PS, You're still awesome, but I think you made some extreme conclusions upthread which are impossible to prove and can only ever come across as stereotyping etc.
Finally, as much as I love the LA Weekly, it's politics often border on the hysterical and while its often right, the incessant conspiracy theories and doomsday predictions sound like a boy who cried wolf if you've been reading them since you were 12.
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 09:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 16 June 2005 13:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 June 2005 13:41 (eighteen years ago) link
i'd rather talk about strip mall restaurants. my favorite new one is raku on olympic and barrington. it's japanese and korean and two people can get five little dishes for under forty bucks. highly recommended.
― dan (dan), Thursday, 16 June 2005 15:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 June 2005 15:48 (eighteen years ago) link
Can anyone do that, supplying hard facts and proof, without turning this into a 'I must defend my homeland" emotional argument?
Why does anyone need to supply hard facts to refute your argument when you haven't supplied any to support it? It's not that I don't believe you but I would love to see some information about these votes you keep talking about: when were they, what exactly were they about, who voted which way, etc.
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 16 June 2005 16:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 16 June 2005 16:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 16:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― dan (dan), Thursday, 16 June 2005 16:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 16:57 (eighteen years ago) link
So, yeah, the Friday Fling: Let's start at Vic's balcony, then on to Mashti Malone's (I've lived in LA off and on for 12 years and never been!) and then caravan over to the Thai Elvis place. Or maybe we should do the reverse. Or we could just go to Bahooka's. And the bar at Hotel Figueroa. I don't know!
Where is Filipinotown?
Oh no, I completely forgot about the Basement Jaxx show! Don't they have the usual $1 tickets?
I don't understand the appeal of Eva Longoria at all.
also: "I don't live in Koreatown. I live in Larchmont."
Or Hancock Park adjacent. Remy, are you moving to East Hollywood/Silverlake Adjacent? Or Glendale? Or the Westside?
I really like South Pasadena (esp. I the new-ish video/DVD place on Mission, the people there are sweet) though their Gold Line protests are really ridiculous. The Southwest Museum stop is right up the block from me--I find the sound of the train sort of comforting.
I took the Gold Line to the Red Line to the Blue line to pick up my car at the Long Beach airport. Loads of fun until the final leg--I had to wait for a bus to the airport in that creepy downtown Long Beach area for 45 minutes. Apologies to anyone who lives there, but it's always seemed really depressing to me. Maybe it was thriving once.
― Garvanza Ladyfriend (Arthur), Thursday, 16 June 2005 17:00 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost!
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 16 June 2005 17:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 June 2005 17:19 (eighteen years ago) link
Except for my friend's beautiful apartment that he didn't know shakes violently whenever the subway goes underneath (at least he didn't decide to buy it).
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 17:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 17:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Arthur (Arthur), Thursday, 16 June 2005 19:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― Arthur (Arthur), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:00 (eighteen years ago) link
Category 5 http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Maps/117-34.html
it makes everything else on this thread moot... i havent read it since last night but still... we're all gonna die together so we might as well get along. Spencer you can have my "record" ceramic drink holder from the Bonaventure if i die first
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:16 (eighteen years ago) link
Actually, downtown Long Beach was in really bad shape throughout the 1980s and into the mid-90s when the city finally stopped meddling with impractical and ridiculous redevelopment schemes and just let things be. Pine Ave. downtown and east 4th. St have come along nicely.
There's a fantastic bookstore on Long Beach Blvd. & 3rd St. downtown right next to the Blue Line station that you can kill time in.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:25 (eighteen years ago) link
I don't know what sort of "evidence" would inarguably support my side less than the voting records themselves, or something analyzing them, but I'll keep trying to dig something up.
Walter if you havent yet - and I'm assuming you're a film person if you're familiar w/ Prof Boyd - I'd really urge you to see that Los Angeles Plays Itself documentary that Jody mentioned upthread, and that Remy Arthur and I all caught recently. The guy really goes into some goog detail regarding the racial segregration issues, combining it w/ the public transportation issues without letting it seem like a rant - and ingeniously, all by using thousands of film clips! It's an analysis of the whole city through the cinematic medium, perfectly apt for an industry town such as ours.
To talk about these specific issues, he brought up a lot of films, but in particular I remember him focusing on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which was very clearly a metaphor for the racial/transportation problems of Los Angeles. In the film, as you remember, the toons are performers but a subjugated minority, analogous to the city's minorities, and restricted in many aspects; the establishment has made deals with the "Cloverleaf Corporartion" to replace the electric cars with freeways, which would also be used to further geographically restric the Toons (and further on, some of the antagonists want to do away with Toontown altogether). In the end the bad guy dies so i'm assuming everything is saved? I havent actually Rabbit this film since it came out..
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link
-- Remy (rem...) (webmail), June 16th, 2005 1:20 AM. (x Jeremy) (link)
Take your classmate slander back to the East Coast plzokthx.
and dean, why does your fukked-up map-comment on myspace contain TWO long beaches? with one being next to norwalk?
Haha I didn't even notice that. That's the last time I let an Eastside sweatshop make my gif maps.
