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Ican be an insufferable Judgy McJudgerson, sitting back and evaluating people’s lack of conversational etiquette. I also fantasize about ticketing people for chat infractions, but I’m afraid of being punched. Here are some frequent talk trans gressions that make me crazy:
“How was that wedding in Milwaukee?” my friend Bob asks. Bob’s husband, also named Bob, and my husband Ken peruse the menu. We are at Cabrera’s, our third favorite Mexican place in Pasadena, having already been served guacamole. I begin to answer Bob’s question about the wedding I had just returned from. “It was de lightful. I adore my cousins.” Bob nods, then interjects, “I have a cousin who traveled to Paris every year. He was married to a woman he’d met in college whose mom’s aunt was a runner-up in the Miss Iowa beauty contest. And her sister married a guy in special ops. They had three kids. They are all very successful. One is some kind of vet; the other is a concert-level pianist. Bob, do you remember what the third one is?”
Bob II shakes his head no and says, “I got lost at Paris.” I ask “which ‘they’ had three kids?” Bob I continues: “Anyway, my cousin’s family goes to more weddings than we can shake a stick at. I wonder where that expression ‘shake a stick at’ comes from?” I’m hip to Bob. I know I won’t have a chance to talk about the wedding unless I plow into his snowbank of tangents and nonsequiturs, which I probably won’t do. I make myself useful by Googling “shake a stick at,” which I initially enter as “stake a shick at,” which yields nothing.
“Hey, Bob — ‘shake a stick at’ means ‘more than we can count,’ and its etymology is cloudy, ranging from herding a large number of animals with a staff to threaten ing people at a pub.” Bob looks at me and says, “What?”
“You wondered where ‘shake a stick at’ came from.”
“Oh,” Bob says. He not only often fails to listen to others, he doesn’t do a great job of listening to himself. Bob is guilty of the conversational misdemeanor of word wandering. It’s the verbal equivalent of seeing something bright and sparkly and following the shiniest object until your attention is caught by something else. His verbiage is a gleaming blizzard drift, with winds kicking up a few glistening wisps over there, then… over there, and no… over there!
Many of us do this; I certainly do, although I try to keep it at a minimum. What on earth might conversational jaywalking be, and is it a behavior that needs ticketing? Let’s say you haven’t seen your buddies for a long time and call for a catch-up ses sion. All of a sudden, there’s a four-way conversation going. Friend A is cross-talking
to friend C, while friends B and D must either listen to A and C or talk louder to hear their own conversation. Annoying!
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The carjacker misdemeanor — possibly a felony — goes like this. Belinda says, “Debbie, I want to hear everything about your new puppy!” Debbie starts with, “I’m so in love. I’m grateful I forgot the painful parts before trying to raise a puppy again. Anyway…” Before Debbie can get to the name of said puppy, Belinda takes over the driver’s seat and drives off without Debbie, “I think people should have to get a li cense before caring for any baby, whether that’s human, feline or canine.”
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Belinda doesn’t take a breath or yield for anyone else to speak, including Debbie, who is experiencing Convo Interruptus. Belinda continues, “I remember the first time we had a puppy. I just wanted to cuddle and play, and my mom was not having it! Thank goodness puppies are so cute, or I would have given up. But looking at those little booger-filled eyes, tiny pink tongue — oh, and the smell of their paws; they
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smell like popcorn…” and on and on and on about Belinda’s past, present and future views of puppies. Debbie shrugs.
I now know that different cultures have different rules regarding what’s OK with conversations and what isn’t. The warmer climes — not only the U.S. but Italians, Greeks and Latin Americans — tend to have talkers who crash into each other all the time, mostly unscathed. On the other end of the talkative spectrum are us tend ing-toward-dour Nordic types who barely speak at all. We often pause while form ing thoughts, which the effusive types take as yielding the floor when we are merely taking a breath or trying to track down the correct word.
Should I chalk up verbal violations to cultural differences or attempt to introduce basic decorum? Meanwhile, I have more potential tickets for developmentally de layed conversationalists, but I will have to save them for another column. I told you I am judgmental.
“If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.” — Lemony Snicket
This Saturday, Oct. 22, at 7 p.m., you are welcome to attend a free staged read ing of my award-winning solo show, “Now That She’s Gone,” at All Saints Episcopal of Pasadena. It’s right across from Pasadena City Hall and easy to get to from Down town Los Angeles by car or metro.
Ellen Snortland has written this column for decades and also teaches creative writ ing. She can be reached at ellen@beautybitesbeast.com. Her award-winning film “Beauty Bites Beast” is available for download or streaming at vimeo.com/ondemand/ beautybitesbeast.
