Category Archives: Media

The murals of Diego Rivera come to life

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~ Pan American Unity 1940 ~ City College of San Fransisco Click pic to enlarge.

This semester I have been taking a Chicano Studies class on modern Mexican art and muralism at ELAC. It is only after taking in soo much information about the art that preceded the work Diego, Orozco and Siquieros accomplished, that I am able to see how things were back then and the tremendous influence they’ve had on artist today Chicano or not. Knowing that the foundation for their work was layed out by artist such as Jose Maria Velasco and Jose Maria Obregon using the European style to show a sort of reimagining of how things might have been during precolonial times. This type of indigenismo continued on to the 19th century and peaked during the Mexican revolution when shit was going down. It wasn’t until the dust settled from the war that Diego returned to Mexico from Europe to do his thing.

With that being said, I cannot wait to see what his murals will look like when they’re projected to life size proportions Saturday at the Ford Amphitheatre. At the same time former Director of the Museum of Latin American Art, Gregorio Luke will be giving a lecture about Diegos life and his works. I looked it up and he’s being doing these lectures the last few years. There’s no way I’m letting this opportunity pass me up again, especially now that I have a better understanding of the art and Diego. I have a love for murals, which is pretty evident in some of my post, yet i still have soo much more to learn and take in as the history influences the future. The serious is going to start off with Diego then with Rufino Tamayo in July and finish it off with Miguel Covarrubias in August. An interesting fact that I learned in class was that Rosa Covarrubias, Miguels wife, inspired and mentored Frida. Rosa wore the tejuana dress  and influenced Frida and her fashion choices. None the less, this is going to be an amazing experience to see the murals outside of a book or a computer screen.

Click on the link to see a you tube video.

The Los Angeles Marathon 2009

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Staring at 3 a.m. this morning, P3000, a cute friend of P3000 and I rode through the marathon route on bikes. P3000 let me borrow an extra one he had.  Let me tell you that this city is something else in the middle of the night and early morning. At first this bike ride started as a personal challenge because P3000 says that my generation is a bunch of lazy guevones. That we can’t hang like he does. I couldn’t let this injustice go unanswered, so I grabbed the bike and I peddled my ass through the streets of L.A. Here are some of the pictures I got.

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Quinceañeras, Jesus Malverde and Adan Sanchez Ohh my

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always

When I first got word about “Always & Forever” I was hesitant about it. At best, I’m a casual fan of corridos  and I don’t identify with it on any level other than it’s a life style for some and it has millions of fans. When Adan Sanchez died it was just another regular day for me, but to thousands here in L.A. it was the loss of a talented musician and a young man. I didn’t even know that the play first premiered in 2007 at the Ford Amphitheatre and it was originally conceived around 2004 at Casa 0101 by writer Michael Spillers in a writing workshop. Now coming full circle in 2009, the loss of Adan is still felt and his music is still being played by his fans. The play, inretro spect almost seems like on huge homage to Adan, his fans and everything else that is tied to Corridos and Bandas. “Always & Forever” revolves around a quinceañera as family traditions clash with a young girls passion and love for Banda music and Adan. The play follows the family dealing with their everyday drama and the quinceañera, ultimately culminating up to the day Adan died. Anyone who is a fan of Adan of Bandas will love “Always & Forever” and even people who don’t know anything about it can still relate to some of the antics the family gets into.

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Who Felt the Quake? Who Has Money?

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Quake Reponse Data, Mapped

If you go by the raw numbers on the USGS.gov site, one might conclude that rich people felt the quake more than working class people, even though it happened in Inglewood.

The USGS.gov site has a cool feature where you can submit a quake report describing how it felt. You fill in your zip code, and some info about how much things were damaged, or not. During the recent quake on Sunday night, they collected more than 4,000 reports.

