Pavement

It's been a scant two months since rocker Tom Petty and other fans joined the Everly Bros. on Hollywood Boulevard for the official unveiling of the harmonic duo's Walk of Fame star. But yikes--there's already a thick, dirt-laden crack under their name. "Already?" asked a surprised Edward Lewis, v.p. of marketing and sales for the Hollywood C of C, in charge of the stars. "We'll have to take a look, but it sounds like a manufacturing flaw to me."

Teenagers looking for summer work will have a better chance of finding it this year, according to outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The improving job market, the firm said, has eased competition for the low-skilled, low-paying jobs that traditionally go to teens on school break. The employment environment for high-schoolers and other young folks has made a dramatic recovery since falling to record lows in 2010, when the number of 16- to 19-year-olds working during the summer months was at its slimmest level since 1949.

Pavement, one of the most influential indie rock bands of the '90s, will reunite. The band's label, Matador Records, announced the reunion Thursday, confirming long-rumored plans. Pavement will reconvene for a tour -- and only a tour -- to begin Sept. 21, 2010, at Rumsey Playfield in New York's Central Park. Though not hugely commercially successful, the California-based band is widely credited for its influential low-fidelity sound and ramshackle artistry. Pavement broke up in 2000.

Community volunteer David Nott had taken middle school students on an urban hike through Silver Lake before, but they stumbled across something unexpected during a recent excursion - a roughly 11,000-square-foot area designed just for people on foot. "Look!" Nott said to the handful of 11- and 12-year-old students, pointing to the newly built pedestrian- and bike-only Sunset Triangle Plaza. "This has become a social environment," he said. Billed as Los Angeles' first "street-to-plaza" conversion, much of the new park originally was a two-lane swath of pavement that carried motorists along Griffith Park Boulevard.

More than 1,000 people walked Sunday to raise money for Jewish groups in the 13th annual L.A. Walk Festival honoring Israel's 38th year of statehood. The 11 1/2-mile walk through the Pico-Robertson and Beverly-Fairfax districts ended at Rancho Park, where about 50,000 had gathered for the festivities, which included kosher hot dogs, falafel, speeches by Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky and entertainment by top performers.

Builders have known for decades that white roofs reflect the sun's rays and lower the cost of air conditioning. But now scientists say they have quantified a new benefit: slowing global warming. If the 100 biggest cities in the world installed white roofs and changed their pavement to more reflective materials -- say, concrete instead of asphalt-based material -- the global cooling effect would be massive, according to data released Tuesday at California's annual Climate Change Research Conference in Sacramento.

Through the decade or so the band was together, the guys in Pavement did a lot that broke from the tradition established by classic rock bands and their boomer heroes. Pavement tuned its guitars all wrong. Its members refused to make conventional sense, or to take their live shows too seriously. They avoided causes or political stands. They were neither slickly commercial nor rebelliously anti-commercial, but sort of stubbornly — or passively — oblivious. And they were fiercely anti-nostalgic, rejecting rock's usual blues or country building blocks.

It might be expected that a voluptuous woman in a white bikini lying on a sidewalk would attract a fair number of gawkers. But they also crowded around the eyeball with fish fins and admired the ship whose red sails had blossomed into a crimson rose. It was Sunday at the 18th annual Pasadena Chalk Festival, a weekend event at the Paseo Colorado shopping mall that featured about 600 professional and amateur artists who used the city's pavements — and 38,000 sticks of pastel chalk — to create amazing works of art. The festival began Saturday and attracted an estimated 100,000 visitors who were entertained by live music as they meandered through the plaza.

A motorcyclist from Stanton was fatally injured early Monday when he lost control of his cycle, fell to the pavement and was run over by two cars on the northbound 405 Freeway north of Euclid Avenue. The county coroner's office said the victim, Jeff Romano, 22, was pronounced dead at the scene. A coroner's deputy said Romano was passing some cars on his motorcycle at 2:38 a.m. and apparently lost control, falling to the pavement.

I hope the moronic biker who sped through the clogged traffic on the westbound 91 the morning of Jan. 23 caught a fleeting glimpse of why the freeway was backed up--a downed motorcyclist writhing in agony on the pavement. Slow down! ROBERT S. HEBERT III Ontario

Some people will do anything for a parking space, even beat a woman into a coma, prosecutors contend in an unusual case that shows how the infuriating quest for that rare city luxury forever changed several people's lives one night last winter. If anyone ever doubted the weightiness of New York City's parking woes, they need only consider the public outrage last week after several police officers were arrested and accused of fixing parking tickets for friends, relatives and associates.

