The Bus Bench

Dead Escalator Surveys: Sat, 05 Jan 2008

I’m of the belief that if you are an alternative transportation advocate that you shouldn’t drive a car.

Yeah it’s a pain in the ass in LA, but if you believe in something you have to feel a bit of pain. Having a car and advocating for alternate forms of transportation whether they be cycling, walking, or bussing it, is like being part of the DARE program and smoking just a little pot.

I’ve never believed in hierarchy of drugs much.

I always felt beer, cocaine, and pot were the same thing, if you feel the need to judge drugs on some kind of moral scale. Just because the government sanctioned one as more ok than the others doesn’t mean it’s actually more right. It’s sort of like gay marriage is gay marriage wrong, because the government said that heterosexual marriage is right?

No the world doesn’t work that way.

It’s either all or nothing.

I know in “Wishy-washy, don’t want to actually take a stand on anything because it might be unpopular” L.A. that’s a hard concept to grasp.

• Marriage should be legal among all consenting adults; though I don’t know why anyone would want to do that.
• All drugs should be legal, because I doubt grandma is going to start using crack if you made it ok for her to do it.
• Alternate transportation advocates shouldn’t have cars.

If you believe that driving a car kills the planet you can’t feel as if you’re superior (which a blog or nonprofit dedicated to an entire topic I would think implied)  just because you kill the planet only a little. Now if you’re in a program and your car is like methadone, then I’m fine with that, but people who have alternate transportation blogs and organizations AND own cars, well you’re complete bullshit.

You should just move on to the next popular thing and get off of everyone's ass, because seriously let me state this again, you’re bullshit and you're annoying. I would liken you to Jane Fonda who told everyone to diet while she was binging and purging.

It’s nothing wrong with addictions or disorders.

It is something wrong with your preachy annoyingness, “this is what people should do” or “you should do this” and giving your opinions on bike lanes and bus lanes and bus service and rail service when you have the option of taking your car.

You having a car means your opinions are slanted with the privilege of car ownership.

Most public transport riders don’t have that option.

Nothing wrong with sharing, but at the bare minimum acknowledge and understand your privileged position in your head before you open up your big mouth in regards to your opinions on things that affect the lives of people who don’t have your privilege.

by Browne at Shametrain LA

On to the escalator report by BusTard

______________________

Sunset-Vermont, where THREE escalators were out of service:

1) to the street:

2) the mezzanine:

3) the lower level:

Westlake-MacArthur Park, where another three escalators were dead:

1) north exit:

2) south exit, where both escalators were shut down:

Shametrain LA

There goes the neighborhood. 2008.

I was reading the Unapologetic Mexican blog and my god, someone did have a fucked up Xmas.

A couple was building their house in Texas and some early welcoming gifts from the neighbors came.

1. Dead animals on their front lawn.
2. A two by four to the woman's face.
3. Big scrawls of graffiti that said Die Nigger Die on their garage.

Merry Fucking Christmas indeed, but the kicker is instead of the dude of the couple taking down the graffiti he left it up. The other neighbors who did nothing, but watch this fuckedupness happen all of a sudden got real concerned about the unpleasant graffiti  that was left on the doors.

They didn't want their kids exposed to that kind of thing.

I'm not sure if they meant the graffiti or the black people...read the rest of the story here.

by Browne

If they have nothing to hide. . .

. . . what the hell are they worried about?

Perhaps this.

The police state has constantly encroached under this seemingly polite phrase, and now that the figurative sunlight is threatening to disinfect their dark secrets (and after living for many years in Pico-Union dealing with the assholes at Rampart, I can tell you there are LOADS), I offer my sympathy on the strength of the same bullshit line as well as an apt answer.

-BusTard

Artist arrested held on 100k bail. Los Angeles. 1/5

Entitled - Tagger Krisis
Industry sheriffs deputies and transit police raided a Long Beach apartment early Thursday and arrested what they described as "one of Southern California's most prolific taggers:" Carlos "Krisis" Perez, 23, of Long Beach.

Perez, a suspected member of the East Side Longos sureno gang is being held in a county lockup in lieu of $100,000, sheriff's Deputy Brian Sanford said.
Krisis was targeted for arrest after tagging a soundwall on the 60 Freeway near Wilson High School, Sanford said.

Part of the investigation involved locating Krisis' MySpace page then monitoring the IP address of its owner (probably with MySpace's permission). Then tracking down the IP.
There's no court date set for Krisis yet.

