Category Archives: Reviews

Sinceras

Posted on by
1

 

Sinceras is a great zine coming outta East L.A./Monterey Park for the last few months now. They just recently put out issue #5, and they’re still going strong.  They describe themselves as “a Los Angeles based collective organizing in a movement toward conscious living, creative freedom, unity & action. We organize music/art events and publish a zine; it is an outlet for Artists, Writers and Activists.”

I’ve met folks who work on the zine, but I forget who they are until I run into them, and I’m all like “hey !! wazz up?” (Sticking my tongue out, like in those old budwieser commercials) all awkwardly, but it’s cool cause we don’t remember each others names or when we first met, but we recognize each others faces, you know?

Anyway, just wanted to share it, since alotta folks contributing/reading this bloggito here, come from the school of DIY punk rock zines. The zine itself features everything from original poetry/art to articles about healthy eating and living, all from local folks and East L.A. College students. (That’s probably where I’ve met all these folks!! Duh pendejo!!) I also really dig the fact that they put it up online for folks to read and share, but sometimes I still prefer the physical copy 😀

They’re always looking for folks to contribute, so get at them at SincerasVoice@gmail.com and you can also keep up with them through their facebook page. You can check out pics from release parties, get updates and find out when the next zine is coming out.

Dia de los Muertos in Boyle Heights!!

Posted on by
2

There are way too many DOD happenings all over town. So I am keeping it local, and real in my neighborhood — Boyle Heights (Aliso & Mariachi Plaza Goldline stops only). You are welcome to come down, we’ve got it all –music, art, food for the living y los muertitos, crafts, lagrimas y sonrisas, celebrities, new and old friends, timeless charm mixed with new adventures—but be warned, I predict it’s gonna get congested, so please take public transportation. Be sure to support the local merchants, artists and community spaces!

Dia de los Muertos in Boyle Heights!!

October 28, 29 & 30 – Boyle Heights Farmers Market Harvest Festival at Plaza del Mariachi (1st & Boyle) 3-9pm. Free. All ages. A cocktail of crafts, vegetables, mariachi music, Tupperware, kids crafts, haunted house, pumpkin patch and pushcart vendors, in a beautiful historical setting. Don’t leave without taking in the view of downtown from the eastside. (Mariachi Plaza Metro station).

October 28, Opening Night of “Revival” Day of the Dead art exhibit curated by Patssi Valdez, 7-9pm. Why go to LACMA to see what Patssi Valdez is up to? This year’s exhibit is an eye candy of installation and visual art which includes many notables. SHG, 1300 East 1st Street (right across from the Aliso Metro station).

October 29, Noche de Ofrenda, 6-9pm. Get the lowdown on what Dia de los Muertos is all about. Reflect and commemorate your dearly departed with the spoken words of Letras de Maguey and the timely history of this ancient custom by Master Altar Maker, Ofelia Esparza. SHG 1300 East 1st Street (Aliso Metro station).

November 2, Celebrate at the NEW Casa 0101 Theatre, 2102 E. 1st Street starting at 3pm. Enjoy a Burlesque & Calavera Show, 4pm and special art exhibit featuring classic SHG Day of the Dead artwork from previous exhibitions, as well as altars, masks, and works by Corky Dominguez, Josefina Lopez, and other local artists. Bring the kids and the whole family for fun, flowers, refreshments, and pan de muerto. Free. Then it’s off, in a procession along 1st Street to Self Help Graphics’ Festival at 4:20pm! (Aliso Metro station).

November 2, Self Help Graphics & Art 38th Annual Dia de los Muertos Celebration. Starting at 5pm with a Walking Procession gathering, face painting & ceremony at Mariachi Plaza (1st St. & Boyle) Joining en-route 4pm at Casa 0101, 4:30pm at Corazon del Pueblo, 5:30pm Pecan Park with Amigos from Dolores Mission/Proyecto Pastoral. Metro Procession led by Tochtli 7 the Aztec Bunny, 4pm at Union Station 801 Vignes Street to Aliso Station in front of SHG! Musical Performances by Maya Jupiter, La Resistencia, Lysa Flores , Chicano Son, Hard N Da Paint, Hello My Name Is Red, Son Muxeres, Mariachi Tesoro Los Angeles, Pio Pico Middle School, Stage Band (Brooklyn Music Center), Thee Paramounts (Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory Band) with ELA legend Ruben Guevara as Emcee. Traditional Danza, Food and Craft Vendors, Face Painting, Live T-shirt Printing, Children’s Workshops. What can I say? It’s the Mother of all Day of the Dead celebrations. SHG, 1300 East 1st Street (right across from the Aliso Metro station).

November 2, Eastside Luv Wine & Cheese (whine & ‘jeeez’) Bar, Dia de los Dead Oingo Boingo Dead Man’s Pari Tribute, 5pm. Featuring musicians John Avila, Steve Bartek, Sluggo Phipps & Johnny Vatos with art by Robert Vargas. An annual collision of Halloween costume dress code, hedonism and wine cocktails on top of a Day of the Dead altar squeezed into a phone booth. 1835 E. 1st Street. (Mariachi Plaza Metro station).