At the Woodland Oaks Ranch in San Dimas, the welcoming committee is out. Hens and roosters, clucking and crowing in the morning light, are the first ambassadors, followed by Milo the Lab, Julia the Corgi and Sparkle the goat. Digger, a chestnut gelding, sticks his head out of a barn and watches as John Gorton steps out of a white Ford F-150 pickup and lifts the side panels and rear door of the shell, revealing racks of horse shoes and a clutter of tools. He pulls on chaps, hefts an anvil onto a knee-high table and fills a bucket with water.

Early in Sonic Youth's set, Kim Gordon, dressed in bronze lam���© that looked like it had been dragged through a dirty New York alley, pushed her bass guitar around on the ground and then stood in front of a pile of black amps on stage. She appeared to be listening to them, those black boxes that regulate the noise, for the kind of mystic instructions that would make the writers of "Lost" proud. For romantics of the rock 'n' roll squall, the Hollywood Bowl served up an evening of pummel and grace Thursday night.

Stockton-bred and post-punk fed, the seminal indie band Pavement has reunited to grand acclaim and keeps the energy flowing for this highly anticipated show at the Bowl, which also features fellow alternative icons Sonic Youth and current Sub Pop-signed lo-fi experimentalists No Age. Hollywood Bowl. 2301 N. Highland Ave. 8 p.m. $37.75-$79. (323) 850-1885. http://www.hollywoodbowl.com

The days of lugging around fistfuls of quarters to feed hungry parking meters, or circling the block repeatedly in search of a parking space, could be nearing an end for downtown motorists. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation has begun installing 10,000 high-tech parking meters throughout the city that allow for credit and debit card payment, in addition to coins. And next year, the downtown area will host an experimental program that aims to take much of the hassle out of parking.

Reporting from Les Rousses, France — Lance Armstrong said it was hot. Andy Schleck said it was hot. It was hot in the Alps on Saturday, 95 degrees or so, hot enough to make the pavement melt in some places. Armstrong said he had wished for rain during Stage 7 of the Tour de France, and it did rain and thunder and lightning and hail — an hour after the cyclists made it onto their buses. And for one more day the Tour de France general classification contenders, the guys who want to wear the yellow jersey in Paris on July 25, pedaled hard, watched one another closely and held back attacks.

In Patrick Carr's review of Michael Wallis' "Route 66--The Mother Road" (May 6), Route 66 was listed as "the first paved connection between Lake Michigan and the (Pacific) Ocean." Later in the review, completion date of the pavement was listed as 1937. At least three years earlier, though, by driving to Salt Lake City and thence east on the "Lincoln Highway," one could travel all the way from Los Angeles to Chicago without leaving pavement. I know, because in a 1932 Pontiac I made such a trip in September, 1934, having avoided Route 66 because of its many unpaved sections.

Longden Avenue from Rosemead Boulevard to Baldwin Avenue is closed to through traffic until the end of July while the pavement is reconstructed and curbs and gutters are replaced. Also affected in the $350,000 project is Golden West Avenue from Las Tunas Drive to Lemon Avenue. The city is also spending $303,500 for new equipment to synchronize lights on Las Tunas Drive and Temple City Boulevard within city limits.

It might be expected that a voluptuous woman in a white bikini lying on a sidewalk would attract a fair number of gawkers. But they also crowded around the eyeball with fish fins and admired the ship whose red sails had blossomed into a crimson rose. It was Sunday at the 18th annual Pasadena Chalk Festival, a weekend event at the Paseo Colorado shopping mall that featured about 600 professional and amateur artists who used the city's pavements — and 38,000 sticks of pastel chalk — to create amazing works of art. The festival began Saturday and attracted an estimated 100,000 visitors who were entertained by live music as they meandered through the plaza.

Seven years ago in the sleepy desert town of Baker, two 10-year-old boys approached a teenager and asked to hitch a ride into town. The boys shuffled onto the bed of the teenager's truck, and the truck sped onto the freeway. Moments later, one of the boys, Dillon Elkins, leapt off the truck and hit his head on the asphalt. He sustained massive brain injuries that left him a spastic quadriplegic, unable to speak, walk, or eat anything except through a gastric tube. Last week, a Barstow jury awarded a $32.2-million verdict in a lawsuit against the driver, who was 18 at the time.