Apparently the creepy consumer addict greenies over at your daily thread didn’t get the memo that the Eastside is EAST of the LA River.
Maybe they were meditating.
Browne Molyneux
H/T Franklin Avenue
LA EASTSIDE
Life Beyond The River
Apparently the creepy consumer addict greenies over at your daily thread didn’t get the memo that the Eastside is EAST of the LA River.
Maybe they were meditating.
Browne Molyneux
H/T Franklin Avenue
It seems that our Eastside Green Guide has stirred up a bit of a boundary dispute–which certainly was not the intended point of the guide. While we have chosen to highlight the neighborhoods of Echo Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Atwater village in our guide–we did not do it to ruffle feathers–rather just to focus on a small enough area to allow us to get some good detail. We were not away of the neighborhood dispute before the publication of our guide–and are currently in the process of renaming it appropriately.
While there are those who have commented that they do not believe these neighborhoods belong in the East side–others would disagree (which is were part of our confusion came from) so it seems that since the East side is not a specifically zoned area (like East LA for example), and neighbors continuely evolve the debate will continue.
If you want to know more there was a great opinion piece in the LA Times and alot of the reader comments were interesting and insightful. You can read more at http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2009/05/east-los-is-east-and-silver-lake-isnt.html
We do hope though that the true purpose of the guide is not lost–that is to highlight the local businesses–(not excessive consumerism), non-profits and community organizations in these neighborhoods that are doing their part to make the environment a better place.
Your guide is about business. You should call it the more thoughtful shopping guide or the keep it local shopping guide, it’s not a green guide unless you think green means money.
It could be called the keeping local la shopping guide. That would have been cute and more honest and not so dismissive of a community that already exists.
As a person who cares a great deal about the destruction of the planet I find blogs such as yours a bit troubling. I find it troubling that there is so much emphasis on shopping. 95% of that guide is about spending money.
Consumerism is the reason our planet is dying. Consumerism is the reason we have so much stuff.
To continue to encourage it and call it green it sort of says you can buy your way to green. You can’t buy your way to green. We can’t purchase our way to saving the planet.
And also what about showing respect for people. And while I understand you weren’t aware, but why not? How insular is your circle that no one said or knew or felt comfortable enough to say, “Hey there is a community of people who live in a place called the Eastside and it’s not located there.”
That right there is very problematic.
It just shows a lack of diversity among your circle and it just points to why the environmental movement co-opted with the business minded greenies is going to fail, because Wal-Mart and Rupert Murdoch can do the same thing your organization is doing.
Browne
“so it seems that since the East side is not a specifically zoned area…”
The Los Angeles River is a pretty good geographic boundary and historically has been the undisputed marker for the Eastside.
Thanks for the link to the LA Times Eastside article, a few LA Eastside writers helped contribute to that piece and we also covered it here on this blog.
If you want to know more about the Eastside, it’s history culture and people, I suggest you read through the archives. Please also let the folks who gave you the wrong information know too!
I’d been meaning to mention this for some time. Will over at [sic] has a good write up about it as well, and it’s cool to see other people that live in Silver Lake stand up against this foolish renaming of hoods.
But equally as offensive is the coupling of “green” with consumerism. Maybe someone can bring back those “shop til you drop” stickers and replace them with “shop til you feel good about saving the environment”. Hmm, or maybe something catchier.
http://www.wildbell.com/2009/10/06/yet-another-flubber-bullet-fired-in-the-never-ending-battle-over-l-a-s-fictitious-eastside/
Tracy, while I applaud your effort and work to bring people a guide as to where to purchase green goods in the Echo Park, Los Feliz, Silverlake areas, I’m going to have to be dismissive as far as your incredulous alibi of ignorance and claim that the LA Eastside neighborhoods do not have specific zip codes.
It’s very simple to envision and locate the LA Eastside, hundreds of thousands of people for generations have done so, despite being quasi-invisible and denigrated by other citizens from West of the Eastside as Mexican gangsters, illegal aliens, and uncultured heathens to be feared and avoided except as a pool for cheap labor or easy marks when their homes and land were needed for some forced urban renewal public works project like freeway building or gov’t building projects.
