The sexy doll-like characters Sand One paints have been popping up all over the Eastside with attitude and fresh charisma. This girl knows what she wants and is doing it by painting her Sand Chicks wherever she can. I caught up with Sand One at Primera Taza in Boyle Heights to see what this native Eastsider was all about.
Read the rest after the jump………
Saturday night and I was thinking about my late Abuelita and how she was so proud of my Uncle Pete and the talent he had on the piano. De falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance†was what she loved to hear Uncle Pete play, and play he could.
Uncle Pete (Alcaraz) was also the piano player for Lalo Guererro for many years
Although I also liked to hear Uncle Pete play, my favorite pianist was Alicia de Larrocha who passed away just last September.
They are all gone now so this is dedicated to them all “The Ritual Fire Dance.â€
Harry Blackstone Jr. was the first magician I ever saw. Sure, it was on television, but it seemed so real to me. Magic always has. He had so much style. He was the master of ceremonies, but he was just a conduit. Maybe I exaggerate his modesty because today’s popular magicians seem so arrogant and lacking in personality. Sleeveless and svelte, so easily ignored.
Harry Blackstone Jr. was the real deal. Plus, he had that funny, protypical television voice. To my ears, he wasn’t just old, he was old school. Just listen to him. You hear that playful, diabolical laugh:
“There. And now that you’ve seen it, my dear. Now that you’ve all looked at it carefully, may I show you… a miracle? (snaps fingers) Ha Ha Ha Ha. She says, ‘that’s impossible’. Of course, it’s impossible. That’s why we do it. Ha Ha Ha Ha.” Behold!
Magic. My departed grandmother’s drunken, toofless grin. My little cousins laughing. The five times I’ve been in love. The first time I heard John Bonham’s bass pedal. Eating tamales under the Guanajuato night sky, etc. All those events leave me in a quandary. That childish suspension of belief need not end in a dolt hood. I like shit that can’t be explained. It doesn’t have to be! It’s all an illusion anyway, yes?
“Nothing I do can’t be done by a 10-year-old… with 15 years of practice.”
(Harry Blackstone Jr.)
Disclaimer: If, after watching this video, you think, “Oh, I know how he did it. Let me explain…” put the mic/keyboard down and back the fuck up. This ain’t karaoke. And this ain’t club jenna. Wax on Wax off somewhere else, please. We don’t care. We don’t want to know. But, if you dare share your ignoble insecurity with us, we pray that a gazillion pneumatic lesions terrorize your nether regions. Alakazam!
Previously on ¡Sounds Like Burning:
**¡Sounds Like Burning is about psychos, angels and psychotic angels. Who else deserves mention?
Bill Hicks condensed the first law of all the Arts: Play From Your Fucking Heart!
The performances to be aired here are rigodamnediculous. The biblical scholar Bon Scott once commanded: Let There Be Light. And There Was Light.
Can one make the unknown known? Tune in and Trip out.
It’s no secret that the blog has managed to garner attention in the last year or so that it’s been around. I’m one of the many people covering BH events and that in itself has gotten me attention from others as well, case in point 14th District Council Member Jose Huizar. He reads the blog and through the help of my good friend WC connecting me with Rick Coca, who’s Director of Communication, I got some time in with the councilmen, who’s district also covers Downtown, Eagle Rock, El Sereno, Garvanza, Glassell Park, Hermon, Highland Park and Mount Washington, to talk about what’s going down in the hood. But since I don’t live in those parts of town, so I focused my questions more on BH because that is where I live and it’s where a lot of action is taking place. Continue reading
Question: What are they talking about?
CORAZON DEL PUEBLO presents…
Flowers of Fire: Poesia de Lucha y Amor
Join Boyle Heights Bards:
BUS STOP PROPHET, KRISTY LOVICH & JOHN CARLOS DE LUNA
for a FREE Bi-Monthly Poetry, Performance, & Open Mic Event
January 13th
8:00pm-Midnight
Early Sign-Ups for Open Mic: 7:30pm-8:00pm
@ Corazon del Pueblo
2003 E. 1st St.
Los Angeles 90033
JANUARY 13th
Featured Poets:
Matt Sedillo
John Carlos de Luna
Luluminous
Featured Musician:
Calix Reneau
JANUARY 27th
Featured Poets:
Abel Salas
Christy Ramirez
Dora Magaña
Featured Musicians:
City Terrace’s own Original Rock Sons
I.A.M.U.
