Category Archives: Events

LA Eastside Outings: Taking Over, Part Two

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photo by Cindylu

Welcome to Part Two of the Taking Over reviews. A couple of reviews are still making their way through the LA Eastside digital transport, so please revisit this post in the next few days. (New review from Pachuco 3000 below!)
Part one can be found here.

Cindylu:

I’ve lived just a few minutes away from Downtown Culver City since 2000 in Palms South Robertson*. Despite living here for 8+ years, I only recently started spending any significant time (and money) in the area. Previously, there was nothing to do after 5 pm and a dearth of any other sorts of entertainment.

That’s all slowly been changing. The Kirk Douglas Theater playbill featured an article about the “revitalization” (aka gentrification) of DCC in recent years. In a small area you can find several architecture firms, art galleries, a couple of theaters, and several restaurants. On Tuesdays, local growers set up a farmer’s market on a 1-block long Main Street. If you go during a weekend night, you’ll find the 5 or so blocks between the Trader Joe’s and Kirk Douglas Theater quite busy. Now, I regularly shop at Trader Joe’s, buy fruit and vegetables at the farmer’s market, watch movies at the Pacific Theater and eat at some of the restaurants. I’d never gone to a production at the Kirk Douglas until last week. And yes, I can see the inherent contradiction of watching a play on gentrification in my neighborhood due to the gentrification in the area.

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LA Eastside Outings: Taking Over, Part One

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A play about gentrification? Sounds like an outing for LA Eastsiders! We made our way across town to see if the play would live up to the hype. Did it? Read on…

First, a short summary of the play from the Kirk Douglas Theater website:

OBIE Award-winning solo artist Danny Hoch returns to Center Theatre Group with his riveting new work, Taking Over, a show that brings to vivid life the residents of his Brooklyn neighborhood.

In rapidly changing Williamsburg, the melting pot is boiling over with strained ethnic relations and economic tensions—and the threat of gentrification, which threatens to crush the city’s diversity. Hoch masterfully depicts this community in transition with compassionate and hilarious results.

Read more at the Danny Hoch website. Taking Over ends February 22, that’s Sunday! Oh, and don’t bother watching the opening night video clip on the Kirk Douglas website, lame.

Reviews below, more coming tomorrow…

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The Garden, a Film on the South Central Farmers Nominated for an Academy Award

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Kenneth Turan, Times Movie Critic says in his review (August 28, 2008) “‘The Garden’ is a case study in how hardball politics is played and why it is so difficult to take on the system. Not that anyone has given up the fight. As a story in the L.A. Times this week pointed out, the battle over this piece of land is far from over. What ‘The Garden’ does is demonstrate what it’s all about and why it’s important.” Turan’s title of this piece on The Garden, a 2008 academy award nominated documentary on the 6-year struggle of the South Central Farmers is “The Garden, Turf wars flourish in South-Central L.A.” Ouch! Here we go again—diminished from urban ecological pioneers and community healers to gang banging discontents. (sigh)

I haven’t seen The Garden yet, but have heard many good things about it and the director, Scott Hamilton Kennedy, especially from friends involved in the film, Gabriel Tenorio and Domingo 7 of East LA who co-wrote the musical score with seasoned soundtrack composer Doug DeAngelis. One of the reasons the film has been difficult to catch up with for me is that it seems to be on tour, rather than part of the usual distribution schedules in local movie houses. Daryl Hannah even hosted a screening of The Garden as part of the National Democratic Convention programming. Continue reading →

Valentine’s Day Nopales

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Image via Google (but could of been mom’s backyard)
“Valentine’s Day Nopales” or maybe not! but since that so called special is coming up why not pretend they are “Valentine’s Day Nopales”. Forget all those fake expensive dinners, long lines, cheesy teddy bears and over priced flowers. I personally do not care much about Valentine’s Day but on the other hand my honey Raul (whom I been with for five years) does care about Valentine’s Day. I told him he could stop worrying about that day a few years back and that I don’t need any of the commercialism of Valentine’s Day. He still would insist we do something, so to make him happy we just cook a small dinner together.
For those planning making dinner or something Valentine’s Day or any day try this recipe I  got  from a good friend who loves nopales and has many  really good recipes using nopales.
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“You know what they say about them ELAC boys”

