Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It is Saturday, Dec. 21.

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Thank you to those of you who have already written in to tell us about how this year’s California headlines have affected your lives. If you haven’t already, we’d love tohear about your experiences for a year-end feature we’re working on.

Use this form to tell us about how a news event or issue affected you, and we’ll share some of the responses next week.

Here’s a look at the top stories of the last week:

Top stories

A year in homelessness. This was the year that the tents, tarps and broken-down RVs and the sights, sounds and smells of people living on the streets became inescapable, no matter where you lived or worked. This was the year that homelessness truly felt like a crisis, writes assistant Metro editor Erika Smith.

Democrats debate in L.A. The remaining 2020 Democratic presidential candidates gathered at Los Angeles’ Loyola Marymount University on Thursday for the year’s sixth and final presidential debate. Here are a recap and major takeaways from the evening.

Porto’s Bakery & Cafe founder dies. Rosa Porto, the baker and Cuban émigré who founded the popular Porto’s Bakery & Cafe chain in Southern California with her family, has died at 89. The small bakery she began at Sunset and Silver Lake boulevards in 1976 became the quintessential L.A. restaurant — and an incredible story of American success.

Freelance journalists fight AB 5. Organizations representing freelance journalists are mounting a legal challenge to the California law that aims to rein in companies’ use of independent contractors.

Invisible victims. The Golden State Killer’s violence against women has been retold in detail. But little has been said about the male victims who were bound and forced to witness the terror of their loved ones.

Snowpack at new heights. In a boost for California’s water supply, a series of recent storms that blanketed the Sierra Nevada in snow has built the state’s snowpack to its highest December level since 2015.

Santa Anita investigation ends. After a nine-month investigation, a special task force that looked into 30 horse deaths at Santa Anita during this year’s winter/spring meeting issued a 17-page report that “did not find evidence of criminal animal cruelty or unlawful conduct.”

Ocean acidifying. Waters off the California coast are becoming more acidic twice as fast as the global average, stressing marine life and threatening some of the state’s most economically valuable fisheries.

Weeds versus gulls. The gulls that nest on Mono Lake’s islets in the eastern Sierra Nevada are facing a botanical invader they may not be able to overcome: thickets of invasive weeds that have engulfed most of their breeding grounds.

Star Wars hopes. In August, Disney reported a 3% dip in attendance for its domestic theme parks, despite the opening of Galaxy’s Edge earlier in the year. The new Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance ride may fix that.

This week’s most popular stories in Essential California

1. An Oakland transit planner taking photos of bike racks was held at gunpoint by luxury condo security. Curbed San Francisco

2. A Chula Vista doctor spotted a deadly black tar heroin outbreak over lunch. San Diego Union-Tribune

3. These 1920s apartments inspired one of the best noir films ever made. Curbed Los Angeles

4. Scott Timberg, spirited listener, reader and writer, is dead at 50. Los Angeles Times

5. ‘SNL’ has no idea what San Francisco houses actually look like. SF Gate

ICYMI, here are this week’s great reads

Saving the lost art of Hollywood: From the matchless Mary McNamara, the story of how more than 200 painted movie backdrops were saved from the studio dumpster. Los Angeles Times

Public lives and personal histories: On the letters of Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell and their circle, and the tangled subplots of art and life. New York Review of Books

Ten years ago, Folgers coffee first aired its now-infamous “Coming Home” ad. If that doesn’t ring a bell, let me refresh your memory: It was the brother-sister “you’re my present this year” commercial that looked surprisingly like it was selling … incest. A decade later, GQ has brought us the holiday present we didn’t know we needed — an oral history of how the ad came to be, according to the people who made it. GQ

“The human toll of the 2019 media apocalypse.” More than 3,000 journalists lost their jobs this year. These are some of their stories. GEN

Not a single read, but rather another rabbit hole for your weekend perusal: Music historian and critic Ted Gioia has put together a culture-focused list of his favorite essays and articles of 2019. TedGioia.com

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints, ideas and unrelated book recommendations to Julia Wick. Follow her on Twitter @Sherlyholmes. (And a giant thanks to the legendary Diya Chacko for all her help on the Saturday edition.)

A magnitude 3.9 earthquake was reported Saturday morning at 12:24 a.m. Pacific time nine miles from Ridgecrest, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The earthquake occurred 27 miles from California City, Calif., 55 miles from Barstow, Calif., 63 miles from Rosamond, Calif. and 64 miles from Tehachapi, Calif..

In the past 10 days, there have been eight earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.

An average of 234 earthquakes with magnitudes between 3.0 and 4.0 occur per year in California and Nevada, according to a recent three year data sample.

The earthquake occurred at a depth of 2.5 miles. Did you feel this earthquake? Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS.

Even if you didn’t feel this small earthquake, you never know when the Big One is going to strike. Ready yourself by following our five-step earthquake preparedness guide and building your own emergency kit.

This story was automatically generated by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS. A Times editor reviewed the post before it was published. If you’re interested in learning more about the system, visit our list of frequently asked questions.

