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ogscholars · 4 years

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Gangs in Portland: Past & Present

S. Mohamed, R. Northman, & L. Eskinazi

Portland State University

UNST 242: Leading Social Change

Dr. Peter Chaille

October 25, 2020

Gangs in Portland: Past & Present

The history of gangs in Portland begins in the 1980’s when individual Crips and Bloods gang members from Los Angeles, California sought refuge in Portland from LAPD Chief Daryl Gates’ CRASH team and their harsh police tactics such as Operation Hammer. The LAPD’s response to the rise in gang violence during the 1980’s had been heavy-handed, and involved the deployment of militarized police units, including air support, used to campaign against the gangs (Murch, 2015).

The LAPD’s tactics appear to have resulted in a mass exodus of Crips and Bloods departing to other cities across the nation, fleeing what they may have viewed as racism and police oppression. Portland was one of the many cities across the United States where those Crips and Bloods gang members fled to. The Crips and Bloods that left L.A. did not do so in any organized, concerted effort as the Crips and Bloods from Los Angeles were not at all structured into a centralized organization with any common goals or purposes (p. 30, Howell & Griffith, 2015)(“Overdose,” 1989).

When various individual Crips and Bloods gang members arrived in Portland, they were welcomed and embraced by local-area youth. Some of these young people joined the individual L.A. gang members, mimicking them and becoming members of those L.A. gangs themselves. From the beginning, there were local Portland offshoots of infamous L.A. gangs such as the Four-Tray Gangster Crips, 107 Hoover Crips, Rollin 60’s Crips, Inglewood Family Bloods, West Side Pirus, and more (Holley, 2015).

Local-area youth that did not join the gang members from Los Angeles in joining their L.A. gangs, wasted no time in forming gangs of their own, loosely based on the style of the L.A. Crips and Bloods gangs. In the late-1980’s then, Portland saw the creation of several homegrown gangs that mimicked the L.A gangs they’d recently come into contact with. The Columbia Villa Crips, the Woodlawn Park Bloods, the Kerby Blocc Crips, and the Loc’ed Out Pirus, just to name a few (Holley, 2015). Portland was no exception as this same phenomenon of gang growth occurred in cities across the nation (Katz & Webb, 2004).

Although these new local gangs used the Crip and Blood names and styles, the youth that formed these gangs were from Portland and did so without any control, knowledge or say-so of L.A. Crips and Bloods. The Portland offshoots of the L.A. gangs were similarly independent with respect to their activities (p. 31, Howell & Griffith, 2015). In contrast to the violence taking place in L.A., these earlier Portland gang members were rarely violent in their formative years.

In the summer of 1988, Joseph Ray Winston, also known as “Ray Ray,” a 17 year-old Columbia Villa Crip gang member was gunned down in North Portland’s Columbia Villa public housing projects (Associated Press, 1988). The killing of “Ray Ray” triggered gang violence that erupted into all-out urban warfare, and, by the following summer, Oregon’s governor Neil Goldschmidt had to send National Guard troops into Northeast Portland to help Portland Police quell the gang violence (“The Nation,” 1989).

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, myths and stereo-types about gangs and gang members contributed to moral panic in America. In this state of moral panic, political and social leaders suddenly defined a specific group of people as a major threat to our values and behavioral standards. (Howell & Griffith, 2015)

Since 1988, police claim that gang feuds became the new norm for gangs in Portland and throughout the 1990’s, Portland had hundreds of murders which police attributed to gang violence. Portland Police would eventually adopt many of the same “tough” tactics implemented by the LAPD against gangs in Los Angeles (pp. 2-3, Katz & Webb, 2004), which subsequently resulted in a mass incarceration of these local gang members into Oregon prisons (“Overdose,” 1989).

The Portland Police formed a Gang Enforcement Team, and a multi-agency Gang Task Force. They also adopted a gang database and gang designation procedures intended to keep track of gang members. Passage of minimum-mandatory sentencing laws, and involvement of federal law enforcement agencies have also become new norms; however, Portland has not seen a decline in gang membership (Ch. 3, MCCGA, 2014).

As violent crime decreased throughout the end of the 1990’s, and remained low throughout the next decade, gang membership continued to rise both in Portland and nationally (Katz & Webb, 2004)(“NGTA,” 2011)(“Uniform crime report,” 2020).

In 2017, the Portland Police rescinded its policies with respect to the designation of gang members, and purportedly dissolved their gang database (Saul, 2017). The Gang Enforcement Team changed its name to the Gun Violence Reduction Team, but changed nothing about how they operated tactically (“Gang enforcement patrol,” 2018). The following year a city auditor’s review reported that the Gun Violence Reduction Team still maintained a gang database; only the new one provided no due-process, and the collection and maintenance of the data had no oversight or transparency (“Gang crime investigations,” 2018). The same audit also found that the Gun Violence Reduction Team was racially profiling those who they stopped.

After the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police officers in May of 2020, the City of Portland announced it would be disbanding the Portland Police Bureau’s Gun Violence Reduction Team. In the months to follow, Portland Police have blamed the dismantling of the GVRT for a rise in Portland area shootings (“Police leaders tie recent shootings,” 2020).

In a 2011 interview with the Washington Journal, then FBI Assistant Deputy Director Robert Daniels was asked if it were illegal to be in a gang. Daniels’ reply was:

It is not. It is illegal to, um, be involved in criminal activity as a gang member, but, to just align yourself with a gang, if you’re not involved in any criminal activity, you know, that’s your First Amendment Right to do that.

Despite acknowledging this, The FBI, in their latest National Gang Threat Assessment (2011), which is nearly a decade-old, describes street gangs as “criminal organizations” and reports that there are 1.4 million gang members in the United States. In fact, the figure of 1.4 million is a 40% increase of gang members from the FBI’s 2009 estimates of only 800,000 just two years earlier. It’s no wonder why then that the Department of Justice has increasingly used the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act, a law enacted to fight organized crime, against street gangs (NGTA, 2011).

Even right here in Portland, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon is currently prosecuting the local Hoover gang for murders, drug offenses, and other crimes for which the government claims the Hoovers have committed as agreed-upon gang centered purposes, rather than as individuals (Bernstein, 2019).

Scholars disagree. Malcom Klein, as quoted by Howell & Griffith (2015), pointed out, “gangs are not committees, ball teams, task forces, production teams, or research teams. They do not gather to achieve a common, agreed-upon end.”

Also noted by Howell & Griffith (2015), was that, “street gangs are a product of U.S. history and are homegrown.” They go on to state, “the myths and stereotypes, coupled with a lack of research to address their validity, contribute to our lack of ability to address the gang problem effectively.”

Could it be that changes are needed to the ways in which we address the problems we describe as “gang problems”?

In conclusion, it has been established that:

· Gangs are legal, and members have a First Amendment Right to be in a gang;

· Gangs are not going to be eradicated and are likely to grow in number (NGTA, 2011);

· Much of what is thought to be true with respect to gangs are myths and stereotypes (p.30, Howell & Griffith, 2015);

· Since the early 1990’s, although gang membership in Portland and nationally has risen, crime has steadily decreased in Portland and nationally (UCR, 1985-2019)(NGTA, 2011) (“UCR,” 2020).

With these facts established, it seems that the past and current approaches to gangs are outdated and perhaps should be reconsidered. The reality is that gangs are likely to continue to be blamed for the lack of societal and political remedies. While society and politicians ignore their role in the problem, it only continues to worsen—not only for society and government—but for the gangs too, and the individual members who are not involved with any criminal activity who suffer from mere guilt-by-association.

