Mr. Tony Ilao, Man This Is For You

by B.J. on 10/11/2008 09:15:00 PM 0 comments Print this post

Man, life is way too short to deal with BS.

Anthony, if you ever read this, man, this is for you too, man.

We just moved out of Silver Lake to Panorama City only a few weeks ago. The man was sick, and we weren't supposed to make too much noise. We lived next door, but we also lived upstairs.

The last time I remember seeing him and interacting with him was when they got TFC. The Filipino Channel. He was crazy excited, I could feel, and I wouldn't get in his way.

It was slightly annoying whenever he'd asked me if I was moving our car on Saturday or Sunday mornings or street cleaning days. It meant that he was just going to take my parking space and I'd have to stay out of the house until the late afternoon. Fucking hipsters and street cleaning days.

But, the man, was a good man. Mr. Ilao was a good man, or at least a good memory for me in Silver Lake.

He was always by his red Chevy van, cigarette in mouth, whether in a pair of shorts or his security guard uniform. When Anthony was heading out to the Navy, he proudly slapped on the back window of that red van a bumper sticker "Proud Parent of a Sailor."

He offered me advice on where I should upkeep my car. He'd ask me if I was going "jogging," I guess he knew that I was participating in the marathon. He'd always tell Mercy to keep quiet when she kept barking at me. This past Christmas I remember him grilling chicken and offered it to us. Best fuckin' chicken I had that Christmas.

Well, I hope you've got all the Filipino Channel you could handle up there.

Labels:

 

Read Entire Post...





10 Things I Hate/Love About my Block in Silver Lake

by B.J. on 12/02/2007 12:41:00 AM 1 comments Print this post

Let me get the hate all over with.

10. My landlord's dog. I hate dogs. They're all over Silver Lake. Fuck em. I especially don't like the K9 pee reservoir called the Dog Park over at Silver Lake Park.

9. I am not sure, but how sustainable our all these novelty shops like the gelatto, shoe, and furniture shops especially given that a few of them have multiple locations? I don't think the adverb "very" would precede "sustainable" but I guess we'll see.

What we need is sweet bread shops, book places, Dippin Dots stands, Mobile vendor co-ops, and progressive cause organizations.

8. Sunset Junction and parking. Parking in general is bad (see #5), but this event takes the cake in terms of annoyingness that it deserves its own special mention.

Being a special event, I don't even know who to get mad at with that, anymore cause it's such a big event. But I do know that I'm basically chained at the hip to the 'partamento the weekend this happens.

For those of us who park on the street, our mobility is pretty limited. For one, mass transit only goes one way and doesn't even really lead to Central downtown.

What's more is that we don't even get any free pass to the event.

7. The 30 degree incline. I will never understand why people feel the need to rev up their engines even harder when they reach it.

Especially a certain stupidass motorocyclist who would rev up his engine just to get over it in 6.3 seconds instead of 6.8. I hope someone will have the sense to drop a flying kick on him while he's at full speed on his motorcycle. Or to be safer, when he's just walking to his house and walking his dog. Either way, it's the end results that count.

Anyway, I also hate parking up the steepest grade of this incline (see annoyances 5 and 6), especially when my home is at the very bottom.

6. Parking on Saturday, Sunday mornings.

I hate Madame Matisse and Millies Coffee. I almost shat myself with excitement when it got tagged up (see positives to Silver Lake #2).

What makes this problem worse is that the 99 Cents store is pretty anal about its parking. They post up tons of We-will-Tow-Away-your-car-at-all-costs-signs-even-if-there-is-usually-a-70% vacancy rate in our parking lot.

Those signs are right up there next to the just-as-ubiquitous we-don't-give-a-flying, contorting,-or-spinning-fuck-about-the-neighborhood signs.

5. Parking on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, especially next to Madame Matisse and Tantra and all those other hipster hangouts.

God do I hate trash day the most. A lot of perfectly good space being eaten up by random utility trucks and rolling trash bins.



4. Bellevue Rec Center posting no soccer signs basically everywhere without really having explained why. They strategically planted boulders around grassy areas to ensure that kids who break the rules face stiff penalties.

Use the open space however you want. It will just go against the 10 commandments of Park management to kick a ball around the area even though the picnic tables are hardly ever in use.

Another beef with the Rec Center is that out of sheer laziness, they cut their lights out at about 6:30.

3. People who use the place as its "playground" on Friday-Saturday nights, making me park uphill. God, I hate these people. I'm just a crosshair...here...waiting to smash your goddamn Beamer like I was Jack from Hook in that room full of clock.

