Arriba Los Lakers! Los Reyes del Mundo!
And props to a great fighting Boston team who never gave up.
Pau Gasol gets the game ball in my opinion, a throwback to the Spanish Conquistators!
Kobe Bryant, El Rey de Los Reyes!
In about 5 days, La Copa Mundial is set to begin. It’s like the World Series only with a non-boring sport, plus it gives the actual world a chance to participate. Of course I’m excited! The question is: where to watch some of the matches? Sure, the bulk of them will likely be at home – maybe with friends, possibly chilaquiles, certainly with beer – but some of the match-ups will lend themselves to public gatherings so I’ll probably want to join others in the watching. It can be a fun experience.
I know of a few places at the moment that will be showing matches, click ahead to see those. But this is a callout to request suggestions of spots to consider, please submit yours in the comment section.
This past Saturday May 29, LaEastside’s Pachuco 3000, many Eastside artists, art administrators, and familia from LA, Juarez & Texas attended the wedding of our dear friends & curators Pilar Tompkins and Adrian Rivas. I don’t think Harry Gamboa, Jr. will mind that I’m sharing his photo showing the procession accompanied by mariachis and guests leaving the ceremony at Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles [Placita Olvera] to the Mariachi Plaza on the Metro Goldline. Strolling from the church through Olvera Street, the joyous couple’s first dance was to “Volver, Volver, Volver” played by one of the Placita’s scheduled bands. Tourists and locals joined in the glee of the whistle blowing guests en route to the Union Station. The perfect day included a unique 1930’s reception at the beautiful Plaza Salon, formerly a speakeasy that is within walking distance from Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights. Pilar & Adrian’s love of Los Angeles history, art and architecture [which was featured on Saturday] was a blessing to all that attended. Que vivan los novios!
What do you get the modern hipster baby that still poops his pants? Why, fancy designer diapers to distract you from the wafting aromas! By the time you’ve snapped out of the temporary yet recurring horror that humanity is being flushed into oblivion by the same gaggle of fools that control most of the production of our necessities, the squishy bottomed baby has been removed from your work counter, with maybe a few unseen specimens left behind. But the baby looked cool.
Yup, the tagline really is “the coolest you’ll look pooping your pants” and the jean label reads “little bowel movers” or something like that. Oh haha, let’s all laugh at the cuteness that is yet another reason why our society doesn’t work. Giggle, Giggle!
If you’re a parent, you better not buy these. Don’t make me have to mock your baby.
A few yards from this fine example of Modern American Living…
These old lamposts being devoured by creeping nasturtium vines were spotted outside the back gate of Heritage Square Museum in Lincoln Heights/Montecito Heights (the neighborhood designation is variable). The nasturtium has been growing wild there for at least twenty years and it’s amazing to me how large and prolific the vines grow.
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I mean really, who has money to go anywhere these days? The fake ass economists keep talking up the fact that stocks rich people own are doing slightly better, like it has any bearing on our miserable lives. Woohoo, GM turned a profit after they were showered with tax dollars! Fucking Yay! The surge of employment due to the temporary I’ll-take-anything-now Census jobs is suddenly a harbinger of good times ahead! Reading the news is inspiring.
Yet at my job there’s talk that they will close up shop, or at least get rid of some of the expendables. (And we are all expendable.) It’s all worries and rumors about the impending doom. Better start saving my nickels. And so my weekends are reduced to finding amusing things to do a bit closer to home, things that will keep me distracted from the precarious nature of our current means of survival. Hmm, now I understand why my parents brought me to this place all those years ago.
I present to you this cheap distraction, an institution that doubles as an old friend: Golfland!
As of May 20, members from the Bus Riders Union began a hunger fast on the grass area of Placita Olvera to stop MTA from increasing fares from $1.25 to $1.50 for regular fare, a day pass will be $6, weekly passes will be $20, and a monthly pass will be $75. These fare increases are scheduled to take place during the summer. MTA released their budget for the next fiscal year to the public breaking down where they would be making cuts, who much money is allotted to what and the increase in bus fares. Esperanza Martinez, one of the lead organizers for the union says that the increased fares are being passed down and targeting minorities, who are the majority of people that rely on the bus. All the poor people who depend on the bus for their livelihoods. People who commute everyday to work, school or just to get to doctor appointments and everyday commuting.