References:

Murch, D. (2015). Crack in Los Angeles: Crisis, militarization, and black response to the late twentieth-century war on drugs. The Journal of American History, 162-173. https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/102/1/162/686732

“Portland Police increase presence after gang leader shot” (1988, August 18). Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/ad3c61d74dd79fd2cd9a8ee3cc91e97a

“The Nation” (1989, July 13). The Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-07-13-mn-4567-story.html

“Overdose: cocaine and crime in Portland” (1989, September 10). The Oregonian. https://www.mentalhealthportland.org/overdose-cocaine-and-crime-in-portland/

Saul, J. (2017, September 15). In a first for the nation, Portland Police end gang list to improve relations with Blacks and Latinos. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/2017/10/06/gang-violence-portland-police-tear-gang-member-list-effort-rebuild-community-665374.html

Holley, S. (2015, March 22). Is Portland’s gang problem getting worse? Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/jmbymd/is-portland-oregons-gang-problem-getting-worse-322

“2011 National Gang Threat Assessment” (2011). Federal Bureau of Investigation. https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/2011-national-gang-threat-assessment

Katz, C., & Webb, V. (2004, April) Police response to gangs: a multi-site study. Arizona State University. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/205003.pdf

Howell, J., & Griffith, E. (2015). Gangs in America’s communities. Sage. https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/93052_Chapter_2_Myths_and_Realities_of_Youth_Gangs.pdf

“Gang crime investigations: lack of accountability and transparency reduced the community’s trust in police” (2018, March). Portland City Auditor. https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditservices/article/677594

“Gang enforcement patrol: The Police Bureau must show that traffic stops are effective” (2018, March). Portland City Auditor. https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditservices/article/677598

“Uniform Crime Report” (2020). Federal Bureau of Investigation. Department of Justice. https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/explorer/national/united-states/crime

Bernstein, M. (2019, November 7). Alleged Hoover gang members accused of 3 murders, other crimes in racketeering conspiracy indictment. The Oregonian. https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/11/federal-prosecutors-to-unseal-new-racketeering-indictment-against-alleged-hoover-gang-members.html

“Multnomah County Comprehensive Gang Assessment” (2014, June 30). Lore Joplin Consulting. https://multco.us/lpscc/multnomah-county-comprehensive-gang-assessment-and-implementation-plan

“Police leaders tie recent shootings to end of Portland’s Gun Violence Reduction Team” (2020, August 5). Oregon Public Broadcasting. https://www.opb.org/article/2020/08/06/gun-violence-portland-reduction-police-lovell-turner/

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luvetlux · 5 years

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Chet Baker - Every Time We Said goodbye

Chesney Henry Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist.

Baker earned much attention and critical praise through the 1950s, particularly for albums featuring his vocals (Chet Baker Sings, It Could Happen to You). Jazz historian Dave Gelly described the promise of Baker's early career as "James Dean, Sinatra, and Bix, rolled into one." His well-publicized drug habit also drove his notoriety and fame. Baker was in and out of jail frequently before enjoying a career resurgence in the late 1970s and '80s. (WIkipedia)

Early on May 13, 1988, Baker was found dead on the street below his room in Hotel Prins Hendrik, Amsterdam, with serious wounds to his head, apparently having fallen from the second floor window.[18] Heroin and cocaine were found in his room and in his body. There was no evidence of a struggle, and the death was ruled an accident. According to another account he inadvertantly locked himself out of his room and fell while attempting to cross from the balcony of the vacant adjacent room to his own.https://www.kcrw.com/music/articles/how-chet-baker-really-died. There is a plaque outside the hotel to his memory.[19]

Baker is buried at the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California next to his father. (Wikipedia)

#chet baker

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rabbitcruiser · 5 years

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Venice, Los Angeles (No. 2)

Los Angeles had neglected Venice so long that, by the 1950s, it had become the "Slum by the Sea." With the exception of new police and fire stations in 1930, the city spent little on improvements after annexation. The city did not pave Trolleyway (Pacific Avenue) until 1954 when county and state funds became available. Low rents for run-down bungalows attracted predominantly European immigrants (including a substantial number of Holocaust survivors) and young counterculture artists, poets, and writers. The Beat Generation hung out at the Gas House on Ocean Front Walk and at Venice West Cafe on Dudley. Police raids were frequent during that era.

The Venice Shoreline Crips and the Latino Venice 13 (V-13) were the two main gangs active in Venice. V13 dates back to the 1950s, while the Shoreline Crips were founded in the early 1970s, making them one of the first Crip sets in Los Angeles. In the early 1990s V-13 and the Shoreline Crips were involved in a fierce battle over crack cocaine sales territories.

By 2002, the numbers of gang members in Venice were reduced due to gentrification and increased police presence. According to a Los Angeles City Beat article, by 2003, many Los Angeles Westside gang members had resettled in the city of Inglewood.

According to the Mapping L.A. project of the Los Angeles Times, Venice is adjoined on the northwest by Santa Monica, on the northeast by Mar Vista, on the southeast by Culver City, Del Rey and Marina Del Rey, on the south by Ballona Creek and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.

Venice is bounded on the northwest by the Santa Monica city line. The northern apex of the Venice neighborhood is at Walgrove Avenue and Rose Avenue abutting the Santa Monica Airport. On the east the boundary runs north-south on Walgrove Avenue to the neighborhood's eastern apex at Zanja Street, thus including the Penmar Golf Course but excluding Venice High School. The boundary runs on Lincoln Boulevard to Admiralty Way, excluding all of Marina del Rey, south to Ballona Creek.

Source: Wikipedia

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phroyd · 6 years

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Police Misconduct Has A Whole Different Level in California! - Phroyd

They were at the tail end of their overnight shift when they spotted Gerald Simmons near a vacant lot in Inglewood.

The two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said they saw the 43-year-old toss a plastic baggie of rock cocaine to the ground.

Their testimony would become the backbone of the 2009 criminal case against Simmons.

After a six-day trial, the verdict was swift. Guilty.

But jurors made their decision without knowing a crucial detail.

Jose Ovalle, one of the deputies who also booked the evidence, had been suspended five years earlier for pouring taco sauce on a shirt to mimic blood in a criminal case. He nearly lost his job.

Ovalle’s past was kept secret for years from prosecutors, judges, defendants and jurors, even though he was a potential witness in hundreds of criminal cases that relied on his credibility, according to a Times investigation.

The deputy took the stand in 31 cases before the district attorney’s office found out about his misconduct. Once his credibility came into question, prosecutors offered some career criminals generous plea deals in pending cases or dropped charges altogether. Some went on to commit serious crimes.

Ovalle is not an isolated example. Misconduct by law enforcement officers who testify in court is routinely kept hidden by California’s police privacy laws.

The U.S. Supreme Court requires prosecutors to inform criminal defendants about an officer’s wrongdoing — but the state’s laws are so strict that prosecutors cannot directly access the personnel files of their own police witnesses. Instead, California puts the burden on defendants to prove to a judge that an officer’s record is relevant.

Times reporters reviewed documents from hundreds of criminal cases in which the district attorney’s office identified Ovalle as a potential witness after he was caught faking the bloody evidence in 2003.

Few defendants tried to obtain information about Ovalle’s past. A handful of those who did weren’t given information about the deputy’s discipline. Judges never gave them a public explanation for why it wouldn’t have been relevant.

By the time the district attorney’s office learned about Ovalle’s misconduct, he had been a potential witness against 312 defendants. More than 230 were convicted.

A Times investigation last year identified Ovalle and others on a secret Sheriff’s Department list of deputies whose misconduct included falsely testifying in court, pulling over a motorist and receiving oral sex from her while on patrol, and tipping off a drug dealer’s girlfriend about a narcotics bust.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell wanted to disclose the so-called Brady list of about 300 officers to prosecutors, but the deputies union went to court to stop him.

The state’s Supreme Court will soon decide whether McDonnell and other law enforcement agencies can tell prosecutors if a police witness has a record of serious discipline. An appellate court has ruled they cannot.

Ovalle now works as a sergeant in the Sheriff’s Department’s Century station in Lynwood. Last year, he was paid $240,000 in salary, overtime and other earnings.

When reached by The Times for comment, Ovalle said: “I don’t understand why the L.A. Times is so interested about me.” He declined to comment further and asked not to be contacted again.

‘It was stupidity’

Ovalle’s troubles began in August 2003.

Several gang members at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic had slashed an inmate’s neck and head with razor blades.

A 26-year-old deputy with just three years on the job, Ovalle was responsible for collecting the evidence and writing the incident report.

When he realized a bloody shirt from one of the suspects had gone missing, Ovalle took a clean one from the jail laundry, topped it with taco sauce and took a photo, according to court and law enforcement records.

A custody assistant watching Ovalle warned him not to do it, but the deputy went ahead and booked the photograph into evidence. The custody assistant reported him to a supervisor, according to court records.

Confronted by sheriff’s investigators, Ovalle confessed.

“It was stupidity now that I look back on it,” he told the investigators, according to a transcript of his interviewobtained by The Times. “This uniform means everything to me, this badge and gun, it’s my life. … I’m embarrassed.”

