Curbed LA Out Of Ideas, Rips Off The Militant

Yesterday, the development blog Curbed LA put out an open call to rename the area formerly referred (and propagated) by them as "The Eastside." They also claimed to end the long-standing debate as to where the Eastside is, and whether brown-skinned folks should be considered actual human beings that are worthy of recognition and interaction.

Well la-di-da, not only did the Militant actually end that debate two freaking years ago, but he also put out the same call to rename the same said area, and even demarcated it with three question marks. A total rip off? Ya think?

Though maybe the Militant shouldn't be angered. After all, this is a major admission (some would call it surrender) by one of the worst perpetrators of mis-naming the "Eastside." And of course, the blatant rip-off is indisputable proof that the Militant is ahead of his time. Lastly, when reading the comments between Curbed and the Militant, it's easy and plain to see that readers of the Militant - even the transplanted ones - are so much more creative, intelligent, insightful and englightened.

On the Curbed forums, an example of their readers' collective ignorance and arrogance is perfectly examplified by the comment made by one such reader named "Sparkletime":

"so tired of all the "i grew up here so i know" argument. who cares. i live here now and i'm fine calling it the east side."

The Militant is sure that "Sparkletime" would be perfectly fine with Angelenos moving into their little Podunk backwards hometown and re-naming everything because they feel entitled to it. Of course, "Sparkletime" probably comes from the kind of town where the biggest weekly event is the Klan march.

Just proves that there's some real ignorant motherfukkkers out there. Even more reason to STAY MILITANT!

The Real Dodgertown: Russell Martin

Moving along on the Militant's "The Real Dodgertown" series, this week he highlights Dodger catcher Russell Martin:
Our Afro-Franco-Canadian behind-the-plate-kinda guy was born in suburban Toronto and raised in Paris, France and suburban Montreal, having attended the same high school as some dude named Gagné (no, not that one).

Often pointed out for his resemblance to Turtle from the HBO series Entourage, Martin was instantly promoted to the big leagues after then-catcher Dioner Navarro suffered an owie early in the 2006 season. Since then, Martin became a two-time All-Star (2007, 2008) and also earned Golden Glove and Silver Slugger accolades in 2007.

This season, his uniform bears the name "J. MARTIN" which led fans to scratch their heads and either wonder "WTF?" or assume he changed his first name to "Jussell" or is trying to do some J. Crew kinda thang. But he was only trying to give props to the surname of his mother, Suzanne Jeanson (pronounced "Johnson" or "Jenson," depending on how you parlez-vous français).

The Militant traveled to Los Feliz (which is incorrectly referred to as "The Eastside") to snap the photo of "Russell Ave.," which was taken at its intersection with Vermont Avenue. Nearby is the infamous late-night chow stop House of Pies, which serves up Canadian maple syrup in its pancakes and waffles.

The "Martin St." sign was taken in El Sereno (which is actually in The Eastside), where it crosses Budau Ave. - a name which is French in origin.

100% Less Lotus, 50% Less Festival

Normally around this time of the year, the Militant heads over in an unspecified direction on his bike to Echo Park to partake in the three-decade-old Angeleno tradition known as the Lotus Festival. After all, he was there in 2007 (all three days, even!) and 2008.

But this year, due to the budget you-know-what and the apparent lack of lotus plants in the lake (see for yourself - pictured right), there was to be no "Lotus Festival" per se in 2009.

Enter the Echo Park Chamber of Commerce, who stepped in and put on the "Echo Park Community Festival" as a surrogate to the great Lotus Festival.

The Militant wanted to check it out. Before anyone did any planning, word was that it would be, by all accounts, a "Scaled-Down Version Of The Lotus Festival."

When the Militant arrived, it certainly sounded like the Lotus Festival - the sound of music coming from the main stage, the combined murmur of a crowd, children playing and the midrangey call from the microphone at the information booth.

There was also some Lotus Festival infrastructure to be found, especially in some of the EPCF's signage, which happened to be the signage used in the Lotus Festival.

The community health and nonprofit outreach booths along n the western shore of the lake looked the way they usually do, with most of the same groups present. The area in the northwestern corner of the lake, which recently hosted crafts and plant vendors, along with the garden exhibition - not so much.

The festival's midsection of crafts and merchandise vendors also looked the same, along with the Children's Area. The central portion, again, not so much. The large performance stage was replaced by a tiny little tent.

The crowds were noticeably smaller, but not scant. The good thing about the smaller crowd was that it was that the lines for all the food vendors were much smaller, or even nonexistent. The bad thing, well, of course the vibrant human energy that once propelled this park every early July was definitely not there.

