Canoga Park Teen Injured While Playing Pokémon Go

By Michale Hemmingway, Quilt staff

DATELINE: STRATHERN STREET

A local teenager was injured today while playing Pokémon Go, the popular smart cellular telephone, or smart phone application, or app, that has taken the nation — and Canoga Park — by storm.

Radek Murta, 19, of Blythe Street, was on the curb along Strathern Street at Alabama Avenue, in Canoga Park's tight-knit Strathabama neighborhood, searching for the virtual reality characters when he spotted “Rattata” on his screen, and approached the creature to "capture" it.

Radek Murta mere seconds before being injured while playing Pokémon Go along Strathern Street.
Curiously, he had the foresight to, for whatever reason, take a picture of himself playing the popular
game, evidently using a completely different device to take said picture. Photo credit: Radek Murta.

“So, f_ckeen...like I’m gettin’ close to it but I don’t know how to, f_ckeen, do it right, so I can’t catch it...? So I squat down an reach out an’ that’s when the motherf_cker bit me. They don’t tell you they bite, you know? F_ckeen drew blood an‘ everything. I’m-a sue those motherf_ckers at EA Games, yo!"

Pokémon Go was developed by Niantic. 

Radek Murta. Staff photo.

Murta, an unemployed 19-year-old entrepreneur admits that the popular game isn’t really his forté which currently runs more towards providing complimentary, unsolicited “security checkups” for those who park cars around Lanark Recreation Center, but is playing to collect characters for his brother, Jarik.

“Fuckeen...he in the hospital, like, recuperating an' shit...?” Murta says, while using a length of toilet paper to re-bandage his bloody, pus-oozing finger. “So I’m collecting the little animals an’ shit for him 'til he gets better.”

Jarik Murta, 11, an avid Pokémon Go player, was struck down by a bus on Topanga Canyon Boulevard recently after wandering into the street trying to catch "Jigglypuff."

Fancy-Schmancy West Hills Wins Exclusive Distribution Rights to West Nile Virus

By Hillary Royer, Quilt staff. 

DATELINE: 'EXCLUSIVE' WEST HILLS

A sign attached to a telephone pole on Covello Street near Asman Avenue, in West Hills’ fragrant Asmello neighborhood, confirms the presence of West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes in the area — and residents there couldn’t be prouder. 

West Nile's Not Just A River In
 West Egypt:  The sign proclaiming
the disease's presence in West Hills.

“We fought hard for the privilege of being the first community in the area to have West Nile virus, and it’s paid off,” beamed West Hills Exclusive Neighborhood Council president Bob Rawlins at a recent press conference / frou-frou outdoor champagne brunch. “West Hills is, as always, the trend-setter for the San Fernando Valley.”

Through a dedicated program of over-watering lawns so they're at their greenest, keeping decorative bird baths filled to capacity, and making sure the fish in backyard koi ponds are well-fed so they’re not tempted to eat mosquito larva, tony West Hills has managed to lure the West Nile virus-carrying mosquito to the area and allow it to get a foothold before it spreads out to neighboring communities.

“We do have exclusive distribution rights to these mosquitoes — eh, that is, until such time that they multiply and fly out to other places. But let it be known: We had them first. West Hills: First with West Nile, ha ha!” Rawlins chuckles as he slaps at an insect on his arm. “Little bugger. Oh man, this headache’s only getting worse. I think I need to sit down.”

Pierce College Winnetka professor of epidemiology Dr. Morris Detzer was stunned to hear the news “West Hills? Really? With all the discarded tires full of standing water and broken toilets on the curb along Valerio in Canoga Park? With the all but stagnant LA River in Canoga Park?! West Hills! Huh, I’ll be damned.”

The Bet's 'Off!' Beloved public figures Bob Blumenfield and Mitchell
Englander,  both well-known for their public service & senses of humor.
Photos: Bob — blumenfield.lacity.org; Mitch — Ssaporito/Wikipedia.

LA City Council member Bob Blumenfield, whose district includes Canoga Park, reportedly took the news in stride despite losing a bet. “He had a friendly wager with [West Hills’ LA City Council representative] Mitch Englander,” laughs an aide to the councilman. “I can confirm that he has paid in full and we have delivered one can of Off! to Mr. Englander’s office with our best wishes.”

West Hills dress shop owner Gretchen Biery in the
West Hills dress shop she owns.   Photo: G. Biery

West Hills business owner and resident Gretchen Biery is thrilled by the news but not surprised. “I’m delighted. The rest of the Valley looks to West Hills for guidance and leadership in these matters. It makes sense we should get West Nile first. My father who grew up here was stationed in the South Pacific during World War II. Did you know he was the first one in his platoon to get malaria? Apparently mosquitoes know good breeding when they see it.

“We’re on track to be first with the Zika virus, too. My neighbor’s housekeeper’s from El Salvador and she’s going back there to see family next month,” Biery says as she smacks a pest on the side of her neck. “So there’s a good chance she’ll bring it back with her. Technically, the woman lives in Canoga Park, but she works here in West Hills, so if she starts showing symptoms, they’re going to put a cot in the laundry room for her so she can stay there until we get a confirmed diagnosis. We'll have our fingers crossed! Ooh...eh...anyone else feeling dizzy?”

Canoga Park Braces For ‘Mother of All’ Noisy Weekends

By Ingomar Schoenborn, Quilt Staff

DATELINE: THE LA RIVER RIVERBED (or just the LA Riverbed, right? Where's that damn style-guide?)