The LA Eastside is the area East of Downtown or the LA River inside the City of Los Angeles and the LA County area called East Los Angeles.
Got It?
The 4300 block of West Sunset Blvd (home of GROWkidsGrow), is not on the LA Eastside despite all attempts at economic or egoistic gerrymandering.
Thx for the comments. Being that we featured green living workshops, free composting classes, the community clinic, the EP Time Bank, volunteer options etc,I don\’t feel that calling it a Shopping/Business Guide would have been appropriate either–as it does encompass more than that–As I said previously we\’re in the process of renaming the guide to be more specific and appropriate.
I’m sorry that you find our site troubling–yes our guide does feature business where you would spend money, but again these are the businesses that we want to see succeed if we want our planet to thrive. Businesses that are small, local, hire directly from the community and give a damn about the impact they have on the environment and the local community they\’re involved in. Businesses that go out of their way to source, local, organic, be chemical free, recycle. We need these types of businesses we NEED to succeed in order to change the way that business is currently done so that our world can be sustainable. To me that is not \”buying your way green\” but rather, offering an alternative–if you are in fact going to shop, go out to eat, buy clothes etc–why not support these options that are better for you the community and planet.
I too feel that consumerism is a big problem for the planet, especially when you consider all of the waste and pollution, etc and I struggle with it daily as a writer and editor on our site. We consciously make an effort to not be product pushers, rather focus on local events, DIY, useful information and tips, but yes we will also feature businesses and products that we believe are making a stance and showing that you can do business and respect the environment–
I\’m sorry you feel that business minded greenies are doomed to fail–I believe if we cannot successful incorporate environmental awareness into both our personal lifestyles but as well into the business/corporate bodies we probably will not succeed long term. Businesses are such great producers of pollution, we need them to change and to truly become green. I\’m not saying that the Wal-Marts of the world are doing a great job by any stretch of the imagination–they have a LONG way to go, but hell one good thing they\’re doing is getting organic milk/dairy into stores and to their consumers–and now millions of people who were not exposed to organic products before now have access to it. It\’s a small step at this point, but hopefully it will ripple into bigger and better things. Unfortunately at this point the Wal-Marts of the world are not going away so we need to encourage and demand that they get better and better–we do this buy showing a demand as consumers for green/organic products and practices for their business. While I might not shop or support Wal-Mart, I still want them to be environmentally conscious.
In regards to the naming of the guide–as I mentioned before we\’re renaming it and waiting on the new visuals to be uploaded. I personally apologize to anyone that was offended by this error on our behalf as it truly was not intended to offend. I would not chalk this up to a lack of diversity in my circle, rather ignorance of the issue. Having been born and raised in LA, I probably have the least amount of excuse for being mis-informed, but I\’m human and I error. Now I am informed as is my staff and we will not spread the wrong information anymore. I will certainly be perusing your archives to learn more about the East Side too.
Tracy
Thanks Don! Believe me now I truly know the boundary–and will not error again.
Naming debate aside (cuz it really aint a debate, the answer is obvious), another one of these synergistic ass-kissy eco-sustainable-design boutiquey bullshit websites (or is it event planning or business consulting too?) ? I miss the days when kids with means who didn’t want to get a job after college and their trip around the world, just made shitty art, started bands, made zines, threw shows, etc. instead of acting like they’re saving the world cuz they threw some lame networking event sponsored by a free trade vodka and wrote a blog post about a community garden.
“fair trade” not “free trade”…maybe I should be reading more of these “green” sites that are popping up everywhere.
Tracy,
Ignorance is caused by a lack of diversity. A lack of diversity in your education and who you interact with. Your guide has about 44 businesses more than 75% of those has to do with spending money on a products or at an eatery. I’m actually being very generous with the other 25%, because 25 dollar workshops…And also you have a guy who gets paid money to do solar power installation writing “editorial” articles on solar power installation with his link. That whole thing is a shopping guide. You have a internet version of an adwell, again there is nothing wrong with this, but this is what you have.
