Where the Streets Have Names

We all know that Los Angeles is known for its car culture and expressways but, today I was really thinking about what the streets of LA show me. The streets give us a moment to interact with other Angelinos either it being stand still bumper to bumper traffic in front of us, crotch rubbing on the bus behind us, or a lifted pick-up truck racing beside us down 6th St. We all have our own experiences on these streets and sometimes they're good, sometimes bad, and most of the time whatever.

The streets literally bring us together from different parts of the city. They work into our lives, changing minute by minute and being useful during one part of the day and completely annoying at another moment. Taco trucks line up on them and the street becomes a parking lot for a mobile restaurant. I use them to ride my bicycle for hours and I actually love roads when they lack cars and are freshly asphalted. Other times I dread the road like it is on Virgil by Beverly right now, totally stripped, rutted, and piled up with asphalt debris but, still being used.

We all have our own ways of interacting out there. Lately I've noticed that traffic has been lighter. I don't know if this is because, a) more people are car pooling and using alternative transportation or b) less people have jobs to go to. I think it's the later. Times are getting strange. I think we all sense that and from the streets you can gather a lot. You can drive through downtown LA south of Los Angeles St. and see the homeless. Not just cracked out drug addicts but, entire families strolling along and finding a place to rest. These streets show us what's going on. We all live our lives under different roofs and we all come together on those expressways, pot holed stretches of Wilshire, and in our neighborhoods lined with broken toilets.

With a nod to Yirko I now leave you with the Pet Shop Boys, enjoy.

Got Flush?

That's right. And how convenient!

Wish You Were Here

Many communities within Los Angeles and vicinity bear fancy names in an attempt to hide the fact that they are just sun baked baskets, one turd away from unregulated turd overflow.

Some examples are:
Bell Gardens
Santa Fe Springs
Shadow Hills
Montclair
Baldwin Park
Fountain Valley
Garden Grove
Disneyland
Adams Square
Avocado Heights
Pepper Corner
Pico Rivera
Huntington Park
Sun Valley

Go there and you'll see.

I went to Sun Valley today in the work pick up. It's in the Valley, and they get Sun, so they're not lying, but the name seems to indicate a life of leisure under custom fitted sun glasses, drinks on the lanai and long lazy days gossiping with your bridge club. But no, this is an inferno of genetic corruption.

I would not eat here, shit here, piss here, fill my gas tanks here. The Spirit of Sun Valley would alter my DNA on contact and I'd never make it to neighboring Burbank with both of my eyes still in my head.

We needed large rolls of a specific type of cardboard immediately, so I located a cardboard and box distributor in Sun Valley. Each time I visit a vendor, I become infinitely grateful for the work-N-jerk shack that has graciously employed me for all these years. I would hate to work at THE BOX DISTRIBUTORS. I gathered that they don't make anything, they just move around pallets of all types of packaging solutions.

The pick up was relatively smooth. They loaded the truck, I signed papers. Not enough time to count the shipping and receiving guy's 7 or 9 good teeth. I then went into the wood paneled front office to speak briefly with my sales person, Ronna about possible future orders. I had to wait in the folding chair with tweed pattern cloth padding for a minute or so.

In that minute I space/time traveled. I had a flash of some Kafka-esque existence in which I awake one day at the same time as I do every day - 5:30 am. Do my same routine of writing, coffee, music appreciation, get in car, start car, listen to radio, drive on freeway alone in my car. Only this time, I don't notice that I'm driving on the 170 North to the I-5 North, exit right on Osborne Street, right Laurel Canyon, Left Branford and I pull into a spot with no name or number, just some trash that drifted in from the year before.

I'm in inside sales and apparently I've been working here for 4 years. Now Marty wants to speak with me about my outfits and my last months numbers. How come my clothes are so fitted, is it because I haven't been closing as many sales as I should?

Ronna greets me, breaks the spell and asks me if I have a minute to look at something, "you guys make art don't you, I want to show you this, you'll love this, it's modern art. My dad made it." I didn't know that Rauschenberg had a daughter in the packaging technologies industry.