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Outcry shook Los Angeles and the entire nation as President Joe Biden called for LA City Coun cilmember Nury Martinez and others to resign after an audio recording was leaked over the weekend by an unknown source. The 80-minute conversation took place in October 2021 but was only re cently released by a now disabled user on Reddit. The recording shows Marti nez making profane, racist and anti-Black statements regarding the city’s redistrict ing process.
Following Martinez’s resignation on Monday as city council president, the LA City Council met Tuesday, Oct. 11, to ad dress the conversation, which also includ ed Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon and LA County Federation of La bor President Ron Herrera, who has also since resigned his position.
The most inflammatory section of the
recording is a three-minute stretch where Councilmember Martinez compared fel low Councilmember Bonin’s young Black son to a “changuito,” or “little monkey,” as she recounted the events of a Mar tin Luther King Day parade. She also ac cused Bonin, who is white, of thinking he is Black and treating the child like an “ac cessory.”
Martinez apologized in her resignation as city council president, and later an nounced she would be taking a leave of absence. “I ask for forgiveness from my colleagues and from the residents of this city that I love so much. In the end, it is not my apologies that matter most; it will be the actions I take from this day for ward. I hope that you will give me the op portunity to make amends.” For many, this is far from enough.
During the LA City Council meeting, protesters gathered to call for the resig nation of all parties involved in the re cording. As of Oct. 11 evening, neither Ce
dillo nor De Leon has resigned from their city council seats. Throughout the chaotic meeting, the crowd erupted several times into angry shouting as public comment ers expressed both frustration and sad ness.
Much of the 80-minute conversation focused on maps brought forward for re districting. Many people expressed their feelings during public comments that this recording demonstrates a systemat ic effort in the LA City Council to dimin ish Black and Indigenous voices using the city’s once-in-a-decade redistricting pro cess.
In the audio recording, just before Mar tinez began to speak about Bonin’s treat ment of his son at the Martin Luther King Day parade, she described a conversation she allegedly had with businessman Dan ny Bakewell about which district would
control the Los Angeles Airport. Her com ments were part of a larger conversation about which city council district would gain control over USC.
“So getting back to Marqueece, I told Danny, if you want to cut a deal, and if you want to make like (expletive) boss moves, I would go after the airport. He goes, ‘(expletive) I love that idea.’ I said, ‘Go tell Marqueece.’ Don’t go after him. Leave him alone. Go get the airport from his (expletive) little brother, that little (ex pletive) Bonin.”
Martinez continued to debate redis tricting around Koreatown, a predom inantly Hispanic neighborhood with a large Indigenous population. It is at this juncture that she makes further racist statements about Oaxacans, remarking on their “ugly” appearance.
This leak also comes at a critical junc ture in the Supreme Court case Merrill v Milligan, as the court heard oral argu ments for the case on Oct. 4. The federal
lawsuit, filed by Black voters in Alabama, contends a long history of gerrymander ing in a majority Black region of the state that “cracked” and “packed” between four districts. In January, three district court judges unanimously ruled in a panel that the congressional map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Voting Rights Act makes gerryman dering based on racial discrimination ille gal, but gerrymandering based on race, whether beneficial or detrimental to cer tain voting groups, is more ambiguous. With rising allegations of gerrymander ing in Los Angeles following Martinez’s comments, Merrill v Milligan will provide important legal context if a gerrymander ing investigation of District 10 does move forward, as many public commenters re quested.
The political fallout of this leak will be profound, as the timing comes one month before major mayoral elections on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Martinez has endorsed mayoral candidate Karen Bass, which Rick Caruso is expected to use to his political
advantage. The two candidates held their final live debate the night of Oct. 11.
Municipal elections for several city council seats will also be held on Nov. 8. Several candidates for city council seats have also called for Martinez, De Leon and Cedillo to resign. District 14 (De Leon), District 5 (Martinez) and District 1 (Cedillo) are not up for election in No vember, but Councilmember-elect Eu nisses Hernandez will fill Cedillo’s seat in December once his term concludes.
Cedillo has issued an apology aimed at absolving his contribution to the con versation. “While I did not engage in the conversation in question, I was present at times during this meeting last year. It is my instinct to hold others accountable when they use derogatory or racially di visive language. Clearly, I should have in tervened.”
According to published reports, De Le on’s response to the conversation was to say: “There were comments made in the context of this meeting that are wholly inappropriate; and I regret appearing to condone and even contribute to certain insensitive comments made about a col
league and his family in private.” His re sponse indicates that Martinez, Cedillo, De Leon and Herrera did not know they were being recorded.
Bonin responded to the leak in a press release on Oct. 9 and addressed the pub lic at the LA City Council meeting Oct. 11.
