fire of 2003.

* Updates all day.

* More at L.A. Times, New York Times, SignOnSanDiego, 10News, KNSD, KUSI.

** Image on top of a home burning in Rancho Bernardo by AP. Reporter in Ramona above is an original image.

Cowboy dancing, Durango-style

Spotted on Chimatli, here's a great demonstration of el pasito duranguense, cowboy dancing from the state of Durango, lest we forget that the original "all-American" cowboy is the postcolonial vaquero. The alacran in the pink kills it:

Looks like cowboy-disco-polka-raving, doesn't it? Apparently we're in a duranguense craze right now. On Saturday at a family picnic in San Ysidro, a very young relative in mini ostrich-skin boots was the darling of the party for his duranguense skills. Link.

'No one loves you': Los Angeles is Los Angeles

Geoff Manaugh, author of BLDGBLOG, recently visited L.A. and came away with his head reeling, sparking a flurry of comments in reaction to his mind-bender of a post on the inane glories of the only major city in the world that can accurately be referred to as "city." Here's an excerpt:

Who cares? Literally no one cares, is the answer. No one cares. You're alone in the world.  L.A. is explicit about that. If you can't handle a huge landscape made entirely from concrete, interspersed with 24-hour drugstores stocked with medications you don't need, then don't move there. It's you and a bunch of parking lots.

You'll see Al Pacino in a traffic jam, wearing a stocking cap; you'll see Cameron Diaz in the check-out line at Whole Foods, giggling through a mask of reptilian skin; you'll see Harry Shearer buying bulk shrimp.

The whole thing is ridiculous. It's the most ridiculous city in the world – but everyone who lives there knows that. No one thinks that L.A. "works," or that it's well-designed, or that it's perfectly functional, or even that it makes sense to have put it there in the first place; they just think it's interesting. And they have fun there.

Go check out the rest of the post, and the author's bio here. Thanks, Amit. * Image above from here, by Daniel Reetz, who posted a comment on the BLDGBLOG post.

This crack is hazardous to your health and your histories

The Colombian artist Doris Salcedo and her unreal crack in the floor of Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London is doing as expected, getting people talking. Blogger The Diary Of An English Courtesan describes it as "brilliant and devastating and hilarious and nauseating," which is to say worth seeing. The artist describes it as a symbol of racism and discrimination in Europe, so fittingly, it claimed some victims recently. It's there till April 2008. More at The Guardian. (On my first trip to London, in 2004, I checked out the Tate Modern's "weather installation" by Olafur Eliasson. It was pretty G.)

* Flickr image above by Greenwood100.

Forgotten, loopy pedestrian bridge in Chinatown

There's this pedestrian bridge across the 110 connecting Chinatown to Elysian Park and Dodger Stadium that feels, like a lot of places in the old core of L.A., as though it springs from another time. Took these pictures today, while I'm back in town taking care of business.

On one side there is the "old Chinatown" and on the other there are shabby boarded-up buidlings saved somehow from the razing of Chavez Ravine. The freeway rumbles underneath, a river of blasting air. In the middle, layers upon layers of crude tags. 12 in a triangle is apparently not as good as 13:

In the midday hot haze of October, it's nice, ain't it?

The need to mark the names of the dead

Jill Leovy's blog The Homicide Report at the L.A. Times gets the feature treatment at Kevin Sites' "People of the Web" on Yahoo. "The only thing you have to do to qualify is be dead," Leovy says early in the clip, a blunt acknowledgement of the clear and up-front nature of her work: document every homicide in Los Angeles County for a year.

Yet watching this, you can sense emotions are inescapably part of the equation. One of the latest killings: Julio Lizano, 22, killed Sunday outside the Brazil smoke shop at Sunset and Alvarado in Echo Park, my now-former hood.

Wednesday night cantina-hopping in Tijuana

Me and my homeboy Pedro went cantina-hopping in TJ last night, searching for good street food and friendly trans. We checked out some familiar spots and some new ones.

Here are some shots Pedro took with his iPhone. Above, the very classy Dandy del Sur, and below, outside of el famoso salon de baile la Estrella. Gonna leave the images real big, what the hey:

Sorta new territory for Intersections, as I've purposefully avoided posting images of myself, but again, whatever. Here is me inside Estrella with a mural of a curiously afromestizo female Yaqui deer dancer:

And me in an alley nearby. Pedro said you should never go down an alley at night in downtown Tijuana; could get mugged. I tend to believe that as a human being you're entitled to walk anywhere you damn please, so we moved cautiously ahead and saw lots of energetic graffiti, no muggers:

More than a few rounds of beers and tequilas later, we had some really tremendous tacos de chile relleno and milanesa at the corner of Constitucion y 3a (twice), some bacon-wrapped hot dogs (more on that later), and to-go cups of avena in the car at 3 a.m. while waiting to cross back.

