Here are a few photos from places in Echo Park and the surrounding area.
This cholo style mural is located on 6th and Bonnie Brae.
Photos from around the way
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Category Archives: culture
It is that bad.
Maybe you can carry a rich lady's baby for money?
“Goldman posted the richest quarterly profit in its 140-year history and, to the envy of its rivals, announced it had earmarked $11.4 billion so far this year to compensate its workers.
At that rate, Goldman workers could, on average, earn roughly $770,000 each this year — or nearly what they did at the height of the boom.
Only three years ago, Goldman paid more than 50 employees above $20 million each. In 2007, CEO Lloyd Blankfein collected one of the biggest bonuses in corporate history.
The latest headline results — $3.44 billion in profit during its second quarter ”
Seattle Times.
Yes you just read that Goldman Sachs had a record earning quarter. What about you? How have you done this quarter? How have your friends done this quarter? How has your family done this quarter? In the past two weeks I have known FIVE people who have been laid off from their jobs. This does not include people that I know who have been out of work for months.
According to some facts from the Fight Back Article, US in Longest Recessions Since the 1930s by Adam Price this is what it looks like out there for rest of  the quarter that Goldman Sachs had record earnings.
The economy has lost almost 6 million jobs (4.1% of total jobs) since 12/07, the worst downturn since the recession of 1948. Unemployment among African Americans hit a depression-level 15% in April, unemployment for Asian Americans has risen the fastest. 8.5 million people are on unemployment. 10.6% of the US is on food stamps. People on average are out of work five months. More than one-quarter of homeowners are ‘underwater’ with mortgages greater than the value of their home during the first three months of 2009. Apartment renters are being hit as former homeowners are competing for a place to live, keeping rents up (I know of three people who have had rent increases in the last few months, I probably know of more, but haven’t asked) even with the rising unemployment. During the first three months of 2009, 15% of houses were vacant, or more than 19 million homes. Continue reading
Maricon
It’s a word I have used repedeadly in the past because I wanted to make fun of someone or make them feel bad. It’s a word that is casually thrown around in certain circles because we’re all a bunch of guys acting like guys around each other. A word my parents would use to describe our neighbor and his friends. Yet, after watching the movie Bruno, I saw myself through the eyes of an outsider if you will to realize how homophobic friends and family really are because it is the norm. Somehow it’s ok to use those kind of words with friends and joke about it with family because it was instilled by society, culture, religion or just passed down from within the family, being gay is the worst thing you can be. Often times I find myself around friends that use that word, along with a plethora of others in demeaning and derogatory ways because somehow it’s OK to use that word. Much like any other hot button word that cannot be said, except by a person of that race. Kinda like me calling a friend a wetback beaner. It’s ok for me to say it because I’m Mexican but let me hear someone else saying that and all hell will break lose. That’s only the tip of the ice berg of course. When you add how religion demonizes homosexuality and instills in others that being gay is evil and wrong, violence tends to follow. What I’m trying to get at is that society as a whole paints this picture that everyone is better than anyone who may be gay and that it’s OK to treat them like shit because they are gay. I stopped using those kind of words with said circle of friends a few years ago, but it takes a conscious effort, which I am ashamed to admit. I have friends who are gay and they are some of the most kick ass people I know. I may have gotten rid of those inclinations to use derogatory words referencing homosexuality, but whenever I’m around a certain circle of friends all I hear is, “Dude, you’re a fucking fag man. Why you looking at me like that? You looking at my cock? pinche maricon hahahahahahah.”
Wall? We don’t need to show you any stinking walls!
Mexico Builds Border Wall To Keep Out US Assholes
How can Mexico be so shortsighted and thin skinned? Building walls is an old revered custom for sure, (see China, East Germany, The Maginot Line, and Malibu Colony), and most recently undertaken by the US on the Mexican border, but doesn’t Mexico understand the American tradition of cutting loose in Mexico?
You know, the custom of Americans who live quiet, conservative, Christian lives here at home, while providing all those “jobs†for the stateside Mexicans as gardeners, busboys, sweatshop employees, maids, and fiberglass jacuzzi laminators, (but never inquiring about anything personal in their lives, that would just be rude), then visiting Mexico and letting their hair down by getting shit faced, throwing up all over the streets, screaming at the top of their lungs and dancing topless on bar table tops, banging the taxi driver in the back seat of his Volkswagen Thing, (but would never date Mexicans back home), haggling the merchants over a few centavos, demanding “real food†(granola and yogurt), at the local joints, getting pissed off at Mexican vendors who don’t speak English well enough. Hell these are all just good old American customs and rites of passage, building a wall is just offensive and unneighborly.
Next thing you know the people of the LA Eastside will want to build a wall too!
