Still going on

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I grew up listening to music in Spanish, mostly anything with a mariachi, banda, or conjunto norteño, never even hearing those “oldies” organic to Los Angeles. I’ve had a musical exploration reverse to many people my age or of previous generations. Many I know grew up listening to music in English and started to explore music from México or Latin America later in life (if they ever did), while I started to explore music in English when I was about fourteen. Even now, I mostly listen to  and explore different music from México, but that’s due to me playing in mariachis for the past eight years.

Imagine my surprise yesterday when a post over at Guanabee came up on my RSS feed. I scour the internet for news relating to mariachi, especially this week, when the San José Mariachi and Latin Music Festival is on. [During mariachi festival time, new & interesting things come to light, like Rubén Fuentes, longtime former member and director of Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán (64 years and counting), and songwriter extraordinaire, gave an interview (he is very reclusive) and stated that the future of mariachi music was in the United States.] One of the festival’s concerts, last night’s, was headlined by Ersi Arvizu, a name I did not recognize. As I read on, however, it became clear I already knew who she was. Continue reading →

The Best Thing About Boyle Heights? Some White Guy

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Really? Really! At least according to LA City Beat, which picks “the best things in your neighborhood” in it’s latest issue. Who is it? Why, it’s Ron Gormon…whoever the fuck that is. Since you probably don’t know him either, here is the fascinating entry:

Boyle Heights
Ron Garmon
There used to be a real swing to Boyle Heights, they tell me. Most of this was just a quick whoosh of air from people ducking behind walls and flowerpots and lampposts and fat people when they saw Hunter S. Thompson coming toward them. Oh, it was also the case that Thee Midniters and Los Lobos brought wild nights and neighborhood pride to clubs that have since (of course) been murdered most foul. These days, there is little to commend in the sad, dingy nabe – except for one bright shining star: our very own Mister Ron Garmon.

You can see him, with his gleaming pale mull-hawk and fierce blue peepers, striding purposefully for a bus. (Just look for the guy who looks like Sting, or Rutger Hauer, or Rod Stewart, but mostly Sting.) You can see him, focused furiously on a far horizon, mostly because he’s on drugs. You can befriend him! He has many friends! He is kind, and handsome, and a man of talent and taste. Ron Garmon? So recommended. 5209 Wilshire Blvd., L.A., (323) 938-1700. (RS)

Oh, I guess he writes for them. Hey, and checkout his handsome face. Ay que chulo! Now I know who to congratulate for being the best thing someone could scrounge up about that “sad, dingy nabe” where I grew up.

Is this supposed to be a joke? Jaja, muy chistoso cabron.  If the media, blogs, westsiders, and newbies weren’t so consistently dismissive and confused about this part of town, maybe I’d laugh too. But reading such Dude-Bro humor as I was trying my first PinkBerry dessert (cuz I want to understand you Westies and your ways) just made me want to spit my yogurt out as an act of defiance. Thanks LA City Beat, you really made my day!

PS. The yogurt was good, but you Westies go crazy over nothing.

The rise of NELA

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I remember way back when the hoods of Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, Happy Valley, Cypress Park, El Sereno, and Glassel Park really didn’t have a moniker to say: this is ____! But in the past year or so I’ve heard many an utterance of the acronym “NELA.” Now, I had in the past said “NorthEast L.A.” or even write it that way. Hell I even thought I made it up, but assuming their is a collective unconsiousness we folks in our part of the Eastside have come up with the same acronym. NOW people say NELA as in Neh-Luh. That my friend is pretty chido in my book.

Before I had to say oh, “I live north of East L.A., across the tracks.”  Now I can assuredly say I live in NELA.

What Will You Do if Obama Loses?

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Recently, many people have said to me, “I don’t know what I will do if McCain wins?” Maybe voting Democrats should have a back-up plan just in case.

Since I don’t vote (see the Emma Goldman quote below) my life will in all likelihood stay the same – barely employed, no health insurance, don’t own property, no 401K, etc. So if McCain wins I won’t be doing anything different and if Obama wins my life will be the same. But for those who believe in the U.S.A.’s democratic system what will you do if your candidate doesn’t win?

“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

In Quotes: Eastside Stories

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Ralph’s Market, Five Points-Lincoln Heights circa 1920’s

From the Los Angeles Times, September 16, 1919:

STATION RENAMED

Old East Side Police Quarters Now “Lincoln Heights”

The name of the East Side Police Station is to become a matter of ancient history. Henceforth this place is to be known on all official records as the Lincoln Heights Police Station. The Police Commission yesterday complied with the request of improvement associations in Lincoln Heights and officially changed the name.

In 1917 a section of East Los Angeles was renamed “Lincoln Heights.” As endearing as the new name was to become, it was still common for residents to refer to their neighborhood as “The East Side.” To this day, when older Angelenos talk about the Lincoln Heights, they’ll often say “You know, The Eastside.”

Leftovers can help in an economic downturn.

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This weekend I came upon a gem of an article in the LA Times that described what steps you should take when you’re unemployed.

Jobless? Tips for Survival.

And here are a smidgen of some of the great tips:

“Leftovers are also great — I have barbecued chicken today, and tomorrow it’s in my enchiladas and then it’s in a chicken salad,” said Marguerite Womack, director of economic and workforce development for United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

I’ve seen the United Way office. It is next to the Starbucks where a policeman harassed me for looking homeless. There is a big sign by that building around 5th street in downtown and on the building it says: Don’t give the homeless money, because they’ll just ask for more…ok it doesn’t say that exactly, but pretty close.

Here’s another crumb of advice:

Jessica Hodgdon, 24, was out of work recently for six months. To save money, she moved into the East Los Angeles apartment of a friend, who waived rent in exchange for Hodgdon’s help cooking and cleaning.

Free rent please.

Free rent please.

Continue reading →

Fear & Trash in Los Angeles

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Just this evening I grew pretty scared because I heard what I thought were nearby gunshots. Normally I’m pretty adept at discerning gunshots from other random urban noises; but last night my room mate mentioned being outside, on the porch smoking, when some guy started shooting into an apartment complex across from us. Naturally I thought I was hearing round two, but upon hearing the noises once again I figured out what it was: people roling out their trash bins for collection on Monday.

Funny how fear can turn something as benign as the sound of the trashbin being dragged to the curve into a vehicle for possibly bodily injury. Once, about 15yrs ago my mother and I mistook a backfiring car for gunshots. We pulled over 3 blocks from our house as soon as we heard the bangs. It kept driving up and down the street: the moment then felt never ending. I thought, “how much do they need to shoot up before their done?” Finally we glanced up & figured out it was just an old crappy car backfiring. Fear may have its evolutionary advantages but sometimes it for naught.

The World Upside Down

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“Country estates for all!”

One of my favorite writers is former Uruguayan exile, Eduardo Galeano. His historical-ish books on Latin America (he claims he is no historian but he makes the past come alive like no other) are filled with the absurdities and the small joys that make up the upside down world we live in. Like Galeano, I sometimes feel the logic of the world we live can become so twisted that it simply ceases to make sense. The current spectacle of electoral politics is an example. From today’s Los Angeles Times:

Obama Elitist, Says Lady Rothschild

Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild is an ardent Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter who raised scads of money for the New York senator’s failed presidential campaign. She and her husband, Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild of the prominent Rothschild banking family of England, split their time between New York and a British country estate.

It’s not a bad life, she says, and she’d like you to have one just like it. Which is why she’s backing Sen. John McCain for president, not her party’s nominee.

Sen. Barack Obama? He’s an elitist, she says.

More on Lady Rothschild here.