Frank Girardot Crime Scene

_____________________________________________________________________________

So his bail was set for 100,000 dollars. I wonder what the bail was for Phil Spector or OJ Simpson or Paris Hilton. I wonder how big of a percentage was their bail in comparison to the amount that they are worth?

This artist is in jail for writing on a wall owing to his Myspace page. So I guess the whole privacy thing doesn’t apply when it comes to a Rupert Murdoch networking space.

When will you kiddies learn? Free networking sites are never actually free.

I find it outfuckingrageous that they can bust you on an alleged crime by prying into your personal account. I'm sure Krisis is NOT a threat to the nation.

Now this kid paints on a wall and he goes to jail. I am sure it was ugly before it was painted on, so what difference does it make. Oh yeah he didn’t have a permit. If you get a permit you can draw such groundbreaking images as a topless elf girl (cause whose seen nude anime type chicks before, I know I haven’t) and have everyone talk about how groundbreaking you are and anti-art everyone else is.

I wonder how will the “oh my god, you can’t kill art, because art feeds the birds and the universe” people feel about this kid’s art?

Rich “underground” artists who fly in from Europe to write on a wall and everyone runs to their defense. Slumming “underground” artist rich kids get article after article on how they are oppressed by the “man,” but the man is Latina and their underground status in my opinion is pretty fucking questionable.

In my world Coca Cola doesn’t commission underground artists and underground artists don’t accept commissions from Coca Cola.

But hey my world is pretty wacky.

Anyways I wonder will there be any outrage as there was for the LA River artists?
Christmas vacation is over. Will the ACLU help this kid or do you only get help if you play the counter-culture game with the 1970 rules of lots of fucking and plenty of drugs, but as soon as it becomes Altamont then everyone runs back to the suburbs.

You want to talk about travesty. $100,000 bail for writing on a wall, is total bullshit, more bullshit than some artless poseurs writing their website addresses on the LA River and it getting erased.

I wonder will the “underground” art community all chip in to help get this real guerilla artist out of jail?

I’m assuming not, since he’s not part of the rich kids slumming crew.

“Well he’s part of a gang (according to the police a group we can always trust,)” supporter of the arts.

What do you think underground art means? 

If it was fun and nice and happy it would be mainstream art.

Besides we're all part of a gang, just some people's gangs have better PR and get to be called clubs, fraternities, companies...

I wonder how does Crewest differentiate between gang artists and “real” artist at it’s gallery which sells aerosol paint and Cocaine Mule bags. Cocaine has nothing to do with gangs, the 18th Street gang has nothing at all to do with crack or cocaine.

Yeah I get it. It’s satire. You’re just playing underground street artist.

Don't feel as if I'm judging, because I'm not judging on a basis of morality. I love drugs, if I had lots of money I would do drugs everyday, but I'm responsible. I'm too poor to go to the blackjack table I have to sit and play the nickle slots. I'm judging on the basis of hypocrisy and rampant classism.

If they feel their poseur “graffiti” art with objectified images of women is the same as a mural with Molina with birds and trees then why is their art any different than that of an alleged gang member?

Oh yeah, because their parents are part of the status quo and they have expensive degrees.

I guess Krisis should have gotten a permit, been born middle class, and should have traveled in more media savvy circles.

Or maybe he has them and he’s just going to be used as a sacrificial lamb. A demonstration to show, “We’re not down with the poor writers, we’re only down with the people who can drop hundreds of dollars in paint for one session.”

I guess the only way to get back up from their gang is to get properly jumped in by getting a degree, a commercial contract, and a middle class background.

Personally I think graffiti art in general is sexist and in general not something I like, but this class based, "these people can do it and are legit, but these people can't" drawn by some arbitrary line that seems strictly drawn with money is complete bullshit.

Browne

Nature Trumps: Jay Babcock fondles FoLAR

The blog Nature Trumps, owned by Jay Babcock (and frequently stated) who also publishes the typographical nightmare of a music magazine Arthur, is one that that hypocritically states, "Informed discussion is the only discussion that matters." Yet Jay appears to believe his readers too stupid to comprehend for themselves whether an opposing point of view is worthy of being informative. Any comments he considers not agreeable with his blinkered point of view is almost instantly deleted. The resultant gaps should prompt folk to wonder why other comments refer to statements that no longer exist; yet there are no such queries. Perhaps Mr. Babcock is correct in assuming the double-digit IQ of his readers.

