LA Eastside

You meat eaters don’t know how hard it is to be a vegetarian wanting to go out for Mexican food; mostly the choices tend to be breakfast dishes, bean and cheese burritos, enchiladas de queso, chiles rellenos, or the always boring Vegetarian burritos which are basically the bean and cheese with some added lettuce. (Don’t even mention vegan, that gets much more difficult.) So when a place has potato tacos it feels like they care about us carrot munchers, but we know its just a cheap and easy item to include on the menu. But still, I always appreciate seeing these on a menu. So when I finally had the courage to eat at the place named “My Taco” (jajaja!!!) I was quite blown away with the tasty tacos de papa.

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Memories of Lost L.A. Eateries,  Part 2

Still more nostalgia for those long gone L.A. favorites……………..

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We’ve all seen them. We might pass by them on the streets and pretend to look away……

But they are there. Always there. Staring sadly from public street walls. These are the unloved renderings of some unheralded artists who, at one time, attempted to leave their artistic marks upon an otherwise blighted world.

These works started out perhaps with a sketch, some paint, and good intentions.

But now, they stand as nothing more than painted victims of ridicule from cynical would be Art Critics like myself.

Could I have done any better? Probably not. Have I the right to critique and judge these pieces? Probably not. Will I do it anyway? Simón! Here are a few specimens chosen from the Los Feliz, Silver Lake & Echo Park areas, (or as I like to call it, “The Westside”). Judge for yourselves.

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Call me L.A. selfish, but I am greatly opposed to creating a “Best of L.A.” list, especially for our foods & restaurants. I cringe when local magazines print their “Best Of” issues, and here’s why. Growing up in L.A., I’ve accumulated over 40 years of my own best and worst food knowledge based on countless miles of adventure, explorations, accidental discoveries, bouts of food poisoning, word-of-mouth, patience, and just plain old trial and error. (more…)

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There’s lots of talk of Crash being the ultimate race relations movie in LA.

I disagree.

There was another movie that actually intersected race with class and sexism. It even included a portrayal of the homeless population (which I’m not sure how you could have a movie in LA with no homeless people.)

It had a limited release in 1997. The protagonist wasn’t a white guy or a black guy or even a guy, but an Asian-American woman.

The name of the film is The Bang Theory. It was written and directed by Ash.

In the film an unsuccessful actress (is there any other kind) a character called “girl”, played by Darling Narita shows the audience Los Angeles.

In the film opening unnamed girl has just gotten thrown out of her apartment for not paying rent and her landlord couldn’t even just throw her out. He has to throw her out and call her racial slurs as he does it, because for some reason even now in LA you can be real open about racial slurs against Asian people.

She has one last chance an audition and in LA fashion it goes horribly (this is real LA, no one ever makes it real LA, unless their parents are someone.)

Anyway she “somehow” gets a hold of a cop’s motorcycle, uniform, and gun and takes a journey across LA from East LA, South Central, and West LA.

The best movie ever on race relations, class, and gender in LA.

A refreshingly strong Asian-American woman lead whose character has nothing to do with martial arts.

A Los Angeles treasure.

Rent it. Love it. Have a discourse party. I used to do that in college, but I was weird.

Browne Molyneux

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