Run, don’t walk, to your local whatever-it-is and pick up this week’s Pasadena Weekly. There’s been a complete redesign of the paper…and a special surprise on the tables of contents page. More on that tomorrow.

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My companion series to The Ten People Ruining Pasadena - The Ten Things I Love About Pasadena - continues today with #8:

#8: Pasadena’s Wild Parrots!

Not widely known to people outside of the Crown City, but Pasadena is home to some really cute (and really loud) wild parrots. Wikipedia sez:

Pasadena has a population of naturalized parrots. The city’s website identifies one, a Red-crowned amazon parrot, but according to the [6] Parrot Project of Los Angeles, the parrots fall into as many as five different groups. There is a cycle of regular public outcry about the noise and the sheer oddity of the birds’ presence, but most Pasadenans seem to have come to accept the birds as part of the city’s life. They can be seen year-round, but are especially noticeable in the winter. The birds are definitely gregarious, and the amount of disturbance their chatter creates is related to the time of day they may choose to chatter.

Theories and myths abound on how these parrots came to claim Pasadena and surrounding towns as their home. A heavily accepted story by longtime residents of the area is that they were part of the stock at Simpson’s Nursery on East Colorado Blvd. in the Lamanda Park area. The nursery was burned down in 1959, and the parrots were thereby released to forage in the lush Pasadena area. It is also possible that some parrots moved northward from their normal range in central and northern Mexico as human habitation in the Pasadena area created artificial habitat in which the parrots could survive. Among their favorite foods are the berry kernels of the cedar trees that grow in great abundance around Pasadena.

And Ben over at The Sky Is Big In Pasadena says:

a little known fact about pasadena is that it is home to many flocks of parrots. rumor has it that these foreign birds escaped into the wild during a fire at a bird farm.

There are a ton of theories as to why they’re exactly here. I heard that Sid Tyler once mated with a parrot after a drunken evening at The 35er (back when it was actually a dive bar) and fathered thousands of them.

Regardless of where they’re from - they’re here, they’re feathered, so get used to it. I notice that you can hear them returning and coming back to the area during the Spring and Fall months - their loud squawking can be heard all the way out in Arcadia and Monrovia. Kind of becomes peaceful and quaint after a while. The first time I experienced this was when I first came here early in this decade and thought I was in an Alfred Hitchcock film.

I also hear they’ve stayed in Pasadena because they like our choices of private schools and can commute to work via the Gold Line.

Whatever the real reason is that they’re here or why they choose to stay, it’s a really special feeling when you get up close to one of these birds. You know that you’re in a special place and a special town and all that crap. They’re part of the Pasadena Identity and nobody else has really got `em. So, that’s why the wild parrots are one of the Ten Things I Love About Pasadena.

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Time for another edition of everyone’s favorite morning comic, You Can’t Fight City Hall!

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The Game recently visited the kids at John Muir High to give them a pep talk, according to some guy who writes for the PSN:

Multi-platinum-selling hip-hop artist The Game has been shot seven times, served jail time, and watched people close to him lose their lives to violence.

On Tuesday afternoon, the rapper - dressed in a white T-shirt, baseball cap and chunky gold chain - stepped into a packed classroom at John Muir High School to tell teens there is a better way.

“I just want you to stay alive,” said the 28-year-old artist, who was born Jayceon Taylor.

Ummmm….yeah. `Cause, if I had kids, I’d totally want them to get advice on their lives from The Game. Was Amy Winehouse busy that day? Maybe next year they could get upstanding citizens like R. Kelly, Britney Spears, or Nick Hogan to show kids “a better way”.

Ya know, the schools could always contact me to speak to the kids. I’m Pasadena’s paragon of virtue, after all.

Joe Hopkins is gonna be pissed when he hears about this story. Also, Virginia Hoge thinks this post is racist.

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I like to send drawings to Mayor Bogaard. I think it a) creeps him out, b) probably makes him laugh, c) annoys his harem of secretaries, and d) it’s fucking hilarious. Recently, I sent him this:

I’m sure he enjoys it lots.
Be seeing you,

- AP