The Adventures of Aaron Proctor

Just Opened A Can Of Niceness

So I was waiting for the bus to head into work this morning (because I gots to get paid, son) and who decides to pull over and give me a lift? None other than Margaret McAustin (wrestling fans will find this entry’s name hilarious).  It was very sweet of her to do that, considering she and I haven’t had the best of fellowships (mostly due to things I’ve said) and don’t quite see eye-to-eye on most things in Political Pasadena. So - kudos for Margaret for being a total professional and a nice person.  I mean, there are some people who totally wouldn’t even do that.  Kinda reminds me of that Super Bowl commercial with James Carville and Bill Frist.  Plus - I learned that she’ll be throwing out the first pitch for the East Altadena Little League at Longfellow Elementary School on March 1st.  That’s definitely a nice news chestnut: considering there has been a total lull for news this week in the `Dena. 

**

This aggression will not stand, man. 

It looks like the Pasadena Weekly’s website has undergone an overhaul.  Joe “The Big” Piasecki (who was called a ham-and-egger by his colleague, Andre Coleman) said not to worry or send e-mails about any bugs just yet, or at least for another week. And - hey - at least I’m not getting 40 million pop-ups like I do when I go to the other guys’ site.  It looks like a really nice site and I personally can’t wait for those web-exclusive stories.

**

Angry bikers will return to Council soon, Livestrong bracelets and all 

Don’t fret about a lack of hard, throbbing, pulsating local news this week.  Pretty soon, all kinds of things will be on City Council’s plate once again.  The peloton stuff is going to do another few laps around the dais, Rose Bowl shenanigans will captivate us all, Danny Bakewell will hit Steve Madison in the grill with a brick, Ann Erdman wrestling a bear at the Senior Center, and, of course, we’ll find out the answer to just how many buckets of chicken Victor Gordo will buy with the money from Measure D. 

Of course, I could always take a page out of Dormitas’ book and create some news myself.

From the home office in Kevin Uhrich’s desk drawer…

TOP TEN FAKE PASADENA NEWS HEADLINES FOR THIS WEEK

10.  Rose Bowl To Host Lingerie Bowl In 2012

9.  Larry Wilson Amazes Residents With Gripping, Interesting Column

8.  Gamble House To Be Renamed Proctor House

7.  210 Freeway Will Include New Drunk Driving Only Lane

6.  Drive-Thru Attendant At Jack In The Box On Hill & Colorado Gets Order Completely Right, Doesn’t Screw It Up

5.  Robin Salzer Purchases Pleasures, Dipping Bikini-Clad Slutbags In Barbecue Sauce

4.  Tyler To City: “Fuck Off”

3.  Pomeranians Protest New Heritage Dog Square At Vina Vieja Park

2.  In Unlikely Move, South Pasadena Declares Independence From Serbia

1.  James MacPherson’s Cut & Paste Commands Stop Working, Pasadena Now Website Down For Weeks

Have a safe weekend.

Stay classy, Pasadena.

- AP

Some new faces of 2007 (From left to right): District 1 Councilwoman Jacque Robinson, District 2 Councilwoman Margaret McAustin, and “Planny” - the Planning Commission dalmatian.

By the power vested in me by hyperlinking and blog archiving, here’s a shout out to the year 2007 - one of the most memorable years of not only my life but Pasadena’s as well.
2007 was definitely a year that saw both challenges for me in my personal life and for the City of Pasadena. While my life saw me unjustly fired from two jobs in the same year and subsequently being exiled to St. Louis, Pasadena saw gang violence, strip club buy outs, Rose Bowl float drama, door hanger drama, developer drama, high school football game drama, a police chief doubling as a City Manager, long-time PUSD board members upset from their seats, and lots, lots more.

Kimberley Brown ran against Steve Madison in the District 6 Council election. I’d like to have her in my polling place, if you catch my drift.

The year started out with some exciting Council and PUSD board races - all culminating with the March Primary election and the April runoff election (well, the latter if you didn’t get trounced by Mayor Bogaard).

Danny Bakewell made hell for Council to quell.