Now there is nothing wrong with having a shopping guide, as I said it could be called the keep it local shopping guide, but to call it the green guide when 75% of that guide is about shopping isn’t in my opinion being truthful.
Shopping isn’t all there is to being green and your site implies that. Your site implies if you buy the right product you can be green and it’s not the truth. In traditional media the split between editorial and ads was 60% editorial to 40% ads and to me if a green media vehicle can’t even do that it says something very wrong about the green movement.
Browne
You grew up in L.A. and did not know what the Eastside was……you had not heard about this debate until now…..? You must live quite the sheltered life….
This debate has existed for 4/5 years or so when idiot hipsters started calling Silverlake, Echo Park, Atwater etc……”the Eastside”….some jackasses even try and lump Los Feliz in with it……
You wouldn’t last a week in the real Eastside.
“While there are those who have commented that they do not believe these neighborhoods belong in the East side–others would disagree”
“Others” meaning the people that live in Silverlake, Echo Park, Los Feliz, and Atwater, and want to feel different and special.
tracy don’t bother to try and explain yourself or apologize people here are not interested in settling things more in attacking things not eastside or what they deem not eastside. i am sure they have already labelled you a hipster.
I find it interesting that west side hipsters will call their area the “east side”, yet never do they call it “east LA”. However, “west LA” is often used. They obviously know of the real “east side” because they make the cognitive effort to distance themselves from it. That’s why I love it when they say they never knew there was a community east of the river that took pride in calling themselves the east side. East Los Angeles, while unincorporated, is also on maps. Surely they took a gander at a map before moving out here. And those of them 30 and over have no excuse because Cheech’s “Born in East LA” was a national hit.
Tracy, I’m happy to hear you’ll be changing the name of your guide. Other folks, haven’t been as reasonable as you have and I’m encouraged by the way you’re handling the situation. It’s appreciated.
The thing is, I know there are probably lots of folks using the term Eastside for Silver Lake/EP not knowing there is a whole other half of the city and millions of other people who let them know they are using the term incorrectly. I realize they are not doing it to be insensitive to our cultural heritage. They simply do not know because the media image of Los Angeles has never gazed our way and when it has, it gets things wrong.
Historically we’ve been ignored and dismissed on this side of town due to our class and race and that’s why newcomers or people who grew up in the wealthier, whiter side of town don’t know about us. That’s really sad and says a lot about how segregated our city is.
assumptions abound. i love how people think they know other people because they’ve heard like two things about them on the internet. “you’re circle isn’t diverse enough”. do you know that or are you just assuming a bunch of shit based on very little. do make assumptions like that in your articles? seems dumb to me. i usually like laeastide but this just seems like catfight bullshit to me.
where do you spend your money? at a local place that helps the local economy? or at some chain?
spend money in your own hood, it’s good for it, really. this girl didn’t know some pretty basic shit but some people are showing their ass.
Tracy,
You grew up in LA. I can’t begin to explain to you how horrible Wal Mart is if you live in a little rural town. Imagine if you will a small town with local businesses, a butcher, a baker a candle stick maker and imagine a big store coming in and undercutting their prices.
One by one those business people go out of business and have to work for Wal Mart. The whole town has to work for Wal Mart for substandard wages and work as pretty much indentured servants, because that’s the only place to work in town. They aren’t provided with health insurance and can no longer afford to purchase any, so they just have to take aspirin when things go wrong.
If you think that’s ok to put up with so you can get some organic milk then we have very different ways of seeing the world.
I’m not trying to actually convince you of anything. You’ll do what you need to do, to play nice and to sell things and that’s fine. That’s what you do. That’s what smart people who like to take the new hot thing and package it just right do. My comments are not about you Tracey.
My message is to other people who don’t know yet to give them a heads up on what green washing is and what it looks like and to let them know if they aren’t sure, “Is this green?” I’m writing to let them know this isn’t green, at least not my version of it.
