There’s a point to this all, so bear with me.  It’s not about a favorite food, though it may seem so on the surface.
 
The tale does begin though with what has become a favorite food.  It’s known as “Nashville hot chicken” and has become very popular in Los Angeles, and apparently has been spreading through other parts of the country.  It began back in 1936 when Thornton Prince opened the BBQ Hot Chicken Shack (in Nashville, of course…), which later changed its name Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack in the 1980s.
 
I became a big fan of the food five years ago when Kim Prince (great-great niece of the original) opened her wonderful Hotville Chicken in South Central Los Angeles.  The inveterate Chris Dunn -- who introduced me to the place -- and I began frequent lunches there, and I wrote about Hotville four years ago here, if you want to know more about the place and its history.  Though that’s not the point here.
 
As great as their food is -- and it is great, in fact a “Best of L.A.” award--recipient from Los Angeles Magazine and making the Los Angeles Times 101 Best Restaurants list -- the owner/chef Kim Prince is even better.  She’d visit with the customers, and Chris and I have always loved our conversations with her, not a perfunctory "How's it going, how was your meal?," but stopping to talk, sitting down sometimes ​for 10-15 minutes. Full of kindness, not just for her customers, but her community, but even (actually) for her competitors.  She wants everyone to succeed, and puts actions to her words, a dynamo going out through the city relentlessly.  But that’s not the point here either – though it gets closer to it.
 
Because of COVID and the restaurant’s difficult location (though one Kim insisted on because of the community), Hotville Chicken unfortunately had to close down.  However, she teamed up with another pillar of the community, Greg Dulan of the legendary L.A. spot, Dulan’s Soul Food on Crenshaw – and the two created a successful food truck, Dulanville, which has relentlessly (of course) traveled throughout the city for the past several years.  And no, that too is not the point, but we’re getting close.
 
The point (and finally, we’re there…) is that last week, Kim Prince and Greg Dulan were on Jimmy Kimmel Live!  The reason is that he’s been featuring local chefs who have shown up in wildfire zones to feed people in need – and Kim and Greg, being who they are, are among those.
 
But it’s even more impressive than that.  To put it in perspective, when I sent an email to the Hotville account about how nice it was to see her on Kimmel’s show, she wrote back the following note, the details of which blew me away.  Though (being who she is), I wasn't surprised at that.  She wrote –

​​Here’s the video of their appearance on the show –
​

On this week’s Naked Lunch podcast, hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild have a special episode where they take listeners’ calls to discuss the recent wildfires in Los Angeles -- among them, check-ins from Brad Paisley and David's wife Fran Wild. They also write that “To learn more about building community through food and ‘Somebody Feed the People’ visit the Philanthropy page…” here at philrosenthalworld.com.

I believe this is where some people might insert "What would Jesus do?" so that the faux-religious right can understand it in their language.

It would be so cool to know what changes does the Great Swami suggests, since I am certain he doesn’t have the slightest clue of all the detailed planning that is truly done in the state.  Being Tuberville, maybe he thinks that California should cut down all the trees here and install Astroturf in the forests.
 
Still, Mr. Tuberville is welcome to the Hurricane Helene emergency relief that California helped pay for – and pay more for than any other state.  Which, in fact, it pays more for than any other state for all disaster aid, all the time.  In fact, contributing more in federal taxes than it gets back, so that all the states that underpay (like, say, Alabama) can use for their disaster relief.

And all MAGOPs in Congress know this.  Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) knows it.  But that didn't stop the faux-wannabe religious leader from saying with his veneer of devout emotion, when asked about emergency aid to California, "I think there should be conditions."  (No word yet if this is what Jesus would do.  Though if anyone does knows, it could be the self-proclaimed Moses, Mike Johnson, as he directs the people trying to escape Pharoah into the fire.)  By the way, when Louisiana screwed up building its levees, I might have liked to have said there should be conditions on emergency aid to them after Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, but...well, I didn't because I'm not cruel and heartless, nor a religious hypocrite about my fellow citizens when in catastrophic need.

