Angel’s Flight from Hill Street

The Bradbury Building and Million Dollar Theater (lower Grand Central Market)

The Anthony Quinn mural on a building across from the Bradbury Building:

Harry has just sacrificed Chastain to the murderous LA mob, but manages to drive away, back to the police barricades and safety. After being attended to, he walks over and into a looted liquor store, Fortune Liquors, where he finds the owner cowering behind a counter. Harry is looking for a cigarette and the old man gives Harry his last one. The matchbook says, “Fortune Liquors” on one side and “Fortune Matches” on the other and there is a fortune printed on the matchbook.

I have not read the Bosch novels in the order in which they were published. Angel’s Flight was the 6th novel and Nine Dragons was the 14th novel. The looted liquor store with the old oriental owner struck a chord, much like when I read about “the Hightower Apartments.” I had recalled the Hightower Apartments from the 1973 movie, “The Long Goodbye,” with Elliott Gould playing the part of private detective Philip Marlowe. Now, I didn’t remember that they were called the Hightower Apartments, but the mental image of the several stories tall castle-like elevator tower was iconic.

So, I didn’t actually recall the liquor store name, “Fortune Liquors,” but I did recall the story about an old liquor store owner who wouldn’t leave a depressed neighborhood (although he had a more profitable other location, in a better neighborhood). So the first time Harry meets the old man, the old man’s store has been ransacked. And years later, Harry is called in to find the old man has been murdered. And eventually we find that the old man’s daughter has killed her father.

Since I’ve not read many of these novels in order, this was sort of a “flashback.” I already knew Harry had a history, but now I got to live the beginning.

Recall that when I read “City of Bones” shortly after reading “The Black Ice,” it solidified my belief that Harry Bosch was a sack of lying dog shit, that shouldn’t be trusted. I hope you think that description is a little worse than calling someone a “shitbird.” But as I have written elsewhere my justification: Harry was having intimate relations with the interim medical examiner (female), and she had mentioned finding a discrepancy during the autopsy. She didn’t want to reveal to Harry what she had found, but he cajoled her, telling her he wouldn’t reveal what she told him about her findings. *Her findings brought into sever question whether the suggested suicide wasn’t actually a homicide. So, she tells Harry what she has found and doesn’t want this revealed because she is currently an “interim” medical examiner and she wants that to become a permanent position. They have sex and shortly thereafter she asks if she can take a shower. So, no sooner than she is washing Harry’s stink off of her in his shower, he picks up his phone and calls a journalist friend of his pointing the journalist to questioning whether the cop’s death was either a suicide or murder. Harry then quickly goes off to Mexico. *But, when I read this little vignette, I immediately thought that if I was one of Harry’s co-workers, and he had made a promise not to reveal info, that only could have come from me, and very quickly thereafter had revealed that info to a professional “public crier,” then I would never trust Harry Bosch again.

And because I read “City of Bones” directly after “The Black Ice,” Harry’s betrayal was fresh in my mind. He gets his “no longer friend” who did become the “permanent” medical examiner to examine a bone to determine if it was indeed human. She treats Harry rudely, keeping him at her front door as she makes the examination. Well rudely, unless you recall what a sack of lying dog shit Harry Bosch actually is, and that he shouldn’t be trusted, nor does he deserve any special immediate attention, or preferential treatment.

Funny how actually reading the Connelly Bosch novels lead me to despise the fictional character of Harry Bosch. I didn’t have that seething hatred after watching six seasons of Bosch from Amazon. The character played by Titus Welliver was flawed, but likeable.

“The THING from another world” 1951 BW Horror, SciFi
This is the Casablanca of SciFi.

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“THEM” 1954 BW SciFi
The film has James Arness.

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“Forbidden Planet” 1956 C SciFi

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“The Invasion of the Body Snatchers” 1956 BW SciFi
I like Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. They portray a quintessential 1950’s couple.

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“The Fly” 1958 BW SciFi

I thought it unusual for a first film to be filmed in color, and the sequels to be filmed in Black & White. I then noted that they are wearing dark Bubble Goggles to view the tele-transportation.

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“The Bat” 1959 BW Mystery, Thriller
This movie has Agnes Morehead and Vincent Price.

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“The House on Haunted Hill” 1959 BW Horror, Mystery
Another haunting film with Vincent Price and others.

