Image from lolgrims.com
There might be much for which to be thankful, but there are many more examples of things that need fixing. In any case, hope you’re all having a good tofu turkey day with your friends and family.
I’ve been meaning to mention the series of Eastside posts I’ve been doing over at blogging.la and I’m finally getting around to it. It’s kinda weird to explain it to the people I know, or those that grew up on the Eastside, but there is now a faction of the city that calls the neighborhoods of Echo Park and Silverlake the “eastside”, since they base the geographical center of the city somewhere closer to the beach communities rather than Downtown. Anything east of that is therefore now “the eastside.” Part of me says I shouldn’t care as much as I do, but the other half sez fuck those putos and their flippant rewrites of history.
I grew up in Boyle Heights, a part of the Eastside that is still in LA city proper and not part of East Los. There is nothing cool about being from the Eastside, it’s just a place crammed with overhead freeways, lacking public space, and needing much to make it habitable. But it very much placed you, it was a way for others to understand literally where you come from, and maybe even what to expect. But now, with these bullshit “fluid” demarcations that mean nothing and are being imposed by people that are just passing thru the city, the term Eastside is being used to differentiate between cretins that stay on one side or the other of La Brea/ La Cienega, as if anyone cares how hipsters try to define themselves separately from their parents. It should be noted, for those that aren’t from LA, that the Eastside has been the Mexican part of town. The new fake “eastside” is being used to demarcate the subtle differences between the same social classes of a mostly gabacho heritage, (on the historical westside) and whether one can tolerate a bit of sand in the communal potato salad. It’s a complete disconnect from the actual meaning of Eastside, given meaning only by those that want to differentiate themselves from their fellow westsiders.
Being from LA doesn’t give one much to cling onto. East Coasters tell me my region has no seasons. Frisco-eans say my hometown is full of plastic people. And LA people say the place I call home is a ghetto. Hmm. Fuck the lot of you. I know where I’m from. I know my neighborhood. Just because others are confused about the “eastside” doesn’t mean we are. I hope other Eastsiders take on the task of challenging those that thoughtlessly deny us our history. (Maybe the Rough Rider Blog can garner some recruits for the cause!) We have nothing to lose but our blogging minutes. Eastside: Presente!
Click here to see all the Eastside 101 posts on a google map.
In a time when most kids think they need the latest video game to stave off the boredom, it was refreshing to see how much joy these two little boys got out of a small piece of rope, using it to drag each other around. I didn’t take a video clip, but they were non-stop laughter. A random event that happened as I waited for someone. Click ahead for some action shots!
Coming up next, a small collection of nicely painted advert items from my trip to the Motherland. I really liked the colorful walls everywhere and the clutteriness of text and images to showcase what is to be had inside. It’s better than having to remember what a store sells based on their obscure name ala CVS and Big Lots! Above you see a poor rat picking up his bindlestick to make his departure from some locale visited by Fumigaciones de Oaxaca, lest the thought of death catch up to him. Continue reading
Pachuco 3000 has an interesting post about feeling a bit burned out with Dia de Muertos, wondering if the practice here is “fading away and being replaced more with trinket collecting and sales.” Certainly commercialization is taking place, that’s the sad fact of all cultural practice today. Or as Mr. Jalopy aptly put it: “Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate.” (He was referring to car culture but damned if that isn’t the most succinct expression of what the market does to all human experience.) That might explain this well intentioned but not well defined connection between Dia de Muertos and “Erotica.” So it goes. It doesn’t help that the practice in LA is becoming the exclusive domain of art galleries and professionals when it should primarily be about the personal and familial.
I just got back from an inspiring trip to Mexico, where I got to see a bunch of altars, from the elaborate to the threadbare. I do like the fancy ones, they’re very pretty, but I enjoyed the simpler ones the most. Click ahead for a mini-tour.
Someone should really write a paper analyzing the plight of the poor pigeon. No, I don’t mean pigeons in general, I’m referring to those that choose or are forced to live in relatively poor neighborhoods, they’re a bit different than the middle class pigeons you see up above. Look at the cocky bastards, all healthy looking and semi-disinterested in the fancy birdseed someone left for them at the Downtown Library, they almost seem selective about the stuff they eat. I remember when the Downtown pigeons were the scrawniest and greasiest vermin with wings, they’d eat anything you threw at them. Maybe they were pushed out by these gentrifying birdseed gourmands. In Lincoln Heights, the birds are still mostly working class, and they eat what we eat. Click ahead to check out LH pigeon food!
My recent posts at LA Eastside.com
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