Sheriff’s Department officials told Ovalle he would be fired but then relented, noting that he had cooperated with investigators and accepted responsibility, according to internal documents. Ovalle was instead handed a 30-day suspension. He was ordered to serve 10 of those days and the remainder only if he committed a similar offense within the next five years.

In testimony he gave years later, Ovalle blamed poor training for his conduct and downplayed the significance of what he had done, insisting he hadn’t fabricated evidence because the bloody shirt had once existed.

“I don’t consider myself a liar,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Department never notified the district attorney’s office about Ovalle’s actions to see if he should be charged with a crime, according to law enforcement records. As a result, prosecutors handling cases in which Ovalle was involved had no way of knowing about his past actions.

‘Trying to hide misconduct’

Two years after his suspension, Ovalle was transferred to the Sheriff’s Department’s Lennox station in South Los Angeles, where he made arrests for drug possession, theft and assault and later testified in court.

Defendants who faced him had only one method of possibly learning about his misconduct, a procedure that is itself cloaked in secrecy.

Under California’s so-called Pitchess laws, defendants can ask a judge to examine an officer’s personnel records for allegations of excessive force, dishonesty, theft or other acts of “moral turpitude.” Few go through the trouble.

By the spring of 2008, Ovalle had been listed by prosecutors as a potential witness against 125 defendants. Only five tried to delve into Ovalle’s background, according to a review of court records.

If a defendant’s Pitchess motion is granted, a representative from the officer’s law enforcement agency meets with the judge in private to go over relevant complaints. Neither the prosecutor nor the defense attorney is allowed in the room.

If a judge decides to turn over anything, it is usually only the name and contact information of someone who made a complaint against the officer within the last five years.

You’ve been arrested by a dishonest cop. Can you win in a system set up to protect officers? »

It is then up to the defense attorney to figure out what happened.

Supporters say the Pitchess laws prevent accused criminals from fishing for information about police witnesses that is irrelevant in their cases.

David E. Mastagni, a Sacramento-based attorney who represents police unions, said most defendants don’t file Pitchess motions because “in the vast majority of cases, the officer’s credibility is not an issue.” If an officer has a history of dishonesty, he said, a judge will almost always disclose it through Pitchess.

“It’s a pretty perfect balancing,” he said.

But defense lawyers complain that the laws make it difficult for people facing criminal charges to ask for the information. Many of their jailed clients, they say, don’t want to spend weeks or months trying to find out whether a law enforcement witness has a history of complaints, especially if they could accept a plea deal that would speed up their release.

“It isn’t a defeatist attitude as much as it is a realistic understanding of your client’s life,” said David Kanuth, a former L.A. County deputy public defender who is sharply critical of the state’s police privacy laws. “They are trying to hide misconduct, and everyone should be against it.”

Inside a secret 2014 list of hundreds of L.A. deputies with histories of misconduct »

One of the defendants who tried to dig into Ovalle’s background was Lamar Dotson. He had been returning to the Acacia Inn in Inglewood from his job as a security officer when Ovalle and his partner ordered him out of his car with guns drawn.

The deputies said they smelled marijuana and found two baggies with the drug. When they discovered a stolen gun in the trunk, Dotson explained he had confiscated it from someone at one of the clubs where he worked.

In court records and an interview with The Times, Dotson insisted the deputies lied about him having marijuana in the car to justify the search. He said he had kept the gun because he had been worried about getting into trouble if he turned the weapon into authorities.

“I was 29 years old, never been in handcuffs, never been to jail,” Dotson told The Times.

Dotson’s attorney filed a Pitchess motion asking for the deputies’ history of misconduct, including fabricating evidence. The judge denied the motion. The case file and related transcripts have since been destroyed.

Dotson, who had no criminal history, ended up agreeing to a deal in which he pleaded no contest to carrying a loaded firearm and was placed on summary probation for three years. The misdemeanor conviction, he said, prevented him from obtaining a firearm permit for 10 years, hurting his efforts to find work as a security officer and bodyguard.

If he had known about Ovalle’s past misconduct, Dotson said, he would have fought harder for his case to be dismissed. But as months slipped by, his family members urged him to acquiesce.

“I was trying to get out of the situation as opposed to making it worse,” Dotson said. “It really upset me, to tell you the truth, but what can you do about it at that point? I did what I had to do to keep going forward.”

Word about Ovalle’s misconduct began to spread after he arrested 18-year-old Sergio Martinez on suspicion of possessing methamphetamine in May 2008.

Martinez challenged Ovalle’s account of his arrest. His lawyer filed a Pitchess motion seeking any complaints accusing the deputy of fabricating or planting evidence.

Superior Court Judge Hector M. Guzman reviewed Ovalle’s personnel records and saw the Sheriff’s Department’s internal report about the taco sauce incident.

In an unusual move, the judge gave the records to the prosecutor and suggested the district attorney’s office decide whether Ovalle should be added to the agency’s database of problem officers to alert future defendants.

But that didn’t happen.

The prosecutor in the case, William Frank, told The Times he informed a supervisor about Ovalle’s misconduct soon after the hearing — just before he started a new job with the state attorney general’s office.

“I understood the seriousness of the material even though I was a relatively new lawyer. I knew what it meant for the case,” Frank said. “I felt I had done what I was supposed to do.”

A district attorney’s spokeswoman blamed “a miscommunication among prosecutors.”

The charges against Martinez were thrown out.

There’s More ...

Phroyd

#assault #theft #drug trafficking #law enforcement #drunk driving

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thedawgsblog · 2 years

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INGLEWOOD POLICE OFFICER ARRESTED FOR DEALING DRUGS

Inglewood police officer, informant arrested on federal drug charges: Justice Department An officer with the Inglewood Police Department has been arrested and faces federal charges for allegedly participating in two cocaine transactions, the United States Department of Justice announced Friday. Officer John Abel Baca, 45, of Whittier, was arrested on Oct. 21, two days after he was indicted by a…

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#DOJ ARRESTS FOR DEALING DRUGS #INGLEWOOD OFFICER ARRESTED #OFFICER JOHN ABEL BACA

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riotready · 4 years

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Cocaine Mitch really wants to hear your thoughts on his job performance (at Inglewood, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CFlioNKjggy/?igshid=1r82xqfcg3wma

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fiinalgiirls · 4 years

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GENERAL INFORMATION.

full name - lourdes faustina campeon lopez nicknames - faust gender / pronouns - nonbinary. uses she/her and they/them date of birth - november 12, 1998 place of birth - b. san carlos apache reservation, raised in inglewood, california citizenship / ethnicity - american / chiricahua apache and puerto rican religion - atheist socioeconomic status / political affiliation - working class; radically liberal. marital status - single sexual & romantic orientation - pansexual education / occupation - high school, some college languages - spanish, english

FAMILY INFORMATION.

parents - jaime and maite campeon lopez siblings - francisco campeon lopez offspring - none pets / other - none notable extended family - none

PHYSICAL INFORMATION.

faceclaim - sivan alyra rose hair color / eye color - brown, brown. height / build - 5′3″ / athletic tattoos / piercings - several tattoos, piercings to nose and ears, navel, and nipples distinguishable features - doe eyes, tattoos.

MEDICAL INFORMATION.

medical history - none. known allergies - none. visual impairment / hearing impairment - none. nicotine use / drug use / alcohol use - alcohol and marijuana. occasionally cocaine or molly.

PERSONALITY.

traits - engaging, resilient, analytical ; unrelenting, cynical, ruthless, mercurial tropes - tbd temperament - choleric alignment - chaotic neutral celtic tree zodiac - tba mbti - istp hogwarts house - slytherin vice / virtue - envy / diligence likes / dislikes - crop tops, late night parties, a good subwoofer, semi-automatic weapons / cruelty to women or animals, country music, paper cuts, church quote - “the first horror is there’s horror. the second is you accommodate it.”