“Queen & Slim” began at a party, celebrating my wife Alana Mayo. She had just been chosen as one of the Hollywood Reporter’s 35 under 35 execs. I was there galavanting and having a good time when writer James Frey walked up to me and introduced himself.

It was kind of funny, because I knew who he was, but I joined in the formalities anyway and introduced myself as well. I think he was aware I was a writer — but at that time “The Chi” hadn’t aired yet (we were still writing the first season) and the “Thanksgiving” episode of “Master of None” was an idea that had not yet entered my mind. I say all this to say: He had no real reason to throw an idea — an idea that would ultimately change the course of my life — into my lap at a rooftop party in Hollywood.

He simply said, “I have an idea for a movie I can’t write.” I responded, “What’s the idea?” And he said, very cavalierly, a black man and a black woman go out on a first date and on their way home they get pulled over by a cop, things escalate quickly and they kill the cop in self-defense and rather than turning themselves in, they decide to get in the car and go.”

I quickly said to him, “You’re right, you can’t write that.” But I knew I could.

He had another title and an outline in his back pocket, but I didn’t want it. I didn’t need it. That sentence was all I needed to go create a black odyssey that would ultimately become a meditation on blackness and what it truly looks like to search for freedom and joy that’s everlasting.

I knew the black community and the police have had a fraught relationship since the beginning of time and if two black people killed a cop, even if it was in self-defense, it would start a media frenzy. Right away, I could see some black people cheering for them while others would be angry — assuming it could start a race war.

Then my wheels started spinning even more — what if the two leads were polar opposites. What if one was modeled after Malcolm X and the other was modeled after Martin Luther King Jr. and by the end of the journey they will have swapped places.

I could see so much possibility on my own that I told James I could take it from here — and he took no issue with that. And thus my writing journey began.

Since this would be a road trip movie, the first thing I did was print out a large map. Then I started figuring out who these characters were. I didn’t want to give too much exposition up top. I wanted the audience to get to know them at the same pace the characters got to know each other.

I also didn’t want a sympathetic cop I had to keep cutting away to. I didn’t want someone that was there to track time, and remind the audience our two leads were in trouble. We already know they’re in trouble. That’s a given. I wanted to force the audience to stay with them. You’re stuck in that car too. I wanted the audience to experience the film rather than just watch it passively.

Because I got my start in comedy, I also didn’t want to suppress my sense of humor. I felt like the film should have comical moments, because we as a community are always searching for light even in the midst of our darkest hour. So my goal was to keep the audience on the edge of their seat while tickling their funny bone every now and then. Which to me feels a lot like life.

Midway through the writing process I quickly learned why “Thelma & Louise” has the Harvey Keitel character. It’s not the worst thing in the world to have someone else to cut away to.

I was starting to feel claustrophobic in that car with Queen and Slim, but after I got past the midpoint, I didn’t mind being stuck with them. I had fallen in love with this mismatched pair, and by the time I made it to the end of the script, it was hard to walk away from them.

I also found that something I thought would be difficult turned out to work quite smoothly. Not naming the characters provided no real challenges during the writing process. In life we rarely say each other’s names in conversation. We aren’t that literal. I also hate writing character names in scripts. Mainly because it feels … well, scripted. And I’m always searching for truth and authenticity on the page.

That’s ultimately what became my mantra while writing this script. It was also my north star any time I got stuck or found myself struggling with trying to figure out where I wanted to take them next or what obstacles I should put in front of them now. Forcing myself to always tell the truth is what truly saved me. Time and time again.

Thinking about black people sitting in theaters watching this movie and feeling seen was also something that always kept me going.

And, ultimately, my deep love and admiration for these two very flawed and extremely human characters never failed to pull me through. And I think it’s because for me Queen and Slim aren’t just characters in a movie, they’re two fictitious people that represent all of us.

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Given that it contains dozens of digitally smoothed-out crotches, a chorus line of “tiny human-faced cockroaches” (to borrow a suitably nightmarish phrase from my colleague Justin Chang) and the sight of Dame Judi Dench as a cat wearing what appears to be a fur coat — this is basically the same thing as a human wearing a skin coat, right? — I can understand why the music of “Cats” has perhaps been overlooked in all the talk about the busy new big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash Broadway musical.

But “Cats” bears examining as a piece of pop, if only because the show’s signature song, “Memory,” has become an undeniable pop standard — covered countless times by innumerable artists including Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow, Celine Dion, Susan Boyle and, of course, Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls — in the four decades since this artifact of the early 1980s premiered.

The accumulated weight of all those renditions has had something of a dulling effect on “Memory,” which is performed in the musical by Grizabella, a once-glamorous cat whose fall from grace has her looking back to a time when she “knew what happiness was.” To hear the song’s dreary opening arpeggios now is to reflexively brush off the possibility of encountering something that might move you; the tune, a happily trashy bit of ersatz Puccini, has become a kind of showbiz parody of the emotion it once sought genuinely to embody.

