The Bus Bench

Will Detour be Detoured?

UPDATE: I spoke this afternoon with Goldenvoice event producer Phil Blaine—a downtown resident, I might add—and he stated that with the coöperation of the Secret Service, LAPD, LAFD and Clinton's people, the two events should pose no problems to the attendees. Clinton's fund-raiser will take place from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. and will have reserved parking as well as offer egress in Harlem Place (the alley between the Edison and the cigar/art shoppe) whereas the main gate of Detour—half a block away—will not interfere with the Edison soiree. The security perimeter for Clinton will not intrude on Detour.

The Detour Fest will be this weekend, and Browne and I will once again be marching proudly and unpaid through the gates because, well, it's a street festival and we already paid when the taxman had his hand out.

Or so we hope. . .

The REAL Reason for Exorbitant Oil Prices

Don Pardo tells us why oil prices are so damned high. In 1976.

-BusTard

Black Monday prompts Blue Metro

As there is neither a recession nor a depression, then it follows that tits and ass, drugs and death, wrong and right, AIN'T. Or so Metro implies, as this single slice of the debauchery to follow clearly illustrates:

MTA Continues to Waste Money. . .

. . . on Redundant and Useless Giant TV Screens.

What the hell is wrong with the MTA? There is already in place a scrolling LED alert system that tells straphangers—when the MTA employs it competently, which is rare—about the endless deficiencies of the trains, broken lifts and dead escalators. Yet the inept agency led by Roger Snoble, Pam O'Connor and a Keyston Cop-like crew of cretins continues to put up giant plasma flat-screen monitors in the subway stations.

 

On Friday and Saturday, 25 and 26 January, I managed to record a slew of new screens being installed in two stations.

 

 

 

In DC and NYC—where the metro transit works far better in most every way (despite the setbacks; but all things things considered both systems are vastly superior to the joke that is the Los Angeles MTA)—they use the scrolling LED screens to great effect. Here are examples (Pam, Roger and fellow cretins, please take note):

 

 

In New York, there is even a bit of typographic fun that is unheard of in L.A.

 

Films to fuck your downtown state of mind. . .

For the first of three nights of five films to be screened at REDCAT, I missed what I had hoped to be a weekend of jaw-dropping, eye-opening, mind-blowing and highly controversial cinema and debate: All Power to The People: The History and Legacy of The Black Panther Party. (White guy that I am, I opted to see some friends ice-skate while former good friends Leather Hy-, er LISTING SHIP, performed at Pershing Square. From there things turned to a favourite chair that has long known my olde arse at the Biltmore, then quarrelling in the streets and making friends with fellow crazies along midnight on 6th Street halfway to any given mission between San Pedro and Central.)

Anyhow.

So what I missed Friday were three films: "Off The Pigs," "Repression" and "The Murder of Fred Hampton." Three scary films for anyone who understands how things were and, for the lack of daily riotous outbursts, how bad they may well become. Come Saturday and Sunday, however, (and amid all I have to do to get a particular theatre up and running by 21 January), I will be seated to see the rest of this too-brief series.

This could be an epic post, what with my perspectives on anti-statism, violence, mob mentality and rapid change of the world, but I will give it a rest.

-BusTard

No more talk on the WGA Strike

No more talk on the WGA Strike at least not at The Bus Bench. It's not that I don't support them, I do, but television isn't the most important thing in the world.

Looking at the blogosphere the television writers seem to have alot of help. There are people who are busboys, cashiers and other jobs that aren't cool who aren't getting paid crap and those people aren't getting any coverage at all.

I think it's just a little unbalanced.

It was like that time those reporters got roughed up during the May 1st Immigrant's Rights Rally. Regular people get punched, pushed and beat by cops all of the time, but the press seemed overly concerned because it was people on "their" team. Not in a wow think about what the cops would do if there were not cameras in plain sight, but in a you don't hit us, we're the press.

That's a pig cop's attitude right there. Cops do this us against them attitude.

Reporters aren't supposed to have a team.

It's called being objective.

As an writer/artist/supermodel I don't give a shit about other writer/artist/supermodels . I don't want to be their friend. I don't want to have a little team where we all cheer for each other. I don't want to be their comrade. I don't want to protect them. I don't care about them more than I would another human being. In fact I rather they not like me, because then I won't get sucked into groupthink. Nothing is more scary than someone with access to a vehicle with words that doesn't know how to think.

That's more dangerous than a gun.