That’s just four MAGOPs (including Trump) out of all the self-righteous MAGOP officials they represent spewing intentional cruelty and ignorance – while the wildfires are still burning, and millions of people remain at risk.  Because that's who've all seen the MAGOP is today.  Splitting families. Denying healthcare.  Caging children.  Banning books, banning the teaching of Black history, banning drag shows.  It's just business as usual.  And it’s all the more pathetic for their inhumane vindictiveness not only being directed at the tens of millions of people (most who don't even live in the area) simply because the majority of the state votes in a way these MAGOP officials don't like, but also ignoring there are over 10 million people in their own party here -- and ignoring, too, that everyone in the state is a part of the same whole, taking on the same burdens of helping and rebuilding (because that's how states and community work) and suffering the same.  To refute every MAGOP lie, misinformation, ignorance, disinformation and conspiracy theory would be like playing the world's most hellish game of Whack-a-mole.  ​

I’m not suggesting all the country would rise up in outrage – it won’t.  But 5-10% (or 25%) recognizing how totally unacceptable this would be to Americans whose lives and communities have been destroyed, seeing it all on TV endlessly for a week – I don’t think that is unreasonable to consider.  I don’t think Trump can come away from withholding funds unscathed.  That doesn’t mean he still won’t do it, only that even he might get pushed enough to act, but if he doesn’t, if he withholds federal funding,  or starts layering on "strings" and "conditions," I think he’ll pay a price.
 
In fact, for all I know, if Trump does nothing, despite Dr. Sen. Barrabasso’s contention of "ultimate" aid that comes with all his "strings" (along with Coach Tuberville's "changes" and the Very Rev. Mike Johnson's "conditions"), most members of Congress might even ignore them and vote to put together an aid package because, as much as they follow Trump, they aren’t Trump and know that their own states might well face far-less emergencies at some point and need assistance.  And this is a national disaster.
 
Though maybe not as much as what used to be the Republican Party.

​In an interview late last week, Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong (owner of the Los Angeles Times) said it's “crazy” that California “doesn’t elect leaders with competence.”
 
This from the man who blocked his newspaper from endorsing Kamala Harris against an incompetent convicted felon, found liable of rape and guilty of fraud -- with dementia.
 
Moreover, Dr. Soon-Shiong had what seemed to have been a TwiXter meltdown last week, as well, and posted a relentless stream of tweet rants about the Los Angeles fire which not only come across as repeatedly ignorant -- and wildly irresponsible, not waiting until after the fire is contained and lives are saved -- but he doesn't appear to even be reading his own newspaper.
 
Reading through his TwiXter timeline on Saturday and seeing a stream of almost manic statements from him continually slamming Mayor Karen Bass so shamelessly in ways that had little bearing on the truth, I tried responding to them all until it just became far-too many and got to the point where if I continued replying to many more, I might have been detained for stalking.  At a minimum, I got tired of typing different versions of “For someone so supposedly-concerned with ‘competence,’ your comments, which purportedly are supposed to seem wise and profound, are shockingly devoid of knowing the truth.  Which is a starting point of competence.”
 
As I say, there were far, far, far too many tweets from him – each and every one overflowing with inaccuracies, or lies or disinformation (take your pick, it was a buffet…) – that I can’t repeat them all, but as an hors d'oeuvres here’s just one that will serve will as an example of them all.  He wrote --
 
“Proactive vs reactive planning and the need to fund water infrastructure is so clear. Why no fire breaks when we clearly anticipate wildfires? #competencematters.  State to probe why Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline, empty when firestorm exploded.”
 
What I replied was --
 
"You have experts at @latimes you own -- ask them, they'll tell you!

"January is NOT wildfire season. It's May-Oct. So, we don't "anticipate' fires NOW, let alone SIX CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES!