Funny, then, that Jennifer Hudson’s performance of “Memory” is the sole musical number in the new movie that summons real feeling. It’s not that she does anything radical to the song; indeed, it’s that she doesn’t in a film hell-bent on using every trick of technology, choreography and James Corden-ology to get a reaction — any reaction — out of you. Gazing into the camera, her wide face twisted with sorrow, upper lip wet with snot, Hudson simply sings the stuffing out of “Memory” with such intensity that you almost forget she’s wearing a pair of fuzzy cat ears.

With her husky-then-silky vocal tone and her precise navigation of Lloyd Webber’s tricky intervals, Hudson’s performance allows you to re-experience this most over-handled of cultural objects as music — as the pained outpouring of a woman (OK, a cat) for whom even a streetlamp has turned menacing. No wonder director Liesl Tommy hired Hudson to play Aretha Franklin in next year’s “Respect”: In the first trailer for the biopic, playing as we speak before “Cats,” the singer somehow gives the titular soul classic a fresh zing.

Hudson isn’t the only pop star — does that feel like the right thing to call an “American Idol” flameout turned Academy Award winner? — in “Cats,” which largely stays true to Lloyd Webber’s over-the-top orchestra-with-a-guy-on-synth sound. Jason Derulo, clearly jazzed to have been cast in what he takes to be a prestige production, shows up for an aggressively frisky spin through “The Rum Tum Tugger,” while Taylor Swift appears as an actor (in the slinky “Macavity”) and as a songwriter (in the earnest “Beautiful Ghosts,” a new tune sung by the cat named Victoria). They both look to being having a blast, though nothing about their performances made me want to cue up their contributions on the “Cats” soundtrack afterward.

Hudson is doing something different. She’s angling for a spot in the crowded pantheon of remember-ers.

The internet is all about cats, so we are dutifully complying. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, with the new millennium’s essential arts news:

One for the litter box

Distracting us from impeachment proceedings has been the all-around terribleness of Tom Hooper’s film version of Broadway’s now-and-forever show “Cats,” which features an array of creepily anthropomorphized felines.

Begin with Times film critic Justin Chang‘s review, the sort you read aloud to friends over drinks: “For all this talk of digital fur technology, there appears to be no fur on the cats’ actual digits, their unnervingly human fingers and toes. And just to round out this nightmarish anatomy lesson, Hooper often directs his actors to splay their legs and bare their flat, undifferentiated crotches for the camera.”

Want more? The Times rounds up the zingiest “Cats” reviews.

Times theater critic Charles McNulty notes in an equally zingy story about the legacy of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s smash musical: “Theater people resent ‘Cats’ not just because it made Broadway uncool. … What really infuriates buffs is that ‘Cats’ ushered in an era of grandiose spectacle, the vacuous parade of shows from the 1980s and early ’90s that made it seem as if a musical had to have a helicopter or a crashing chandelier to be worth the rapidly rising ticket price.”

Ordinarily I would illustrate this with a still from Hooper’s movie, but they are awful and I have aesthetic standards to adhere to — so here’s a photo of my pal’s cat Coco wearing antlers instead:

You’re welcome.

The Millennium 100

All of us on the Times’ arts and entertainment staff put our many heads together to compile our 100 favorite pop culture moments from the new millennium … so far. Naturally, it contains Beyoncé and “Star Wars.” But it’s also got plenty of art, theater, music, dance and architecture, with items devoted to “Hamilton,” Disney Hall, Gustavo Dudamel, the Tate Modern, Elaine Stritch, Misty Copeland, the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time series, Michael Maltzan‘s humane housing for the homeless. And much, much more…

Plus: I talk about some of the art world’s hot-button issues for 2019 on KCRW’s Press Play.

In the galleries

An “engrossing” midcareer retrospective of New York-based painter Julie Mehretu recently went on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “In her best paintings … Mehretu walks a tightrope,” Times art critic Christopher Knight writes. “On one side is consolidation, on the other is disintegration. Collapse is underway, coalescence strains. Schism and synthesis spar.”

Onstage

When Susan Lieu was 11 years old, her mother died as a result of a plastic surgery procedure. That is the topic the performer explores in her one-woman show, “140 LBS: How Beauty Killed My Mother,” which will be on view in L.A. and O.C. in the coming days. It’s a production she created and marketed by herself while pregnant. “I don’t have time to see if an artistic director will program me in one or two years from now,” she tells The Times’ Ashley Lee.

And because she has nerves of steel, Lee recently attended seven — seven — SoCal productions of “A Christmas Carol.” This included a Shakespearean version, an updated comedic version with a Lime scooter, a one-man version that had a single actor toggling among the roles of narrator, Scrooge and Bob Cratchit, and one with a spine-chilling Scrooge that warmed the cockles of our reporter’s heart with its story of redemption.