I care about human beings. I don't put a higher value on human beings who do the same thing I do.

I'm not 12. I don't need a club to make me feel good about myself.

Drugs are quite effective in making me feel good about myself.

I also don't have to give drugs Christmas gifts or listen to five hour conversations about if a guy does or does not like them.

A writer that becomes the story (in a whiny bitch kind of fashion,"oh god!!! why did you hit me, that hurt, you're so unfair, you can not do that, that's against the rules...whine, whine, whine..." and not in the cool Hunter Thompson gonzo kind of way) is a bit of bullshit, just my opinion. I'm for the strike, but I'm not for writers sucking up everyone else's editorial resources, especially since the vast majority of people who work in television don't give a fuck about anyone, but themselves.

I support you guys, but fuck. You selfish bastards make it hard. I know you WGA television bastards have no problem walking into a non-union grocery store, doing lunch at an eatery where the people in the back are paid under the table or buying clothes made by little kids, but you know your assholishness doesn't make me wish bad things upon you.

I'm just not going to let my vehicle be used to help people who don't need my help.

I don't watch television, (even though I didn't watch it before) that helps right? Killing the reason for advertising is how people would help strikers correct?

So if another Bus Bencher writes a post in regards to the strike I'm going to have to cut your nuts off.

Browne Molyneux, Editor and publisher of Shametrain LA squat of The Bus Bench.

KNBC Too Dim to See "Light" Rail?

NBC4 talks about looney commuters on Metrolink, but forgets not to be stupid when doing so.

On KNBC.com, a brief bit of filler about Metrolink train No. 706 that runs between Riverside and Orange County was accompanied by a photo of the two-car Green Line that runs along the 105 Freeway in Los Angeles County. It is such a glaring error that we had to pick on the barmy broadcasters as well as pick out that it is a shot from no later than 2006, to boot: the logo on the car is the old Metro logo employing Scala Sans.

Take a look at the KNBC link as well as the photos of the Metrolink and Green Line cars, and you will understand that it is not unlike confusing a Volkswagen Bug with a Hummer:

http://www.knbc.com/news/14288044/detail.html?rss=la&psp=news#

Will the real Metrolink please stand up? http://www.nationalcorridors.org/df/df10112004a.jpg

Green Line: http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?41304
Green Line with olde logo (Scala Sans) http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?40637

What else are the "news" crews at KNBC4 screwing up? Who knows?

The Big One That Got Away

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York this week. Of his many comments and speeches, one stood out: his calling George W. Bush an idiot. Granted, it was not out-right name-calling, but anyone could clearly infer the meaning. W attempted to shun Mahmoud by getting self-righteous, but he nevertheless managed to vindicate the mad iranian's accusation. (And no, I am not rooting for Iran, so get stuffed if you think that.)

Ahmadinejad: "How can the incompetent who cannot even manage and control themselves rule humanity and arrange its affairs? Unfortunately, they have put themselves in the position of God!"

Bush: "When millions of children starve to death or perish from a mosquito bite, we're not doing our duty in the world."

WOW. That must have been one mother-fucker of a mosquito.

-BusTard

Three minute man. Silver Lake. 9/2

3MinSketch
Video sent by shametrainla

Owing to my comrades BusTard and Glenn, I sometimes get dragged to comic/science book stuff. Don't get me wrong I love funny glasses oriented type of entertainment, I'm just not on that mailing list.

This weekend we went by Secret Headquarters, a place where I'm always shocked isn't overflowing with people. That's the best idea for a bookstore ever!!

I had a conversation with the awesome Peter Bagge once at Secret Headquarters, we were both like, "What the fuck, what's up with SNL and their hiring of only Harvard educated writers, state college graduates(and women college graduates) can't be funny?" 

Bagge was very accommodating. BusTard had brought about 100 books for him to sign and he signed them all.

Looking at SNL as of late, I don't think they are hiring people due to their writing skills, but possibly because of their "mommy and daddy" connection skills, because that's the only reason that show is staying alive. They have got to be blackmailing someone or paying someone a large sum of money.

This weekend SHQ were selling the 3 Minute Sketchbook, now its not that I care about making a sketch in three minutes, but they were having one of the cartoonists from the Simpsons there to make you a three minute sketch in a book of the same name, and all of this for the low, low price of $25.00.