FAVORITES.

food - chinese takeout, specifically bbq pork, egg rolls, and general tso’s drink - beer pizza topping - pepperoni and jalapenos color - baby blue music - hip hop / r&b, dance, synth, new wave books - not much of a reader, but they liked ‘weetzie bat’ when they were in middle school movies - people under the stairs and dope curse word - chingona scents - fresh laundry, pineapple car air freshener

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger/content warnings: homophobia, implied racism, sex trafficking, violence, death

▓ ▌now playing :: hypnotize – notorious b.i.g.

when lourdes is eight years old, she learns that all names have meanings. elated to have something that sets her apart from the ‘jessicas’ and ‘ashleys’ of her grade, the sting of being othered isn’t lost upon her. with a skip in her step, she hugs her books close to her chest and grins the whole way home. when they meet their mother, maite lopez in the yard, tending to her tomatoes, they ask her what her name means. it takes a great deal of elementary self control not to roll her eyes as she sees the reverence on her mother’s face when she speaks of la virgen maría. lourdes is disappointed to be named for a mother in a world where the mother is rarely elevated as holy. maite is framed with tomatoes–not roses or filigree-but she doesn’t let bad things happen; she gets shit done. lourdes thinks that maybe her mother is a better santa maría than some woman that occasionally appears in her dreams with a blue cloak made of stars. celestial beings are made of stars; they sit in the heavens looking beautiful while the world cries its wishes from below. celestial beings are like stars, because wishes don’t come true.

smart girls make their own dreams come true and lourdes is a smart girl. she’s good in her classes, enjoys music–lying on her back in her bunk bed that she shares with her sister and a younger cousin, she lets her body sink into the mattress. god, who doesn’t love a beat. lourdes is thirteen when their brother francisco joins the army and her memories of the san carlos reservation she was born on have almost completely faded. maite and jaime remember well. they provide well enough for their family, but each child has to earn their own way in the world; it costs just to exist in it. francisco figures he will be the first in the family to go to college. he doesn’t expect to be the only one.

in high school, lourdes spends all of their free time at concerts, clubs or with their ears engulfed by what jaime teases as mickey mouse headphones. they buy their first record player and ignore the mundane homework they’re sent home in lieu of hunting down records and mixing beats. maddisyn pratt, the simpering sycophantic girl lourdes likens to the blonde in the craft, begins to outshine the campeon lopez front runner for valedictorian and lourdes is too lost in a sea of daydreams, beats and hooks to care. the criteria for the princeton scholarship they had hung their future on falls out of reach and into the hands of a girl whose name means ‘son of maud’–it’s even worse than lourdes’ and they turns their nose up at it.

graduation day lacks its intended charms and a girl who’d lived her whole life being told she was destined for great things feels the weight of failure. jaime and maite bring red and yellow roses to the ceremony. they scream in the stands and bring noisemakers; they are a charming embarrassment. just the right level of ‘too much.’ for one day, no one talks to her about college or work or the future. they celebrate with tres leches and she falls asleep on the couch with a sweet taste humming on her tongue, headphones up full blast.

the daydream dies. college might not be an option, but lourdes is expected to pull her own weight. she floats from waitressing job to barista job to receptionist, but nothing really sticks. lourdes’ tapping feet are restless and they carry her from tedium to tedium. there is nothing that satiates her hunger. it doesn’t take long for her to figure out that college would not have served to fill the void either; the only thing that makes a difference is the music.

▓ ▌now playing :: atomic – blondie

noemi luna is a sweet uwla school of business co-ed with long dark hair and stars in her eyes. when lourdes meets her at the music festival, hair braided around roses, they realize that maybe this woman really could give birth to gods. the pair stay up talking and sharing songs until the sun comes up. lourdes believes in dreams again. noemi is stardust and iron. they make a pact with themself to memorize everything noemi loves: seafood, fruit smoothies, the soft feel of worn denim, sand between her toes, and the sensation of long nails combing through her soft, dark hair. lourdes loves exactly two things: sensation of nothingness they feels before slipping off to sleep to a dope track and noemi. it’s a much shorter list.

at noemi’s encouragement, lourdes reinvents herself; she is so much more than a drink slinger in some weak club where girls get in free to offset the gender binary and the skewed ratio found therein. lourdes mixes tracks; changes names. they were never worthy of such a title and they grin easily when noemi suggests ‘faust’ to her instead; lourdes is sick of being someone’s virgin and they are no one’s mother. maite loves to see the spark in their daughter’s heart again and doesn’t bat an eye at all the time the girls spend together. not until nearly two years later when faust’s reputation as dj placentagram keeps her out all night and she finds that her daughter and noemi seem to have a more and more difficult time keeping their hands off one another. maybe it’s just a phase; lourdes has always been such a good girl.

maite’s worst fears are confirmed when her daughter announces the seriousness of their relationship–the intent of marriage–on a warm, autumn thanksgiving afternoon before the pies are even sliced. they remain untouched for two days while faust packs their things with bleary eyes and clenched fists, making crimson crescents on her palms in the places where they’ve lost an acrylic nail. it took too much on faith to think that since their parents could accept her music that they could accept noemi too. jaime shrugs his shoulders after kissing his daughter goodbye with the weak defense of ‘... your mother.’ faust grimaces and spits back ‘a mí, plín.’

noemi and faust aren’t ready to get their own place, but fate forces their hands. with a bank account barely above the red, faust stores their stuff in her car and sleeps in noemi’s dorm room. the gaudy purchase of barely legal tinted windows proves more useful than frivolous. dj placentagram attracts a modest local audience and she makes enough, but the constant late nights and stress of a move take their toll. noemi loses her scholarship when her grades slip. her parents are supportive, but they don’t have the kind of cash to cover tuition. it’s time for her to find a job and since she has to wait until fall rolls around to repeat the semester, she’s got a lot of free time.

the job market is rough. noemi has no experience short of an ‘in progress’ underneath her education section. the entirety of her resume gushes with inexperience. the unemployment office is a crapshoot and most days are spent lounging in sweats, cruising craigslist for job offers. faust takes care of the bills in the meantime, but it’s nowhere near enough to save for tuition. they move out of the dorms with her salary, find a pretty good apartment too. one morning after a big event, faust finds a small, windblown cat by the trashcans. she is the color of smoke and soot; the couple name her belial, clean her up, and initiate her into the family. the apartment begins to feel like home.

▓ ▌now playing :: i’ve been thinking – handsome boy modeling school feat. cat power

faust beams at noemi over the somber reminder of her mother on the coffee table. it’s a cold, november day and the family pozole recipe steams up noemi’s glasses as she lists off her craigslist prospects for the day. she’s particularly excited about a position at a salon that boasts she’ll be making $400 a day after being trained. faust jokes that anything’s better than another fake modeling gig and noemi agrees. she sets up a meeting for later that week.

the details of the meeting are lost on faust. things that matter? noemi has a smile on her face when she comes back, flashing fresh pressies and the tentative explanation that the wages are tips only. she tacks on quickly that most of the girls say they pull in plenty to live off of with that. several of them are single moms and noemi swears that they were all wearing designer jeans, rocking fresh manicures, and boasted of the job seeming more like a family than anything else. in hindsight, faust can recall every red flag no matter how small. they should have known better. besides, they remember noemi reassuring them, it’s like super safe. she’d seen some guys working security in there and some of the girls even live in the condos above the place. maybe there’s a hint of willful desperation in her girlfriend’s voice; faust knows she’s tired of struggling and if it turns out a mess, it’s only until the semester starts back again in the fall.

the edges of the dream begin to chip, but are hardly noticeable at first. like noemi’s manicures, the woman gets good at filling in spaces. faust’s following becomes a bit more substantial. sometimes they make it out of inglewood to spin records. it takes her away from home more than she’d like, but she doesn’t notice the difference until they starts returning to an untouched bed, a hungry kitten, and a house that smells cold.

noemi is evasive, distant. the stars in her eyes have gone dim; there’s a fog that obscures them. an occasional cold night alone becomes a string, a constellation. on the surface, faust bubbles. they are wrath and it comes out in their music; people fell in love with them for the fire, but destruction turns those very people away. fear makes a hearty tinder. noemi doesn’t pick up her calls; noemi’s number gets disconnected. the fear grows, fertilized by volcanic ash. faust makes better fires.

