MetaFilter posts tagged with California and losangeles

"Donald Sterling Continues To Get Away With Being The Most Evil Man In Sports"

ocherdraco — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:28:43 -0800

The Donald Sterling Rule "Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling lives by his own rules. And the only one that matters, apparently, is this: all bad deeds go unpunished. Over the last six years, nearly two dozen L.A. residents have sued Sterling for engaging in racist housing practices and Jim Crow-style bigotry. In a 2003 deposition, the 76-year-old real estate mogul admitted to paying a former employee to have sex with him in an elevator. Three years ago, the U.S. government charged him with "willful" mistreatment of African-American and Latino tenants, and earlier this month, he agreed to pay the Dept. of Justice nearly $3 million to settle a federal racial-discrimination housing lawsuit, the largest award ever for a case of its kind." So why, asks California's Tenants Together, has the NBA said nothing about Sterling's less than sterling behavior? Dan Wetzel asks why the landmark settlement has gotten practically no media coverage. Sterling's problems extend to a lawsuit from his former GM, Hall-of-Famer Elgin Baylor. The landmark lawsuit: United States v. Donald Sterling. A list of Sterling's misdeeds, from Deadspin.

The City of Angels

gman — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:38:18 -0800

Photographer Matt Logue's empty L. A. shows the effect of the city being completely people-less.

Angelyne: as essential a part of the Hollywood landscape as the garish minimall

filthy light thief — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:10:52 -0800

She's a public mystery, craving attention but shying away from private interviews. She is a human being Andy Warhol would have created, a painter (of) herself. She ran for Hollywood City Council in 2002, joined the much-parodied 2003 California gubernatorial recall election (previously), and most recently tried to become Mayor of Hollywood (archive of her Mayoral site). She is still loved by snark-mongers. She is Angelyne. She is ... A local Hollywood celebrity for her presence on billboards, the "wicked Eve in Hollywood's media-made Garden of Eden," she is can be found in her bright pink Corvette (Hidden Los Angeles previously, Vector Portraits previously). She has been the topic of local articles for a while, the subject of local and foreign TV interest. She's had bit-parts in a few movies and drove Moby around Hollywood. She's inspired song-writers (sample) and mix-tapers. Angelyne once said "I'm the quintessential billboard queen that's supposed to happen. That's why it's so readily and easily accepted. I feel like I've been embedded in the cement of Hollywood for 3,000 years." But where did she come from? Neither her official website nor MySpace page provide much personal information beyond her likes and dislikes (the latter lists her age as 29). An old webzine has an article on her (circa 1998), noting that she came from Idaho, and moved to Los Angeles for fame and fortune, singing with a group that was first know as Black and Blue, then Baby Blue, and a few weeks it was Angelyne. She released four albums (including Driven to Fantasy), and made a music video for the song "I Always Keep A List of All the Guys I Kiss". But none of those endeavors panned out. Her foray into billboards wouldn't have lasted, either, had it not been for the entrepreneurship of Hugo Maisnik. Maisnik, the president of the outdoor advertisement company who Angelyne contacted, signed with her to support her advertising (and her lease of the iconic 'Vette) for a cut of her profits from her fame. According to a 1987 People Magazine article (which listed her age as 28), Maisnik was her manager at the time. (An article later that year listed her age as 29.) Now you can consider yourself armed for The Angelyne Quiz: How Well Do You Know Her?

Dark Behind It Rose The Forest

WPW — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:00:42 -0800

Inside America's most dangerous national forest.

Carlos Is an Asian at Heart

jabberjaw — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:58:01 -0800

Why do Asian-American students achieve higher grades than Latino-American students? Despite the fact that the students come from the same socioeconomic background (median annual household incomes below $50,000 in working-class Los Angeles neighborhoods), Asian-American students disproportionately get better grades, attend AP courses, and go to college than their Latino-American counterparts. Students at Lincoln High School sit down for a frank discussion of why that is.

