A Corpse

Renee and I saw Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop yesterday and it was pretty funny. It was so appropriate that the crazy shit he talks about went down in LA, probably the goofiest place on earth.

One clarification; people seem to forget that there's history. In reading some of the reviews on ETtGS, you'd think that Shephard Fairey and Banksy had created street art. But I really don't like it when reviewers say things like this:

This self-conscious Post Modern sort of cinematic device--which, of course, reached new heights in the fiction-non-fiction films of Charlie Kaufman--works really well in this film and within the street art context. Street art itself turns reality into fantasy as its creators transform public places into unlikely and often illegal canvases and impromptu galleries. So, while narrators and voiceover are usually loathed devices in film, they seems to give Gift Shop an appropriately fable-esque magical sensibility.
-Shana Ting Lipton (in the HuffPo!)

First, Charlie Kaufman as "new heights in the fiction-non-fiction films" is as a kid compared to Welles' achievement.

Second, the great thing about Banksy is the taste of subversion that sometimes peeks its head up. When he hung up his own paintings in museums for instance, it was the act itself that eclipsed any artistic merit the painting itself might have had.

Aside from ignoring history in the form of the early hip hop graf crews and before them, LA's own king of the streets Robbie Conal and the barrios of East LA, today's generation takes subversion and makes it an in-joke. I get it, you're hipsters, okay?

As a young person I got lucky and hit the lottery in my discovery of Surrealism. Coming up as I did in the 60's/70's, I was at first attracted to the "far out" quality of their paintings. But I stuck with it, and because of my amateur sleuthing and fate, I discovered that Surrealism was a movement, moral in its philosophy, poetic in expression and subversive in tactics.


This is a picture of one of the titans of Surrealism, Benjamin Peret, insulting a priest. Coming up in a thoroughly Catholic environment I found this picture astounding; the spell was cast. These dudes had balls the size of which wouldn't be seen again until the 60's.

Subversion's cousin, scandal, was also an oft used Surrealist weapon. Their public hanging of Nobel Laureate Anatole France - the man of French letters - is legendary.

The first pamphlet, arranged largely by André Breton and Louis Aragon, appeared in response to the national funeral of Anatole France. France, the 1921 Nobel Laureate and best-selling author, who was then regarded as the quintessential man of French letters, proved to be an easy target for an incendiary tract. The pamphlet featured an essay called Anatole France, or Gilded Mediocrity that scathingly attacked the recently deceased author on a number of fronts. The pamphlet was an act of subversion, bringing into question accepted values and conventions, which Anatole France was seen as personifying.
--Wikipedia

Some of the details of the Wiki on "Un Cadavre" can be misleading, but I'll leave that for now.

Irony and humor were founding principles and strategies as well. When Surrealism's "Pope," Andre' Breton, performed what would become one of his customary excommunications from the ranks, his butt got bit on more than one occasion.


That's Breton in the pic, of course, the target of some of his victims.

All of this is to say that while I enjoy some of Banksy's stuff, I particularly relish when he's subversive. Trouble is, in this post-post-modern world full of hipsters, something's been lost. When Banksy hangs one of his pictures in a museum, it comes off as a self-conscious prank, a joke, as opposed to dadaists and Surrealists who would pass out pamphlets inviting the public to attend a theater performance. Upon showtime, the audience would be greeted by the young subversives reading off tracts, insulting and scandalizing everything from French politics to cookie-cutter morals. Perhaps it's a sign of the times that we live in an era when priests are fucking kids but the world looks away, and back in the day the Surrealists got right in their face and cursed them out.

The young Surrealists in the golden age of the Left Bank and their dada forefathers understood one thing; they'd just come out of devastation in the form of WWI, and being writers they knew what to do; get busy. Their logic was impeccable; if it was rationality that had shit out the war, then in true dialectical manner they deduced ir-rationality must have something worthwhile to combat it. As rationality was a necessary component of life their conclusion was a fusion and transcendence of a world that did its best to exclude "the marvelous" in life and reduce living to the mundane. "Where contradictions cease to exist - sur-reality."

