on the road again

If you've read any of the previous LA posts, they all derive in some way from driving. It's what you do in LA, and the bane of my existence. While driving today, I was thinking about how my commute is completely void of human interaction, which made me miss interfacing with bums and crazies along my walk and MUNI ride in SF. I digress. I was also thinking about what I could write about this evening. If nothing else, Los Angeles is pure fodder for writers. As I'm stopped at a red light, I see the chrome spinners doing their thing on a shiny black Prius, complete with carpool lane sticker. I wonder who would drive such a vehicle and inch towards the car in front of me to catch a glimpse. Once the light changes, I'm able to see that it's an ancient, sage-looking asian man. Hip, convincing grandson the culprit here? Maybe.

I also encountered a baby blue 1980s Mercedes station wagon along my journey home. Reminiscent of the manner in which I rode to preschool, a small boy was riding in the back facing seat. He even had the decade-appropriate bowl cut. He waved goofily at me and I smiled. But then we got stopped at the next light beside one another and he got embarassed and slunk down in his seat to avoid eye contact.

I think it's just Friday-induced glee speaking, but maybe commuting isn't so bad in LA. It could also have been the good-vibe influence of The Wrens' The Meadowlands.

Too 'Big' to Ignore?

Last night, President Barry proclaimed that "the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it" in reiterating his unwavering support for Detroit. Our Chosen Changer sounded every bit More of the Same in falling back on the 'too big to fail' line. It's a tactic that's sure to succeed, as is virtually anything that sounds the least bit scary or unpatriotic these days. But what, exactly, are the qualities that make a select few companies -- Big Three automakers and a couple humongous banks -- 'too big to fail'? There's a logical argument for rescuing financial institutions -- if there aren't any lenders left, how will we buy houses/pay for college/build Burger Kings? But the carmakers? Purely political. Obama and the majority of congressional Democrats don't want to be known as the cats who 'killed Detroit,' which is exactly what Republicans and Rust Belt Dems would paint them as.

But 'too big to fail'?! Please. They're already halfway there: Over the past eight years, GM and Chrysler (Ford's passing over the taxpayer pot o' gold for now) have laid off hundreds of thousands of workers and shut down dozens of plants. Assuming Congress doles out another $21 billion, GM will jettison another 47,000 workers by the end of 2009, bringing its global workforce below 200,000 -- less than half of what it was in 2000. Meanwhile, scads of outside suits stand to make a collective $1.2 billion should GM finally realize its destiny in Chapter 11. Detroit's leaders created this predicament by sitting around guffawing about all the crazy shit an F-150 can tow while Nissan and Toyota developed cars that actually make sense in a 21st-century sort of way. And now D.C. is counting on us to bail them out.

Not surprisingly, our president and federal representatives seem far less concerned about the cataclysmic state of the newspaper industry (as if papers still had the resources to investigate every back-alley horsetrade going on inside the Beltway). In the last three months, the owners of the Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chicago Tribune have filed for bankruptcy. The New York Times has laid off newsroom folks. And today, the Hearst Corp. revealed that it is considering shutting down the SF Chronicle after the paper lost a cool $50 million last year (thanks, Craigslist).

Let's recap: Our tax dollars, intended for schools, Social Security and Medicare, are instead funding war and delaying the seemingly inevitable demise of U.S. automakers (you don't just whip up a better Prius overnight). Meanwhile, San Franciscans may soon have to wait till their Bay Guardians and SF Weeklys come out to find out who won that ballgame last Tuesday. Not even Chris Daly could be happy over the specter of this.

Enough ranting for one week -- we'll try to come up with something a tad more heartwarming for next time. Not rescued puppies/sassy underage cancer patients heartwarming, but something.

Feel da Riddim, Feel da Rhyme! Come to Aruba! We're Mostly White!