Wish You Were Here

optovox — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:37:54 -0800

Drive-through trees, Olvera Street, Knott's Berry Farm, and lots of other images and postcards of California at Image Archaeology.

Vector Portraits (1989-1997)

dhammond — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:22:13 -0800

Los Angeles-based photographer Andrew Bush mounts a camera on the side of his car to capture freeway drivers in the southwestern United States. [via]

Also, make sure to bring a number two pencil

Rhaomi — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:26:22 -0800

Something is rotten in the state of ~~Denmark~~ California. The California-based Courage Campaign is making noises about voter disenfranchisement in the Los Angeles area. For the 776,774 ~~independent~~ "Decline To State" voters in the primary there, casting a ballot for a Democratic nominee is a bit more difficult than you'd think would be necessary (the Republican primary is (un?)fortunately closed to independents). These "DTS" voters must request a Democratic Party ballot (as opposed to a generic nonpartisan one without a section for the Presidency), and then (somewhat redundantly) fill a bubble at the top of that ballot reiterating their intent to participate in the Democratic primary. Sounds simple enough. But the average voter has been confounded by less than simple procedures before. In spite of the potential for confusion, the local board of registrars has made the brilliant decision to have the scanning machines invalidate all ballots that do not have that extra bubble filled in -- without informing the voter of the mistake. Furthermore, poll workers will not be required to inform DTS voters of their right to a Democratic ticket unless asked, a policy which State Senator Dean Florez said "violates the spirit of the law" in a stern letter (scroll down to read) to California Secretary of State Debra Bowen. While the issue at first glance seems purely local, the effects of any disenfranchisement will have great influence on Tuesday's results. It is common knowledge that independents are drawn to Barack Obama's campaign, and with them locked out of supporting John McCain in the state's closed GOP primary, he was counting on their turnout to help top Hillary Clinton's erstwhile formidable lead. With the ballot issue threatening that support, the campaign was quick to explain the problem. And for good reason -- the three quarters of a million DTS voters in Los Angeles amount to three-fourths of the votes cast in the all the Democratic primaries to date. Their influence can easily sway California, which itself will sway the media narrative coming out of Super Tuesday. For its part, the aforementioned Courage Campaign is hard at work spreading awareness with websites, (minor) celebrity radio ads, and cheesy YouTube skits. Here's hoping their efforts pay off, and that we can finally get through an election -- even one as crucial as SupercalifragalisticexpialaTuesday -- without an intractable struggle for recounts and justice.

Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city

bcveen — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:48:21 -0800

Re-imagining Los Angeles public transit: The ambitious vision of these transit advocates and amateur cartographers for an East-Coast style rail network in Los Angeles may seem too idealistic, but the map is still fun to look at. More on the history of LA public transport from the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library.

It's a small town after all.

miss lynnster — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 21:04:28 -0800

Charles Phoenix's Disneyland Tour of Downtown Los Angeles... featuring Adventure land, Frontier land, Fantasy land, and Tomo rrow land. Feel like taking your own walking tour of Downtown? Here you go. But hey, why not stop and gorge yourself on a giant pancake breakfast at The Pantry first, just because? Open 24 hours a day, it hasn't closed since 1924 so the doors don't even have locks. Just like Disneyland!

The Traveling Rings of Santa Monica Beach

jason's_planet — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 08:15:51 -0800

The Tra vel ing Rings At San ta Mon ica Beach

"If I allow the fact that I am a Negro to checkmate my will to do, now, I will inevitably form the habit of being defeated".

matteo — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 09:25:12 -0800

The Jackie Robinson of architecture. An orphaned African American boy from downtown Los Angeles, Paul Revere Williams wanted to be an architect, and when he mentioned his career goal the high school guidance counselor ”stared at me with as much astonishment as he would have had I proposed a rocket flight to Mars... Whoever heard of a Negro being an architect?”. Therefore, Williams learned to read and draw upside down -- he knew that white clients would not sit next to him -- graduated from USC and in 1924 became the first certified African American architect west of the Mississippi. In a 50-year long extraordinary career, he designed landmarks like the Theme restaurant at Los Angeles International Airport (with Welton Becket), the LA County Courthouse, the Hollywood YMCA, Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, restored the Beverly Hills Hotel. Some of his most interesting buildings, like the La Concha Motel in Las Vegas have either been razed to the ground or, like the "Batman house", aka 160 S San Rafael mansion in Pasadena, have been destroyed by fire. Now, Williams' historic Morris Landau House has been cut into 21 separate pieces and sits in a Santa Clarita storage yard, rotting away. More inside.

