Overheard: Everyday Conversations and Observations in Panorama City, Mesa Angeles, and Compton

A sampling of stories, quotes, quips, glances and people I've heard while walking on the street, waiting at the library, waiting at the supermarket, etc.

As I've delved deeper and deeper into the NPR Storytelling lineups, I've come to appreciate people's stories a bit more, and the ones that I've come across.

However, me, I'm not getting the full story usually, I'm just around when I happen to hear them.

From a man at a Thai restaurant in a gas station in Panorama City:  

"It was worth it, you guys should try it," said the middle aged mustachioed white man whom I suspected to be Latino.

My mom recommended that my fiance and I order Thai food for the family.  It was on a flyer.  They had a menu.  I ordered via phone and went to pick it up.

I had already been frustrated because:  1)  it was hard to understand the lady taking my order over the phone  2)  they didn't have what I ordered  3)  their delivery person wasn't there at the moment.
After about 10 minutes of driving up and down Roscoe Blvd and finally locating this restaurant at the Arco, I took a deep sigh of relief and walked into the restaurant.

I looked in there.  Reminded me of house cooking.  The woman who was there seemed to be all alone.  Smelled good though, and at the very least I could be assured of its freshness.

The man, middle-aged, middle-sized was sitting down and rubbing his belly.

"Ahhh" he breathed in his own sigh of relief.

"It was worth it, you guys should try it," said the middle aged mustachioed white man whom I suspected to be Latino.

He recommended the curry.  He said, "she is working so hard that I feel like I need to be behind the counter"

He looked at my fiance and asked if we were married.

"Almost" I responded.

"Well, congratulations!"

He told us that he was going to be a grandpa, for the 2nd time.  He was getting a quick dinner before seeing the new child and his son.

He told us that stopping by restaurants like these for a quick solo dinner would be something we'd do when we were his age.


Random outsiders thinking of Mesa Angeles while in Mesa Angeles:

• "When I got the call to work in this area, I thought, "this is the worst idea"
• "If you have a nice phone, don't show it out here"

From a young man at the Smoke Shop on Crenshaw and Slauson:  I was carrying my bike and backpack through a long day of work.

I was waiting for someone in a visible area just outside of the chain-linked fenced in parking lot of a smoke shop that shared its lot with a dry cleaner business.  The parking lot's capacity was about 10 cars at the most.  There was quite the line entering in or exiting.

Not only was the area visible, but it was also highly trafficked.  Cars were in and out, as were the people, likely not for the cleaners.

About 10 minutes into my wait, a young man from behind the chain linked fence saw me, and asked, "hey do you have a quarter on you?"  No, I responded.  "Really?"  He looked at me, probably in suspicion. 

"Really you don't have a quarter," he asked as he went around the fence in a way that seemed like he wanted to take my bike and bag.

"Naw dude sorry"

"Really, you don't?" he looked at me directly in the eye, now in my face as I clutched onto my bike.

"Naw dude, man" I thought of some change I probably did have, but didn't really feel like giving, particularly at a smoke shop.

"My homies are right there."

"What?"

"My homies are right there in the corner."

"Wow, you have pennies", I stared at the stacks of pennies in his hands.

"What?"  He looked at me face to face like he was trying to stare me down.  We were about the same height. 

Realizing that he was threatening me, I just pretended to brush everything off "Ahh it's cool, man, sorry dude."

Then he turned away figuring that I wasn't going to budge.

To assure him everything was cool, I just grabbed him by the shoulder like you would a relative.

He said something to the effect of "I might've had a gun on me."  He saw his taller homey down the corner, and said, "hey this is my homey."  He pointed at me and say "This guy tried to rob me." 

I looked at the taller homey and kept a haha type smile, as if to communicate, you should know your boy, he probably has tried to pull this dozens of times.

From an elder woman at a library near Mesa Angeles:  An elder black lady sat down at a desk in the library talking with a library employee.  I didn't know what the employee exactly did nor what clout they would have.

The elder woman was talking about properties she'd owned.