The island nation of Aruba has unleashed an all-out ad blitz on the MTA trains, running short bios of smiling Arubans on beaches, golf courses, and serene Oranjestad streets lined with colorful knockoffs of Dutch colonials. But only one of the seven ads features a local who is black. I was getting amped to rip into Fox News and Nancy Grace and redneck southern politicians for their catalytic roles in the blatantly racist Natalee Holloway fiasco, to illustrate how they’ve driven Aruba to ostracize its black residents through a disproportionately representative ad campaign propelled by the notion that black equals crime. Then I did some research, and was surprised to find that my angle held no water on several counts: 

- Due to the island’s arid soil and lack of rainfall, imperialists didn’t try to cultivate Aruba, hence no slaves (to console itself, Spain kidnapped every single Arawak on the island and shipped them to work copper mines on Hispaniola). Thus, a much lower percentage of Arubans claim African heritage than do other Caribbean nationalities -- Trinidadians, Jamaicans, even the folks in neighboring Curaçao.

- Tourism is huge in Aruba. I knew it was important, as it is in every other island on the Carnival cruise highway, but the health of Aruba’s GDP relies more on tourism dollars than on any other industry. And the country’s dependance on tourism is growing stronger: The second-biggest industry is oil refining. With the realization that oil’s a finite resource, Aruba has quintupled its stock of hotel rooms since 1985. In 2004 (before Missing White Girl broke), Aruba filled an average of 80 percent of those rooms, compared with 68 percent in other Caribbean hotspots. They needed tourists before her, and they still need them now.

- None of the three suspects arrested was black (one was Dutch and the other two were Surinamese). Likewise, none was ever charged. 

And to further that note on a note, the Holloway dad is some piece of work. In his book, he criticizes the media for being fickle after they bumped his daughter to the bottom of the hour when a juicier story broke:

“Hurricane Katrina had left the door open for the (suspects) to be sent on their way with little publicity and few restrictions because it took the world's focus off of Natalee, but only for a brief time. The huge amount of publicity had waned and, during that time of quiet for us, Joran and the Kalpoe brothers were sent home. . . . All of the news shows that had followed our every move only a day before had now become fixated on the next big ratings grabber: the victims of Hurricane Katrina.”

What manipulative bastards. 

But Father Holloway’s justified criticism is beside the point: My expected angle fell flat. In the end, I had nothing. The ad campaign isn’t necessarily racist because it’s actually somewhat representative of Aruba’s population. But if it had proved as racist as I’d expected, I would have said this: “Those two black guys were clearly selected specifically to make the rider think, ‘They look happy and peaceful. I'd bet 4-to-1 they used to hang out with the guys from Cool Runnings till they all realized there wasn't enough room in the bobsled.’" 

Then you would’ve laughed and laughed, and I would’ve congratulated myself. Close your eyes. Try to imagine. Or just read this guy’s take (unless he’s got a Lonely Planet: Aruba chum on the Aruban census team, he twisted the ethnic numbers to make the case). 

Church: Cool Again

A Soho boutique called Lounge shut down a few months ago and is allegedly in the process of finding a new place to operate. In the meantime, they're running a temp setup out of an old church on 6th Ave. and 20th St. -- a space that, as the Lounge's owner reminded us on multiple occasions, is the former "home of the famous Limelight" nightclub.
Lounge's proprietors are unloading threads from mid-to-high-end labels after shuttering their 16,000-square-foot store on Broadway and Houston. 

Not the best photos, but you get the idea: An 18th-century church converted into a multi-level nightclub, soundsystem, dance platforms, etc., then closed and left to dilapidate for a decade or so...

Since moving in last month, the offerings have grown from a couple racks scattered around the soaring space to essentially a fully-stocked store. They've got the system bumping again, and there's something uplifting about walking into this scene off a scuzzy section of Chelsea on a harsh midwinter afternoon.

more money, more problems

I don't know if it's because (and I am so sick of hearing this…) “the economy's in the dumps” or what, but of late, I've been hearing way more people saying that they don't like their jobs, "but the money's great," so they stay there. What's up with this? Think of your friends who began law school with a plan to work in child advocacy or environmental law, but who, after passing the bar, plunge into well-compensated corporate counsel positions “just until I pay back my loans.” That was seven years ago. They’re still doing doc review for Exxon. And when you call them on this, they slightly blush and repeat the above quote.