"The article YOU QUOTED explains the reservoir was damaged & they were doing maintenance!"

And yes, honest, the Los Angeles Times article he himself quoted really did write about the repair work being done on the Santa Ynez Reservoir.  There is nothing to "probe."  As the article clearly states -- and that's the "Los Angeles Times" he owns -- there had been damage during the previous Palisades fire last February, and it was being repaired.  You couldn't miss it -- it wasn't buried, it was in the second paragraph!  "Officials say the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed since about February for repairs to its cover."
 
But further, what Soon-Shiong got wrong is that Santa Ynez Reservoir is a small, standalone faciiity in Pacific Palisades – not connected to the main system, and it isn’t even the reservoir that the Palisades relies on!  That’s the Stone Canyon Reservoir near UCLA, which was operating normally and flowing water to the Pacific Palisades.  The Santa Ynez Reservoir, on the other hand, is used for the higher ground of forestland  above the Palisades – but because of the massive demand on the water system dealing with six fires (in January, not the wildfire season), experts say that even if had been operational, the water pressure would likely have been too low to reach the higher altitude of the foothills and been of little use.  And had no affect on the village of Pacific Palisades.
 
Hey, if I knew this, one would like to think that Competence Maven Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong would know it, too.  He owns the Los Angeles Times, after all.  Or at least check it out with his staff (or Google) before trying to sashay his supposed expertise and posting online.  That would have been really cool -- and competent! -- especially given that (did I mention?) he owns the Los Angeles Times and a great many people probably assume that he reads his paper, knows what he’s talking about and trust him.  Silly them.
 
And this was just one tweet out of a bundle that he kept posting.
 
The good news is that, seeing all of his pontificating, smarmy, inaccurate posts made me feel slightly better about having canceled my subscription to the paper.  Something I’d been torn over doing.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for people working at the paper.  Who are career journalists.  Who believe in journalism.  And fact checking.  Getting your story right or risk being fired if you get it wrong time after time.  And knowing that this is their Peerless Leader.
 
And again, this is also the guy, ranting about “competence,” who blocked his newspaper from endorsing Kamala Harris who was running against an incompetent convicted felon, found liable of rape and guilty of fraud -- with dementia.  That can't be said too often.

Of the many things that's galling about such reactions during the disastrous fires – not just by Dr. Soon-Shiong but by almost everyone who has been “slamming” Mayor Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom during the fires – is their utter ignorance of not understanding that the wildfire season here is May through October.  For even just one fire to occur in January is deeply uncommon – but to have six catastrophic wildfires is otherworldly.  It would put a stress on the system even if it occurred in August, when fires are expected.  But...in January??? 
 
And galling, too, their not understanding that that was traditionally the wildfire season, but now with Climate Change (that so many on the extreme right want to deny), many experts now call it a “fire year.”  We see monstrous hurricanes.  Monstrous tornadoes.  Monstrous winter freezes.  Monstrous heat waves.  So, of course we’re now seeing monstrous winds – during monstrous droughts.  And end up with six catastrophic wildfires at the same time, in January.

But despite all that reality and their ignorance of it or intentional disinformation, there’s so much hatred by MAGOPs of Gavin Newsom because he’s a liberal and may run for president in 2028, and of Karen Bass because (I’m sure because) she’s not only black and a woman, but a black woman.  But beyond not grasping that January is not traditionally wildfire season, there have been all the lies about Mayor Bass – like that she fired the female fire chief (she didn’t) and shut down the Santa Ynez Reservoir (it was, as noted, being repaired) and not being prepared for six catastrophic wildfires in January, which has never before happened in the 243-year history of Los Angeles, and so many more falsehoods.  Including, perhaps at the top of the list, that she supposedly cut the fire department budget by $23 million, when in fact, a) the Los Angeles Times (Dr. Soon-Shiong’s newspaper…) reported that with other additions, the fire department budget actually increased by 7% (darn, if only Soon-Shiong read his own paper), and b) such a charge misses the ludicrous irony of conservatives crying out in fury at a budget being cut -- when “cutting budgets” is what they do for sport.  Man, I can’t even imagine how much they’d cut the fire department budget if MAGOPs were governor, mayor and controlled everything in the state.  For those scoffing, consider that Trump is saying he might not give emergency aid to Callfornia!!
 
