Category Archives: La Crisis

Coachella. Layaway. YES YOU CAN!

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layaway

I’m listening to cheesy 80s music streaming via yahoo and I hear this commercial for Coachella and not that I’m a big Coachella person or get in a car and go to the desert to listen to crappy music kind of person, even in my 20s that was not me. I have always been a read a book, drink a bottle of vodka, go to sleep, wake up at 9pm and go to a dive bar and argue with you kind of person.

But what caught my ear was apparently this year’s Coachella is offering a layaway option.

Layaway to go to sit in the desert where there are all kinds of rules like:

No chairs
No food or beverages (you have to buy the overpriced food and alcohol there, though I didn’t see anything about alcohol and I’m really not seeing the point of an alcohol free festival unless it is a Mormon Music Festival.)
No stuffed animals (what the hell is that “no” for…)
No drugs or drug paraphernalia (to me there is no point in going to the desert without taking drug, if god didn’t want us to use drugs in the desert then why did he make meth grow there?)
No parking overnight. No overnight parking…??!!! Nearest bus stop is three miles away, nearest train station three miles away…so I guess you spend 100 bucks on a hotel to sleep at for five hours. I wonder do the hotels also have layaway? Continue reading →

Botanitas: March 30, 2009

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lhminimall1
It’s just like a mini-mall! Oh wait, it is a mini-mall, The Lincoln Mini-Mall. The super nice Lebanese guy who ran the quality clothes (i.e. Levi’s) booth is gone. Perhaps, La Crisis took a toll on his business. I remember him wistfully telling me how Lebanon was once like Europe and how sad he was to leave his country after the war. He and his little shop will be missed.

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!

Keep reading for quotes from the grumpy Lupe’s 12 Kinds of Burritos lady, Eastside oral history, mariachi Shakespeare, gangstas with GQ style and Eastside flavored holidays.
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Westside 10A: The Boot

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wcarboot

Over on this side of the river, a boot on a car for failure to pay the “I don’t own a garage” tax otherwise known as a parking ticket, is quite the common sight. Occasionally, you even see people contemplating if they can take it off themselves, looking at the lock, checking out where it’s clamped. When the money is low the last thing you want to do is throw it away. Which is the reason you never paid your tickets, which lead to the clamp that’s gonna cost you an extra $150, which if you don’t pay in time is gonna mean your ride will get towed and then you are truly jodido. The non-poor rarely realize how expensive it is to be poor. And no, being broke is not poor. When you can no longer call the parents or your other unspecified “resources” to bail you out, then you’ll start finding out what it means to be poor. And by the looks of this fancy BMW/Benz/whatever the fuck it is with a boot, seems people will start getting acquainted with the concept of without fairly soon!

(Update 3/28: Another picture to admire added to end of post!)

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Wild Wild Eastside

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wildwildeast

Quite unfortunately the Eastside (& NELA) seem to be hit by a wave of shootings. The local (il)legitimate media is pretty much silent about it. Working at a high school I have often first hand accounts of the going-downs in Lincoln Heights.  Whether it’s drive-by’s or kids I know getting beat up, things are getting crazy.

Is it La Crisis? Is it an extension of what is going down in México?

“The Big Takeover” how AIG and the Govt. got us into this mess

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from Rolling Stone:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print

“It’s over — we’re officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far.”

That’s right he said royally fucked, the article is in Rolling Stone so they let him get away with a lot. This article really clearly, and passionately explains how and who was involved in a lot of the horrible transactions that led to taxpayers having to bailout the super rich. It is a call to arms. We should be pissed off and taking these guys down, taking their assets and locking them up. We shouldn’t be paying a dime for their money making schemes that made them even richer but bankrupted the economy.

Here is a video of the author talking about his article. I hope more people read and see this and we start doing more than paying for rich guys gambling.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/#29789983

The Perfect Couple. The Perfect Job.

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the-great-depression

When I was 25 I got divorced. The reasons for the divorce included lots of factors, but one of the factors that really helped the down fall of the marriage was my ex-husband’s misfortune of being involved in the dotbomb.

One by one his friends lost their very highly paid jobs and over priced houses. When it was his turn, he did not take it very well.