F. Kathleen Foley reviews Neil McGowan’s play “Disposable Necessities” at Rogue Machine. The story is about a future in which the wealthy can download their personalities into new bodies. Writes Foley: “Director Guillermo Cienfuegos and a lively cast tear into their material with brio.”

Classical notes

Times classical critic Mark Swed attended Wild Up’s “darkness sounding” series in Joshua Tree — one of 11 “mindful music” concerts for the darkest days of the year. “The sad time of year,” said director Christopher Rountree, seemed ripe for “making music in the dark about the dark, embracing ritual, nature, space, listening and simply being together.”

Catching up

L.A. photographer George Rodriguez has photographed the East L.A. blowouts and rising rap acts for music magazines. Last year, when I covered the publication of his book “Double Vision: The Photography of George Rodriguez,” I noted that his studio contained a painted backdrop from an early-’80s shoot with N.W.A that had been signed by Dr. Dre and Eazy-E. (Musical history!)

Here’s a snap I got of him standing in front of it:

Last weekend, I went to see Rodriguez’s solo show at the Vincent Price Art Museum, where the backdrop is currently displayed. And while I was there, I met the East L.A. artist who made it: Larry Ruedas Jr., who in the ’80s was known by his graffiti name, LARIE.

Ruedas saw media coverage of Rodriguez’s book last year and reestablished contact with the photographer — turning out for his book signing at VPAM last Saturday. He says he is amazed that his paper backdrop has survived over the decades.

“I thought this would have been tossed,” says the artist. “It’s a shock to see my artwork still there!”

The backdrop, along with a selection of Rodriguez’s photos, will remain on view at VPAM through Feb. 29. (Note: The museum is closed from Dec. 24 to Jan. 4.)

More out of East L.A.: Lowrider, the car magazine that was also about Chicano identity, will cease to print but may still appear occasionally in digital form. Times reporter Dorany Pineda looks back at the history of the magazine, which Cal State Northridge professor Denise Sandoval said represented “the codes of the Boulevard: … Pride, respect, corazón [heart], family, brotherhood.”

Passages

Scott Timberg, a former Times reporter who authored the book “Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class,” has died at the age of 50. As a freelancer he regularly contributed to The Times’ arts section. His stories, and his incisive point of view, will be sorely missed.

Your support helps us deliver the news on culture — and this newsletter. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times.

Ready for the weekend

Matt Cooper has the list of everything doing the week ahead in dance, theater, museums and classical music in SoCal. He also rounds up the nine best things to do in L.A. in the coming week, including a performance of Handel’s Messiah at Disney Hall.

And I list all the visual arts happenings in my weekly Datebook, which includes an intriguing new show of photography at the Getty Museum.

In other news…

— What choreographer Mark Morris likes to read.
— Alissa Walker on how our cities failed us this decade.
— Zoë Madonna does a year-ender on how #MeToo has played out in the world of classical music.
— South Coast Repertory has received a $5 million gift from philanthropists Julianne and George Argyros.
— And Riverside’s Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art received a $750,000 gift, pushing its fundraising total to nearly $14 million.
— The Autry Museum has hired two ambitious new curators: Joe D. Horse Capture and Tyree Boyd-Pates.
— Frieze Projects curators Rita Gonzalez and Pilar Tompkins Rivas will explore truth and lies in Hollywood for their installation at the L.A. Art Fair in February.
— Employees at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL), the Mexican cultural organization responsible for numerous Mexican museums, allege severe wage delays.
— Need a podcast to get you through a holiday drive? The Getty’s “Recording Artists,” hosted by curator Helen Molesworth, focuses on the story of six women making art during the feminist and civil rights movements, including Betye Saar, Eva Hesse and Lee Krasner.
— Critic Peter Schjeldahl’s stirring tribute to the messy art of living is a must-read.

And last but not least…

Marinate in the director’s cut of Solange Knowles’ “When I Get Home,” which includes artful elements such as shots of Houston’s Rothko Chapel, art by Jacolby Satterwhite and paintings by Robert Pruitt.

Looking for a last-minute holiday gift? Alaska Airlines just launched a 2-for-1 airfare sale that’s pretty irresistible. Buy a ticket on certain routes and book a second ticket for (almost) free. The sale starts at 7 a.m. and lasts until 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on Dec. 20.

The sale applies to Los Angeles flights to Maui and Honolulu in Hawaii; Los Angeles to Boston and Baltimore; and intra-California flights, such as L.A. to San Francisco. The sale is good for other West Coast departure cities, such as San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Portland. The travel window is from Jan. 7 through Feb. 12.

To buy tickets, go to the airline’s sale page, called Let’s BOGO (which stands for “buy one, get one free”). Use the promo code “LETSBOGO” when buying a ticket, and pay only taxes and fees for the second ticket. You’ll need to have the second person’s name to reserve. Rules apply, including a limitation of one discount code per reservation.

Also on Dec. 20, passengers wearing a holiday sweater — it doesn’t have to be ugly — will receive priority boarding on Alaska and Horizon Air flights.

