Valuable Life Assurance

I've had better weekends in the past, and this is one of them. A first for the new year.

So on Friday evening, I stopped by my good friend Frank's crib to catch up on each others lives. I haven't hung out with him in a about a month. I had to get some 8x10s of the late Ashley Davidson printed out from him (thanks again Frank) and then we just talked about basic stuff and this Sunday's Super Bowl. We saw a few Jack in The Box commercials cause coincidentally, I ate some Tacos from there earlier that day (I like Del Taco's selection better) and also, the Lakers kept the Utah Jazz under 100 points that night as the final score was 102-84, which meant that the fans in attendance at Staples Center received free Jack in The Box Tacos.

Hey, it was only a dollar I spent though, and the value of a One Dollar Note is no where compared to how valuable it was when I was in elementary school. That shit was so powerful then, that you make any kid on campus do anything for a buck, from having to get him to do your homework done, to standing upside-down while saying the Alphabet backwards, to getting another person's Lunchables and to having that girl you have a crush on sit next to you on a field trip to the La Brea Tarpits (think Love Don't Cost a Thing and Can't Buy Me Love, which are both the same movies). I'm talkin' growing up in the 90's here. Now sometime in the future, the one dollar bill is gonna be like what a penny and a nickel is right now. Just useless change.

On the subject of money, I went to the Power 106 studios in Burbank on Saturday for a financial seminar workshop there. When I was a kid, I used to always think that Power 106 was broadcasted somewhere out from Slauson Ave or anywhere in South Central Los Angeles since west coast Gangsta' Rap was what they normally played back in the day in the afternoons and evenings (they played house, trance and Latin Freestyle during the morning and mid day). This was when the Baka Boyz ran the morning show and when Big Boy replaced them, he was fat as fuck at the time. Now that station is not the way it was 18 years ago, as its switched from the real legit underground hip-hop and the gangsta rap 40oz drinkin' listeners, to the soft European dance club, electronic colorful, underage shit to the "Barack Kardashian" iPhone audience. I picked this over the Dodgers fan fest because 1.) I've haven't been inside a music radio station offices other than ESPN Deportes to pick out tickets for Fiesta Lakers in 2009 and 2) I didn't feel like going to be surrounded in line with a lot of Dodger fans and their families that day.

So I park right next to the building in a empty street with no parking sign in sight (unlike Downtown Burbank next to the mall) and then went inside. The security guard there escorted me to the elevator and told me to go to the specific floor (which I won't say on here for confidentiality reasons) on where the Power 106 offices are. After the elevator ride, I got on the right floor and then I went to the reception desk where some dude, who look like he was in a community college, was taking charge there. He opened the door for me and then led me to the conference room where the workshop was gonna be at. As I was walking, I saw several plaques and framed autographed posters hanging on the wall of different R&B singers and artists that visited the studio in the past.. I couldn't think of one off the top of my head that I saw but Mariah Carey was one of them. I got to the conference room and there were three women around my age, who work in the stations promotions department I believe, and a light skinned black guy in a suit. They were there to check people in for the seminar workshop. I thought there was gonna be a lot of people that would also show up, but I was told that a few several people came earlier and left, so it was just me and the staff there.

After I checked in, the bloke in the suit sat me down on a table. He gave me his business then ask me some questions about how my money managing skills is going and the jobs I've had in the past and everything. After I told them, he then gave me some financial advice and other basics of Economics that I was never though in high school, as well as why certain banks merge and how it affected those who have accounts in the said bank that was going to be bought out by another bank. I knew I had something like this coming to me on my way there, but I thought I was gonna be in that conference room with other recession-bitten undergrads listening to several people in suits on stage telling us not to spend money on sneakers and bottles at the club. But instead, I had a one-on-one discussion with a representative from Chase Bank telling me some motivational stuff, from his thoughts on the economy to the real reason why the recession happened, and to why out-spoken protesters switched from banks to credit unions two years ago during Occupy Wall Street. It woke me up for a bit as I stayed interested in what he had to say. I originally wanted to come here just to check out the Power 106 studios since I met and took photos of Yesi Ortiz, Luscious Liz, DJ JustinCredible, and other Power 106 personalities in the past, but damn, hearing all the inspirational information about finances, keeping a steady balance and a healthy budget was uplifting. I knew about how to work on a budget and all that shit, but this was like next level, push you to the top of the ride-type shit. Shoutout to Power 106 for making good use of my time.

