Today's Video Link

I love these videos of driving around old Los Angeles even if color has been added or augmented and a phony audio track has been added. The folks who did this one say that it's been "restaurated," which some dictionaries say has something to do with operating a restaurant but others tell us it's an archaic term for restoration. Anyway, it's not a typo as I first thought.

This one starts roaming around Hollywood and then downtown Los Angeles in what they say is the sixties. One movie theater we pass is playing One Eyed Jacks with Karl Malden and Marlon Brando, which came out in March of 1961. There seem to be some 1962 model cars in it and downtown movie theaters were mostly grind houses running films that had long since left the more prestigious houses. So draw your own conclusions about the date.

I did spot Clifton's Cafeteria, a local downtown landmark which for the last decade or three has closed, been remodeled, reopened, closed, been remodeled, reopened, closed, etc. Last I looked, it was passing for a trendy nightspot with a dress code and everything — the precise opposite of the "cheap food for everyone" image it had in its heyday. I doubt that anything I loved about the old Clifton's can be found at the current Clifton's.

Then later in the video, we jump to footage from a somewhat earlier period…