“As parents of a Black child, we con demn the entirety of the recorded con versation, which displayed a repeated
and vulgar anti-Black sentiment and a co ordinated effort to weaken black political representation in Los Angeles,” he said. At the city council meeting, he attempted to calm the raucous crowd.
As of the afternoon of Oct. 11, neither Cedillo, De Leon nor Martinez has issued letters of resignation for the city council seats.
Ata time of rampant homelessness, rising inflation rates and heightened tensions following the release of a leaked audio recording that exposed hateful and racist rhetoric at the highest level of city hall, candidates Karen Bass and Rick Caruso took to the stage for the LA Mayoral Debate.
Bass is a community activist and repre sentative of the 37th Congressional District of California who has over a decade of expe rience in state and federal office, while Caru so is a businessman and former president of the Los Angeles Police Commission whose foundation has invested millions of dollars each year into health care and educational opportunities for Angelenos.
The debate, hosted by NBC4 news anchor Colleen Williams, NBC4 political reporter Conan Nolan and Telemundo news anchor Dunia Elvir, raised questions around the nu merous crises currently impacting Ange lenos and provided a platform for the two candidates fighting to lead the city of LA through these uncertain times.
According to Williams, the No. 1 issue raised by viewers was the homelessness cri sis. To begin, Elvir asked the candidates, “At what point do you enforce the ‘no camping’ law and at what point do you arrest some one?”
“We have to get them off the street,” Bass explained. “We have to get them into tem porary housing, but we also have to address why they were unhoused because if we don’t … they’ll be right back on the street.”
Bass said her plan includes building 15,000 permanent supportive houses and 30,000 temporary shelter beds as well as de claring a state of emergency, generating a FEMA-level response on her first day in of fice.
“I know we can do this. We do it after a hurricane or after an earthquake,” she de scribed. “The leadership has not acted like it is a state of emergency. … The government is all over the place, and the private sector needs to be front and center in this as well.”
Bass explained that she believes the city
and the county have not been aligned and that bureaucracy has become a barrier to progress.
“When you make a decision that people are dying on our streets every day … that’s when you say we have to cut through the bureaucracy,” she said. “But we can’t ware house them, we can’t round them up, we can’t just keep them in shelters. If we do that, it’ll fail. … There has to be permanent supportive housing. Shelters alone will not work.”
“I disagree that we should treat it like a FEMA emergency,” Caruso replied before de scribing a FEMA response as building large tents with temporary cots throughout the city. “I don’t think that’s a humane way of doing it. I don’t think what we’re doing to day is humane with people living and dying on the streets.”
Despite stating that his plan is far dif ferent than Bass’ regarding homeless ness, Caruso’s website also calls for a state of emergency declaration and a “true FE MA-level response,” the same as what Bass called for earlier in the debate.
Nolan then questioned Caruso about his stance on giving the city’s homeless popula tions an ultimatum: leave the city, go into a shelter or face arrest.
“In Echo Park, there were 200 tents. It took LAPD 400 riot gear offices to clear it, about 140 arrests. … Is that what we could see in a Caruso administration if you were to enforce this ‘no camping’ law?” Nolan asked.
“No, you’d see a very compassionate re sponse, but you would also see at a certain point in time we’re not going to allow the encampments on the street,” Caruso de clared. “People are suffering on the street, and they’re suffering in the communities. You could no longer live on the street if we give you a clean, safe bed with the right ser vices.
“We can’t be doing what we’re doing to day, we know that for sure. … Karen’s plan is a continuation of what we’re doing to day, so if you want more of the same, vote for Karen. But it continues to get worse. So yes, I will remove the encampments on the streets.”
Bass explained that the problem with ar
resting people living on the street is that they’ll be in jail for “two days” and then back out on the street again once they’re released.
“I don’t think anybody is prepared to give life sentences for people who are homeless, so we have to make that decision … that we are going to end homelessness in Los Angeles,”
Bass said. “The way (Caruso’s) plan is laid out, he is calling for 30,000 shelter beds. That is a throwback to the past. … We know that does not work. We know that people will refuse to go into the type of shelters you actually have in your ads. … He shows what the shelters look like. People are not going to go in there, so the end result is going to be sweeping people up and arresting them.”
Bass then criticized Caruso for spending so much of his life in construction yet never build ing a single unit of affordable housing, to which Caruso replied: “My business has never been in building affordable housing. … You could have sponsored a bill. You’ve been in office for 20 years; you’ve never sponsored a bill once on solving homelessness.”
Bass described herself as a housing-first leader, to which Nolan said, “A cynic would say … ‘You pitch a tent on the sidewalk, you owe me an apartment.’ The city controller says that it’s costing over $600,000 to build these units. Fourteen percent were over $700,000. You don’t have enough money for this. And there’s no guarantee that someone who’s off the sidewalk in your permanent shelter isn’t replaced by someone else.”
