Dark Ages

Power went off here at Variety H.Q a little after 1, although the traffic lights on the Miracle Mile remained active. Seems that weird spotty power experience was repeated all over town today, during L.A.'s Great Power Outage.

With the computers out here, I decided to hop into my car and head down Wilshire to the Ambassador Hotel, where I still needed to pick up a table from Saturday's auction. Traffic was bad, as some stop lights remained out and fire engines patrolled the area.

I tuned to both KNX and KFWB... it's amazing the difference in information and speculation between the two stations, even though they now reside in the same studio area. KNX was first to report that a line may have been cut to the power grid, although later both stations admitted the question hadn't been resolved. Neither station could get ahold of LA's Dept. of Water and Power (DWP) for comment.

Meanwhile, I switched to 8th street, which got me closer east... but eventually hopped back on Wilshire, where I witnessed one car plow into another. And no, the stoplights weren't even out in that intersection -- just a typical L.A. fenderbender, made worse of course by the slightly chaotic air.

Made it to the Ambassador, where people were loading up their wares -- including the handlebar-moustached guy featured in Sunday's L.A. Times article.

Also, noticed the bulldozers tearing down the last of the old Ambassador Hotel bungalows. Seriously, take as many pictures as you can of the hotel now, because we're going to blink and it's gonna be gone.

As of 2:44 power is back up here, and the day is now resuming...