As I left the studios and offices, I got into the car and saw that it was 12:30 PM. I had to be at my homeboy Elvis's brother's crib in Sun Valley for a Benefit Celebration for the late Ashley Davidson which started at 5PM according to the Facebook invite. I had a lot of time to kill, so I went to the Burbank library on Buena Vista Street and read Ebony Magazine and the Time Magazine "Person of the Year" from last year. I picked the latest issue of Ebony Magazine cause not only Black History Month is approaching, but it had rapper T.I and his wife Tameka "Tiny" Harris on the cover. The article about them discusses about all the shit that they went through during T.I.'s possession of illegal weapons and probation violations that landed him in jail a few years ago and their reality TV show on VH1. Also, T.I was one of my favorite rappers when I was graduating from high school in 2006 and I had his King album on Vinyl. I also went to his show  he performed at the Key Club that MySpace hosted in 2008 before he got locked up, and it was there that I saw Rhianna (three months before Chris Brown fucked up her face and her mind over matter) and Kanye West for the very first time in person as surprise guests performers. Hell, even Kanye West performed and debuted a few tracks from his 808s and Heartbreak album as he just came fresh off a flight from recording that album in Hawaii on that day. Such a great-ass show. But getting back to T.I. and his wife, even though I'm not a fan of their show, I do respect his hustle (hence the name T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle) and seeing that his wife still has his back and support despite the arrests and other famous couples having short marriages. Another thing I noticed in that issue was that it had a section on how to manage your finances during this income tax season. It had the same info that I was told earlier from the Chase representative, but then again, it might be a tax season thing.

Soon afterwards, I left the library and hour later and decided to stop by my sisters house close by in North Hollywood to chill there or a bit until the benefit celebration stated. When I got there, they weren't home and I don't have a mobile phone yet to contact them. So I just parked my car in front of the crib and just walked around the neighborhood that I spent my childhood in. I was wearing a suit that day and I felt uncomfortable walking around a neighborhood in a suit, making fools think that I'm one of those door-to-door Christian pamphlet converters, which I didn't do cause I had no pamphlets. I walked to Dollar store there (one of the only few place where a Dollar bill is useful) to buy a pen for the benefit celebration and a cheeseburger from a McDonald's close by cause I didn't eat anything for the whole day, which is another reason while I stopped by my sisters so that I can something there. As I got back to the house an hour later, they still weren't home, so I sat in the car, ate my Cheeseburger and waited for a bit. I figured that my sisters were coming back from church or something. Finally, at 3:00, I lost my patience and drove off to Sun Valley. I thought they would be home at the time, but apparently, they weren't.

I got to my friend's brother's house 10 minutes later, but unfortunately, I was too damn early. I even had to wait for awhile until they got home cause I remember them saying that they had to go to their daughter's performance at the Sunset Strip earlier in that day. I'm not gonna lie, I don't like showing up early to an event that's not photography related than I hate showing up late to an event, but I made good use of the time by playing soccer with their kids in the front lawn in my dress shoes (I didn't give a shit) and watched Batman Forever with them. Man, that movie was entertaining, minus the Val Kilmer/Nicole Kidman smooching "Kiss From a Rose" shit. I wish I saw it when it came out in theaters cause I remember that movie was hyped up back when I was in second grade, and I used to have the poster for it. Later on, more people slowly started to attend. I talked with them for a bit and then I brought out the 8x10s of Ashley I printed out and made everyone signed it.

As the night started to progress, everyone started to show up. I saw several people that I haven't seen in about a year or two and had some small talk conversations with them. These were people that I used to see and photograph at the shows and Nicole Stetter's house back in 2011. During the majority of the night, while everyone was outside talking, I was inside making sure everyone that attended (who knew Ashley very well) sign the 8x10s. The homegirl Julie Canizalez had some candles on display with another photo of Ashley on it. She was selling them and also she created a suggested donation jar so that the funds can go to Ashley's family. They're were about 20 candles and all of them were sold by the end of the night, which amazed me. What also amazed me more was that about $500 was raised in donations that night. I've been to fundraisers in the past were the most people raised was 50 bucks, but the amount made that night was tremendous, and again, it was going towards a good cause. The only time I stepped outside was when there was a performance. It was my first time seeing the homeboy Elvis perform with this band called Craters. They play very mellow rock music that you would likely hear in surf movies that was filmed at night. Makes you feel like you were feasting at Island's with a Hawaiian shirt on during a sunset. It was a fantastic performance. Then later on, Elvis other band Aftergloam performed, and I haven't seen them play  in person in over a year. My homeboy Luis Sanchez is a new addition to the band and he's always been wanting me to see him perform in the past, which I never got the chance to except for that night. Great seeing them entertain the crowd while playing a selective set of new tracks that I've never heard before.