Bass explained that the primary method to getting people out of encampments and into housing is with “intensive outreach” and that many of the city’s organizations address ing homelessness don’t have the funding to apply their work on a larger scale. She also ex pressed hope in remodeling commercial buildings and utilizing adaptive reuse, calling for a more “comprehensive approach.”
“I just heard a whole bunch of excuses,” Caruso responded. “We spent a billion dollars here in the city of Los Angeles, and the problem continues to get worse. There are grid programs that are happening right now with great success rates. Downtown Women’s Center, People’s Concern … let’s expand the programs that are working. Let’s use our dollars where they’re working.
“I know how to build. I know how tough it is to build. I know what it is to process a permit. I know how to deregulate things to make things happen, and that’s going to be the focus. I’m not housing first, I’m housing and services first.”
Though Caruso criticized many aspects of Bass’ plan, his final words echoed Bass’ senti ment on the matter, as she stated earlier that “you (need to) get them off the street, but on the same day you have to provide services.”
On affordable housing
Los Angeles is in a housing crisis, as the cost of housing has increased by over 8.8% throughout the city in the past year alone while the homeless population has increased by nearly 3,000 people since the start of the pandemic. Both candidates were asked about how they would address the recent rises in housing insecurity.
“We have overregulated building a home, building apartments, building condos in this city,” Caruso began. “Sometimes there’re 10 different layers of approvals, takes two to three years to get approval. It’s highly discretionary, which also leads to corruption. … You have to unbundled it, streamline it, especially for affordable housing.”
Caruso explained that lowering costs, decreasing regulations and encouraging people to build could act as immediate solutions in addition to using the Full Faith and Credit of the City of Los Angeles.
“At the same time, we need better and higher-paying jobs,” Bass added. “People have to be able to afford it.”
Bass explained that moving forward with the city’s climate changes goals could help cre ate opportunities for both individual and small business, pointing to the “greening of build ings” as an example. She also expressed a strong desire to increase housing supply.
“The first thing we have to do is prevent people from losing housing that are on the verge of it right now,” Bass declared.
Nolan responded by raising concerns from Angelenos around the “Manhattanization” of Los Angeles, as more housing would increase the density of certain neighborhoods.
“We have to have a conversation with Angelenos, and we have to create the sentiment in this city that everybody is invested in solving the problem,” Bass replied. “No one wants to see the tents. No one wants to see encampments. We don’t want to see people losing their housing, so we have to come together and agree that we need to make more room for An gelenos.”
“I’ve built my business and spent my career on working with communities to get things built, and I’ve been very successful doing that, so I know how to have those conversations,”
Caruso added. “We have to have more density. Density needs to be more oriented to transit so we have transit-oriented development.
“We need to have more incentives to build housing that deals with families. … Our zoning codes have not been changed, 70% of them for 20 years. They don’t even reflect the city. You need to have somebody who’s a builder and who’s in business to know what the problem is so you know how to solve it.”
Crime has remained one of the most pertinent issues in the eyes of Angeles ahead of the Nov. 8 election, as arrests have reportedly decreased while violent crime rates continue to rise.
Elvir asked the candidates, “How do you balance the needs for police reform with the fact that when we reduce the police force, crime spiked in the past, impacting Black and brown communities in greater numbers?”
“You have to have police reform,” Bass replied. “You have to have accountability and trans parency.”
Bass pointed to her time leading the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act effort in Con gress, which was passed twice in the House of Representatives before stalling in the Senate.
The act was raised to address systematic racism and bias by holding police accountably, changing law enforcement culture and building trust in the communities they serve.
Bass recounted her conversation in the White House with President Biden shortly after, asking him to implement as much of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act as he could, re sulting in his signature on an executive order to do so.
“Black and brown folks suffer from crime, but black and brown folks also have very bad histories and relationships with the police officers,” she said. “Not everybody, but you know that’s where the tensions are the highest.”
Bass explained that officers in LA adopt a “guardian” policing method in more affluent neighborhoods and a “warrior” policing method in inner-city areas, and that guardian polic ing should be used in every neighborhood because “all communities should be respected.”
In his response to the question, Caruso pointed to his record as president of the LA Police Commission starting in 2001. He declared that, by meeting with communities, bringing peo ple together and building trust, he and William Bratton dropped crime by 30%.
“We reformed an LAPD that at the time was under a federal consent decree after the Rod ney King beatings,” Caruso explained. “We hired officers, we did community policing and we dropped crime. LAPD, because of that effort, became the most reformed police department in the country.
“Police departments can need constant training, constant accountability, constant re forms, but I’m the only candidate that’s done that. … You do great hiring, great training and great accountability and you let them do their job. The reason we don’t have people in the academy right now is because there’s a culture of not allowing the cops to do their job. So why would you want to come work for LA? I would change that.”