You don’t have to buy anything to be green. You don’t have to spend more money, you can just use less stuff. You can just drive less, you can just stop driving, you can just be considerate of your neighbor. Be aware of the world around you, get when you buy things the wastes it creates. Understand even the simple act of watching TV and movies subconsciously is trying to sell you a lifestyle. The best way to be green in my opinion is to be anti-consumerism and in this economy that’s going to be pretty easy.
To me your model will be very easy for a bigger more corporate entity to buy from you or take from you or copy from you so they can green wash on a massive scale, that’s my problem with media vehicles like ydt. It’s too consumerist friendly.
Browne
“To speak of “limits to growth” under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be “persuaded” to limit growth than a human being can be “persuaded” to stop breathing. Attempts to “green” capitalism, to make it “ecological”, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.” -Murray Bookchin
Alex,
My point is that green isn’t about shopping and it’s become about shopping. 90% of green blogs are about shopping or restaurants. How did that happen? Now there is a way to be a kinder consumer or a more ethical shopper, but being green isn’t about ONLY shopping.
Business people have stolen the green label to sell things, it doesn’t even mean green anymore. Walmart owing to this “consumerising” of green can now use that label. That is disgusting.
If you have a guide that is mainly about shopping why not call it what it is? Why misrepresent what it is?
I know why because green is hot and it sells.
Call things what they are. Don’t change the name of what you are doing, neighborhoods and ideas just because a lie will make more money.
Browne
Wow and I thought the playto was over.
Browne–
Both my parents have been union workers, had their stores bought up by corporate entities and lost benefits and have had lost their jobs/had to move on to other jobs, or in the case of my mother take a second job–so I know this from growing up first hand.
I completely understand the effects that Wal-Mart has on a small town–visiting family in rural Pennyslvannia, I’ve seen the mom and pops of my childhood shut down–that to me is wrong. I am a strong opponent of Wal-Marts health care and employee treatment policy, and I believe it is a disgrace and they need to make serious reforms.
However–Despite my personal views of the company, I know that it is not going anywhere anytime soon. So in a situation where there is no real good alternative, what are we to do? I personally choose not to patron the store, but I know that millions of Americans do. We can try all we want to get them to not shop there, a great documentary came out a few years ago about that, but still people shop there. So my honest belief is if we can’t get these businesses to go away–shouldn’t we at least demand for them to clean up their act? From employee benefits to product selection, to energy usage/packaging etc. If they are here, then we should demand and encourage them to be better for their employees, customers and the planet. And as they show signs of improving, I think that can be viewed as a form of progress–and encourage them to continue to improve more and more.
I appreciate the discourse and the opinions you’ve shared today–and your anti-consumerism stance. I too believe that excessive consumerism is a problem, truth be told I’m not a shopper myself. I also believe that being green is not something that is bought, it is lifestyle choice, how you live your daily life like you said, buy less, eat less meat, drive less, be mindful– there are so many things you can do to minimize your impact.
I feel that there has been an image painted of YDT today that is not true. Regardless I didn’t start Your Daily Thread, to make money, because I thought green was cool and I’d get bought up by some big conglomerate and get rich quick, I wanted to learn and share what was happening in the green space in my back yard–and hopefully inspire others to become more green in their lifestyle. And yes we feature businesses and products, but we also feature volunteer opportunities, social activism campaigns, donation based yoga, Recipes, DIY cleaners/scrubs,grow your own veggies, in essence we try to cover alot.
You had brought up our recently solar post. We have a friend who is a solar consultant, and yes he disclosed that he is affiliated with a solar company in the article and wants people to go solar–not because he’s desperate to make a buck but because solar is a legitimate solution that we need to be moving towards for energy independence from oil. He is a solar expert, I am not so I was happy to have him share his knowledge with our community.
I just want to close in saying that the point of our site isn’t to teach people how to buy themselves green–there are plenty of other sites that do that. We strive to connect Angelenos with the variety green opportunities happening throughout our city.
Tracy,
We all have different paths. You’re changing the name to your guide. And while I don’t have the same path as you we’re probably going in the same direction. If we were all on the same road, it would get crowded.