Since when is it okay for the Entitled Generation to compromise their values and justify working for evil companies or meaningless retail shops with large (or in my case, merely mediocre) paychecks?
This is totally contrary to the American dream, by golly. Yes, we still want to have the white picket fence someday. And yes, it costs a LOT to have that on either coast. But America—and, by default, capitalism—encourages life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Financial security can contribute to happiness, obvs, but does working long hours at a job you despise and feel wretched about? That, of course, is the false allure of the free market—the notion that wads of cash equate to happiness. In true hypocrite form, I'm currently working for a large oil and gas company. I'm not exactly on board with their environmental policy, nee old man corporate bureaucracy, so I am clearly projecting this issue. Am I ultimately being far too idealistic? Naïve? I refuse to believe so. At least until the system crushes my soul a little more.

Pop v. Pop

Let the hating begin: We think Lily Allen's new album is good. Not Stranger than Fiction or Southernunderground good, but hooky pop music good. A relative good. These days, when the artist is a passably attractive 23-year-old progeny of celebrity parents who's signed to a major label, you expect an Ashlee Simpson, a Rihanna...a rhinestone bikini filled with an olive-hued body of some class and topped with a workable face; smother the voice in vocoder, and you're good to go. Allen's image, while quite possibly a calculated label construct, is refreshingly flawed -- she looks like she's done some damage on the cookie dough ice cream recently, and admits to not giving a shit about it.

It's Not You, It's Me is at its essence formulaic, melodramatic pop, but it's done right and avoids monotony -- synth-heavy production ("Everyone's At It") alternates with twangy rockabilly-infused joints (upcoming single "Not Fair"). What sets the album apart, though, is Allen's willingness to address an array of topics overwhelmingly shunned by her mainstream diva contemporaries: Cocaine abuse ("Now I'm not trying to say that I'm smelling of roses/But when will tire of putting shit up our noses"), God ("Do you think his favorite type of human is Caucasian?/Do you reckon he's ever been done for tax evasion?"), sexist double standards applied to nearing-30 women ("It's sad but it's true how society says her life is already over/There's nothing to do and nothing to say"), familial reconciliation ("This is not just a song; I intend to put these words into action/I hope that it sums up the way that I feel to your satisfaction") and emotionless sex ("Now I know you feel betrayed, but it's been weeks since I got laid"). I mean, she's got a track about Dubya (originally written about the white supremacist British National Party) entitled "Fuck You." Can you picture Christina Aguilera standing up in her Fanta-hued skinsuit and waxing poetic on, say, immigration policy? Or trumpeting her inability to get dick? OK, bad example.

Contrast that with one of the more unfortunate songs to come out of BigLabel hip-hop in recent (or distant) memory: T.I.'s "Swing Ya Rag." Never known for lyrical intricacy or topical poignancy, Bankhead's finest has dropped a string of certified trunkthumpers over the last couple years, and he's got a few on Paper Trail: "Ready for Whatever," "What Up, What's Haapnin'," "Dead and Gone," to wit. Five or six other cuts, ranging in quality from "ech" to "blow," have already become radio hits. Swizz Beatz-produced "Swing Ya Rag," however, tops all: The hook, which accounts for around half of the song's vocals, answers the much-anticipated question of "How exactly does T.I dance when he goes to the club?" Well, shocker!: He DOESN'T!!!! No, T.I. "don't dance, no way." Of course not! I mean, who dances anymore these days, really...squares only, I say. Stay sharp. Instead, the rapper "just take my Louis rag out and wave it 'round in the air, take my Gucci rag out and wave it 'round in the air." All in all, T.I. repeats the rag-wave eight times. Then he goes home and reads old Silver Surfers while eating grape gummy bears.

