got up, gotta do some good byes cuz i’m blowin out of medellin. visited new friend at kiosk in plaza botrero, went back to vegetus for breakfast. went to arbol de la vida for dessert and just to say thank you for existing. the owners were so gracious and wished me a safe journey. hung out in downtown and took some pics. checked out some english language schools just for the hell of it. lexicom folks were kind of rude. went back to el poblado and said bye to my new friend at chinese place. all was good again with his wife, seemed happier. final walk to hostel up the street, paid up. 60 bucks for about a week. not bad. took a taxi to the terminal and i made the 7:30 bus to manizales, a place i decided to visit a few hours ago. you see, how much planning goes into this? Continue reading →
Those of you who ride the metro to work and around town, you’re in for a unique treat this month. Starting June 13 there will be a continuous loop of short films created about Los Angeles and especially for those who ride the metro. This collection of films is called “Out of the Windowâ€. The Los Angeles Weekly got the jump on the details of this event last week. If knowing whose idea this was and who is funding this film festival click here for all those details.
My 2 minute film “LA Woman†was selected to be a part of this first group of films created by 30 professional artists and teams of teen filmmaking students. The films will be shown on 2000 LA Metro buses over 4000 square miles of LA County—wow! I’ve never been in such a mega media blitz before. The buzz was that there were an overwhelming amount of ‘car culture’ themed entries. Well, hell LA is all about how you get around the city–whether it’s on the metro, bike or car—it’s one our our daily preoccupations. My film is all about cruising. This festival will be interactive too. Films will end with a question prompting metro riders to text their response. My film question is “Who is your favorite LA woman?â€. Simple, because I like to keep it easy-breezy-lemon-squeezy.
On Sunday, June 12, all the student entries will be screened followed by a reception at Inner City Arts, 3pm. This is such an exciting project for these young Cecil B. DeMilles in-the-making. [I’m more of a Godard.] Continue reading →
Last time I blogged about the Dancing Bicycle Rider of Boyle Heights, I was only able to snap some crappy photos, well now I have crappy video. I was riding with my friend to the Red Bull Soap Box Race, when I heard his yells off in the distance. I was across the street on First and Mission and was able to catch his acrobatics from across the way.
I was then able to catch up with him after meeting up with my friend on the corner of First and Alameda as he was waiting for a signal change. You can see him being unsafe by riding on the cross-walk, doing spins and almost running into people crossing the street. I almost hit him as well. He called me a “pendeja” for being on my phone. I still don’t really know who the man is or why he does what he does. But it’s still cool to watch as he does it. Kinda like performance art.
Six years later and watching Edgar fall is one of the most hilarious things ever !! But then again it is pretty mean to laugh at someone else’s misfortune, but you just can’t help it. Which got me to thinking as I was laughing my ass off again watching the video, where is Edgar now ? Is he still mad at his friend for making him fall ? What happened after he fell ? Did his mom get mad at him or what ? Do people still clown on him for the video ? While I may not have answers to these questions, I do know that his video is one of the most watch and parodied videos out there. On youtube it says that the video was uploaded on May 8, but I just couldn’t wait that long to make this post. Where ever Edgar might be today, I hope he learned to laugh about it and take it with a grain a salt. You just can’t be mad about these kind of things all your life, it’s too short so enjoy it and laugh. Thanks Edgar.
Poly Styrene’s Talk of Toytown *A few people recommended I share this post I wrote yesterday on the chimatli blog. It’s a tribute to one of my musical heroines, Poly Styrene. Sadly, she passed away Sunday in Sussex, England.*
Poly Styrene (Marianne Elliot Said), singer and songwriter for the 70s punk band X-Ray Spex passed away yesterday from breast cancer. I don’t often feel emotional about the deaths of celebrities and musicians but X-Ray Spex and Poly Styrene were such a looming musical presence in my teenage years that I can’t help but feeling the loss of this amazing musician.
I spent a good chunk of my early teenage years hunting down the music of X-Ray Spex. It’s not like nowadays where I find the most obscure songs, things I’ve been looking for for years, ready to download in a matter of minutes. In the 80s/90s being a music lover required much more patience.
You think I’m done with these stupid random videos? Ha! Today we check out the hot action on Indiana, the street that divides Boyle Heights from East LA, and Whittier that other major Avenue that goes on forever. Yup, this is the Eastside.
Lately there’s been a few more pretenders doing the fake Eastside thing (they always send us press releases and fawning notes) and I’m about to get my chelas ready to go on another not-the-Eastside rant. Get ready for it okay?
It’s hard to get a good picture from a moving vehicle and this is the best I could do. What you kinda see in that picture above is a ridiculous aesthetic touch for that new mall in Monterey Park on Atlantic by the 10, better known as the newest location of Happy Family Vegetarian Restaurant, after being forced to relocate from this very spot to allow for the development of this very mall! Wherever they go they still make great food. Too bad the new place is a drab and lifeless stucco enclosure, no doubt some vision of the future of yet another lousy developer.
Which brings us back to that aesthetic touch, a water feature in the underground parking lot, which you only notice on the way out. There is something dehumanizing about this fountain. A miserable attempt at having you leave the miserable development in a better mood because you saw some water floating by. It ends up only highlighting the lifelessness of the whole structure, reminding you of how unnatural this all is, a fucking mini-river on your way out of an ugly underground parking structure. Lipstick on a corpse.
If you plan to visit this waterwork, take the exit to Hellman which is where you will find this refreshing addition to our social car lives. Don’t you dare park to get a closer view, the river of cars need to keep flowing!
Yes, I hereby nominate this as the Worst Water Feature in LA County. There just can’t be anything else as absurd, can there?
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.
