Crash: Fact or Fiction?

LAST week after our discussion in class I decided to rewatch the movie “Crash,” and what I found about that movie is that no matter how many times I watch it, it will never cease to make me cry. After watching how the people in the movie treat each other, how they spurt out racial slurs, how they stereotype one another, and how they each hold so much hatred toward their fellow Angelenos, it made me wonder… is Los Angeles really like this?

Watching the movie, I sat with my hand over my mouth in shock, disturbed by how people treat their fellow human beings. But the worst part about watching the movie, is that it’s not entirely fiction—some version of these stories can be seen all throughout the city. The movie can at times feel overwhelming or exaggerated because all of the stories are compiled into one… but that’s just Hollywood’s interpretation.

But despite this, a lot of the scenes in the movie ring true. From where I grew up in Orange County I saw plenty of racism. In Orange County, the white Protestant is king and all of the other ethnicities are clumped together in a blur of “us vs. them” mentality. However, in L.A. there is a different type of racism. It’s not just us vs. them, but it is everyone vs. each other.

I noticed when watching “Crash” that it wasn’t just Sandra Bullock’s character who was racist towards her Hispanic maid, or Matt Dillon’s character to the black woman he pulls over. But throughout the movie, there are all different forms of racism. Different ethnicities are racist towards each other, and some are even racist towards people of their same race.

Normally when watching this movie, I get caught up in the emotional scene where the Persian storeowner almost shoots the young girl, or the scene where Matt Dillon saves the life of the same woman he assaulted. However, this time I began to look more closely at the relationships between the characters and how close they come to other situations I have been witness to in the city. In particular, I noticed the relationship between Terrence Howard’s character, Cameron and Ludacris’ character, Anthony. Though they are both black men, they are pitted against one another because of their socioeconomic standings, and in an emotional culmination of events, Cameron tells Anthony that he is an embarrassment, not only to him but to himself.

While you might not see blank bullets being fired at children, or women being saved from burning cars every day in Los Angeles, I think occurrences like the exchange between Cameron and Anthony is a common one in this city. Though we like to think of ourselves as accepting and tolerant in our little collegiate bubble, the streets of L.A. are filled with hatred and prejudice, maybe not to the level that “Crash” would lead us to believe, but more than we would like to admit.

-- Megan McMurtrey

(photo via http://www.iwatchstuff.com/mt/mt-search.cgi?tag=dvd&blog_id=1)

The Things I Carry…in Los Angeles

Growing up in Phoenix, it was there that I first experimented with my “baggage”, my everyday items that I toted with me at all times.  Moving to Los Angeles, these items changed quite a bit.  After J. Michael Walker tonight stated how sometimes it takes an outsider to see what an insider can’t, I began to ponder on the idea of the difference in everyday items for Angelenos whether they be held in a woman’s purse or a man’s messenger bag (the new briefcase).

Silver Coinage: I vividly remember the first week I was in Los Angeles.  The one thing I told my mom at the end of the week after she asked me how things were going was: “Mom, we have to pay for parking almost everywhere here.”  I had only experienced meters in downtown Phoenix and even then it was always a struggle to dig for quarters.  I now know that the streets of Los Angeles called for those silver coins that I once tossed into my bag without a second thought.  Now, I have a separate coin purse dedicated solely to parking money. It only took one parking ticket for me to realize that to park without paying meant I would be eagerly awaiting my paycheck at the end of the month due to the hefty parking ticket fine, and we all know that is no fun.

Crumpled up post-its: I cleaned out my bag the other day and found almost 10 different neon colored post-its all with scribbled “L’s” and “R’s” on them which at one point last month got me to a point of destination.  I have to Mapquest every location I go to here and that is not just because I am a migrant.  I do this because I know that on any given moment an exit could be closed, a street under construction or, as we are all far too familiar with, the one way we NEED to go is bumper to bumper traffic, leading us to circumnavigate in hopes for a better route.  Though Mapquest has failed one or two times, these crinkled and smeared directions are just a sign that that is exactly what people are looking for here…direction.  Thanks Mapquest, Google maps, or any other GPS system out there helping the thousands of Angelenos get to where they need to be every day. 

An umbrella: No need for explanation here. Los Angeles whether is like a fickle boyfriend or girlfriend, it likes to change its mind. One day its 80 degrees, the next its drizzling, and you’ve caught yourself hopping over puddles in flip flops because silly you thought the weather would be similar to what it was yesterday. Pack an umbrella.