Peace
Browne
debate — “A formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward”, Mac Dictionary.
Que Viva Los Angeles, cabrones!
Gee Wizzzz These folks
echo park and silverlake could more properly be called “The North Side” as they are relatively north of downtown.
I guess that people think that anything east of “the west side” is considered “the east side,” but having lived in atwater village and echo park for 15 years, I know which is east side and which isn’t.
just don’t be calling chavez ravine “dodgertown,” dammit!
I always thought the Eastside/Westside boundaries were obvious. Just look at the street addresses. For example the addresses on Sunset Blvd in Silverlake are around 3000-4000 WEST Sunset Blvd.
great replies Browne..love it! 🙂
The problem with this green fashion trend is that it’s a lot like the old yuppie conspicuous consumption. It’s not just about “keeping up” but one-upping the competition.
The real transformation is going to be a lot harder. It’ll be like the fight to get people to quit smoking. It’ll take a long time to move many people a short distance.
methinks browne and tracy both have valid points. there’s no denying that it’s imperative that people start shouldering some accountability for how the planet is treated, and it’s good that at least some modicum of awareness is reaching the greater population, however trend-motivated it may be. if it’s trendy to pump less shit into the atmosphere and eat less poison-infested food, hell, i’m down with the cool kids.
on the other hand, it’s a very slippery slope when corporations and their advertisers get involved because their primary motivation is obviously to sell and will inevitably find any way to lie, skew facts and work their lobbies to further that end. one need look no further than the tobacco industry or the current healthcare debate to see the machine in action. saw a documentary about the food industry on hbo, of all places. pretty damned depressing on the whole, but the part that was most frightening was that some of the most heinous corporations are starting to become hip to the green trend and are now making inroads to capitalize on it. my immediate reaction was, “it’s only a matter of time before they manage to change the restrictive legal definition of ‘organic’ so that they can go back to pumping all the crap back into the food and maximize profits,” and i don’t think that’s too far of a paranoid stretch considering what they’ve already accomplished — try buying non-gmo soy these days.
buying local and “green,” and letting people who want to do so know how they can do it, is not necessarily a bad thing. blindly trusting those who are trying to sell “green” to you, however, almost always is.
respect to both browne and tracy for keeping things respectful and listening to each other despite disagreeing on the fine points.
jeez, i sound like pinche mr. rogers. there goes about 20 punker points…..
respect also to tracy for being sensitive, respectful and recetive with regards to the whole “eastside” subject. given the aggressive, sometimes unabashedly racist reactions from those on her side of town, hopefully she understands why so many of us from this side of town are so hostile about it.
We need to go beyond consumer choices into straight out banning some things.
NYC banned trans fats. They’re bad, and it’s good that they banned them. NYC will be the better for it. We can do the same.
Christians used to ban meat on Fridays and work on Sundays. Maybe we could do the same. No meat on Fridays, and no work on Sundays. Meat consumption would drop, and that would be “green”.
No work on Friday night to Saturday either. Maybe we can be like the Hasidic Jews and not even press buttons or turn the lights on. Think of the energy saved. It would make it easier for rebellious kids to “find their kicks”, too: they could turn the lights on.
We could ban the destruction of furniture and electronics, and force people to take them to recycling locations, where they could be dismantled and given away.
Obama was right about “green” – changing the fucking lightbulbs isn’t going to be enough.
I think in the past we had constraints in regards to shopping. On Sundays or Saturdays certain stores were closed. And like what you said Alienation certain people couldn’t eat certain things on certain days and maybe it was about religion or maybe it was just a natural way to get people to not be such consumer junkies or maybe they wanted to make sure their warriors would rest so they could kill more efficiently.
Maybe I need to start a movement, though I’m not really the activist type.
You know the other day I got hurt at work, my friend insisted on driving me back from the hospital (nothing serious, I just fell and hit my head and didn’t wake up for some minutes, apparently this freaks people out and makes them want to send you to the hospital) she said, “you’re done with the bus for today.”