Info: Alaska Airlines’ Let’s BOGO sale

I could hardly believe it when I read the headline that said “SuperShuttle is Going Out of Business. Its last rides are Dec. 31,” by Catharine Hamm, Mary Forgione and Priscella Vega Dec. 13). The article underlines my morose feelings about Friday the 13th as well as the end of a service that I have used countless times. I relied on the blue vans with the yellow writing for many journeys, some joyous, others not so much.

I looked upon the drivers as well as the people sharing my ride as brief encounters with people I might never have met, and the transportation became part of my travel ritual.

There is a saying that growing old is not for the faint of heart; the demise of my preferred rideshare service seems to underline the fact that beacons I use to mark rites of passage are growing smaller and that I am, indeed, growing older. Alas.

Ruth Kramer Ziony
Los Feliz

::
I just wanted to write to let those making decisions know my displeasure about the ending of service of SuperShuttle. I love to travel and have taken the SuperShuttle on many occasions from downtown to LAX. This decision, I’m sure, was financially based, but I would hope that there is some chance that we will get another service equal to Super Shuttle.

Evelyn Finn
Cerritos

::

I travel often and never used SuperShuttle. It isn’t because they’re not a good company or reliable, but using Uber or Lyft is as simple as pushing a button on your phone.

Also, technology has taken over completely, causing companies such as SuperShuttle or taxi companies to struggle or fail.

SuperShuttle has been around since 1983, but now there are other options we can choose from to get from one destination to another.

Brittani Ables
Inglewood

OK

But there are other ways to get to LAX

In re: “Let’s Find Your Way to LAX,” On the Spot by Catharine Hamm, Dec. 15: There’s one other way to get to LAX that can be surprisingly affordable for some people: a one-way car rental.

Some car companies will let you have one for about $40 going and $60 returning. The nearby Avis location I used has closed, and other convenient companies in my area have much higher prices, but it’s worth checking online to see if there’s something near you.

The obvious downside with four heavy bags that letter writer Jim Ragsdale mentioned is that you must get them on and off the rental shuttle, but the driver will help with that.

Geoff Kuenning
Claremont

::

We live in Oceanside, and we rent a car from a Hertz office five minutes from our home. Although the price has gone up from about $50 to $80 over the years, it’s still easy. We drop it at the Hertz lot at LAX and take the Hertz bus to the terminal.

Upon our return, we take the Hertz bus back to the Hertz lot, rent another car (more expensive —about $125 — because it is considered “on the airport”) and drive it home. We always allow tons of time before the flight so we don’t have to worry about returning the car and getting to the airport.

We have also spent the night at a hotel near the airport if we have an early flight, so we can take the hotel’s shuttle to the airport.

Art and Deborah Cravets
Oceanside

::
When our friends travel to Kauai, they stay one night at an airport hotel and leave their car parked there. They love the convenience and the price.

Kathy Schwartz
North Hollywood

::
Regarding getting from Duarte to LAX, the Metro Gold line can take you to Union Station, where you can take the FlyAway Bus. There is a station in Duarte. I have done that myself, not with four large bags but with one large bag and a carry-on.

Frank Alvarado
Azusa

FlyAway is an excellent option for the letter writer, although with four bags it’s a bit of a challenge. He could also have a family member drop him off at Union Station to save toting four bags on the train while letting his family/friends avoid the nightmare of navigating the LAX terminals loop.

The FlyAway buses easily accommodate large bags underneath the bus and drop you right at the terminal. Drivers are usually helpful with loading and unloading your bags.

FlyAway is super convenient if you’re going to Terminals 1-3. I use it all the time, and I live in downtown L.A., take the Red/Purple Line to Union Station and voila, I’m there. It rarely takes me more than 45 minutes to get from Union Station to LAX, and it’s often faster. That said, I always allow for an hour travel time.

Adam Light
Los Angeles

::

“If you live in Duarte, here’s the best way to avoid the trouble of getting to LAX: Fly out of Ontario,” Catharine Hamm wrote in the article about getting to LAX.

I laughed out loud after reading this. What a great way to start the day, with a little humor.

I take the Green Line from Norwalk with one bag. As a senior, it’s 75 cents (only 35 cents during nonpeak hours), which is a bargain.

Patrick Anderson
Norwalk

Monterey escape brings back memories

Thank you for Mike Morris’ weekend escape to Monterey (“Fresh Prospects on the Central Coast,” Dec. 8). The photo reminded me of the beautiful movie “A Summer Place” I saw when I was a very impressionable 15-year-old. I loved the memories the photo brought me.

Rachel Perumean
Montebello

California is home to some two dozen military bases, including storied installations such as Edwards Air Force Base, where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, and little-known facilities such as the Marines Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in the Eastern Sierra.

But what goes on behind those heavily guarded gates? Without proper identification, you can’t pop in for a look-see, so many of us have only a vague idea.

The good news is that several California bases offer public tours that give visitors a behind-the-scenes look at how the armed forces are working to meet the nation’s complex security challenges.

