Every Sunday Morning, a place where various things get thrown out, shot at, cut open, and dissected. Topics of interest: psychological, and medical anthropology, privatization, globalization, excess, language, humor, hip-hop culture, jazz, brain and mind, memory, urban space development, Los Angeles, the Chicago Bulls, UCLA Bruins, FC Barcelona, and mankind.
Think about that for a second: No images of the "model, ideal" body. No implicated racism, sexism, prejudices. No mindfucking, mindnumbing subliminals. All in the name of getting a few people rich.
“The Clean City Law came from a necessity to combat pollution … pollution of water, sound, air, and the visual. We decided that we should start combating pollution with the most conspicuous sector – visual pollution.”
"You couldn’t even realize the architecture of the old buildings, because all the buildings, all the houses were just covered with billboards and logos and propaganda. And there was no criteria.
I wonder how a town with no advertisements functions.
Apparently, it’s amazing...so far. They uncovered a lot of problems the city had that were never realized.
For example, from the article.
"there are some favelas, which are the shantytowns. I wrote a big story in my newspaper today that in a lot of parts of the city we never realized there was a big shantytown."
As per relevance to where I live, Los Angeles, I wonder what the effect of this outdoor ban has been on Sao Paulo's graffiti scene. Has graffiti activity slowed down or picked up?
Sao Paolo was apparently a graffiti center before this ban and still remains one. Check this set!
When you break it down, all graffiti is, is mostly advertising too, except much less controlled and funded. It's guerrilla message sending, which is all advertising is.
So the question would be: are people on an individual level less prone to make and send these guerrilla messages with an outdoor ban enacted?
Short answer looks like a maybe not. On internet inspection, perhaps not...but again, I'm writing about an interesting idea from a city I've never visited.
I ran across the video below on reverse graffiti in Sao Paolo.
This 2/14 Boston Globe spread on Sao Paolo Graffiti acts as if graffiti is still alive and well, least the good ones.
"Pixadores, as graffiti artists are called in São Paulo, find room for their art alongside city freeways, on the walls of abandoned warehouses, and even atop high-rise apartment buildings. While it's still common for police to prosecute pixadores for illegal graffiti writing, many artists now receive government commissions to display their work in public spaces."
Now the caption above is interesting for a few reasons relevant to LA.
First, they've found room for art along city freeways.
LA did too, but look at what happened to this mural over the course of 23 years.
Read about its fate here and here. The comments are very interesting.
What's interesting here is that apparently the Los Angeles kids mural could have been saved.
"The story that was not told, and the real travesty here, however, was that just a few years ago, the City of L.A. raised a huge amount of money to restore these murals, and paid the artists to do just that, and to APPLY AN ANTI GRAFFITI WAX COATING! As I understand it, all Caltrans had to do was melt off that wax to remove the graffiti, then recoat it for future protection! Not much more time, money or effort would have been required." - Brother of LA Kids Mural Artist, Glenna Boltuch
The quote above brings me to my second point. Sao Paolo seems to embrace its graffiti and murals. LA doesn't do that unless its that one Venice graffiti place or the Arts District.
I wonder...if we didn't look at graffiti as a problem, and perhaps actually weaved the graffiti into the fabric of the city ala Jane Jacobs' school of urbanism, perhaps there wouldn't be a graffiti problem. Perhaps if people other than the motherfucking LAPD, rich corporate and individual developers were heard, there wouldn't be so many unwieldy and random tags.
I guess the movie Crash is sort of useful in this sense...if people weren't so disconnected and impersonal, maybe there wouldn't be as much a need in the first place for a space to graffiti, a space to be seen and heard, a space where you can just 'crash' into so many people at once without actually doing it. Just maybe we'd have the makings of a community.
by B.J. on 2/07/2008 09:10:00 AM
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I'm slightly annoyed by this sentiment that anti-rent control people, namely proponents of Proposition 98 in California, often throw around like Eli Manning in the Super Bowl.
That simple sentiment is "rent control doesn't work."
YES on the Homeowners Protection Act (HPA), Proposition 99
NO to California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act (CPOFA), Proposition 98
I think it's critical to know the difference between the two eminent domain reforms that will be in California's June ballot.
The simplest act, Homeowners Protection Act, Proposition 99 is best and relatively straightforward. Vote Yes on it.
However, the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act, Proposition 98 is under the guise of eminent domain reform, but actually not...otherwise it would be the Homeowners Protection Act. Vote No on it.
With the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act (CPOFPA) Proposition 98, what they're trying to do is two main things:
1) Move towards the elimination of rent control and mobile home destruction.
2) Erode Environmental Protections for public water use.