Anyways it took us like two and half hours owing to traffic and there weren’t any people to watch and it was just the real boring sameness and I told her, hey if I had taken the bus I would have been home by now.
Are we really buying convenience? We all think we’re buying convenience, because in the 1960s this was all more convenient when everyone over 16 didn’t have a car, when people had to make bread from scratch, when microwaves didn’t exist this was all easier, but is it truly easier now. Does buying things make it easier? I think not I think we have bought so much that we have bought ourselves back to inconvenience.
Browne
from what i learned/remember from chemstry class, all the hoopla about trans fats is a sort of shell game. when you use “good” fats to fry things, you damage the fat anyway and ultimately end up with what you were trying to avoid in the first place.
Jimmy,
I’m going to have to disagree with you. Transfat aren’t like regular fat. That is like saying corn syrup is like sugar. There have been many studies to prove that it does kill quicker and more efficiently than regular fat, regular fat being the kind of fat that was in wide use prior to WW2.
Though anyone can get an article saying whatever they want here’s an article by the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/food_matters/transfats.shtml
Browne
Corn syrup bad for you? That’s unpossible! Larry Mantle told me so. http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2009/09/30/corn-syrup/
Hey Everyone, I just wanted to share that we\’ve changed the name of our guide.
You can see it at http://yourdailythread.com/2009/09/30/neighborhood-green-guide-atwater-village-echo-park-los-feliz-silver-lake/
Thanks for all the feed back and comments. We hope you\’re happy with the change.
Tracy
Thanks Tracy.
I think Jimmy is correct about needing to keep things real, even when things like this shopping guide clearly have to be about shopping.
The way I think about these guides is that if they’re packed with enough real info, that’s good enough for the target audience…. which isn’t me. They’ll learn something, even if they can’t act on it or think it’s too “way out there”.
Change takes time, and today’s weirdos are tomorrow’s mainstream.
Also, the longer someone is on this planet, the more likely it is that they’ll get over this shopping habit and get to what’s real.
These people may have brains full of shitty ideas today… but if you plant a good seed in their mental manure, eventually, a flower will grow.
browne — i think i might not have explained myself well enough. wasn’t trying to say trans fats are not bad. the point was was trying to make is that when you fry, especially deep fry, with “good” fat you ultimately end up with damaged, “bad” fat. ergo, all these fast food places using the “we don’t use trans fats” phrase to imply their food is any healthier than before is fantasy. i could totally be wrong, wouldn’t be the first time and if i am, hey, i’ll admit it, but that’s what i remember from chemistry class because, well, it hit kinda close to home….
alienation — amen. the guide probably wouldn’t be of much use to me, primarily because i frequent that area about as often as i visit guam, but if it manages to foster a little change in a lot of people, and they learn a little something, good for tracy.
and ultimately it’s one more person being respectful of her neighbors to the east and one less tome negating our existence.
Jimmy,
I’m coming from a different perspective than you.
Deep frying with any kind of oil of course a bad way to prepare food. I was shocked the first time I deep fried something. I had gotten some kind of breaded meat item from a boyfriend’s mother. I put a few teaspoons of oil in the pan attempted to fry it and the breading kept coming off. I had never prepared meat, because I had never eaten it before, so I was very confused. I called my boyfriend’s mother and she kept asking me a series of questions. It seemed like I was doing everything right. I had oil in the pan.
When my boyfreind got home, I showed him what I was doing and then he started laughing. He then took the bottle of oil that I had and poured the whole thing in the pan until the meat was submerged in it. I was morified, people really eat like that. Is this for real?
He explained this is what frying was that I was doing was maybe called sautéing.
It reminded me the first time I made kool-aid and poured a pound of surgar into the mix.
Yeah obviously sugar or oil or fat prepared in that way is going to kill you. If you cook like that you probably should use the most deadly kind of sugar or fat on the market, so that you can end your life and suffering quicker, because that’s crazy.
I should have clarified that my statement only apply to people with reasonable eating habits.
