The Price of Beer

As a 20-year-old coed at UCSD the newness of each day as an adventure, still had its momentum. The first female in my family to go to college, to move out at 18-years-old was at once my second-generation-immigrant family’s dream and nightmare. My first year of away-from-home loneliness was defeated by my freedom. I sucked it up, and watched other ingénues file out one by one—until there was 1 Chicana for every 17 Chicanos in my class of 100 in a sea of 7000 students. Freedom meant learning to think and speak critically, handling finances, self-management, validating my culture, being creative, making wise choices, defining myself and not appearing to have been too sheltered by my Christian-freak family.

Being away from family also gave the freedom to live completely bacchanalian, if one chose it. It was an undergraduate rite of passage “to thy own-self be true” and part of the experience needed on the road to where you were headed. By the time some of my high school friends became freshmen, I was their mentor and resolver of all acculturating problems.

I’m not sure how the situation came about–my high school friend Danny taunting me into asking Jose a 22-year old senior to buy us beer, because we were too young. I was uncomfortable, knowing that I would owe Jose some favor that I could not pay back—because he was obviously interested in me. The night ride down Torrey Pines Road in the back of a dark VW bus with Jose and my napping, assigned-sentry Raul, with John as shot-gun and Danny driving, seemed excruciatingly long. Occasionally Danny would pull back the blue Hawaiian print curtain that divided the cab from the carpeted surf den to say, “Is everything ok back there?” followed by a wink and grin at me. He knew I went reluctantly and this was his silly gesture to make light of it, while protecting my honor. Continue reading

Sat., Nov. 19 – DIY SILKSCREENING with DEWEY TAFOYA

DIY SILKSCREENING with DEWEY TAFOYA November 19th (every 3rd Saturday), HOURS: 10am to 2pm
$20 per person / RSVP: workshops@selfhelpgraphics.com

Attendees are required to bring two transparency copies of an original black and white image, no bigger than 8 1/2″ X 11″. Limited number of screens available for purchase. Bring paper and a blank t-shirt or 2 to print your work of art on! 

Check out the action video—start printing your own money in 1 easy lesson with Dewey!

AT:
Self Help Graphics & Art
1300 East 1st Street
Boyle Heights, CA

Councilman to Occupy LA: “Don’t Despair, Job Fairs Are Coming! “

This morning on the Madeleine Bland show councilman Dennis Zine got the laughs going when he bestowed some words of wisdom to all those participants of Occupy LA: Get a Job! You know, in the jobless “recovery”.  His great plan to accomplish this feat of full employment? Throw a “Job Fair.”

Haha! For reals? Yes, for reals.

[audio:https://laeastside.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/getajob.mp3|titles=getajob]

I went ahead and snipped together some of his inspiring babosadas, cuz I doubt you’ll want to listen to the whole thing. Oh yeah, aside from his “get a job” message he also complains about the “homeless that don’t have anything to do”, the movement is “generated by some international group”, something about socialism, “when you go to the city hall you like to see a nice environment and its sad to see people who are camped out because they have a cause, they can’t get a job”.

How very sad and disturbing it is to see the unwashed poor and the unemployed riff-raff. They should stay over in skid row where we don’t have to see them.

Fucking Hilarious.

Here’s another solution:

Miracle Books

A good reason to subscribe to LA Eastside’s rss feed and twitter page is that Chavo and Chimatli have some killer articles to share and instant moments on the eastside ‘you’d have to see for yourself”.

I got this cool impromptu notification from some literati  friends  (more like book lovers) who give back to the community by handing out books—free.  I love free!  They are called The Miracle Bookmobile.  “Bookmobile”–well, that’s a word I have not heard since I was in grammar school and I lived in an area with too many kids and not enough libraries.  Ergo, some funky bus used to roll up on Chollas Elementary School and 4 or 5 of us could climb aboard for 20 minutes and quickly choose books to check out—a ritual that was repeated for about 20 to 30 kids once a week.  It was a kid-friendly library, nothing in a shelf higher than 5 feet (I think).

Tonight, Saturday, October 22,  The Miracle Bookmobile will be in downtown Los Angeles beginning at 7pm in front of Exilo Studio.  Exilo is located at 435 S. Broadway, 90013.  They have a lot of great new literature from LA and Oakland  and they invite you to “c’mon out and get some!”

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Stolen Dictionary

No entiendo lo que dice al principio de este letrero, pero parece que nos van a regalar unos boletos para pasar el tiempo sometidos en un tipo de “jucio”, me imagino que es algun “juice” como dicen los Americanos. Que Padre! Prefiero nadar en tamarindo.

