Last night I was hanging out at a youtube party, where various folks pick a music video to share with the gathered crowd. It’s all the rage these days, didn’t you know? Vicente from the bay area shared this ridiculous video that had us busting up for minutes, which I thought was the stupidest video ever. A paletero without a properly insulated cart? Not even a damn ice chest? Plus no bells or horns either on the shopping cart, nobody’s gonna know the paletero is coming around. Even the poorest and dumbest ambulante in LA knows that this shit ain’t gonna work. What’s wrong with them fools from Frisco? At least they paid a visit to the laundromat, otherwise known as the functional local plaza.
This morning I can’t remember any of the other videos so I guess this was the best one of the night. Enjoy!
El Chavo is usually talking sense, except when he goes blasphemous by throwing some corporate cheez in tamales. But, on the subject of that staples center concrete wonderland, he has never been more spot on. his cold, calculating description is muzak to my eyes. Shiny cement cesspools. Is there any way around that? Parks and libraries getting shut down and these commercial camps get ballyhooed. But those are public, this is private! Huh? Just so cold and sterile. Remember when De La Soul said, “neighborhoods are now hoods, cuz nobody’s neighbors…” Well I do. It’s a brothel without the “fun,” even though patrons do get fucked one way or another. L.A. Live. Music, dining, sports, living? Whateverz, as RHS students say. The grey buildings and grey walls and grey floors and those giant televisions. “OMG, they put Christ Miss lights on the bald trees. What a nice detail.” I dont want my trees trimmed, or anything else trimmed. Let’s keep it real. “Hey, where you going?” Oh, to go watch television. Outside. Television? Outside?
Acerbic naysayer? What are the solutions? What would you replace it with? What am I now, a city planner? Those assholes should be losing their jobs. Solutions? For starters, don’t be calling a concrete commercial center (or as their site claims, “a one of a kind entertainment campus,”) a haven. I’m not the one lying. Fuck you very much.
Who runs that dump? The Dutch East India Company?
I hope the Lakers and Kings lose. Everyday! Enjoy the video.
Does your boss work less than you but take home a bigger paycheck? Is somebody zipping around in a private jet at your expense? If the corporation is making money at the end of the day, that means they’re not paying you the full value of your labor – that’s where corporate profit comes from! So if you need something in your workplace, take it. You earned it!
It could be a paper clip, or some cash out of the register, or full-on embezzlement. If you’re a barista, grab a bag of coffee; if you work at a garage, get a wrench set. If you’re unemployed, take something from someone else’s workplace! Unemployment works for the bosses, too – it forces people to take any job they can, and sends the message to other workers that if they don’t knuckle under they’ll be in for it too.
You could share it with your friends, or give it to your family – the family you never see because of your job. You could use it yourself, to do something you’ve always dreamed of – maybe something making use of all that potential you would fulfill if only you didn’t have to work for someone else all the time.
Steal something from work! Break down the divisions that separate you from your co-workers. Work together to maximize your under-the-table profit-sharing; make sure all of you are safe and getting what you need. Don’t let the boss pit you against each other – in the end, that only makes all of you more vulnerable. Build up enough trust that you can graduate from taking things from work to taking control of your workplace itself!
Chances are you already steal from your work – if not physical items, at least time on the clock. Good for you! But don’t stop there – think of how much more you could take, how much more you deserve. (text by someone else. I “borrowed” it.”)
The first week of April, 1-7, is testicular cancer awareness week. If it wasn’t for the gals over at I heart guts, who made the awesome chart above, I wouldn’t have known this week was TCAW, I thought it was just Easter. So men, get to know your boys a little close this week and give yourself a self exam because early detection is the best way to stop and get rid of testicular cancer. So what exactly is testicular cancer ? Google health defines it as, “cancer that starts in the testicles, the male reproductive glands located in the scrotum.” It seems that there are no detailed specifics on what causes the cancer in individuals, besides a family history or abnormalities in that region. Symptoms range from nothing to pain in that region, back/abdomen, enlargement of testis and the one you look out for the most is lumps or unusual swelling.
All take place at Casa 0101 (a new spot– 1 block east from the old spot), 2102 1st Street, Boyle Heights. Both days of art protest are free! Also, another opportunity to check out the Juarez protest art exhibit.
Friday, March 12, 8pm to 10pm
Writer/performer Claudia Rodriguez
Discussion with Dr. Ana Nogales on Human Trafficking
Music performance by Ramona Gonzalez & Carlos Zelaya
Music Performance by Big Joe Hurt
Saturday, March 13, 8pm to 10pm
Poets: Maestras Gloria Alvarez & Judith Terzi, Poetess of the Water
UCLA Professor & Chair of Chicano Studies Alicia Gaspar de Alba reading from her book, Desert Blood, followed by Q&A.
Writer/Poet Consuelo Flores, reading from her art activism work on Juarez, followed by Q&A
New performance by artist Vibiana Aparicio Chamberlin!
Writer/performer reina alexandra prado
New performance by Liliflor Kozmica & SPACE Intruderz!