Browne
Let’s call a shopping guide a shopping guide and lets call a bigotry blog by it’s name as well. I am appalled the mean spirited condescending attitude displayed by Browne et al. it’s really pathetic how low the quality of the posts and comments are compared to the quantity of self centered attitude and ignorant hypocrisy. Seems like Tracy was willing to capitulate almost immediately but the insults just kept on coming. Browne, how diverse is your life because you communicate very little ability to show understanding without feeling superior. THAT it the definition of small-mindedness.
Hipster is a pejorative used to describe young white people. It is ugly and bigoted just like any other. White people have a right to move into Echo Park and wherever else they want. If black and brown folks don’t like it then the should decline to sell or rent to them. All sorts of folks are living in Silverlake and Echo Park and those folks are going to stay. My new neighbors are Pakistani. And they are very hip. I guess they should get out or do they get a skin shade pass?
I say let people call their neighborhood what they want. What difference does it make to you if some kid calls Echo Park the eastside? If you are so troubled by the conditions of the infrastructure east of the river then talk about that. Going on like this about the name is so pointless is doesn’t warrant comment except it harbors such racism everyone should take notice. You are the lefty version of the tea-baggers.
And people do have to shop and where they shop does make a difference. Consumer power is real and if Tracy feels she can do some good well then what’s the real problem? I think the real problem here is you feel threatened and take it out on others because they are easy targets. not because they are doing anything wrong. So why don’t you all calm down and let other do what they want and spend more time meditating.
Yes meditating, another one of your ignorant assumptions and insensitive comments. Meditation is not about checking out. Anger and derision is about checking out. Racism and bigotry is about checking out. This blog is about checking out. So do some work on yourselves and then worry about what others are doing.
Brian, If only you’d follow your some of your own advice……
Brian
October 20th, 2009 | 12:32 pm
“Hipster is a pejorative used to describe young white people. It is ugly and bigoted just like any other.”
………….
Yeh, “hipster” really has the same ring to it as the N word…
I still remember getting off of the bus.
“Hipster”, is what the minority kids yelled to me, just before the police pepper sprayed and beat the shit out of every one of them.
I remember walking to the deluxe classroom they’d built for us white kids, on the top floor, with the big screen t.v., fooz ball table and super nintendo, just hearing that word echoing in my ears, piercing my confidence, piercing my dignity. Piercing my soul. The word has scarred me.
20 years later, sometimes I still find myself asking the question, am I really a hipster? It’s funny, you start to believe your abusers. But I’m not a hipster. I’m a human being. And I will not let those minority bigots with their second hand clothes and those like, bedroom size houses they lived in break my spirit!
Fight the power!!!
Brian you are a clueless moron. I know that’s against internet rules to start off a response like that, but you know I have never seen you post here before and since you want to be a jerk with your first comment then I’m going to be a jerk right back to you.
People can move to wherever they want to move. In Los Feliz white people have been around for years. The problem is this guide was about Los Feliz (they even had rules stating people many of the writers on this blog couldn’t move in, so it was pretty white) in addition to Silver Lake and Echo Park. This is not the location of the Eastside.
Los Feliz isn’t on the Eastside and nothing in this guide was on the Eastside.
And you can’t rename a section of town that has a name. I’m from Los Feliz. I went to school there. My parents live there. I’m not from the Eastside, so you can’t rename my neighborhood and you can’t steal someone else’s name. Now you can, but then you get the above kind of responses.
And the meat of my post really was how green is getting turned into a marketing device. Most people weren’t that interested in that angle, because they like buying shit, but that was a major issue I had with the guide. Nothing wrong with using consumer power, I have a problem with calling it green. Consumerism destroys the planet, again if you’re not into the environment then I’m not talking to you, but if you are then don’t you see an issue with selling green?
Your problem Brian is that you are not from LA and you are getting way too hot under the collar about something you obviously don’t even get. I mean click on the link and you’ll see the neighborhoods covered and you will see why I put what I put. You are defending people who won’t even let you buy them a drink, hell they wouldn’t even let you in the bar, so stop trying to act like you are part of their crew. You’re not.