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“The Time Machine” 1960 C SciFi
I like Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux.

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“Quatermass and the Pit” 1967 C SciFi
This is a “creepy” good movie, with a neat story line regarding weird poltergeist-like appearances, and an underlying alien source.

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“The Long Goodbye” 1973 Noir, Crime
Elliott Gould as iconic private detective Philip Marlowe, and we have a very young Arnold Schwarzeneger in his yellow underwear and good tan.

And once again I find myself watching “The Long Goodbye.” Having read the Connelly’ BOSCH novels, I became more familiar with the Los Angeles area, including Catalina Island. I just noticed a tribute to Dan Blocker in the closing credits, and then found that he was to have played the role that Sterling Hayden performed.

The High Tower, has it’s small garages at the base of the Tower. And, watching the movie, Marlowe is living in an apartment at the top of the Tower and he uses the elevator in the Tower. But Marlowe also drives out to the Malibu Colony, which is still visible from Google Maps Street View.

I love the “cat feeding” vignette.

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This is something that I have been asking about this cargo vessel since the end of November 2022, after I first became aware of this vessel, as she was coming into the Port of Morehead City (NC).

I have followed this cargo ship as she has travelled around the world, in both directions. In one year she literally circumnavigated the Earth in both directions. Shanghai, Singapore, the Kiel, Panama & Suez Canals, South America, Europe & the UK. And later, she travelled completely down the west coast of South America, and then back up the east coast of South America. From South America she went across to the west coast of Africa, and then to South Africa and up the east coast of Africa. Then on to Qatar & Kuwait, and now she is heading to Trieste, IT.

I had become aware of Trieste from a film about a train travelling to Trieste. Perhaps it was the Orient Express.

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[NOTE 06/02/24]: I have been getting what I considered “conflicting” signals as to the whereabouts of the Volga. The current maps were showing that she was traveling east of Madagascar, and I took this to be heading away from her next suggested Port of Trieste, IT. But, that was based upon my premise that the Volga would travel through the Suez Canal (the shortest route) to get to Trieste. However, the other question was that the suggested ETA at Trieste was supposed to be 06/22/24 and I didn’t see why that would take so much time.

Now, I have finally reconciled the apparent conflicting info. The Volga was east of Madagascar, and is apparently heading down around South Africa. She will then come back up the west coast of Africa and head through the Straits of Gibraltar and through the Mediterranean and up to Trieste. And, that will take until about June 22nd. That is almost 3 weeks from today, instead of about 7 days through the Suez Canal. [end NOTE]

NOTE [06/29/24]: The Volga is scheduled to reach the Port of Trieste on July 1st. Taking the long route around Africa, instead of the more direct route through the Suez Canal has taken almost a month. Not sure how much it costs to go through the Suez Canal. [end NOTE]

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audienhearing.com/surprise Need to provide Amazon Order # shown above to get $50 kit. Did not recognize order number today. Will give a day or so to see if the number gets entered into their database.

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Mode 3 works well for listening to the TV. I wore the hearing aids out when I went shopping at the grocery stores & WalMart, but I couldn’t find a mode that helped me hear better. I tried Mode 1 which is supposed to be for conversations, Mode 2 which is supposed to help in restaurants, and Mode 4 which is for outdoors. Mode 4 seems to almost filter out everything.

Don’t mess with free speech. Are you going to outlaw everything that might obfuscate the recognition of a person? Then let’s have a bill to prohibit wearing those round, red clown noses. Or how about outlawing Botox because it changes the way we look, temporarily.

Some time ago, I came across a web cam that was located on Treasure Island and gave a live view of San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz Island, Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco skyline and the Oakland Bridge. I used this web cam to view the “YM Warranty” as she entered and left the Port of Oakland. There did not appear to be much development on this island and I thought nothing more about it. Until tonight. A Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) movie, “Charlie Chan at Treasure Island – 1939” came on (YouTube). Another Charlie Chan movie had just ended which had Chan on an ocean going vessel, and there was a hunt for parts of a treasure map. Briefly, I thought this might just be the previous movie starting to replay again because of the word, “treasure” in it’s title. But, then I vaguely thought of “Treasure Island” as referring to the web cam Treasure Island that I knew about.

I then googled for Treasure Island and found it’s rich history. This island was man-made about 1936 in preparation for the “Golden Gate International Expo” held in 1939.