2. Silver Lake Neighborhood Council representation...last time I went I just saw a lot of residents who probably weren't there when we first moved in from Chicago in 1989. I don't think I've seen a lot of Central American and non-gringo resident representation. We might live together, but I don't imagine us being chums or anything.

1. Gentrifiers beg at about the lower leg?

Well, rent is always getting higher. My parents are always complaining that the landlords are jacking up the price.

I wish I'd a known what the hell was up with those Live/Work condos down the street. Selling only for $700,000 a piece!

I don't know the business aspects and internal politico-economy of Silver Lake, but I have to wonder when I see stuff like the 98 cent store (not the corporate 99 cents stores) MC Computers, and a Cleaners shop go out in favor of some vegan eateries, comic book shops, the 34734279438 cafe within the area, and a gelatto shop.

I think it was the LA Weekly that noted how the emergence of gelatto shops in a neighborhod near you was a signal that your neighborhood would be gentrifying too.

I like talking lots of smacks, but I'm an optimist, and I always like to finish on the good.

10. Even though I do get mad at the trendies, the young whatevers (I can't call them young professionals 'cause I hardly ever see anyone walk out with a briefcase or anything) gentrifying, it's nice that they bring an element of multiculturalism and integratedness. But it's only a start because there's still a degree of separation.

9. 99 Cents store. The headquarters of Halloween, Christmas, Easter, we are told.

8. Open space to be opened at the Reservoir. Hopefully with enough leverage from the Committee to Save Silver Lake's Reservoirs.

7. Sunset Junction...bringing the music across the street from me. It's not quite that bad.

6. The 30 degree incline. Has a way of telling you who can park and who can't. Has a way of telling you who can run and who can't.

Of course I've only seen one other person run up it, and it seemed like he was inhaling asbestos after it.

5. The long-haired toothless, crutch-carrying white Bum in front of the 99 cents store who comes every morning from 7-10 and waves at me while I go running. That guy is hip-hop. You will probably never read this and I've never said more than one line to you but, this blog is for you.

4. Bellevue Rec Center track and basketball court. Just being there and actually being maintained is actually good enough.

3. Ground zero for some political rallies. I've witnessed a Kerry rally, a student immigrants march, and some antiwar rallies. This may be on the way out though...we shall see.

2. Graffing and tagging baby. Bombing a super lame ass Gentrifiers mural painted with a brush of dumbass next to you!



Blaow, I weigh one hundred and four-ty pounds...

Actually, on the other hand the one that feels, I do feel bad for the artists who spend time working on something, only to have it hacked up as quickly as it is.

I also feel kinda bad for the Elliot Smith memorial.

But understand that the claiming of open space in this form is really a battle from and for the young folks who in all likelihood probably don't have the privileges the artists have. It helps to keep the place grounded and hopefully opens the door for dialogue.

1. Location. It's next to the history of Echo Park and Historic Filipinotown.

Labels: , ,

 

Read Entire Post...





What I Saw on This Saturday Morning Run

by B.J. on 11/10/2007 03:58:00 PM 0 comments Print this post

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 Silver Lake 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.


Labels: , , , , , , ,

 

Read Entire Post...





Protest! Before the November Election, Silver Lake Style

by B.J. on 1/22/2005 10:58:00 AM 0 comments Print this post

Protest !

Before the November Election in Silver Lake



Would probably be funny if you knew these people.





Elitist Bush supporters. Bastards. Die.


Inauguration Night in Westwood

Bush Parodies



Bush being walked like a dog.



Bush the killer.

I tend to agree with Bush being walked like a dog.

CATCHY POSTERS







Don't support our troops. . .







Expresses my sentiments exactly.

TRUTHFUL COMMENTS









I wonder if a draft is going to be installed. I doubt it, but it is a legitimate concern.



Interesting comment here: Stop the criminalization of dissent. It's aimed towards hammer-headed conservatives and/or Republicans who always call those who don't agree with them "commie criminals" or some other platitude.

But in all these rallies/protests I could see how people in the mainstream, moderates, and apathetics don't like protestors.

I will say that I don't agree with how protestors go about things and that I don't feel like I quite fit in with them. I agree with a lot of what they said, but I honestly don't know what the protesting and being seen would do.

It's expressing anger yeah, but it's not going to stop anything. I don't know what they're trying to accomplish. Maybe they're trying to be seen ? Yeah ? Yeah.

If they're trying to be seen, the image they show was them being all about rebelling and protesting with the punks, the hippies, the emos coming out in full force. Protesting is fine but I believe folks being all about protest in everything they do including style is not going to convince anyone because it's just too different from society. All that difference is too tough to accept all at once for regular folks.