In my mind hipster doesn’t mean white. Smug trendy assholes come in a rainbow of colors. There are black hipsters, white hipsters, latino hipters, asian hipsters and don’t think I don’t give all of those hipsters grief, I do, I don’t do it all on this forum, but I do on other forums and I will some more. I have no problem saying what I mean. I don’t use euphemisms, because I don’t give a damn. I am not here to make friends, to impress people, to network, or to sell shit. I’m here because someone asked me if I’d like to share my opinion and I said, “Sure.”
Now if you want to read into what I really meant feel free to waste your time, I don’t care. I’ll respond, because it’s entertaining and fun for me to give these kinds of pleasant responses (I might not use euphemisms, but I like using sarcasm.)
Instead of getting all APPALLED you should have kept reading when she let us all know she changed the title from Eastside to something else, so it’s all good. But I have a question for you do you have a problem with this person and their issue with the name of Tracy’s guide:
I’m a bet one million dollars you won’t:
http://www.wildbell.com/2009/10/06/yet-another-flubber-bullet-fired-in-the-never-ending-battle-over-l-a-s-fictitious-eastside/
“I am appalled the mean spirited condescending attitude displayed by Browne” Brian
Thank you!
Grosses bises,
Browne
this blog/post/arguement is stupid. LA used to be called something else by the tribes that lived here–probably a hundred different things by successive peoples and communities, but now it’s LA. the communities east of the center of greater los angles have a distinct geographic and cultural feeling that is different than beverly hills, santa monica, westwood, etc. get used to it. names and terms evolve, but apparently your seem to be unable to. get off your pc pedestal… for all of your claims about other people, you are the one being insular, by trying to claim your particular island. talk about a lack of diversity.
Thanx Mark. As I said a few weeks back: VIva Los Angeles cabrones!
The original natives called our area Yangna. And no one is sure how to pronounce it, they’re all dead. We know how to pronounce what the Alta Californians — btw, look up the term Californios someday, it might help — named our city, and it’s a longie. Since then, we have always been Los Angeles for short.
Following that, neighborhoods got named. Yes, they’ve changed — and you may now look up what Hollywood was called, where was Garvanza and where the original Chinatown was. The river has always delineated the Eastside from the rest of LA. There is no changing that fact.
But some try. And argue for a false new. Stupid really, would you go to Baltimore, NYC, Detroit, SF and rename their areas and neighborhoods? Of course not.
Back off newbies. The Eastside is across the river.
And EP, where I live and btw also I was born here and went to public schools and college here and the family endured the WW II years despite being uprooted and dad swam with his pals in the LA River back in the 20s and as any native Angeleno –note also the E — will tell, EP, Silver Lake, Downtown, Atwater, Los Feliz and other central neighborhoods have their longtime designations, there should be no argument about those names, and they
SURE ARE NOT ON THE EASTSIDE ACROSS THE FREAKIN’ RIVER.
Dude.
There is such negative energy here, it makes everybody feel bad. This discussion seems like it’s meant to go and stay in circles.
It also seems like “Eastside” claimers – from both sides of the river, but more on the eastside of the river – subconsciously want an authority figure, some councilman or policymaker, perhaps the mayor, to make a decision and define the “Eastside” on paper. Is this about someone making an official decision on name-claiming? Will the “eastside” name war end? Why not sit and have an adult conversation in person?
Don’t know where you get this ‘authority figure’ dealie, a circle or never-ending thread is the last thing I’m looking for — as said here and on the other (Eastsider) blog/thread on the subject, misled claimants should shuddup.
Observe — and respecrt — Los Angeles’ history instead of trying to rewrite it.
In this case, relocate it.
It would be good if people would sit down and really talk about it.
All these things some writers claim LA lacks – history, sense of place, continuity – would be revealed, and perhaps the westsiders and newcomers (and eastsiders) would learn something.
I think people should just be able to have discourse. In LA this whole “lets be happy thing,” this is why we had 12 years of Bush. No problem with different opinions, but the whole this is negative, don’t talk about this, lets just be thankful…I’m just so sick of it. I’m so sick of people just never saying anything with no point.