Then later on, the homies Victor Diaz and Sevonne Alossi band Astral Jubilee went up next. I never got a chance to see them perform, but WOW, their music.... I mean not just only the music, but their setup as well... damn, it was amazing. More than just dope in person. Some of their instruments that they had were vintage-looking instruments that you would've have to dig deep on eBay and Craigslist to find. Their smooth style of music feels like being inside the "Coconut Grove" nightclub in the old Ambassador Hotel (where Robert F. Kennedy got shot at), or some other fancy mid- twentieth century lounge.  There was a person playing the piano with the visible strings being stuck by the keys, another dude with three different wind instruments (he even switched from a sax to a flute to another wind instrument during the same song) a drummer, Sevonne with the percussion and vocals, and Victor with the bass and lead vocals as well. This is something you would hear on KCRW during the Morning Becomes Eclectic show or in the evening with DJ Raul Campos. Man, that night felt like I was at the Dragonfly on Santa Monica Boulevard or the Five Star Bar in downtown LA again, just like old times. That performance gave me even much more respect to them than before. I wanted to spend the night there since it the roads started to get wet from the small rain, but I decided to head home after the atmosphere started to decreased. Major shoutout to Willam and Ginger Galvez for hosting the benefit celebration at their place. Another shoutout to Craters, Aftergloam, Carbon Stereo, Astral Jubilee and everyone that attended and also signed the 8x10s and contributed. Despite the performances, alot of people were emotional everytime they looked at the photos of Ashley as they're signing their names on it. Like I said, I only met her once. If I saw her and knew her more often, then I would've been just as emotional as everyone else closer to her was.

On Sunday, I went to my pops house to stay there for a few days. I watched a bit of the Lakers/Thunder game there since my favorite LA blogger/celebrity jeweler Ben Baller was celebrating his 40th birthday at the game on courtside inside Staples Center and getting some national exposure on TV. It was a fucking close game which each team exchanging leads. At the end, despite their decrease in wins than losses, the Lakers won again for the second game in a row at home, against one of the current best teams in the NBA in The Oklahoma City Thunder. Also, the jerseys that Kevin Durant, Russel Westbrook and the rest of the Thunder was wearing caught me by surprise. It was design with the words THUNDER on the left side and the jersey number on the top right side in dark navy and white instead of their regular blue/orange/yellow color scheme jersey. But that feeling of the Lakers winning that game was the same feeling from watching them four years ago during the back-to-back champion seasons. It just felt good (especially in Ben Baller's case) cause we haven't seen them win like this in a while. Laker fans and everyone else was talking about it on instagram and Twitter after the game. That probably the best way to end that weekend.

Instead of the term "Good things happen to bad people", I think it should be known as "Good things are given to emotionally deserved people". I hope the best for Ashley Davidson's family, as well as anyone that's working on another chance at whatever in life, be it repairing a broken relationship or replacing something that was lost. Thanks for 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.

Money for something, but alot for nothing.

Yesterday really, REALLY disappointed me.

But before I get into that, I wanna give a quick shoutout to my friend and neighbor Suzette. Thanks for taking the time to ride with me to Little Tokyo, despite the fact that freakin' ass RIF.LA wasn't open yet and we were two hours early, and to Hollywood to check out Amoeba Music, that last great American music store on Sunset and Cahuenga. I know you never been there before so I made that happen and I'm glad you liked the experience and the atmosphere of the store and your reaction to seeing a Laserdisc for the first time. Not too many people that I know or don't know take the time to do this type of stuff nowadays, especially during finals week (both college NBA and also a little bit of the Stanley Cup Finals for NHL fans out there). Again thank you and I know that you'll have a successful life and career in years to come.

Plus another shoutout to the UCLA Women's softball team for winning the NCAA title on that day. I'm sure the passing of the late John Wooden gave the team more inspiration and motivation, as well as dedication for staying focused that lead them to defeating the Arizona Wildcats women's softball team. I saw this game at a bar (I'm not gonna say which bar so I'll leave that up to you, and plus I drank pink lemonade and ate bomb-ass queso's there) in Van Nuys by accident cause the owner forgot to change the channel from ESPN, who showed the game, to ABC for the pre show of the Game 3 between the Lakers and the Celtics (which is what I was really looking forward to). The softball game was getting good until at the end of the second inning that he changed the channel to Game 3 on ABC. I saw the first half there, which they were up by 12, and then I saw the second half at home, which they won by 7.