A light snack: A good friend of mine once told me that she has a phobia of going places and suddenly finding herself hungry and without any means of getting food.  Since then, I have found myself throwing a granola bar or apple into my bag anytime I go out the door and am not sure when I will return.  Food in Los Angeles, for a college student, is far too expensive to just stop wherever and feast (unless you disregard health and don’t mind McDonalds dollar menu).  Picture yourself on your way downtown and suddenly you realize that tonight is the big Laker game.  You’re sitting in traffic for an hour or more and the thing inside you, above your legs and below your head, it’s calling out to you. Be prepared, it's happened to me more than once.

Sunglasses: This highly sought after accessory is popular all over the world, but something about sunglasses just screams “L.A. Cool” to me.  Sure we can say that we sport the Ray Bans to prevent our eyes from getting sun damage but when you slip those babies on your face and look into the mirror are you really thinking about your future cataract surgery?  No. You’re thinking, “Oh hey Los Angeles, here I come.”

Your own personal Ipod: I preface the music device with “your own personal” because listening to someone else’s ipod is like wearing some one else’s jeans, it might work but its just not your own.  I feel like my music collection has undergone a transformation since I made the move to Los Angeles.  No longer do I look solely to KIIS FM for songs to sing to in the car.  The past few years I have been scouring music blogs and websites for new and “underground” artists that you won’t here on radio or streaming from the dorm room above you on a Friday night.  Los Angeles drives you to disregard the ordinary, the mainstream.  It makes you want to find that music that fits you, just like the unsettled feeling you find when shopping for a good pair of jeans, the search for a good song or album is sometimes hard but oh so satisfying when found.  My ipod is always in my bag, used for walking around LMU or plugged into the car on a quick trip to the store. 

Men: I hope I haven’t lost you.  Ladies: I hope you know that when I say bag, I mean purse and then you can really relate to everything I’ve just named.  As a migrant to the City of Angels I’ve taken note and indeed adapted to the hustle and bustle that calls for these items.  I could be missing a few key ingredients to a good tote bag so, feel free to comment and add on to the list of “must haves” that I, as an outsider, have compiled.  

--Katie Mollica

(image: Lea Garsh, flickr.com) 

All the Saints of Los Angeles - J. Michael Walker

                                          
THEY float above us -- Santa Monica, St. Andrews, San Julian, Santa Fe, Saint Albans -- not the  saints themselves -- but their names.  A spirit roll call,  if you will, that un-scrolls across so many of the city street signs de-marking the criss-cross roads we traverse daily in our attempt to get from here to there and back again --  if lucky, unharmed.

Not so long ago, poet and visual artist, J. Michael Walker embarked on an ambitious project to weave together the city's history through the story of its "Saint" streets -- from wide, screaming boulevards to the afterthoughts of hidden cul-de-sacs -- 103 in all. "It was an exercise in storytelling," he says, "It was a challenge to come at this city's story in so many different ways."  The story bloomed -- in painting poetry and prose -- much of it informed by a reporter's-style technique, which required him to dig deep: interviewing, researching, reporting -- and simply hanging out.  

It was a way of understanding the city itself as well as explaining it to others, says Walker. All the Saints of the City of Angels, became a book and an extensive exhibit that was on display at the Gene Autry Museum in Griffith Park. But really, says Walker, the project lives on in his mind as a "loopy valentine to this amazing city of lost angels and sometimes saints."

Walker will be speaking to the class this week about this project and other projects in which L.A. has either been the muse or the subject over the last few years. Please take a look at his website to get a feel of the work and the artist's intentions.

(image: santa rosa de lima, by j. michael walker, via jmichaelwalker.com)