Some tours fill up far in advance — Edwards is booked through 2020 — so be sure to contact the installation you’d like to visit as soon as possible. You may need to fill out a registration form and undergo a security check, but you don’t need to pull out your credit card: Base tours are free.

National Training Center and Ft. Irwin

If you’re looking for a kick-ass tour with things that go boom and rat-a-tat-tat, you can’t do better than the six-hour experience at Ft. Irwin, the Army’s massive pre-deployment center northwest of Barstow.

Your tour bus will rumble through miles of creosote-studded desert before depositing you at a 1,200-square-mile training area called “the box” (short for sandbox). It’s brutal terrain and — except for a faux village with mock mud-brick houses — wide open, making it ideal for brigade-on-brigade war games that can involve as many as 5,000 fighters on each side.

You won’t be able to watch a real training exercise, but you’ll get a taste of the action during a mock battle that features soldiers exchanging rifle fire, a fake IED explosion, a helicopter buzzing low and lots of smoke.

If you’re game, you can crawl inside a personnel carrier or get down on your belly and fire a tripod-mounted machine gun. (The gun shoots blanks but it’s still loud as heck, so take advantage of the free earplugs.)

Your day at Ft. Irwin will involve lots of make-believe, but there’s nothing fake about lunch: a genuine, military-issue MRE (meal, ready to eat).

Info: National Training Center, Ft Irwin, bit.ly/fortirwintour. Eight tours per year. No children younger than 12. Reservations accepted 30 days before the tour date; upcoming tours are Feb. 7, March 6 and April 3.

Vandenberg Air Force Base

The (mostly) windshield tour of California’s preeminent launch port and test range should be on every space nerd’s bucket list.
Vandenberg, in coastal Santa Barbara County near Lompoc, offers a 90-minute bus excursion that will get you about as close to an active rocket-and-missile launch pad as you will get anywhere.

As a space port, Vandenberg is ideally positioned on California’s “elbow,” which allows rockets to head south without flying over a large land mass.

All sorts of government, military and commercial payloads launch from this 99,000-acre installation, some of them crucial to national security. Vandenberg was the launch site for the ground-based interceptor that recently shot down a simulated, incoming warhead from the central Pacific.

Test firings of the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, the nation’s nuclear deterrent, go up from Vandenberg. NASA’s latest Mars explorer blasted off from Vandenberg. The base’s launch pads are also used by United Launch Alliance, whose Delta IV heavy rocket can thrust a payload the size of a 44-seat passenger bus.

A lot of what goes on here is hush-hush (think spy satellites), so photography is tightly controlled. Our group was permitted photos only at ULA’s Space Launch Complex 6, from which the Delta IV hurtles into the wild blue yonder.

Someone on our bus joked that the sale of Vandenberg’s 42 miles of protected coastline could retire the national debt in 24 hours. That sounds like a stretch, but the Vandenberg tour is a rare opportunity to soak in the heart-stopping beauty of a stretch of Central Coast that is off limits to pretty much everyone except those with base access.

You can also schedule a separate visit to the base’s Space and Missile Heritage Center, which displays launch complex models, rocket engines, re-entry vehicles and more.

Info: Vandenberg Air Force Base, 747 Nebraska Ave., (805) 606-3595, vandenberg.af.mil/Public-Tours. Tours offered at 1 p.m. on the third Tuesday of every month; upcoming tour dates are April 21, May 19, June 16 and July 21. Space and Missile Heritage Center offers tours four times a year; the next available date is Jan. 26, 2021, vandenberg.af.mil/Public-Tours

Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms

Mock villages have sprung up at numerous bases but none is quite like the Marines’ urban warfare training center at Twentynine Palms, 150 miles east of Los Angeles.

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On a six- to eight-hour visit to the country’s largest Marine base, you’ll ride a bus deep into the desert until a fake city comes into view, complete with hundreds of buildings fitted out to look like homes, shops and hotels.

This is where Marines, sailors and U.S. coalition partners prepare to fight in an urban environment. You won’t be able to watch a real exercise but you’ll still have an action-packed experience.

You can fire a .50-caliber machine gun (modified with compressed air) at virtual-reality enemies that are projected on a wraparound screen in an octagonal-shaped room.

Or you can put on a helmet and flak jacket and strap yourself into the back of a mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) troop carrier that is attached to a special frame and rotates 360 degrees on its axis.

Our group screamed when we turned upside down, but this equipment is no carnival ride. In the field, MRAP rollovers are not uncommon and can be fatal, so the exercise helps service members learn how to find a hatch and get out of the vehicle — fast.

Info: Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, (760) 830-3735, bit.ly/29palmstour. No tours in June, July and August. Must be 16. Visitors must be able to walk through deep sand and on rugged terrain. Water provided.

Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton

The Marine Corps Mechanized Museum at Camp Pendleton, 38 miles north of downtown San Diego, will bring back memories for anybody who has ever driven, ridden, crashed or cussed at a military vehicle.