Bass added that law enforcement alone cannot solve the city’s heightened crime rate and that “you have to have the community and the police work together,” to which Caruso agreed.
Another point of agreement between the two candidates came during a reflection on the audio leak of city council President Nury Martinez, accompanied by District 1 Councilmem ber Gil Cedillo, District 14 Councilmember Kevin de Leon and LA County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, that included racist remarks.
Both Bass and Caruso not only condemned the councilmembers’ actions and called for the resignation of all parties involved, but also insisted that the city must not treat this as an iso lated incident and must enact change.
“I do believe that the pressure is going to weigh on them and that they’re going to resign, but the city cannot be in a standstill like this,” Bass said.
On the morning of the debate, Bass explained that she joined together a group of over 28 community leaders from a variety of organizations throughout the city to speak about what had happened. She recalled that there had been no hesitation among the group that all of the involved members of the council must resign.
“There isn’t any room there,” Bass said. “You saw what happened in city council today. A couple of them showed up and they were booed, and I think that we’re going to have chaos
in city council until they step down.”
Caruso added to Bass’ comments by expressing his belief that the new mayor must act as a stabilizing force that can quell chaos and guide the city’s communities forward together.
“The problem we have in Los Angeles, and it’s so clear right now, we have a system that is literally broken, and it’s been broken for a long time,” he explained.
Caruso pointed to the “worst homeless situation in the United States,” despite the city’s re sources, to declare that the “system” is broken due to corruption, with leaders working more in the interest of protecting their own jobs than working for Angelenos.
“The mayor has to stand for what is right for the residents of this city … not be looking over their back to see what’s happening,” Caruso said. “Councilmembers need to be free of corruption. I mean, that is the basic minimum standard. You wouldn’t accept it in any other industry, but maybe in politics. But if I’m mayor, I will have zero tolerance for corruption and make sure that we change the culture in city hall.”
When both candidates were posed a question about building trust and representation in the city’s Latino community, Caruso segued the question into a wider statement on promot ing unity throughout the city, across all racial and ethnic backgrounds.
“It starts with meeting, sitting down and listening,” he began.
Caruso went on to explain that he and his wife had been working in LA’s Latino and Black communities for over 40 years, providing scholarships and health care to people in need.
“I connect with the Latino community, but quite frankly my job as mayor is to connect with every community: the Latino community, the Black community, the Asian communi ty, the Jewish community,” he said. “If one group rises, we all rise. We do this together in uni son and we don’t separate. We don’t divide, but we all say to ourselves, ‘We can do this and we can have a better city.’ … Because I believe in the goodness of the people of Los Ange les and I also believe that in any crisis, in any tragedy, in anything like what just happened a couple of days ago, there is hope and it allows you to make a change. And this is the oppor tunity to make a change, and I want to lead that change.”
Nolan then directed the conversation to Bass and stated that, for years, incidents of “brown on Black” and “brown on brown” racism and violence have been under-reported and need to be addressed on a community level.
“I am very comfortable doing that because I’ve been doing it for decades. It is about building deep relationships,” Bass declared.
“Decades, but are you surprised that it seems to be worse now than it was?” Nolan replied.
“I think it’s something that’s a continual struggle,” Bass explained. “We always have to do that. But I have developed deep relationships with people. But to me, trust … and relation ships come from work, doing things together.”
Bass went on to recount the work she’s done with Community Coalition, where communi ty members were brought together to discuss their history and resolve conflicts
“Black and brown solidarity is not anything new,” she added. “It’s gone on for a couple hundred years. But a lot of times people don’t know that, so we intentionally raised two generations of young people and now they’re leading organizations around the country. And they will come to the forefront in this city to deal with the crisis that we’re dealing with now. They have a lot of experience.”
In what is the final televised debate ahead of the LA mayoral election, candidates Bass and Caruso both expressed that, despite differences in political background and opinion, the city’s crises must be solved by unifying the city to inspire change.
“There really is … only one candidate whose life has been dedicated to bringing people together to tackle difficult problems like the problems that we are facing right now,” Bass be gan. “The crises that we face … affect all of us. And if we allow ourselves to split apart, we will never be able to solve them.”
Througout the debate, Caruso made it clear that he is somebody coming “from the out side” and is “beholden to nobody outside of the residents of Los Angeles.” He explained that not only has a failure of leadership worsened the crises facing the city but that a broken sys tem marred by corruption has become a barrier to progress. Caruso explained earlier that “it’s no secret what the path is success is. It’s out there.
“After what we just saw in the last couple of days, the only option for this city is working together and being united.”