This very blog blossomed and came into its own a few weeks after the dust cleared from the election. As you’ll see, this site started out as my own personal campaign site. After the election, it became a place where I continually posted my attempts at comedic musings, controversial rants, controversial musings, and comedic rants (Ha!).
Ever since late March or early April, this site has become a favorite of elected officials, political candidates, anonymous pundits, newspaper reporters, crazy liberal bitches, bitches with smokin’ bodies, family members, erstwhile school board members, losers on professional wrestling message boards, Nigerian porno spammers, and Average Joes.

Local bloggers Centinel (left) and Dormitas (right).

And it’s not just this blog either. The entire blogsophere - moreso Blogadena - has grown to be quite the influential source from everything like straight information to complete ridicule of/on our leaders. More people pay attention to what goes on at historic City Hall than ever before. Let’s band together and make 2008 even more memorable!

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. So why not sit a spell and do just that - choose your own Proctor-guided adventure in the archives of 2007.

• January
• February
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December
• Febtabuary

Breakdown: 2007 In Numbers

• 195,000: The number of total hits for the year 2007 this site will reach sometime just before the end of the year.
• 8: The number of people on City Council (including the Mayor) who read this blog.
• Approximately 2300: The number of times the word ‘fuck’ is used on this site.
• 47: The number of times I’ve pissed people off.
• 86 minutes: The amount of time it takes Mayor Bogaard to finish a sentence.
• 48: Updated - number of times I’ve pissed people off.
• 3,000,000: The number of people I pissed off in the St. Louis area.
• $5,000,000: The amount the City spent to rid it of a strip club (the amount invested in to gang violence was far less).
• 40: Ounces of King Cobra goodness.
• $10 million: The amount Victor Gordo claimed we need in order to pay our police officers and fire fighters, in support of 2008’s worst decision, Measure D.
• $25 million: The amount in surplus the City actually will have. So why do we need Measure D again?
• 65,000 or so: The number of registered voters in Pasadena
• 5: The number of registered voters in Pasadena who vote
• 4: The number of registered voters in Pasadena who can name the Mayor or any member of City Council
• 73: The number of times Joe Hopkins attributed gang violence to a late 80’s or early 90’s hip hop group
• 8,294: The number of hours for entire City Council meetings this year
• 277: The number of times Jim Lomako used the phrase “granny flats” during the District 2 election
• 3,156: The amount of people who think things located just above Washington & Allen are part of incorporated Pasadena and not unincorporated Pasadena or Altadena.
• 1472: The number of geniuses in Pasadena.

Some Things I Learned In 2007

• John Shaft is a complicated man and no one understands him but his woman.
• Sid Tyler doesn’t use e-mail, he uses fe-male.
• The Midwest isn’t good for anything except cheap alcohol and cheap cigarettes.
• No MTA or ARTS bus in Pasadena is ever on time.
• Martin Truitt is 7 feet tall, weighs 650 pounds, and lives in a cave under the Allen Gold Line station.
• Running for office doesn’t get you a burger named after you. Calling the owner of a restaurant a ‘dick’ in the Pasadena Weekly does.
• Ace Star-News reporter Todd Ruiz and I have both seperately had sexual relations with this one chick back in our younger days. She had good taste.  UPDATE (Dec 27, 2007):  Chick pulls a Steve Madison and cries to me about this.  I took her picture down…here’s the e-mail I sent back:

  Because I'm a nice guy, a paragon of virtue, an icon, a superstar, role
  model, genius, et al....and since it's Kwanzaa, I'll take down your
  picture from that entry.
  
  It's a shame you don't have a sense of humor.  Then again, that's why
  you're a 30 year old Goth chick.
  
  - AP
  www.proctorformayor.com

• This chick on Law & Order: SVU reminds me of Jane Rodriguez.
• The Philadelphia Eagles and the Philadelphia Phillies are responsible for breaking my heart twice.
• Giving up the eyeliner and the eyeshadow and the weird clothes has been one of the better decisions I’ve made in life.
• Pasadena needs a Wendy’s and an Arby’s.
• City Council public comment cards make decent paper airplanes.
• Steve Haderlein is a sexy mofo.
• The hairstyle that Emo kids have is called a “Cry shield”. The kind of kids who listen to Emo are called “eleven-teens”.
• Jill organizes fun picnics.
• Former District 2 City Councilman Paul Little used steroids between his 2001 and 2003 terms.
• That guy on Orange Grove isn’t going to use the 50 cents you gave him to buy food.

