Tag: Los Angeles
I spent the most peaceful and light hours practicing trumpet on the roof. Our sweet landlady was a tripper who’d come up there to sit and listen to me play; she told me it was beautiful, and I once saw a soft tear roll down her painted face when she said it. I had two different friends later on, Maggie Ehrig and Ione Skye, both who told me they would hear the trumpet sounds flying through the neighborhood, not knowing the origin, and it brought them joy.
Note – good stuff, recommended.
GovSchwarzenegger
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I hope this reminds all of you that each of us has the power to make somebody else’s day a little better. I’m going to issue all of you the challenge I gave in my newsletter this month because I hope each of you spread some positivity before the end of the year:
I see so many people post on social media, “I wish I could help,” or, “It’s too bad I’m just an average person.” Let’s analyze that. Do you really wish? Because you can make that wish come true today. And don’t beat yourself up for being ”average”, or “normal” or a “nobody.” We all have something to offer. You might just be “average” but let me tell you something, a marathon isn’t run in one shot. You take the first step, then the second step, and then about 55,000 more steps. You can take the first step to help someone else today.
Do you have an extra blanket at home you can give someone today? An old jacket you aren’t using? A few dollars for a meal? 15 minutes for a human conversation? We all have something to offer. You don’t have to count on city officials. You can stop wishing you can help and start helping right now. You have power. You can be useful in some way, no matter what it is.
Merry Christmas, everybody. Go make someone smile today, don’t wait!
Andy Bales, the CEO of the Union Rescue Mission, requested a security guard accompany himself and host Tonya Mosley during their interview. And as the interview started, they came across a person agitated by their presence.
Bales says this happens just about every day, especially during the pandemic. The lack of sidewalk space in front of the Union Rescue Mission demonstrates that Skid Row is “the worst it’s ever been,” he says.
“This whole street was completely clear. But now it’s rare that you can find a sidewalk that you can pass,” he says. “It’s packed with people devastated by homelessness.”
Legal Minds Clash On How To Fix The Homeless Crisis On LA’s Skid Row
Here & Now
Homeless service providers and advocates have mixed feelings about a new order from a federal judge that Los Angeles must provide shelter to all unhoused people living on Skid Row by the fall.
In a rare move, Judge David Carter said LA’s decades of bad policy decisions have contributed to a disaster that can only be solved by forcing the city’s hand. But other legal experts see the order as getting the diagnosis right, but the remedy wrong.
Here & Now‘s Tonya Mosley talks about the nuances with Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission, and Eric Tars, legal director for the National Homelessness Law Center.
After McCartin and Knolls deliver a synopsis of the case, they provide Krumer with the phone numbers for Luda’s mother and husband in Kiev. Start with the husband, Knolls tells Krumer, even though they were separated.
McCartin calls the manager of Luda’s apartment building. When he hangs up, he is chuckling. “You know the first thing the manager says?” he asks Knolls. “He asked me what the victim’s ‘backstory’ was.” “Everyone’s gone Hollywood,” Knolls says.
Corwin, Miles. Homicide Special
BC: Jane and I lived in a punk rock apartment building in Hollywood called the Canterbury. It was like the Chelsea hotel in New York, that kind of thing. I loved all the different clubs in L.A.: you’d go to the Whisky, drive down to the Starwood, see a band there, go downtown to Chinatown to Madame Wong’s, see someone there, go to an afterparty in Hollywood, play music there — it was a really lively, creative time in Los Angeles.
AB: I was at their first show at the Masque. They played with my drummer, Terry Graham. Everybody was really impressed. Even though they were just starting to play, you could tell they had songwriting ability: They had a song about living at the Canterbury, and fighting off the roaches, and they had “Robert Hilburn,” [an unflattering portrait of the L.A. Times pop critic]. People remembered their clever lyrics, that they had cool melodies. They had something special even at that first show.
How The Go-Go’s Perfected Pop-Punk
Hilary Hughes
NPR
From the comments: 60 years ago and when this was made, 60 years ago was 1897. Let that sink in.
Because of the colossal impact that the coronavirus outbreak has had on the U.S. economy, less than half of Los Angeles County residents — 45% compared with 61% in mid-March — still hold a job, a decline of 16 percentage points, or an estimated 1.3 million jobs, according to findings from a national survey released Friday.
Jaclyn Cosgrove
Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2020
Less than half of L.A. County residents still have jobs amid coronavirus crisis
Taking “Street Fighting Man” to the extremes, or “Gimme Shelter.” But without a doubt it was a strange generation. The weird thing is that I grew up with it, but suddenly I’m an observer instead of a participant. I watched all these guys grow up; I watched a lot of them die. When I first got to the States, I met a lot of great guys, young guys, and I had their phone numbers, and then when I got back two or three years later, I’d call them up, and he’s in a body bag from Nam. A whole lot of them got feathered out, we all know. That’s when that shit hit home with me. Hey, that great little blondie, great guitar player, real fun, we had a real good time, and the next time, gone.
Sunset Strip in the ’60s, ’64, ’65—there was no traffic allowed through it. The whole strip was filled with people, and nobody’s going to move for a car. It was almost off-limits. You hung out in the street, you just joined the mob. I remember once Tommy James, from the Shondells—six gold records and blew it all. I was trying to get up to the Whisky a Go Go in a car, and Tommy James came by. “Hey, man.” “And who are you?” “Tommy James, man.” “Crimson and Clover” still hits me. He was trying to hand out things about the draft that day. Because obviously he thought he was about to be fucking drafted. This was Vietnam War time. A lot of the kids that came to see us the first time never got back. Still, they heard the Stones up the Mekong Delta.
Richards, Keith. Life (p. 238). Little, Brown and Company.
Theresa and I joined the regulars who hung out at night in the Sunset Strip parking lot between the Rainbow and the Roxy. That spot was the late-night nerve center of L.A.’s rock scene. Between eleven P.M. and two A.M., rock stars and wannabes, groupies and insiders gathered there and waited for something to happen, though looking back I realize the party itself was in the parking lot and that just by being there we were where it was happening.
If only we’d known. But everybody who was anybody in music hit the Rainbow. It was the place for exchanging news and information, seeing stars, finding drugs, and finding out where the best party was that night.
If you were a poseur, this was where you posed. If you wanted to pass around a joint or score quaaludes, you showed up there. The lot was always filled with shiny Rolls-Royces and Excaliburs, clues that a VIP was having a good time inside. It was also the best pickup spot in the entire city. Everyone was on, as if playing a part in their own movie.
Carlisle, Belinda. Lips Unsealed
amazon
From Los Feliz to Long Beach, the 1997 classic exposes rot beneath the glamour of Los Angeles
“I remember the first time I got off the plane in LA. I came up to Hollywood, on La Brea or La Cienega, I can’t remember, through the oil fields,” says L.A. Confidential production designer Jeannine Oppewall. “And I thought to myself: ‘What the hell kind of city is this, with oil fields in the middle of it?’”
For Oppewall, who spoke to Curbed LA on the eve of the 1997 neo-noir’s 20th anniversary, the illusory romance of the City of Angels was stripped away in an instant. That’s what the movie does too, puncturing our inflated ideas of Old Hollywood glamour by plumbing the psychological depths of its key characters and (sometimes literally) exposing the rot underneath.
By Chris Eggertsen, la.curbed.com