Willie Herron lll (Los Illegals)
Sid Medina (The Brat)
FLOWERS OF FIRE scheduled for January 13th & 27th
EVERY 2ND & 4TH WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH @ CORAZON DEL PUEBLO
If you’ve driven up the Pasadena Freeway lately you may have noticed these cats hanging around the asphalt, smiling stupidly as you speed by. And before you know it, yer smiling stupidly as well when you spot the next one, peeking out behind that bush or on the other side of the bridge. Cheap thrills. A tiny visual break from the regular dose of mundane. It’s similar to Leo Limon’s River Catz, though I guess these would be Arroyo Gatos. I was able to snap a few pics from a moving vehicle, click ahead to check out a few of the others.
A few years ago, in San Juan de Pasto, Southern Colombia, I was thrown into the back of a van by some seriously strapped soldiers. They confiscated my camera. Earlier that day I discovered that Colombians were the kindest folk I had ever met, so I wasn’t very worried alone in the back of an unmarked van. I thought of my new friends at the bakery and barbershop as we swerved through the city. For some reason, I was allowed to keep my backpack. I opened it, grabbed my headphones and ipod and Booker White did what he always does.
The van tore through the streets. The suspect in back was moving with Booker: “I was at my mother’s grave, when they put my mother away.” One dark-skinned soldier tapped the other and they turned to look at me. I felt like I was watching something fascinating unfold. Where were we going? What was my crime? Soldiers armed to the gums deemed me a threat with my t-shirt, sandals and scruffy beard. I watched them and hummed a little more. Then we got to the jail.
I was “interrogated” for several hours. My California ID got me free. I walked out of that jail the way I walked in: humming a tune.
Usually I like the sounds of new cities, but at that moment, I wanted something else: I stopped, reached back, got the headphones and Booker T. Washington White. Bruises be damned, there we were, on the streets of Southern Colombia, smiling because… we didn’t need a reason. We never do. I felt like singing. So we did, “I’m a stranger at this place, and I’m looking for my mother’s grave.”
Booker White “Strange Place Blues”
[audio:https://laeastside.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/strangeplaceblues.mp3]
I’m a stranger at this place and I’m lookin’ for my mother’s grave
I’m a stranger at this place and I’m lookin’ for my mother’s grave
Well it seems like to me, ooh ooh well, some of us goin’ to wail
I was at my mother’s grave, when they put my mother away
I was at my mother’s grave, when they put my mother away
And I can’t find no one, ooh ooh well, to take her place
I thought after my mother was put away, I thought my wife would take her place
After my mother was put away, I thought my wife would take her place
I’ll show you the difference ‘tween a mother and a wife, ooh ooh well, my wife done throw my away
I wished I could find someone to take my mother’s place
I wished I could find someone to take my mother’s place
And if I can’t find no one, ooh ooh well, well you’ll find me at her grave
I’m standin’ on my mother’s grave and I wished I could seen her face
I’m standin’ on my mother’s grave and I wished I could seen her face
I’ll be glad when that day comes, ooh ooh well, well when it be to drive me away
This morning I see a blog on Grub Street LA, extolling a subsidiary of the Coffee Table called “Cafe con Leche” as the savior of Self Help Graphics and Art in East LA. Franchisers of some LA Coffee Table branches are also owners of the ‘formerly known as” the Self Help Graphics building at the corner of Gage & Cesar Chavez—AND entrepreneurs of Cafe con Leche du ELA. Hmmm–this blog which is called “Cafe con Leche Could Keep Self Help Graphics in the Chips” smells like the spin that these hipster-franchise amalgamators have been shoving down our throats since last year. Fellas, what happen to that part in the lease contract about not using SHG’s 37 years of community involvement to promote yourselves?   Eastsiders, can you say “Coffee Table” or does it really have to be interpreted in El Castellano? As a hardworking volunteer in the team of many artists and activists who toil every week to keep Self Help Graphics and Art vibrant and open, I look forward to those residual checks coming in to keep ELA art in ‘the chips”. Damn, call me and save yourself a stamp, I will personally pick that check up. By the way—brrrring, brrring, we’ve been calling you to come and fix the lights and leaky roof for a few weeks now. Hope we don’t have to wait until the chips roll in to get that fixed.