Westchester: A Poetic Case Study

WESTCHESTER is an interesting neighborhood - one plagued with young and old issues, people, a collision of young and old worlds. Westchester is closed in by the "Lincoln, Sepulveda, Manchester, Bluff" box - literally encapsulating the realities, livelihoods and day to day experiences of its spectrum of residents. I am continually blown away by how polar the community is: the turf originally belonged to the elderly, the family dynamic - a combination of wholesome activities and physical growth. Now, having (reluctantly) opened its gates to a burgeoning community of young adults who drink, smoke, party, have often times don't value the land as much as its other inhabitants. Houses go up, not out, property lines have long yearned to stretch their sleepy limbs. One house on each block is home to an elderly hermit, whose dim reading lights permeate slide-shuttersm, onto the moonlit neighbors lawns. Parking is impossible, nobody seems to go anywhere, and if they do, their absence is quickly forgotten in the headlights of a woman muttering, "hail mary full of grace, help us find a parking space". McConnell and 80th has seen more DUIs than first steps. Regis' trees spawn the enemy of all drunken skateboarders; their seeds are difficult to locate in the dim evenings, and throw kids from skateboards harder than senior citizens would like to. Westchester brings safety by shunning the outside world, scoffing at La Tijera, not daring to continue along Manchester unless it will surely lead to the beach. Chester is a jump off point, a springboard, a cliff for some, a ledge. For others, a person, a man leaving for work, a woman gardening in soft-kneed jeans. For me, Westchester is a recoiled place; parents think one way, you know another, yet here we are, trapped in a bulb, lathered in SPF 75, waiting for someone to flip the switch, or not.

Photo Credit: "Ageism" by The Savvy Boomer Blog

-- Ryan Cavalier

Zip Zip. Cars, Clothing, and Angeleno Attitude

OVER the course of the last semester I have been working for an electronic music company downtown. My Tuesday/Thursday mornings all look the same - rent a Zip Car from LMU's campus, drive the 405 to the 10, exit 5th street, left on Bixel, Right on 5th, reach the garage, punch the code, enter, complete various tasks for 4 hours, exit the garage, right on 5th, left on Lucas, jump on the 10, crawl down the 405, exit at Howard Hughes and return the car to LMU's bluff-top campus. The only thing that varies from week to week is the type of car in which I make the journey (which is dependent on which cars have yet to be reserved; random chance). I have noticed that Angelenos don't take too kindly to someone driving what they see as a 'rental car' traversing the winding 10; they don't want to read "wheels when you want them" (Zipcar's slogan) while tightening their grip around the steering wheel-shredding 405. When I drive a car with more advertising, I get more honks, more middle fingers, and feel the need to blend in. Oppositely, when I rent the cars with fewer advertisements I in fact feel that I have acquired some sort of agency -- that I can now drive like all other Angelenos, as a direct result of NOT having the Zipcar slogan slapped onto my back bumper. I feel priveleged, lucky, that I get to travel the LA freeways in an fleet of data-collecting motorized boxes! I can literally change cars like many do clothes, giving me the opportunity to not only try on different personalities and characteristics - but also gauge how others react to me...Zip Zip.

Photo: ZipCar Logo

-- Ryan Cavalier

Homeless Makes Me Homesick

HAVING lived in Colorado for the majority of my life, I was taught at a young age that there is no such thing as a stranger. Although a big city, my mom has repeatedly told me stories that end in, “what a small world.” Something as simple as talking to the check-out lady at a grocery store could end in an outlandish connection she has with one of your good friends. And week after week, you see this same lady and your relationship blossoms. The way people interact in Colorado was one of the hardest things to leave behind, because the minute you say hello to a stranger in Los Angeles, they give you that look of confusion that has a way of saying “why are you talking to me?,” that makes me homesick for friendliness.

Friends from Colorado recently came to visit me and one in particular noticed that I had fallen into some of the aloof habits that many Los Angelenos  -- and other big-city dwellers -- have become  known for. While downtown, I simply ignored a man’s plea for money, instead of explaining to him “I don’t have any right now.” Being that he stayed in Colorado for college, my friend was perturbed by the fact that four years ago, I would have once provided that man at least some words of justification. It had never occurred to me before that I had picked up on the cold patterns I hated so much when I first moved here. Looking back on it, I found that when I make my weekly visits to the neighborhood grocery store, I still have the same tendency to smile and ask how their day is going. But when a stranger talks to me, instead of getting a feeling of ease, I am more reserved, and well, creeped out. I don’t know whether to associate this with the fact that it is a bigger, stranger city than I am used to, or that I have lost that friendliness I was once homesick for.

When I spoke to a classmate about this occurance, she was more than interested to see why I was not only falling into these patterns I associate with LA, but also why I was so bothered by it. It takes a lot of self reflection to figure this out, and I think the fact that I have had quite a loss of "Jackie" time in the past year, I can't seem to figure out the answer to either of these questions. I hope with the school year winding down, I will be able to spend my last few weeks here open to the strangers around me as well as open to myself.