The Militant definitely had mixed feelings about this. What was once a cultural festival, enjoyed by all cultures seemed 50% a reproduction of that (the Children's Area stage featured a few Asian/Pacific Islander cultural dance and martial arts performances from previous Lotus Festivals, but the main stage lacked the familiar timbres of Chinese erhus or the rhythms of Japanese taiko drumming. In its place was a DJ playing reggae music and a bunch of indie rock bands (with the expected tight jeans and ironic mustaches abound!).

The Militant is starting to get it now -- the gentrified Echo Park (the one that claims this area is "The Eastside") is now staking its cultural claim. You saw it coming.

Of course, the sounds of the gentrified Echo Park already has its own venue, where anyone can go to watch the hip-stars play each and every night of the week, but for many of the artists and performance groups from the Lotus Festival, they have clearly lost a venue and an audience.

To the Militant's surprise, he spotted a handful of Los Angeles City Recreation and Parks staff, who normally run the Lotus Festival, managing the Children's Area stage. When the Militant told them that he didn't expect to see them here, one of them replied, "We didn't either!" The unspecified RAP staffer also explained to the Militant that although the community's Chamber of Commerce was running the show, Mayor Villaraigosa didn't want to let this thing go completely and insisted that a certain number of RAP staff work this festival. After all, the park is still a City facility.

And those of you wondering about the dragon boat races? Despite the symbolism used in the EPCF logo, no dragon boat racing for you! But there will be a fireworks display, albeit on Sunday night and not on Saturday night (the Militant, originally planning to stick around past dark, found this out on Saturday and decided to leave not long after learning about the new fireworks night). So if you wanna get some more of your July pyrotechnics on and listen to the "Echo" in "Echo Park," get here by 8:30 p.m. The Militant may or may not be there.

The Echo Park Chamber should be commended for putting on something, though there was an energy, tradition and anticipation that was clearly missing here. The Lotus Festival may or may not return next year, but if history is an indicator, it has gone off-line before, in the late '70s and mid-'80s. The Militant, and many other Angelenos, anxiously await its return.

Talkin’ ‘Bout My Gentrification: Danny Hoch’s ‘Taking Over’ at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

Now the Militant, in his infinite Militant Angeleno-ness, usually does not lavish any sort of praise on a native New Yorker (Vin Scully and the Dodgers exempted, of course).

But when he was given a chance to see a preview performance of Danny Hoch’s one-man play Taking Over at Culver City’s Kirk Douglas Theatre, the Militant was simply floored.

For those not familiar with Hoch, he’s a Gen-X-age writer, director and actor from Bwooklyn (his accent is expectedly blatant) known for his “Hip-Hop Theatre” productions, like 1998’s Jails, Hospitals & Hip Hop, where he plays a myriad of diverse characters endemic to his native borough environs, while exploring issues of race, class and societal issues in the story.

His current play, which explores gentrification in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg (think of the east coast equivalent to Echo Park/Silver Lake) through the portrayal of several characters: A Puerto Rican graduate student, a 60-something African American woman, a middle-aged Jewish landlord, a Dominican immigrant taxi dispatcher and a 20-something white hipster chick, among others.

Although the Militant has been to NYC a handful of times before, he’s never set foot in that particular part of Brooklyn, yet he totally identified with the subject matter.

For others, not so much. One performance earlier in the week had someone, visually offended, walking out of the theatre. In one scene the actor plays himself in an epilogic scene where he reads aloud some of his “hate mail.” Hey, art, after all, is supposed to elicit a reaction.

Though the Williamsburg situation seems more hyperbolic and extreme (million-dollar condos have not come to Echo Park – yet), and one of the characters’ indignant provincialism, though obviously well-intentioned, seemed a bit off-putting to even this Militant (or maybe us Californians are just more accommodating creatures, dunno…), in spirit, it was not a totally alien place for the Militant. Issues of how the locals enjoy things like safer streets and the availability of soy milk, only to discover that those trappings were not designed to be meant for them, or how one character is totally ignored by the hipster newcomers, are all too familiar themes for this Militant.

All is not heavy and brooding at all – a great deal of the play is presented as clever humor and well-executed comedic monologues (the reading of a coffeehouse’s weekly Calendar of Events is true comedy gold in its accurate portrayal of hipster entertainment). But some may find out that they are the ones being talked about here.

The Militant had a brief chat with Hoch after the show - one hardcore native New Yorker and one hardcore native Angeleno – and though they may not agree on sports or food, they both came to the accord that hipsters are a universal problem, and that it’s not just enclaves in New York and Los Angeles getting gentrified. One scene even confirmed the Militant’s belief that rampant gentrification can leave even the hipsters as victims of neighborhood change, as they get replaced by more upscale types.

