Legendary photographer Edward Weston is most often connected with Northern California. The modernist known for his mastery of form had a studio in Carmel and co-founded Group f/64 with Ansel Adams and others. Not as well known is that Weston began his career as a portrait photographer in the Los Angeles area.

Weston moved here from Illinois in 1906, settling in Tropico, now part of Glendale. He married his sister's best friend, Flora May Chandler. She became the mother of their four sons, and quietly suffered as he pursued affairs with exotic women in his circle such as Tina Modotti and Margrethe Mather.

Flora supported Weston financially much of the time, working as a schoolteacher. Some biographies have called her part of the Chandler family that owned the Los Angeles Times, but she had no connection to their wealth.

This platinum print nude of Flora, taken in 1909, is part of a new Weston exhibit that opens at the Getty Museum on July 31. In a companion lecture on Sept. 13, Weston biographer Beth Gates Warren will discuss new details of the photographer's complex relationship with Flora and his lack of love for Los Angeles.

In Edward Weston: His Life, author Ben Maddow quotes him saying:

My disgust for that impossible village of Los Angeles grows daily. Give me Mexico, revolution, smallpox, poverty, anything but the plague spot of America – Los Angeles. All sensitive, self-respecting persons should leave there…

Warren, author of Margrethe Mather and Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration, told me she plans to divulge how Weston destroyed most of the records of his 17 years here. He was trying to re-write Los Angeles out of his personal history. I'm so there.

Photo: © 1981 Arizona Board of Regents, Center for Creative Photography

Hooker stripper bondage shoes at Nordstrom. In gold. Just 495.00.

I've been posting an owner's manual for public users of the Malibu beaches (pts. 1, 2, 3). But would you like someone to show you how to do it before you try it for yourself?

Here's an announcement from my alter ego, Ranger Jenny.

The Los Angeles Urban Rangers announce:

"MALIBU PUBLIC BEACHES" SAFARIS
August 4-5th & 11-12th, 2007

Tired of Zuma and Surfrider? Want to find and use the other beaches in
Malibu? The twenty miles that are lined with private development? The
"Malibu Public Beaches" safaris will show you how to find, park, walk,
picnic, and sunbathe on a Malibu beach. Each 3 1/2-hour safari visits
two or three beaches and explores natural history, jurisdiction, and the
identification of public and private property. Skills-enhancing
activities include a public-private boundary hike, an accessway hunt,
sign watching, and a public easement potluck.

We will offer two safaris in west Malibu and two in east Malibu:

** West Malibu beaches - SAT Aug 4 (9:30am-1pm), SUN Aug 12 (1:30-5pm)
** East Malibu beaches - SUN Aug 5 (9:30am-1pm), SAT Aug 11 (1:30-5pm)

Safaris are free, but space is limited. To sign up, please email
info@laurbanrangers.org with tour date, name, and # of people. For
further information on the safaris and the Los Angeles Urban Rangers,
visit laurbanrangers.org.

A "Malibu Public Beaches" guide will be downloadable from our website in
early August.

The homeowner’s motives for opening a public accessway on Malibu's Carbon Beach this summer remain mysterious. However, since rumors continue to fly that he did it to get back at the neighbors, I’d like to make a policy proposal to the state. Apparently, all we have to do to create public access in Malibu is to promote public accessways as instruments of revenge.

(If you haven’t heard: Just before Memorial Day, the Connecticut resident Peter Kleidman, who uses a home he owns on Carbon as a rental property, voluntarily created a beach accessway along the side of the house. In mid June--just after Caltrans posted a “coastal access” sign on the PCH--he officially closed it.)

Here are the theories so far. The Malibu Surfside News reported a fight with the neighbor to the east. I asked other reporters, as well as state officials, who speculated that he was mad at the neighbor to the west--who happens to be real-estate billionaire and civic leader Eli Broad. I heard also that this independent-film producer holds a grudge against the Hollywood establishment. When he closed it, I heard that Broad had sent him a letter--though no one knew the contents. In sum, while we don’t know why Kleidman opened or closed it--and I’d like to think the best of him--absolutely everyone seems to agree that opening a public beach accessway would be an unusually effective form of blackmail against the neighbors.