The computer industry while prior to the dotbomb was well paid, it was extremely grueling. Eighteen hour work days, seven days a week wasn’t unusual. It was standard. To lose your job when you worked so hard and had taken so many tests, was a harsh slap and a realization that this new industry was not one about community, but about money. Continue reading →

The “Help El Random Hero pay for school and buy a laptop” fund

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cream

As of late I’ve been hunting down scholarships that I qualify for and have a chance of getting. Paying for school and the cost of living adds up rather quick when your in school. So I’ve been asking people for letters of recommendations left and right and so far people are willing to help me out, thanks Victoria. But I realized that scholarships can only go so far for me and I’m extremely limited in the scholarships available to me because I’m special. At the same time there are other students applying to those same limited scholarships and well they blow me outta the water in terms of academics. Sure I have a 3.0 gpa, I’m an active community member, blogger and journalist at two news papers blah, blah, blah. Point is the pipe line gets thinner and thinner especially now with La Crisis and everyone trying to get as much financial aid as they can. That’s another thing too I DON’T QUALIFY FOR FINANCIAL AID. Everything comes outta my pocket, which at the jr. college level isn’t too hard. I have a job, but I’m a full time student. I work weekends and when I’m not in school I work as much as I can to save up for the following semester. Continue reading →

La Crisis: Jardineros okay for now

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El Jardinero by Los Originales de San Juan

The Wall Street Journal had an article on how paisa gardeners in Los Angeles don’t seem to be suffering as much their compatriots in construction and other blue-collar jobs. Despite La Crisis some of them seem to be doing remarkably well.

Many Immigrants Still Till the Land of Opportunity
As Some Foreign Laborers Head Home, Veteran Gardeners Find Their Dream of Middle-Class Prosperity Uneroded

“Gardening isn’t like working at a factory, where you depend on one employer,” says Manuel Quezada, a 54-year-old veteran gardener, as he and his team put down sod in the front yard of a house here. “If I lose one house, it doesn’t hurt that much.”

For immigrants, gardening has long been a stepping stone to prosperity. Japanese immigrants with a background in agriculture pioneered residential gardening in California in the early 20th century. The physical labor didn’t require education or fluent English but it lifted them into the middle class. In the mid-1960s, Mexican peasants began flocking to the U.S. Southwest in large numbers. By the 1980s, they had come to dominate the residential gardening niche, Mr. Ramirez says, and some have thrived financially.

I can see how this industry would continue to do well. Some neighborhoods are required to have a certain amount of landscape maintenance and most of these folks that live in these areas are not going to do it themselves. However, if water rationing is implemented (California is currently in emergency drought conditions), I wonder how long it will be before gardeners start feeling the pinch.

On a related note, I’ve been hearing anecdotal tales about immigrants moving back home or at least away from Los Angeles. Anyone have friends or family affected by La Crisis that have decided to move on?

La Crisis: The County Line

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Coolio’s County Line, the anthem for GR (General Relief) recipients in the early 90s.

According to the Los Angeles Times, one in five Los Angeles residents is receiving public assistance.

One in five Los Angeles County residents — nearly 2.2 million people — are receiving public assistance payments or benefits, a level county officials say will rise significantly over the coming months as the fallout from the recession continues.

County officials warn that tens of thousands of additional frustrated job seekers — unemployment in the county currently stands at 9.5% — are expected to seek aid to weather the persistent recession once their other benefits run out.

Based on the amount of folks I know personally who have recently lost their jobs,  I imagine the numbers will go up even higher. While some may think applying for public assistance is a fairly straight forward process, Coolio’s video isn’t all that much of an exaggeration. According to the article not much has changed down at the DPSS office. Yes, the process for applying can be extremely daunting and maybe for some, humiliating but look at it this way, obscene amounts of your tax dollars are going for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, might as well use some of the crumbs for yourself. During these times of La Crisis, you gotta do what you gotta do.

First, check the DPSS website to see if you qualify. While I’m not condoning it, sometimes applicants slightly adjust the true value of their assets on the application i.e. your car. Ask people who are waiting in line for tips, most will offer friendly advice. Also, if you’re worried about what people might think when you go to pay for your food at the supermarket, now you don’t even have to suffer the indignity of paying with food stamps, you’re given a debit card to use. These debit cards are also widely accepted at local farmer’s markets so you can really stretch that $176. Obama’s new stimulus plan calls for an increase in food stamps benefits, so perhaps in the future you can even go organic. (Never mind, see here) So what are you waiting for? Put down that cold cup of ramen noodles and get yourself down to the county line. You might even qualify for General Relief.

La Crisis: The hemorrhaging of jobs!!!

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jobslost

While some people may not get in regards to unemployment numbers how bad it is out there. We have other indicators that are in my opinion better indicators. And to me unemployment numbers are not a good statiscal visual for the average person (at least not in the beginning,)  jobs have been going away since 2007 and some people have just stopped looking, so how do we see how bad it truly is? Continue reading →

Parking Rate Increase Decreases Parking

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lhpark1

As many may have noticed, the City has decided to jack up the price you pay at parking meters, and those increases have been showing up all around town. In Lincoln Heights, the parking lot behind the 99¢ store and the Payless Shoes, has gone crazy with those crazy fees: the price for an hour has increased by 400%.  One dollar an hour might not seem that much to some, but it’s really exorbitant for many working people.

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