Raygun

More Ethos

Ethos

Claudio Ethos from Brazil working on something big on Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles. Joe's Parking finally let him use the lot so he wouldn't have to streeeeetch from the street. From what I hear, it's a gift to Tom Gilmore, who owns the parking garage getting the treatment...

Seven Apple Trees Gang

My earliest graffiti memory dates back to 2nd grade at Hellyer Elementary in San Jose. The Seven Trees neighborhood was in walking distance from school, and to that point my dealings with Seven Trees involved checking out Shel Silverstein and Doctor Dolittle books from the Seven Trees Library.

I used to take the yellow school bus to Hellyer, and Dewey the bus driver would drop us off in the morning with about ten minutes to spare. One morning when Dewey let out the busload of rowdy students, I saw that a crowd of kids had already gathered on the sports field.

That's when I saw it...10-foot VST letters had been hacked out from the grass. My little mind couldn't make sense of the vandalism, and I asked this kid George (the same kid who thought his mother's name was "mom") the meaning of VST. He explained that it stood for Varrio Seven Trees, a gang from Seven Trees. Gang? At that point my point of reference for gangs was the Apple Dumpling Gang, a Disney movie with Don Knotts and Tim Conway.

Opening tomorrow is MOCA's Art in the Streets exhibition...Friday I took a look at the outdoor setup setting up...

Re-revolt

In the span of one day, the text was painted over and respraypainted. I wonder how the figure to the right looked....OZA?

Oscar Zeta Acosta tribute?

CicLAvia

Let there be landmarked homes

My parents started their own cross-country drive today. We caught up with them in Arcadia, where we ate lunch at Din Tai Fung (can you believe they have an Ikebukuro location in Tokyo?) and had that damn-good black rice in coconut dessert at Phoenix.

To get them in the spirit of all the historic sites they'll hit up, we swung by the Upton Sinclair house in Monrovia...for sale now for $1,300,000...