Essentially what they try to do is capitalize on the hate for eminent domain going towards private development to say that: poor people are actually "private" entities and that the go
Before the actual initiative is introduced on their website this is was they say about private use:
"Private property may not be taken by eminent domain for private use under any circumstances (i.e. to build a shopping center, auto mall or industrial park)."
Focus on the word "private use."
They want you to think that this is all about protecting your house from being taken over by the government to be given to private developers.
In the actual document they are very smart to use the phrase "private use" only about twice in the entire document, but this is the key phrase.
"Private property may not be taken or damaged for private use."
And these are two key ways they define "private use"
"(ii) transfer of ownership, occupancy or use of private property or associated property rights to a public agency for the consumption of natural resources"
(iii) regulation of the ownership, occupancy or use of privately owned real property or associated property rights in order to transfer an economic benefit to one or more private persons at the expense of the property owner."
Just a use of the word "private use" already packs so much meaning for those with a hand in drafting the act, but such ambiguity to make it seem non-confrontational and thus appealing to an average voter.
The clause numbered "(ii)" is an attempt to make it difficult for government agencies to acquire land for public water projects such as reservioirs and other public water storage projects. Essentially, private property may not be taken or damaged so that public agencies can "consume" natural resources. "Consume" is another ambiguous word because that can encompass a lot of things.
This seems like the type of thing that will just open and strangle public water projects in litigation, all the while indirectly opening the market even wider for private companies "to come to the rescue" and start showing how efficient they are at privatizing water and profitting off your basic needs.
The clause numbered "(iii)" is the attempt to savage rent control and open mobile home projects.
Despite their compensations for being rent controlled properties, they're saying that the government putting regulations on how much they charge equates to the government basically using their property. No one told these people that they had to own land. It's not like these people with the power don't have a choice.
What this act is saying is that the government cannot regulate what property owners such as landlords and mobile park owners do in charging rent. If that were suddenly the case, it is likely that they'll work, jack and pump up those prices more than a 13-year old boy on summer vacation at home with a stack of material not meant for reading. All the folks who take on the lowly-paid jobs would be pushed the hell out of cities where the jobs are. Pushed out because there's no space to live anywhere.
At this point, if you're not sure about the act and it's always best to actually know what it is you're voting for, take a brief look at who else supports this act.
California Federation of Republican Women California Republican Party Riverside County Libertarian Party California Republican Taxpayers Association
Aren't these the groups that traditionally run against humanistic interests such as affordable housing and environmental protections?
Are these groups more tied with selfish, business and privatization interests?
Any tenants rights' organizations?
Any water agencies?
Are there any environmental groups you see?
According to California for Democracy:
"Wealthy apartment and mobile home park owners spent close to $2 million to qualify their deceptive rent control rollback proposition for the June 2008 ballot. The landlords are going to try to trick voters into believing their measure is about eminent domain."
They definitely paid people to make their bullshit hard to detect, so of course the language will all seem agreeable.
Everything that they write about seems to be good on the surface, but their game is, (and has been since some folks from Europa took land from indigenous people) about creating bullshit laws and finding loopholes to exploit till people take action to stop it, and/or till they can find more loopholes to create.
Are they going to come out and say "we seek the abolishment of rent control" or "we really don't give a shit about what we do to the environment just as long as we get money?"
It's not so much about what they do say, it's about what they don't say.
Los Angeles' Skid Row from Pras Perspective and the Society that Buries Useful Information
by B.J. on 1/25/2008 05:19:00 AM
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Pras from the Fugees finished a documentary last summer that highlights a very important issue. The documentary featured him living first-hand as an actual, walking, breathing homeless person in some of the roughest streets of LA (some say its as bad as Calcutta, whatever that looks like). He filmed with hidden cameras and crew for 9 days, sleeping on the sidewalk, panhandling, and assorted other homeless people stuff.
This is the sort of thing that piques my interest.
When I went to go watch it within 6 days of its stated limited release, it was fucking gone, probably due to lack of interest and uh...lack of marketing.
It really irks me that for issues like this aren't being heard at all. Instead, it's pretty sick that we pay lots of attention to utter bullshit. I don't give a shit if American Idol were canceled tomorrow. I wouldn't die crying knowing that I haven't seen anyone Dancing with the Stars. I shouldn't give a shit about NBA basketball, but I guess that's my form of alcohol.
Part of its on us, but then part of it is that marketers do quite the job...
The know how to saturate and engage, which is why most of them would probably be effective teachers. Teachers are basically just entertainment (least that's what my co-worker told me, and I think that's true too). Wish that talent would devote its time towards more worthy causes than choices of cereals, choices of cars, iPhones, credit cards.
Its sad that the information that would probably be more useful to know is buried underneath the tons of crap thrown at us. I'm glad that we have the internet (unless some corporation goes out and buy this too) to try and change that.