So why didn’t state officials think of this before? There must be thousands of people out there who have a serious beef with someone who owns a house on a Malibu beach, and who have enough money to buy a beach house themselves.

Say, for example, one film producer steals Brad Pitt off a rival producer’s movie in development--and the first producer owns a house on Broad Beach. The Coastal Commission should encourage the Pitt-less producer to buy a property on Broad--just on the same beach, not necessarily next door--and create an accessway for the commoners. (Of course, this only works if that person doesn’t already have a house on Broad, instead of, say, Carbon). Business partnership gone sour? Open an accessway. Spouse left someone for someone else? Open an accessway. The neighbor’s dog barks all night in Brentwood?--and by chance that neighbor owns a getaway house on Escondido Beach or Las Flores Beach or the Malibu Road beaches? Buy a beach house, open an accessway.

This way, the rest of us will finally enjoy the public access that state laws require. True, gates will close as well as open, as neighbors threaten and appease one another. Yet other gates will open at a rapid pace, until eventually--and here’s the true, dazzling beauty of this strategy--the homeowners will have gotten perfectly accustomed, as they should be already, to sharing the public beaches with the public.

And when that happens, a new accessway will be nothing extraordinary. It will not be a media event. It will bestir no lawyers. I have a dream that one day, a Malibu property owner will open a beach accessway to get back at a neighbor, and the neighbor will shrug and say, “accessway, schmaccessway.” And the Coastal Commission can go about its job of providing public access to these public beaches.

Plenty of educators are baffled and bothered by the Supreme Court's recent ruling on affirmative action in the schools. At the New Roads School in Santa Monica, a private, non-profit campus, they're speaking their minds.

*Dramatization of a conversation overheard this week in a Westwood Village cafe (dialogue is paraphrased):

INT. - A WESTWOOD VILLAGE CAFE - MID-AFTERNOON

Most tables occupied by patrons. Some drink coffee. Some read books or newspapers. Some work on laptop computers.

EXT. - CITY STREET OUTSIDE CAFE

Two Los Angeles Police Department officers park their cruiser curbside.

INT. - CAFE COUNTER

Officers step up to counter. OFFICER NO. 1 inquires after CASHIER.

OFFICER NO. 1

Somebody report a disturbance that involved a transient?

CASHIER pauses, appears to have put matter out of mind, turns back, walks through kitchen doorway.

MANAGER stands behind register.

MANAGER

Why did it take so long to respond to that report?

OFFICER NO. 1

We got a busy day and it's a long way from the West LA police station.

MANAGER appears perplexed.

OFFICER NO. 1

A faster response is possible if you report it to the UCLA Police. Their station is just over there.

MANAGER appears perplexed.

MANAGER

But, Westwood Village is LAPD jurisdiction, not UCLA.

OFFICER NO. 1

UCLA will respond if the disturbance involves UCLA students.

MANAGER appears perplexed.

OFFICER NO. 1

In the future, just call UCLA Police and say a transient is disturbing UCLA students.

MANAGER appears perplexed.

MANAGER

But, not all my customers are students. You can't tell who's a student.

OFFICER NO. 1

If a transient bothers them, they're probably UCLA students, as far as you know.

FADE OUT

Alright, I hope Kevin doesn't axe me for running a previously published, crusty, old article of questionable taste, but I was sitting here, marveling at the Toto ad next to the chronically low-turnover Native Intelligence blog and thought perhaps I might rectumfy the situation by posting a piece I wrote a few years ago for the 2002 Best of LA Weekly issue, edited by Judith Lewis. Contributors were asked to imagine a future Los Angeles and connect it to a thing to do or buy or see in L.A. and in my usual manner, I chose something lowbrow and inane. But now, five years later with a bidet ad running on this site, perhaps we are getting closer to my ideal future. So please forgive me for lowering the bar here at LAO.

Bidet of the Locust

I have a dream for the future. A dream in which every man, woman and child in Los Angeles, nay, in Southern California has a clean, fresh ass.

It's not an unreasonable dream, given the fact that the population of Los Angeles is expected to increase by 600,000 souls every year. That's a lot of arses to warsh. How many entire showers will be taken simply to hose our heinies? As drought years pile up, how will we all stay fresh and moist without draining our water supply dry?

Bidets! Yes, bidets, those French, fanny flushers, usually found in swank hotels, between the telephone and the commode.