While someone was making money off of her, she was getting nothing.

Someone had swindled her.

However, at this point, she didn't care about the money. She just wanted help, and for some justice to be served.

From a resident of Mesa Angeles: Seeing that I was on my bicycle, she asked me if I knew of any bike clubs that were tearing up her streets. I told her I knew nothing of it. 

From a man on the street in Mesa Angeles: For one job, I walked around the neighborhood of Mesa Angeles, which is just south of Leimert Park, but north of Inglewood.  The streets are the 50s-60s, and the numbered avenues.  Nearby is Crenshaw High School.

I met a stumpy older black man who was hunched over. The briefest of glances would lead you to believe that he was simply a homeless man asking for change.  Heh, maybe he is.  But in the brief conversation I had with him, he'd worked for Frito-Lay and some paint companies. That is until his body gave out on him.

For 14-years, he has been on SSI.

Made me wonder about how this particular society, by design, de-values you if you're old and not able-bodied anymore.

From a boy and his mom in Mesa Angeles:  As I walking the neighborhood on a Friday afternoon, passing one house that had a fence.  Behind it a dog's barking.

A black mother/aunt/family friend was walking a little black boy and girl, about kindergarten aged.  She noted that this particular residence had just acquired a new dog and put it behind a tall white fence.

I passed by them and heard the restom of what they were saying as I was walking forward.

They were about to pass the house when I saw them.

The dog barked into a kind of howl: argh argh argh argh.

The boy apparently now past the house squeaked proudly: YEAH, UGLY DOG! Passing through the big dog was an accomplishment.

From a Friday Night Bike Ride Home down from 60th St/11th Avenue through Van Ness Ave, through Florence to the 150s/Central in Compton, this is what I saw:

• A restaurant on Florence near Central avenue featuring live mariachi
• A black motorcycle club meeting at a bar on the 80s and Central.
• A handful of wide and awake taco trucks
• Friday Night Church Services and sermons, probably en espanol
• One sleazy looking night club along Florence
• Trucks accumulating junk or junk-accumulating trucks

Revelations While Biking "'Hoods" in the Afterhours Darkness

Central Ave from LA to Compton.



My new favorite street that takes me to home sweet home in Compton.

Never was I so relieved than to reach home sweet home in Compton than after a 13 mile bike ride after a 17-hr workday which included a 13-mile bike ride at 5 in the morning.

I rode Central relatively quickly.  At least it felt quick. About an hour to my destination in Leimert Park.

But biking at 5 in the morning in neighborhoods that have long been stigmatized as 'bad' is not everyone's cup of tea.

This leads me to wonder how we can eventually flip that script and make biking it (though not at 5 AM) any willing bicyclist's cup of tea.  Changing the norm of decidedly NOT biking Central into decidedly biking Central.

As I was pondering this in my head, I was wondering a few things:

• To what extent does darkness or lack of light factor into street design? To what extent does rain factor into street design?  I imagine 'a little bit', but it'd be difficult for the planning department and Public Works to account for every single nook and cranny of every street, especially in as big a city as LA.
• The idea of bike-friendly one-laned streets is something I've had a conflicted relationship with. As a bicyclist, I do like these streets to pass through, if I know about them.  That "if" is the key.  There are still many neighborhoods I do not know of in LA, even as a "native", and not all of them lead to the street I am going towards;  this means that I am likely to stay on bigger, well-known thoroughfares even though they may not be bike-friendly at all.  For instance, the terrible East-West thoroughfare that is Slauson Ave in South LA.  