By Leah Schwartz LA Downtown News Staff Writer
Since the tragic helicopter crash that claimed the lives of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna “Gigi” Bryant and her teammates, memorials and art honoring the late player have proliferated across LA.
But, the art production company Branded Arts, headed by Warren Brand, wanted to do something different. On Aug. 24, also known as “Mamba Day,” in honor of Bryant, Branded Arts, in partnership with West Coast Trial Lawyers, unveiled the mural dedicated to Bryant at its Downtown headquarters.
Nate Stranzl, who helped coordinate the massive Kobe mural in DTLA and previously worked at Kobe’s production company, Granity Studios, said the goal was to pay “tribute to the side of Kobe not many people knew about, the side that dedicated his time to storytell ing … to honor Kobe as a visionary, not just a player.”
To create the large-scale mural, Branded Arts collaborated with world-renowned artists, 3D muralist Sérgio Odeith and LA artist and activist Nikkolas Smith, who both designed and executed the piece. The pair completed the mural in 10 days — just before the grand reveal on Mamba Day.
The mural is titled “Grana,” a term Kobe coined and used in his production company and books, which represents magic and the capacity for greatness within all of us. Stranzl, who helped create the term at Granity Studios, said, “Grana is a magical substance in Kobe’s world — like the force, an inner potential to be the greatest version of yourself and unlock magical abilities,” but to sum it up — “inner greatness.”
The piece is the largest Kobe mural in the LA area, spanning the total of the building’s
south-facing facade, and the only one of the only murals that depict him out of uniform. The mural features Kobe at the center; to his left is a black mamba, alluding to his nickname on the court; and to the right is Gigi along with Gravity-inspired characters.
This composition was a deliberate artistic choice to depict the duality of Kobe Bryant; the left side represents his intensity and drive on the court; and the right his creativity, author ship and dedication to his family.
Robert Davtyan, a West Coast Trial Lawyers representative, stated they wanted to pay homage and “show people who Kobe was, not just as a player but as a person,” and to give something back to the city that helped forge Kobe’s career and legacy.
The mural is just blocks away from Crypto.com Arena, where Kobe played for the Lakers. Now, fans can pay tribute to the Hall of Famer on the way to the place where he changed the game of basketball.
An eponymous short film accompanies the mural, following three young athletes as they discover their own Grana spliced with behind-the-scenes shots of the mural painting pro cess. Adjacent to the mural will be a plaque with a QR code with which viewers can access the film.
Built in 1928, the Trust Building is a historic art deco landmark in Downtown LA. It was designed by famed architects John and Donald Parkinson and originally called the Title Insurance & Trust Company building.
In a wave of recent acquisitions and investments, the Trust Building is one of many DTLA Historic Core icons being given a second lease on life thanks to restoration projects that have brought in newly en hanced retail spaces while maintaining the original character and ar chitectural details of the building.
Under the ownership and management of Rising Realty Partners and Lionstone Investments, the Trust Building has welcomed the José An drés Group (JAG), a creative team under the leadership of Spanish chef José Andrés known for its dining concepts, as a tenant.
The 11-story Spring Street location will house both the José An drés Restaurant (JAR) group and the newly created José Andrés Media (JAM) division, while plans for a forthcoming rooftop restaurant and bar by José Andrés are currently being with a full debut aimed for fall 2023.
“We are making a clear commitment to continue our investment in the West Coast as we bring our culinary expertise, restaurant and me dia teams to Downtown Los Angeles,” JAG President Sam Bakhshande hpour said.
JAG selected the Trust Building to further establish a culinary strong hold in DTLA, building upon its recent growth, which saw the introduc tion of five original concepts at Conrad Los Angeles within The Grand LA, designed by legendary architect Frank Gehry. There, JAG debuted two new restaurants: San Laurel, featuring the flavors of Spain as seen through a California lens, and Agua Viva, a chic rooftop restaurant fea turing Latin and Asian flavors.
“The Trust Building is a beautiful historic property where we have the opportunity to not only build community by creating incredible culinary anchors but to also invest in the future of the neighborhoods in which we reside,” Bakhshandehpour described.
Formed in 2021, José Andrés Media was created to share how food connects people around the world. The production company special izes in unscripted and scripted television series, books, podcasts and digital short- and mid-form content with a focus on food-related sto ries and characters, and the culture of food.
As an iconic DTLA property with a storied past that dates back to the 1920s, the Trust Building’s owners have not only looked to restore the building’s image through their multimillion-dollar renovation and modernization effort but its influence in the city as well.
“This is a milestone for Downtown Los Angeles and our city’s re bounding restaurant and creative economy,” Rising Realty Partners co-founder and CEO Christopher Rising said. “The opportunity to wel come such an accomplished leader as José Andrés to the Trust Build ing truly solidifies the city’s bright future.”