She showed it to me. I faked like I looked at it. I said something like,"Is that stucco?" I couldn't describe it to you in much the same way I couldn't adequately describe seeing Sasquatch in an Oscar de la Renta Backward Suit. I got chills as I tightened my sphincter to keep from shitting my pants.

Sun Valley - one turd away.

22 Hours, Part...wait, I forgot...

I feel like I owe all of the school-aged children out there reading Blogitude an apology. You see, I've been a poor role model. Despite all of the great bus rides, coffee shops, conference calls, happy hours, free tickets, yoga classes and doctor costumes, staying up all night and bouncing out of bed pre-dawn is not a good idea. Just say "no."

Take Me Down to Panorama City

Woke up at noon today. The above represents what's left of my breakfast. Raining. Love the sound of it - especially of tires rolling over water and back spraying into wheel wells.

I took the long way home last night via what is possibly the ugliest part of Los Angeles. Hard to say that about any one spot here since L.A. is 9 parts ugly, 1 part lucky. Most days I try not to look up at the beige colored sky. But that's beside the point, the point of this entry is about Panorama City.

Name sounds great, but the place is on open sewer, and I found out something interesting about it - Not only does it boast the area's most depressing Wal Mart, it's also a HIVE of filipino living and commerce. I had no idea. There's also Kaiser there in case you need the DMV of health care.

Here is the Google Map

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=panorama%20city&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

I spent some time at Island Pacific Supermarket. Typical of asian mega supermarkets, small restaurants flank you on both sides as you enter all of which are vehemently CASH ONLY. And I fell right into their racket. I used the ATM/exorbitant-surcharge-fleecing-machine that is propped up inside every business that deals in cash only. I ate at Goldilocks against my better judgement. I think I am the only Filipino that understands Goldilocks as the answer to this question: What would the world look like if Louis Pasteur hadn't studied germ theory?

I ate my food begrudgingly while watching Wowowee on the big screen. Wowowee is the excruciatingly embarrassing variety show of bad boundaries which could be best described as the Price is Right meets Letterman meets Barbara Walters meets Let's Make a Deal meets Solid Gold meets Who Wants to Win 10 Dollars meets Who Wants to Be Humiliated on TV. It's always what's on TV at my mom's house and it's incredibly fascinating.

This segment was a contest round featuring a college aged girl. Before every contest, Willie the host fillets each contestant to reveal very intimate details about themselves on live TV. Tonight I learned that the contestant was the illegitimate spawn of her mother and the mother's Arab employer's brother. You following?

It doesn't matter. Willie got the kid to cry on TV and also call out to her father that he visit her just to say hello. The audience members couldn't keep the tears back and then just as things were tumbling down towards the king of all blow jobs - time to play speed round.

Amazing what you can find when you take the Roscoe Exit.

mmm mmm good

Hello out there, it's a little bit before midnight on Thursday and I had a few things to report on that I will table for now. About an hour ago, I treated myself to a the company of my newest friend, Xanax and I'm surprised at how the world seems slightly more delicious to me and I can't seem to remember why I was so pissed off earlier about a friend of mine with whom I've been working a project. Seems like ages ago - when I was young, dumb and too punk rock for my own good. Don't worry, I got it from my real doctor at Cedars Sinai using my HMO - no pharmacy runs to TJ here, just CVS on Fairfax.

My stereo is off, there is no audible music to speak of, but I find my body swaying happily to what seems to me the sounds of steel drums and crashing waves. I guess this is what it feels like to grow up in Jamaica. Why didn't I find out about this sooner?

Anyhoo, Good Night.

*****

For your listening pleasure, Yellowman at Sunsplash 82. Hope you can dig it as much as I do. You think I'm kidding?

Kogi Mania Continues

You ever wear Britannia Jeans? I did. Can you find them now? Prolly not. The commercials would go something like this, "My home is in Pacoima, but I live in Britannia."