November 2, Orale!: An Evening of Boyle Heights Stories, 7:30 – 9:30pm at the Breed Street Shul, 247 N. Breed St. (and Cesar Chavez). Residents young and old are invited to record their neighborhood stories  for the Breed Street Shul’s oral history archives. Pictures and memorabilia of your favorite Boyle Heights memories are welcome. Special preview of new play Dia de los Dybbuk, a musical retelling of the classic story about a Jewish Exorcism, only this time set in the multi-ethnic community of Boyle Heights in the early 1940s. Please RSVP. The Breed Street Shul Project, the Jewish Historical Society of So-Cal & Libros Schmibros are co-sponsors of this Dia de Los Muertos program. (Soto Metro station).

November 4, 5, & 6 Dia De Los Muertos Festival at Plaza Del Mariachi (1st and Boyle).  More than likely starting in the afternoon. Featuring a live performance by Eziquiel Pena. Para variar vamos a celebrar Dia de los Muertos! (Mariachi Plaza Metro station).

 

Chilenismos

Posted on by
Reply

A fellow artist and friend started a blog with her brother called Fundi2.  Its a new go-to place for the Los Angeles Chilean community.  They plan on interesting POVs, cultural gathering info and related political discussions. Interesting to see how our worlds collide in a city where everyone is trying to find their voice and place.

Cure for the Summer Time Blues

Posted on by
2

Have you ever had to say the words “¡Pinches chavalos cabrones!”? That was me yesterday. My car is in the shop, so I am on the metro–and you got to get up a little earlier. The bus waits for no man. As I was walking out of my house—my whole front retainer wall is tagged in HUGE letters including FU (spelled out). I run back inside to quickly paint it myself. I locate a full can of stucco paint and open it—I find that it’s dark purple (I need beige). Double urgh! Quickly I go on line and shoot a message to the city’s graffiti removal program. As I walked towards the bus stop, I see that my neighbors got it too.

As an artist, I know that it’s just a case of Summer Time Blues. Urban kids out of school for the summer looking for something to do. Marginalized from any age appropriate community spaces. Urban kids got it tough. It has been proven time after time that this amateurish scratching, marking, etching, spraying could be an artist taking baby steps.

My friend tells me that I can get a $1000 reward for catching the culprits. Last time I saw the kids doing this, I yelled “Why don’t you take an art class? You don’t even know how to do it right. It looks ugly!” That moratorium on tagging my street lasted a few years.
Continue reading →

Bordering on Love

Posted on by
1

~ Gay Beauty Pageant Contestant Antoinette (TJ O’Connell) and  stylist Marilu Molina (Silvia Tovar) Photo courtesy of Xavi Moreno

The love between a straight man and a straight woman is what has always been defined as a ‘legal’ marriage in polite society. Alas, what if that same love was shared between a gay man and a straight woman ? A rose by any other name would still smell the same, so why wouldn’t their love have the same bearing as any other couples, regardless of sexual orientation ? “Bordering on Love,” the newest production at the Company of Angels deals with that very question, when that line between what is love and what is love as defined by the federal government cross each other. Playwright Evangelina Ordaz and director Armando Molina question the governments policy to only define marriage when it applies to couples who are immigrants and/or gay, “exploring the futility of attempting to regulate human need or emotion” says Ordaz.

Continue reading →

Book Review: Down & Delirious in Mexico City

Posted on by
Reply


Escondido, 2005, from the Mazahuacholoskatopunk series. Photo by: Federico Gama

Down & Delirious in Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century
Daniel Hernandez
Publisher: Scribner
Published date: February 8, 2011

By guest contributor Susy Chavez of mexiroccan.blogspot.com

There is a legend that runs through artist circles in Mexico about the surrealist French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson’s first visit to that country. They say Cartier-Bresson was so moved and overwhelmed with visual stimulation that he declared all one had to do to find a surrealist image while in Mexico was to point one’s camera and simply shoot. Apparently, Cartier-Bresson found the surrealist promised land in le Mexique.

I often times find myself imagining Mr. Cartier-Bresson wondering the streets of Mexico camera and western sensibilities in hand, like some sort of belated colonialist explorer encountering the totem-like mishmash of the ancient, colonial and the modern that makes up Mexico. My own voyeuristic fascination with Mexico, like all the best voyeuristic endeavors in life, is deeply personal. I am, to put it mildly, passionately in love with its fluid pump-up-the-color-volume folklorico-piñata-dance chaos. Fortunately, this love abounds and Daniel Hernandez’s new book, a quasi telenovela meets Boogie Nights love letter to the 20 plus million metropolis that is Mexico City, is a worthwhile testament.