As you might expect, this received data was biased to come from upper-middle-class people, and probably younger people. I’ll leave it to the comments to speculate about biases. Details and links after the jump.
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Legends Of The Eastside Sound- An Interview With Mark Guerrero, Part 1

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[audio:https://laeastside.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/get-your-baby.mp3]
Once upon a time, during the late 50’s to the 60’s, weekend nights at Eastside gyms, halls, and youth centers were taken over by dances featuring a young breed of musicians who got on stage and beat out the rhythms of Soul, Blues and Rock & Roll to frenzied crowds of teens making the scene.
That era and that music that became known as “The Eastside Sound” is woven into the historical and cultural fabric of Eastsiders. It has an identity, and a flavor that comes through in a rich shade of brown better heard while cruising in a Ranfla, or by spinning some scratchy 45s and dancing with your Háina.
There have been recent noteworthy chronicles about this Eastside musical heritage such as the book “Land of a Thousand Dances” and the recent video documentary “Chicano Rock! The Sounds of East Los Angeles”. Nevertheless, I have always felt that the Eastside scene was worthy and deserving of something much more in depth. There were overlooked people, places and details that I wanted to help discover, chronicle and preserve for posterity. And, since it doesn’t look like Ken Burns will be undertaking that project anytime soon, I decided to take some steps in that direction all on my own.
I sought someone from that era who could tell me more about it from a front lines, first-hand perspective. “Who could paint a mental picture for me of what those times were like?” I asked myself. Then, I came in contact with Mr. Mark Guerrero.
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Brooklyn & Boyle issue 5

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Here it is, the newest issue of Brooklyn & Boyle fresh off the grill. So to speak. It was a long time coming, but the wait was worth it. The magazine keeps improving with each issue. AND YES I see the grammatical errors cabrones, mistakes like that can be easily remedied, but what can I, we just wanted to get this mag out and ready for your viewing pleasure. So enjoy. Ohh and click on the images to see a bigger, more readable version of it.

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The Pocho Hour of Power

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The Pocho Hour of Power — queque?!?! — at the Steve Allen Theatre in Hollywood/Los Feliz… este sabado… a las ocho

I’m a regular patron of the Steve Allen Theatre. I THINK this might be the first time they’ve ever hosted a “Latino” show.

pocho hour of power

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!!

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Uh Oh! If Mexico is on the shit list of the paranoid conspiracy theorists can the LA Eastside, which is considered the capital of all things Mexican in the USA, be on the shit-list too?

I don’t know about youse guys but mañana all my bacon, Jimmy Dean sausage, chorizo de puerco, carnitas, chicharrones, and even the head cheese and morcilla that I got from the matanza this last winter, is going to be fed to the dogs or given away to the winito’s down on the corner.

It’s starting to look like a holy jihad or a fatwa against anything resembling or having to do with Mexican. Shit it’s bad enough that Gloria Molina has got the anti Mexican forces all in a foam about the “Edward Roybal, Linea de Oro” , last thing we on the Eastside would want is the Rush Limbaugh shock troops campaigning for a total quarantine on the LA Eastside over this Marano flu.
Those culero’s might think we’re part of the “reconquista plot” to take back the southwest. Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
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Lies and Berries: Art Is Priceless Except When It Costs $1.75

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BookSale. Two words together that make me smile, kinda like job and blow. I got up on Saturday morning, a lazy morning, the best kind. Exercise, wash clothes, check e-mail, blah blah. Looked at my calendar and saw that the week of April 12 – 18 was highlighted. Of course, National Library Week! Ok, they weren’t highlighted, just kidding. I promise.

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Made in L.A. ~ May Day Campaign

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Click here to see a clip

When I first saw Made in L.A. last year after it won an Emmy, it hit a soft spot in me to say the least. When my father first came to this country way back in the ’90s to pave the way for the rest of the family to make it over, he worked in one of those garment factories. I remember those days because of where we lived, how we lived and my father telling us later on, in his drunken ramblings, how much he hated that work when he was doing it. Yet, he did it and put up with it because that was what he needed to do in order to get the job done, so to speak.
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