Just Some Recent LH Pics

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I miss not having the time to explore our beautiful Lincoln Heights. Some of my favorite times in this neighborhood have been while unemployed, being able to walk or peddle around all the different corners of our isolated part of the city. Step out your front door and the doldrums are banished. You can just stand on a corner and listen to people for awhile and it is mostly always interesting. Certainly better discussions than the insipid conversations I overhear downtown, usually lawyers talking about cases, older suburbanites discussing consumer strategies, while the young offspring of those same communities yap endlessly about pathetic personal melodrama, but loud enough so as to try and inspire sympathy from everyone around them. We just hate you more.

Coming home is a relief. I don’t have any particular story to tell this time around, just thought I’d share a few recent pics of the lovely place I call my neighborhood. Enjoy!

First up, a pic of the yearly “comida de cuaresma” sign they put up at Martita’s. Looks like a few items are off the menu this time around.

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Posted in Fotos, Gente, Lincoln Heights, Shit I love, This Chicano Life | 1 Comment

Hollywood Mexican

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The image becomes the real.

We live in a spectacular society, that is, our whole life is surrounded by an immense accumulation of spectacles. Things that were once directly lived are now lived by proxy. Once an experience is taken out of the real world it becomes a commodity. As a commodity the spectacular is developed to the detriment of the real. It becomes a substitute for experience.

Images and Everyday LifeLarry Law

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Posted in Analysis, commodities, Fotos, Greater Los Angeles, La Comida, Pendejadas, Shit I hate, This Chicano Life | 2 Comments

New Beginnings

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I mentioned the Dollar Tree was coming. It has arrived.

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LH is Holding Strong: Dollar Tree is Coming!

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I’ve been dreading the gentrification push on N. Broadway for some time now but I think we are safe for the time being. (Back in December I mentioned the arrival of a new discount store called 99, seems they’ve already been hit with the cease and desist letters cuz they’ve gone and removed all their canopies with the blue 99 logos.) The capital interest is elsewhere, for now. There was an art gallery/living space for a second by the Pollo Loco, I think it is still there but their gentrification influence seems to have been neutered. That one midnight gallery went somewhere better, phew! Even though lots of new people with big dogs and more money than the rest are moving into the neighborhood, it is good to see that the commercial heart of Lincoln Heights has not yet been infected by the virus of expensive boutiques or luxury amenities for the few.

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Ramon the Latin Lover

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Anywhere you go. Continue reading

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New Year’s Eve 2013 in El Centro

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Everything Los Angeles touches turns to shit. That phrase came out of my mouth at least twice on New Year’s Eve at the Grand Park event, possibly more but I can’t remember. Of course, it was in reference to local leaders trying to create something new in Downtown LA, a place to ring in the new year with a bunch of other people that don’t know where else to go. I bet they are shocked that so many people actually showed up. I am.

But that’s a bit harsh, I should rephrase that to something like “Every attempt by Los Angeles to use public space for social needs turns to shit”, but it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. The supposed draw was some video projections on city hall, something to give the city “WOW”. Look at the pic above, multi-colored fake palm trees projected in the vicinity of recently planted ones. This would be a perfect moment to insert a political diatribe about the spectacle but I’ll refrain considering we were in the midst of the holidays. Enjoy that present of nothing.

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Posted in Analysis, El Centro, Fotos, Gente | 3 Comments