View Larger Map

• Slauson is a four-laned street with cars averaging about 35-40 mph, that parallels an old railroad track, but with virtually no passing room whatsoever for bicycles, which means a bicyclist riding it has to take the right lane.  Its not bad in itself, but factoring in the fact that drivers expect to go 35-40, you're likely to cause tension amongst drivers.  En route to work, I was kind of stuck on that street because I didn't know any better and I don't have a smartphone (and/or) the time to do a quick route map or or anything. 
• This may upset my progressive friends, but I was looking forward to buying something from Wal-Mart.  That something?  A bike lock.  I needed it by 10 AM, and sure enough I knew Wal-Mart would have it.  Didn't know of any other alternative in the area, though I could've Yelped a bike shop, but those stores usually don't open until later.  
• Thinking about the lack of light as well as how biking would be exacerbated in inclement weather, I think the next step in improving bike infrastructure for bike commuting would be emergency preparedness or some type of AAA for bikes, where you can call someone or stop somewhere and fix your bike or have someone pick you up, just in case.  I'd hate being stranded anywhere, but I'd like it even less in areas where there's plenty of darkness, a lot of hiding spaces, and potential for people to see you as an "opportunity."

Trick or Treating, Running, and Other Briefings about the 2nd Month in Compton

So, first year of Halloween here, near the Westside of Compton.

As I was biking back from our local Food For Less there was some excitement building up in Compton. A few houses were appropriately decored, however, none on our street, which by observational accounts appears to be a quiet neighborhood.

My fiance and I were anxiously anticipating trick-or-treaters like a community leader at a community organization anxiously anticipates community turnout.  Only we actually want to give away candy, give free stuff away, and not somehow sell people on something.

By the end of the night, 9PM, we had about 13 trick or treaters for the whole night coming in 4 droves.  One appeared to come in a van and rolled up with 5 kids.  I guess it's quite telling that they came in a van.  This is probably not a lot, but hey we got some!

Our 15 dollar bag of candy from Costco is half-empty and that's because we were giving candy away in generous amounts. 

Our neighbor, the lifer, said that not many trick-or-treaters come here.  They go to the "nicer areas."

Apparently the same happened to my cousin in Highland Park;  not many were visiting her, according to her statii on Facebook.  This had me thinking about where the kids actually were, and if trick-or-treating was somehow ruined by some combination of new generation of parents/kids, social media, technology, etc. etc.

It would be interesting to map the areas and kids trick-or-treat in.  Seems like it would be a good indicator of perceived neighborhood safety amongst residents.

* * *

My fiance and I in our efforts to re-establish/establish our lives in Compton have been running a bit.

One good thing that I do notice about Compton's sidewalks is that there does seem to be an effort to ensure safe crossing during school dismissal hours.  During this time, I do see vested crossing guards on main thoroughfares.

Otherwise, there are plenty of open, lonely sidewalks that accompany the industrial warehouses that line the East-West corridors.  Also unlike in any other neighborhood, people do look back at you as sort of a nervous tick when they hear you running behind them;  that hasn't happened as much in any other neighborhood.

All the lonely sidewalks, along with scant lighting at night, probably make it difficult for women to run around, and that is probably a contributing factor as to why there is not much of a "running culture" as Olympic trial distance runner and fellow Loyolan David Torrence put it.

In one of my longer runs, along Compton Ave to the 110 freeway, I actually got a nail stuck at the sole of my (new) shoe.  In my 12 plus years of running around Silver Lake, Eagle Rock, Van Nuys, Long Beach, Wilmington, this had never happened before, only in Compton (more accurately Gardena, but Compton has the "ring" to it)!

One of our local pocket parks, Tragniew Park, is not as scary as it sounds online.  In our weekday twilight runs, we see kids playing soccer, people casually milling around, and not in the intimidating, get off our space kind of way.  A band appears to practice there at night on the basketball courts.

* * *

We have now discovered a few of our local stores.  Food4Less is a short bike ride away from us as is a General Discount Store.  Our more durable items are available at a local Home Depot, Staples, and, Target.  What more do we need?

Probably just more money so we can get enough gas to make the trek to our local Trader Joe's.

20-Year Old Eastside Long Beach Rapper Talking Life on the Streets of Eastside LB, and Rapping

This morning, marking my month in Compton, I was just watching videos on YouTube.

It started when I watched a fight between some new Asian kid at school and some Latino-ish white guy.

Damn I wish I could've done what that Asian kid did.  I googled information about the boys and where they are now.  Couldn't really find much.

