Eastside Gold Line Safety signs in local lingo

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heads up

I noticed that MTA has placed Gold Line train warning and safety signs around the Eastside train route. Many of these signs are in Spanish and seem to address the local lingo seemingly in an attempt to reach as many locals as possible with their message. Here are a few sample signs I’ve seen…

trucha

wacha

aguas guey sign

This entry was posted in East Los, Eastside, Events, Pendejadas, Uncategorized 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

54 thoughts on “Eastside Gold Line Safety signs in local lingo”

  1. Is that first sign real? I have to ask. I want you to clarify in case anyone is in doubt.

    That is WAY disrespectful Metro.

    Browne

  8. Or perhaps once the accidents (or should they be called “inevitables”) start happening they could put up ALARMA! style posters as warnings.

  11. I don’t like it to tell you the truth. How much money was spent on this? They should have asked East side artist to contribute something more useful.

  15. The Eastside is so unlike anyplace in Los Angeles. It was seperated from the rest of the city for many generations. The river is its natural boundary. And sometimes driving over the bridge onto Boyle Heights. You get the senses that you are in a different place.

    The Eastside developed its own language, music, dance and art.

    Many people that I know speak in Calo (Chicano Slang), and in a spanglish mix that originated in the Los Angeles Eastside. Even people in Mexico where speaking it while I was visiting family in Zacatecas.

    There is a difference between proper language and slang. These signs are meant to get a point across.

    For example: Have you heard about the frog who got its head head cut off after it was trying to retrieve its tale that happend to get cut off as it attempted to cross some railroad tracks and was hit by a train.

    The point is that someone should not loose their head for a piece of ass.

    Now…

    I know I could have said it another way that might be more prooper and politicaly correct. But, this seems to get to the point.

    Social Marketing works.

    In my opinion, Do what ever saves lives.

  16. Building safer stations would save a lot of lives, too. But hey, politically incorrect signs could work. Since the politically correct speed limit signs on freeways obviously don’t work, they could try something like, “slow down, mother fucker!”. or, “driving faster than 65 does not disguise the fact that you’re a dork!”.

  17. Hilarious…the best piece of public art i’ve seen in awhile…why do people find this insulting? …luv how language is always getting invented…

  18. I don’t think its meant to offend. Their intentions are to get the message to the people to save lives.

    “Nothing Tastes As Good As Skinny Feels”- Kate Moss’s motto 🙂

  20. These signs are another example of the system perpetuating the negativity and sterotypes of Chicanos/Latinos. Even the government and its agencies, including the Transportation Authority of Los Angeles, give the impression that the Chicano/Latino and undocumentated population is not worth its time and can be mocked, and with these types of attitudes Nuestra Raza cannot advance for the better.

  21. ^ but how often do latin@s / chican@s themselves help to advance these stererotypes, if not celebrate them?

  24. In case anyone still isn’t sure, these signs do not exist. Metro did not create them.

    This post is a joke.

    So laugh it up, all you who were insulted. Or thought that you were insulted.

  26. All you political correctness types need to get a sense of humor, these signs aren’t real, yo…

  27. After a hearty laugh and dabbing the tears from my eyes, I realized that if these hoax signs saves one life, then they might be worth it.

    I also believe that the people of East LA would get a chuckle out of these signs, but subconsciously it might make them more cautious. Which is all anyone wants. Oh and the first sign should read.

    “Heads up, foo!”

    At least that is how I have heard it said numerous times.

  29. Don’t mean to contradict, though I do not see the big deal with at grade crossings. Is this what the controversy is over? Ever been to Portland, or even Minneapolis? I would like to think that people growing up in busy urban areas are aware enough of their environment to know to get out of the way of an approaching train. Some of the best public places in the country occur where a train runs right through at grade, like a river. Look at Skidmore historic areas in Portland.

    That this is the controversy that it is seems to speak more to a activist impulse searching for a cause. I guess I have a higher confidence in the intelligence of the general pedestrian public. Plus, are not trains a lot easier to avoid than a car, given they have a fixed path of travel?

  32. Thanks, Dave. We’re all off to Portland to check that out. We’ll be there later tonight.

  33. Conchita — “The MTA installed at grade level trains in East L.A. and would never do this in the Westside.”

    Oh? The Expo Line will be largely at-grade, and the City of Santa Monica even requested it be at-grade the last mile in the median of Colorado, quite similar to the Gold Line on 3rd Street.