That is not me being sarcastic, that's me being serious. For 25 bucks you could get someone who could go on to be something great and then die and then you can sell that item as part of your retirement plan since writing doesn't pay anything more than a credit and beer and art tends to get you arrested, unless you like pretending to be Mark Ryden. Then people just like snickering at you behind your back and throwing things at you, but you can negate all of that by writing for free in one of these art-like magazines that are written by people who are "artists."

No need to worry about being objective. Plug your friends and their art and then next week they can write an article where they plug you and your work. Remember when the LA Weekly art critic had a show at that art gallery in Chinatown. I think I just about vomited.

Oh if you're a very bad writer you can do a calendar. That works very well too.

Enough with me being "part of the problem" as some whiny bastard once told me. Tone Rodriguez did our sketches. We got two of the books. He drew Batman and the Frankenstein Monster.

It was amazing what he did in three minutes. A complete drawing, with shading and everything. He sort of reminded me of the comic bookseller guy, but more hairy and less bitter. I am assuming a cartoonist on the Simpsons makes a good amount of cash, which would help in the whole not being bitter thing.

Browne ShameTrain LA

Hollywood, California. Kids as bait. 8/31

The Kid Nation controversy.

It’s not all that controversial. Kids get exploited all of the time, but this time fewer people got a cut. Union people have been waiting for a reality (reality=non union sucky pay) show to jump on that’s not filled with weirdos, loud minorities, washed up has been stars and now they have it. Kid Nation, a show filled with clean-cut nobody kids.

What a great way to bring up the concerns of guild writers, actors, production people by acting concerned about someone else, little some elses. Who can call you a jerk for doing that?

Crocodile tears don’t really do it for me.

Variety is getting “political.”

They have all seen that child stars don’t turn out that great. They’ve seen the train wrecks of lots of small lives.  Let’s look at the results of child stardom:

Lindsay Lohan
Danny Bonaduce
The Mouseketeers: Brittany Spears and Justin Timberlake (the bad music alone, yes little kids, that’s bad music.)
Those skinny ana/mia twins.
That kid that killed herself.
That other kid that’s now doing check cashing commercials.
That other kid that killed someone else.
That kid that od’d.
That other kid that od’d.

Variety and all of the friends of WGA and SAG members didn’t have a problem with that. Do you know why? They were getting paid.

My opinion is kids shouldn’t be doing TV or movies at all. You can easily get a young looking 19 year old to play any age you want.

People get all outraged by Kid Nation, but have no problem at all with the obvious bad idea of having a little kid work 20 hours a day, even if they are union and are emancipated from their parents. Unless people in the industry and the columnist and whoever else who purports to care so much gets on the horn and say, let’s stop the madness of kids working period. Especially, in things such as slasher films, weird bordering on porn type of movies.

As a kid I really didn’t see anything wrong with films like Pretty Baby, but you know films like that are kind of sick. There’s nothing artistic about having an obvious underage girl doing a sex scene, when she doesn’t even know what sex is (hopefully she doesn’t.)

“Well you know in France….”

You know this ain’t France. People in the US would have a problem if I went to a beach topless. People who film things like that are sick fucks and I’m not talking about just the sex.  When I look at Poltergeist I wonder why is it entertaining to Americans for a little kid protagonist  to be terrorized. Why is it entertaining for kids to be terrorized at all? Sometimes people are creative sick fucks, like Roman Polansky, but the vast majority of the time they aren’t even that. We can try to say they are some open minded creative people, but there is nothing open minded or creative about a literal interpretation of sex and violence on a kid by someone who is actually a kid.

How is that creative? How is that thinking outside the box?

What was Pretty Baby suppose to represent? What was Poltergeist suppose to represent?

If Jean Benet Ramsey had been in LA she would have been in films. People in LA always like to rag on this particular kid’s parents, while their kids have agents and are gulping down drinks at bars on Sunset Blvd. I guess it’s ok to exploit your kid as long as you do it in a socially acceptable SAG kind of a way.

Why don’t people be in honest? The problem with Kid Nation is that the kids got paid $5,000 for 40 days work.  There was no need to have union writers, because it was a reality show. The problem is the unions got cut out. The problem has nothing to do with the kids or their well being or anything like that. It’s obvious to me that Hollywood doesn’t care about kids in any way other than to use them, so everyone can stop with this whole bullshit about their concern of the kids well being and safety, because Hollywood doesn’t care about the safety of anyone as long as they can get a cut.

Nothing wrong with people demanding to get paid, but don’t act as if it’s about the concern and feelings of little kids. This is LA not Wisconsin.

Bring up the real issue. Don’t pee on me and call it rain.

Browne