• Map for Expo

I was just reading about Warner Olan, who played Charlie Chan before Sidney Toler. To my surprise Olan was actually born in Sweden. And, Olan had a drinking problem. Apparently, he walked off the set, during filming of a Charlie Chan movie and the movie had to be abandoned. Olan also died in the same year, 1938. Sidney Toler was hired to play Charlie Chan later that year and had already made two other Chan movies before “Charlie Chan at Treasure Island – 1939.” *I personally like Toler as Chan more than Olan, but all the Chan movies are pleasing. The character of Chan is like that of Simon Templar, the Saint, or Hercule Poirot. Wherever any of these three personas go, they are greeted with a warm welcome, a handshake or a pat on the back, and treated as noted personalities, and old friends “with a positive history.”

“From the Beginning” was a song by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and was written by Greg Lake. I first heard it when I was attending Carolina, UNC-Chapel Hill, in 1972, the year it came out. This was always a melancholy song to me. I equated this song with my sense of “being out of place,” at Carolina. Hector’s, Silent Sam, the Ratskeller, Aycock Dorm, the Pit, Debbie, Chemistry and the Bell Tower.

I would get a couple of egg rolls from Hector’s, “Famous since 1969,” on the way back to my room, 318, in Aycock Dorm. The surface of the egg roll was crispy, and I loved getting the packets of Duck Sauce and Hot Mustard, and eating them.

On the way back, I would walk by “Silent Sam.” And the legend, which few probably believed, was that Silent Sam got the name because he would shoot his rifle each time a virgin walked by;-) Hector’s is no more, and Aycock Dorm had a name change after George Floyd, and Charles B. Aycock was determined to be a racist… former Governor of North Carolina.

There was a small bar in the basement, at the back of the Ratskeller. *For some reason I can’t recall it’s name, but it did have one. There was at least one “Foosball” table and a Pong Machine. Pong was the first video game I ever played. It was a simplistic game, extremely crude by today’s standards.

Don’t recall why I started listening to “From the Beginning,” tonight on YouTube, but I was mesmerized by it and have listened to it many times just tonight. I even watched about four different “reaction” videos by podcasters listening to this song for the first time.

Funny, but I watched the reactions by the women on the screen more than the men. I think that is because the song is sung to a woman as an apology. But, I don’t think these reviewers really focused on the lyrics as much as the music, but I think the lyrics are as important as the music, and the music is beautiful.

I bought a Tempur-Pedic mattress some years ago. At that time, one of the selling points was that this mattress would last 20 years. “Wow, it will last twenty years! That’s great.” Got it home, and started using it. Several years into sleeping on this mattress, the thought came to me, “Why would I want a mattress for 20 years?” That thought comes from the idea that with daily use a mattress becomes a sponge or dirt magnet for all sorts of sweat and grunginess. Mattresses don’t come cheap, but probably 10 or at most 12 years might be what I think I should keep a mattress before buying a new one. *So, I’m well over due for a new mattress.

The pillows that came with my new Tempur-Pedic were of the “Neck Pillow” style. I like these because I can turn them in opposite directions depending upon how I want my head to rest on the pillow.

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I bought some pork chops at Lee’s Farm Market near Benson, NC a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t repackage them and put them in the freezer right away, and when I did, I noted an “off” smell. The first one that I cooked had a strong smell, and I thought, “did I let this spoil.” But, I cooked it and it didn’t taste bad. Several years ago, at I think it was called the “New York Cafe,” in Fayetteville, I had breakfast and some of the bacon had a similar, “off” smell, which smelled like urine. After this aroma recurred during repeated breakfasts, I think I asked about this. I think I was told that during certain times of the year, the meat took on this off smell, but the meat was still good. *And, I didn’t get sick off of three different pork chops that I cooked from Lee’s. However, I didn’t like this aroma, and I decided to buy some pork chops her in Fayetteville. I think I bought the pork chops at the IGA across town. They were thinly cut, maybe only 2 oz. per chop. Although they didn’t have that overpowering “taint” smell, they did have a hint of the smell. So, for the first chops I cooked today, I made some buttermilk (add a little vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk) and marinated them for a couple of hours, as I went about town getting groceries, drugs and money from First Citizens, before cooking. The soaking in buttermilk did make the aroma almost unnoticeable, and I will probably do this again.