That their golden age was framed by two miserable wars is not lost on students of the movement. Fast forward and Vietnam becomes the catalyst for the counter-culture of the 60's and 70's. Today, with two out of control and un-winnable wars raging away and EM08 relentlessly wood-chipping the world, the feeling is of utter hopelessness. As Bunuel, a Surrealist to the end, famously said; "Where is the kindness and intelligence that will save us?"

Meanwhile, Banksy makes bank and incites no one except to pull out their pocketbook, as he himself documents.

Last, the Surrealists loved Paris, famously documented in Aragon's classic Paris Peasant. They reveled in late night walks around their beloved city, thinking and planning ways to further scandalize what they saw as a lost society. So in parting, here's Richard Hawley's song that opens and closes the film, The Streets are Ours.

Cuts for Cooky: Art Laboe

The banning of cruising is among the many changes that LA's undergone in my lifetime. Popularized in George Lucas' American Graffiti," Sunday nights at East LA's Mecca, Whittier Boulevard, was the scene. The various car clubs all had their spots; among them, Groupe, Imperials, New Life, and my personal favorite, Orpheus, whose plaques were in the traditionally classic East Los Olde English style.

Right in the very heart of Whittier Blvd. is the Oracle of the Eastside sound, where any and everyone who is into the music we dug went - Sounds of Music.

In the age of the Net, with everyone jacking stuff, they're probably suffering. But years ago, more than I care to remember, they were the only ones who had Ralfi Pagan - though a Puerto Riqueno and originally from the Bronx, Pagan was an Eastside legend, and when he was mysteriously murdered it only added to his mystique - and Joe Bataan - part Filipino brother from Spanish Harlem - of the famous Fania label.

Casting a large shadow over the entire Eastside sound was one man; Art Laboe. Spinning oldies but goodies and taking dedications, everyone knew who he was, from politicians to vato locos and in between. As far as DJs, between Laboe and Wolfman Jack (the latter broadcasting from Mars via XERB, while everyone else's call letters in LA began with K; KPPC, KLOS, KMET, KROQ...), the two ruled the radio airwaves.

Later, he'd parlay his name into packaging and distribution via his "Oldies But Goodies" albums, and it seemed as though he had hundreds of them.

The following article finds Laboe still going strong in his 80's; in fact, Fish and I were out over the weekend, and I turned it to 92.3, and there he was, taking dedications from "Papos" to "Flaca." I'm sure it's like this for anyone who grew up with Art; every time I hear him it conjures up my tumultuous youth.

Radio legend Art Laboe and producer Tom Peniston inside Laboe's Hollywood studio. His show ranks near the top in its evening time slot, according to Arbitron ratings, and is popular among listeners 25 to 54 years old. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

LA Times, at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-laboe12-2009nov12,0,7073357,full.story

COLUMN ONE

At 84, Art Laboe's an oldie but still a goodie

After more than 50 years on the radio, the disc jockey is still going strong, playing sentimental songs and taking dedications. His deep, soothing voice is cherished by his Latino listeners.

By Esmeralda Bermudez

November 12, 2009

The disc jockey smiles when he hears Juanita Santos' raspy voice.

"Art," she says from her small town near Fresno, "I want you to tell my husband, Juanito, 'You're my Chicano king. I'm your booty- licious. I can't live without you. I'll never let you go.' And I want you to blow him a big kiss for me and play 'You're My Shining Star.' "

"OK, Juanita. Here goes that kiss. . . . Muaah!"

Phone lines flash six nights a week inside a dimly lit Hollywood studio where Art Laboe sits before his microphone, faithful to his old-fashioned format: playing sentimental oldies and taking dedications. For more than 50 years, his deep, soothing voice has been as cherished among Latinos in the Southwest as Chick Hearn's rapid-fire staccato once was among Lakers fans.

Listeners with nicknames such as Mr. Porky, Lil' Crazy, Big Papi, Bullet, Bugsy and Payasa call in from Oxnard, Riverside and Boyle Heights; from Phoenix, Albuquerque and Nevada. They are lonely women, rueful men, rapt lovers, entire families with squeaky-voiced children who ask Laboe to wish their grandmothers good night.