In our present Los Angeles Space/Time, the tag line might be, "My rent is overpriced, but I live off the Kogi Truck."

Check this LA Times Story re the Kogi truck.

http://www.latimes.com/theguide/la-fo-kogi11-2009feb11,0,913818.story

Brilliant or Britannia?

*****

For your free-associative pleasure, my favorite Sergio Commercial

Warm and Kogi

Friend of Blogitude, Ethan and I were cruising home Saturuday night from the east side after 1) a fund raiser in La Canada for a pre-school dominated by well heeled parents; 2) a visit to our possible future home at the Brewery and 3) a quintessential Bo-Bo party in Mt. Washington complete with live Afro-Cuban music; when we saw the Kogi truck on the westbound 10. We followed it.

The thing was greeted in Venice by two separate semi mobs of eager taco eaters, plus a camera crew.

On Friday night, when Blogitude Staff and Ethan met it in the freezing Silver Lake rain, the Health Department also greeted the operation, forcing an hour long delay. The public servants, concerned that I not get the runs took their sweet time measuring temps and inspecting all the bulgogi and kimchi that awaited us.

The wait didn't entirely suck as I was amidst Blogitude and Ethan. It helped that McDonald's was nearby to tide us over until the Man completed his health inspection.

Was it worth it? Yes. You wanna know why? A insisted that of our order of 30 tacos, we also get 3 burritos. I hate burritos and I'm glad that A pushed for the little fuckers. They are the best thing this truck offers and I am now a Jersey Fist Pumping Fan of the Korean Burrito. Thank you Kogi Truck for helping me to grow.

New Crazies on the Block: UPDATE

Unfortunately I don't know if the police have caught anyone or not but, here's an article with a little more journalistic integrity. . .Silver Lake robberies.

New Crazies On The Block

It looks like a string of violent robbery attacks have been happening in Silver Lake. Coblogger A and I both live within the vicinity of these attacks and I’m not really worried or scared because, it sounds like these hoodlums are gonna get caught and they’d be really fucking stupid and crazy to go up against the Silver Lake vigilante task force that I’m sure is now on patrol. This link takes you to a report of the attacks and an interview with a guy who was beaten two blocks from my house.

Silver Lake by the way is an umber-hipster neighborhood of Los Angeles and it’s kinda like Williamsburg and the Upper Eastside had a three way with a Philadelphia suburb and spawned Silver Lake. There’s actually a lake, a super stinky dog park, coffee shops, Trader Joes, Spaceland, and hipster families with strollers.

I didn’t know about these attacks until a few minutes ago and I did notice a few more cops than usual cruising around the TJs the other day. I'm sure the neighborhood is upset and everyone’s been talking about it but, since I’m usually on my bicycle or hiding out in my hot tub I didn’t know anything about it. My neighbors haven’t even been talking about. So I was wondering how this could have been happening under my nose for weeks and somebody just randomly emailed me about it?

It made me think about that thing that happened in Queens a long time ago when a woman was beaten and robbed in the middle of a housing project and nobody called the cops because, everyone assumed someone else would call the cops. I wonder if the internet is doing the same thing. Maybe everyone assumed everyone else knew what was up so word didn’t spread via the internet. And since we mainly use the internet to communicate and gossip we don't have those chances to meet up on the street corner and talk about this and that. Sometimes I feel like I’m on my own private little planet that’s revolving around a sun that glows at my fingertips. I can just be myself all day and still be connected to so many people. But, maybe this whole email, blog, twitter, whatever stuff isn’t really connecting us at all but, pushing us away from each other. The gravitation of ourlives does bring us together and sure we do connect via emails and evites and stuff but, maybe we are missing something these days. LABlogitude feels like a corner to gossip on but, it still takes a lot of time and energy for me to get over here sometimes. I wish I had a corner to gossip on like they did in Edward Scissorhands.

On a lighter side and still in true blog form, Yirko and I are gonna check out this Korean BBQ and Tofu Taco truck from the future coincidently in Silver Lake on Friday. . . We’ll see you on the corner shortly. ..