Another aspect the Militant believes is praiseworthy is not just Hoch’s performance, but his endurance. The 90-minute play runs without any intermissions, and the actor has but seconds to transform from one character to the next. His voice was so thrashed after the show that when the Militant had his conversation with him, it was kinda like chatting with a mime.

Anyway, despite its NY origins, this play turns gentrification into a more universal issue. So with that, Danny Hoch’s Taking Over is 100% MILITANT APPROVED!

The show’s official premiere night is tonight, January 23. So run, don’t walk, to the Kirk Douglas Theatre by February 22. YOU. NEED. TO. SEE. THIS. And aside from spreading the word through this here blog and on his Facebook profile, he will also drop some flyers for this play at Intelligentsia Coffee in Silver Lake and at the American Apparel store in Echo Park. Heh heh heh...

East Is East: The 'East of Eden' Art Exhibition At Barnsdall Park

The Militant isn't an art scenester, but he does appreciate a good exhibit when he sees one. When one of his operatives told him to check out this weekend's exhibition at Barnsdall (don't pronounce it "Barnsdale") Art Park's Municipal Gallery, a multi-gallery show entitled East of Eden, he decided to do some Militant research. So off to the website he went.

And there went the description:

"East of Eden will focus on contributions of Los Angeles galleries, the cultures from which they draw inspiration and the eastside of L.A. as an important source for contemporary art."

Uh-oh. The "E" word.

Then he did further research on the galleries represented: places like La Luz de Jesus in Los Feliz, Black Maria in Atwater Village, Ghetto Gloss in Silver Lake, Bert Green Fine Art (now why does that name sound awfully familiar? Hmmmm.... ) in Downtown...

Oh you know where this is heading!

But the Militant thought that raising a ruckus at this event over "The 'E' Word" would be self-defeating. Especially since ir would be that much easier to unmask the Militant. Bleah...

But the Militant went anyway, trying to apprehend the situation with an open mind...

...Disregarding the incessantly-annoying "'E' Word," the bigger question was...does this art represent contemporary Angeleno art? Or is it just a smattering of ironic hispter fodder?

The Militant is no art critic, nor does he claim to possess an art critic's vocabulary, but in short, the art was very representative of contemporary Los Angeles art. There were pieces that had obvious iconography or images like palm trees, coastal Malibu seascapes, or a painting of a trio of cholas hanging out, but even outside of that, on a more visceral level, there was an attitude that the Militant didn't have to find a challenge to identify with.

The biggest complaint was the duration of the exhibit. It opened on Friday and by the time most of you read this, it had already closed. Which is unusually for Barnsdall exhibits, which usually last a good three months.

The Militant hopes they do this again. He understands their intention is to promote the (cough, gag, ack) Not-Really-The-Eastside art scene as a reaction to the Westside arts "establishment." But Westsidecentrism is soooo late 20th century. Why not drop the "Eastside" thing, these artists can basically stake claim on the whole City now, Westsiders be damned.

Oh yeah, one more thing before this post closes. One of the pieces gave the Militant a "giant" smile:

Word.

'Center' of Attention

So what's it gonna be, Angelenos?

Who knew the response to the Militant's be-all,end-all treatise on the whole Eastside-Westside-Something-In-Between dealio would be so huge? To date, 37 replies (okay, so some of those were the Militant's responses to previous replies), a new record here (Props to Blogging.la, Ryan J. Bell and Big Action for all that linkage goodness).

He thought the lot of you would be irate gentrohipsters trying to state their case for all Eastsidedom into the depths of futility but it wasn't the case (They probably don't read Miliant Angeleno anyway...). So it looks like Rev. Militant got a chorus of "Amen"s from the choir that he was preaching to. Testify, Angelenos!

As the Militant mentioned, he is entertaining names for our urban center, as illustrated above.

Suggested names include:

- The Center
- Da Center
- Central Los Angeles
- The Base
- The Capital (Sacto people would take issue with that)
- The Core
- The Cynosure (?!?)
- The Eye
- The Focus
- The Heart
- The Hub
- The Mecca (In post 9/11 America?)
- The Nucleus (Jam on it)
- The Seat
- The Middle
- The Creamy Middle
- Middle Earth
- El Corazon
- The Core Zone (get it?)
- H.O.L.A. (Heart of Los Angeles)
- The West Eastside
- The East Westside
- Center City
- The 21323
- The City (F.U. San Franciscans!)
- Bullseye!
- __________?

Got a name? Post it in the comments. The Militant will find a way to buy some Diebold voting machines and rig, er, determine which moniker will be the name of the center of the City. Either that, or you can text in your votes to see which dancer gets booted off the island

Journey To The Center of Town...Or...The Militant Puts His Foot Down On The Whole Eastside / Westside Nonsense

(Click to enlarge). Memorize this people; you will be quizzed at the end of class.