Next week March 19 & 20, film screenings FREE!Señorita Extraviada, on March 19 & Border Echoes on March 20, 8pm to 10pm on each day
This past Wednesday at the big N, we took a department wide furlough day/walkout/teach-in. We are multi disciplinary so are our actions.
I didn’t call for a furlough day because then none of my students would have gone to campus, unless they had other classes, and they would have missed the march and teach in.
The weird thing about it all was that very few of the students knew what to do at a rally or march. Most had never been to a march. They grew up in an era of grotesque lies, conservativism, fear mongering and resistance to dehumanization but had never participated or seen what people did in the streets.
I met with my later class and asked “what will it take to get you angry and into the streets?” none could answer. I hope they come back with something on Wednesday.
Stop-Wake Up (Very awesome video filmed in Los Angeles and popular Hi-NRG song)
Over at my personal blog, I’ve been doing a series of posts based on a book I’ve been reading called Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco. I was fascinated to read the chapter on Hi-NRG or what I’ve come to call “Chicano Disco” (my nod to the moniker “Chicano Oldies”) and the music’s influence on a generation of Eastsiders. Continue reading →
I won’t let this go until the side of town I live on is treated with the same concern that people in South Pasadena are treated with. I am willing to burn these videos onto CDs and give them to people who want them for free, if they would like to use these to explain to Metro what they want at the upcoming February 11 meeting on the safety issues for the Gold Line. Cheap reflectors, paint and tours aren’t enough!!! Cheap reflectors, paint and tours will not make us shut-up about this.
During the brief interlude between storms yesterday, I went for a walk around Lincoln Heights and was thrilled to see all the water rushing down the Arroyo Seco. I’d seen the Arroyo full before but this was impressive. It’s usually just a small trickle running through a boring concrete channel. Notice too how dark and muddy the stream is, where did all that muck come from? Definitely not a time to check out the bike path.
I’m in the midst of writing an end of the year wrap up post but it’s time to go have some fun, ring in the new year and say goodbye to the miserable decade behind us.
So for now, I want to wish all the readers and contributors of LA Eastside a happy and safe new year!
I’d also like to mention, this week we reached a milestone of 10,000 comments – and it seems there is so much more that needs to be said! We’ll be here in 2010 to fulfill all your commenting needs.
Sadly, I heard no tamborazo echo through the neighborhood last night. Perhaps due to La Crisis, I hear less mariachis, tamborazos or other live music at the parties that dot the Eastside during these holiday times. Well, thankfully for Youtube, I can listen to tamborazo this morning. For me, it’s not Christmas without tamborazo and I’m not even from Zacatecas! Seriously, I should have been up drinking ponche and dancing to that crazy bass drum all night! Que lastima…
By the way, this group is from right here in Lincoln Heights. They have a cool little van they travel around in with their name stylishly painted on the side in Mexican blackletter.
TAMBORAZO MILPILLAS DE LA SIERRA
Los Angeles, California
Para Contrataciones:
Tel:(323)222-3662 or (323)479-7966
“She’s the epi… epitome of conservativeness…if the republican party doesn’t back her, it doesn’t matter because she’s gone get the presidency!”
“We do need to have profiling. I mean, the politically correctness has got to get out now. I mean, we are americans. She sticks up for the american people not for other people. We’re first, other people last.”
Did you get that? The “Other people.” Dumbfounded. This video is comedy gold. Well, maybe not. I thought of John Taylor Gatto’s book Dumbing Us Down. I thought of the hundreds of seniors at Roosevelt High who read at fifth grade level. I thought how in Mexico or Cuba, I am almost shocked at the level of discourse, because I don’t experience that level often with the strangers I meet here. When was the last time you were asked about Twain and Emerson and Langston Hughes? “So what, those are poor countries. USA #1!” What’s my point? Don’t have one, but I have a question:
Who are these people? Is this “middle america”? The “heartland of america.” Are those racist terms still used? Where are we? We, of the barrio? In the buttland? Where is this wonderful place, so often called “america?” Never been there.
Was it the editing? Why can’t they form complete sentences? I mean, uhm, well, uhm… Here are some of the greatest unintended one-liners in the history of media, in all their mostly monosyllabic glory. The Steelers dude is timeless.
Don’t get me right, that shit’s also right here in east los, en masse! Am I castigating mi gente? Everybody is mi gente, numskull! I’m fucking tired of people talking without saying anything. I said I’m tired! What chew gone do, blame lausd? Please. You with your ipod and latest fashion bullshit, but can’t give directions to save your life. “Uhm…Duh…I dunno…like, two blocks, no no three, then uhm…” Shit! And I’m not even talking about high school students!
I want to thank Mrs. Pa(l)in for helping cast a bright light on the dim bulbs. These suckers support her ignorance. “Hey, look, someone as stupid as meself can be president, she don’t know shit like me, she gots my vote. Go Sarah Go.” I know there are videos of the current president’s supporters, but he knows how to formulate common sentences. How elitist of me? Me and my City Terrace uppity ways, barrio couture, and plastic spoon upbringing. Is a complete sentence a bad thing? What about a thought? Fuck!
Am I being too harsh? I’ve been called that before, in fact, on this blog. Like all my other posts, I could give a… uhm… huh…anda…uhm…
