Blue Line Derailed While Metro Pick-up Trucks Travel The Red Line

 This has been a very busy week.

The Bus Bench was preoccupied with larger art projects (that will come to fruition in late 2009 and early 2010). Massive state tax cuts courtesy of Arnold and Co. were making their way south like a tsunami starved, albeit for southern California. The Los Angels Police Department and Los Angles County Sheriff Department managed to forget all the past riots round the Staples Center when the Lakers played. (Where the hell were the protectors of civility while people blatantly pitched steel garbage cans at passing trains even as Associated Press photographers blatantly recorded the events? Were Baca's brownshirts too busy handing out citations to those attempting to interpret the confusing TAP pass crap?) But a few BusBenchers were underground while the lazy constabulary allowed the sports eruptions to derail the Blue Line and sever every north-south bus line in downtown.

Here is some interesting footage from last Sunday night:

LAkersRiotNight_02

In 2000, when the Staples center hosted the Democratic National Convention, there were far more people and everyone was fenced in the same area there near Mayor Dick Riordan's Pantry and the intersection of Figueroa and Pico. The LAPD started beating and shooting people despite the absolute lack of antagonism. (I was one of those shot twice by the rubber batons as well as eventually financially compensated via a class action suit that was settled in 2004.) The National Lawyers Guild stood in for us, and even as I took care of business in the wake of my own losses owing to the terrorist attacks in lower Manhattan one year later, I was sent my pithy cheque for the considerable injury I incurred at the hands of those whom I made the mistake of photographing prior to the police riots. (I will be reproducing those photos in a show in 2010.)

But back to nearly now.
As I made my way to downtown that Sunday night, satiated from having completed production on a new book by a well-established author of several Los Angeles books even as I were ignorant of the idiocy and pointless violence about to take place at Staples Center, I had a conversation with three drunken Lakers' fans on the downtown-bound #4 line from Echo Park. Said schmoes were on their way to the victory bash, and with box-cutters they were carving "Lakers" into the rear windows of the bus. At least three Metro cameras appeared to record their obvious actions over the duration of the 15-minute exchange, and yet, as ever, no action was taken. They asked what I was doing there, I asked who wanted to know—and the next thing ya know, I was being begged to take pictures of them as they carved deep into the rear windows of the bus as we wound south along Sunset-cum-Cesar E. Chavez, then south on Hill toward the epicenter of the basketball riots.(Metro might corroborate this with footage from their cameras, providing their operators were watching.)

Now that we know how well are being spent all those trash collection fees that our schmuck of a mayor Tony V stole from the people of Los Angeles, we cannot wait to show our appreciation for any dim transit fare-checking git the next time we run into one of them collecting revenue under the guise of maintaining public service for Los Angeles. Why might we be so angry about what last Sunday wrought? Read on.

Peaceful political protesters get their heads smashed in 2000 while erstwhile sports fans intent on destroying infrastructure are allowed to run rampant in 2009. Perhaps the voter revolt that has helped compel students and workers into the streets might spread to encompass everything, and let Los Angeles finally experience its Rite of Spring, its long-overdue Bar/Bat Mitzvah, its own Quinceaños.

But no.
Despite the damage caused by these hordes of morons, the Lakers celebration carried thousands of ball-sucking schmucks to the parade earlier this week via the Red Line.

Screw all of you. I'm heading back to New York, where even Bensonhurst beats the best of L.A. (It ain't linked because I doubt any of you have the ability to figure out the damning allusion, let alone encompass the ability to look up the bleeding obvious.) Say what you want, and be sure to scribble it down with your best crayon so your tiny mind can recall what you thought you meant to state anonymously should you grow the backbone to show up in person when I reäppear to read from the long-since suppressed book about Los Angeles that no-one wants to know still exists and yet may well explain why Los Angeles is the way it is, that will be re-published in 2010 after nearly 70 years of censorship. What can I state? Not much except that the title under review was published by a major publisher the same year that Hitler came to power, and that the typeface was duly noted in the colophon as Janson. To any true historian of Los Angeles, this should be no mystery.

Oh, and some photos from that romp across Olympic in the three days after Ozomatli played, right before Rage Against The Machine was meant to play? You bet; here ya go:
     

     

          

One might suppose that the difference between now and then was that then "they" failed to pay for tickets, whereas the rioters of last Sunday paid premium ticket prices for that which Staples Center, Lakers, Inc. and the City of Los Angeles greatly anticipated. How else might a patterned riot have spread so wide as to have derailed a 20-year-old commuter light rail train when a determined political protest a decade earlier—checked by massive amounts of armed police long before as well as well after the one action that the protectors prompted—did nothing nearly as nefarious?

