Sat - July 1, 2006

Forget health care, housing, Iraq, global warming, education, crime, racism, and even gay marriage. Flag Burning is THE issue.


On June 28, the U.S. Senate came within one vote of voting for a flag burning constitutional amendment. U.S. Senator from California, Diane Feinstein, voted for the amendment.

Posted at 09:17 PM     Read More  

Everyone in Venice Knows


A Short Story...in 2 or 3 installments

By Carol Fondiller
(from the Beachhead archives: Nov. 1975, #71)

“Well, there I was, trudging along W. Washington Blvd. at 11:30 PM. I had my purse filled with all the personal belongings I could stuff into it – I left the rest of my stuff in my Venice valises – 2 shopping bags. They were stored in the same corner that some other ‘lady’ (he calls women ‘ladies’)...well, where this other lady had left her stuff. Sort of an accumulation of lady leavings,” she giggled.

Posted at 02:08 PM     Read More  

Film Review: Nature’s Last Stand: Saving the Ballona Wetlands


By Karl Abrams

This beautifully filmed 17-minute documentary is a most-see multi-award winning eye-opener showing both the beauty of the lush Ballona Wetlands (the largest remaining coastal wetland in Los Angeles County) along side the harsh and looming overdevelopment proposals known as Playa Vista, the largest in the history of Los Angeles.

Posted at 01:10 PM     Read More  

In Brief...


• Hotel Row
• Lincoln Place Lawsuit

Posted at 12:12 PM     Read More  

A Long Hot Summer?


By Jim Smith

There have been three town hall meetings in Venice since the last issue of the Beachhead hit the streets. Two of them - focusing on a possible moratorium on condominium conversions, and on clean money for election campaigns - were well attended and mild mannered.

Posted at 11:17 AM     Read More  

Tent City Report


By C.V. Beck

At Tent City, intersection of California/ Frederick, Venice, (east of the Ross store), some of the embattled seniors and disabled residents of our now world-famous Lincoln Place Garden Apartments gather twice weekly (on Wednesdays and Saturdays 10-5pm), as we continue to fight for our rights of due process of law.

Posted at 10:20 AM     Read More  

How Venice Voted


By Jim Smith

A better headline might be “How Venice Didn’t Vote,” since the turnout was only around 12 percent in the June 6 primary. Although Beachhead readers surely turned out at the polls, en masse, to other Venetians it was a big yawn, with only a few contested elections.

Posted at 09:03 AM     Read More  

An Ode From Our Neighbor


by Paul Tanck

This past month, David Asper Johnson passed away. He was the creator, editor and all-around soul of Marina del Rey’s weekly newspaper, The Argonaut.

Posted at 08:06 AM     Read More  

1913: Harry Culver looks at Venice, and decides to build his own city


Many have asked why Harry Culver chose this location. This a reprint of Harry Culver’s speech announcing his intent to develop what became Culver City. Culver gave this speech to a gentlemen’s club in downtown Los Angeles in 1913. A year later, on October 31, 1914, The Culver City Call newspaper reprinted the speech with this comment:

“Following is the text of the speech made about a year ago, at a dinner at the California Club, by Harry H. Culver, announcing the birth of Culver City. The speech is worthy of reading again at this time in view of the wonderful success of Culver City in its past year.”

Posted at 07:08 AM     Read More  

Dr. John Tells All


By erica snowlake

saint’s alive! mythical heroes reincarnate like bodhsattvas and flock to venice! living truly in the here and now! part prophecy full time reality. dedicated folks vowing to save this world from our very selves are humbly going about doing it.

Posted at 06:10 AM     Read More  

Beat Poets of Venice West


By Ann Arens (from research and personal experience by Grace Godlin)

Across the country, suburbs comprised of cookie cutter houses were proliferating and pent-up consumerism was running rampant after the end of WWII. It was the 1950s, the era of ultimate conformity. At the same time, small groups of poets, artists, and musicians were coming together in New York, San Francisco, and slightly later in Venice, California, with a lifestyle that flew in the face of these widely prevailing values. They were known collectively as the Beats or Beatniks, and when they came to national attention they were ridiculed and satirized for their bongo playing, excess of hair, spacey (“like wow man”) language, and confrontational poetry.

Posted at 05:12 AM     Read More  

BOOK REVIEW: He Usually Lived with a Female (biography of C.H. "Brick" Garriques
He Usually Lived with a Female – The Life of Brick Garrigues


Reviewed by Jim Smith

Have you ever read a book and noticed that the plot seems very similar to your life? Well, me neither, until I read He Usually Lived with a Female, a biography of C.H. “Brick” Garrigues (pronounced “GAIR-uh-gus,”) by his son, George.

Posted at 04:14 AM     Read More  

Poetry


• who are we - Hillary Kaye
• Too many meetings - C.V. Beck
• Meth Pursuit, part 1 - John David West
• I Am Northamerican - Margot “Pimienta”  Pepper
• Welcome to my creation - Chad Prather
• Bumper - Sherman Pearl

Posted at 03:16 AM     Read More  

Good-Bye, Mikey


By C.V. Beck

My very good boy, 24 pounds, orange tabby, age about 10, was killed by a dog or dogs on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 at about 5 pm. These dog(s) were off-leash although the owners apparently were nearby, indulging themselves in permitting their animals to run, hunt, quest in a pack of two.

Posted at 03:15 AM     Read More  

Is there a Nuke in your future?


By James C. Warf

HOW NUCLEAR REACTORS WORK. – In the U.S. today, about 22 percent of our electricity derives from nuclear reactors, which consume uranium as fuel. To understand how nuclear reactors work, we need a brief introduction to uranium and how energy is derived from it.

Posted at 02:17 AM     Read More  

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