  34. Geez, Steve Hymon! “Hoax” is a strong term, I think the correct term is “satire” or “joke.” I mean, seriously The Onion puts up all kinds of crazy stuff and those being teased or mocked don’t ask for retractions or disclaimers.
    It’s funny too how other blogs like LA Curbed are getting all “gotcha” with LA Eastside. Psssshhh, whatever!

  35. Hahaha…

    OBVIOUSLY fake. Metro only uses the FF Scala Sans typeface for its marketing, not the easily-accessible Verdana.

    And it’s quite apparent the person who designed it has obvious UCLA ties. 🙂

  36. Hey chimatli, I don’t know if hoax is too strong (to me it’s just another synonym for joke), but the only reason we posted about it was because we were seriously getting calls/emails from people who were under the impressions that the jokey signs were really from Metro and were really insulted/offended. Even some of the commenters on this very thread seem to be under that impression.

    I think the difference is that LA Eastside is not strictly a satirical publication, you guys often tackle serious topics (and Gold Line safety coverage has been one of those topics) so I think some readers who stumbled across this post took at as a serious post (versus if it was posted at The Onion which is always satirical – even though I’m sure sometimes people don’t get the joke there too).

    So the call for disclaimer was more of a formality and to see if we could prevent more irate calls to Metro for a non-issue. I got the joke when you guys posted it last week, but satire is lost on some people.

    “It’s funny too how other blogs like LA Curbed are getting all “gotcha” with LA Eastside.”

    See, I read the other blogs and thought they were calling me a sensitive crybaby for making the post.

  37. I’m all for satire, but saying these signs was put up by Metro is not true. It looks like some readers and people in the neighborhoods think the MTA actually put up the signs, and they are insulted by them. I would be too, if I wasn’t in on the joke.

    It’s one thing for you to say the Gold Line is unsafe. It’s another thing for you to put racial lingo into their mouths. It’s lying to people. And even though you might think it’s funny or clever, for many people it just makes them mad and in the end it just takes away from what you’re actually trying to say about safety.

  38. When I first saw this, I laughed, because it was obviously a joke.

    btw, the anti-spam word for this reply was also pretty interesting.

  39. Ladies and gentlemen. It is called “Photoshop”. Signs are not real. Please take a moment to step back and understand these are meant for comical purposes only by the artist. MTA would not dare post these in a community that has shown time and time again that it does have the power and knowledge to rise up and defend itself.

  42. Mr. Camino:

    The official Metro signs, on the link above, are also trying to be funny.

    Maybe that’s why people are confused. Nobody’s being serious. Not LAE. Not Metro.

    That’s kind of funny.

  43. Alienation, I was thinking the same thing.
    What’s with the sign that says “You are not a train, stay off the tracks”?
    Fred, I think LA Curbed has some pedo with LA Eastside stemming from the Eastside “fights”. They never link to this site so I thought it funny they would call us out on their blog. Anyways, your post was fair and perhaps needed but asking for a disclaimer? I dunno…

  44. Joel, I knew it was a joke when I first saw it. You know, over on the other MTA thread, where commenters were discussing safety, you said that the rail lines were safe enough because people should be smart enough to not get hit by trains. Now you’re saying the very same people are too dumb to figure out on their own that the signs pictured above were jokes? I knew it was a joke when I read the first sign. Anyone who didn’t was either a little tired when they first read the post, or simply does not have a sense of humor. The people here who thought it was real at first laughed when they realized it wasn’t. Anyone who knows this is a joke, yet is still offended by it, has issues.

  45. Yes, it was funny. True, it matched the wit of The Onion at its satirical best. Brilliant that with a few signs it made fun of a number of issues.

    It’s also stupid to laugh at, or in some cases berate those who don’t get the joke. Especially after demanding, and in some cases berating, anyone who doesn’t take the posts here seriously.

  47. One might imagine that the reason Metro is upset at such a wee bit of well-deserved satire is because Metro’s reputation is such that such signs are not impossible. Were Metro half as concerned with building and maintaining a world-class metropolitan transit system as it is with its PR campaign, then Los Angeles might have a world-class public transit system.

