californiaflagnowriting

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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Notes about Van Nuys.

I've been reading a little about Van Nuys and the rest of the San Fernando Valley. Here are a few facts about places that are close to where we live. The links show where we live, and where these places are:

1) The Rodney King beating. Believe it.
2) Van Nuys High School - this is where Fast Times at Ridgemont High went down.
3) Vivid Video is apparently the largest porn production company in the world. In 2002 they made over a billion dollars. A billion. That's 1000 million. The only studio where they make their movies (that make them a billion dollars) is nice and close.
4) Encino Man. Remember? I hope not.
5) This is not a place but is very important. In Pulp Fiction when Vincent and Jules are looking for where to hide the dead guy in their car, Jules says "I ain't got no partners in the 818". That's our area code. I guess sometimes the streets can get heavy in the 204 as well.
6) We go to movies at the Sherman Oaks Galleria . Frank Zappa wrote the song "Valley Girls" about girls at this mall who like totally, like talk like this and abbrev their like words. So that's where every girl in grade 11 English class comes from.

And so on and so forth. Van Nuys has been described in the LA Times as " a giant bowl of oatmeal."

Although this description of our area of town is more confusing than derogatory, it's still ours and we still like it! It's like Wolesely without the hippies, nice old houses, dogs, yuppies, and trees. Errr?

We miss our family and friends and hope they are following their advent calendars dutifully in anticipation for the celebration of Christmas. We have a few fun plans for the holidays and perhaps our next post will have a Christmas theme. And maybe even a picture of us at a market we plan on going to that apparently shoots fake snow in the air for 4 hours a night for the next few weeks. Sounds environmentally devastating.

3 Comments:

  • This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    By Blogger Unknown, at December 25, 2005  

  • I should note that the Sherman Oaks Galleria was completely demolished and rebuilt about 2 years ago, so the one that's there now bears scan resemblance to the one in Fast Times At Ridgemont High. But you can always look at the DVD. The original Galleria also shows up in COMMANDO (with the Governator) and cult flick CHOPPING MALL about security robots run amok at night killing teenagers in a locked mall. A personal favorite.

    By Blogger Scott, at January 05, 2006  

  • Yeah, the Sherman Oaks Galleria was The Grove of the 80s.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at January 05, 2006  

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