 A friend asked me if I was going to the National Train Day festivities at Union Station on Saturday, and I rather grumpily said no. What's the point, when I never get to take rail? One day, when the Subway to the Sea finally gets built out to Santa Monica, THEN I'll celebrate trains.
For Santa Monica residents and others feeling similarly left out by our rail-less-ness on the Westside, there's an eco-ish festival for us on Saturday too! Take the bus or bike over to the "Revel with a Cause" Santa Monica Festival to see and hear world music and dance on solar powered stages, participate in art workshops using pre-loved materials, shop from eco-friendly vendors, and sample international cuisine served with biodegradable foodware.
When: Saturday, May 10, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Where: Clover Park, 2600 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica
Cost: Free!
The recycled art workshops sound like they'll be the most fun:
- re:Fashion Workshop: Turn newspapers into wearable fashions, then model it on the re:Fashion Catwalk.
- Scratch Art & Spin Art: Learn to DJ with Scratch Academy -- then turn vintage vinyl into art.
- The Nutty Recycler's Amazing Trash Puppetry Factory: Turn trash into puppets!
- People, Cats, Dogs and Whatever Else: Turn old materials from past Santa Monica Museum of Art programs into a collage about you and your pet.
If you don't want to commit to an entire workshop, you can browse the Eco Zone -- booths with eco orgs and vendors eager to help you reduce your carbon footprint. You can also bring old cellphones and other small electronics to drop off for reuse and recycling.
Throughout the day, there'll be performances from a diverse group of musical acts, from L.A.-based 1960s Cambodian pop band Dengue Fever to Romanian folk music group Fishtank Ensemble.
Cyclists will be able to valet park their bikes; bus riders can hop on the Big Blue Bus #8 to be dropped off right at Clover Park. But if you really enjoy fighting traffic and scrambling for a parking spot, take advantage of the free (but never hassle-free) parking.
By the time the 720 dropped me off at Wilshire Center Earth Day at 4 p.m., things were really winding down. Everyone was heading over to the park to catch Michael Franti's performance.
Before he came on stage, a woman led people in a yoga-like activity. "Turn your palms up to the ceiling and say 'to serve'!" she shouted. What ceiling? I thought, but others dutifully turned their palms. "Look at the sky -- and say 'to unite'!"
Then there was Michael Franti.
School kids in green shirts, longtime hippies, parents in strollers, dog-lovers, and lots and lots of people with their professional or cellphone cameras and videos -- perhaps all with their own blogs, not really taking in the experience but recording to enjoy it later...
The valet bike area looked like it got some good use.
Eco-fast food Green Truck was a hit! Environmentalists love their Mother Truckers.
Photos by Siel
Yes, Michael Franti's gonna be performing -- FREE -- on Earth Day, Tues., April 22. And to enjoy the free acoustic set -- as well as all the other fun stuff happening at this Wilshire Center Earth Day Festival -- you'd best de-car.
It's true -- L.A.'s main thoroughfare's going car free for most of Earth Day. Wilshire Blvd. will become a pedestrian walkway -- at least between Western and Harvard! So -- How to get there:
* Bike! You'll even get free bike valet service from the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. And you'll be able to join in a couple short bike rides the LACBC will be leading; check the LACBC booth for ride times.
* Bus! The Metro Bus Lines that run down Wilshire -- That's the 20, 720 and 920 -- will be re-routed to 8th Street between Western and Vermont; just get off on Western to enjoy the festivities without traffic or parking hassles. In addition, Metro Lines 18, 66 and 209 will operate via regular routes, but will use alternate layover zones. All three lines will make all regularly scheduled stops except for the stop at Wilshire and Western.
* Rail! Traffic's bound to be messy in the area, but taking the subway will let you avoid the jam altogether. Metro Purple Line subway service will run according to schedule, every 10 to 12 minutes.
We have no shortage of pop stars that get famous then start going in and out of rehab. But after winning a bunch of awards for her music, 23-year-old singer-songwriter Missy Higgins started -- composting.
"I just bought a compost bin yesterday," said Missy (below) when we met up at Flore Vegan Cuisine. "I think it's called Happy Farmer!"
This musician from Melbourne, Australia's been greening her tours for a while now by recycling, opting for organic produce, buying offsets, and driving in hybrids instead of flying. Now, newly relocated to Silver Lake, Missy's lost no time getting settled into a green lifestyle. In addition to composting, Missy's picked up a copy of Greenopia, started shopping at the nearby Saturday farmers' market, and embraced a pedestrian lifestyle. In fact, she walked the half mile from her apartment to Flore -- a distance many Angelenos would have opted to drive.
Here's a celebrity that literally walks the walk, instead of simply buying offsets to greenwash a less-than-eco-friendly lifestyle. While Governor Schwarzenegger has no problem commuting from his SoCal home to Sacramento by private jet, Missy's decision to move to Silver Lake was in part due to environmental reasons. After realizing her flights between Australia and the U.S. were huge contributors to her carbon footprint, Missy decided to settle in Silver Lake -- at least for a year, while promoting her latest album, "On A Clear Night."