I'd like to give a kiss to L.A. like some do, but, well. . . there ya go.

-BusTard

Comments

[browne]

I hate sports. And this was before last week. To get so emotional about a bunch of rich jerks throwing a ball, kicking a ball, hitting a ball, sliding a ball like object, I simply don't get it. Thank you for not being sport guy Ran. Thank you for only tearing shit up for political reasons.

Browne

[Damien Goodmon]

I love sports, not so much professional as collegiate. But do agree, shit should only been torn up for political reasons.

[Randall BusTard]

I know very well that Metro employees and the no small number of Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies read The Bus Bench—I have numerous e-mails corroborating this fact—and so I am curious why the LASD failed YET AGAIN to discharge their duties when they have been so diligent in their duties of revenue collection on the Blue Line and other Metro conveyances. Would any of you brown shirts like to comment on this obvious dereliction of duty?

http://cbs2.com/video/?id=106107@kcbs.dayport.com

[Rosemary]

Completely agree with Browne!

And good grief, carving LAKERS, or anything for that matter, onto a bus window?! What a bunch of idiots.

It's frightening to think that these box cutter carriers went to the already insane cluster-f of a victory parade.

[Boyle Heights Man]

This isn't the first Laker Fan Riot at Staples. In 2000, for the first NBA Championship the Lakers won at Staples, I recall accounts of "disturbances" around Staples Center after the Lakers won. For the people at the game (the Lakers won at Staples not on the road) it was quite terrifying. Go back and check the news stories.

I remember Shaq offered to personally pay to replace a police car that was torched in that one. I seem to recall several were burned.

For me, this was deja vu. 2000 all over again. Nothing new. The more things change, the more they stay the same. L.A. sports fans, what can I say. That's why I don't go to professional sports events. A small matter of personal safety.

This didn't just start last Sunday. People have forgotten what it was like when the NFL Raiders played at the Coliseum during the 80s and early 90s.

[Randall BusTard]

Yeah, I recall that riot too. I was living on Garland at 8th at that time—about three blocks from that mess. I was working at Working World Magazine during that period and we had a photo of that fire-involved police car and the red WW Mag kiosk that, if I recall, was on the car.

On the other hand, I think we all need to see that the "celebration" at Staples Center was not the only one; it was merely comprised of idiots. Elsewhere, there were those celebratory conventions that did not resulted in drunken assholes destroying mass transit. (But be forewarned: this is a rather long and somewhat boring video. No trashcans, burning cars, derailed trains nor smashed glass here.) http://laeastside.com/2009/06/and-from-east-of-the-river/

[Justin N]

AAH! Don't say TAP pass!

TAP = Transit Access Pass. Hence, TAP pass is as redundant as PIN number and ATM machine.

Sorry you guys got so screwed down there, though I must say I'm glad I got out of the city before the sun went down.

[Spokker]

"I was one of those shot twice by the rubber batons"

lol

[Spokker]

"Say what you want, and be sure to scribble it down with your best crayon so your tiny mind can recall what you thought you meant to state anonymously should you grow the backbone to show up in person when I reäppear to read from the long-since suppressed book about Los Angeles that no-one wants to know still exists and yet may well explain why Los Angeles is the way it is, that will be re-published in 2010 after nearly 70 years of censorship."

You aren't going to publish shit and if you did no one is going to read it except the six other like-minded nuts who post on this shitty blog. You haven't been suppressed, you simply don't know how to function in society. You never learned how to play the game and now you bitch about how the white man is keeping you down.

You are a fucking failure of a journalist writing for a blog no one reads and reminiscing about the rubber batons of protest's past. Get the fuck out of Los Angeles and take "Erykah Badu" with you while you're at it. No one will miss you.

[Spokker]

Nah just kidding man, you alright.

[Randall BusTard]

Spokker has been sharpening his otherwise dull Crayons. We would await him growing some balls and showing up to a public Bus Bench event, but we'd prefer to await the inevitably late Metro bus.

[Spokker]

I would go to a Bus Bench event, but as long as they are in very public places. I'm not into Fight Club or anything :)

I can't seem to find information on these events on this mess of a web site though. Perhaps you could direct me to it.