▓ ▌now playing :: hail mary – 2pac

francisco is back from his tours and he’s strong and loved by her parents outloud ( unlike the infrequent texts of check-ins papa sends here, afraid of their mother’s wrath more than faust’s ). after faust goes the the address on the fridge and finds no trace of a salon, they arrive on his doorstep with a cat carrier in their hands and the request for a gun. soldiers always have guns and big brothers like francisco never learned to say no to a lip pout and a crocodile tear. faust still sees him as the boy who cried at the fox and the hound; he is the man who facilitates her deal with the devil. he teaches them the ins and outs of the sig sauer p226. he doesn’t ask them what they’re doing when he helps them file the serial number; he’s noted noemi’s absence.

heart in her throat, she’s almost choking to the beat of her own pulse. the sound of paper burning goes unnoticed, beneath the car stereo as she smokes to calm her nerves. i ain’t a killer, but don’t push me, she agrees, revenge is like the sweetest joy next to gettin’ pussy. her hands shake against the steering wheel as she drives the streets searching for noemi. she’d know her anywhere, but the shock of her appearance makes the track skip a beat ( or maybe it’s just her heart as she holds her breath ). she lets the engine purr to life and hangs back for a few blocks until she finds her girl’s destination and takes a mental note of the address. the patches on the leather vests are burned into her mind. she’ll be back several times before she makes her move; each time she’ll lose her dinner in the same parking lot on her way back to their apartment. each night she’ll fall asleep alone. at least for now, belial is better off with her brother.

after days of staking out the property, faust in convinced that noemi resides there permanently. for the first time in her life, faust prayed to the virgin mary. she prayed to the stars in the sky. she prayed to the devil. if nothing else, she hoped she could at least make it out with noemi alive. it’s easy to take out the first men. with her slinky slip dress, fishnet tights and combat boots, they think it’s a gag–she’s a new girl or something. women are commoditized; their agency is robbed of them. male hubris blinds them from the consideration that the beautiful woman might actually be serious. the realization burrs itself into their heads in the shape of a bullet. twice. after the first two, it’s easy. it’s like playing call of duty with francisco and she pushes the stark depravity of the easiness deep inside herself. if she is to save noemi, she has to let go of human decency. her mother’s voice tells her not to stoop to their level, but it’s precisely the level she needs to be a hero and faust doesn’t give a shit about being a hero. she gives a shit about getting her girlfriend back.

when she comes upon noemi, she is shocked by her appearance. the warm, shining girl is dull and timid. she lowers her guard and gun, speaking softly to traces of the woman she loved. distracted, faust is tackled by one of the girls who busts her nose with a mean right hook. something sparks within noemi and she clocks the girl over the head with faust’s estranged glock. the two depart on shaky legs to the car and drive to the beach where they watch the sun rise together; shoulders barely touching, feet buried beneath the sand. faust does not make a move to touch her despite her greater urges to wrap her arms so tightly around her that she’d leave impressions in her skin like those left behind by bras and tights and too-tight socks.

▓ ▌now playing :: you’re so cool – hans zimmer

reunited at least, noemi tells faust the truth about her dehumanizing work with delicate fingers shakily wrapped around a mug of hot tea. she flinches at the gentlest touch and faust knows their relationship will never be the same. noemi will never be the same. her nails are still pristine, but the hands they belong to are weathered; she has been through hell. whatever money she earned, it was not hers and it never reached her belly. they spend the next several months healing. maite makes them meals and sends them to the house with francisco and jaime connects with noemi’s parents to pay their bills . no one asks or prods. no one hovers or pushes or smothers–least of all faust, who stays up late nights with a gun in her hand, gaze hard on the locked apartment door. they don’t even see the murders on the news; neither girl knows what that means.

when noemi slowly begins to leave the apartment and build her confidence, faust is proud. it’s a slow process, but eventually she is able to function on most days. she goes to therapy, but never gets into specifics. she still screams in her sleep most nights, but she lets faust hold her close. dj placentagram returns to her work, but her following has taken a hit. still, it feels good to make her own money again.

▓ ▌now playing :: six inch – beyonce feat. the weekend

on one bright day, noemi tells her of running into an old friend–one of the girls who didn’t make it out that dark night. they are both unsurprised that the girls they’d left behind were still suffering. it makes her blood boil and she can see an old flicker in noemi’s eyes. faust recognizes it in her–the need for blood to fill old wounds–a baptism in vengeance. they make a new trip to francisco’s friend; they make a deal for more guns. noemi has her revenge with faust close at her side. the two of them earn a reputation for the second set of executions and they realize that there is a lot of trash worth taking out.

crime doesn’t pay; but vigilantism sure does. the girls make a mint turning over the more nefarious characters in the city. they don’t hit up small time dealers. blood runs down hill just like shit; they cut the heads of serpents and leave the scales alone. it starts to get dangerous for the girls; people know las sirenas. people prepare for these stunning shooters who rob the robbers. they’re no saints and they don’t play at sainthood. faust knows they are devils, but evil is stronger than neutrality and she never thought too much of moral fiber.

nobody asks the girls how they support themselves; both families know they’ve been through hell and back. things are broken inside and between them, but broken things still work if you can find a new function for them. families can still work–relationships can still work–if you turn them into something new. they are baptised in blood; their wishing stars are diamond studs in earlobes. some days they hold hands like the old days, but things are still broken–they are still new.

violence can change a person. noemi finds her vengeance, but faust can’t stop. what once bound them, now divides them, and noemi finds herself back in school. their lifestyles no longer compatible, the two grow apart, but there is no love lost. still, the time between reunions grows and grows until noemi has found love again and faust has given up turntables for contracts on heads.

#faust.#⛧ ━━━ VISAGE ჻ lourdes campeon lopez.#⛧ ━━━ CHARACTER STUDY ჻ lourdes campeon lopez.#⛧ ━━━ AESTHETIC ჻ lourdes campeon lopez.#⛧ ━━━ SOUNDTRACK ჻ lourdes campeon lopez.#⛧ ━━━ THREADS ჻ lourdes campeon lopez.#⛧ ━━━ CONNECTIONS ჻ lourdes campeon lopez.#⛧ ━━━ WANTED ჻ lourdes campeon lopez.#⛧ ━━━ RESOURCES ჻ lourdes campeon lopez.#⛧ ━━━ WARDROBE ჻ lourdes campeon lopez.

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prehistoricsounds · 4 years

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Arrivals for the last 7 days!

New releases from Black Lips "Sing In A World That's Falling Apart", The Dune Rats "Hurry Up And Wait" in a limited edition Animated (Zoetrope) Picture Disc!, Halsey "Manic", La Roux "Supervision", Pinegrove "Marigold", self-titled LP from the Professionals (Madlib + Oh No), plus a 12" from Madlib and Freddie Gibbs "Half Manne Half Cocaine", self titled album from Rose City Band, Sarah Mary Chadwick "Please Daddy" on white wax. A new one from Wolf Parade "Thin Mind" and long running metal titans Annhilator have a new one "Ballistic, Sadistic"

Also we have some limited copies back in stock of Eddy Current Suppresion Ring "All In Good Time"

On the reissue front, Aztec Music have just reissued Carson "On The Air" first time on CD with tons of bonus tracks!, Frenzal Rhomb "A Man's Not A Camel", Supergrass "The Strange Ones 1994-2008"

999 - The Albums 1977—80 [4CD Box] (sold) ABBA - Gold [2LP] Annhilator - Ballistic, Sadistic [LP] Arctic Monkeys - AM [LP] Bad Religion - Stranger Than Fiction [LP] Black Lips - Sing In A World That's Falling Apart [LP] C. W. Stoneking - Jungle Blues [LP] Carson - On The Air Recorded Live 1970—1973 [2CD] Cate Le Bon - Reward [LP] Chicago - Chicago Transit Authority (50th Ann. Remix) [2LP] (sold) Dune Rats - Hurry Up And Wait (Zoetrope Pic Disc) [LP] Eddy Current Suppression Ring - All In Good Time [LP] Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP 2 [2LP] Frenzal Rhomb - A Man's Not A Camel (Clear/White Splatter) [LP] G.B.H. - Momentum [LP] Gorillaz - Demon Days [2LP] Halsey - Manic [LP] Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures [LP] Keith Urban - Greatest Hits [2LP] (sold) La Roux - Supervision (White) [LP] Lewis Capaldi - Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent [LP] Mac Miller - Best Day Ever [2LP] (sold) Mac Miller - Swimming [2LP] (sold) Madlib & Freddie Gibbs - Half Manne Half Cocaine [12"] Milky Chance - Mind The Moon [2LP] (sold) Moon Duo - Stars Are The Light [CD] (sold) Nekromantix - Symphony Of Wolf Tones And Ghost Notes [LP] (sold) Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left [LP] Nirvana - Nevermind [LP] Pennywise - Straight Ahead [LP] Pinegrove - Marigold (Yellow) [LP] Primal Fear - Black Sun (Marble) [LP] (sold) Primal Fear - Devil's Ground (Marble) [LP] (sold) Primal Fear - Seven Seals (Marble) [2LP] (sold) Professionals - The Professionals [LP] Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains [LP] Queen - Greatest Hits II [2LP] Queens Of The Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf [2LP] Rose City Band - Rose City Band [LP] Sam Fender - Hypersonic Missiles [LP] (sold) Sarah Mary Chadwick - Please Daddy (White) [LP] Slayer - The Repentless Killogy: Live At The Forum In Inglewood CA [2LP] (sold) Spiderbait - Greatest Hits [LP] Spiderbait - The Singles [6x7"Box] Sunnyboys - 40 [LP] Supergrass - The Strange Ones 1994—2008 [2LP] T. Rex - Electric Warrior [LP] (sold) Tame Impala - Live Versions [LP] The Beatles - 1962—1966 "Red Album" [2LP] The Beatles - 1967—1970 "Blue Album" [2LP] The Beatles - Abbey Road (2019 Mix) [LP] (sold) The Beatles - Let It Be [LP] (sold) The Beatles - Revolver [LP] (sold) The Beatles - Rubber Soul [LP] (sold) The Distillers - Sing Sing Death House [LP] The Kinks - Arthur Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire [2LP] The Mighty Boosh - Complete Radio Series [3LP] The Victims - The Victims [LP] Thelma Plum - Better In Blak [LP] (sold) Tom Waits - Heartattack & Vine [LP] Trippie Redd - Life's A Trip [LP] Turbonegro - Apocalypse Dudes [LP] Turbonegro - Ass Cobra [LP] Velvet Underground & Nico - Velvet Underground & Nico [LP] Wolf Parade - Thin Mind (Loser Edition) [LP]