To take Hernandez’s book as simply a non-fiction travel book or as the cool kids are calling it these days, creative non-fiction travel book, would be a mistake. Hernandez’s book is fascinating precisely because he is NOT: 1) trying to find himself by teaching English in another country 2) throwing himself into hard labor in a remote indigenous village 3) has no philanthropic endeavors 4) and NO broken heart he needs to mend through ancient indigenous practices. Hernandez is on a mission to find himself, a San Diego native, Angeleno transplant via Tijuana, Mexico whose parents warn him early on that in el DF, he’ll get his socks stolen while he’s got his shoes on. Instead of making him run up towards Canada, Hernandez, a self-described “dark-skinned” pocho mexi-gringo, decides to move to el monstruo. It is in el monstruo that Hernandez leads us through a series of hoyos funkys, underground tunnels that weave through the city coming up momentarily from time to time for brief snap-shots of a series of urban subcultures that include but are not limited to fashionista fairies, nezayorkinos, banda, grafiteros, emos and fresas.
Continue reading →

There is no such thing as bad coffee

Posted on by
3

Coffee is the alpha and the omega of my day.

Just as red or white wines go with different types of meat, there are certain foods that require a cup of coffee. My brother’s mouth waters when he talks about Colorado Donuts’ excellent buttermilk donuts with their drip coffee—heaven for less than $2. This is one of his early morning pit stops. I like the 7-11 coffee with steamed milk from their hot chocolate machine. I discovered this after experimenting with all the extras they offer –from chocolate powder to a splash of hazelnut liquid. These additives were all too much for me, but the steamed milk—ahhh, perfect. Oh and you can prepare your coffee on the spot just like you want it, mixing, adding, starting over, until you got it right. I pick up the pots and take a whiff of its contents to see if I might want to try something infused—but no, its always the regular coffee for me.

Homegirl Café, The Pantry, Phillippe’s, Nick’s Café, The Brite Spot and Rinconcito del Mar are my neighborhood breakfast places, each with their own particular great morning brew. At Rinconcito coffee is served with warm pan dulce made on the premises. No fancy espresso machines in these places, just a basic and delicious cup of joe. What would a Noah’s breakfast bagel be without their special aromatic dark and delicious hot offering? There is nothing like it.
Continue reading →

Eat. Pray. Love?

Posted on by
5

Saturday April 16 was the free community viewing of the long anticipated first Mexican-American museum in Los Angeles called La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, which is located next to Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles church at Calle Olvera.

As a younger and inexperienced artist, one of my dream goals was to have my art displayed in a museum. I thought that would be the ultimate place where my ideas, voice and craftsmanship would be appreciated and cherished. I attended all the great museum exhibits–Van Gogh, Picasso, Tamayo, Siqueiros, Da Vinci, Kahlo, Warhol and so many more that I love— standing in front of their work (where they once stood), so hungry to see how they saw. Some of those artists were never even appreciated or successfully exhibited during their lifetimes.

Afterward, when a museum bought my work for a permanent display, instead of feeling accomplished—I felt like an oddity, a curio. I know it’s the nature of me, as an artist—I’m never satisfied, always looking for the next thing. As a producer/curator, a job that was imposed on me due to the lack of opportunities for my art genre,  I enter every exhibit with a critical eye.

In truth, museums began as cabinets of curiosities and collectibles that turned into rooms filled with stuff, which people were willing to pay admission to see. All these museums started as personal taste collections that were cherished by those who had the resources to give them importance.  I am not sure this system has even changed.

Continue reading →

“Fun, Guns, Alcohol, Liquor”

Posted on by
5

Maybe its me, but given the violence throughout Mexico with the Cartel wars and the fact that more deaths related to this war have occurred (28,228 since 2007) than in Iraq—is a gun to suck on really appropriate now? “Fun, guns, alcohol, liquor” are the actual search engine words for this product on-line.  I understand that this is a commemorative limited edition tequila, meant to celebrate the 100th year of the Mexican Revolution, meant to sum up who we are as the children of that revolution–but, as represented here,  is violence and aggression our only legacy?
Continue reading →

How Does Your Garden Grow? Eastside Style!

Posted on by
11

I know one of my birthrights is being one of the people  of the sun, but my DNA has definitely dealt me the “thrives in shady areas” genes.  No joke.  My grandfather Jose Delgadillo would walk to the store in 100 degrees (Lemon Grove, CA) with a long sleeve Dicky shirt & pants, a sombrero, umbrella and shades, because he had an allergy to the sun.  One of my favorite parts of the summer is attending friends’ backyard patio parties.  Especially because most of my friends are artists and create their outdoor spaces as if they are creating a great work of art.  Its perfect for me —-NO sun and a yearly changing green canvas.

I got inspired to do this piece after I spend the 4th of July at Artist Raul Baltazar’s house.  Raul is known for his murals, political performances, personal fashion style (he put the ‘Chic’ in ‘Chicano’), his furry Tochtlli 7 the Aztec bunny, and for being a source of much of my writings in the 90’s.   Yeah,  I don’t know why it took me so long to write about him on LAeastside.  Everyone knows he’s one of my muses. He grew up in El Sereno, now relocated to Echo Parque. On arriving to his July 4th BBQ this year, I see an unknown man tending luscious rows of various vegetable plants in Raul’s yard. As Raul is helping me unload my car, I whisper “Who is that?” looking towards the gardener—and Raul says matter-of-fact, “Oh, I started a community garden in my yard. All the neighbors come over to tend the vegetables.”     Continue reading →