Butt-washing is not the most savory of topics, but we should admit that under our racy Angeleno exteriors we are all a bunch of Puritans terrified of turd, paralyzed by poop. Unlike our free and easy Euro-brethren, we are scandalized by a bath fixture devoted solely to the care and cleaning of our cracks.

Yet many recent studies have shown bum-wiping to be a highly unsanitary business. Thanks to the tireless efforts of dedicated bathroom researchers, we also know that we "hygiene obsessed" Americans are in reality, a bunch of shabby hand-washers. Throw thong panties into the mix and we may be sitting on a public health crisis. Wouldn't it be better if everyone just got a nice, refreshing dumper douche instead?

Picture, if you will, Los Angeles' public rest rooms as spotless, paper-and-human-waste-free areas where butt bubblers burble. Hard to imagine? Picture Tokyo, where today bidets are built into the toilet seats, and you need only press a button to flush, wash and dry to soothing music, or the discrete and relaxing sound of running water. From a quality of life standpoint, bidet laws could mean the difference between a tense and crusty public, or a serene and dewey-assed citizenry.

This isn't just a pipe dream, people. TOTO, the leading Japanese bidet manufacturer has "Washlets" available for purchase in our fair city. They are mechanized seats that you can affix to your existing crapper for a mere $500-$900. Too expensive you say? What did you pay for your spa tub - which are veritable hotpots of bacteria?

Bidets are so much more than mere heinie hydrants. They are therapeutic for post-partum women and any one who suffers from hemorrhoids or wears a diaper. Anyone that is, with inflamed or angry nethers. They also make excellent sock washers, beard baths, foot dippers and sandy-shoe dumpers. And which of us does not delight in a child's first enchantment with the dancing waters of the bidet, cranking it up and blasting it until the ceiling drips?

The very best use for bidets, however, is the one bidet manufacturers never advertise. Bidets are especially good for pre-and post-coital lavation, and it is as twat-washers that bidets get their risque reputation. In this way, Los Angeles and bidets are a match made in heaven. We are the cultural leader in racy lifestyles as well as in health and hygiene trends. We're the home of the bikini wax and the high colonic. I say, let's take it one step further, show the rest of the country what we're really made of and put a hoo-hoo flume in every bathroom!

The news peg for Hans Laetz' piece in this week's Surfside News about Malibu's ongoing septic tank woes is the pending showdown between two conservation groups and our little city. Santa Monica Baykeeper and the Natural Resource Defense Council want to bring federal oversight to Malibu's polluted shores.

Two weeks ago, Santa Monica Baykeeper and the Natural Resource Defense Council gave official no­tice that they intend to file a federal Clean Waters Act suit against the City of Malibu and the County of Los Angeles. Unless the defendants can convince Baykeeper and NRDC differently, a federal lawsuit can be filed in two months that could place a federal judge in charge of rules for building and remodeling projects in Malibu and beyond. It could also force existing property owners to obey some new strict set of septic tank and runoff-water regulations.

You can get a case of whiplash following the "Did not!"/"Did too!" accusations and denials by both sides.

And then there's the hypocracy:

This is a story of two Malibus.

The first Malibu held a fundraising party at Bluffs Park on Sunday. Raffles and other activities gathered funds to help complete a huge water treatment scheme at Legacy Park; a flood­­water collection, storage, treatment and dispersal project that will top $35 million in costs. This Malibu has en­acted the toughest septic tank rules in Southern California, and is working on several ex­pensive, major water treatment projects to clean up pollution hot spots along the beaches.

The other Malibu doesn’t care. It lets precious water shipped here at great expense from a faraway river delta flow across its gardens and out into gutters. It lets moss and green gunk flourish in the dozens of PVC pipes that flow continuously out into ocean sand. The other Malibu looks the other way as beachfront septic tanks em­ploy seepage pits in which the human waste rises and falls each day as it mixes with the ocean’s tides. And it con­­sistently violates a state law that forbids dumping any water, ev­en a downspout of rainwater, into a section of the Pacific around Point Dume and up to Point Mugu—a stretch considered a publicly-owned “crown jewel, an ocean Yosemite” in need of special protection.

Critics say the in­escapable conclusion is that some Malibuites exist in both worlds simultaneously."