Then on the side panel of the YouTube version of that fight, I see a newsclip about some Van Nuys Filipino gang members from the 1990s being arrested.  I think about how this incident looks on TV for other Angelenos, particularly white folks. The local news, is always oriented towards crises, and all you see on local news is people of color behaving badly, but then their national programming is chocful of white folk.

While pondering about that structural juxtaposition, I'd hopped upon a Streetgangs Video about some rappers from the Eastside of Long Beach.

As you might know, I had been interested in pursuing a project on the gangs of the Eastside of Long Beach.  However, I have since switched gears and am in the process of writing on another project.

But anyway these video about a 20-year old Eastside Long Beach Asian rapper just caught my attention.






On the surface, it's easy for anyone to judge and dismiss these guys as stupid and/or uneducated.
 
However, I think if you do persist in watching, you do gain insight, just like you might gain some insight listening to minutes of a Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist giving a conference talk to fellow neuroscientists.  Both this guy and the Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist talk in ways that they are used to based on their environs.

I can say that I've had the opportunity to listen to both, but I can understand enough from each of them to gain insight.

I gleaned some insight from this rapper when he talked about Jin becoming a "gospel rapper" and the division of gangs between LA and between Long Beach. LA's gangs tend to be divided by streets, whereas Long Beach tends to divide along racial lines.  I hadn't thought about this still existing today, but then again I didn't hang around gang members as much as I did ex-gang members and mediators.

Now, the Compton Chronicles

So, a bunch of hilarity has ensued since grad school started for me 3 years ago.

3 years ago, as a 26-year old, the world was wide open, but I hadn't done much.   I could barely land a job interview, pay rent to my godsister who graciously permitted me to stay in her Long Beach condo with her and her-then boyfriend (now husband) on Monday nights.  I was also feeling the effects of a break-up.

3 years later, as a 29-year old, the world is still wide open, but I feel like I have done a little more.   I'm proud to have been part of a memoir, part of getting someone a job at a major university, and done a little tutoring, mentoring, teaching, and research.  I now have 2 part-time jobs in research (which is still not ideal), and along with my fiance, a Kindergarten teacher, will be making our first mortgage payment on November 1, 2013 for the new living quarters that I am typing from in Compton.

Nowhere in my dreams from 3 years ago did I ever envision the near-future containing any one of: proposing, house-buying, going to church, and/or moving to Compton..

But...

We here.

Just finished my 3rd night here in my house in Compton.

We've been going back and forth here for the past 2 weeks ever since we practically emptied out a large portion of each of our own savings accounts to close out the deal.  But we figured, if there's anything to empty it out for, it would be a house, right?

Life's been great the past few months, but I know to be cautiously optimistic.

Looking at the pile of bills to pay and thinking of all the imaginary ones that will need to be dealt with from property taxes to student loans, I today experienced a different edge to the phrase "making ends meet."  The edge felt a little more engulfing, and gripping. 

However,  I think about how her immigrant family of 7, sometimes on the back of just one income-earner, made it work.  They are now thriving in Wilmington.  And the kids?  They are alright.  Every time I think of their family trajectory, I realize that I am with someone who makes (good) things happen.  

And so...

Cautiously optimistic.

About the city of Compton as well.  I am cautiously optimistic.

Yes, to a large extent, Compton still seems to be defined by outsiders the emergence of NWA and the ubiquitous, iconic gangsta rap.  

But I think they've been trying to change it for a long time.  Their signage before you cross a city boundary, at least on the Southwest end bordering Gardena and Carson, says "Birthing a New Compton."  I'd seen that motto when I did a homeless count a few years ago.

I'd even attended some kind of city committee meeting one time, thanks to the work of a former partner.  Turns out she was helping to build bike infrastructure for me!

Just over the past few years, they'd also put up a new sign at the Compton stop on the Blue Line.

I'd also heard on the radio sometime in July that after years of corruption, they'd just elected a new mayor, Aja Brown, apparently a  fellow "outsider", who is around our age.

Initial Impressions?