To read the whole preposterous blog and some insightful comments click here
Artist José Lozano was born in Los Angeles, but early in his life lived in Ciudad Juárez, México the birthplace of his mother.  In Juárez he was exposed to the cultural icons that are now part of his artwork—bad Mexican cinema, fotonovelas, phantasm folk lore, lucha, comic books, boleros y rancheras and the flavors of the Juárez landscape. His family core returned to East LA when he was 8, where he attended public school and began to draw.   Later, through formal art training, he captured the essence that is his personal finger print as an artist. Continue reading
Promo video for the Guadalajara Bookfair
As some of you might know, The City of Los Angeles is the invited guest at this year’s La Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara appropriately taking place in Guadalajara, Mexico this weekend. There will be quite a few Eastside and other Los Angeles writers and artists heading down to participate in the various musical offerings, panel discussions and lectures. In particular, the Vexing exhibition will be making an appearance and artists Sandra de la Loza and Shizu Saldamando will be presenting Eighteen With a Bullet.
I recently returned from a trip to Guadalajara and have a warning for those heading down for the events. The GDL airport does not have x-ray equipment to search your checked-in luggage on your way back. Passenger luggage is picked through and examined by young, tough women with immaculate eye make-up who dig and pull your items from the suitcase in full view of everyone in the airport lobby. Be prepared and don’t end up like the poor ranchero who made a whole line of people gasp when a large homegrown camote was discovered and pulled out from the recesses of his bursting suitcase.
In case you are wondering what Guadalajara and Los Angeles have in common (that is, besides the hundreds of thousands of people that consider both of these cities home) you can buy Suavitel in both places. The guy who tried to bring his camote to Los Angeles obviously didn’t know this because the luggage examiner also pulled out a large bottle of the laundry detergent from his suitcase only to have the line of Tapatio-Angeleno passengers tsk tsk his ignorance. Hey, these things are good to know, right?
Just came across this blog following some of the LA folks in Guadalajara: Blogalajara, Vexico.
I saw a clip of this “event” in Minneapolis with some yahoo teabagger saying, “This is not racism. It’s about the rule of law.” They still think that shit flies, like some 1950’s sheriff in Southern Ole Miss. When you hear “the rule of law,” you better protect your gonads, hold on to your wallet and hide the kids. Spewing fake christian platitudes means somebody gonna get crucified and it’s usually one of a darker hue.
I read about “Robert Erickson” and his “speech” and immediately thought of John Brown and Richard Pryor. That’s how my brain malfunctions. This “performance” is high larry us. Downtown Freddie Brown, Snooky Pryor, anybody with Brown skin or anybody with priors would laugh.
This “current wave of immigrant bashing…” I always like that “current wave” idea. This “wave” is going on half a millenium. No shit it’s current, cuz it ain’t never abated. “Erickson” ain’t Frederick Douglass 1852 throwing down about the 4th of July or Thoreau defending John Brown’s honor 1859, but we in the age of diminishing vocabulary, and while pranking a “crowd” of “European immigrants,” he did fine (despite the bad recording). The lack of cheers when fools realize they’ve been duped is invigorating, especially when dealing with a bunch of clowns. Cheers from those who, when not referring to an athletic competition, see “race” as a verb and not a noun. “Columbus Go Home.” Resistance is Fertile!
Here is the end of his speech:
I say it’s time for us to say enough is enough! Are you with me? Are you with me? Let’s send these European immigrants back where they came from! I don’t care if they are Polish, Irish, English, Italian, or Norwegian! European immigrants are responsible for the most violent and heinous crimes in the history of the world, including genocide and slavery! It’s time to restore the sovereignty of people native to this land!
I want more workplace raids, starting with the big banks downtown. There are thousands of illegals working in those buildings, hiding in their offices, and taking Dakota jobs. Let’s round them up and ship them out. Then we need to hit them at home where they sleep. I don’t care if we separate families, they should have known better when they came here illegally! (editor note: i think i pissed my pants!)
If we aren’t able to stand up to these European immigrants, who can we stand up to? We need to send every one of them back home, right now.
Thank you very much, and we’ll see you in the streets!
Columbus Go Home! Columbus Go Home! Columbus Go Home!
Here is the complete text of his “speech.”