The 84-year-old disc jockey helps them celebrate anniversaries, mourn their dead and profess their love. He is the intermediary who reconciles arguments, encourages couples to be affectionate, sends out birthday wishes and thank yous.

His program, which is especially popular among listeners 25 to 54 years old, has consistently ranked near the top of its evening time slot, according to the ratings firm Arbitron. The Art Laboe Connection plays in more than a dozen cities in four states and draws about a million listeners a week.

"His show was the first place a young Chicano kid had to air his feelings, the first place you could say something and be heard," said Ruben Molina, author of two books on Chicano music and American culture. "It was like an intercom where you could tell the world -- our world -- 'I'm sorry' or 'I love so-and-so' and everyone knew the next day."

Messages arrive by phone, a few by mail. Sometimes Laboe reads them on the air:

Her name is Ana Ivette Vasquez and I want to let her know that I'm really sorry for doing her wrong, for all the tears she dropped and pain I put her through. I want to dedicate you this song from deep down in my heart: "I Need Love."

Other times he plays the recorded voices of listeners, who speak to him as to an old friend, often in a broken English laced with gangster slang.

I want to hear "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" for all the firme homies from Orange County, from their homie Dreamer. I want to tell them to keep their head up and stay strong.

"He is more Chicano than some Chicanos," said comedian Paul Rodriguez, who grew up listening to Laboe. "And everyone from the toughest vato to the wimpiest guy would say the same."

::

Laboe eases into his leather chair just before the 7 p.m. start of his broadcast on HOT 92.3 FM. Tea and cough medicine are within reach. His producer, Tom Peniston, sits across a radio mixing board, munching on a sandwich.

The light blinks with the evening's first call:

This dedication is to Marcela Baca. I wish the family would just stop fighting. I wish we could all get along. This is Alex in Phoenix, Arizona. . . . .I want to play that song "So" by War.

Laboe comes to life on the microphone. He'll prod a shy caller to declare his feelings. He'll blush when another gushes, "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm really talking to you!"

He observes rules that he says keep him in business: Never flirt with a woman or call her "baby" or "honey" because it drives away male callers. Never ask if a caller is in prison -- it's not polite. Some in his audience have come to speak in a sort of code, referring to cities that hint that their loved one is incarcerated.

I want to dedicate "The Ship Won't Sail Without You" to my husband, Big, in Chino from Roxanne. I love you and I'll be up that way tomorrow.

Most important, the disc jockey never judges his listeners.

"Here's somebody . . . . who might feel that what they have going on is of little importance in life," Laboe said. "And now they come on the radio and their voice goes out to the whole world."

Laboe, just over 5 feet tall, has bulging eyes, bushy brows and a prominent nose. As a boy, he always was the loner, the Armenian kid other students barely noticed, especially girls.

Drawn by the anonymity of radio, Laboe started his own amateur station in 1938 out of his bedroom in South Los Angeles. He was 13. Back then, he was Art Egnoian and he had recently moved to California from Utah to live with his sister.

"The radio opened up new doors for a guy who wasn't a big, good-looking hunk," he said.

After serving in World War II, he did stints at various radio stations and changed his name to Laboe when a general manager said it was catchier. When rock 'n' roll struck in the 1950s, Laboe launched a live broadcast from Scrivners, a drive-in restaurant in Hollywood. Masses of teens crowded around him to request songs and dedications, and his career took off.

He wanted to be a concert promoter, bring in big bands. But the city of Los Angeles banned youths younger than 18 from attending public dances and concerts. So he decided to host shows in El Monte, which attracted teenagers from the Eastside and its growing Mexican American population.

Latinos poured in to see Chuck Berry, Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis at the now-defunct El Monte Legion Stadium. Laboe played the rhythm-and-blues and doo-wop these youths craved. He compiled his fans' favorite songs on vinyl records, eight-tracks, cassette tapes and ultimately compact discs featuring Mexican American acts. He learned to pronounce Spanish names.

"It was never intentional," Laboe said. "The connection was there and when they came, I welcomed them with open arms."

Laboe became part of the emerging Chicano identity in Los Angeles, his voice and music the soundtrack of lowrider shows and nights spent cruising Whittier Boulevard. He is the only non-Latino selected as grand marshal of the East L.A. Christmas parade and is a favored award recipient among Latino organizations. At their functions, he says, he is often "the only white guy in the room."