-- Jackie DiBiase

(Photo: Homeless man on street with cardboard sign by Joe Drivas)

From one city to the next -

THIS past weekend I traveled from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. From one city of bright lights to another, I noticed many similarities when landing in Sin City. Apart from the dry weather and desert surroundings, Vegas resembles that of Los Angeles in many ways than meets the eyes. Immediately after exiting my terminal from the airport, the appearance of simulated landmarks and varying cultures mixed into one central strip. The traffic, alike with LA was unbearable; however, in Vegas, the only road you have to sit in traffic in is located on the strip, so the option of walking is more convinient as opposed to walking in LA. Arriving at my hotel, I immediately felt as though I was in Hollywood. The Cosmopolitan, a new hotel featured in Vegas resembles that of a Hollywood-esque scene: there are vibrant chandeliers cascading from the top of the rectangular shaped building with stores that you would see on Rodeo Drive lining the walls of the hallways.

The influence of other cultures, being remade and simulated through the establishment of such hotels as  :Paris" and "New York New York" also reminded me of the city of LA in that a similar appearance can be found all over the place in the western city. Walking among the crowded streets of the Las Vegas strip, I really got to thinking, Las Vegas alike with LA was a booster city at one point in time. The city has been fantasized and illustrated as some type of oasis in the middle of the desert. So, many people view Las Vegas as a destination; a place to commit unlawful acts and to experience some type of fulfillment by participating in the culture of the city. Sometimes, Los Angeles can be viewed in this same light. Not only did this strike me as interesting, but also with the rapid growth of Las Vegas, who is to say it won't be the next Los Angeles?

Only time will tell, but until then, Sin City will stand in the shadows of the brighter lit city, Los Angeles.

-Chelsea Vogt

The Colorado Questions

“HAVE you seen any celebrities?” “How often do you eat here?” “Do you think it’s funny when you see tour buses touring your city?” As he sloppily eats his double double, occasionally taking a break to pick at his messy animal style fries, my little brother sits wide-eyed waiting for me to tell him an amazing story about living in L.A. Come August, he will too be yet another DiBiase to join the LMU community, and as you can tell, he could not be more excited to start his life here. I answer the questions, much to his dismay, anti-climatically.

In the four years that I have lived here, I have found that my life might not have turned out the way I envisioned it my senior year of high school. I remember being like my brother Tim, waiting to start my college career in an entertainment-based city, reading my People magazines at work to stay up on my celebrity gossip so when I saw them walking around, I wouldn’t be as star-struck. Lo and behold, after four years, I can’t say that I’ve had one celebrity spotting. And honestly, I’m not too disappointed by it. My mindset has changed in the time I’ve been here, I’ve become less intrigued by the lives of strangers and more so with my own.

Only visited when I have out of state visitors, In N Out has not become a staple for me. Because of its limited audience, many Coloradoans feel they must eat In N Out at least once when they are in California. I understand why; people think the food is fresh, the restaurants are classic, and it is a specialty to four Western states. But to me, I don’t eat fast food, I think their fries are too fresh (imagine that), and well, forgive me for saying this, but it’s just a burger and fries.

His last question is the one that I struggled with the most. While I do think it’s comical how when I drive down Lincoln, I pass by L.A. Tour buses, I can’t say that it’s my city, or my state. I drive a car with Colorado plates, my Colorado license gets double checked every time I go to a bar, and as I have recently just filed, I pay taxes in Colorado. It wasn’t that I struggled to answer the question, but internally, I found myself wondering why after four years, I never became a true California resident. I always blamed it on the fact that for so long I didn’t have a car, and when I did buy one, it was in Colorado. Since I had registered it there, it would have cost too much to buy all new plates, and well I was broke. Not only that, but I’ve heard California makes it hard for out-of-staters to become residents. Even after all of these excuses, I still question if those were the reasons. In my mind, and in my heart, I believe I didn’t become a California resident because I knew that it was not where I wanted to end up. I didn’t want to put myself through the process of changing everything to only then change it back.

It’s not that I will be going back to Colorado for good, but I know now that I won’t be staying in California either. A part of me wishes that at some point, I will long to be back in southern California, for the winter days that I could enjoy an outdoor run in my shorts, for the beach, for the culture. But I will only know this if I leave, if I give myself a chance to miss what I might lose. As we walked to my car, he looked at me and sincerely asked me, “You do enjoy living here though right?” The way he asked made me feel like he was begging for the right answer, the one that reassured him he was making a good choice to come to school here. “Yeah, I just can’t believe it’s almost over.”

-- Jackie DiBiase

(photo: Jackie DiBiase)

Arteries of Memory: Speedway

Speedway, Venice, ca. 1982.