Being a Trojans fan, I'd never though that I would say that about a rival school, which leads me to what I'm about to say right now.

Yesterday, news broke that the University of Southern California will have to forfeit all the victories from its 2004 season and surrender it to the NCAA and that the football team is also banned from the Bowl Championship Series post-season for the next two seasons. One of the main reasons for all this involves Reggie Bush and another athlete that I won't name by accepting gifts from agents and among other things in which I don't wanna go into full detail. I remember when this shit was a current topic around the time when Bush was about to be drafted in the NFL after the Trojans lost to Texas at the Rose Bowl in 2006 (which happened to be Keith Jackson's last ever college game he called). The thing I don't understand is that why are all these penalties going against a the current USC Trojans Football roster as well as their new head coach Lane Kiffin. The guy hasn't even coached a single fucking game here in Southern California and his players were high school freshman around the time when this shit happened and his ball club is still getting penalized for these violations that didn't involve any of them. I don't think they can't do anything about it to Reggie Bush since he's no longer in USC except they want to have him surrender his Heisman Trophy award that he won in 2005. Plus that got a lot of people thinking and realizing on why Pete Carrol went back to coach the NFL just a few months ago. I thought that he was gonna coach at Southern California for another season to help Matt Barkley perform better and get back to one of the BCS Championship games in 2011, which unfortunately won't and never will happen. Looks like he left at the right time. Sneaky Pete, we (Trojans fans) still like you.

I've been a football fan and started learning more about the sport ever since I started high school around 2002. I've liked USC as a whole school and its mascot as long as I can remember, even when I wasn't into sports cause I would always see people doing crazy bets whenever USC would play against UCLA if one of them wins and loses. Plus I like USC cause its been around longer than any other school and also they're the only people that made the LA Coliseum useful. I don't have a favorite particular team in the NFL (If we had a team in Los Angeles, then that wouldn't be the case) but I would treat USC as if they were my favorite NFL team, which they don't play in that league unfortunately. Plus, majority of the athletes that played for them in the past went on to have successful careers and some won Super Bowls in the NFL such as O.J. Simpson(didn't win any Superbowls) , Marcus Allen (won with the Los Angeles Raiders in 1984) , Junior Seau (went to two Super Bowls with two different teams but didn't win any), Keyshawn Johnson (won with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003) , and Troy Polamalu (won with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2006 and 2009) among others. Right now the NBA season is almost done for the year, the summer is gonna be dominated with Major League Baseball (which I really like but not the same as football) and the college Football season won't start until the first or second week of September, which is a very, VERY long way. Also, on top of that, the Pacific 10 conference is going to be expanded in years to come by adding more teams from the Big 12 conference, which to me I find wrong but very pleasing with other people. They just had the University of Colorado join the conference today. I mean, I can't picture the Texas Longhorns or the Oklahoma Sooners in the same sentence with the Pac-10, just doesn't sound right, but hey, major sports is also a business.

The bottom line is that the Trojans are gonna actually be playing for nothing in this fall. Despite the fact that if they get high rankings in the BCS standings or a huge percentage in the AP top 25 (which to mean doesn't mean anything), and despite the fact that if they have a perfect season by winning all of their games at very large margins, they're not gonna go to the big dance at the Tostitos Bowl in Glendale, Arizona for the national championship in 2011 and the Superdome in 2012 for that National Championship of that year. The University of Southern California plans to appeal against this whole mess, cause I can't really picture them being disqualified from the playoffs for two years. I hate to say it but it looks like recruiting is gonna be a bitch for a while cause I know there are high school athletes out there who don't wanna play at a highly regarded school that won't be able to go to the postseason and obtain its goal by winning a champion.

And to add insult to injury in the topic of sports before I close, the Walt Disney Company is already closing ESPN Zone's across the country. I'm glad that the ones in Los Angeles and Anaheim are staying open. But the reason why I'm concerned about this is because if I were to go on a vacation to any city outside California that has ESPN Zones that are closed, then where the hell am I gonna eat at? I also wanted see how the fan interaction of that particular city is like without having to go to an actual game or a Hooters restaurant, cause people don't go there just for wings. That sucks.

Looks like my Saturday afternoons in the fall are not gonna be the same anymore. That's just absolute bullshit. My expectations and anticipations for the Trojans I was looking forward to this season is already dashed away. And finally, Reggie Bush is already pro. Dude just won a Super Bowl ring this year and gave hope to the team as well as the city of New Orleans. His business that got USC in this mess is all in the past. Seriously, let's move on.