"I really don't want to fly unless I absolutely have to," Missy says. And for the most part, Missy stays out of the car too, with the help of her fold-up bike. Silver Lake's a very pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, Missy says, with great cafes, bars, and shops nearby. Pointing to KellyGreen and Reform School, two eco-friendly stores in Silver Lake, Missy optimistically says Angelenos seem to be pretty eco-minded. "All these resources are becoming so accessible," she says.
My own less sanguine view's that many people don't actually take advantage of these resources -- whether it be green stores, walkable neighborhoods, or farmers' markets -- as much as they could. Still, if a newbie Angeleno like Missy finds it fairly easy to green her life, hopefully many others will follow suit.
To that end, Missy's been talking a lot about her own efforts to green her life and tour, even creating five little webisodes (below) that follow her on her eco-adventures, from talking to environmental scientists to visiting an eco-school in Nevada:
Missy starts her biodiesel-fueled tour in May, with two L.A. performances on May 13 and 14 at Santa Monica High School.
Top photo by Siel
 Best way to get to a Radiohead concert: public transit! Thom Yorke, in his interview with David Byrne in Wired, says Radiohead is trying to to green up its tours:
We did one of those carbon footprint things recently where they assessed the last period of touring we did and tried to work out where the biggest problems were. And it was obviously everybody traveling to the shows..... Especially in the U.S. Everybody drives. So how the hell are we going to address that? The idea is that we play in municipal places with some transport system alternative to cars.
Side benefits of de-car-ing to get to concerts: You avoid the traffic crunch and exorbitant parking fees. I've found Hollywood Bowl's park-and-ride program is super convenient!
More and more bands seem to be going the green route these days, with biodiesel buses, recycling programs and of course, carbon offsets. CLIF GreenNotes is one program that's helped bands like Gomez and Guster green their gigs.
Want to calculate your own carbon footprint? Use the calculator here. Mine is 3.8 tons!
Photo by joe goldberg via Flickr
Even most non-enviros tuned into to bits of the Live Earth concerts to catch their favorites among the 150 musical acts that performed worldwide on July, 7, 2007 to raise awareness for the climate crisis. The concerts were kind of hard to miss, actually, what with the live web coverage and the uploaded videos on MSN and the like.
But if you somehow missed it entirely, or still haven't gotten enough, a CD/2DVD package "Live Earth -- The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis" is coming out tomorrow, Dec. 4, 2007, from Warner Bros. Records. All the big name performances -- Linkin Park, Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins, Black-Eyed Peas, Kelly Clarkson, Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters, John Mayer, Keith Urban, Beastie Boys, Rihanna, etc. -- are on there. Al Gore, Cameron Diaz, and Kevin Bacon also each make an appearance,
introducing artists and giving props to environmental issues.
I kind of liked watching the concerts on a bigger TV screen, versus streamed through a teeny little box on my computer screen -- though seeing it blown up made me think that the constant enviro-messaging going on behind the performances got rather annoying. Even more annoying were the additional enviro-messages that I had to wait to slowly pop up before letting me move to the next screen on the DVD navigation menu. Still, I discovered some new performers I hadn't checked out before, and reconfirmed why I don't like some of the big name pop musical acts --
My favorite performances? Unexpectedly, Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive," and Madonna's "La Isla Bonita." They took me back to way back when -- when all my girlfriends knew all the words and the guys started trying to pick up guitar -- before we all moved on to Nirvana.
The package also has six short films from the Live Earth Film Series
and a documentary on the making of Live Earth. If you just want the CD,
it's available now at iTunes and other digital music stores. Net proceeds from the sale of the package benefit the Alliance for Climate Protection.
Image courtesy of Live Earth
In case you haven't heard, biking's the new hot urban thing. Wired enthuses about the "rise of the urban biker" in its story covering Interbike 2007 today. And LA's right in the middle of it: Bicycle Kitchen and LA County Bicycle Coalition both get a mention.
Which is to say that Clif Bar's 2 Mile Challenge might be just the challenge for all Angelenos take. The main idea: Make all trips under 2 miles by bike. But the challenge is customizable: Pick from one or all of 5 pre-set challenges -- starting with "Get a bike" if you've still been putting it off -- or create your own. Then set a deadline and start biking!
And bike down to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica on Oct. 6, when the 2 Mile Challenge rolls into town on a biodiesel bus. No explanation as to why the expedition isn't bike-powered -- though I'm guessing the freebies Clif Bar's giving out might be too heavy for bike transport. 
Show up to check out some cool bikes and enter to win everything from Dahon folding bikes and Xtracycle SUB trailers to Solio chargers and Prana clothes. There'll be music too, by two bands I've never heard of but have fun names: Ginger Ninjas and Fossil Fool. And of course, there'll be Clif Bar samples galore --
Afraid a biking habit will mess up your 'do? My friend Summer has a nice guide to looking hot while biking on BTC blog -- from the side-parted low hairstyle to bamboo denim trousers -- complete with diagram (right). Read and learn.
Top image courtesy of 2 Mile Challenge; bottom photo by Summer Bowen
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A friend asked me if I was going to the National Train Day festivities at Union Station on Saturday, and I rather grumpily said no. What's the point, when I never get to take rail? One day, when the Subway to the Sea finally gets built out to Santa Monica, THEN I'll celebrate trains.
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