Hermosa Beach, CA Experts in Container Rental, Sales & Customization

The game from Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, Qatar, is set to begin at 11 a.m. and be televised by Fox and Telemundo.

LOS ANGELES, CA — Free watch parties for the broadcasts of Friday's U.S.-England World Cup soccer game will be held at Hermosa Beach Pier Plaza and several other locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The game from Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, Qatar, is set to begin at 11 a.m. and be televised by Fox and Telemundo.

Watch party attendees are encouraged to bring clear, stadium-approved bags only.

Parties will also be held at the location Saturday for the 8 a.m. game between France and Denmark and the 11 a.m. game between Mexico and Argentina.

Watch parties for Friday's game are also being organized by various chapters of American Outlaws, a nationwide support group for the U.S. men's and women's national soccer teams. They will be held at Lopez & Lefty's in Anaheim; Arrow Lodge Brewing in Covina; The Surly Goat in Encino; Underdogs Sports Bar in Glendale; Underground Pub & Grill in Hermosa Beach and Legends Sports Bar in Long Beach.

England is fifth in the rankings compiled by FIFA, soccer's international governing body. The U.S. is ranked 16th.

The Three Lions opened play in the tournament with a 6-2 victory over Iran on Monday. The U.S. tied Wales, 1-1, in its opener Monday.

The game is unlikely to impact the U.S. chances of advancing to the single-elimination portion of the tournament. If the U.S. defeats England, it would be assured of advancing with at least a tie against Iran in its final group play game Tuesday.

However, a loss to England would mean the U.S. would advance with a victory over Iran and be eliminated with a tie or loss as it would finish third or lower in Group B. The top two teams in each of the eight four-team groups advance to the single-elimination portion of the tournament.

The ABC News-owned data prediction website FiveThirtyEight.com gives the U.S. a 43% chance of advancing and Iran a 54% chance.

The U.S. has never lost to England in the World Cup, winning 1-0 in 1950 in one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history and playing to a 1-1 tie in 2010.

The U.S. is 2-8-1 against England, including a 3-0 loss in their most recent meeting, Nov. 15, 2018. Seven current U.S. men's national team players played in that game and six on England's World Cup team.

The U.S. roster includes two players from the Los Angeles area. Midfielder Cristian Roldan is an alumnus of El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera. Forward Haji Wright played for the LA Galaxy Academy from 2012-15, then signed with the New York Cosmos, then of the Division II North American Soccer League, on March 30, 2015, three days after his 17th birthday.

The U.S. team consists of nine players who play in Major League Soccer, six in England's Premier League, two each in Germany, Italy, Spain and the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system, and one each in France, Scotland and Turkey.

All but one of England's players play in the Premier League. The exception is midfielder Jude Bellingham, a teammate of U.S. forward Gio Reyna at Borussia Dortmund in the German Bundesliga.

U.S. goalkeeper Matt Turner is teammates with English goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, defender Ben White and forward Bukayo Saka at Arsenal. U.S. forward Christian Pulisic plays with midfielders Conor Gallagher and Mason Mount plus forward Raheem Sterling at Chelsea.

FiveThirtyEight.com gives the U.S. a 20% chance of winning, England a 54% chance with a 26% chance of the game ending in a tie.

City News Service

by Bethany Willetts and Kevin Cody

Monday morning, The Spot restaurant owner Tonya Beaudet emailed her loyal customers: “As most of you know, we have been struggling since COVID began. Today will be our last day to be open. Thanks so much for 43 years of food and fun. Love Tonya.”

“It’s time,” she said in a phone interview from her home that day. Though the restaurant was so busy it ran out of food, she did not want to go into work.

When Beaudet, and her late husband, Maurice, took over The Spot in south Hermosa Beach in 1981, it was one of three vegetarian/vegan restaurants in Los Angeles. The other two were The Golden Temple in the old Farmers Market, and Follow your heart Cafe, in the Valley.

In recent years, the choice of vegetarian/vegan restaurants in the Beach Cities, alone, has expanded to include lil’ Vegerie, Green Temple, Pura Vita, Veggie Grill, and Grain Cafe.

But despite the competition, The Spot continued to attract old and new customers with Beaudet’s original menu, based on her Southern grandmother’s use of beans, collard greens, and whole grains.

Customers spoke reverentially about The Spot’s savory sauce, served generously over the savory spud, presto pasta, and steamers (vegetables and brown rice.) The Spot Veggie Burger was featured in the Travel Channel’s “Hamburger Paradise Round-up.” Their mainstay comfort food, the Mushroom Walnut Loaf, was Sir Paul McCartney’s go-to take-out order.

McCartney became a Spot regular when the Beatles performed at the Forum, and Beaudet would hang out backstage with McCartney’s son James.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, The Spot, like other restaurants, survived on take out and government subsidies.

Last spring, as the pandemic receded, and her business began to recover, she received a $30,000 utility bill. She had thought the bill, accrued during COVID, would be forgiven, but subsequently learned the forgiveness applied to homeowners, but not business owners.

The repayment program, coupled with her regular utility bill, totaled $4,000 a month.