... Tijuana, siempre fiel. Nos vemos en la gran Cd. de Mexico.

* This post was updated in 2012, to reflect changing norms in usage and language.

Festival fatigue in a reincarnated downtown? *

Check out the guy in the red flannel at the bottom right corner of this shot by Mark "The Cobra Snake" Hunter from the LA Weekly's Detour Festival on Saturday. I can almost hear him thinking, "I've gone to every music festival in or around L.A. this summer, and I'm not quite sure why. Here I am squeezed in at Detour, getting armpit whiffs from the guy behind me. I've made it to the very front of the crowd and all I want to do is take a goddamn piss!"

Or maybe I'm just channeling here, because I think I might be suffering from festival fatigue. Ever since Coachella, which we endured so you didn't have to, it seemed like L.A. was saturated with music fesivals this summer. The season basically ended with Detour fest. Randall Roberts gives the festival a good look-over here, suggesting rightly that maybe French electro darlings of the moment Justice should do something about their live show: "Maybe they need a pyramid or something." Good idea.

I know a lot of people at the Weekly, both in the editorial and the business side, worked hard to make Detour happen. For that they deserve some kudos. But overall, most people I heard from said the festival was a good time but not as good as last year's. Couldn't compare as this was my first Detour. Still had a good time.

In any case, Lyndsey Parker, who blogs as L.A. Woman at NME.com, gives us a unique historical casting for Detour, arguing that it is a reincarnation of the mythical Street Scene fest in downtown L.A. in the late 1970s and early 1980s:

Years ago in happier times (1978-1986, that is), for one fabulous summer weekend per year, punk and grandmas and toddlers and jocks of all colors and creeds roamed the cordoned-off streets of downtown Los Angeles--arm in arm, hand in hand, all enjoying the rock stylings of local heroes like Jane's Addiction and the Three O'Clock -- and all was right with the world.

This weekend was called the L.A. Street Scene, and it was awesome.

But then some bad people with guns ruined it for everybody, the Ramones' Street Scene show was subsequently cancelled, thousands of angry young Ramones fans subsequently rioted, stormtrooping police officers subsequently beat on those supposed brats with baseball bats (OK, well, specifically with billy clubs)...and subsequently that was, unsurprisingly, the final Street Scene.

It was such a disaster that in his famous book about L.A., City Of Quartz, brilliant sociologist Mike Davis hypothesized that the death of the Street Scene actually signified the death of public space in Los Angeles.

Link. Of course, that was then, and this is now, meaning the commercial, commodified vibe that permeates the music industry today would be inescapable at Detour, as it was.

Congrats, once again, to everyone on staff who made Detour happen!

* Thursday update: Alexis Rivera, my now-former neighbor, informs me that the Justice set at Detour was only a DJ set, not their live show, which they presented on Monday at the Henry Fonda. Looks like it was wild. Plus, they had Rick James, Prince, Stevie Wonder, MJ, and Rod Stewart do their "D.A.N.C.E." on Jimmy Kimmel the other night. Is "electro the new disco"?

* See more at LA Weekly music blog Play, LAist, and Losanjealous.

Los Abandoning ...

Los Abandoned, the bilingual youth-friendly band behind that catchy tune about Van Nuys being "so nice," is no more. LAist was at their last show at TarFest, saying: "With their edgy, new wavy beach-meets-valley indie-pop-punk sound and alternating English/Spanish lyrics, Los Abandoned laid down a perfect soundtrack for early 21st Century Los Angeles."

* Image by Mo Stenfreez via LAist.

* Note to readers and friends: I'm at my family's in City Heights, San Diego, this city's new immigrants' destination center, resting and writing for the week. Thankfully, there's a good spot for bionicos around here, too.

Life in modern high school: hustlin' chips for field trips *

The journalism students at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights have started up a staff blog, called Rough Rider Blog, with their teacher Ben Gertner. The writers give tips on taking the SAT and write about the need for Congress to pass the DREAM Act. One post describes how the old classrooms there can be unbearably hot, and another talks about "Hustlin' Chips 4 Field Trips":

The thing is that now i have to fundraise $220 which is impossible for my parents to give me. I’ve been selling chips, Cheetos to be precise; small bags 50 cents, big bags 75 cents, but lets not forget if you want to add chamoy its one more quarter than the regular price.

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It pretty crazy because in school its not like we could sell all out in the open, it has to be done in a secretive way, its like were actually selling contraband, but our merchandise isnt illegal substances, their just Cheetos, I really do feel some times like a straight out slanger, but hey can’t complain i make that money.

Congrats on the project, Rough Riders, and good luck in all your future endeavors. * Image above from Rough Rider Blog.

* An update: Jennifer Delson of the L.A. Times rode with students on Metrolink trains in Orange County last week as they lobbied passengers to support the DREAM Act.