Experts Advise Residents To Prepare For ‘Unprecedented’ High Decibel Levels, Sustained Clamor.

THOSE in Canoga Park for the long Independence Day weekend will experience (or, in many cases, contribute to) a wall of noise from a variety of sources that’s expected to run continuously from early afternoon Friday and not end until some point late Monday evening; and will be perhaps loudest in the area around the Los Angeles River, according to predictions.

While Canoga Park has always been a boisterous area — indeed, it came in at number one on ApartmentDespair.com’s Annual List of Noisiest Places to Live — holidays, particularly the Fourth of July, are known as an especially rowdy time of year here in the West Valley, and this year’s holiday weekend should be one for the record books, say experts.

Weekend Noise Forecast Map. Image courtesy
Canoga Park Office of Uproar Encouragement

“We recommend earplugs, a white noise machine, humming loudly, or all three at once [to combat the noise] for those who are allergic to loud, sustained sound,” says Chuck Kritchman of Canoga Park’s Office of Uproar Encouragement. “We anticipate this to be the mother of all weekends, volume-wise. It should be glorious. I can’t wait to hear about it when I get back from San Diego on Tuesday.”

“It’s the Fourth of July, so you’ve got the illegal fireworks, which have already been intermittent since, what, Memorial Day,” says Dr. Morris Detzer, head of the Urban Anthroacoustics Department at Pierce College Winnetka. “But there’s many other unique factors at play here too making it really the ‘perfect storm’ of noise, the likes of which we’ve never seen before.”

Dr. Morris Detzer
Photo: Mimi Detzer

“If the holiday fell on a Saturday , it would be pretty damn loud,”  continues Detzer, “Even on a Sunday, it would be an incredibly noisy couple of days, but the volume would reach its apex by the end of the two-day weekend.  However, with the Fourth on a Monday, we’ll be experiencing a crescendo of noise, turmoil and chaos that already started in some areas on Thursday night but will not achieve its loudest point until late Monday evening. It’s going to be something indeed. I’ll be in Big Bear.”

Detzer points to the unseasonably warm weather as a factor in ‘upping’ the din factor. “If it were blazing hot, you’d have folks staying inside more, with their air conditioners on.  But as it is, it’ll only be really hot, so you’ll have people outside, into the wee hours of the morning, carrying on loudly.” Factor in excessive holiday weekend drinking and how cranky and argumentative people get when it’s too hot, and the noise is magnified exponentially, the professor of sonic pandemonium notes.

The area’s usual disorderliness, vandalism and crime (with the ensuing police helicopters & sirens), out-of-control house parties and the West Valley’s increasingly popular sport of illegal street racing will add to the bedlam. Barking dogs, too, will be a factor. “We’ve always got the barking dogs,” notes Detzer, “but with the fireworks, this will exacerbate that situation.”

Doreen Farber. Photo: Fred Farber.

Doreen Farber, president in charge of neighborhood cacophony of the Canoga Park First-Wednesday-of-the-Month Women’s Club, notes that her organization’s headquarters, long known as the area’s hottest, anything-goes nightclub, will be going full-tilt all weekend long.  “Booked solid,” she beams while riffling a stack of one hundred dollar bills. “We already got the cash, and Fred and I are leaving for a bed & breakfast in Santa Barbara for the weekend, so [the renters] can do whatever the hell they want there — we won’t be around to hear it! Fred, get in the car!”

Large groups of raucous mobs congregating in public parks will likewise increase the overall decibel level throughout Canoga Park, though Barbara Walczek, Reservation Coordinator at Lanark Park notes that she has not seen an appreciable uptick in the number of applications for permits legally required by those wanting to host parties or inflate bounce houses there this weekend. “To be honest, no one ever bothers getting [the permits], and we never check, so that really wouldn’t be a good indicator anyway,” says Walczek. “And even if they did want to get one, it’s too late now because I’m leaving for San Luis Obispo in five minutes.”

Lanark Park, the recreation center so sublime they made it rhyme, will be Canoga Park's
#1 destination this holiday weekend for bounce houses, barbecues and brawling. File photo.

Canoga Park residents without triple-pane windows or who must venture out into the chaotic uproar are recommended to stay away from such noise 'hot spots' as the aforementioned Lanark Park, where dueling sound systems and arguments over who gets to set up their rows of white, rickety folding chairs where are expected to result in loud, angry free-for-alls throughout the next three days; the LA River basin, whose concrete lining makes for unparalleled acoustics and enormous sonic amplification — and is therefore a magnet for those with firecrackers, fireworks and explosive noisemakers — and “anywhere at all on Valerio Avenue east of Canoga Blvd,” suggests Captain Reed Malloy, Cyber Support Bureau Officer of Noise Ignorement.

The LA River in Canoga Park is a popular place for illegal fireworks due to its acoustic properties
as well as the fact there's nothing to burn, unless her polluted waters were to catch fire. Staff photo.

“Really, for those who have to stay here in town this weekend,” suggests Capt. Malloy as he climbs into his RV in the parking lot behind LAPD's Topanga Station to head to Sequoia for four days of camping, ”the best and safest way to celebrate and enjoy Independence Day in Canoga Park is to assume the fetal position, stick your fingers in your ears and rock back and forth in a corner of your home.”