I guess that all sums up 2007.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

- AP

Here’s tonight’s City Council agenda, courtesy of the City of Pasadena website:

Oh wow! Can’t wait! We’ve got the second reading of the moratorium on condo conversions, Senator Jack Scott making a presentation, “Measure D” gets on the ballot for the special municipal election on February 5th, land vacations, tree removal proposals, storefront improvement, and more posturing for upcoming elections than you can shake a stick at.

City Clerk Jane Rodriguez should be played by this chick on Law & Order: SVU. What do you think?

You can watch the action live on KPAS 55 or on the City of Pasadena website at http://www.cityofpasadena.net. Meeting starts at 6:30, so expect it to begins around 7:00. Come for the politics, stay for the hilarity.

Dormitas has his take on a couple of the agenda items.

-AP

Well, now you can.  From Pasadena Now:

If you ask Rose Bowl General Manager Daryl Dunn what his favorite part of the stadium is, he’ll point to the archaic concrete stairs that were once the original exits from the original stadium. 

 

They’re still around in certain areas of the stadium because back when the new gate entrances to the stadium (a.k.a., Gates 1 through 28) were put in place, the old stairs were mostly removed, except in a couple of areas which happen to be viewable from the corridors between the players’ locker rooms and the players’ entrance to the field.

This is the kind of thing that Dunn and the rest of the Rose Bowl management want you to see as they hold an open house this Saturday, October 27 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

“We want people to walk around and really understand the Rose Bowl,” Dunn says, “because, you know, you come here for a game and you’re among tens of thousands of people, you don’t really have a chance to experience it.”

Dunn says the whole building will be open – the locker rooms (“best in the country,” Dunn says), the media rooms, on the field or anywhere in the stands. 

It’s free to attend and hot dogs will be available all day.  Docents will be on-hand to explain to all visitors what makes the Rose Bowl so special and what lies in the Rose Bowl’s future.

Awesome.  Can I kick field goals?

- AP

The icon himself, Huell Howser.

It’s true.  Huell Howser is going to temporarily be the Mayor of Sierra Madre, according to the PSN:

SIERRA MADRE - Anyone with two ears and a brain who lives in town realizes the city has been celebrating its 100th birthday all year, and this weekend is the last hurrah.

TV personality Huell Howser, best known for his travel shows spotlighting small towns like Sierra Madre, will preside as “honorary mayor” Sunday, while a slew of events take place as part of the “Celebrate the Big 100!” Sierra Madre picnic and closing event.

“We’ve all had a good time,” said Toni Buckner, co-chairwoman of the Centennial Committee. “There might be a few people who who are run ragged, but it’s been a lot of fun.”

In fact, Buckner notes, the Centennial Calendars sent out to all residents on Dec. 20 of last year was packed with 82 events and activities, and many more organizations took the centennial theme and added to that list.

“I’m going to be ready for a rest, but it’s been a lot of fun,” said Mayor Enid Joffe.

Joffe will get a little relief Sunday while Howser takes over her job until 5:30 p.m.

“I think the hard part will be getting me to take it back,” she joked. “If he wants to give somebody a badge for courage since the theme is `The Wizard of Oz,’ I’ll be cool with that.”

Read the full article (while it’s still up) here.

Gawwwwwly.

- AP

I’m going to pull a Larry Wilson and write a poem.

This poem is dedicated to the week’s events here in the Crown City.

An ode to despair

For Heritage Square

It’s been hectic in the City

With a brand new committee

And my dear Cynthia Kurtz

Is gone and now it hurts

I’m put in a spell

With thoughts of Danny Bakewell

Forever seeking silence

And no more gang violence

It’s opaque just like the fog

When you write another blog

And you think of how it would have been

If there wasn’t a Madison

Or Gordo

I’m bored, so

Onto your weekend

I will send 

May the madness never end 

And the money we all spend

For the issues Council’l tend

Broken promises

Another shard

Look to the light Mayor Bogaard

Perfect times are golden

Quiet like Chris Holden 

Agenda items so benign

Feelin’ fine

Like Haderlein 

At least this week

But I shall seek

Another meeting for scoldin’

It’ll die down in a week or two

And we’ll be blue

When there’s nothing to do

But write in my blog. 

