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.

BIG at LA: Business In Games at Los Angeles

So the Los Angeles Dodgers have been granted $150 Million in loans from the Bankruptcy judge on Tuesday so that Frank McCourt can meet the teams payroll by the end of this week. Which means that the players, Dodgers broadcast announcer Vin Scully, as well as everyone and everything that has to do with the ballclub will receive money that's not even from the team.

And now there's another notion that Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig wants to object this ruling. I think with Seling and the league taking over the team is much better and more efficient than the FOX broadcasting company's $3 Billion Television deal that would've lasted 17 years in which he also intercepted that ideal. The suits have already embarrassed the Dodgers long enough the past two years.

This season even got more worse from the opening day melee scuffle between San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow and the Dodger fans outside the parking lot. I thought the news outlets was gonna cover this for about a week, but that beating was so brutal that the media managed to keep dissecting into this story for the next few weeks, AND THAT SHIT'S STILL GOING ON NOW. Hell I won't be surprised if the keep covering his updates on his condition and those "unruly fans" that jumped on him during the postseason. Doesn't the media realize that the Los Angeles Dodgers have other problems to deal with, both off and on the field in terms of new management in Don Mattingly and the backlash for not making the playoffs for the first time in 3 years? Well... they don't, cause the media creates their own stories, or should I say they take real stories and make some tweaks on it, putting much more of a negative image on LA Sports fans like the reaction of the Lakers NBA Finals victory for example. There are several different ballgames like the Yankees vs Red sox regular season series, if not, the playoffs, and others outside of Major League Baseball that have fights MUCH worse than the one from the Dodgers opening day.

I lived in this city my whole entire life, well, the Valley to be more specific. I survived the Riots, the Earthquakes, the mountain wildfires from living in Granada Hills, and the brutal ass rush hour holiday traffic among other shit. I live in the same city where a different notable figure gets pulled over for a DUI late at night every week just to promote his or her self rather than knowing to face the consequences. Los Angeles was supposed to be known as a place where people want to come and start the rest of their lives there without leaving to another state. Well, that was 60 years ago after the World War II vets came home to start the unprecedented Baby Boom era, in which the influx of families have surpassed the population in Suburban neighborhoods around Los Angeles.

But now LA itself has gone through some other financial troubles, especially the school district. I mean shit, I can't picture starting high school in August and ending the year at the first week of June. That's private school shit. The city and the district had to get rid of the classes and programs in order to meet the budgets needs. Without cool stuff like the music programs and the Physical Education (there are some schools that no longer have that class), the students will feel bored and miserable. But thankfully, there are some after school programs that have these activities provided.

But back to the way the city of Los Angeles being viewed right now. If you drive around LA in its entirety, at first you'll feel like you're set in a movie or a TV crime-drama. Alot of films are shot here and majority of the stories are set here. Almost every movie that takes place in LA has to do with the Police chasing and some dude getting blown up. Unfortunately, its ACTUALLY like that here sometimes. To me, LA is much more than that in a positive way. I don't like how its being viewed like that just like how certain people view Miami as a place where Cocaine rules the night clubs on Ocean Drive. Regardless, I love living in this city just like the song says, and I wouldn't want to live any other place else. But just like another Hollywood couple here in Los Angeles, the divorce of the McCourts really did damage and overshadowed one of the most legendary ball clubs in sports. Believe me, I know about divorces.

My parents are probably the one of the only few Nigerians you'll know that had more than one divorce from each other (think Billy Martin and Geroge Steinbrenner see-saw at the Yankess front office back in the 1980's). Alright, two divorces then. Once back when I was in 9th grade which lasted 8 months and another one which was four years ago. Pops got remarried a year later and the moms is living the single life right now. Didn't care about the first one but the second one took me a while to get used to it. In December 2008, I was a bit upset when the stepmom costed me the relationship of a client of mine who happened to be a model. I said some shit about pop's new wife on Facebook with frustration that time, which seriously offended and ended my relationship with my client. Now if you see her portfolio, she's has several photos taken by 15 different other advanced photographers and also had traveled to different countries for her photoshoots. I can't imagine where I'd be right now if my parents didn't split. I'd still be living on my own, but probably at a nicer more affluent-ish type neighborhood instead of Sylmar. The only thing that matters is that both of them are happy with their lives, which I had to understand after getting into a few arguments with the pops and moving out from his place last year.

I think what the McCourts, both Frank and Jaime, should've done is hold a big-ass community group meeting with Dodgers fans instead of having meetings in the courtroom. It could've took place at Dodger Staduim, the Staples Center, or the biggest town hall in Los Angeles that can accommodate a decent number of those who take this ball club very seriously. Regardless if their divorcing or not, they both could've gone on stage sitting on stools with microphones in front of a thousand Dodger fans by honestly telling them the situation in regards to the teams business itself rather than just letting the fans have to rely on the media and some other source to figure out the problem. Then the McCourts could've spent the rest of the night hearing the opinions from every fan of all ages on what Frank and Jaime should do to fix and solve the problem with the team, so that the fans can feel more comfortable by watching their team play some baseball without the backstage business drama raining out the fans interest of one of the biggest, most recognized baseball teams in this country beside the Yankees. The McCourts could've pretended that there just two regular business owners instead of a married couple while they're at Dodger Stadium proceeding with day-to-day operations and then proceed as a married couple instead of business owners when they're in bed.

Yikes, that's was a nasty image I just threw out in that last sentence. My bad.

But yeah, that's just my view on this whole "white collar" ordeal that has been overshadowing one of my only favorite baseball teams. I went to three games over there in the last 12 months, and despite them losing at all three, I really enjoyed being there regardless. If there's a new owner after this season, that's fuckin' great. I really don't give a shit who it is, just as long as he keeps the players happy, Bud Seling in a good damn mood, and attracts a sellout type crowd at the Ravine every game. I'm just stating opinions like I always do on this site.

Some of you may not like whats been typed on here since discussions on this type of stuff can get very funky. The bottom line is that everyone is different and see a certain perspective that is not similar to someone elses. I read this quote that the homie Johnny Depp (met the dude for four seconds at Penelope Cruz's Walk of fame ceremony two months ago otherwise I wouldn't refer to him as a homeboy) said which I saw on the internet. He said that everyone is weird and that to express it without being scared or worrying about it. In other words, everyone's different, which is why the purpose of alimony is to bring two different people together and collaborate as one for the rest of their lives. My parents tried and failed after 20 years. Same with the McCourts.