These days he descends from his Hollywood Hills home in a black Jaguar and lunches at the Chateau Marmont.

His home decor features a nude portrait of Marilyn Monroe hanging above his bed, made up in pink-and-white sheets. A giant oil painting of his deceased cat, Baby, is the focal point of the living room. Motivational sayings written on Post-It notes (If you believe in your power to do great things, you will) share space on his refrigerator door with doctor's notices detailing the symptoms of a stroke.


He has lived in the home, mostly alone, since 1964, when he and his second wife, a Las Vegas showgirl, divorced. Most of his relatives, with the exception of two older sisters, have died. "My listeners," he said, "they are like a family."


Regular Laboe listeners include middle-age mothers and high-ranking politicians in the state Capitol. His fans identify with the melodramatic songs he plays the way Tennesseans identify with country music. Some callers express themselves in Laboe-isms, parroting the lyrical verses heard on the oldies show.


I want to tell him to 'Smile now, cry later' because 'I will always be there for you.'


State Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) remembers cruising through Boyle Heights with Antonio Villar (later Villaraigosa) in the future mayor's canary yellow 1964 Chevy, bumping Laboe's music. It was the early 1970s, and Laboe was everyone's favorite uncle in the neighborhood, he said.


"There was no place else to be," Cedillo said, "but right there, listening to his music."


::


The crowd roars as Laboe steps onstage.


"We love you, Art!" young women yell in unison from their seats.


"You're the man!" the men holler.


It is the last hour of the Art Laboe Show LIVE concert in San Bernardino in September, and about 13,000 people, nearly all of them Latinos, are packed into the San Manuel Amphitheater.


Tattooed teenagers in baggy clothes sway in their seats alongside grandparents and children. Many slow-dance in the aisles and sing out loud as Evelyn "Champagne" King, the Manhattans and other acts perform songs that Laboe has helped keep alive.


The disc jockey emerges from backstage to introduce the last act. He is in his sixth suit of the evening, a gold polyester number that shimmers under red and yellow lights. He looks out into the audience and blows kisses.


"What a night! And it's not over yet. Wait till you see what we have coming up next."


Many of his fans, seeing his enthusiasm and hearing his vibrant voice, would never imagine the man on stage is almost 85.


"What is he?" asks a 16-year-old concertgoer. "I think 54. Or 63? . . . 61?"


No matter his age, Laboe has no plans to quit any time soon. He wants to syndicate his show in more states, enter the Radio Hall of Fame and learn how to use Twitter.


Yet radio is not the draw it once was. The recording studio he bought in the early 1960s no longer makes a profit and is up for sale. Some nights, a tired Laboe heads out early, leaving recorded dedications for his producer to read on the air.


Still, if the end of the Art Laboe era is approaching, his fans don't see it. Or don't want to believe it.


"I know he won't live forever," said Estella "Proxie" Aguirre, 67, a listener since the 1950s. "But I get a lump in my throat just talking about it. I love him like I love my husband, except Art Laboe and I never argue."


esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com

Cada de Lastima! Eh, You Thought!

As a kid I made my ma's head explode so many times, not the least of which when I was sent to continuation school, the notorious Vail Continuation. Aye, Madre de Dios, the stories I could tell. Okay, not a story, but here's one memory.

Vail was practically all guys, and the few chicks were scags. So when I got there, I of course do the typical scoping out, and couldn't help but notice Huera; she was really pretty, and not just in relation to the scags. But the thing is, she was a Chola, and I mean with a capital "C" as in plucked eyebrows penciled in, teased hair y todo.

So I couldn't pass up the opportunity to post this because it's too funny. Here's an Asian/Latina homey who's from the bay area but seems to know a lot about East Los, Gloria Nava, aka, Baby Smiley.

Aye te wacho, putas!

Cary Fukunaga's, Sin Nombre

I haven't written about Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre yet because my homeboy, Luis Rodriguez was scheduled to speak on a panel after a benefit screening last week for Homies Unidos downtown. Fukunaga was on the panel as well, and we spoke a bit, he mild mannered and me respecting his space. Nice guy, and a hapa, Japanese as his surname denotes.