#prehistoricsounds #newarrivals

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jodienotmedia · 2 years

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Fake Nurse Jodie Casillas Pressed by the commmunity

Jodie casillas likes to forge DR signatures for prescription drugs.

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toldnews-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/technology/entertainment/john-singleton-boyz-n-the-hood-director-dies-at-51/

John Singleton, ‘Boyz N the Hood’ Director, Dies at 51

John Singleton, whose powerful debut film, “Boyz N the Hood,” earned him an Oscar nomination for best director, the first for an African-American, died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 51.

His death, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was confirmed in a family statement after he was taken off life support. Mr. Singleton had been admitted to the hospital on April 17, reportedly after having a stroke. His family said he had a history of hypertension.

His mother, Shelia Ward, said last week that he was in a coma and filed court papers asking to be appointed his temporary conservator. Several of his children at the time opposed her trying to take control of his medical and financial decision making and publicly disputed her assessment of his medical state.

“Boyz N the Hood,” a bleakly realistic film about three teenagers growing up amid gang violence in South Central Los Angeles, established Mr. Singleton’s credentials and placed him in the conversation with more established African-American directors like Spike Lee, Bill Duke, Julie Dash, Robert Townsend and Reginald Hudlin.

“When I was 18, I saw ‘She’s Gotta Have It,’ ” Mr. Singleton said, referring to Mr. Lee’s 1986 breakthrough film, in a YouTube video in 2013. “The movie was so powerful to me, as a young black teen who grew up seeing movies with not a lot of people who looked like me.”

He was 22 when he began shooting “Boyz,” which follows Tre (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) and his friends Ricky (Morris Chestnut) and Doughboy (Ice Cube) as they try to avoid gangs and drugs. When Ricky is shot and killed by a gang member, Doughboy, his half brother, seeks revenge, but Tre backs away from retribution.

Mr. Singleton had graduated from film school less than a year earlier. He later conceded that when he made “Boyz N the Hood” he did not yet know how to direct a film.

“As the movie was going along, I was learning how to direct,” he said after a 25th-anniversary screening of the film in Manhattan in 2016. “As it becomes more intense and comes on to the third act, the camerawork is more and more fluid, because I’m getting better and better — and taking more chances.”

After Columbia showed the movie at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival — with Mr. Lee in the audience — the film critic Roger Ebert praised its “power, honesty and filmmaking skill.” “By the end of ‘Boyz N the Hood,’ ” he wrote, “I realized I had not simply seen a brilliant directorial debut, but an American film of enormous importance.”

Violence erupted on the film’s opening night in or near theaters; at least one person was killed and dozens were wounded around the country. But the movie did strong business, selling more than $123 million in tickets domestically in today’s dollars.

Mr. Singleton lost the 1992 Academy Award for best director to Jonathan Demme, who won for “Silence of the Lambs.” He was also nominated for best original screenplay, but Callie Khouri won that Oscar for “Thelma and Louise.” Mr. Singleton remains the youngest Oscar nominee for best director.

No black filmmaker has won the Oscar for best director. But when Mr. Lee won this year for best adapted screenplay, for “BlacKkKlansman,” Mr. Singleton was ecstatic.

“My brother Spike Lee just won his first Oscar,” Mr. Singleton wrote on Twitter. “I’m sooo happy!”

John Daniel Singleton was born on Jan. 6, 1968, in Los Angeles. His mother was a pharmaceutical sales executive, and his father, Danny Singleton, was a mortgage broker. He lived with his mother until he was 11 and then moved in with his father, on whom he based the character of Tre’s father (played by Laurence Fishburne) in “Boyz.”

John was influenced early on by movies like “Cooley High” (1975), a comedy-drama about high school friends living in the projects in Chicago, directed by Michael Schultz and starring Glynn Turman and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs.

Mr. Singleton was 7 when he saw the film with his mother. He recalled that she cried when Mr. Hilton-Jacobs’s character was killed.

“I looked at my mother and I said, ‘Why are you crying?,’ ” he said in a 2016 interview with Vanity Fair. “And she said, ‘Because it’s such a good movie.’ So I start thinking, when I get to make a movie, I got to make people cry. I got to make them feel something.”

From his mother’s apartment in Inglewood he could see films playing at the local drive-in: horror, kung fu, blaxploitation and slasher movies.

“The cinema saved me from being a delinquent,” he said.

He studied script writing at the University of Southern California’s School of Film-Television and wrote the “Boyz N the Hood” screenplay during his senior year.

He then showed it to Stephanie Allain, a script reader for two of Columbia Pictures’ top executives. At the time, he was being interviewed to succeed her. He didn’t get the job, but she loved the script and pushed for it to be acquired.

Before a deal was made, though, Mr. Singleton demanded, despite his inexperience, that he direct the film. Frank Price, the president of Columbia, agreed; he was especially impressed with Mr. Singleton’s audition tapes of Mr. Gooding and Ice Cube.

Mr. Singleton returned to South Central — the neighborhood is now called South Los Angeles — in his next film, “Poetic Justice” (1993), a melodrama centering on a romance between a poet (played by the singer Janet Jackson) who works as a beautician and a postman (the rapper Tupac Shakur in an early movie role).

In an otherwise lukewarm review of the film, Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that Mr. Singleton had made a significant leap as a storyteller from “Boyz N the Hood.” “Poetic Justice,” he wrote, is “nothing less than an attempt to celebrate the creative impulse as a means of salvation, not only for the individual but also for society.”

Mr. Singleton directed a variety of films over the next 20 years, but none had the impact of “Boyz.” They included “Rosewood” (1997), a re-enactment of a mob attack against black people in Florida in the early 1920s; “Shaft” (2000), a remake of the hit 1971 film; “Baby Boy” (2001), a coming-of-age story; “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003), an early entry in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise; and “Four Brothers” (2005), a crime drama. He also moved into television, directing episodes of “Empire,” “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” and “Billions.”

He is survived by his parents; his daughters Justice Singleton, Hadar Busia-Singleton, Cleopatra Singleton, Selenesol Singleton and Isis Singleton, and his sons, Maasai and Seven.

Mr. Singleton produced some of the films he directed, as well as other movies, like Craig Brewer’s “Hustle & Flow” (2005), which starred Terrence Howard, who earned an Oscar nomination for best actor. The film won an Oscar for best original song.

His most recent venture was “Snowfall,” a series on FX about the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Mr. Singleton was one of the show’s creators and executive producers and directed three episodes.

“ ‘Snowfall’ manages to carve out its own distinctive visual style, leaning heavily on the contrast between the bright blue L.A. sky and the violence and crime happening beneath it,” Kelly Lawler of USA Today wrote in a review after the series’ debut. “Even in moments of harrowing violence, it’s hard to look away.”

For Mr. Singleton, “Snowfall” was a return to the turf that inspired “Boyz,” with a vehicle that he likened to making a movie every week.