    Perhaps Fred and Steve might tell us why Tom Horne—Metro’s head of customer service—is the weakest link in metro’s chain, so lousy as to dissuade straphangers and bus riders from complaining. Maybe the Metro duo can tell us why metro is more concerned with fantastic “Go Metro!” video campaigns with Hollywood stars and massive sound stages instead of putting the same safety features on the MGLEE as it does for the Pasadena segment of the Gold Line. Or maybe there’s an article to be done about the massive print campaign that promotes Metro despite the decades-old dearth of timetables on the busses and trains. or why not just tell us why Metro hired a former L.A. Times columnist and a transit blogger to parrot the PR from “the source” instead of fixing the problems that we all know exist but which Metro will not acknowledge?

    It is obvious that Metro is more concerned with its reputation than with making its execs and PR mouthpieces put its boots on the ground (Fred notwithstanding, which is shameful in its own fashion) so as to understand how Metro does NOT work. Art Leahy is commendable in what he has done and is doing, but he is but one man—and a former bus driver who’s father was in transit in Chicago, so he knows the ropes—against a vast sea of bureaucrats. Unfortunately, these clueless execs as well as PR people who brazenly proclaim their refusal to regularly ride the rails about which they write daily, are busy putting lipstick on a pig and calling it a thoroughbred horse.

  48. Go BusTard!

    First off, as a longtime occasional rider of the RTD, kudos to MTA for the huge improvements in the last 20 years.

    However, we ain’t nothing compared to NYC or even San Fran, and we have densities similar to them, so, there’s no excuse. The city needs better. Clever signs don’t cut it.

  49. will add one more comment. The word “hoax” used by Steve Hyman, whose own Metro-based blog does not allow comments, is just the kind of hyperbole I imagine Metro wants to avoid disseminating.

    Steve, since the satiric signs were done by someone who signed his name, and were only put on a single blog, perhaps you might re-think using such outrageous terms as “hoax.” It only shows a distinct lack of professionalism. There was no attempt to deceive nor to defraud, but to protest. (If you rode the Gold Line regularly enough, you would be well aware of the great differences in the railroad and roadway/pedestrian crossings along the Gold Line, and understand why such satire is well-warranted.) Just as your posting the histrionic and wrong-headed accusatory term “hoax” on the blog that hosted the “hoax”—-even as the blog for which you primarily “write” will not allow comments of any kind—-presumably for the very behaviour you have exhibited—is likewise not irony but hypocrisy.

    Here is hoping Metro will give you a basic dictionary for a your xmas bonus.

  50. Yeah, fucken-a randall, good comments!

    I went to a eco fair at Caltech about 9 months ago and Metro had a table, they were giving out metro tote bags,little foam trains, hats and other pretty nice duds. I have NEVER seen them hand out such nice things at any latino-catering events, merely small trikets, kind of ticked me off. But that’s just a tiny issue.

    I also have been attending esgl meetings for phase 2. The last one I went to, in Pico Rivera, I spoke to an older man with an east coast accent. As I walked up he was talking about “big picture, long term, transp planning”, so I asked him a few questions. He was very happy talking to the old white ladies, but turned very rude and demeaning to me immediately. I was not being argumentative, i merely had questions and a few comments which he summarilly dismissed with half assed response that made little sense and answered nothing. He basically parrotted the history of the esgl coming to be (which I knew and was asking questions in the context of) and dismissed comments that other MTA employees had noted as being good ideas. He finally got really ticked off at me when i didnt walk away from his rudeness, curtly answered my last question and turned away to talk to a woman who was not even waiting to talk to him. i even told him i wasnt finished and he ignored me. mind you he was in front of a poster board there to answere questions that meeting patrons had to ask.

    I have left over a half dozen comments forms for the esgl phase 2, each one begging for a response. Not one fucken response so far, just like the 7-8 comment sheets i left during the phase 1 meetings where i pointed out the issues now materializing with the new train. I called metro and spoke to kim as well as a few other folks numerous times, and every one of them acted like arrogant assholes to me. Often they would ask me what school i went to when i would tell them im trained in transp planning, and then after I answered would interrupt me to note they went to UCLA or whatnot, as if that somehow invalidated my comments in a very mean manner.

    I know a lot of good MTA employees, like James rojas, Nate Baird and a few others. i also have went to school or met other MTA empoyees who were total incompetent a-holes, it seems like Metro hires a lot of those folks. you can see them leaving the HQ in their jettas daily. Why is that?

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