The Beer We Drink On The LA Eastside
The mural wars continue
I see this mural and I feel nothing. No connection to the history it has, the images depicted on it and what it means to the community and t artist responsible for creating such a beautiful work of art. It’s been there longer than I have been alive and seen Boyle Heights change and grow over the years. Everything I feel and see in that mural nowadays I learned to appreciate it. I walk by it almost everyday and I understand the history behind the streetscapers and the legacy muralist are continuing since the ’20s. My thirst for knowledge has shown me the rich legacy murals have in all of East Los and around the world for that matter, but that’s the trick. I wanted to know more about it. Then there are other residents that could careless about what they are, but appreciate it for what it is, art. At least that’s what I realized after Willie Herron III explained it to me from his point of view. He told me that even though I may not feel a connection to the images in the mural or understand it, we can all appreciate it. Murals like the “Corrido of Boyle Heights” may be the closest some residents will ever get to art. That alone merits appreciation in the murals, but mocosos still fail to grasp that. It’s the same arguments over and over again: If kids had a proper outlet they wouldn’t be doing shit like this or if the city had more arts programs for youth, taught them more history and appreciate their heritage etc. So does this post have a point? Maybe and maybe not. Maybe I just wanted to post up a picture of HOW STUPID PEOPLE ARE or ramble about a conversation I had today with Herron. Whatever the reason, the mural will survive. As Brandy Healy succinctly put it, “Well, at least its graffiti coated thanks to the restoration skills of Paul Botello & crew with support from CD 1 Councilman Ed Reyes. I hope the clean up folks come soon. Not only is this particular defacement completely void of any meaning or aesthetic, it’s just insultingly stupid.” And so the mural wars continue.
Piolin gives gas
Piolin, the excitedly animated morning radio host, loved by many and hated by just as many, picked up the tab at the pump on Monday at Pronto Gas station in Boyle Heights.
The line of cars waiting for their free prize was like the line of people waiting to get their free $1 dollar bill from that priest in Downtown on Christmas – endless and not worth the wait, but entertaining to deliberate what people would do for free things and why.
Pronto Gas Station - Soto y Wabash
Tierra Mia Coffee House
First impressions are everything and let me tell you, Tierra Mia Coffee left me wanting more. It just sucks that it’s in South Gate, not that there’s anything wrong with South Gate lol, it’s a little too far off my regular route here Boyle Heights. So how did I end up in South Gate in the first place ? Well I was on my way to malandrinas show a few weeks back, which was totally awesome and I ended up going to go check out the coffee house with my date. And because my friend works there and he would hook it up. You know how I do. While I only took a quick pic of my chocolate chip muffin and Horchata Frappe, the place was awesome. I was joking with the bartistas that I was glad to be in a coffee house where grande meant large. The place just had a great vibe to it. I didn’t outta feel outta place or like I was getting the stinky eye, like when I roll with friends to a crapbucks or shitty bean. It reminded of my P3000’s post about not having certain foods in the barrio. I WOULD LOVE for Tierra to come to Boyle Heights and East Los. Then I wouldn’t have to go to Highland Park to Antigua for free wifi. There is a need for a great coffee house here on the East side and after visiting Mi Tierra, I WANT MY COFFEE and WIFI. Hold the gentrification.
It Can’t Happen Here !
Three people including a ten-year-old girl were shot in their Southern Arizona home by vigilante Minuteman racists. The little girl and her father died. If this happened to a black family in Alabama or a Jewish family anywhere in the USA what would be the consequences?
With the US economy in shambles and unemployment at record levels will the Mexican American population be the whipping boy for the countries ills? Will the FBI and Justice Dept now take a second look at these right wing militias and racist goons who seem to be turning more violent as their frustration with an African American President and a more multi-cultural society turns to rage and terrorism.
From the New York Times today:
New Border Fear: Militia Violence By JESSE McKINLEY and MALIA WOLLAN
“I had to take an oath, and part of the oath was that I couldn’t eat Mexican food,†he said. “That’s when red flags went up all over for me. That seemed like prejudice.â€Minutemen American Defense, a Washington State-based offshoot of the Minutemen movement, in which citizens roam the border looking for people crossing into the country illegally. Former members describe the group’s leader, Shawna Forde, 41, as having anti-immigrant sentiments that are extreme, at times frightening, even to people accustomed to hard-line views on border policing.â€
Eastside street vendors
Hector Becerra – BH native and Roughrider alum, a legit Eastsider folks! – wrote an article about a day in the life of Amado Campos, a elote-raspado-cheetos/takis pushcart moving salesman.
Who’s/where’s your favorite street vendor?
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-street-vendor17-2009jun17,0,307170,full.story
VIII Encuentro de Jaraneros, 27 June, Lynwood!
This coming Saturday, June 27th, the 8th Annual Encuentro de Jaraneros is taking place at Plaza México in Lynwood! It’s not common for events like this one to get much publicity outside of Spanish-language media, and that’s where LAEastside.com comes in!
El Encuentro starts at noon and is scheduled to end after 9 p.m. The full list of performers is available at the website. The Masters of Ceremonies are Radio-Mas Veracruz’s Rafael Figueroa & KPFK’s Betto Arcos.
What is son jarocho? More info & music after the jump! Continue reading
Dago or Chicano?
The gorgeous Silvana Mangano singing her famous mambo from the 50’s movie “Anna†(banned in some places for years), Mangano, in this movie I saw as a kid at the old Starland Theatre in Lincoln Hts, even though it was on the list of forbidden movies tacked onto the front doors of Sacred Heart Church, was my first pubescent sexual fantasy and she still turns me on.
The LA Eastside has always been a melting pot and home to immigrants from many places in the world. Boyle Hts and East Los Angeles, besides Mexicans, had the Jewish, Russian, Japanese and Armenian immigrant communities, Lincoln Heights and environs had the Irish, Italians, Okies (immigrants?), and Mexicans, among others. This stew sometimes produced the typical ethnic clashes, stereotyping and prejudice, but more often, on the much more common positive side, gave one the opportunity (especially the children growing up together), to learn about and understand other cultures. This education was priceless to me and Lincoln Hts was one of those special places where different working class ethnic groups all lived in close proximity and where many lifelong friendships were established, on the streets, in school, at work, and through intermarriage.
Continue reading