BLINDSPOT!

I’ve been commuting to my job at Lincoln High School by bicycle since I’ve started working there almost 2 years ago.  It’s been pretty uneventful as far as run-ins with automobiles, suprisingly since Broadway is pretty hectic around 8am.  I know that once I approach the school that I should really be on the look out for people darting into the far right lane to drop off their kids. Now here is where today got interesting… Continue reading

Fear & Trash in Los Angeles

Just this evening I grew pretty scared because I heard what I thought were nearby gunshots. Normally I’m pretty adept at discerning gunshots from other random urban noises; but last night my room mate mentioned being outside, on the porch smoking, when some guy started shooting into an apartment complex across from us. Naturally I thought I was hearing round two, but upon hearing the noises once again I figured out what it was: people roling out their trash bins for collection on Monday.

Funny how fear can turn something as benign as the sound of the trashbin being dragged to the curve into a vehicle for possibly bodily injury. Once, about 15yrs ago my mother and I mistook a backfiring car for gunshots. We pulled over 3 blocks from our house as soon as we heard the bangs. It kept driving up and down the street: the moment then felt never ending. I thought, “how much do they need to shoot up before their done?” Finally we glanced up & figured out it was just an old crappy car backfiring. Fear may have its evolutionary advantages but sometimes it for naught.

Survey LA + contest!

Survey LA , part 2 of 3 (check out 5:40 for Lincoln Heights’ Church of the Epiphany)

Survey LA is a new project initiated by the Office of Historic Resources. A description from their website:

SurveyLA – the Los Angeles Historic Resources Survey – is Los Angeles’ first-ever comprehensive program to identify significant historic resources throughout our city. The survey marks a coming-of-age for Los Angeles’ historic preservation movement, and will serve as a centerpiece for the City’s first truly comprehensive preservation program.

Click through for more videos and a drawing for a free book!

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Más Éxitos @ The Verdugo Bar

Being that there’s been so much drama-for-your-mama on this blog lately I thought I would post something that might cheer some of us up. A friend of mine, with a few friends of his own, has just started this event at the Verdugo bar with music, as he puts it, “belongs in the neighborhood.” The Verdugo bar is in Glassell park. I’ll be there. Enjoy.

Firme

Also, the Verdugo bar has an amazing beer selection on tap.

Eastside Night Ride

Last night I went to a show @ the now pretty well known venue, The Smell by bicycle. It’s a 5.5mi ride one-way for me, not too far and mostly flat terrain. I was going mainly to see a favorite band of mine, Abe Vigoda.

Now to the point. Riding into downtown, alone, is always an interesting experience. In a large group, or even with a few friends it seems like an open playground compared to the daytime version. The city looks so much more peaceful and almost ghost-town like at dark. I got to the show around 9pm and left around 1:30am. The ride home was the interesting part.

I go down Main St. most of the way. As I was pushing my pedals I couldn’t help but think, in my wearied state, whether the people I saw out on the streets were real or ghosts. The folks hanging outside of Dino’s Burgers, the woman I swear I saw at the little Catholic Gift Shop on Main St., and the man I think I saw walking around the darkened Parque de México.

This idea became even more pervasive as I passed by Lincoln Park. I thought about the history of the place and all the many people that have been there for various reasons. At 1:30 in the morning you have late-nite fishers. I’m not sure why someone would want to be fishing at that hour, but they were there. They weren’t ghostly at all but some shadows amongst the trees seemed otherwise. Looking across the train tracks on the South side of Valley Blvd heading East I am sure I also so see meandering shadows.

History is something that can easily be built over and forgotten, and some people even welcome it as is the case with the Chuppies that El Chavo! pointed out. But it’s something I find so much interest in. A house that I am soon moving in to in Lincoln Heights used to be a market many years ago, originally built in 1915, and still has remnants of a butcher shop & old refrigerator. There is no way I would replace it for a track home in Ranco Cucamonga. No way.

All these thoughts as I make my way home to El Sereno.

Hills of the Eastside

Having lived most of my life in North East L.A. I have come to find refuge in the hills around here. As a kid I would go up Eastlake Ave in Lincoln Heights and up into the hills to flatop to seekout lizards, snakes, centipedes, and all the other wildlife you see around these parts. Many people say that Los Angeles scarecly has seasons, but I think it is because they do not understand how the seasons present themselves here. Elsewhere you have heavy rains (which we occasionally do have), snow, or extreme cold to show that things are changing.

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