But even putting aside that these “critics” don’t grasp that January isn’t the wildfire season, that six catastrophic fires puts massive stress on the system, and that most of their supposed facts are wildly untrue – what might be worse  is that they’re doing all this slamming right in the middle of when officials and the fire department are fighting six catastrophic active fires and trying to save lives and structures…and that the time to criticize how it was handles is not now, when everyone should be working to help those in desperate need, but after everything is contained and you have time to study and assess what didn’t work and what did.

(Side Note:  Things were done wrong.  And right.  This was a catastrophe, after all.  Things go wrong in all catastrophes.  That's a big reason why they're catastrophes.   You know the expression:  "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."  That and “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."  Or Mike Tyson's adage:
“Everyone has a plan: until they get punched in the face."   This is not to let anyone off the hook for mistakes.  Just putting it all in perspective.  There are understandable mistakes based on conditions, and there are inexcusable mistakes based on lack of skill.  The point is, this is why you make adjustments as needed during an event, but wait until after to do an assessment of what went wrong and why.  And what worked, and why.)
 
By the way, to be clear, I don’t know if the attacks against Mayor Bass (who was my Congresswoman for many years) are because she is a black woman.  Many may not be, some or many may be.  But I do know that when you wrongly attack a Black woman in charge, whatever your motivation (and especially when you don’t correct the record and apologize), it gives fuel to all those who are always extremely happy to attack a black woman for racist reasons, and as a supposed “DEI hire.” (Never mind that the people of Los Angeles voted for her after a distinguished career in Congress).  Just like others are happy to hug the lie that Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley was fired and believe that none of these six catastrophic wildfires in January would have happened if there was a white man in charge.  Because, of course, that’s apparently how wildfires work.  And as we know, nothing ever goes wrong when white men are in charge.
  
But in the end, it brings us back to Patrick Soon-Shiong and his World of Competence. If only we had elected officials in California who are competent.  That we wouldn't have six catastrophic wildfires in January.

Me, if I had the same wishes as Dr. Soon-Shiong, I'd have used them for two different things.

One, that all people believed in Climate Change, and we didn't have wildfires in the first place.

And two, I was we had an owner of the Los Angeles Times who was competent.

Well, it’s been quite a couple of days, so far.  On that first night, I was getting a lot of calls, emails and texts from relatives back in Chicago, watching news of the Los Angeles fires, and asking if I was all right and how close it was and if I was going to evacuate.
 
I much appreciated their concern – and completely understood:  the continual video on the news was horrific, and the fire came closer to me than any in all my time in Los Angeles.  Maybe 5-6 miles.  But although it was close, I wasn’t in any danger, which I would explain.  (The toughest question asked was “Do you have somewhere to evacuate to??!” – because I didn't want to frighten them further since most of my friends are on the Westside, and even closer to the fire zone than me.  I was offering my guest room to them.)
 
I did have my electricity go out for 15 hours, but compared to what else was going on in fire areas almost doesn’t qualify as much more than a temporary inconvenience.
 
But of course, what stood out most for me was not just what was sure to be massive devastation, but on a personal note were all of the people I knew in very real danger in the Palisades, or at nearby risk.  I was able to get in touch with one friend whose home was directly in the heart of Pacific Palisades, and his family was able to get out in the afternoon, thankfully.  Another friend lives in northwest Santa Monica (that borders the Palisades) right next to the evacuation zone.  He decided to evacuate and stayed in my guest room.  He safely went back home yesterday.  A third friend was packed and ready to leave as soon as he and his wife got an evacuation notice.  Happily, none came, though they did decide to evacuate to their son's home.  But so very sadly, my friend in Pacific Palisades lost his house.  I can't even imagine the feelings.  Fortunately, he has good coverage and a temporary place to live – but it’s not just the loss of a home and everything in it, but the major disruption to one’s life to have to regroup and start over.
 
