For The Record…..

whatever-you-moron-posters

In regards to this whole Eastside vs. Westside discussion, I want to restate something that keeps getting ignored and lost in the scuffle. I have said this many times in the past, but I thought perhaps, this merits it’s own post. SOME people seem to need to have things plainly spelled out for them (and even then, ‘stan pendejos sometimes!). I shall repeat this for the LAST TIME. Speaking for myself, my point of view and belief is that…..

THIS IS NOT AN EASTSIDE CHICANOS vs. WHITE PEOPLE THING!

THIS IS NOT AN EASTSIDERS vs. WESTSIDERS THING!

THIS IS NOT AN EASTSIDERS vs. NEWBIES THING!

THIS IS AN EASTSIDERS vs. A FEW IGNORANT AND/OR INSENSITIVE SCHMUCKS THING!

…THE LAST TIME I CHECKED, I FOUND THAT ABOUT 90% OF WHITES AND WESTSIDERS (and even most NEWBIES) HERE IN L.A. ARE TOTALLY COOL HUMAN BEINGS WHO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ALL OF THIS!

I hope this provokes some of you to rethink your oversimplistic conclusions. As for the majority of you readers who do get it, Thanks! 🙂

This entry was posted in East Los, Eastside, gentrification, Greater Los Angeles, history, Pendejadas, Personal, Politica, Rant by AlDesmadre. Bookmark the permalink.

About AlDesmadre

Al Guerrero, Artist/Humorist. Los Angeles, CA. Born in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico and raised in East Los Angeles from the age of two, Al Guerrero grew up just steps from the famous Chicano strip, Whittier Boulevard. His youth experiences include witnessing and participating in the 1970 Chicano Power demonstrations, cruising cars on Whittier Boulevard, and graduating from Garfield High School. After dropping out of UCLA (with honors), he drew upon his lifelong passion for art and cartooning and pursued a career in graphic arts. During this period, he traveled overseas and found artistic inspiration from the masterworks he discovered within the European Art Museums. His career blossomed when he was eventually hired by the Walt Disney Company in 1995, where he worked as a creative artist for a number of years. Although the artistic work was rewarding, he eventually grew weary & disillusioned with the bureaucracy of the entertainment business, and left to work briefly in the educational field. His credits include producing a feature film with actor, Conrad Brooks of Ed Wood fame, founding and performing with the Punk Rock group “The Psychocats” at numerous L.A. & Hollywood venues during the 1990’s, and in 1999 he founded and created a hell-bent puppet cabaret show aptly named: “The Puppets from Hell”. As a long time active member of the Los Angeles Cacophony Society, Al “Quaeda”, as he was known, was involved in countless Cacophony Society pranks and events throughout the city. He also produced the “Incredibly Strange Cinema” cult film series as well as themed events such as the now infamous “Pornothon Movie Nights” and the satirical “Mexican Night: Noche De Tequila & Putas” shows at local nightclub venues. Throughout his art career, he has exhibited his canvas paintings at various local galleries, and has also written & illustrated numerous comic strips and Graphic Novel stories. Today, he lives in Silver Lake, California and works as a freelance artist and writer with numerous multi-media projects under his belt and in the works. His personal hobbies include collecting vintage toys and comic books, cinema history and Los Angeles City history. Contact: alguerrero@earthlink.net Al Guerrero P.O. Box 29697 Los Angeles, CA 90029-0697 www.alguerrero.com Myspace.com/thepuppetsfromhell

11 thoughts on “For The Record…..

  1. I have nothing definitive to add as to what is and is not eastside or westside but it seems to me there’s a huge middle chuck of the city that is simply neither eastside or westsdie. For instance, you’re never gonna convince me that, say, the corner of Melrose and Vine (or is it Rossmore?) can be called Westside.

    That’s all.

  2. I just want to know what the catchy nickname for Koreatown/the middle of LA is. Central LA just doesn’t roll off the tongue. I guess I will just keep saying Ktown until someone tells me something better.

  3. As I have often stated before, the area between City West, the westside of Downtown L.A., and Western Ave., is the western addition to the City. This is the parcel of land that the City bought as it extended westward beyond the borders of the original Pueblo. As such Western Ave. doesn’t mark the beginning of the westside of the City, as so many erroneously believe, but rather it was the demarcation line of the City’s western boundary.

    Therefore the area is part of the “Greater Westside”. It just happens to be the older westside or the eastern part of the Greater westside area. Not as modern looking as the far westside but still part of the same western region. That is the reason you have street signs indicating “west” as well as street names with the term “west” in them and why the original name of MacArthur Park was West Lake Park.

    In light of all this, the area could be called the eastside of the westside, the old westside, the Historic westside, West-Central L.A. or the Near Westside, as in near the City Center ie Downtown Los angeles. But in any event, one thing it is not is that it is not “Thee” Eastside. That designation belongs to the area of the City east of the river.

  4. I don’t care what they refer to the corner of Olympic and Normandie as or the area around Beverly and 3rd, or is it Brentwood or Pacific Palisades or Van Nuys or Valley Village. Real Estate Agents and People fixated on Real Estate Prices and Post Office Zip Codes can deal with that if they want.
    But one thing should be clear to all, historically and culturally the area east of the LA River is and has always been “The Eastside”.
    I think Maestro Desmadre has also done some precise (for the umpteenth time), clarification on this subject that should (but won’t unfortunately),slam the door on non issues in this regard.

  5. I always thought this was more of a 101st fighting keyboardists vs. windmills thing.

  6. “Any person who resorts to 5th grade name calling, can only be helped by trained professionals.”

    …Like when you called me a “Joto” in my last post? What school grade would that be? Let’s see, you try to insult me with a spanish slang equivalent to the word “fag”. OK genius philospher, you will certainly ingratiate yourself to the gay community with that one. I’m done with you. See u in Hell mijo.

  7. Call me a 5th grader all you will. The average 5th grader is smarter than most adults today, anyway. I mean, when you’ve got adults calling downtown LA the “east side”.

  8. I think joto is a 3rd or 4th grade word, for sure. That is when I learned it, and panocha, cochina, vergas, etc., etc. Whooee, elementary school was tough – cussing someone out in culturally appropriate language was hard.

  9. It doesn’t even have to be a vs. thing at all.

    It’s a positive declaration of self by a community. It’s only the attempt by those outside of the community to co-opt the community’s name that makes it a vs. issue.

  10. ubrayj, come on. You can’t call trolls out on being hypocrites. That’s the biggest butter knife in their arsenal. It’s like blaming a bird for shitting on your car. It’s just what they do. What about the guy who said I attacked Ms. G just for having differing views? I mean, I guess. She merely came here and accused Mexican-Americans on the East Side of being lazy whiners that could learn something from the gentrification transplants, and I had to jump all over her. How vile of me. Oh, and I’m from Sacramento. So there’s no way I could know more about LA than someone who’s just moved to a heavily secured fortress in a gentrified area of downtown 3 months ago. Never mind that I’ve been to LA at least a hundred times over the course of the last decade, attending school and even having lived there twice for two brief amounts of time, and am well are of the East Side and where it is. Just who do I think I am? LOL.

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