In this age of hyper-globalism and consumerism, with super-marketing (that is the taking over of television, radio, billboards, buildings, the built environment) with all our basic needs (relatively) fulfilled from water, food, shelter, heat, clean air, clean environment, electricity, its as if our only ultimate objective is...to find entertainment for ourselves. Can't we do something more? If we can learn to saturate ourselves with "useless" stuff, can't we learn to saturate ourselves with better, more useful information?
Can't we find a way to market information such as the number of people who die from water-related illnesses or information about the number of people living with electricity or the number of things we consume?
Can't we find a way to market this type of humanistic media, these movies about the human condition so it becomes THE thing to see?
"I experienced everything - panhandling, sleeping on the sidewalk, the rats trying to get into my tent, defecating, urinating on the sidewalk. Because you know when you're homeless, you can't go into restaurants and use the facilities.
So it was just actually seeing the reality. We have this misconception that oh yeah, people who are homeless are usually lazy or they're on drugs, and that's not actually the case at all. People who are chronically homeless - that means where they need assistance to get out of their situation - only make up about 20 percent of the homeless people (unintelligible). The rest are just regular people (unintelligible) just misfortunes."
Commenting on a scary experience he had during his "stay" at Skid Row
"One was when I think I was sleeping in the tent, it was raining real hard and the rats was coming in. I was, like, man, I need to get out of here. But see, what happened is - see, it's like we as human beings, we adapt, and I started to adapt to my environment. So then, like, on the fourth or fifth day I got comfortable and now I'm trying to figure out exactly how I'm going to maneuver.
So I forgot about going back to my other world. Because see, when you get trapped in that world, you've got to find the best way to make it fit for you, you know what I mean?"
They have interesting signs, the finest in chain-link, steel gate, barbed-wire architecture complete with Orwellian surveillance.
So great is the attraction that many people stay outside to be near its ambiance. Very often people get so caught up in the scene that they fall asleep outside!
Sometimes, they'll even pitch tents just so they can take it all in at once!
People courteously letting an exhausted wheelchaired architecture enthusiast have his sleep.
Oh the vanity of this man!
If you wanted to lie down in an open space park, the steel bars provide more than adequate support for your lower lumbar's needs! It would give you this...elevated feeling!
History is worth 1.5 Million dollars and this lucky family is afforded the opportunity to be near it!
Just like the Star Wars enthusiasts, only he's the first one there!
Oh boy, what will those creative souls in downtown LA think of next?
by B.J. on 11/10/2007 03:58:00 PM
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It's been quite a while since I last ran more than 10 miles.Today I wasn't going to be content just running the typical Sunset to West Hollywood usually through Beverly Hills and to UCLA, or Griffith Park Boulevard to Los Feliz through Glendale, or SilverLake to Fletcher through Eagle Rock route.
Those routes...too routine, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I won't ever be able to run a marathon in 2 hours and 9 minutes.
Instead, today I decided on going to downtown LA, and wherever else the road took me.
Started out gloomy and chilly enough by this Angeleno's Standards, which is why I handily wore my winter headband, which suckered me into believing that I was Rafa Marquez, the Barca defender and Mexican hero.
It was a day, a run where I saw how beautiful everything is...and how ugly things can get.
Ran across buildings that have been here since the emergence of LA as a big city 130 years ago.
Shook my head, mentally, with each and every luxury loft occupying tons of space, with the knowledge that Skid Row is literally a block away.
Ran across the Eastern entrance of FIDM. Wondered if the rich white females there would look at me, catch on to my Rafa Marquez headband. and call it the next big thing.
Visited a cool nonprofit that will and has served as my parking lot when I have to go to the Convention Center and/or Staples Center.
Had to see the old Alvarado terrace. There's a little strip of land, as part of Arnold's Parks act, that serves as a "park" with some authentic cobblestone roads. It's always interesting to see something that old.
Saw the old "S.Hoover Apartments" sign on this one building, that I always see when I drive down to this part of town. I can't make up my mind if the structure was built and the lettering was written around the 1890s or 1920s or somewhere in between or heck maybe even later.
Went through to Westmoreland, thinking how it was an enclave for LA's earliest elite, what they and their ancestors would think of it now.
Parused through the old high school. Or should I say "brand-spanking new" old high school. Seems like all anyone has to do to ruin things is burn down one general section of the school. No more street crossing to get to that building across the street, no more on-ground student center, no more sophomore lockers near Pinney.
One of the women I talked to said that it looks like a college campus. Yes, if you're a fan of the "institutional" look that Porter College at UC Santa Cruz sports, then you too might enjoy the new construction.