I LIVED there in a first floor apartment in "Four Floors West," a building with front door on the boardwalk and the back door on Speedway, the alley parallel to the boardwalk. I think of it often when the marine layer rolls in, the street lamps haloed and the cold which otherwise wouldn't be so cold really getting to you because it's so damp. The memory brings an admixture of emotion—nostalgia, anticipation, fear, which follows the contours of what my life was then. I was a déclassé bohemian, living just one rung above the streets, sleeping on a sofa in a friend's apartment, improvising life in the way only kids in their early 20s can. I wanted to be a poet, in the Bukowski or Beat mode. I could have gotten into a lot more trouble than I did, but I did get into some, the echoes of which are still with me today. But anyway, there was a musician who became a mentor whose street nickname was "Cooch" (don't ask) and he would always tell me, "What dies in the ocean washes up on the shore, what's dying on the land comes to the sea." This was pre-gentrification Venice. Like Fante's Bunker Hill: most of us were poor, a lot of us were scheming to survive. The thing about living on the beach in LA is that the Santa Anas have to be really strong to blow all the marine air out. It could be 100 degrees in Pasadena, and foggy-chilly at the beach. And with the fallen human tableau of Venice at that time, the whole atmosphere was elegiac... breakers crashing unseen beyond the scrim of gray.

-- Ruben Martinez

(photo: Speedway Westminster Venice by Michael Dorausch via flickr creative commons)

No Lifeguard on Duty

This image comes from a series of photographs, made by J. Bennett Fitts, that focuses on abandoned pools. This one from a series shot in and around Los Angeles. This one's titled: "Abandoned Hotel in the Los Angeles Area"

It really does go head-to-head with those turquoise-blue pools we all fly over when we approach or depart LAX. Different meditation on the L.A. dream.

-- L.G.

You Are Listening to Los Angeles

EARLIER this week I heard a fragment of a segment on Marketplace, a show about finance and business which airs over the Pasadena public radio station, KPCC. But instead of stock averages and updates on the Nikkei averages, what floated out of the speakers was this sort of ethereal, ambient synth noise, all downtempo atmosphere, but on top of it was a live radio/scanner feed via LAPD --  in real time. There is something actually pretty lovely about this weird, incongruous grouping -- a 21st Century Music for the Spheres that syncs-up with the white noise and monotone status updates phoned in via remote. It's a conversation starter and a nice party mix actually. The project is aptly titled:  "You Are Listening to Los Angeles"  Click here to be transported somewhere down there on that glowing grid. 

photo: observatory view by Marcy Reiford via flickr creative commons)

L.A. - an icon

The color white, can it be considered a color at all? After all, white is merely a configuration of shades stimulated by the perception of light in the human eye. Often times, the shade of “white” crosses the mind when thinking of the city of Los Angeles. Bright lights, platinum blonde babes, and hazy skies- all things notoriously found in the alluring region of southern California. Needless to say the shade engulfs the city and manipulates the masses in the idea that “white is the new black”.

Roaming the streets of the stars, this iconic theme presents itself in a different type of instance. Hollywood. A distinctive type of social atmosphere and a signature thread holding together the unique quilt of Los Angeles. Walking down the strip, you can see the desperation in people’s faces. The eagerness to fit in, and the desire to be included; a blank and white gaze overcomes their appearance. At times, walking down the strip is like walking through a morgue- except these dead bodies are wandering around, aimlessly looking for a place to go where they will feel alive, only momentarily. Blankness, another feature of Los Angeles is a commonality when thinking of the iconic city.

The concept of living in a bubble also reiterates the appeal to LA. However, this bubble we all think surrounds us and protects us, is actually in fact a thick layer of smog encircling the area we call home. This white smoke that makes us sick and causes our world destruction is our oasis. Many of us have become immune to the constant allergies; however, the moment we step out of our “bubble” and into clear skies and clean air, we immediately wonder for a brief second why we continue to go back to the polluted place we cannot live without.

Why, if the bright lights and white skies are so bad for us, is LA so intriguing and desired to settle down in? Are we all that addicted to the idea of Los Angeles, or are we all living here to find something that has been idealized and force fed to us through the concept of “white being the new black”? It’s a funny concept to ponder because Los Angeles is like a drug, it has an appeal, a high, and a come down. It’s an addiction many of us try to fight, however, can never get passed the relapse. White. It’s all around us, and it makes our world go round. The shade perceived by our human eyes represents much more than a reflection of color, but also a way of living and a way of distinguishing real from imaginary. Except in this case our eyes are jaded, probably because we have been staring into the light for way too long.