With 11 Gucci and 10 Vuitton references (and a Patron thrown in for good measure, of course) packed into the 3:20 song, dude averages a product placement every nine seconds. Major loot, right? Thing is, nobody thought to actually talk to the companies about, you know, the whole thing, and turns out they weren't all that thrilled. Says T.I. about a video he made for the song: "We did it, and it came out hot, (but) Louis and Gucci started trippin' about it. They were saying we were infringing, in one way or another. They weren't happy about it. They didn't want it to come out. But it's hot, though..." While the fashion companies were probably totally sold after he reiterated that "it's hot" -- just in case they were still wondering -- MTV refused to play the video for fear of getting its ass sued off. So, then: Rapper sets, to our knowledge, a record for blatancy and frequency of product placement in a song, proceeds to lose money for doing so. Brilliant, T.I., brilliant.

Having said all that, we're now on revolution #8 of It's Not You, It's Me since we ripped it on Tuesday, and Allen's, sadly, starting to annoy us. A cute British accent and the cojones to discuss fellatio and abandonment issues can apparently only take a pop star so far.

T.I.: You're not getting paid for this, either. "Esteban the Photog from the Vuitton Ad Department" is actually "Phil the Insurance Salesman from Syracuse." Just go home already.

More Pepsi-Biting from Obama

OK, fine. I know that corporations have piggybacked off war, disaster and political propaganda campaigns to turn a quick buck in the past, but Pepsi’s current ad campaign is positively analrapististic. For the uninitiated (and we’re about a month late to the party here), watch this Pepsi flack try to keep a straight face while telling us about his employer’s desire to seize upon a “cultural movement” and “a spirit of optimisim” to quench our “thirst for positive change”...through mass quantities of refined corn syrup. He also implies that the Obama campaign ripped off the campaign, using as his crucial piece of evidence the fact that Pepsi is older than Barack. 

In its ads, Pepsi tells us that “every generation refreshes the world.” Well, now...come to think of it, that’s absolutely true: The baby boomers refreshed our supply of potential soldiers, the beatniks refreshed American demand for berets, the hippies refreshed our appreciation for the First Amendment, Gen X refreshed the cocaine industry, Gen Y refreshed the flat-top, and the millenials refreshed our definition of “refresh.” Who doesn’t want to be a part of that? I’m in -- toss me a Pepsi, Britney! 

The more I study the Obama campaign, the more I begin to side against the man: He clearly nicked original Pepsi catchphrases like “Yes You Can” and “Fo Sho!” (because, after all, black=now acceptable in Kansas!). His campaign logo looks eerily similar to that of Pepsi--a company that, I must remind you, is older than Obama. And the fact that Obama decided to get inaugurated just as Pepsi rolled out its “Change” campaign is too coincidental for comfort. Nope, my mind’s made up -- Obama’s a thief. He’s from Illinois, home of Blagojevich and that other locked-up former governor and R. Kelly and Oprah, who once endorsed a memoir that wasn’t even true. It was fictional, which is Dutch for “sucked.” 

So there it is -- the truth in all its exhaustively-investigated, naked glory. Screw off, Obama. Get your own damn ad campaign. And give Enrique his mole back while you’re at it. 

FuK WaR

You have GOT to admire this guy: He's so into the cause that he goes out and spends $50K on an H2 just so he can spray an anti-war slogan across its side and dump it on an East Village street to influence all who pass. The trees were so awed by this display of altruism that they got all freaky and sprouted leaves in the middle of February. Also, you may be able to make out in the background the new Upper Playground that opened last summer on East 9th. It's right next to a Kid Robot (UP actually got the space when KR downsized into its current shop), which would seem to make for solid crossover traffic potential. UP's NY store is about half as big as it Fillmore location, same vibe with localized references on some of its clothes (no MUNI tees here). KR carries standard KR shit, with a rather lackluster art display up front. 

Photo taken with filthy Egyptian disposable camera that cost twice as much in filthy Egyptian tourist town as it would've at my filthy corner bodega. 

5-0 on the chase

For the second night in a row, I can elect to fall asleep watching live news coverage of a high-speed police chase.

