Foreign Debts, Homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz, Hypodermics On The Shore...

The recent Universal Studios fire was all over the news, so you probably heard about it. I live very close to Universal City and unlike most Sundays, I was up pretty early to go downtown and meet up with a friend. I immediately smelled something funny and heard helicopters. Once I went outside, my throat was burning and I started coughing. Yay asthma. Also, there were bits of ash all over our cars.

View looking down my street.


View from the North Hollywood Metro stop.

While I was driving over to the North Hollywood Metro station to catch the subway, I listened to KNX news radio. They had a reporter "on the scene" who insisted that "the air is fine." What? I got aggravated by that and decided to call. I'm not the type of person who calls into radio stations, but I wanted the right information to get out there. I certainly did not call to be on the air, but that is exactly where they put me. Luckily, it was so early I assumed no one heard me. They even asked if I'd talked to friends in the area and I said no one was up yet!

And then I got this email from my friend W:

I heard you on the radio. B and I had gone up to Mulholland lookout to watch the fire, and we heard you on the radio on the way down the hill. You were very dignified. And some of your friends were up just as early as you.

At least I was "dignified." Ha!

Unfortunately, this is not the first Universal Studios fire. If you want to see some cool footage of both the 1990 and 2008 fires, check out this video shot by my friend and neighbor Erik.