Rocking and rolling... California style!

RockBandit — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:35:53 -0800

San Andreas primed to "explode." Growing up in SoCal, we constantly practiced earthquake drills in anticipation of the "Big One." Now, new evidence suggests that the Big One will be even worse than we all feared. At the moment, everything looks calm though. People say we're crazy for living in either San Francisco or Los Angeles, of course we think living in New Orleans is crazy too. But cities are rebuilt. And no matter where you go, you really can't escape natural disasters. Besides, some of the biggest earthquakes in the United States were in Missouri! In any case, Forbes compiled a list of the safest and least safest places to live in the U.S. in regards to natural disasters. Apparently... we should all move to Hawaii!

"There it is. Take it."

fandango_matt — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 14:12:33 -0800

Eighty years ago, William Mulholland completed his final project: the St. Francis Dam, which converted San Francisquito Canyon--about 5 miles northeast of what is now Santa Clarita, California--into a 38,000 acre-foot reservoir for Los Angeles/Owens River aqueduct water. You're probably familiar with Mulholland's name --he designed and built the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the beginning of the system with which Los Angeles is supplied water from the Central Valley--and as a gesture of gratitude, the city named its most scenic highway in his honor. Mulholland, the California Water Wars, the aqueduct, and the dam were also referenced and alluded to extensively in Roman Polanski's Chinatown. But the man who helped build an immense metropolis by bringing water to the desert has only a small fountain as a memorial to his legacy. Three minutes before midnight, on March 12, 1928...

Through All the Lousy Luck

matteo — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 11:14:44 -0800

I first read "Ask the Dust" in 1971 when I was doing research for "Chinatown". I was concerned about the way people really sounded when they talked, and I was dissatisfied with everything else I had read that was written during the '30s. I wanted the real thing, as Henry James would say. When I picked up Fante's "Ask the Dust," I just knew that was the way those kids talked to each other—the rhythms, cadences, racism.
Robert Towne on adapting John Fante's novel for the big screen. More inside.

From Skid Row to Disney Hall

PenguinBukkake — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:13:55 -0800

"I haven't been in a concert hall in 4 billion years". Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, 54, had been excited about an invitation to see the Los Angeles Philharmonic in action at Disney Hall. "The anticipation is horrible". He'd started showering daily at a shelter, to gussy himself up as much as possible. Nathaniel was a music student more than 30 years ago at the Juilliard School when he suffered a breakdown. Today, as he continues to battle the schizophrenia that landed him on skid row, he plays violin and cello for hours each day in downtown Los Angeles, lifting his instruments out of an orange shopping cart on which he has written: "Little Walt Disney Concert Hall — Beethoven." After the Philharmonic's rehearsal, Ayers has played Disney Hall -- the real one, this time. Without the bow at first, picking the strings with his right hand, Bach's Cello Suite No. 1: Prelude. Several Philharmonic staffers heard the music and wandered over, peering in to see a man of the streets, tattered and elegant, close his eyes and drift into ecstasy.

The Anaheim Flood of 1938

huskerdont — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 11:09:39 -0800

New Orleans wasn't the first American city destroyed by flooding. In 1938, Orange County was devastated by over 15 feet of floodwater after two weeks of rain. 2000 were homeless in Anaheim alone after the Santa Ana river overflowed its banks. Most of those made homeless were Mexican immigrants and the flood was quickly forgotten.

An eyewitness description.

