November to Remember

Already a year since I took this photo in Downtown Los Angeles.

That was during the Occupy: Los Angeles protest at city hall park, probably one of the most epic experiences I ever witnessed. I didn't participate in the whole Occupy movement and I wanted to photograph the protesters in Downtown cancelling and transferring their accounts that they already regret  to credit unions during "National Bank Transfer Day" (I took this photo the day before), but I couldn't because I had to cover my good friend Yvonne's baby shower that day. To see the photographs of the Occupy LA movement and photos from Yvonne's baby shower as well, check them out on my Facebook page in the photo albums.

So the next 24 hours will be the last 24 hours of advertisers and the media dousing us with which measures and propositions we should say Yes or No to, as well as President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney doing whatever they can to get American citizens to make each said candidate chill inside the White House until January 2017, which is the month the "will-be" president -elect who was elected two months prior will be sworn in. For those who are voting, just make the best decision that you think is best. Nothing else more since I don't really talk about politics on this blogsite, but I will make a post either tomorrow night or the Wednesday after pertaining to Election Day. Should be interesting.

Oh and the Lakers finally won their first game last night since May 18 of this year during the NBA playoffs against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Instead of witnessing it, I was going back and forth between Sunday Night Football and a new episode of The Simpsons. I remember when I used to look forward to Sunday Night Programs just every week back in the day, whether its was a new episodes of King of the Hill, The Simpsons, and The Worlds Funniest with James Brown (who was on NFL on Fox that time). If they were on repeats, I'd be watching some Sunday Night movie that ABC would usually air. I watched some TV last night just from spending most of last week by coming across some old ass episodes of Futurama. Shit, I used to be INTO that show, especially during the first season when it was on Fox back in early 1999. I would be drawing Fry and Bart Simpson in 5th Grade every day, but I wish I hadn't stop. If I was still into it, then I would've gone to a couple of Comic-Cons in San Diego since Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons and Futurama) is there all the time, as well as the Futurama voice-cast doing table readings at one of the panel discussions. 

Now that shit is so hard to get into, and I always hear that their website servers always get clogged up with traffic on the day the tickets are sold. Not into Comic-Con that much now, but hopefully next year, they have enough bandwidth and tickets so that everyone, including those who have been trying to attend for the past several years, should be fortunate enough to obtain the tickets. As an alternative, the San Diego Comic Con staff should pull what Coachella did and have two separate weekends of the event, but to have each attendee go for one weekend so that it would be fair to other seeking attendees. It will still sell out if that happened. Fuck, they should have Comic-Con on a cruise now that Coachella is going to do the same next month, but I think that probably won't take place due to some attendees with a chance of sea sickness or if some character dressed in a costume gets tossed overboard into the sea by trying to fix the zipper. Speaking of conventions, I can't wait for the LA Auto Show at the end of this month. I also spent the weekend walking to my homegirl Nicole Stetter's house from my pops house just to catch up on stuff for a bit cause she and her kids had to step out. Great seeing her and her family again. 

Anyway, that it for now on this post. Thanks for your time reading this. 

Los Angeles: Locked Out From Its Occupations

Damn, its hard to realize that I've lived in Sylmar for one year already.

Actually more like 13 months. Prior to that, the most I ever lived outside of my parent's house was two and a half months in Oxnard during the summer I graduated from high school. It didn't last long cause of the hiked expenses and the blazed up drunk roommates I was staying with. I moved out initially cause I was having issues with my pops at the time and his wife and my brother had one of ugliest arguments I ever heard. Now fast forward a year later, my brother is no longer living there and my pops and I became cool with each other two months after I left. It felt like I got cheated out of leaving his house or something, but either way, I needed to leave Granada Hills cause in my case and where I'm from, it looks bad for anyone over 22 years without an actual, legit job to still live with their parents.

