Stock up on those potassium iodide (KI) tablets and eat more seaweed because there just might be some radiation hitching a ride on the jet stream and headed towards the Eastside (and the rest of the West Coast) and iodide might be your only protection.
LA Weekly breaks down the various scenarios and the likelihood of radiation making it’s way here. Link.
Jet stream animation with projected movement and timeline, here.
Just remember, according to the Center for Disease Control’s pamphlet on the use of potassium iodide tablets:
Taking a higher dose of KI, or taking KI more often than recommended, does not offer more protection and can cause severe illness or death.
When your daily intake of calories is defined via a “combo number” then it’s probably a good time to contemplate other options. Maybe food with a name?
I don’t get the appeal of fast food, other than the fact that it is cheap and easy, although maybe that is enough of a draw. But what a wasted opportunity to try something interesting instead. I know Eastsiders like their fast food or else these places would go out of business. I’m interested in learning though, so let me ask you this:
Why do you frequent fast food places? Is it the price? The convenience? Lack of other local options? This metiche would like to know.
I was researching a new project tonight and out of no where I started singing the opening theme of Siempre en Domingo (R.I.P. Raul Velasco) I’m thinking the root is from my cousin e-mailing this past Saturday a photo I have never seen of him, his sister and I as kids standing in from of my abuelita’s house.
As a young sprite, on Sundays two things were a given, 1. I’d watch Siempre En Domingo 2. I’d get my domingo from my abuelita and/or my abuelito. My domingo (I guess you could say it was like my allowance from my grandparents) from my abuelita would come in either a handkerchief or paper towel that was bunched up at the top and closed with a rubber band. Domingo from my abuelito would just be handed to me. I liked my abuelita’s wrapping better. They hated each other but they loved me. (R.I.P. Sipriana Rivera Razo & Juan Rivera)
Cards purchased in the 2000s from McMonkman Pharmacy in Lincoln Heights
Not too long ago, at the corner of Daly and North Broadway in Lincoln Heights was a pharmacy untouched by time. It seems the good folks of Lincoln Heights had no reason to buy anything from this store except medication from the pharmacy. This resulted in a drugstore that masqueraded as a museum of products from the 1970s. The store never cleared it’s shelves and items stood dusty on display patiently waiting for an uninformed shopper to carry them home.
As you can imagine, a store like this piqued the interest of a curious person like myself. I would wind through the purposely created maze like shelves – shoplifting deterrents – purveying cosmetic items from decades past. La Maja, the dusting powder my mother and grandmother used featured a vampy raven haired Spanish dancer on the front of the box, and as a little girl, I thought she was the epitome of beauty.
Why do I get these terrible assignments? Who did I upset in management to get stuck covering this bullshit beat? Damn these office politics.
Oh wait, I’m off today. Crud, the work time and “free time” is starting to merge in the worst sort of way. Gonna have to get that looked at, it can’t be good for my health. Well then, let me explain that I didn’t end up here by choice as in “let’s go take a dip into the cesspool called Americana, just for fun!” it was more like “let’s try to redeem these gift cards for a corporate eatery some nice people gave us before the Corporate Overlords start deducting some surcharge cuz they want to re-gift to themselves something they sold” and before I forget I have a free meal ticket to this place that I wouldn’t put on my to-do list. To make a short story longer, the wait at the BJ’s (haha!) was 45 minutes on a Friday night- AS IF! Don’t people have things to do or places to go on the weekends? I guess they were all cashing in their gift cards at the same time, surely this wasn’t THE destination for the night? Please Lord, tell me it ain’t so.
Thus my 2nd excursion (1st was a family related b-day requirement) into Americana territory. It’s just as bad as The Grove, full of shitty corporate shopping, crappy corporate food, and hints of the plaza concept as interpreted by the needs of companies that want to sell you things. Public space perfected by Corporations. It’s like a park, only not.
So yes, above you’ll see 2 random minutes of some of the worst aspects of our modern culture. I wonder if I can ask for a hardship stipend for this stressful assignment? And maybe even something extra for that Sinatra on the hour bit with the water show. Now that was excruciating.
My compa Don Ignacio SMC, inspired me to write this post because he had some videos on his Facebook page with old Rancheras/Corridos/Nortenas. While browsing through  the videos and listening to others on YouTube I noticed a common theme of old paisa bars, they seemed always pop up in the older videos. Artists such as Vicente Fernandez and Los Tigeres del Norte and countless others always had scenes in old paisa bars. Most of these are classic movie clips they starred in from back in the 1970s and 1980s.