Igual, me conviene que solo me la paso de ratero en Español. Sabra porque…

Notes from the Boyle Heights Wastelands

This week the spin doctors were working overtime to make Michelle Obama look like a hypocrite for eating a burger and fries, because it registered at 1700 calories!! One of her personal campaigns is to have healthier food in public school cafeterias and food programs. Who’s not for that? Back to the calories though– for some women a whole day’s intake of calories could be 2000 or around that (yes, that’s 3 meals) and the amount needed just to maintain the same weight, not to loose or gain. Gender, age, activity and some doctors think ethnicity, determine how many calories an individual should eat.

Being a vegetarian for decades now, I have had run-ins with long lost friends at the super market whose eyes sadden upon spotting meat in my cart. I don’t need to explain that my cat is on an organic food diet and eats ground turkey or that I make beef tamales and chicken mole for my brother on his birthday —but I do. I practically live like a monk, because I have lived in a certain way and people expect that from me— I expect that from me. I really don’t ram my personal rules down anyone’s throat and those of you who think I do —“you really wouldn’t want to know what goes on in my head”. Still, there are some hardships to being a role model, even if it’s by accident, like me. I would not trade places with someone in the microscopic public eye, like poor Michelle.

We all know that Boyle Heights and some other communities on the eastside are considered to be food deserts, because there are not enough super markets to supply us with nutritious and healthy foods. If you’ve ever tried to get into El Super at 6 p.m. on any day—you know what I mean. Forget about getting a healthy vegetarian choice at any of the local restaurants either. It’s all about the queso. There are many people that have poor diets in the food dessert (due to lack of availability), they are considered to be malnutrition. But, even if we live in a food desert, we can make choices that are healthy instead of giving into the “high profits and low product” American food cartels. People who use grocery coupons to make ends meet can easily fall into the pit of foods that have absolutely no nutritional value. Think about it—why would a manufacturer give you something free? Usually, it is for a new product and it reminds me of the drug dealers (in those 80s movies) that get you hooked on cheba by giving you freebies at first. Beware of those coupons.
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Mandatory 10


Recently I had my car worked on— a strange and expensive malfunction that was not my fault and (thank God) still covered under my warranty.  On the third week of being at the repair shop (a week longer than they had estimated), I called to find out what was going on and when my car would be ready.  Emphasis on “I called them”—even though they had promised to call me.  The shop manager was very cordial, explained that my warranty would cover the mega expense, that I now had a ‘brand new’ car in an older body and that I could pick it up that afternoon.  Urgh—the fool knew I was anxious to get my car back, especially when a 3-day weekend was coming up in a day. My thoughts of why he didn’t call me sooner, why he underestimated the time it would take to fix,  why he kept me on pins and needles regarding how much my warranty would cover dissipated when I knew I could pick up my car.  Yay!

The shop manager ended our phone conversation (in an overly saccharine tone) with the news that I would be receiving a service survey from his corporate headquarters to complete and asked if I would give him the highest marks of 10 for his great service.  I said “uh, sure”.  When I picked up my car and the manager gave me the skippin’ &  a’hummin’  walk to my car (including opening the driver’s door for me), he again mentioned the survey and that “10s would be the only acceptable marks” I could give.   I said “uh hum”.
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El Sereno Sample Sale: Sat, May 7 and Sun, May 8, 2011

Sample Sale Saturday, May 07 and Sunday May 08,2011

Photo via Flickr

El Primo will be having a large clothing/sample sale this weekend in El Sereno. There will be new name brand clothing for men and women at low discount prices! Some brands include: American Apparel, LRG, One World, Alternative, Curl, RSQ, Parris Skinny jeans, Cache Jeans and more. All sizes available!

Location: 4441 Alpha Street
Time: 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Los Angeles, Ca 90032
Cross-Streets, Huntington Dr and Maycrest
Support a swapmeetero out!

Los Angeles Riots: 19th Anniversary


Anger over verdicts at Parker Center, Downtown

Every year I post this small reminder of what happened in Los Angeles 19 years ago today. And well this event has been explored, analyzed and written about over the years, I often feel like the whole story hasn’t been told. The story of the people who actually participated in the events or uprising or riots…whatever you want to call them. So here’s your space to share your stories, remembrances and reflections. Or perhaps even predictions for future similar events here in this city. The conditions seem about right.