The museum is in an old railroad terminal and offers docent-led tours of about 150 items, focused on engine-powered vehicles. Among the earliest is a Ford Model T ambulance from World War I (it still runs); the newer pieces include a light tactical vehicle from the Iraq war. The “movie star” here is an amphibious landing craft that director Clint Eastwood borrowed for the film “Flags of Our Fathers.”

Your museum visit can be combined with a docent-led tour of one of Camp Pendleton’s historical assets,
a circa 1840 ranch house that was home to Pío Pico, the last governor of Mexican California, and later housed families of Marine generals.

Info: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, (760) 725-5758, pendleton.marines.mil. Mechanized Museum tours Mondays-Fridays and weekends by appointment. Ranch house tours first Tuesday and Thursday and second Thursday of every month; weekends by appointment.

Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia operates the world’s longest hybrid coaster, the world’s first 360-degree vertical loop and the West Coast’s tallest pendulum ride.

So when the executives at the self-described roller coaster capital of the world were looking for a new kind of thrill to offer adrenaline-junkie fans, they turned to the uber-customizer behind the MTV series “Pimp My Ride” and tapped into the growing demand by amusement park fans for a new experience with each ride.

West Coast Racers, Six Flags’ new twin-track coaster that opens next week, was designed with the help of Ryan Friedlinghaus, the mastermind behind “Pimp My Ride” and the follow-up series “Street Customs,” two shows about the art of high-end car customization.

The new coaster features vehicles that were designed and painted by Friedlinghaus to look like custom sports cars. The entrance to the ride, part of an overhauled 4.5-acre land called the Underground, also resembles Friedlinghaus’ auto shop, West Coast Customs in Burbank. Passholders, park members and members of the media will get to preview the coaster until Jan. 9, when the ride opens to the general public.

“It’s different, fun and never been done,” Friedlinghaus said of his partnership with the manufacturer of the coaster, Baltimore-based Premier Rides.

Although Friedlinghaus’ roller coaster is unique, it reflects the push by theme park designers to give riders a new experience during each ride, prompting fans to return more than once.

The latest example is Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Disneyland, which has a varied outcomes with riders in control of the iconic “Star Wars” spaceship. At Knott’s Berry Farm, an interactive attraction called VR Showdown in Ghost Town lets users rack up points by destroying an invading robot horde.

Work is underway to complete a new land at Universal Studios Hollywood based on popular Nintendo video games that is sure to include a few interactive features. An opening date has not been announced.

Martin Lewison, a business professor at New York’s Farmingdale State College and a roller coaster aficionado, said that dual-track coasters date to the 1920s but that many theme parks don’t always make the extra effort to launch the two vehicles at the exact same time.

An amusement park in the Netherlands called Efteling opened a popular dual-track racing coaster in 2010, Lewison said. At the end of the ride, a banner falls over one of the tracks, signaling the winner of the race.

“That is part of the appeal of the racing coaster,” Lewison said. “Sometimes you’ll get off the ride and get right back on again.”

At Six Flags Magic Mountain, the new dual-track coaster will allow two vehicles to race each other through sharp curves, loops and flips, with the speed of each vehicle being influenced by the overall weight of the passengers, the mass of the vehicle, head winds and other factors. No one knows until the end of the ride which car will win.

In another twist, each vehicle will get to race around the tracks twice, each time racing against a different-colored vehicle.

Halfway through the ride, the vehicles stop in what looks like a mechanic’s shop, where Friedlinghaus, speaking via a TV monitor, tells the riders that his crew is going to upgrade their vehicles before they speed off for the second lap. The sounds of auto shop tools blast from hidden speakers. The ride lasts two minutes.

“One of the great features of this is that you have two, not one, racing experiences,” said Jim Seay, president of Premier Rides. “Both of those outcomes are very specific to the ride you took.”

Friedlinghaus acknowledges that West Coast Racers is similar to Radiator Springs Racers, the car racing ride at Disney California Adventure. The big difference, he said, is that his ride is geared toward thrill-seeking teenagers and car junkies.

Just don’t ask him what he thinks of his own ride. Friedlinghaus doesn’t do coasters, saying he suffers from terrible motion sickness.

“I’m not a roller coaster guy, which is really funny,” he said.

The coaster touches on another growing trend in the theme park industry: adding videos, interactive games and animatronic characters to the queue to entertain waiting riders.

Visitors waiting in line to ride West Coast Racers will get to watch a video on flat-screen TVs that shows how Friedlinghaus and his crew at West Coast Customs built the roller coaster vehicles.

The roller coaster replaces several retail outlets, located between the Apocalypse wooden roller coaster and the Cyclone 500 go-carts.

It comes at a time when theme parks are investing heavily to take advantage of a strong economy and positive economic outlook among most park visitors.

In May, Disneyland opened its $1-billion Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge expansion, and it is on schedule to open a new land at California Adventure next year based on the superheroes from Marvel comics and movies.