WHERE: 433 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles
INFO: thetrustbldg.com
By Bridgette M. Redman LA Downtown News Contributing Writer
If you are an immigrant in this country, or even a naturalized citizen, your whole world can revolve around paperwork. Your safety and the ways you can participate in life depend on the documents you carry.
Jesús I. Valles, themselves a naturalized citizen, was intimately familiar with this ex istence and when their brother was deport ed, they wrote a series of 20 poems that, with the help of director Rudy Ramirez, was turned into a lyric one-person stage show.
“(Un)Documents,” which runs at the Lati no Theater Company from Friday, Oct. 14, through Sunday, Nov. 20, explores their life as a queer theater maker who has journeyed across both sides of a river, moved between languages and found their place in the Unit ed States.
It is, the theater explains on its website, a work in which “they create a new kind of documentation written with anger, fierce love and the knowledge that what makes us human can never be captured on a govern ment questionnaire.”
Valles originally performed the poems in front of friends, collaborators and theater makers in Austin, Texas. They asked the audi ence, “Can these poems live as a show?”
“The impulse to do that was largely due
to the fact that people who have a close relationship to immigration policy in this country, so much of our life is dictated by paper,” Valles said. “How we can report our lives and every single movement on paper, which ultimately flattens our experience.
It flattens our aliveness, the richness of our lives. There was something that felt really important about performance as the anti dote to the flattening of the bureaucracy of immigration. The instinct to perform it and have these poems live in a more embodied way was very much a direct response to the stifling ways that paperwork can make us feel in this country.”
They credit Ramirez with helping to trans form the piece, calling him the doula of this show. Ramirez invited them to finish a full draft so that it could be the headline show for a Latinx performance festival’s inaugu ral event in Austin. Valles had worked many times with Ramirez and they described him as really understanding how they work on stage, what their impulses are as an actor.
“Rudy was able to fine-tune and have a conversation with my instincts and rhythms as a writer,” Valles said. “A lot of the writing that happened in later iterations of docu ments was really the result of Rudy gently nudging and asking questions and asking for clarification about certain story bits and
asking for ways to make the story a little bit clearer and a little bit more unified for audi ence members, while also respecting those things that felt private or specific to com munity.”
For example, parts of the show have lines or dialogue that are delivered entirely in Spanish. For the most part, they don’t trans late them. It won’t make audiences who don’t know Spanish miss any part of the sto ry, but it also invites in Spanish-speaking au dience members and lets them know there is something just for them.
“That simultaneous invitation and cre ation of spaces that are just for us inside the scripts, that’s really important,” Valles de scribed.
Valles said that every time they have per formed “(Un)Documents,” they feel they have been accompanied by their family. There are moments in the show where they perform as their mother, father, brother or sister.
“I never feel alone when I’m perform ing it,” Valles said. “I feel as if, when I voiced them, when I become them in body, I can bring them up there with me. For somebody like my brother, who was deported more than 10 years ago now, it feels like a magical way of challenging immigration policy. I’m able to bring my brother back here for a few
moments onstage.”
Their brother’s deportation was the cata lyst to this show in part because his experi ence was such a deep contrast to their own way of attaining citizenship even though the circumstances of their arrival in this country weren’t very different.
“Both of us were here undocumented,” Valles said. “But through accidents of luck and bureaucracy and time and geography, one of us was able to become a citizen, then the other one was deported. There’s some thing that feels really cruel about the way that these destinies get doled out. Much of the show was born out of my need to wres tle with that cruelty and understand it and respond to it.”
The second event that led urgency to the creation of this show was the 2016 election and seeing how volatile immigration policy is and how it can change with the whims of any given administration. During the show Valles talks about how as a naturalized cit izen, they are safe. Yet, during the Trump administration, they started to hear about cases where people were being denatural ized or about the detention of citizens who couldn’t immediately provide identification.
“I kept thinking about how volatile cit izenship actually is and that in this coun try, citizenship actually means personhood,”
Valles said. “Depending on the whims of any given administration, your personhood could be called into question at any moment.”
They said they didn’t want the only thing they left behind to be bills, a Social Security card and their past-due notices from the library. This performance feels to them the closest thing to archiving a history that they believe is worth preserving.
As Valles has performed this around the country, they’ve engaged in conversations with audiences after the show, audiences who are always eager to share stories around immigra tion. It’s brought home to Valles how many people in this country have an actual, palpable, visceral connection to the immigration system either because they are undocumented, for merly undocumented or have family who immigrated to this country.
“Yet, one of the contracts that we signed with the country and the immigration system here is a contract of silence because to talk about these things openly would be to give away information that would be dangerous, that would put us at risk or that will hurt too much,” Valles said. “There’s something that happens inside the theater space, inside the performance space, when people are able to talk about these things openly or hear them openly. That feels like an invitation to breathe, to acknowledge these histories.”