Downer-town Whitney Brown

While on the topic of crack addiction... oh diss! Whitney Houston made an interesting appearance as a presenter on Sunday night's Grammy awards. Watching her cautiously and somewhat slurringly recite from the teleprompter was congruous in the discomfort department to peeping Farmer Ted cut a rug at the school dance in Sixteen Candles.

And did you catch the oh-so-subtle move wherein she arranged her dress' slit to reveal maximum leg? Whoa mama! Seems like the lovely Whitney has certainly progressed from full-on crazy Bobby Brown days of yore, but she still has a ways to go before she should be getting so much air-time.

Symptoms: Narcissism and the Crack Epidemic

Corporate execs and Wall Street douchebags made a big bowtied fuss over the past two weeks as President Obama considered limits on corporate executives’ pay -- a logical target given these suits' public scapegoating since September, and a sexy, easily-understood trumpeting of an aggressive effort to "fix the economy" or whatever the pundits have simplified it to. Corporate lawyers are, indeed, losing jobs, but nothing like the bankers, where companies shed ten and twenty thousand positions at a time. Most of these predominantly white and male casualties receive some months’ worth of severance pay consistent with their stratospheric salaries as well as outplacement services to help them get on the dole and put out feelers for another job. 

Those who snuck past the chopping block, meanwhile -- and, despite the doomsday headlines, this is still the vast majority of America’s high-end, white-collar workforce -- have, in a display of avarice that’s surprised nobody, taken to bitching about salary freezes. It’s a classic example of follow-the-leader (those who aspire to being a cog in a 50,000-head machine do not typically make Jerry Maguire speeches), and when said leader is griping about his or her (but usually his) salary being capped at half a mil (stocks excluded, mind you), it’s easy to justify pushing for that lockstep $40k bonus for hitting your hours baseline on the peon chart. (Bear in mind, of course, that the mushy executive comp mandate Obama eventually signed last week only applies to banks accepting federal assistance going forward--so no, that doesn’t apply to Citigroup or GM, which accepted billions of our dollars over the past few months and still have Chapter 11 dead in their sights, or AIG, whose execs pocketed $85 billion, then embarked on a lockdown session to figure out how to best use the bailout to save their company weekend of massages, golf and Glenlivet.)

These are the same blokes who elected Ronald Reagan (along with this guy), who used the crack epidemic to court law-and-order types the same way Bill Clinton rode Silicon Valley’s success to a reputation as some sort of economic mastermind (and no, goddammit, his vice president did not invent the Internet, though he was most certainly one of its key advocates). Reagan’s demonization of crack led to the bulk of our country’s more outlandish drug laws (and all while his administration arguably turned a blind eye to coca smuggling that stoked the epidemic -- but this is a complicated and disturbing aside deserving of its own examination in due time). It also provides our first example of a theme we’ll make popular in IDM: The American tradition of fighting the symptom of a problem rather than addressing the root cause. 

Reagan demonized the addicts and low-level pushers. These people had been steered into their roles by a myriad of factors, from boredom to emotional instability, but most shared a common experience: An environment of poverty. This is an obvious statement: Corner boys grow up poor, attend underfunded inner-city public schools, and drop out to pursue one of the few viable options they’ve been conditioned to recognize. Junkies come from a wider range of backgrounds, to be sure, but many had unstable childhoods, often cultivated by money problems, and most of those from well-to-do families would have exhausted their trust funds and familial goodwill by the time they were freebasing on the regular. These are poor and largely uneducated people -- easy targets for politicians who need a cause. Not much potential for political pushback from this grimy lot. So Reagan made it into a crusade, and today we have public prisons at 150 percent capacity, a booming private prison industry, and potent prison guard unions that keep money flowing for new prison construction while streets crumble, Muni continues to suck, and those same ghetto schools are still issuing textbooks that date back to the height of Ronnie’s War on Drugs. 

