Respectable Men do not Wear Moustache Tattoos

We're a day late on this, but the LA Times piece on Norteño-turned-faux accountant Richard Rodriguez has us mulling and pondering: a.) How long till the cop gets sent up the river? And, more importantly; b.) Is an upper lip tat necessarily detrimental to the credibility of a court testimony? Mightn't it bring in sympathy points in some cases? An example: Say you're on trial for a petty crime in Australian ranch country -- shearing sheep out of season or disparaging Chopper Read, I dunno. The jury is composed entirely of poor ranching folk whose cattle compete with kangaroos for a shrinking stock of grassland. Your upper lip reads "kangaroos are great...for dinner" in Olde English. Helpful or harmful? I say helpful. Chopper would probably agree.

The moral of the story is that sometimes growing a moustache to cover up a tattoo is not always a smart legal maneuver, though in the case of Rodriguez it would seem to be a good move because without it he basically looks like your standard-issue Dodgers bleacher fan slash Latino gangbanger. And no jury in the world likes both of those things.

For our sadistic brethren, graphic video of some fat (and hopefully soon-to-be-indicted) policeman steel-booting Rodriguez here.

The Moss impact on Culver City

Culver City is experiencing a major re-development at present, spearheaded and contributed to by architect and SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss. Mr. Moss and his team of 25 at Eric Owen Moss Architects have dubbed the revitalization Conjunctive Points, and have and continue to work on more than 20 projects in Culver City, many of which are located on Hayden Street alone. Known for unique interpretations and a diversity of form, Moss' varied projects fortify Culver City's hefty reputation as a community teeming with arts. Pictured above are the Ince Office Complex and a city-sponsored Architecture as Art public artwork entitled What Wall. Pictured here is a rendering of the Gateway Art Tower, an "information tower" and office building, constructed at the corner of Hayden and National, marking the primary entry point into the revitalized zone of the city. The building includes 5 screens that advertise messages to passersby pertaining to local tenants' events and news. Another of the Architecture as Art public art works, the Beehive, occupies the front section of a two story office building housing medschool.com.

Finally, this image depicts 3535 Hayden Ave, a unified working environment for a high profile graphics company.

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.

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.