In July, Universal Studios Hollywood completed an overhaul of its Jurassic Park ride featuring state-of-the-art technology. In addition to adding a new land based on Nintendo video games, Universal Studios Hollywood plans to open a new attraction next year based on the animated movie “The Secret Life of Pets.”

It’s a basketball extravaganza in this week’s collection of buyers and sellers. Making the lineup are NBA movers and shakers including Atlanta Hawks and Los Angeles Clippers forwards, a former Houston Rockets owner and a Lakers legend.

Our Home of the Week in Beverly Hills is mammoth modern estate with water everywhere. The 27,000-square-foot mansion features reflecting pools, indoor and outdoor swimming pool and ponds. The price to get your feet wet is $75 million.

Once you’re done reading about these deals, visit and like our Facebook page, where you can find Hot Property stories and updates throughout the week.

– Neal Leitereg, Jack Flemming and Lauren Beale

A turnover in Malibu

“CSI” creator Anthony Zuiker sold his concrete-clad contemporary in Malibu to Atlanta Hawks forward Chandler Parsons for $9.25 million.

The 1.4-acre property includes a saltwater swimming pool and a covered pavilion perched above a tennis court.

The 5,555-square-foot floor plan has a two-story entry, a semicircular living room, a dining room with tray ceilings and five bedrooms.

Parsons, 31, previously played for the Memphis Grizzlies, the Dallas Mavericks and the Houston Rockets.

He’ll cut his traveling

Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard will have a shorter commute to the Staples Center after buying a penthouse at the Ritz-Carlton Residences at L.A. Live for $6.725 million.

Centered on the downtown cityscape, the 4,280-square-foot unit features wood floors, walls of glass, two custom fireplaces and magnetic, wall-mounted iPads for controlling smart home systems. The family room adjoins a center-island kitchen with a breakfast nook. There are three bedrooms.

A rooftop swimming pool, a fitness center and valet and concierge services are among building amenities.

Leonard, 28, joined the Clippers as a free agent this year after winning an NBA title last season with the Toronto Raptors.

Inbound in La Jolla

Former Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander has put his La Jolla beach home back on the market at $17.75 million.

The imposing three-story contemporary, built in 2002, overlooks 50 feet of ocean frontage. Walls of glass move away to bring ocean breezes into the 9,320 square feet of interiors.

The master suite takes up the entire top floor for a total of three bedrooms and six bathrooms.

Alexander bought the NBA team in 1993 for $85 million and sold two years ago for $2.2 billion.

Going for a rebound

Houston Rockets point guard Russell Westbrook has put his home in the Beverly Hills Post Office area back up for sale at $5.35 million.

That’s about $650,000 shy of the original asking price but still $700,000 more than Westbrook paid for the place in 2015, records show.

The two-story home contains 4,100 square feet of space including five bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms and a media room.

Westbrook, 31, has made eight NBA all-star teams and won the league’s most valuable player award in 2017. He previously played for the Oklahoma City Thunder.

An ally-oop in Hayward

Clippers executive and former NBA player Jerry West has sold his home in the Bay Area community of Hayward for $1.585 million.

The four-bedroom contemporary has a stucco and stone facade. Steeply pitched roofs face the street and frame the walkway to the front door.

Light tile flooring and 22-foot ceilings open up the more than 3,500 square feet of bright interiors. The one-third acre of grounds contain a covered patio and citrus trees.

West, 81, played for the Lakers for 14 years, making 14 All-Star teams. He was coach and then general manager of the Lakers, before moving on to the Memphis Grizzlies.

Her favorite room

Film producer Karina Miller likes to unwind and get creative in the kitchen of her cozy 1,396-square-foot Studio City home. The Sparkhouse Media founder has outfitted her kitchen with an eight-burner stove, a dual-fuel oven, royal blue cabinetry and a seafoam green backsplash. “I just love feeding people,” she says. “It de-stresses me.”

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From the archives

Ten years ago, “Dancing With the Stars” co-host and “The Insider” correspondent Samantha Harris sold her Westwood home for $1.64 million. The 1930s Spanish two-story had four bedrooms within about 3,000 square feet and had been extensively remodeled.

Twenty years ago, actor Neil Patrick Harris put his Sherman Oaks home on the market at $625,000. He had owned the three-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot house for nine years.

Thirty years ago, Los Angeles Lakers star James Worthy purchased a home with a tennis court in a gated, Pacific Palisades community for $2.675 million. The house had five bedrooms within its nearly 5,000 square feet of interior space.

What we’re reading

Former Red Wing Pavel Datsyuk has listed his lakeside home for sale at $4.5 million, reports the Detroit Free Press. The hockey player had the castle-like house in Bloomfield Township, Mich., custom built. There are 7,780 square feet of living space on the main floors plus a 4,750-square-foot walkout basement level.

While we’re in Michigan … this Traverse City reuse project seems a little, um, unusual. The Village at Grand Traverse Commons houses condominiums, shops and restaurants within the walls of historic buildings that once made up a mental asylum, reports CBS News. A three-bedroom unit there recently sold for $800,000.