Aww man, that sucks. They had a good run. I assume.
I guess I better go and copy all my old shitty posts. You know, in case people want to be bored in the exciting future.
“This past Monday, on the anniversary of landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education, Lizbeth Mateo of Los Angeles, Mohammad Abdollahi of Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Yahaira Carrillo of Kansas City, Missouri; were detained Tucson, Arizona, after staging a sit-in at Senator John McCain’s office. With this challenge to local and federal law, these youth hope to highlight the urgency of legislative action in Congress, and catalyze mass grassroots mobilization to pass the DREAM Act before June 15th.”
Lizbeth, Mohammad and Yahaira are undocumented students. They are DREAM Act family. Like all the other undocumented students throughout the country, they can no longer sit idly by as life keeps passing us by. Whenever an undoc student speaks out in public, whenever we travel and whenever we organize rallies and protest, we are putting ourselves at risk for detainment and deportation. These three leaders have put themselves on the front lines because the time for the DREAM Act to be brought to Congress as a stand alone bill and be passed. Since it was first introduced 8 years ago, the DREAM Act is the only way college educated undoc students have to fix their immigration status.
Spotted by Rosa Delgado at 5:16 pm today
After twelve years of searching, the good folks of Audubon Center at Debs Park finally spotted the elusive California King Snake today in the park.
Jeff Chapman, Director of the Audubon Center told LA Eastside:
“These guys have been seen in City Terrace, Ascot Hills, and Flat Top. I used to do reptile monitoring with kids from Franklin before the center and we never found them. Three years ago, we put out boards in the park and checked them periodically, but again we never detected them. So, this is very exciting for us and for the whole human/non-human community in the Northeast!”
If you live on the Eastside but have yet to visit the Audubon Center, now’s the time! There are all sorts of activities for children and adults and a very enjoyable trail from which you can take in the local floral and fauna of Debs Park.
Audubon Center at Debs Park
4700 North Griffin Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90031
(323) 221-2255
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 9 a.m to 5 p.m.
The Audubon Center at Debs Park opened in 2003 as an environmental education and conservation center for the communities of northeast Los Angeles. The Center is located in the third largest park in the city of Los Angeles. More than half of the park is covered in walnut-oak woodland, grassland, and coastal sage scrub, a remnant of the native habitats that once rimmed the Los Angeles Basin. Over 140 species of birds have been recorded here.
(Click on photo for a close up)
Seen today at Buddha’s B-day Bash over in Whittier Narrows.
The title of this post is a nod to the informative and wonderful blog, LA Creek Freak. My discovery of this blog is fairly recently, if I only I had came across it sooner it might have saved me many hours of informal research. You see, for the past two years and a half I’ve been on a meandering quest to find the paths of old streams that once flowed through our urban areas.
When roaming through the city, I look for tell-tale signs: bridges, dips in the roads, large storm drains, stands of old trees, walls and houses made of river rock and street and neighborhood names with tell-tale monikers i.e. Brookside, Willowbrook, Arroyo Ave, River St, Evergreen, etc. Neighbors and long-time residents are also a great source of information. One of the more exciting clues are the actual streams themselves, they often pop up after heavy rains. The water remembers and will often follow it’s old course. It’s why some places in the city continually flood.
The search has been quite fun. Once I think I’ve found a spot, I’ll take photos, go home and check aerial views on Google maps. I’ll look at the way streets curve or sometimes I’ll notice a line of green trees marking the path of the old waterway. I often read through the Los Angeles Times archives and search for references to streams. For instance, I felt like the area around the Fourth Street Bridge and Lorena was a likely place for a stream and while doing research I found a notice by the city placed in the early 1900s, asking for contractors to bid on constructing a bridge over the “stream running at Fourth St.”