But that isn't even the most significant thing to this Asian raised in East Los; it was, upon hearing the vernacular of the MS members, I was impressed. They got it - calo' (the language of East LA) - right. In fact, I've often wondered about the very name, La Mara Salvatrucha, because I can't make out what it means. Trucha is a colloquialism outside of Spanish proper and belonging to calo'; it means watch out, as in, "Trucha homes, la chota (another calo'-ism) 'sta aqui" ("Watch out, man, the police are here."). Together with "Salva" as representative of El Salvador, and "Mara" as the first part of "maravilloso" ("marvelous" but also very possibly a response to the Maravilla barrio and their clicas, or sets as blacks say, the largest and most notorious in my day being El Hoyo and Lomita; the former having one of the most crazy but elegant sounding sub-clicas: "El Hoyo Maravilla Gansos" - who knew geese were cholos?) it's about as far as I get.

The preceding looks like a mish-mash paragraph but would only make sense to someone raised in East LA. This is because the movie takes part in Central America, much of it in Salvador, and yet when you listen to the MS gang speaking, it's East LA homeboys.

More, that isn't an accident, it's an unintended outcome initiated by the United States. After Reagan had funded all kinds of trickery and devilishness in Central America -- death squads for one -- coupled with the poverty and post-colonialist residue, this served to drive emigres to LA. The young Salvies, some of whom were born in LA, responded to the native gangs by themselves uniting - thus MS. Some joined established barrios - Dieciocho (18th Street) being another notorious one.

Then something pivotal happens again; it was either Bush one or Clinton that began deporting the Salvies back. This explains the exporting of LA gang culture - specifically, East LA gang culture - to Salvador and other parts of Central America (as well as Mexico); this is where Sin Nombre takes place, well after these deportations. And it's important to know this history before seeing the film, otherwise it happens in a nihilistic, existential vacuum where I can see some saying, "Look at those animals," while once again dunning mudpeople and ignoring historical contexts.

Luis made the salient point on the panel afterwards that there just as in our own backyard, the young kids are compelled by economics in large part. You're talking about very poor kids with no skills, experience and education. Thus, for some the very same reasons that flourished and flourish in LA that compel gang-related behavior, so too goes in Salvador. That's important to know.

It's a good film, well researched and acted. It just needs to be contextualized in history.

Spam: Corporate Shit = Your Annoyance

Shepard Fairey was on The Henry Rollins show this past week, and while I think he's an ok dude, I think his art is just kinda eh. Though he does have a cool pic of Jay Adams:



I digress. The point Fairey (man, did HE get picked on as a kid) made that's worth echoing is the one about spam. Basically, why is it that he has to take shit for his graf when just because corporations pay all of a sudden their spam is legitimized, and moreover, we just accept it or shrug our collective shoulders.

Good point. One that Robbie Conal has been making for way longer than Fairey. And of course, the poster boy, Keith Haring.

But isn't it interesting that white dudes like Conal, Fairey and Haring are celebrated as art iconoclasts and even sometimes go on to commercial success, as Fairey admitted? Point: Graf is a staple where I came up, on the Old English tip and beyond.


The above is probably one of, if not the most notorious and steeped in East LA lore barrios: Cerco Blanco (White Fence). As a kid, I grew up near their arch rivals, Varrio Nuevo Estrada (VNE), but was always more taken with the lyrically named White Fence. Although I probably have it wrong, the way their name was handed down to me was that their founder was shot and fell over a white fence. My pops came up in Boyle Heights, steeped in White Fence.

And graf was everywhere in East LA. My favorite restaurant, Largo's Mitote, (RIP) had a back alley that was littered with spray paint way before it got going as "art" on the east coast.

Cholos - the prototypical/stereotypical "Mexican American gangbanger" - also had tats fired up decades before the current trend. Indeed, I remember being with Jerry Ortiz and going down to the Pike to get tatted. In the end, I chickened out because I just plain hated needles; as a kid I was always getting stuck because I had asthma and allergies. I hated needles.

But a cholo's placa isn't seen as art by the mainstream. And they certainly aren't getting on Hank's show.