At first, cautious.  We didn't imagine moving to Compton.  It was actually supposed to be a condo in Paramount.  But that quickly fell through.

After we'd closed on the house, I tried to learn more about the area through its online reputation, starting with LA Times Mapping Neighborhoods, Wikipedia, and looking for grocery and convenient stores, parks and libraries so that we may resume life as we knew it in Long Beach and Wilmington, respectively.

Our grocery stores:  Food4Less, 99 Cents store, Ralphs, Target. 

Most everything we need is functionally reachable.

However, we do like getting stuff from Trader Joes, the closest of which is 10 miles away from us, all the way in Torrance. 

The roads however, are rough for the most part.  Our main North/South thoroughfare is Central Ave, which has some (thin) bike lanes, a big plus, but sadly I've yet to see it put to use, at least in the night time.  There is very little lighting and there's probably still the stigma of "not being out too late" in the hood.  Even the Starbucks near us closed before I got there at 9PM.

One of the parks near us is Tragniew Park where the reviews consist of someone shouting out a set and some guy demanding in Spanish that the tennis courts be open.  My best man and sister laughed when they saw that.

I was also a bit shocked to learn through Wikipedia that once upon a time Compton was the place for middle-class black folk.  Given that information, and its iconic reputation, it begs the question, what happened?  

The answers probably won't be apparent in the immediate future, and I guess this will be an ongoing project.  Hence, Compton Chronicles!

Getting to know the neighbors has been key to the optimistic part of "cautious optimism."  Mostly older immigrant families.  My fiance speaks Eh-spanish and has been able to get good not only with the previous owners but with our next-door neighbors.  

A few days ago, I was able to talk with my neighbor --- a lifelong resident of the block, hovering around our age. He told me that things were OK in the area despite the reputation.  He was very aware of the reputation of the city, and did his best to de-construct the area around me.

Just like my fiance's area in Wilmington, this area we moved to had been "really bad" during the 1990s.  There used to be tree branches in the area that would hide drug dealers.  The trees were then mostly chopped down for increased visibility and transparency, which brings to mind a juxtaposition of images of the Beverly Hills houses hiding behind lots of greenery, and then drug dealers (power doesn't want to be touched).

He also said that the FBI were sort of stalking the area, so nothing would happen.  Wood-knocking.

Aside from this past, he made it a point that lots of people liked to get together and show solidarity with each other.  They'd have barbecues, they'd hang out.  Just like any other neighborhood. 

And just like any other red-blooded American tradition, he invited me to watch football on Sundays.

Surveying my Radio Stations in LA (1992 - 1994)

When I think of "public space", I've learned to think not just in terms of accessible, publicly-owned, physical structures where people meet, such as parks, libraries, or alleyways, I've learned to think of "public space" more broadly and in terms of "scapes."  By scapes, I can mean scenes, settings, contexts, worlds, and/or networks.  These scenes, settings, contexts, worlds, networks are all "things connected to each other" under a category or a thing.  Like a foodscape.  A mediascape.  A musicscape.  A rapscape.  A messageboardscape.  A Bullsbasketballmessageboardscape.  These are all "public space" because they are all expressed publicly, "out there" for anyone to see, hear, feel, touch, etc.

For example, in my last post, I thought of "foodscapes", which I defined roughly as "all the places my parents shopped for groceries and took us out to eat." I think of audioscapes in the same way, "all the stuff we listened to", which for me is inextricably tied to the radio stations.

This post is about my memories of radio in LA growing up from 1992 - 1994, radio having been synonymous with "music."  I will follow up with subsequent posts about other years.

I was driven around a lot.  My dad and mom were especially and surprisingly open to whatever I would tune into or would pop into our cassette player.  I was picked up in a 1987 Blue Mazda 626 with a radio that had a cassette player, usually driven by my mom.  That, or picked up by my dad in a Silver 1987 Nissan Sentra with no luxuries whatsoever, including no radio but for which we would later pick up a non-name brand neon pink and yellow 9.99 walkman to listen to while in the car, sometime in 1993.  My mom pulled out that very walkman, listening for news after the 6.6 Northridge earthquake in 1994.