Last weekend, when hundreds of Angelenos brought pillows to Downtown's Pershing Square and had a go at it for an hour, the Militant (who wasn't there, but an unspecified number of his siblings did participate), had mixed feelings on this. On one hand, it's one of those meaningless silly quasi-hipster activities meant to make up for people's lost childhoods. On another, the Militant digs flash mobs. On yet another (for you three-handed people out there - represent!), it's a sign that the populace finally yearns for a city center and makes use of the one we have (it was, after all, called "Central Park" over 110 years ago).

So this got the Militant's big cerebral wheels toynin', after reading the most recent of an endless stream of "Eastside vs. Westside" boundary definition debates flung forth on all local blogdom. The Militant said it millions of times on blog comments, but he finally wants to make it visible for all the world to see on This Here Blog.

In short, the following axioms:

1. WHEREAS, The Eastside, in all absolute terms, is east, the Militant repeats, east of the Los Angeles River.

2. WHEREAS, The Westside, for all intents and purposes, is west of La Cienega Blvd (yes, the Militant realizes there are various self-defined variations on this, like the 405, or La Brea or even Lincoln Blvd, but just like concepts like "racism," we will go absolutely nowhere on the subject unless we have a consensus on the definition of the word, so the Militant chooses to use the general dividing line between 323- and 310- dom). There it is, take it.

3. THEREFORE, west of the Los Angeles River is NOT "The Westside" nor is east of La Cienega Blvd "The Eastside." There is no dividing line between the two. You cannot be on the Westside and throw crap across the street to the "Eastside." You cannot be on the Eastside and hock a loogie across the street to the Westside. You cannot jump between Westside and Eastside in a precisely-located game of hopscotch. Stop thinking binary here.

4. WHEREAS, there is a region between The Eastside and The Westside (The crowd silences, the earth quakes, the veil of the temple is torn in two).

5. WHEREAS, The region between The Eastside and The Westside is the center of the city.

6. THEREFORE, those of you transies who love to spout, "L.A. has no center," better go download Los Angeles Geography 3.0 - because you need an upgrade.

In addition, according to the map above (prepared by one of the Militant's most cartographically- and Photoshopically-inclined operatives under the direct supervision of The Militant), The Valley is everything north of the Santa Monica Mountains ridge line or, when present, Mulholland Drive. Essentially Glendale is part of the The Valley, separated from NELA (That's NorthEast Los Angeles - which is technically part of the Eastside, but in certain instances can stand on its own) by the 2 Freeway. Why is Glendale part of the Valley? 818 area code. End of discussion.

Now, the Militant uses "The Center" as a general term and not as the be-all-end-all identifiable moniker for The Center of Town. He leaves that open to you, the reader and perhaps other bloggistas, provided they recognize the fact that Los Angeles actually has a center now. Because let's face it, that's where the density is, that's where the transit lines converge, that's where the variety of good food is, where you go to clubs, where you watch movies, where the diversity is, that's where the rest of the region follows suit, and don't you forget it.

Now the Eastcoastcentric transies will inevitably balk and say, "B-b-but, that's no center! It's too big!" Well Los Angeles is a big region, so it's perfectly proportionate. Duh.

As for the geographic center of "The Center," (not to be confused with the actual geographical center of the entire City of Los Angeles), it appears to be around the Los Angeles City College campus. Perhaps the folks who live or work around there should take heed.

So Silver_Lakers and Echo Parkers, you are no longer "Eastsiders." And you never were in the first place. You belong to the heart of the city. Get used to it, damnit.

Here Come The Biters!

Yes, making three posts in one day is an excuse to make up for lost time.

But after the Militant returned from his Eastside (Happy now, El Chavo!?) adventure, while passing though the uber-hip(ster) Sunset Junction in Silver_Lake, after craning his neck to see the artificially-verdant hills of Griffith Park, hanging on overhead wires above Sunset Blvd, the Militant spotted the worst incident of bird-biting since Ozzy Osbourne's 1983 world tour (pictured right).

W...T...F...is that? Some stupid logo that looks like a backwards "k," an "l" and a forward "k." The Militant means, come ON! The original wire-hanging Berd was cool and all - the Militant took it as some sort of natural/pleasant contrast/commentary on those sneakers hanging on overhead wires (and the public perception of such phenomena). So little painted plywood Berds hanging on wires, secured by padlocks (perhaps representing some sort of confinement or imprisonment) were a cool thing. But this...no really, this has got to stop. Whoever you are "klk"...really, give it up before you embarrass yourself further. Seriously.