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Category Archives: Personal
Dia de los Muertos 09 at Self Help Graphics & Art
~click on flier for bigger version ~ Image: Deadly Stylish by Diane Gamboa, 2009
I remember last years Dia de los Muertos. I got my face painted, got a kiss from Leo Limon, ate tamales, rocked out to the bands on stage and hung out with Viki D. and P-3000 through-out the night. I can’t wait to see what this years celebration will bring. That’s why I’m excited about the workshops because it’s like a count down to the big night on Nov. 1 and 2. These workshops are kick ass because you spend an afternoon creating art, something I suck at because the calavera I painted looked like crap. Any who, the workshops are on Saturdays from 1 to 3 p.m. and they’re always a lot of fun. So check self helps site for UP TO DATE INFO and what’s going on and mark your calender. No one does Dia de los Muertos like SHG. I wonder how many M.J. altars I’ll see ?? Continue reading
Sal, chile y limón
Just wanted to give a belated shout-out to all the fruteros who worked tirelessly this summer to provide the Eastside with much needed delicious and healthy snacks. Unsung heroes of la esquina, working daily, barely shaded by the cheap plastic umbrellas above you, tirelessly slicing fruit and swatting away pesky flies, thank you for being patient as you tried to get just the right amount of chile y limón on my order. May the upcoming season of champurrado y tamales be just as, uh, fruitful!
Eastside 101: Tortas!
Can you get tortas outside of the Eastside? Probably. But can you get a proper and cheap torta outside of the Eastside? I fucking doubt it!
¡Sounds Like Burning: Play From Your Fucking Heart!
¡Sounds Like Burning is about psychos, angels and psychotic angels. Who else deserves mention?
Mister Bill Hicks introduces the series because he is… Bill Hicks. He condensed the first law of all the Arts: Play From Your Fucking Heart!
The performances to be aired here are rigodamnediculous. The biblical scholar Bon Scott once commanded: Let There Be Light. And There Was Light.
Bask in it.
Can one make the unknown known? Tune in and Trip out.
Bill Hicks “Burning Issues”
[audio:https://laeastside.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/flag.mp3]
Ron Shock remembers:
Other than the drunken orgies… we (Bill Hicks and I and the rest of the Comedy Outlaws) were pretty wild, we did a tremendous amount of drugs and we drank a tremendous amount of whiskey, and usually we did the drugs and the whiskey together. But there was one show we did… Hicks is on stage doing his impression of Elvis where he uses toilet paper instead of handkerchiefs and he would wipe his forehead with toilet paper and throw the toilet paper into the crowd. Jimmy Pineapple who was just drunk as a skunk comes running from side stage and tackles Bill, for no reason, just to do it, right in the middle of a show, in front of 900 people and tackles him and as Bill is laying on the ground without missing a beat, keeps on with his act, he’s still Elvis…
El Lechero
This is so friggin awesome! I’m guessing it’s from the 30’s or 40’s! I found it on a house exterior. The Milkman would open this little door……
[audio:https://laeastside.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/los-matematicos-el-lechero.mp3]The educational pipe line
Outside
Inside
Who hid the Mexicans?
From the great blog Mex Files the question is asked “Where are the Mexican or Mexican American Chefs on the Food Channel Network cooking or explaining or visiting Mexican Restaurants and kitchens?” Always a sous-chef, never a chef
Paul Campos (Lawyers, Guns and Money) on U.S. television celebrity chef, Rick Bayless.
“… it struck me that in a country where the actual cooking in high-end restaurants is dominated by Latin Americans in general, and Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in particular, the “celebrity chef†doing the Mexican cooking against his French and Italian-American competitors was a very WASPy-seeming fellow. Nothing wrong with that of course — it’s not like you have to be a member of an ethnic group to be a great cook in that genre — but it also reminded me of the point Anthony Bourdain makes in Kitchen Confidential that almost none of the thousands of superbly skilled Mexican and Ecuadorian and Peruvian etc, cooks manning the lines ever seem to end up as head chefs or sous chefs at the fancy places they work, let alone with TV shows on the Food Network.”
Rick Bayless is a good Mexican cook and very respectful of the cuisine but he’s not a Mexican.
La Virgen de Guadalupe at LACMA
She’s Here.
Back in late June, I learned through the LACMA blog that they had acquired a gorgeous painting of La Virgen De Guadalupe from 1691.  It was installed a few weeks ago so I went over to check it out.  I had the luxury of visiting the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe earlier this year so I was excited to see this one.  I didn’t feel like forking over 12 bucks for regular admission so I waited til the clock struck 5pm.  I gave my donation, got my ticket, and took the outside elevator right across from the Welcome Center/ Hammer Building up to the Art of the Americans Building. I opened the door and there she was at the far end, immediately tugging at my heart and drawing me inward.
Memoir of a moment of Otherness
Sometimes something as simple as a way of preparing what everyone eats can lead to a moment of otherness. Surely this can happen to most everyone: but it specifically happened to me in Emeryville (near Berkeley, CA) while working at a Trader Joe’s.
Eastside Clothiers
So this is what it looks like when the Eastside becomes a demographic. I first spotted this campaign in a men’s magazine and I was like “Whoa, finally representing the kind of people who actually wear Dickies!” Thanks to LA Eastside reader Perry who passed on the video link, much appreciated!
When I was a teen, I was into the hardcore punk scene and interestingly our fashion wasn’t all that much different from the vatos in the neighborhood. We’d wear Dickies, those canvas shoes you could buy at Woolworth’s or Thrifty’s (both stores now defunct) and plain black cotton jackets. The difference was, we were all a lot scruffier looking and had colored hair. I’ve shopped many a dime store aisle with a vato/vata next to me.
Nowadays, my friends will head to Cesar Chavez, North Broadway, Figueroa, Huntington Park or swapmeets for their Dickies wear. You can cut them off at the knee for the classic vato look, wear them to work a la your favorite mechanic or even pass them off as dress slacks. I remember once Dickies even had a “Working Class Hero” contest which I thought was hilarious! As for me, I’ve since moved on to girlier clothes.
The Art of Art Activism
I fell into my art genre, tearfully waiting for my head to explode from the pressure of making a major life decision. It’s true what they say about giving birth to new ideas, and deciding on possible roads to take, they are painful and sometimes regretful. Nervously, you dive into your choices, like a first time Acapulco cliff jumper, hoping you’ll hit the right timing of the waves.
As I mentally engage for another art activism workshop this week—I give into its course, not knowing what to expect. I trust that my genuine effort to create something meaningful has its place in the world and like kinetic energy creates a small droplet of human hope into the universe. I see myself far and removed from the distant tragedies in the world, my voice against injustice seems so small and ineffective way over here in East LA. Continue reading