You Know What This Town Needs?

I went on a long walk today instead of going to the gym. Where they want to take my fingerprints. And I had a few thoughts about how to improve the city.

   Moving sidewalks. I'm walking for my health, but I do get a little tired now and then. If we had Jetsons-style moving sidewalks I could take a breather when I needed and still make progress to my destination.

   Refreshments. Just like they have for marathon runners, only good. Not cups of warm water, mugs of ice cold beer. And bowls of pretzels. Maybe some Cheeze-Its if that's in the budget.

   A ban on creepy people. No hard-bitten strung-out broads driving beat up panel vans, no extra-hefty gentlemen carrying tiny little dogs, no Eurotrash holding cigarettes the wrong way and giggling in their mother tongue, all those people are up to no good and they should be prohibited. Possibly flogged.

   Conversely, we need more crazy conspiracy people. The kind who will hold an earnest conversation with you about just why the aliens are coming for Jesus and give you a pamphlet to prove their point. But we need to put them all in one place, maybe right by the pawn shop. They can fight it out in a cage match to see whose nonsense wins.

   More big, goofy dogs. The kind who knock things over with their tails and don't realize it. We should be able to pet at least one big friendly dog every block.

   Street food. I noticed a definite lack of hot dogs, churros, and pretzels on every corner. Sure, the local restaurants would object, but if you're buying a hot dog from a cart you weren't going into Cheesecake Factory in the first place.

   Street performers. They could move from block to block every half hour, so they wouldn't totally block foot traffic or screw up any single business for too long. Jugglers and fire eaters draw crowds.

See? Seven great ideas just from an hour of wandering around. If the Pasadena City Council would implement just a few of these suggestions Old Town would be a much more fun place to be. They should hire me as their Idea Man. I could totally do that.