1992 - 1994 was from the time I was 7 to the time I was 10.  In school year terms, that was from 2nd grade to the beginning of 5th grade in a Catholic elementary school in Los Feliz. 

• 102.7 KIIS FM
• K-Earth 101
• KOST 103.5
• 104.3 K-BIG
• KNX 1070

For much of my radio listening life, radio has been synonymous with "listening to music."  Then I became interested in learning Spanish, and now it's been mostly news and interesting conversation, but more on that later.

1992:

As a 7-year old kid, for some reason my dad would tune into Rick Dees' 102.7 KIIS-FM with Ellen K.  Maybe it was because we'd gotten the station's bumper sticker at a local Blockbuster.  We plotted that bumper sticker on the back bumper of our light blue Mazda 626 with the automatic, backward moving seatbelts, in hopes that Rick Dees' team would spot our car and reward us with $50,000. 

This was around the same time that I started being conscious of music thanks in part to my dad video-taping specials on VH1 and MTV. KIIS-FM played Michael Jackson's music so I generally liked KIIS-FM.

I remember one time when my 2nd grade teacher was trying to talk to my dad in the car with me in the front seat and peeping from the outside.  She was trying to tell him how great of a student I was, or at the very least, how much I improved from the beginning of the year.  I wanted to show her how cool I was listening to Michael Jackson's "Remember the Time" on KIIS, but my dad just lowered the volume again without skipping a beat in his conversation with my teacher.



They also played a song that my 3-year old sister learned how to sing:



As a 2nd grader, I hardly remember us listening to a radio while at home, in part because, we didn't really have one, except a rectangular silver-colored radio with a handlebar.  My dad, a graphic artist, and going to a local trade college, would play that radio whenever he would do one of his drawings.

At around the time the LA Riots were happening, I remember him in my room at his desk, and listening to...

"Don't you know my name...if I saw you in Heaven..."



I also remember this:



For much of the Summer of 1992, I went to a nearby Filipino babysitting family in Atwater Village. They lived nearby and had a basketball hoop that was regulation height from their garage, but I was still not strong enough to heave a regulation NBA sized-ball up there.  I remember riding in their family Dodge Ram; they listened to the oldies, K-Earth 101, in which they incidentally played a song my class sang for our school talent Show.

It went something like:

"When your alone, and life is making you lonely, you can always go..."

I thought a lot about how that song didn't remind me at all of Downtown LA, a place we almost never went to but that I knew was full of homeless folk, whom my dad casually called "bums."



I didn't listen much to K-Earth, though I guess that was when I found out of its existence.

I remember at some point, being in my godsis' mom's brand new black Honda Accord and coming across this song that sounded like..."feed the coke."  The song reminds me of another moment in life where we'd actually spent time in her parking space at her apartment spraypainting a box that we would pretend was our "car."



1993:

My mom and dad at the time liked to stress their Chicago roots.  We'd only moved to LA in 1989, which was only 4 years before.  My mom had been in Chicago since 1975, my dad since 1982.

My mom was particularly was keen on this guy:



I think he played on KIIS, but also KOST.

I don't remember too much about my radio listening habits in 1993.  I remembered more my TV viewing habits:  I was glued to ESPN, Sportscenter, and Prime Ticket for Bulls games.  My fandom reached a crescendo when my mom and dad ventured all the way to Exposition Park, at the old LA Sports Arena to watch a Bulls/Clippers game.   That, was a different world.

I do remember my parents buying their first large boombox and first CD.

When we reached the summer of 1993, I do remember beginning to stay more often at my godsis' newly-bought house in front of the iconic John Marshall High School in Los Feliz.  We would be "babysat" by her Uncle, whom we referred to as Tiyong.  He was a Filipino World War II Veteran, who walked with a limp.

KIIS-FM and Rick Dees were actually something we wondered about aloud one day.  We wanted to play DJ ourselves, and did so with her cassette tapes.  However, things weren't going as planned.