Now in this economic time, its common to see people over 25 with University degrees move back in with their parents. I don't blame them since many of them have no other option. I've talked about this subject several times in my previous posts and to this day, that topic hasn't gone anywhere. I went to the Los Angeles City Hall in Downtown yesterday to check out the Occupy LA protest that was taking place there. That was my second time going to the site since a month ago when this whole thing started. It was night time when I first went and didn't take that many photos, but yesterday, I managed to make it there around the afternoon with my uncle's Nikon D5000.

I'm telling you, the protesters turned City Hall Park into A VILLAGE! That shit looked like I was at the Coachella camping grounds taking place somewhere in Africa mixed with the Outback and the Amazon Rainforest and a refugee site in a war zone. There were like at least 500 tents around the City Hall building. The protesters there were acting like civilians with their own Zip Code. Everyone there was cool with each other and the whole protest was just too peaceful, whereas in some other cities and countries, it was pretty much the opposite. Over the past month, the Occupy LA marches and protests felt like the Los Angeles Riots being massacred with Christian Saints. Everything there was just too damn surreal. I thought the demonstration of the Occupy movement here in this city was gonna last about a week since the one in New York was already in unimaginable proportions, but its still going on and when I saw a sign there that said to Occupy the Rose Bowl parade in two months, I then realized that this will go on through Thanksgiving and Christmas, which will make homeless look totally jealous during the holidays.

Honestly I'm not really into the whole movement and I don't have any interest in all this. I just went to take photos and some video of it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIVPtm_Tifk)since this was major and most of the media hasn't been covering the real side of it, just the madness from Oakland's own version of the Occupy movement a few days ago. I lived here in this city for my entire life and I never would expect to see anything like this in person. This is something that I'll probably think will be talked about for the next 15 to 20 years at least. Not to judge, but majority of the people that I saw there demonstrating, protesting and spending several weeks in Downtown don't have jobs and there are some who gave up their jobs just to show support and express their concern over corporate greed and economic government issues among other things. Hell, I don't even know too much about the background of the Occupy movement. I spent a the past week watching videos from the demonstrations in New York and some of the marches here in Los Angeles. Crazy shit happening the past few weeks. It'll be quite interesting to see how this will end, whenever that will be.

And the Lakers were supposed to start their season last Tuesday Night. Shit, I even had the money to buy tickets for the first game of the "would've been" season. I could've seen some new hot Laker Girls, Mike Brown screaming with panic and flaunting up and down the Staples Center hardwood floor, as well as seeing a Metta World Peace jersey in person and free Tacos. Obviously, the NBA lockout is an absolute waste of time. Mostly talk and discussions and shit. I don't remember too much of the previous lockout 13 years ago cause, surprisingly for a black guy like myself, I wasn't into the NBA that much (the only players I knew then were Shaq, Kobe when he was just barely legal, Jordan, Pippen, Barkley and Penny Hardaway from their signature sneakers they dropped in 1998). Its no surprise that the league isn't aware of not only losing hundreds of millions of dollars from this mess, but losing the fans interest and patience for the sport of professional basketball. I wonder what current NCAA basketball players are thinking about this? Maybe they probably are considering for playing overseas since they pay more or exercising their basic fundamentals of the sport by becoming an assistant coach for pay at a private high school Basketball team in Indiana, the Hooiser State. I bet the blokes from TNT's Inside the NBA are bored with their lives right now. I wonder how this will impact the sales for Kobe Bryant's next signature shoe, the Nike Zoom Kobe VII, since we won't see him performing in those sneakers for a while. For now here in Los Angeles, its mostly Kings Ice Hockey, a USC or UCLA college game which will go by quicker and the NFL three nights a week (Thursday night games start next week) at some local bar with DirecTV.

Alright, got a busy weekend to look ahead on. Gonna be covering a babyshower on Saturday and to test drive some more Cadillacs on Sunday with some Football at a bar again. Thanks for reading and a happy 23rd birthday to the Arlene and Darlene Arias, as well as old foolish-ass Sean Combs.