I’ve made homemade buttermilk about 3 or 4 times since I read online how to do this and I’ve been very happy about the results. The milk thickens up and has a little tartness to it. For years, I’ve read about using buttermilk to marinate various meats, and I’ve done this a few times, but the problem was always that even a quart of buttermilk, meant that most of it would go bad before I used it again. Now I can make a cup or half-cup of buttermilk, use it, and not have to worry about wasting any left over.

OUR PETS

They come along,

and then they go.

They come along,

and then they go.

They come along,

and then you go.

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For years I have loved driving through a “well to do” neighborhood. There are many nice, old homes and there are streets which travel along the edge of a small lake. On a single morning, I have seen a hundred ducks, most floating end to end in a crisp October morning. I have seen the lake, frozen over with snow on the ground. And, not too long afterwards, I have seen the lake almost completely drained, mostly mud, with just a very narrow channel of water flowing from it’s high end, and on down to the dam at the low end. There are two Little Community Libraries, but only one of them that I drive by quite often.

And then there was a large old home, two storied, that had a couple of full-sized dog statues standing out, in the front yard, next to the short, crescent shaped drive way. As I passed by, I could look past the house and see the lake, behind the home. For years, I drove by this house and looked at the two dog statues, one white and one black, standing faithfully in place. The statues had not been put out front at the same time, and so I had come to believe that each had been erected as a memorial to a long loved pet that had gone beyond the veil. And, after years, and years, one day I saw the statues had been removed, and the home began to look unlived in. Then the thought came to me. Our pets come into our lives. We love them, but eventually they die. At some point we usually acquire another pet, we love them in a different way, but they die also. Maybe we put up a reminder of this beloved pet. But, if we live long enough, it is us that die, and the pet lives on. At least for a while.

Our pets normally do not erect life-like likenesses of us, in our memory.

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[NOTE 05/04/24]: I just started watching a movie, “The Judge,” and a lawyer’s mother has just died and he has returned to Carlinville, IN to attend her funeral. So, he is driving through town, and he’s turning to cross a small bridge across a small river, and I start to see a few things, like a footbridge, running “catty cornered” to the street & bridge. But, there is enough here for me to start asking myself if I have ever watched this movie before. I’m almost positive that I had not seen this movie, but that got me to Google Maps searching on Carlinville, IN. So, I pull up the map and almost immediately note that there is no river going through this small town. Then I google for filming locations for “The Judge,” and see that it was filmed in Shelburne Falls, MA. I don’t recall the name, but then I go to Google Maps for Shelburne Falls. And, there is the diagonal foot bridge crossing the river, and as I use Street View and cross the automobile bridge, I see familiar filming locations. I’ve looked at this town before, on Google Maps, but, not for this movie. I then google for other things that have been filmed in Shelburne Falls, MA. And surprisingly, to me, there are about eight different other movies or shows, one of them being Dexter. And, I watched several episodes of Dexter, and that is where I first became acquainted with Shelburne Falls. Without looking back at Dexter, I recall that there was a cafe, just across the bridge, that apparently was not an actual cafe.

This is one of the recent recognitions that I have come across where I’ve come to know a place through Google Maps / Street View and then later, recognize the place in some other realm. A Harry Bosch location from one of his novels, and then a video clip of an actual police chase where the person fleeing runs into a fountain in the middle of a traffic circle and damages it. Or, the Vincent Thomas Bridge near the Port of LA. I was watching a Dodge car commercial and recognized the bridge they were crossing. And, later in the commercial the cars are racing past a Port of Los Angeles Warehouse #1. I look and this warehouse is at the entrance of the Port.

And the first instance I recall is from Connelly’s description of the Hightower Apartments. I recalled seeing an old private detective movie from years ago, and the fictional detective lived at the Hightower Apartments, but I didn’t recall that name. What I did recall was the iconic elevator tower which was probably about 3 or 4 stories high, from ground (where there were rows of small garages on each side of the street). In Connelly’s book one of these small garages was used to house a victim’s, a young woman’s, car. *I went back and found the movie was “The Long Goodbye” from 1973, which originally was a Raymond Chandler novel about the fictional detective, Phillip Marlowe, and in the movie Marlowe is played by Elliott Gould. **There are many shots of the tower, elevator and the apartments both interior and exterior, and even a short clip of a car driving past some of the small garages, seen from above in Marlowe’s apartment. [end NOTE]