― I shift gears when I see tears (deangulberry), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:31 (eighteen years ago) link
-- Spencer Chow (spencercho...), June 16th, 2005.
Mr Chow, my friend Lucy whom you met at Ned's shindig also has _all_ of them, but she's involved with other ilx0rs I think. The last time I was there my date wanted a martini but I forced the kid to get a vodka in the coolest one available - the glass boot. Do you have that one too? I was pissed they were temp out of the state of Cali and the hotel one
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link
I blame NIMBYs and a traditionally weak mayor/civic government who have been continually bought off by corporate/real estate forces. Racism and classism *has* played a major part in LA political/urban planning history going back to Chavez Ravine, Chinatown, and Bunker Hill's redevelopment so it's not surprising that folks would continue to assume that.
Poor people are politically weak when it comes to civic development. The Wilshire Bl. business association had no problem stopping the Red Line from continuing west along it's original path, but the poorer owners on Vermont and Hollywood Bl. were basically told to "suck it up".
The Airport Parking Commission (which has an unbelievable amount of clout) successfully kept the Green Line away from LAX - redirecting it to a useless area of El Segundo.
Meanwhile, the MTA had no problem using their cost overruns to build a 24-store palace downtown while the bus system (which actually serves poor people and has more ridership than the trains) was left to twist in the wind. Naturally, the people who depend on the bus system are going to think there's unspoken racism, when in reality it's a crappy MTA.
Things are hopeful w.r.t. to public transportation, but I wish there was a Robert Moses-style autocrat in power who can make that map at the top of the thread a reality.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:47 (eighteen years ago) link
here is problem: i am working 'til 9:30 tomm night (but its walking distance from my place / Mashti Malone's) ... sorry if that holds things up
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:48 (eighteen years ago) link
Vic, thanks for all of the info. Like I said before, it's not that I don't believe you and I have in fact heard those same accusations of westsider interference repeated many times before. I was having trouble digging up any hard facts though which I thought was strange. I have some other theories about resistance to public transporation beyond the simple accusation of racism but I guess we've already discussed this to death.
The film you mention sounds interesting. It's funny that you mention Roger Rabbit because I seem to remember Boyd giving a pretty impassioned rant in one class, blasting Roger Rabbit for its racism.
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:50 (eighteen years ago) link
Me too.
― giboyeux (skowly), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:52 (eighteen years ago) link
Yeah thats really apparent from that map, especially in west hollywood. My fantasy though, is that the parking structures that would have to be built to accomodate all this would be fantastical nouveau art deco erections in variegated colors. Or modernist faux asian structures, modeled after the random buildings you see in K-town.
Walter - what year did you graduate? ...and do u have AIM?
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:31 (eighteen years ago) link
i feel like starting a LA pictorial thread when i come back from work...we are overdue one arent we? i keep coming across funny pics when im trying to research this issue
― Vichitravirya XI, Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― I shift gears when I see tears (deangulberry), Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:49 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.laspd.com/images/eventDept/speakerLASPDChief.jpg
― I shift gears when I see tears (deangulberry), Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 16 June 2005 21:56 (eighteen years ago) link
I don't mean to reopen the box of frogs, so I'll just give Elvis a nod for being more OTM than I was when I tried to say the same thing. Find me a Southern California homeowner with a back yard, and I'll find you a NIMBY. Unfortunately, the LA transit map illustrates pretty clearly the unequal distribution of the economic power and social influence required to run a successful NIMBY campaign.
Do racially coded fears play a part? I can't imagine it doesn't. And neither the "bad guys" NOR the "good guys" display the slightest reluctance to shamelessly manipulate those fears for their own ends. LA politics is a pretty cynical game, even among the white hats.
All of which is to say:- Elvis, Spencer, and Vic ALL OTM.- Jeez, this thread could use a drink.- Sorry I won't get to buy you all a round tomorrow.
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 16 June 2005 22:41 (eighteen years ago) link
and perception and attitudes is a huge part of the movements for or against transportation. people who have a history here are not necessarily more right, but have different perceptions to add and have lived through past ideas, efforts, and failures. for instance. it's common to think the red car, etc. were closed down by corporate conspiracy against everyone's will, but talking to my family (albeit a small focus group), people just weren't into it anymore (which i believe could be backed up looking at rider numbers/sales). there was a cultural fascination with cars and the future. and people really believed something like a monorail was coming, partly due to it's introduction at disneyland and the widespread belief a subway was a ridiculous idea for an earthquake-prone city. there was also MUCH less traffic then, people weren't as environmental. cars seemed win-win-win. i mean you can argue corporate efforts or advertising were behind this perception (people often act against their own best interest) and residents in retrospect might think they were wrong. but as you can gather from the state of politics, feelings and attitudes matter WAY more than facts. and they're much more random, difficult to pin down, especially if you have only past 2nd-hand records to look at.
however, things are changing. traffic and parking problems were never EVER this bad. it's affecting people's lives. people in the suburbs have excruciating commute experiences. people in the city with cars can't park and get around slower than if they rode a bike or even walked. that's what could ultimately change things.
oy vey. back to work...
― lolita corpus (lolitacorpus), Friday, 17 June 2005 01:32 (eighteen years ago) link