One will find that we at The Bus Bench have the ability to withstand most any attack, a fact made obvious by the numerous comments of one of Mr. Babcocks most tireless cheerleaders, Laurie Avocado. A cursory glance on the Bus Bench and Nature Trumps blogs will reveal many comments by Ms. Avocado.

Having been intimately involved with FoLAR (owing to my fifteen years of publishing an internationally distributed underground music magazine for fifteen years), I am privy to what is going on with the Meeting of Styles fiasco that has since pitted Gloria Molina against Lewis MacAdams. Yet my uniquely informative comments—I have recently talked to Mr. MacAdams personally—are deleted. Mr. Babcock apparently has neither the brains nor backbone to answer my questions, and he keeps spouting all manner of melodramatic crap about the murals that Molina righteously painted over.

So let me be brief in stating that the argument about authority granted to perform the Meeting of Styles was apparently not the correct one. (This seems to be a big deal to those whose entire existence is based on seeking permission.) If Molina has the DWP and the courts to back her, well, that should make it clear that going over her head to federal levels (such as the Corp of Engineers) was the first of two strikes.

The second strike was the cultural ignorance and hypocrisy. Apparently Molina is tired of seeing women as just another collective fucking hole, especially done up by people who can afford to waste $700.00 on painting hippie-flavoured, semi-nude women on the side of a god-damned glorified ditch.

So, Jay, why not you and your friends gather up some spray paint from Crewest, get permission from Eric Garcetti or Tom LaBonge, and then come over to my Boyle Heights building and try painting some crap on it. Permission or no, I will help you understand the definition of Darwinism that your little blog implies. It was not so many years ago that I had to deal with my many readers and detractors in person; that was before the Internet allowed folk to say big shit behind while hiding behind their little screens.

Here are two of the three deleted comments. (I was naive to not make a PDF of the first one, as I imagined Mr. Babcock to not be such a duplicitous jerk. Once it happened to me—as well as my colleague, Ms. Browne—I started documenting the inevitable.)

1-A Download shame_on_gloria_molina_for_attacking_folar_over_legal_murals_in_the_river_nature_trumps__an_l.A. River Blog compiled by Jay Babcock.pdf (see page 4)
1-B How this page appears now.

2-A Download shame_on_antiart_bullies_molina_and_knabe_nature_trumps__an_l.A. River Blog compiled by Jay Babcock.pdf (see page 4)
2-B How this page appears now.

Whitewash and censorship, indeed.

-BusTard

Caravan Books

Caravan Books, a book store I have patronised for some 11 years now, is a book shoppe that is on the required reading list for those recently removed from the West side and Valley to downtown. (And yes, by this I mean those folk looking to cash in on telling their friends how they live in downtown—oh, so dangerous!—even as they actively pursue changing it into the car-crammed, chain store-laden, flavourless middle class mecca of the places from which they emigrated.)

But enough of my kvetching (for now).

Caravan is one of the two booksellers to go to get great books as well as rare and odd titles on the history of Los Angeles. (The other is El Pueblo Gallery over on East Olvera; more about that in a later post.) For those of you wondering how downtown Los Angeles used to be before Bunker Hill was raised, before Dodger Stadium—or even the Dodgers—existed in L.A. or why the freeways and other major thoroughfares were laid out as they are, this is a damn good place to start.

550 South Grand Avenue (btw 5th and 6th Streets)
Los Angeles, CA 90071-2602
213.626.9944

 

-BusTard

Patti Smith, New York, and LA like doesn't suck.

PattiSmith

I met Dael Orlandersmith at the 100 poet reading at St Mark’s Church on the Lower Eastside of New York. Steve Cannon of Tribes introduced us. I’m assuming that was done to get me away from him, though that was a nice way to do it.

“Dael, here’s Browne, you guys should talk,” Steve Cannon running away.

So Dael is famous for writing Yellowman an award winning play and I was like “Oh wow!!” And things, but then she said she preferred San Francisco to LA and I found that a bit problematic.

Dead MTA Escalators surveys.

On our recent fieldtrip back east we at ShameTrain LA/ The Bus Bench did a video and photo study of the trains, busses, and other modes of public transport in DC and New York City.

We'll be posting those in the next few weeks.

In L.A. lots of people don’t want to be honest about who takes public transportation.

The same people who take public transport in New York don’t take it in L.A.

The people who take public transport in L.A. are poor, working class, elderly, and disabled. They take it because they can’t afford a car or they aren’t allowed to drive; while there are exceptions, keep in mind these are exceptions.

I have a friend who walks with a cane. He lives right by the Gold Line, but he doesn’t take it.