-Chelsea Vogt

(Photo by ohsweetsunday.blogspot.com)

Arteries of Memory: The Streets of Los Angeles

IT'S a given: Certain thoroughfares in Los Angeles are so famous that it is nearly impossible to think about them without conjuring some larger-than-life, cinema-screen-size association.

That's what happens when your city is a movie set.

Mulholland Drive is known for its edge-of-the cliff beauty, its startling gemstone-lights views, but also for its snaky treacherousness if traversed with a potent combination of high speed and willful carelessness.

Nowadays, Sunset Boulevard feels less like a destination and more like an aging myth we still revisit and retell because we've become so accustomed to that ritual. Immortalized in movies and still the marquee draw on the double-decker tourist bus routes, the 24-mile stretch hasn't lost its power; it still beckons, luring the hopeful -- many of them teenage drifters who arrive in vast numbers via Greyhound or risky hitched rides.

You don't need a GPS to find some of the more well-traveled, high-profile roadways. Most everyone can point you to Hollywood Boulevard and its faux glitter Walk of Fame. Pacific Coast Highway, which stretches out, luxuriously along the gentle curve of coastline, offers its own set too-good- to-be-true promises. Looming just above that east/west thoroughfare, you'd find Laurel Canyon Boulevard, a winding rustic road, it's higher reaches associated with a certain era of barefoot and fringed Southern California musician. Much further east and angling south, Central Avenue powers along the city's working-class spine. In a long-ago incarnation -- before its reputation was scared by insurance red lining, poverty and violence, a short stretch of it played host to the West Coast's golden age of premiere jazz sounds.

Because we Angelenos spend so much time in our cars, traversing roads that carry us from one edge of the city to the other, the streets we travel most over time begin to gather complex, personal meaning. They recall a certain moment in our lives, a particular escape route or perhaps signify a road that was a route to a significant life transformation.

Even in our traffic-distracted state, we watch them change: they become narrowed or broadened or "beautified." They get closed-off and turned into gentrified "walk streets." They go from being secret shortcuts to being outed by Caltrans' fluorescent-orange flags and detour signs as viable alternate routes for any and all to plunder.

No matter. Somehow, they always seem to remain "ours."

Over the next few weeks, under the "Arteries of Memory" banner, a few guest bloggers will be reminiscing about city streets -- some famous, some infamous and some hidden slivers of afterthought -- and the side-roads of memories that they travel to when they find themselves passing over them.

You too might have an L.A. street that speaks to you, that transports you to a destination that isn't just a physical place, but a series of memories, a thoroughfare that evokes , stories, sounds, textures. Maybe you'd like to join the mix too. (It would be your extra credit "close-up.")

(please pitch via email, thanks.)

-- L.G.



(top photo: hollywood hills downward, by clinton steed via flickr creative commons
bottom: hollywood walk of fame via http://www.wildnatureimages.com/images%202/060309-015..jpg)

Erasure -- Chavez Ravine

SO we've been talking about how one person's "beautification" or "gentrification" is another's eviction notice and life-altering nightmare. It can scar generations to come.

In light of that uneasy legacy, a few years back, musician, Ry Cooder, turned his attention to the lost L.A. neighborhood we've been talking about, Chavez Ravine.

Instead of re-animating the tangle of streets on a blank page, he tried to sort out a way to make the old neighborhood -- and the rich culture that grew up in it and around it -- bloom again in a series of songs. He went back to the source and found musicians -- bandleader, Don Tosti, Lalo Guerrero (the "father of Chicano Music") and Little Willie G. (of Thee Midniters) -- to not just share remembrances of the time, but to shape and shade the recording lending their voices, instruments and arrangements.

The result was an album, Chavez Ravine, that told the story of the now vanished neighborhood -- its neighborhood rituals, its people, its music, its struggles with the city father's and power brokers, the result of eminent domain -- and of course -- hundreds of families and their displacement and, ultimately, the rise of Dodger Stadium.

Below you'll be able to listen to a couple of cuts from the project. They are bookends -- the first sketches the neighborhood as it was "Poor Man's Shangri-La" ; the second is told from the POV of a former-resident recalling where his family's house once stood "Third Base, Dodger Stadium"

This is storytelling, a study of voice. Songs take us places, the best songs do, because they articulate something specific that we can hang on to. Pay close attention to the specific details that gently place you in the moment -- a very specific time and place.

-- L.G.