Now, multiply that by thousands, and the devastation of all the fire zones – mainly for the Pacific Palisades and Pasadena/Altadena.  With one person, when such a loss happens, agonizing as it is you may have the option of rebuilding and eventually returning to the life and community you had before.  But in the Palisades and wide areas of Pasadena and elsewhere, there's no life to return to, no community, it's gone.  At some point, those villages and communities happily will be built up again. And may even (or likely) flourish with a new vibrance. Growth is the way of the world, a new start.  But it will be starting from scratch.
 
What also was so awful was another loss.  But first, some background.

In my earlier days after graduate school and before I seriously got involved in the film industry, I worked for 3-4 years for the California State Park Service at Will Rogers State Historic Park.  It was a great place – Will Rogers’ home, polo field, equestrian arena and barns, and grounds so wide that they were used as a three-hole golf course (which he put in when an actor friend, Lewis J. Stone, had badly injured his legs in an accident and recuperated there, for which Will Rogers converted the grounds to the golf course as an incentive for Stone to get walking in every day) and extensive forest land.  It was a wonderful job – I learned to twirl a rope and jump in it while spinning (really, honest!) and even considered applying for taking the California Park Ranger test.  Until my father basically said, “You didn’t go to film school and get a Masters degree in screenwriting to become a park ranger.”  He was right.  I loved the park service, but am glad I stuck with my goal.
 
The Rogers ranch house, up a winding road north of Sunset Blvd. in the Palisades, was tremendous.  It was two connected wings, full of historic mementos from his travels and life, cowboy artwork from his renowned friends (notably Charles Russell, who Rogers thought was far more authentic – being a former cowboy, like himself -- to the more famous Frederic Remington), a great library filled with books inscribed to him by his famous friends, letter and more.  I would periodically find hidden material as I wandered through the place, things that were never seen by the public and that probably even the staff didn’t know were there.  I surreptitiously made copies of some of it, and still have it – a book inscribed by Harry Houdini, a book with a magnificent thank you note carefully hand-printed by Helen Keller, a framed letter of thanks stuck in a drawer written by Theodore Roosevelt.  Things like that.
 
(By the way, if you ever see The Will Rogers Story on TCM, it’s not a bad telling of his life.  His son, Will Jr., played his father, with Jane Wyman – Ronald Reagan’s first wife – as Betty Rogers.  And they did a great job creating the house, though they moved some of the furniture around as better for the movie.)
 
And so it was with a rush of deep memories and heartache that learned it too was lost in the fire yesterday.  That was a fear of mine as I followed the news.  And it was awful to have it confirmed. I don’t know how much was destroyed, but it seems that all the buildings were.  I saw a photo of one small structure almost all ashes and a partial shell, and it awful.  If there’s a happy note, it’s this sentence – “State Parks was able to evacuate the horses and some of the cultural and historical artifacts, including artwork, at Will Rogers SHP ahead of the fire.”

I have no idea what the insurance is like on the estate.  While I suppose it's possible that the Park Service will rebuild a re-creation of at least the home and perhaps some of the horse facilities, it's not something I expect.  We'll see.

About 40 years ago, there was a big Palisades fire when I was working at the park -- I was off that day, but drove in to help.  I did what little I was allowed to, like watering the roofs of the home, and took a few photos of the fire.  And happily, the ranch house and buildings were saved, though the grounds and surrounding forest had been overwhelmed.  I went back the next day and took photos of the devastation, following a path I'd taken a year before, that I'd photographed. And then followed the same path six months later to photograph the regrowth.
 