“I can’t navigate the stairs and the escalators and elevators don’t work reliably enough.”

Instead when he goes to his job in Hollywood, he has to take a series of MTA busses and the DASH.

One day I waited with him for the DASH. It took one hour. When the bus finally did come I had to help him onto the bus, because his good leg had stiffened up so much he could barely get up the stairs.

In L.A. we only have bus benches where people in cars are most likely to look over and see advertising. That's why in South Central and East L.A. and in some of the more desolate spots, you'll just have stand on the hot concrete while the sun burns its way into your skull.

In DC when the elevators and escalators are out they tell you many stops in advance and offer a free shuttle at the next stop where they are working to your destination if you are disabled or elderly.

Reports daily.

This dead UP escalator was at Sunset and Vermont at round noon on Thursday, 03 January 2008. Less than an hour later, it was again working; nearby was an MTA service van as well as a maintenance man who appeared to have simply switched it back on via the little button at the bottom.

This dead UP escalator was at Santa Monica and Vermont at nearly 1 p.m. on Thursday, 03 Jan. 2008.

This dead UP escalator was at Westlake-MacArthur Park at 1 p.m. on Thursday, 03 Jan. 2008. perhaps the MTA is slyly advocating Angelinos walk a wee bit more?

Shametrain LA

Choose your master 2008: Obama and Huckabee

Now according to the media Clinton was a shoo-in. Well that’s odd, because she didn’t win in Iowa.

Again with this journalist PR thing. I swear if you are going to work in PR get paid PR wages. Don’t be a journalist and starve to death when you really want to do PR.

So Wonderboy Obama won in Iowa, even after all of the old black people pretty much demanded that people not vote for him.

The old black guard, the media and pretty much the entire Democratic Party is firmly behind Hillary, which is why Obama is the Wonderboy.

Keep in mind even though this is a supernatural slant, it would not be characterized as the Magic Negro syndrome. Owing to the fact that his supernaturalness is independent and has nothing to do with helping white people find dead boyfriends, lost children, or curing urinary tract infections. (sourced from Wikipedia, so that’s like fact right?)

And who the hell is Huckabee, I thought that was the name of a movie. He apparently is a Baptist, but the non-annoying type, which means he doesn’t do that holiness weirdness. There will be no rolling around on the ground and feeling the spirit for this Baptist. He also has no money? What the hell a Baptist from Arkansas running with no gigantic cash war chest?

The Existential Baptist and Wonderboy came on top with virtually zero help from the mainstream media machine.

I guess with Obama you could use the old adage there is no such thing as bad publicity, but I don’t think you want it implied that you were a drug dealer in your youth.

And see Rudy Giuliani in regards to the old adage there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Do I actually believe voting will make a difference, nope, not really, but I do it so when I debate with people and they go “Did you vote?” I can say “Yeah fucker, I voted.”

That’s pretty much the only reason I vote. I usually vote for a person that according to some is destroying the chance of a much more viable candidate.

“Why did you vote for that person? They have no chance in hell of winning,” a person who believes the system works, which is why they don’t vote for the person that they want, but the person the system wants, because the system thinks better than them. No, the system actually thinks for them completely.

I know the theory of democracy doesn’t actually work, because when you have democracy in action for real in other parts of the world (the theory kind, not the fake kind we have going on here with the electoral collage and gigantic war chests of money to smear other candidates,) the vast majority of the time things get burned down and people get killed.

You know like in Kenya. See democracy only works in a country where you have lots of crap like candy, fastfood, cars, and toys to distract you and a fake media that the public thinks is objective. Usually the person the people want to win, never actually wins, but we settle for that other guy. We can’t be that concerned about it, because we have to watch American Idol and eat ice cream.

In Kenya there is no American Idol, which is why when the candidate that they wanted to win didn’t win, they got mad. Not blog mad, but they got mad for real.

That’s real democracy right there. Do we want that? I don’t think so, because that would entail spilling blood and truth and honesty and who wants that bullshit when we can just recycle and write very long blog entries.

And why do I want to die for my political beliefs. My political belief is nothing works and this entire system is smoke and mirrors. Why would I want to die for nothing?

Choose your master in 2008 and please invite me to the Master(or Mistress) of the Universe after-party I heard those things have lots of alcohol.

By Browne

The Thin Blue Line. NY style

NYPDonNewYears2008
Video sent by shametrainla

The cops in NY aren't as big of assholes as the cops in LA, but keep in mind they are still assholes.