“I started to fall behind on rent. When you have to choose between keeping the power on or paying the rent, you pay to keep the power on,” she said.

“My landlords are kind people. They gave me so many breaks. My rent was already ridiculously low. They deserve the opportunity to remodel and get the same rent other Hermosa landlords get,” Beaudet said.

Beadeut was 26 in 1981, when she and her husband bought The Spot. They planned to keep the restaurant until its lease ran out, in three years. Her chef Louis has been with her 39 years.

“My staff is like family, and I love my customers. But it’s time to move on,” she said.

Beaudet said she’d like to open another restaurant, but has no immediate plans. ER

6 comments so far. Comments posted to EasyReaderNews.com may be reprinted in the Easy Reader print edition, which is published each Thursday.

by Kevin Cody

In 2010, when Upper Pier Avene received a makeover, including a landscaped center meridian, a condition imposed by the city council was no sidewalk dining. The ban was a concession to residents who feared Upper Pier would become a noisy bar zone like Pier Plaza.

COVID changed the sidewalk dining policy. In June 2020, to compensate restaurants for their loss of indoor dining, the council allowed dining decks, at no charge, in the parking spots in front of their restaurants. The council also approved expanded outdoor dining on Pier Plaza.

The dining decks proved so popular that while most businesses suffered under the COVID restrictions, Hermosa’s downtown restaurants flourished.

This past January, well after the indoor dining ban had been lifted, the council extended the deck permits to June, but with a $1.50/month/sq. ft fee.

The dining decks had become so popular that during a June council meeting, Council Member Stacey Armato proposed the council adopt a “place maker concept” to pier plaza. “The dining areas don’t need to be dedicated to a specific restaurant. They could be for eating food-to-go meals,” Armato said. Council Member Raymond Jackson advanced the “placemaker concept” by proposing chess tables on Pier Plaza.

Pier Plaza restaurant owner Doug Haworth urged the council to extend the dining deck permits, once again. “Over the past 12 months, the Plaza has blossomed. It’s what distinguishes us from our sister Beach Cities,” he said. During the pandemic, Haworth remodeled his restaurant and changed its name from Silvio’s Brazilian BBQ to the more upscale Silvio’s South American Lounge & Grill.

The council voted unanimously at the June meeting to extend the dining deck permits through January 2023. In July, the council approved a 10-year Economic Development Plan whose recommendations included making the parking decks, the lane reductions and the bike lanes permanent.

Not everyone is happy with the dining decks, and their accompanying accommodations. Retailers complain the current 17 dining decks deprive them of 35 parking spaces in the parking-challenged downtown. Commuters complain that the lane reductions sometimes slow traffic to a crawl. And the dedicated bike lanes have drawn swarms of electric bike riders, creating a new set of problems.

Hermosa Lock and Safe owners Frank and Roxanne Hallstein complained to the council that half of the 23 parking spaces on Upper Pier, where he has owned a store for four decades, are dedicated to dining decks.

“When customers come in our store, after circling the block five times looking for a parking place, they are so pissed off, it’s not a friendly atmosphere at all,” he told Easy Reader.

“The council says they want to make it like a hometown, but they’re running all the brick and mortars out,” he said.

Newly elected Hermosa council member Rob Saemann campaigned on a promise to solve Hermosa’s parking problem. But even if he succeeds it will be too late to save Hermosa Lock and Safe.

The Hallsteins announced they are closing their store at the end of the year. ER

1 comments so far. Comments posted to EasyReaderNews.com may be reprinted in the Easy Reader print edition, which is published each Thursday.

by Kevin Cody

A sea of Santas flooded the Strand, between Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach Saturday morning. The occasion was the Fourth Annual California Santa Stroll, in support of Mychal’s Learning Place.

The more than 800 Santas was a record, despite the threat of rain, according to Mychal’s founding executive director Ed Lynch. Each stroller was offered a Santa outfit, but many, in particular the Santa dogs, wore their own.

The morning began with Mychal’s Place baker Kate McLaughlin leading the Santas in singing “America the Beautiful,” followed by Christmas carols by the Coast Music Harmonics and Mychal’s own holiday choir. Elves Buddy and Jovi (Hammitt’s Tony Drockton and Shelley Montanez-Ramirez), and the Kings’ Bailey the Bear, emceed the morning.

Mychal’s offers support for teens and adults with developmental disabilities. Its clients operate a printing, and embroidery company in Redondo Beach, a bakery in Hawthorne, and a cafeteria at Torrance Memorial Medical Center.

“Our goal,” Lynch told the Santas, “is to provide quality programs so our clients can move on to living quality lives.”

For more about Mychal’s Learning Place, visit Mychals.org. ER

0 comments so far. Comments posted to EasyReaderNews.com may be reprinted in the Easy Reader print edition, which is published each Thursday.

by Gavin Heaney

With his shaved head and traditional gold and red robes, Gen Rigpa stands out in the South Bay like a lightning bolt.

At first sight, one might expect him to speak in haiku or impart cryptical zen koans like Yoda, but you’d be surprised to find how relatable he is. He’s a modern monk living in a modern world with the rest of us. He has an iPhone to keep track of his meetings and appearances and he travels the world teaching meditation to people who are seeking solutions to their modern-day dilemmas.