But at any rate, I share these protestors' sentiments on these issues. And of course it's not just us.

The world, and not just the rabidly Anti-American, agrees with their and my opinion that Bush shouldn't be in office and that there are some things in the US of A that could be changed.

Here are some graphics from BBC.com.

Interesting to see who supports the US the most. But that's another post some day. I posted on BBB.net about that --- check my bbb.net posts on the side.








Labels: , ,

 

Read Entire Post...





by B.J. on 8/25/2003 12:09:00 AM Print this post

Open Letter To Sleeker

Hey Sleek !

I was so slick today and built my connections a thousand fold ! Actually no, I just built on the skills that would build connections a thousand fold. One skill being. . .slick. I slicked my way into the Sunset Junction Fair 2 days in a row for free, saving me a grand total of 14 bucks.

My strategy on the first day was to find an opening and cut through it. It was successful. I even wandered through what I thought was another free entrance/exit before a security lady returned to her post and asked me when I wandered back in the 10 seconds I was outside about the stamp on my wrist that I was supposed to get upon entry. I kept pounding away about how I was there before, and before long, she budged and ushered me back. On the second day, the festival organizers got smart and put up security at that previously-open opening. So I waited on that second day for 1 hour before the security who had been watching me sympathetically let me in for free. In these two days, I not only learned the skill of slickness, but I also learned the skills of patience and persistence.

It was quite a steal on the second day as I got to see classics such as the former ladies of the Supremes minus Diana Ross and the deep tones of Sir Isaac Hayes. Even though I did not really get to see the Supremes up close, I got to see Isaac real close.





Being so up close literally a few feet from my home, him looking straight at my camera, and getting into the party for free makes me think that I'm tight like that with Isaac Hayes. I wonder if he's on Friendster.

However, the downside to all this excitment was that most of the paraders were littering in and out of the festival with beer bottles and crap. Environmental prejudiced bastards. I would not mind cutting connections with these humdrum suburban LAers. One sniveling and dwaddling fat dude in particular made me want to regulate, but I forgot my Oakland style bat. And the police were standing not too far away, but I'm just sayin'.

Whatever. Punks.

So all in all, my connection skills grew a thousandfold in the last two days thanks to the Sunset Junction Fair. Slickness. Patience. Persistence. Say it with meh now !

Labels: ,

 

Read Entire Post...





by B.J. on 8/10/2003 08:02:00 AM 0 comments Print this post

Silver Lake Represent !

Geeze, Silver Lake's more than just a bunch of gay guys. There's plenty of cool murals here that I've never really noticed.
However, some of these might be outdated and graffitied over because that link above seems a bit old (1995ish ?)

Well, here are some of the murals from the Silver Lake area in LA:


(Normandie and Fountain)


(Normandie and Fountain)


(Sunset and Sanborn)


(Sunset and Sanborn)

Just thought I'd share the culture for everyone out there !

Labels:

 

Read Entire Post...





by B.J. on 8/26/2002 08:45:00 AM 0 comments Print this post

[Edited on 11/07/03. See how I reacted to this festival a year later]

Bitching About Parking Thanks to that Damn Gay Festival

Holla if you've seen Venice Beach ! The real Heart of LA ! Crowded and hard to park, eh ?

Same label of "heart of LA" applies to that damn Sunset Junction mess also known as "Gay Festival" in front of my street yestrday.

They really should have strict parking standards like permits only for fucking residents only here because it's a bitch trying to find any especially yestrday and any weekend afternoon. The kicker is that in white "residential" areas, there are ridiculous parking restrictions like no parking at all after 6 PM, 2-hour-limit, etc. when the street is as empty as a Clippers game, which is how those retard overweight, donut-eating, with black glasses thicker than J-Lo's ass, rent-a-cops named Warren have earned their nuts and beans by placing tickets on unfortunate motherfucks like myself who didn't take the time to read their 20 signs regarding the parking there. Punk mothafuckaz (American History X Black guy voice --- like the Respected One, Mary, Partner, and the Weasel would know). Dude, those white "residential" areas, have 2-story houses with real backyards and garages neatly and carefully organized, complete with a set of 4 white people packaged neatly in each house, while my hood consists of like 15 straight apartments jumbled up a fucking hill and gays, Mexicans, and Flips stuffed in bunches like Elton John's night before. The only perk is that I get to stay out late. But then they can get me on curfew.

Labels: ,

 

Read Entire Post...




Home Page