Category Archives: culture

La Crisis: Tamalada On A Budget

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Why throw away money when you don’t have to? This here is my little contribution to helping you save maybe a dollar or two while you gather your ingredients for your tamalada, gleaned from my gathering of ingredients earlier today.

First up, Maiz blanco, base for your own nixtamal. For some stupid reason, my local Big Saver stopped carrying this item in the bulk bin, now they just have a few small bags at $1.99 a lb. Outrageous! I head over to El Mercadito where you can usually find everything at a good rate, but it turned out they were selling their maiz at $3 a lb! Now that is straight out gouging, knowing that people are going to be stopping by for their ingredients. Boo, Hiss! Chale, I ain’t having none of it. I drove down the block to El Super on Brooklyn and Lorena were the same maiz was being sold for $1.29 a lb. Now that’s a bit more reasonable.

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“Fun, Guns, Alcohol, Liquor”

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Maybe its me, but given the violence throughout Mexico with the Cartel wars and the fact that more deaths related to this war have occurred (28,228 since 2007) than in Iraq—is a gun to suck on really appropriate now? “Fun, guns, alcohol, liquor” are the actual search engine words for this product on-line.  I understand that this is a commemorative limited edition tequila, meant to celebrate the 100th year of the Mexican Revolution, meant to sum up who we are as the children of that revolution–but, as represented here,  is violence and aggression our only legacy?
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DREAMS DEFERRED: Artist Respond to Immigration Reform

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From the press release: “The Chinese American Museum (CAM) and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument are proud to present Dreams Deferred: Artists Respond to Immigration Reform opening this Thursday, Dec. 9 This exhibit will showcase local artists exploring the tensions, repercussions, hopes, and dreams of immigrant communities in the face of new immigration legislation, through a broad spectrum of art including street art, graffiti art, sculpture, painting, and multimedia installations. Continue reading →

Last push for the DREAM Act

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I think most people know by now that I ain’t got no papers and if you didn’t,well now you do. In the past, I’ve posted a few things here and there for the DREAM Act. I do enough of that everywhere else, so that there’s no need for me to keep blasting it out on other sites I contribute to, but this is one of those few times where I dip my spoon in several cups. Just in case you haven’t heard, the DREAM Act is going to come up for a vote before the end of this week, before the lame duck session in congress finishes. So, basically what is happening is that all the Democrats that are leaving wanna stick it to the Republicans and they’re using the DREAM Act and possibly AG Jobs to do it.

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Silver Lake: The National Joke

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Like the rest of you, I was flipping channels this morning wondering where the hell the football game was: it wasn’t on Telemundo, nor TV Azteca, y menos on Univision. Turns out it just started (4pm) on ch. 52 a late start to the Mexican futbol championship game. I did tune in a lil’ bit to the Republica Deportiva show, which is sometimes informative but mostly stupid banter between the hosts that seem to not like each other. Today Felix made a joke about Rosana having a mustache, she didn’t find it funny.

But whatever, we are not here to comment on stupid things like tv shows. We are here to notice the t-shirt being worn in the background. It’s not an Ed Hardy nor a Hollister but the next in line for that fine trajectory of quality clothing: Silver Lake.

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A Business Sense Walking Tour

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If it’s one thing about tours, it’s that you always learn something new about something old. For example, I took a tour of Union Station last year and I found out that there’s asbestos in the curtains and that if some bird or terrorist agitated them, well needless to say it would be problematic for everyone. So, imagine what you’ll learn on this tour. Lead by Adrian Rivas of Gallery 727, walking around the men’s fashion district and neighboring areas in Downtown L.A. that go unnoticed to most of us, but a treasure cove for others.

A Business Sense Walking Tour

Tour Starts at g727 (gallery 727)
11 am – 1pm

727 South Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90014
213 627 9563
g727.org

Tour led by: Adrian Rivas co-founder of g727 and downtown merchant

Please join g727 for a special tour of local merchants from downtown’s historic Fashion District presented in conjunction with the gallery’s current exhibitions Carmen Argote: Household Mutations and Santiago Borja: Fort Da/Sampler each of which incorporate questions of materials and site.
Examined in relationship to the five senses, the featured businesses represent our physical responses to the urban environment.

A round table discussion and refreshments will follow at G727

Participating businesses:

GLOBAL LINEN / sense of touch
MARCEL’S TIES / kinesthetic sense
NEW WAREHOUSE / sense of time
MIKE’S TAILOR SHOP / sense of sound
THE STORE / sense of balance and direction
UNIVERSAL PERFUMES / sense of smell
BEVERLY HILLS HOSIERY/ sense of sight

Zeus from Highland Park

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Zeus and his guitar

The past week I’ve been reading the book Outliers, The Stories of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. The basic gist of the book is very successful people, outliers, owe their success to a few proven factors: time spent practicing their craft, dedication and luck (class, unique historical moments, when they were born etc.) Anyways, I immediately thought of this book when I went to the Rite Aid on York and Ave 64 this evening and spotted this young dude playing his guitar and singing outside the front door.

I’ve seen him all over Highland Park, at the farmer’s market, the library, on Figueroa, all sorts of places and he’s always with his guitar. I thought to myself, it’s not too many young people that would have the dedication and gumption to stand in front of Rite Aid playing on a Monday night. But it seemed to be paying off, I saw a man go to his car, get money and come back to put it in the already-full-of-bills of hat. Nobody does that in Highland Park, c’mon! Make an extra trip to give someone money? They wouldn’t even do that for their mom! Something about this dude’s spunk was admirable and piqued my interest so I asked him if I could interview him for the blog. He was really nice and said yes, even though I interrupted his song. It’s okay it was a Beatles (gag) song.
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Dia de los Muertos 2010

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Considering how I got a lot of positive feed back from last years impromptu Day of the Dead guide, I was debating whether or not to make another this year too. I mean, I do have a life beyond my random ramblings on this here bloggito. But then again, I love DOD and I love sharing the tradition and parties with as many people as I can. My homework will still be there after I finish. So here it is, your 2010 Dia de los Muertos guide to events you probably already know about and some you may have missed. Also, Day of the Dead is also election day. So, after you vote between a @#!*% and a turd, which I won’t get into lest I be called childish names again, start making your way to Self Help Graphics for the original Dia de los Muertos celebration, going on its 37th year and it’s free. Free !! You can also print and wear this kick @#!*% mask made by Cuéntame, the ¡Latino Instigators!, for a get out the vote campaign. I think it’s hilarious because if you can vote and don’t for whatever reason you have, then you are a cabron and you have no right to complain about how bad things are either. Also, most of these events are pretty self explanatory, soo I’m gonna cut corners and just copy and paste info with flyers and pics really. Anyway, enough jibba-jabber, on to the festivities

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