"He suggests living is language".

matteo — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 13:01:18 -0800

The Language of Saxophones At 55, L.A. musician and poet Kamau Daáood is finally beginning to acknowledge the possibility of his own place in local letters with his debut book of poetry, The Language of Saxophones, a 30-plus-year retrospective published by City Lights. Though he’s recorded a solo CD and read nationally and internationally, Daáood had never seen fit to collect his material in a book. Until now. “I never liked the idea of poetry sitting on a shelf somewhere, lost in all those book spines”.

John Lautner's Chemosphere: part Jetsons, part Bond and vintage L.A. Modern.

matteo — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 09:21:46 -0800

The most modern home built in the world. "From the outside it looks like a spaceship you cannot enter. But if you go inside, it feels very cozy… very Zen and calming. Maybe because you are floating above the city, in the sky". John Lautner's Chemosphere residence is the product of a fortuitous union of architect, client, time and place. Leonard Malin was a young aerospace engineer in late-1950s L.A. whose father-in-law had just given him a plot north of Mulholland Drive, near Laurel Canyon. The only catch: at roughly 45 degrees, the slope was all but unbuildable. Lautner sketched a bold vertical line, a cross, and a curve above it. "Draw it up," he told his assistant. Now publisher Benedikt Taschen owns Chemosphere (NSFW), and after 20 years of neglect the house has been beautifully restored (.pdf) by Frank Escher.

Hubert Selby, Jr (1928-2004)

matteo — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 17:21:54 -0800

"Hubert Selby died often. But he always came back, smiling that beautiful smile of his, and those blue eyes of his... This time he will not be back. My saints have always come from hell, and now, with his passing, there are no more saints". Selby is the author of Last Exit to Brooklyn, (tried for obscenity in England and supported by, among many others, Samuel Beckett and Anthony Burgess), Requiem For a Dream, Song of the Silent Snow. He is being eulogized in the USA and UK, but also, massively (I've just watched a fantastic TV special) in France, where he is much more popular than in his native land (Selby's death was the cover story -- plus pages 2, 3 and 4 -- in the daily Libération today -- .pdf file): Dernière sortie vers la rédemption, L'extase de la dévastation. What makes all this kind of ironic -- in a very Selbyesque way -- is that Selby himself used to say, "I started to die 36 hours before I was born..." (more inside)

Strikes

lola — Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:14:21 -0800

Labor Unions in a free market. Southern California is being gripped by crippling strikes by transit workers and grocery clerks -- both over health care -- that has stranded thousands of mostly poor commuters across Los Angeles and is expected to sap millions from the local economy.

As a person who can't drive due to a visual disability, I am personally effected by the MTA transit strike (that is rumored may last several months). State employees are not allowed to strike. Shouldn't that also be the case for essential services, such as public transit?

Sprawl

snez — Mon, 07 Apr 2003 14:42:57 -0800

"Los Angeles is not the city it could have been" An informative and amusing essay on how L.A. went from 'six suburbs in search of a city' to the 'horizontal sublime.' Part of the 3Cities Project.

The Los Angeles Times goes multimedia

4easypayments — Thu, 20 Mar 2003 20:46:47 -0800

The Los Angeles Times goes multimedia. For the past few weeks, the LA Times has begun a significant push into offering video, audio, and interactive Flash on their website. One of the most interesting aspects is that the paper has moved one step beyond simply replaying AP Television clips as many sites have done; the LA Times writers are stand before the cameras and microphones themselves and report stories in a stuttering, non-hairsprayed, introverted demeanor that I find very refreshing, though so far I have gleaned very little additional information from it. When does (or can) this mode of journalism on the web rise above gimmickry or 'just because we can' and add value to a written article? Can video/tv news rise above mere spectacle?

josholalia — Tue, 24 Jul 2001 12:13:58 -0800

LA is the number-one relocation city for fleeing San Franciscans. Has the world turned upside down? The L.A. Examiner has the summary. And the complete story can be found, for now, on the LA Business Journal front page.