The entire Los Angeles region seems to be under construction. From North Hollywood to downtown, from the Miracle Mile to San Pedro, the place is under one giant transformation. Perhaps a reflection of the economy, or more a mad push toward the maximum “I’m ready for my close-up” potential in time for the 2028 Olympics, L.A. is a crane manufacturer’s dream right now.

While 2028 is still a decade away, 2020 in Inglewood is seemingly just tomorrow as far as many are concerned, for that’s when the new football stadium that will be home to both the Rams and the Chargers will officially open its doors. Originally planned to debut for the 2019 NFL season, construction slowed during last year’s massive rainy season.

In any case, it won’t be long before bombs will be thrown, touchdowns will be celebrated and draft beers will sell, even at $15 a pop.

While the most affordable views might be from your airplane seat as you fly into LAX, for now you can enjoy this free angle from Hollywood Park’s parking structure.

The new stadium is surely going to be a special place, even if most Angelenos will need a bank loan or a winning lottery ticket to afford a decent seat. I’m counting on the latter so that I won’t only have a chance to catch the action live just as the flight attendant tells me its time to put my seat into the upright position. Otherwise, like most football fans in the Southland, I’ll be viewing the games in my den on my widescreen, which isn’t quite as wide as the 120 yards long video behemoth planned for Stan Kronke’s future NFL playground.

Ed offered to hold my hat and water bottle while I hoisted my 10-year old daughter atop my shoulders so that she could take in the spectacle. Thousands of Angelenos protesting in front of L.A.’s City Hall, post-march at the March For Our Lives Rally for gun control and to honor those that have been killed in all of the recent mass shootings – a powerful movement that has found solid-footing since the amazing Parkland students have done what others have been unable to do, get people to say #enough is enough and then do something about it.

In L.A. as in New York and Washington and almost everywhere else with a fed-up populace – this country-wide protest felt different because it is. It’s literally a matter of life and death.

In the crowd there were young ones, many students the same age as those who suffered so tragically at Parkland, and older folks like friendly Ed who introduced himself and told me that he has been a presence at many different protests over the years. And there were a lot of middle ones too like me who have seen enough of these shootings to know they aren’t going away unless the government does something…finally.

Sure, the protest had the inevitable hate Republicans crowd (boring), the professional I’ll protest Any Cause contingent (get a job), and the anti-authority group (and you’re protesting what exactly) but it also revealed much, much more – millions of new faces across America, many, first-timers like us, who recognize a problem when we see it, and this problem is massive.

And the signs said it all.

These careerists in Washington whose lives are quite blessed better start doing their jobs in the beltway if they hope to retain their jobs. I say this as a gun owner and as someone who is fed up with a government that lets a lobbyist group call the shots.

While much of the anger at the protest was indeed geared to the NRA even more was being sent in the direction of stuck in the sand politicians, and if those in Congress and the Senate are paying any attention this time they’ll recognize that the voices aren’t going away after a couple of weeks.

So, as my daughter went up on my shoulders to take in the enormous crowd that she was smack dab in the middle of, and as Ed kindly held my hat and water, I thought, it’s good to be in Los Angeles today being part of something that might even end up making a difference in the world. We hope.

The future Academy Museum is slowly getting into shape at the corner of Fairfax and Wilshire. On the left you can see the dome coming into its full roundness. It will eventually be a huge theatre sure to offer steady red carpet screenings to the film elite and gridlock to the residents of the Miracle Mile. To the right is the museum proper currently an open-air eyesore as construction crews bang it into shape for its first visitors in a year or two. The Academy Museum will house thousands of props, movies and Hollywood lore from over a hundred-years of filmmaking and it will no doubt cost a bundle to visit…. unless you’re an invited A-lister, and I don’t know about you but I’m not.