- AP

Not as much rainfall this year but plenty of bullshit still falling from the sky in the Crown City. 

From M-Double Lizzy-Y in the P-Star:

PASADENA - Despite the weekend’s rain, the city experienced its driest year since Pasadena started keeping records in 1878, officials said Monday.

“It’s amazing,” Pasadena Water & Power engineering manager Brad Boman said, shaking his head while looking at the bone-dry Arroyo Seco percolation ponds, which provide the city with 700 million to 800 million gallons of groundwater a year.

“After that big of a rainstorm, you’d think we would have more water,” he said.

Unfortunately, what seemed like a downpour to water-starved Southern Californians on Saturday provided only 1 inch of precipitation at most in some areas, according to National Weather Service rainfall totals.

And in the last year, Pasadena has only seen about 32 inches of rain, Boman said.

But the dry spell forms only one-third of a “triple whammy” Pasadena is facing when it comes to water shortages, Boman said. Along with the lack of rainfall, the Colorado River is in the midst of an eight- to nine-year drought, he noted.

Read the full article (while it’s still up) here.

I’m going to start an Ad Hoc committee with Dormitas and Centinel to look into how we can get more rainfall in our city.

- AP

City Council Never Sleeps..Even For Me!

I’m back and I hope none of you (well, maybe except Mr. Maserati) are pummeled by what pummeled me this weekend. Icky stomach stuff. Hooray for Pepto Bismol and a loving girlfriend. Plus - as you may have read - my company’s annual meeting is this week so the blog is gonna be inactive for a few days later this week and into the weekend…so..I’ll let you all know what to do a little bit later.

I’m not reading much about last night’s City Council meeting. I was resting up last night and didn’t have the energy to give a typical Proctor Analysis(tm). I’m glad I didn’t miss anything! So - just for that - everyone gets 5 points. I’m in a good mood when I dramatically change my hairdo.

Here’s the current Fantasy City Council League standings:

Western Conference

Council Member / Total Points (Points Earned This Week)

1. Mayor Bill Bogaard - 35 (5)
2. District 1 - Jacque Robinson - 22 (5)
3. District 3 - Chris Holden - 13 (5)
4. District 6 - Steve Madison - 6 (5)
***

Eastern Conference

1. District 5 - Victor Gordo - 45 (5)
2. District 4 - Steve Haderlein - 40 (5)
3. District 2 - Margaret McAustin - 25 (5)
4. District 7 - Sid Tyler - 20 (5)

UPDATE: Dormitas has the goods with his take of the meeting - since he also missed it. LOL at his Madison joke even though everyone seemed to be there last night.

UPDATE 2:  Dormitas breaks down the Council meeting, which was a glorified “snoozefest”.  I got sick at the right time.  Those 5 points were definitely allocated properly.  Even if I didn’t miss the Council meeting last night, Maserati Madison would have still got a nice 5 points for not mentioning the trade he formerly plied.
I’ll be at the meeting next week, for sure.

- AP

From the Pasadena Now:

But RHC has not given up on its plans to develop the land and is still making changes — necessary now that the nurseries will remain — to the application it intends to submit to the city, a spokesperson told Pasadena Now yesterday.

Two groups that lobbied on behalf of the nurseries, Pasadena Open Space Preservation and Open Space Now, have said they will oppose any development on the property, currently zoned for open space.

Full article here.
Hmmm….Open Space Preservation…Open Space Now…..

That just means two words.

George Takei.

I mean, Gene Masuda. The Anti-Sexy.
- AP

I have a lot of love for J-Mac over at the Pasadena Now. He’s the Ric Flair of Pasadena news…whatever that means.
But WTF was up with that bowtie he was wearing this week on “City Beat”?

- AP

— Next Page »