Prototype Issue
Blogs
Real Peeps Speak by Various Interviewers
07-16-08
- ARMANDO SANCHEZ: THE MAESTRO OF LATINO COLLEGE AID by Bianca Barragan
Armando Sanchez knows first-hand how overwhelming it can be to try and complete college financial aid forms. Frustration and inability to make sense of the process resulted in his leaving college, a fact that he states with pride.
Why? Upon leaving school Sanchez devoted himself to studying the financial aid process for six months. With his new-found knowledge he returned to school to get his Bachelor’s degree, his Masters’, his teaching credential, and his Ph.D.. Today, S...
Seeing LA by Sightseers
07-16-08
- THE LOS ANGELES ART WALK: THE ART OF APPEARANCES By Misha Tulek
The Los Angeles Art Walk, a once a month evening event in downtown, is a place for up and coming artists to show off their talent. Sponsored by a number of hip galleries, this venue usually attracts a crowd consisting of downtown loft aficionados, Los Feliz hipsters, Beverly Hills highbrows, and a few bums looking for free alcohol.
Despite my hopes, I was quickly disappointed by the quality and content of the art. Generally speaking, the art was young. In other words, most of the arti...
Just Like Music by La Musica
07-19-08
- BOOGALOO LA SAVES THURSDAYS by Bianca Barragan
For the masses, going dancing on a Thursday night isn't about the music; it’s about dancing with (or at least near) attractive people. These people are blessed because they don't suffer when the DJ spins the same crap you hear on the radio.
But you - you are not these people! So forget them and get to The Short Stop, where Thursday nights are Boogaloo L.A. (www.boogaloola.com), a funk-soul-Latin-disco challenge to your dancing shoes.
Situated in Echo Park, The Short ...
LA Shaman by Michael Ortiz Hill
07-15-08
- THE DIVINE COMEDY OF SACRED ILLNESS
I have been alone now for six weeks and in the shadow of the full moon I ask, “What is the prayer that multiple sclerosis was an answer to?”
In a circle of photographs of elders and ancestors I draw:
The Star
Six of Swords
Five of Wands
The old ones speak.
Dear God, do I have the courage to meet this oracle?
The Star is the only card of the Major Arcana so I see it as epicenter. The image is of Pandora opening the box, engulfed by the Spites: old age, labor, mad...
LA Contrarian by David Diaz
07-18-08
- THE LATEST THEFT OF HOUSING FOR THE POOR
Photo of Maria Cabildo
The confiscation, obfuscation and annihilation of affordable housing policy in LA is legendary.
The newest theft occurred recently when lobbyists in the state capitol delivered a financial lolipop to the Anshutz Group, owners of AEG, a global sports and entertainment concern. Pressed by the lobbyists, the state legislature passed a bill that will insure that civic improvements around AEG’s Staples Center-area properties will be paid for out of governmen...
LA Writing by Various Writers
07-16-08
- MY WINTER VACATION by Eddie Pepitone
I flew back to New York City to bury my mother in the cold, cold ground about 3 years ago. It was very painful; the shovel would hit the frigid earth and sting my hands into numbness. I couldn’t afford a proper burial so the funeral home said, for a discount, I could bury her myself.
I’ll never forget the embarrassment of having to bury mommy in front of friends and relatives. No one wanted to help me. The ground was hard and the day was bitter cold. Mommy was basically froze...
Laughing at LA by Jokesters
07-16-08
- THE DISHWASHER by Charles Freericks
When I was nine our only television was still a black & white 1956 21” General Electric Pacer with faux mahogany finish. It didn’t get UHF, only the VHF channels of 2 through 13. You pulled a button out to turn it on, and pushed the button in to turn it off. When the GE broke, television repair men with arms as thick as my dad’s legs came to the house and carried it away, one on each side of the set. A week later, the television returned, in working order.
But, one day whe...
The News According to RTLA by Various
07-15-08
- LATINO CONGRESS HERE TO LAUNCH MAJOR VOTER REGISTATION DRIVE
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Photo of Antonio Gonzalez
The third National Latino Congreso, which meets in LA July 18-20, announced it will serve as a platform to launch a massive voter registration and get-out-the-vote effort geared at adding an additional 1-2 million new Latino voters to the rolls in time to vote in November’s election.
The William C. Velasquez Institute, which is a key organizer of the gathering of Latino leaders, recently reported that more than one million new Latino voters r...
Taylor Days by Brad Taylor Negron
07-04-08
- IN DEFENSE OF THE LOVE GURU
Maybe Mike Meyers should be hung upside down in the George Carlin memorial detention center. Yeah let’s get him….
Comics don’t get Oscars. Comics don’t even get dressing rooms. Comics get paid $50 for a show. Comics are treated like a virus. Movie comics fail, fail, fail miserably and then are decimated in the New York Times.
Last night, my friend Amy Heckerling and I went to see The Love Guru. We were serious and embarrassed as when we walked in to ...
Comin' From Where I'm From by Kamren Curiel
06-18-08
- My Sister, Actress/Director
So my 18-year-old sister Carly’s the bomb and decided to stage a revolution at her high school by directing her own play and recruiting students who wouldn’t normally try out for stuff like this – those on probation, struggling to graduate, and who already have a D.U.I. (no joke) – after her notoriously crazy drama teacher discouraged her from being in her senior play. She chose to direct Grease and in matter of a month and some days, put on the best show I’ve ever seen.
Blog Visitant by Blogaboo
07-16-08
- BEHIND THE OIL PRICES: NOT WHAT YOU'VE BEEN TOLD
The following interview on the cause and effects of high oil prices is from the aljazeera web site, the Mideastern news service the Bush administration loves to hate for reporting what the corporate U.S. press won’t and an organization that launched what has turned out to be a respected English-language service in the U.S and Britain. This is an interview with oil expert Adhip Chaudhuri (see photo), a visiting professor of economics at Georgetown University's campus in Doha, Qa...
Little Gus Big World by Megan Mooren
07-19-08
- SOUL MATE DETOX
Nowadays, I'm not sure if I believe in the term "Soul mate" and all that comes with it. I don't believe there's one person meant to be your soul mate. I do believe that maybe a soul mate can be a variety of people, who come into your life to teach you something, or give you something. Whether it's love, a lesson about yourself, or to make you stronger than you were before--something along those lines--they are supposed to enrich your life in some way, change it and mold it. Some so...
Edge Pusher by Edge Pusher
07-15-08
- AMERICAN MEDICAL JOURNAL CALLS FOR NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE
This is a big enough deal for us to swerve from our other topic areas to deal this week with health care. The highly respected American Medical Journal, one of the premiere publications in the field, this week printed a commentary by its editor and chief, Joe Alpert, calling for a single-payer national health care system, breaking away finally from the dominant pro private-insurers stance of much of the medical profession. Check out their argument below.
Natio...
