(Feel free to click on the images to view the original, non-squashed photos)

Let me tell you a little story about Glendale at night...


So the Missus and I step out for a walk, and I bring my camera. It was a nice night, cool, and the air smelled sweet. It was 11:30, but I could smell someone grilling outside.

I decide to start by pointing my camera at the first thing I see when I step on the street.

It's the house where the tripod dog lives. I waited a little, but he didn't show up.

I'm not sure what this box does. It looks like a traffic control box, but the closest traffic light is two blocks away. Either way, often in the morning, I find a pair of shoes on top of it. Sometimes high heel pumps, penny loafers. I once spotted a pair of ski boots. I don't know who leaves them. I didn't spot the Shoe Leaver, but I did photograph the box at a dramatic angle.


Someone scrawled a little tag that's almost my name. A frame-up?


Around the corner someone had left a conversation pit out on the street. I set up the camera for a fifteen second exposure, set the timer and ran across the street. A passing car gave most of the light.


I spotted a porch light that was throwing off some neat shadows. I had Heather set herself up so I could get a neat posed shadow shot. A car rolled up into the driveway and really lit it up. I actually really like how it came out.


At this point, let me introduce my camera. Here's the Canon Powershot A530 proudly astride it's little spiderpod. A shadow is it.


I thought I'd get a neat Chandler-esque photo of a cigarette butt being moody.

(Thanks, babe)


HA! GUTTERBALL!


There's this little patch of clover by a parking lot. A halogen lamp was throwing this pretty light over it.



Here's Heatherlynn and I in that same parking lot, being cute.


We approached this little fast food place from behind, it's right on Central. It kept me amused for a little while.

Space Dandelion, is that you?


Nah, I'm no damn spacedelion, I'm just a spiky palm tree.


This was all in a landscaped spot right up against the drive-thru. It was full of succulents and the volcanic rocks. I pretended I was in that episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE where the astronauts crash on an alien planet and slowly die, and it turns out that they were on Earth the whole time.

No, not Planet of the Apes, the other one...

I'm a sucker for neon signs. The red glow gave this place a spooky empty feeling that I thought was fun.


Heatherlynn was very patient and kept herself busy watching traffic.


Good advice.


We walked up alongside of Sears because I wanted to see Zinke's, and figured this tree would make a cool shadow.


As always, Zinke's did not dissapoint. I'm a sucker for neon signs, especially if they're animated.


I could watch that pretend hammer smack that pretend shoe all night.


Then there were these guys! Iron musicians tootling. They remind me of Slim Gaillard for some reason.


Ghost car on Brand Boulevard.


While trying to set up the perfect ghost car photo, I discovered that they hose down the streets in Glendale.

We had to move on.


I just like watching this.


Billiards or Scientology? Well, if that ain't the eternal question?


Here's Brand Books. I love an empty bookstore at night, I get to look in and pretend that I get it all to myself. When I was a kid, I used to hope that at night, the books would flap open and all the people would jump out like in Gumby.


Like all the good small book shops, they have a cat.


From the outside, the street, you can't tell that the Alex theater has this neat courtyard with a temple in it.


Self portrait with label.


There's this place called the Way to Happiness Foundation. It's in a big storefront. I can't tell what they do or sell there. All along the outside wall are posters like this one.

Inside, on the reverse side, is the same image, although instead of a number and title card, is a rectangular plasma monitor.

It gave me the creeps. It had this cold feeling that I didn't like.


It was huge too. On further inspection, it took up not just the store front on the ground floor, but the second story, and the basement level. From the street, you can see the stairs leading down into the basement level. Wide carpeted things, they seem to lead to office space. This didn't seem odd until we spotted this at the top of the stairs. I apologize for the blurriness.

It says "Pass card over logo". The circle in the center is the logo of this place. Passing your card over it seemed to imply that doing so would grant you access to the underparts. But it was wide open, no door, no gate.

Off to the side, was another glass front with the same logo, this leading only onto these horrible stairs that I wanted no part of.


We decided this was someplace we didn't want to stick around by ourselves at night. Bad ju-ju.

(Update! 11/20/07 - Turns out that these guys are Scientologists. No surprise. That makes a total of three Scientological locations in Glendale that I know of.)

Lookit, it's one of those closed up Tower Records places. And these are their tore hors.


A long mostly unobstructed view lets you look from one side of the block to the other.


Unless you're really paying attention, you can't really tell that there's a restaurant here. It's a little hidden, being on the second floor. They seemed pretty busy re-stocking the joint.


Next door was this twenty-four hour internet cafe. It was dark and there were six guys in there playing Warcraft and not looking at each other. In my day, we played Dungeons and Dragons with pencil and paper. You may still have pretended you were some kind of damn elf, but at least you talked to other people.


Around the corner, a big pink grand piano in the middle of a beauty parlor. I could've sworn it wasn't there Thursday.


WELCOME to Empty Tower.
What I wouldn't give for a crowbar and a pair of roller skates.


Across from this mall, is the big mall. I think this man was making a delivery to the In-n-Out.


Yeh, this In-N-Out right here. It's so shiny.


I'd like to think this guy had some help shining the joint up at some point.


Glendale is probably the only town I've ever been in where they just leave their escalator hanging out on the street like it's not gonna get vandalized. I found some pylons and a caution sign nearby, so I finished off by doing what anyone would do:

Clumsy Van Gogh impersonation!



UPDATE:

5/23/9
Last night, or rather very early this morning, I had nothing to do. I remembered this task from two years ago, and thought I'd add a few more. The results you can see below.