I recall one of my fellow park aides – a girl named Lisa – got upset at me for taking the pictures after the fire, but later one of the Rangers said he was glad I did because it was important to have a record of such things.
 
I can’t touch on the devastation of the current fire that was so much more massive and destructive.  And the great loss to my friends and others.  And so I don’t want to even try – it would be too small and give the wrong impression.  Instead though, with the loss of Will Rogers State Historic Park, I thought I'd end this all by honoring it with some of those photos that I took.  Some before the fire, and those during, the day after and six months later.
 
None of these touch on what’s going on now.  These 28 pictures serve only as my way of honoring this one historic loss, and commemorating all the others.

It starts with photos I took of the ranch house, grounds and forest land of his property around a year before the fire about 40 years ago.

Then, there was that day when I got a call about the fire in the Palisades and foothills, asking if I could come in to the park to help. 

As I got in the car, I saw this looming to the west, where I was headed.  Adding to the impact of it all is that I lived across the street of the Veterans Cemetery in West Los Angeles, and you can see the headstones at the bottom.

The next day, I went back to the park and took photos of the burned-out grounds, and followed the hiking trip I'd taken previously to show the same parkland.  I would imagine that this is much like it so sadly looks today -- but with the ranch house and all the other building and barns gone.

Then, about six months later, I took the same hike yet again to document the regrowth, showing how remarkable nature can be so soon.  Along with the mudslides and work left to do.

Happily, nature can grow back.  So sadly, the same can't be said for man-made structures.  Here is the ranch house yesterday.  That is the fireplace in the living room from the third photo above.

Happily, as noted above, the Park Service saved some of the cultural and historical materials, and artwork.  Their prescience and efforts are honored for protecting at least some of a legacy.

​We take this moment for a point of personal privilege.  (I was going to say that it was “political”, as well, but that would have been far too much alliteration on a Sunday morning.)
 
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m friends with a good fellow named Nick Melvoin who sits on Los Angeles School Board, and was the only school board member re-elected in 2022 with over 50% of the vote in the primary so that he didn’t have to be in a run-off.  I bring this up again today for s specific reason.  But first it's important to note that Nick has had an impressive career, even for such a young one --
 
He’s a graduate of Harvard and got his MBA in Urban Education from Loyola Marymount, from which he went to teach at an inner-city middle school in Watts, coaching the soccer and baseball teams, and helping start the school newspaper.  He also has a law degree from NYU -- and worked in the Obama White House with the Domestic Policy Council...as well as the US Attorney’s office as a legal clerk, getting involved in civil rights investigations.  Oh, and he runs Camp Harmony, a camp for kids who are experiencing poverty, which he started working at as a counselor 21 years ago.

So, while I can be accused of bias for supporting the son of friends, I think it’s fair to say that my bias is highly justified.
 
I’ve brought up previously that Nick is running to replace Adam Schiff in California’s 30th district.  It’s a challenging race with many candidates, including several with reasonably-known elective credentials.
 
But that’s why I was exceedingly pleased to see that the Los Angeles Daily News just endorsed Nick in the race.

​Among the lengthy things the paper wrote, they explained, "If voters want sensible, scandal-free and balanced representation, Nick Melvoin is an excellent choice. He has our endorsement."

And all the better, he also just picked up an endorsement from Henry Waxman, a popular, long-time Congressman in Los Angeles who represented various districts in the city ("various" because of redistricting) for 40 years.

And previously, Nick was endorsed by Rep. Colin Allred, the congressman from Texas who is challenging Ted Cruz for the Senate.

It remains a difficult race because replacing Adam Schiff is so high-profile, making the district an important one.  But getting such endorsements for such a young candidate is seriously impressive.  But then, that's because Nick is, as well.

I close in full disclosure that I will be heading over soon to watch the Super Bowl with his parents.  I do this in part because of the football, in part because of the company, and in important part because they serve Chicago deep-dish pizza.  I have my priorities.