“Meditation is perfect for modern people, because modern people face a lot of problems,” Rigpa said in an interview. “It teaches you how to deal with them, but also how to use them to become a better human being. Whatever the things are in your life that upset you, meditation can teach you how to look at them in a different way. Then the very things that used to upset you, gradually don’t upset you anymore, and in time, are the causes of you developing really beautiful qualities like patient acceptance, or compassion, love, or a wish to help others.”

Gen Rigpa is the resident teacher at the Kadampa Meditation Center in Los Angeles, and the Western U.S. National Spiritual Director of the New Kadampa Tradition. He is also the current teacher in residence at The Hermosa Beach Mahamudra Kadampa Meditation Center on Cypress Avenue. The Hermosa center was established in 2011 by local fixture Gen Tangpa, who taught meditation in the South Bay for 20 years before relocating. Both are close disciples of 91-year-old Tibetan Buddhist master Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the founder of the tradition and contemporary of the Dalai Lama.

Gen Rigpa grew up in Long Island, New York and was raised Catholic. He was always fascinated by the human mind and completed grad school for psychology, but soon felt dissatisfied.

“When I came out of grad school, I realized I was filled with information, but I wasn’t much happier, and that was really depressing.” He said. “I just started reading everything I could get my hands on from self-help to Eastern philosophy.”

It was then that he discovered Kadampa Buddhist meditation, a method that he found practical for establishing a peaceful mind and finding the contentment he lacked.

Buddhism is one of the world’s major religions, but its use of meditation as a philosophical and psychological method has become widely adopted by modern westerners. The old cliche that you need to abandon all worldly possessions and wander the Earth in order to practice Buddhist meditation is long outdated.

“You definitely don’t have to become a monk or a nun. That’s not at all a prerequisite,” Rigpa said. “Only a small percentage of people decide to adopt certain vows to guide the rest of their life spiritually. For most people it’s philosophy — it just has some nice ideas that they’d like to adopt in their life. Buddhist psychology can help you solve your mental problems, and for a lot of people, that’s the level at which they access it. People are welcome to connect to the teachings at whatever level works for them, it’s utilitarian and flexible in that way.”

Through his meditation practice, Gen Rigpa learned that if his mind was in a mess, such as in a state of anger or longing, that happiness and contentment couldn’t gain a foothold. No matter how perfect his outer world was going, if his inner world was in crisis, he couldn’t enjoy it.

“Many people have very good conditions in their life, but they’re very anxious, They’re depressed, bored, lonely. They’re addicted. Even if they have more than most people in the world, like here in The South Bay, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re happy.” He said. “Your mind determines your world. If you change your mind, you change your experience of everyone, and everything in your life. Your mind is the single most important factor in determining whether or not you’re a happy person or a sad person, a person with fulfillment and meaning in their life, or someone who is bored or depressed.”

In order to enjoy our world, Rigpa suggests that we first need peace of mind. This can be achieved through meditation.

“The technical definition of meditation in our tradition is that meditation is a mind that concentrates on something virtuous, and that is the main cause of inner peace,” Rigpa said. “There are primary or main causes of inner peace, and happiness, and there are other things that are more like secondary causes, like chocolate, movies and cool cars. They can help you be happy, but they’re only a secondary cause. If the main cause of happiness in your mind isn’t there, you won’t be happy, even if you have these amazing external conditions. Meditation teaches people how to be happy from the inside out. But it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy our outer conditions; it means we enjoy them completely by developing a good state of mind first.”

The idea that each of us can develop a happy state of mind, regardless of ever-changing outer conditions, is appealing to Americans navigating the complications of modern living. The future is unpredictable and there is no certainty. Pandemics, inflation, global warming, social unrest and war in the daily headlines all contribute to our worries. Rigpa wants to examine how we can use our mind to control itself, instead of it constantly interfering with our happiness.

“Meditation is designed to practically solve the problems we experience in our everyday life, like relationship problems, money problems, politics and social issues,” he explained. “It is a method for controlling the mind and mixing it with virtue or positivity. The more our mind is mixed with virtue or goodness, the calmer and more peaceful and happier we become, and everybody wants to be happy.”

Gen Rigpa will be giving a public talk in Hermosa Beach in September to give an introduction to meditation and practical advice for transforming our modern world problems into the path to our happiness.

“In this talk, we’ll look at simple and practical methods that we can use to begin to change our mind and move it in the direction of experiencing things in a more positive, harmonious, balanced, peaceful way,” he said. “Which is something I think this world really needs.”

Buddhist Monk Gen Rigpa will give a public talk on September 17, 5 to 7 p.m. at The Hermosa Beach Community Center. More info at meditateinthesouthbay.org. ER

Gen Tsoglam out front of the Mahamudra kadampa Meditation Center, where she is the newly appointed resident teacher. Photo by Kevin Cody

0 comments so far. Comments posted to EasyReaderNews.com may be reprinted in the Easy Reader print edition, which is published each Thursday.