Morrissey dances with Morrissey *

Undecided on whether this is creepy or cute, but here is Morrissey on stage at the Fillmore in San Francisco dancing with a young kid called Morrissey, presumably named after the older crooner from Manchester and unofficial bard of Southern California gloom:

I'm feeling the emphatic arm flair. The Moz had ten shows planned this month at the Palladium in Hollywood before two got canceled earlier this week. Here's a slideshow from the opening night at LAWeekly.com. * Thanks, Alexis.

* An update: La Vibra, La Opinion's entertainment weekly, goes with a Morrissey cover today. On why Latinos love him so much, Moz muses: "The mainstream has always rejected me, and that must draw the attention of Latinos on some level, especially those who find themselves in a complicated [legal] situation. I don't know much on what's happening with the problem of immigration, but it looks difficult." (My translation of their translation.)

Nada pasó: Contemporary responses to Tlatelolco, '68

October 2 was the 39th anniversary of the Massacre of Tlatelolco.

Mariana Botey, artist, critic, and writer, memorialized the 1968 crackdown on the dissenters of Mexican society with a detailed silk screen print called "2 de Octubre de 1968 Responsables" (2004), partly reproduced above. The print consists of a government flow-chart that basically implicates everyone from the military to the president, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, for the bloodbath that left hundreds dead. Behind the chart are grayed images of some of the men responsible.

I saw the piece up-close at the Museo José Luis Cuevas in the Centro Histórico last year, part of an exhibit on art from L.A. and Mexico City, with an emphasis on the Colección Jumex and work done at Self-Help Graphics in East L.A by many of the great names in Chicano art. In its precise condemnation, the Botey print is an arresting piece of artwork.

Check out also this YouTube montage of images from Mexico in 1968 and today, set to a song by Panteón Rococó, "Nada pasó," as in, "Nothing happened":

* Thank you Harry Gamboa Jr. for the NSA link above, which details the CIA's surveillance in Mexico City in '68.

'The taggers have won': Graffiti on the 101 freeway

So proclaimed Ed Fuentes at View from a Loft after learning that excessive graffiti tagging on the '84 Olympics-era murals on the 101 led them to be buffed over in those hideous neutral tones favored so by CalTrans. See also LA Observed and Metroblogging LA, where Emily Banneker tempers her initial mournful post with, "Let me be the first to admit: I like graffiti."

My personal favorite kid on "L.A. Freeway Kids" (by muralist Glenna Boltuch Avila) was that ethnically neutral kid in the middle who appears to be jumping in mid-air, his hair standing on end behind him. See also pieces in La Opinion and L.A. Times.

Over at Ken Burns Hates Mexicans, Jimmy Mendiola links to an outrageous video of a tagger named BUKET from TKO bombing the 101 in broad daylight. In and out in a matter of seconds. Undeniably impressive -- except for the whole illicit, vandalism, extreme danger thing. Don't drivers pay attention to the landscape? A commenter writes, "Brave kid. I see special forces in his future, with a specialty in explosives."

* Image from You-Are-Here.com.

Bears are golden: On the wonders of Pac-10 football

Improbable to even imagine just a few years ago, but check out the latest AP college football poll. It shows the USC Trojans dropped from their longtime perch at No. 1 to No. 2 after their just-barely win over Washington, and, unbelievably for many, the California Golden Bears knocking on SC's door at No. 3.

What the hell? Why am I even talking about this?

College football is one of few areas where I "get all beefer," and right now the Pac-10 Conference is packed with reasons to nerd out. On Saturday, Cal held off deep and loaded Oregon at Eugene in what Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel said was a "back-and-forth thriller in which the score was tied on five different occasions." Both The New York Times and the L.A. Times sent reporters to cover the game, which was decided in the final 22 seconds when Oregon committed a touchback on a frightening drive to the end zone. Cal, then ranked No. 6, moved up after five other teams in the Top-10 suffered losses.

Chris Dufresne notes that if USC beats Stanford this Saturday and No. 1 LSU loses to No. 9 Florida, USC and Cal could hop up to No. 1 and No.2, respectively. And if both teams stay undefeated through October, the USC-Cal game at Berkeley's Memorial Stadium in gorgeous Strawberry Canyon on Nov. 10 could pretty much decide the season for the whole country.

You can't overemphasize what a dramatic turn-around this is for Cal. In my four years at Berkeley the football team was a functioning disaster, never seeing a winning season and not once beating archrival Stanford in the Big Game. Then they hired some guy from Downey named Jeff Tedford, and within a season, Cal became a Pac-10 powerhouse and a national name. Tedford is such a G. Now facing Cal is one of USC's primary sources of anxiety. The Nov. 10 game will certainly be epic. If Cal wins -- and they very well could -- could it be? National title contention for the Bears?

* Photo above: Cal running back Justin Forsett outrunning a couple Ducks. Getty Images via L.A. Times.

* Aaaand, beefer cap off.