“It’s a popular show, and I could have done it 20 years ago,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018. “But they said, ‘Who wants to see “Boyz N the Hood” on television every week?’ Now everybody wants to see ‘Boyz N the Hood’ on television.”

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spectrogramblog · 7 years

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The Id of L.A.

“There’s a feeling I get when I look to the West”…those are the first lyrics of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven. When the band would come into town, they would take over two entire floors of the Hyatt Sunset. It was coined, appropriately enough, the “riot house”. Its hallways and suites adorned by groupies and cocaine, sex and parties. What else is new in a town infamous for excess? Was this heaven? Not exactly a celestial kingdom, but, Los Angeles, the City of Angels, has had its share of both luminaries and would be stars among its population.

A continuous renewal and recycle of street corner prophets, backroom political dealmakers, and rock star poets. The city of Jim Morrison, Charles Bukowski, Biddy Thompson, Kenneth Hahn, and even George Lopez. Shamans, poets, politicians, jokers. Their talent and fortitude have created legends. Heroes to some, nuisances to others, these Angelenos personify the City of Los Angeles. Bicultural before the term even existed. These Angelenos have had their feet in the sand, their heads in the clouds, their faces to the wind, their hands in the “masa”. Their hearts are the center of Los Angeles. That center being Hollywood Boulevard, Barney’s Beanery, Olvera Street, or Tommy’s Hamburgers stand all at once. It is both Olvera Street and Pershing Square, and the new Cathedral and L.A. Live. The heart of Los Angeles beats everywhere, it continues to mystify, and remains one of the great cities of the world.

Los Angeles excites the spirit, delights the palate, and bridges the worlds of imagination, illusion, and reality. This wondrous town both fixates and creates. Angelenos, be they real or fiction, have the unique ability of living in three worlds: the dream, the reality, and the in-between. Since the official founding in 1781, Los Angeles, like many great cities of the world: New York, Mexico City, or Tokyo, has, along with its citizens-Angelenos, forged itself this unique identity…the “sad flower in the sand”.

Identity and Los Angeles. The terms and subject matter complement each other so well. Carey McWilliams wrote of Los Angeles as an ethnic and cultural “archipelago”. A city where identity tends to vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. Contrary to places like Mexico City or New York, which seem be virtually identical in their descriptions: subways and metros, overcrowded and rambunctious; Los Angeles and its enclaves do not have such easy identifiers. East L.A can be identified not just by the Chicano/Mexican immigrant culture of tamaleras, lowriders, and homeboys. What comes to mind are second and third generation Eastsiders that are college grads with real estate careers and ties to city politics. The Westside isn’t only falafel stands, liberals and money. We have Venice, Inglewood and Little Osaka on Sawtelle. Even Hollywood’s Walk of Fame doesn’t just tell the story of stardom and tourism. Walk a mile east in any Angeleno’s shoes. You’ll be either in Little Armenia or the Thai/Filipino district. Just a few steps away from any common city artery, the Sunset Boulevards and the Olympics; the real Los Angeles comes to life. One or two block away from these primary arteries of life, we find the blood and the sand.

Immigrants, foreigners, bankers, actors, writers, students, homemakers. Every single one of them-dreamers. They come to Hollywood for the movies, perhaps at a chance to work in television or the film industry. Some come for schooling; others think they will do the educating. One thing is for sure, all we be taught a lesson.

Many also come from Asia or Latin America to reunite with relatives and family. They reestablish and reinvent themselves: get some work as nannies or busboys, and make just enough money to send home every month. Some may even work two full time jobs to make ends meet. Aspiring to save, forging their nest eggs with sweat equity. Households brimming with tias and sobrinos, abuelos y primos. One day, they will have enough to buy a little plot back in their homeland. But then, reality hits. They ARE home now. This is it.

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans” (John Lennon). But when did this all occur? Did the smog in the L.A. Skyline dull their senses? If the afternoon sunlight on a recent December day has anything to do with it, time has now moved ahead. It waits for no one. Everyone’s kitchen overlooks a road now. Not many Angelenos yearn for the wondrous, blissful California days of Helen Hunt Jackson’s character, Senora Moreno. Since the earliest migrations of indigenous settlers, from the Tongva settlers near the L.A River, to the Spanish/Mexican missionaries establishing El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles y Porciuncula, up to the modern day, the modern day Angeleno, if not careful, looks out their kitchen window and can only hope to be cognizant of watching time, school, work, and many dreams come and go. Los Angeles, and its denizens, are not as suspended in time as they are captive to the city’s imagination.

Absorbed into the cries of the Santa Ana winds are the tears of Ruben Salazar, the prolific L.A. Times writer, killed by an LAPD tear gas container. Into the night sky, like the gaseous night’s view from Griffith Observatory go the frustrations of Armenian immigrants. They wait to commemorate their homeland’s tragic genocide on the streets of Hollywood, Burbank, and Glendale. And what of the people dying to get here? Where else in the world to customs and port officials, on various occasions, deal with international human trafficking on such a distinct level? From coyotes to cargo bins, from San Pedro to safe houses in El Monte, people feel the need to get here.

Los Angeles, what is the song you cry out? You are a siren dressed in coastal sage. Your phoenix chaparral burns bright among your anointed ones. The faithful, the faithless, the dreamers and the realists. The Tod Hacketts, Arturo Bandinis, Nathanael Wests, and the John Fantes: whose yearnings have been engulfed by the lachrymal Pacific; you sing the echoes of the millions that have cried their way home, to you. Your song is the Santa Ana wind, the foehn winds- howling through the canyons and passes. The Santa Monica Mountains and the Cahuenga corridor abound with the energy of your music. Echoing your own identity, you sing the song of your citizens’ past, present, and future. Los Angeles, the City of Quartz, is the anthropomorphic manifestation of its citizens. Citizens whose goals, wishes, and dreams attained or unattained, come in the form of a Bunker Hill view, a Santa Monica sunset, a carbon monoxide-stained palm tree, or an unfinished oil painting.

Fante’s Arturo Bandini had his dreams. Whether he envisioned himself a great author, the romancing playboy, or the keen observer, Bandini dreamt of his success and merit. Hopeful, not of the accomplishments, but of achieving them in Los Angeles. The reader doesn’t seem to doubt his talent. But his dreams of success, of merit, seem captive to his routine. A routine intrinsically raveled in the DNA of Los Angeles. A double helix of illusion and failure. “I went to the restaurant where I always went to the restaurant…I walked out of the restaurant, stood before an imaginary pitcher, and swatted a home run over the fence.” In this state, Bandini, the somnambulist, was captive to his imagination. The delirium of a child nestled in the bosom of Our Lady of the Angels. The city cradles and nurses its own. Each Angeleno feeds from the trough, suckles on the teat of the mother.”

The mother feeds her children. Hopes and prayers, the jungle leads to “la Calle de la Eternidad”…with thirty foot arms and hands stretched out to the heavens, reaching for the stars, muralist Johanna Poethig and her collaborators strove for the city to reach its people. The dreams of all its migrants, stretching out to their respective places of origin. The mural, on Broadway, not only reaches out sixty feet above, but stretches to the other “streets of eternity” across the globe, transcending time and space. It evokes the observer’s memory that, to be a citizen of Los Angeles-doesn’t imply having to give up one’s original roots. As any transplant or “native” Angeleno. “Where are you from? Oh, I’m from here, but, originally…”

“She had to leave Los Angeles. She found it hard to say goodbye to her own best friend. She bought a clock on Hollywood Boulevard the day she left. It felt sad.” (X-Los Angeles). These lyrics, taken from the title track of the seminal L.A. punk rock band X’s eponymous album, Los Angeles, tells the story of mid-western girl who just can’t handle her life in Los Angeles anymore. “All her toys wore out in black and her boys had too. She started to hate every nigger and Jew. Every Mexican that gave her a lot of shit. Every homosexual and the idle rich.” Can any other song tie together both the love/hate relationship with this city any better? Written more than thirty years ago, the band was young, nihilistic. Now, well into middle age, they perform the song to newer generations of fans. New and old fans alike, the listener can be a native Angeleno, a punk rock fan in Belgium, or anywhere across the globe. The track, Los Angeles, resonates pungently of urgency and regret. Stay or go. Love it or leave it. Regardless of where one stands, living in Los Angeles, the resident becomes a part of the city. You end up loving it. Even when one has to part ways with it.