PUGWMAN is a MSNOMER

We were on the 10 the other day when we pulled up behind a Corolla with a vanity license plate that read "PUGWMAN." We were stoked. We expected to see something incredible. Then we pulled up, and the driver was just some tubby old broad in a pink sweater with an embroidered pug on it and a faded plastic pug figurine hanging from her rearview. We flipped her off, both birds.

Takeaway: If you claim to be something on your license plate, you damn well better be that thing. Otherwise you're just a constant freaking disappointment on wheels. Knowdat.

The Importance of Proper Dog/Bun Ratio

We were in the rafters at MSG last night to watch BronBron dump 52, 11 and 10 on the Knicks. Among the highlights:

The Celebs: The second quarter is apparently when the arena Jumbotron guy decides to get close-ups of all the famous pretty faces and pretty famous faces in attendance. I think my grand total from last year (in only like three games, but still...) was James Blunt, who warranted a couple "oh, that guy"s from a 60 percent-full house. Last night's game was sold out, and the celeb faction repped hard: First up on the big screen was Chris Rock, ten seats down from Spike Lee near the scorers' table. Today's tabloids ran a photo of Lebron taking a break to give Spike dap. I'd accept said dap too if I thought it might convince the dapper to sign a megalo-contract with my team come 2011. Two minutes later they flashed to the token black Spice Girl, who's a.) still alive; b.) promoting an exercise video or some shit; and c.) much less scary in real life. She scored courtsides as well. THEN they scanned up to Willis Reed, the one guy in the building who'd have a legitimate claim to a lifetime of comp courtside tix...and he's in like the third tier. It was kinda sad. Apparently Whoopi and Jay-Z and Puff fucking Daddy were all in the mix as well (check out the ridicu-fotos of Diddy flashing cash to buy kettle corn and poor Bobby Bacala sitting next to Whoopi and Ciara but nobody gives a shit; come to think of it, Bobby actually got Jumbotron Love at a game I was at last season versus the Bucks or some embarrassment. They probably just comp him seats so the Jumbotron dude has a reason to get paid on slow nights). Apologies for this fanboy rant -- it was just cool to sit and look down from the 12th deck while sipping on a fine spiked beverage and be like, "Hey, Chris Rock's scratching his nose, maybe. Spike Lee's baggy sweatsuit looks really comfortable."

The Delicacies: The biggest hot dog on the menu is, indeed, impressive. Concessions people's approach to the bun, however, is one-size-fits-all. Which it most definitely does not. The result is like squeezing a whale into a pair of Tic-Tacs connected by another Tic-Tac. That analogy worked better in its original form. They also sell delicious Cokes that are complemented exquisitely by most brands of mid-range Kentucky whiskey, the latter preferably served in a reused plastic Tropicana orange juice bottle.

The Last Rebound: Win in the bag, Lebron had his teammates clear out on the last Knicks shot of the game, then almost broke an ankle falling out of bounds after lunging to grab a meaningless 10th board. People cheered like we all got free tacos or something, which we didn't. He became the first player to score 50 in a triple-double since the 70s with that rebound, which was essentially the basketball version of Michael Strahan's record-setting "sack" of Brett Favre in 2002. And speaking of Fav-rah, check out his douchy cousin, Trent. He's into sexy shit like "Premises Liability Defense," proving that the family is good at offense and defense! Ugh. Somebody smack me with a frozen Eggo.   

Ghost of Chrismas past

Who do I spy from the window of my car as I speed up La Brea, on such a lovely Los Angeles afternoon? Why, it’s the nightmarish previous employer whose mere presence makes my stomach drop, the dreaded mega-gallerist Douglas Chrismas. He who incites pure anxiety in my (and likely many others’) very being. I catch a glimpse of him greedily surveying the large building that is currently destined to become his legacy museum, but may well be sold and end up reverting to a car dealership. Alas, my Sunday has been ruined.

That is, until I cross the threshold into the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at MOCA. Ms. Bourgeois calms my nerves and sets me at ease with her organic sculptural forms and voyeuristic “cells.” Truly, "art is a guaranty of sanity." Vive la France! Et vive le dimanche!