After that, I ran across some egregious examples of city planning on what was a route for the high school cross country team. The route stretches from Venice westward bound to La Brea. I never noticed how unwalkable it is. Jesus christ, or Councilperson build a fucking side walk!
In other news, "egregious" is rapidly emerging as one of my favorite vocabulary words to casually inject into normal conversation.I didn't realize how far La Brea actually was and could feel the urge to quit bearing down on me.
But I was so far from home that it would've probably taken a 4 hour walk to just to get back. So once I was up La Brea and crossing 1st street, I eventually gave in...5-6 miles to walk...and at a pace you can only expect after running more than 10 miles for the first time in months...without drinking any water, eating anything beforehand.
I'd have to walk up La Brea and wait for Santa Monica Boule to show up.
This is when the sun started to show up a bit more.
I wondered how and why the hell the surveyors measured La Brea heading West.
I saw orthodox Jewish people attending Saturday morning services. Kept wondering if they spoke English. Perhaps that's how some folks in Montana or South Dakota view Mexicans, Arabs, etc. Wondered if they had a myspace and if they would put a grainy self-taken picture of themselves in those suits. Wow, I am showing tons of ignorance, and I guess I know a bit of what it feels like to be one of those people mocking people of color.
Saw some nice graff work across La Brea.
Women with nice fat ischial collosities wearing pants to a point of tightness and you could see the outline of their little cloth (or possibly silk) coverings.
A frail-looking white homeless man offered to suck my dick.
Noticed a water shop on Santa Monica, and that they had dropped their prices for a gallon from 25 cents to 20 cents. Also noticed that Little Ceasar's was selling crazy bread for 2 bucks. Don't even know if the price has gone up or down, but pizza's only 5 bucks!
Saw a bunch of people in the Medical building where I used to go to the Dentist having some kind of conference breakfast or brunch. Still smelled pretty medical --- a strange enticing mixture of basementy and gassy.
Noticed that they've sandblasted a lot of graffiti in the spot leaning up against an Elementary school.
Along the way, I noticed a bunch of other things:
Lot of people working on a Saturday. Mostly the ice cream pushcart vendors, the fruit pushcart vendors, the day laborers at industrial buildings, the people making the comida at las restaurantes centroamericana, the ditch diggers, mass poster plastering. It's interesting how specialized a people we have become. We all do one thing at a time, hope to get paid well, and buy stuff. Yet, this might be changing given the way information is now sent.
I noticed that the areas had more space, the more West I went. Developers from the 1920s and 1930s at work?
I wondered if there were any straight houses in and around the Pico-Union, Alvarado terrace area. Pretty damn big for just families. This is probably something I could just find out by looking at a zoning map, but that can be a daunting task.
Saw private security guards telling homeless people to vacate the premises on several structures with lots of crap in it, usually with people who use paper to acquire the crap. Very popular around 99 cents stores and convenient stores in and around Hollywood, and soon, coming to a city near you!
Tagging is just through the roof nowadays. The Los Angeles mural painted by cache has a bunch of people trying to scratch on it already, and I think that was a pretty dope mural with some credibility, but some people obviously don't think so. Or perhaps Cache shouldn't dominate every damn wall I see in Echo Park and should integrate more folks in his work. I noticed on an affordable housing project, kids had already began tag-scratching it's doors. And that's been up for maybe only 2-3 years. A mural that is currently in work with a bunch of white people on it on is sure to suffer the same fate.
I built up a craving for sweet bread. Saw it first in Echo Park, saw it on Santa Monica, but nothing reasonably walkable, which sent me to thinking about the economic and demographic development of Silver Lake. Only the ever popular Pupusas, and Tacos...in restaurants allowed. No bakeries? One I see is a restaurant and some Filipino bakery.
I continue to be stunned at how people come here to be rebels or "different" and...shop, shop, shop...for furniture, vintage furniture, vintage clothing, shoes, gelatto, vegan crap, coffee. Shopping...the most undifferent thing you can do. The people in Silver Lake make me mad sometimes.
But all in all the day was pretty damn fun, more food for thought or perhaps a waste of time for some.
The road I took took me down Sunset to the borderline between Chinatown and downtown. From downtown to the Staples Center From the Staples Center to Loyola High school. From the high school to La Brea. And from La Brea to back home. It started out gloomy and chill and ended sunny and chilly. Ran through a mix of enclaves, with the businesses offered in English, Spanish, Korean, Armenian, Jewish, Tagalog. I thought about George Carlin's meme of how we've turned America into a mall. Thought about architecture, urban planning, race relations, personal relations, language, and the physiology of the brain.
In the words of Forrest Gump, I just felt like running.
But not without my Livestrong, Enriching Lives, Justice for Immigrants, and Serve the People wristbands.
Add me to your reading list.
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