Me:  This is boring, I can't believe Rick Dees actually does this, he must get really bored

G-sis:  No he doesn't.  He probably has a lot of friends he talks to while the music is playing

Me:  What do they talk about?

G-sis:  I don't know, other people?

Me:  Still it sounds boring

1994:
We lived in a unit with two rooms, but I slept with my mom, dad, and sister anyway. 

The morning everything shook, my mom grabbed hold of the neon pink, and highlight colored walkman from Pic & Save that we had been using as a radio in my dad's Nissan Sentra.  I don't remember what station we tuned into, but it was probably an AM station.

I would hear on KIIS FM later someone joking about "kicking" that stupid 6.6 earthquake.  For some reason that was funny to me.

Despite a rocky beginning, this was THE year.

No song signified the year more than this:


That song the Sign, reminded me of my two first crushes ever, the smartest (and newest) girls in our class, Jessica and Pamela.  And for those of you who are by default imagining some 1999 Dakota Fanning-phenotypes filling these names, they are Korean-American and Filipino-American, respectively.

That school-year was defined by my parents' sharp turn towards upward mobility.  We bought our first property in Glendale.  My mom had the same job as a nurse, but my dad became some kind of graphic artist for Asian Journal, a Filipino newspaper.  My 4-year old sister even became a star model for an "exotic" clothing line and was even featured in the LA Times (OC Version), which probably had a lot to do with the fact that she was 4 years old.  She also started Kindergarten at my elementary school.

My parents enrolled me in martial arts at a studio in East Hollywood, and later Filipino folk dancing in Eagle Rock.

With that turn to mobility, combined with staying with my godsis, combined with increased awareness with growing up, there was a lot I listened to, but nearly most of it from KIIS-FM

Karate reminded me of these songs:






With my dad's turn to Asian journal and my sister becoming a part of this "exotic" clothes collection, we would drive lots of places and firmly implanted in the radio were the battery of hits KIIS FM had to offer.

I quite liked practically all of it:





There was a little challenge though in the middle of the year.

At the Lotus Festival in Echo Park, I remember K-BIG 104.3 giving out fans on a wooden stick to everyone with pictures of their radio personalities on them.  I don't remember them, but they played music in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s --- I thought might give them a listen a few times.  I remember the breathy R&B.







The last song was a song I'd heard and mocked on 104.3, but it was kind of catchy.

My Foodscape of Los Angeles from 1989-2001 during my my Formative, Pre-Car Years

I am not a healthy eater today, which I'm trying to reverse.

I remember growing up and reading about athletes who "ate whatever" and still managed to perform like they did.  I remember Tyra Banks, my first celebrity crush, saying that she wanted to be able to eat anything while still looking the way she did.  Somehow, what she said has been sticky to my subconscious, and I've adapted a similar attitude --- I'll eat anything, and nothing gets wasted. 

I don't remember eating the healthiest foods.  The standard Filipino diet isn't exactly filled with vegetables, and neither were the convenience of McDonalds, KFC, or Little Caesar's.

Within our world, there weren't really any healthy grocers that we knew of other than the Asian food stores that my parents somehow knew about.  They always somehow knew how to find these markets and get some helping of vegetables, fish, and meat. There was a Trader Joe's in Silver Lake, which to me was just very eccentric.  I only went in because my godsis went there one time. 

Nowadays, I think I've shifted a bit in my tastes.  I love Trader Joe's (when affordable), and can't stand McDonald's except for its Sundaes.  I still have the attitude where I'll eat anything cheap and don't want to waste any food whatsoever, but have been trying to completely cut down on that.

Old eating habits are hard to break.  As an Anthropologist, I'm trying to understand how my habits formed in the first place:  what was ritualized, what was built into our daily lives, and ultimately how that can be countered.  In this vein, I thought it would be interesting to map out my "foodscape" of LA as the eldest child of 2 lower middle-class Filipino immigrants from Chicago.

So I present to you the foodscapes of my childhood here in LA from 1989 - 2001.