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To the dismay of all my female friends, I got a tremendous ego boost on Saturday at Self Help Graphics for a cool $45. Yes I was sold and bought by one of the beautiful Esparza daughters, I won’t say which one, but none the less she got herself one hell of a date. Pachuco 3000 did one hell of a job mc’ing this little shindig and had the crowd rolling. Not to mention he also made the bachelors seem like casanovas. While the highest bid went to Abel Salas, $50, I think I did pretty well for myself considering the rain kept some of the ladies at home. Although I did see a few cute one’s there that I wouldn’t mind sharing a limo ride with, if you know what I mean ;-). All in all the auction was a lot of fun both for me, the bachelors and everyone there. I was nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but once I got up on that stage I felt like a million bucks. I made up a poem on the spot about how my X said i love you and all I felt was hunger haha. AlDesmadre stepped up and sponsored the dinner, which will come with a bottle of whine at LUMINARIAS RESTAURANT.  To all the beautiful muchachas, you seriously missed out on a once in a life time opportunity, but don’t worry I’m still free. Don’t hesitate to email me or contact me. I’m not looking for a Mrs. Random Hero, just someone who can keep up with me ;-) 

Public workshops for the Boyle Heights community plan

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I attended one of the workshops held by the city to, and I quote, “share preliminary draft recommendations with stakeholders and to seek public input on the Boyle Heights Community Plan - this is your opportunity to help shape the physical future of Boyle Heights!” And believe you me I did. I ended up meeting two other people who wanted to share their two cents in what the future of Boyle Heights maybe and what planners are thinking of turning BH into. Shout out to reader Rob who was there and offered some nice company. 

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El Gallo Bakery: 60th Anniversary Celebration

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LA Magazine recently did a story on the “top 20” bakeries of Los Angeles. As usual, their tastes run a bit skewed from mine and squarely on the side of the American taste for desserts and sweets, so no Mexican Panaderias made the list. I had a friend who was crazy into baking and she didn’t “understand” pan dulce, since she was comparing it to cakes and pies and thought it wasn’t sweet enough. I tried to explain the concept and offered her some fresh examples from El Gallo, but it was of no use. I’d offer some to LA Mag but I expect the results might be the same.

It’s okay though, I don’t make my eating decisions based on that magazine. And for 60 years, neither have many East Los residents that have considered this the go-to bakery for pan dulce and a good source for teleras, that required pan for a proper torta.

I stopped by today for a quick look at their 60th year celebration. Click ahead for a few pics.

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Botanitas: January 29, 2009

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The infamous tumbleweeds of Lincoln Heights. This one was found at the foot of Holgate Square.

Botanitas is an ongoing feature bringing you stories and news from various sources, upcoming events and other bits of ephemera that might be of interest to LA Eastside readers. Suggestions welcome!

Read below for ten-cent conchitas, North Broadway nightlife, CNN tacos, the Eastside extension, details on who is Taking Over and a bonus guilty pleasure!
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How do I not appear exploitative?

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Thanks Mr Drummond.

Thanks Mr Drummond.

I went to the LA Art Show and saw three lectures. One was with Leimert Park based artist Mark Bradford, the other was with Mat Gleason of Coagula, and another was with Marlena Donahue of Otis and friends. It was an interesting group of lectures that I will discuss more at length later…the one with Marlena was about diversity and how the art world excludes women. Good points were made on Marlena’s lecture BUT if I were running anything that talked about diversity I would make sure to include as many walks of life Continue reading →

Free fruit trees @ Proyecto Jardin this Saturday

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This is “Hank.” I adopted him in 2007 at Placita Olvera during some event. This was through the cities tree give away program. I still have “Hank” with me and in a bigger pot because he’s growing up before my eyes. I remember when he was just a baby. I would water him after I fed the dogs and put him in sunlight if the day wasn’t to brutal. I made a promise to “Hank” that I would plant him when I have a place of my own, so far no luck yet. But if you want your own tree to name head over to Proyecto Jardin this Saturday between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. to pick up your choice of an apple, apricot, nectarine, peach, plum and citrus trees. However I will stress that the tree give away is intended for local area residents. There’s only going to be around 250 trees available and I would much rather see them around MY neighborhood than somewhere else. So, for those of you that live within the Boyle Heights, area come on down and grab yourself a tree. But don’t just come down like chusma, only people with available space to house the tree should come down. Other wise it would just be a waste of a valuable tree.  

Proyecto Jardin 

1718 Bridge St. 

Boyle Heights, 90033