Why do so many come here? An often asked question. “Why? Because if he or she can make it here, then I can definitely handle this place. I mean, it’s not New York!” Better to just say “the weather” or the “California Blonde” than to open a can of worms. The new transplant under estimates the ego and heart of this city. Travelers come to envy those that are “fortunate” enough to reside in L.A. Yes the smog and sun can get to you. Everything collides and contracts here. Illusion and disillusion meet where Broadway and Calle de la Eternidad become one.

A commercial airplane lands at LAX, upon arrival, the traveler gets in their car, begins their trek into Los Angeles. Once at their destination, the majority always tend to ask the same question…”Am I here yet? Is this L.A?” Almost as if a double take is necessary to confirm one’s bearings? Where is the Hollywood sign? What about Compton, In-N-Out, or Pinks? Where do the movie stars live? All commonplace questions. Run of the mill superficial questions for, what they believe to be, a superficial town. It is never, “When and where was the city founded?” or “take me to Olvera Street”.

In stark contrast, upon departure, the business traveler or vacationer seems to always be in a hurry to leave the city. Not knowing if what they just experienced was truly a visit to Los Angeles or just a tour of the Universal Studios backlot. One thing is certain of the visitor to Los Angeles, be their visit short term or tenured, everyone wants to come back. The question is if the City’s enchantments are what beckon the visitor of if it is the illusion and fabrication of many a celluloid dream, superseding even the imagination of a child, that call one back to Paradise City.

The Angeleno also never fully appreciates the solitude of the Hollywood Hills or the mountains that roll down to the ocean. It is, simply put, a given. Angelenos nod their heads in boisterous confidence that “it is what it is”.

On the contrary, one of the Hollywood Hills’ most creatively accomplished residents was an Angeleno by transplant. Aldous Huxley-the famed British author of “Brave New World” and “The Doors of Perception”, loved Los Angeles. Admiring such idiosyncrasies as its drive-in donut shaped diners, the winding desert roads near Palm Springs, or simply, Los Angeles’ Mediterranean climate-he came to call the City of Angels his home. Once in Los Angeles, much of his creativity flourished, be it due to his new surroundings, experiments with psychotropic hallucinogens, or reading Hindu texts such as the Veda. The Veda’s primary subject mature and theme are, appropriately enough, the belief that the physical world is but an illusion. Welcome to the identity of Los Angeles.

#LosAngeles LedZeppelin JohnFante Hollywood OlveraStreet AldousHuxley

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tiffanysueli-blog · 7 years

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Gangsters 2017 Created by Freddie Basnight Written by Tiffany S. Lewis Starring Jovan Luna #gangster #prison #gangsters #film #tv #compton #cocaine #inglewood #blackfilm #acting #writing #directing #losangeles #media (at Los Angeles, California)

#compton #media #tv #acting #gangster #inglewood #prison #film #losangeles #gangsters #directing #blackfilm #cocaine #writing

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rafaelthompson · 4 years

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A Conversation With Coffee del Mundo’s Jonathan Kinnard

The café owner shares his thoughts on supporting Black businesses, the power of the consumer, and sustaining the revolution by getting to coffee’s roots.

BY EMILY JOY MENESES SPECIAL TO BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE

All photos courtesy of Jonathan Kinnard

Although Coffee del Mundo has only been open to the public for about a year, a wealth of power and passion can instantly be felt within its walls. Located in the heart of South Los Angeles, this Black-Latinx-owned café has sparked interest for being one of few completely dairy-free coffee shops in the city. On a warm July morning, I spoke with the owner, Jonathan Kinnard, to find out how his visionary business came to be.

Jonathan Kinnard, the mind behind Coffee del Mundo.

Born to a Belizean mother and a Black father from Inglewood, Calif., Jonathan grew up in Tennessee and finished grad school in North Carolina. He eventually moved to Southern California, where he would work in the insurance industry for five years. Jonathan then left his day job to pursue what he was most passionate about: coffee. Soon after, he traveled to Turkey to study roasting and was certified by the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe. From there, he traveled to coffee farms around the world, and in El Salvador, he encountered a family that would forever alter his role in the industry.

“In El Salvador, I met a family who told me how difficult it was to get their coffee beans to the U.S.,” he says. “Their beans had been exposed to a disease, and recovering from that loss would take years. These farmers had lost their livelihoods, and many of them were shifting to faster-growing crops, like cocaine. I wanted to help them stay in coffee, so I took it upon myself to export their beans to the U.S.”

Coffee del Mundo prides itself on being completely dairy-free. At this café, oat milk is the way to go.

Jonathan began reaching out to importers to help, but he faced a lot of rejection. During this time, he noticed that very few of the people he’d been trying to work with were people of color. This raised a serious question for him that would shape his vision for Coffee del Mundo: “It was then that I asked myself … this crop that can only be grown in regions of the world where people of color exist, how is it that when we experience it here in the U.S., it’s a white-dominated market?”

From then on, Jonathan would dedicate himself to maintaining close relationships with farmers and curating a menu that stayed away from European-style coffee (made with espresso and milk), in favor of a method truer to coffee’s non-European origins. Jonathan also highlights the fact that Coffee del Mundo is completely dairy-free, pointing out that dairy is not a natural part of most non-European diets, which is why lactose intolerance is most common amongst people of color.

Jonathan also emphasizes the significance of running his business in South L.A. “This community really spoke to me, because it’s reflective of me,” he states. “My mother is from Belize, and my father, who is Black, has roots in Memphis and Inglewood. South L.A. is predominantly Black and Latinx, so I wanted to be here, in a community that I represented.”

Coffee pods, cold-brew kits, and bags of single-origin coffee beans are among the offerings at Coffee del Mundo.

Jonathan also emphasizes the importance of supporting small businesses, particularly Black-owned businesses, when creating long-term social change—especially in the wake of the most recent Black Lives Matter protests. “I believe that [the recent surge in] this movement is great, but now, we really need to turn this thought process into a lifestyle. Every dollar has energy, and that’s the power you have as an individual. I believe that a great shift is happening … because we’re understanding that power. By manufacturing everything locally, we can replenish our own economies and begin empowering the people around us, instead of that one rich family at the top. And that shift in purchasing power makes this a really crucial time in history … and this is only the beginning.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Emily Joy Meneses is a writer, musician, and cat mom based in Los Angeles. You can regularly find her at Echo Park Lake, drinking a cortado and journaling about astrology, art, Animal Crossing, and her dreams. Explore her poetry, short stories, and music on her website.

The post A Conversation With Coffee del Mundo’s Jonathan Kinnard appeared first on Barista Magazine Online.

A Conversation With Coffee del Mundo’s Jonathan Kinnard published first on https://espressoexpertsite.tumblr.com/

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biofunmy · 5 years

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John Singleton, ‘Boyz N the Hood’ Director, Dies at 51

John Singleton, whose powerful debut film, “Boyz N the Hood,” earned him an Oscar nomination for best director, the first for an African-American, died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 51.

Mr. Singleton had graduated from film school less than a year earlier. He later conceded that when he made “Boyz N the Hood” he did not yet know how to direct a film.

No black filmmaker has won the Oscar for best director. But when Mr. Lee won this year for best adapted screenplay, for “BlacKkKlansman,” Mr. Singleton was ecstatic.

“My brother Spike Lee just won his first Oscar,” Mr. Singleton wrote on Twitter. “I’m sooo happy!”

Mr. Singleton was 7 when he saw the film with his mother. He recalled that she cried when Mr. Hilton-Jacobs’s character was killed.

From his mother’s apartment in Inglewood he could see films playing at the local drive-in: horror, kung fu, blaxploitation and slasher movies.

“The cinema saved me from being a delinquent,” he said.

He studied script writing at the University of Southern California’s School of Film-Television and wrote the “Boyz N the Hood” screenplay during his senior year.

Mr. Singleton directed a variety of films over the next 20 years, but none had the impact of “Boyz.” They included “Rosewood” (1997), a re-enactment of a mob attack against black people in Florida in the early 1920s; “Shaft” (2000), a remake of the hit 1971 film; “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003), an early entry in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise; and “Four Brothers” (2005), a crime drama. He also moved into television, directing episodes of “Empire,” “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” and “Billions.”

He is survived by his parents; his daughters Justice Singleton, Hadar Busia-Singleton, Cleopatra Singleton, Selenesol Singleton and Isis Singleton, and his sons, Maasai and Seven.

For Mr. Singleton, “Snowfall” was a return to the turf that inspired “Boyz,” with a vehicle that he likened to making a movie every week.

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