Despite being very explicit about their stance on queerness, immigration and migration, Valles said they haven’t experienced any pushback.
Developing the show led them to wrestle with their relationships to their brother, their fa ther and their masculinity.
“That definitely was not part of the plan,” Valles said. “Writing the show, I was realizing the sort of strange exclusion or difference that I felt from them, that I always felt different from them. I felt like I was doing boyhood wrong because I wasn’t interested in the things they were interested in. This is strange, but I’ll make the analogy. It’s the first time I started to no tice borders, that there are certain checkpoints in life and in our behavior that we sometimes have to meet or be able to pass. The inability to pass these checkpoints gets us in trouble.”
They noticed their differences in such things as a disinterest in sports and a love for Bea Ar thur, “The Golden Girls” and “Designing Women.” They described themselves as being a mark edly queer child in a family of otherwise very masculine men.
Yet, their pop culture interests and queer sensibility are something they believe allowed them to acclimate to the United States more quickly. They learned U.S. history and pop cul ture watching shows from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Those things helped them pass as an American even before they were naturalized.
In the show, they talk about formative experiences they had as a teenager hooking up with older men at Barnes & Noble and how that influenced what they thought about doing “good” things and “bad” things.
“You could do a thing that was deemed bad as long as nobody knew about it or saw it or perceived you as such,” Valles said. “If you could keep a good front — and I was a really, real ly solid student in high school; I had to be good on paper. If I was good on paper, then I could get away with some semblance of ‘behaving badly’ because no one was going to talk about that. At a citizenship interview, nobody was going to ask about my queerness; they were go ing to ask me about my grades. That felt for me like such a strange permission to move inside my being queer.”
Valles expressed deep gratitude to the Latino Theater Company for staging a full run of their show. When they were growing up in Texas, they did a lot of theater, speech and debate. Many of the Latino artists that they read about back then and those with last names they rec ognized were making theater at the Latino Theater Company.
“There’s a sense of lineage and a sense of pride for me being in this space,” Valles said. “Be cause of the company’s history, because of how much the particular artists and how much the Latino Theater Company has meant for so many Latino artists working in the U.S. today. LA is not my home, and yet something about this feels like a kind of homecoming. It just feels really lovely and wonderful.”
They describe Los Angeles as being an incredibly special place that is home to a wide net work of people from all over the world. Anyone, they said, who lives in Los Angeles has al ready been touched by immigration policies. It’s why they feel that “(Un)Documents” is a sto ry worth sharing here.
“(Un)documents”
WHERE:
Fall has come to LA. For many, that means Halloween, bearable afternoons and all-things pumpkin. But for large swaths of Los Angelenos, Latino people across the globe and the 1.2 million Los Angeles residents of Mexican ancestry, it means marigolds, sugar skulls and the celebration of life and death, Día de Los Muer tos, known as the Day of the Dead.
On Saturday, Oct. 22, Grand Park will kick off its 10th annual Día de Los Muertos celebration, which will continue for 12 days, through Thursday, Nov. 3. This year cel ebrates Grand Park’s 10th Día de Los Muertos event, which has occurred each year since the park’s inception in 2012, including during COVID-19 when events were vir tual.
The opening day will consist of performances from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Grand Park in Downtown LA. Acts will include the Las Catrinas Mariachi Band, local dance compa ny Grupo Folklorico Huitzillin, theater group Teatro Aztlan, and poetry organization Women Who Submit. A few artists even plan to complete their altars opening day to include the public in their artistic process.
The 12-day art installation consists of 22 altars, or “ofrendas,” of various shapes and sizes peppered throughout the park, created by local artists and community organiza tions.
“From the first year of the park’s opening, this has always been an important event for our community and a community-focused undertaking,” said Cristina Lucio, Grand Park’s associate manager of programs.
“When people come into the park, we want them to feel the intimacy from the art ists. … We want the experience to be intimate and impactful and feel that the com munity supports them.”
The event is in collaboration with community art center, Self Help Graphics & Art, as it has been for years. This year’s curator is artist and educator, Consuelo Flores, who selected artists and community organizations to create altars commemorating ideals, people and places.
A few organizations creating altars for the event include Women Who Submit, a lit erary organization that seeks to empower women-identifying and nonbinary writers to publish their writings; the Latino Theater Company; and The Wall Las Memorias, a community health and wellness organization dedicated to serving Latino, LGBTQ and other underserved populations.
Respectively, their altars will honor storytellers from marginalized communities, art ists and supporters who have dedicated their lives to theater, and those with HIV/AIDS who have passed during the pandemic.
The community altar, designed by Flores and Self Help Graphics & Art, is the largest altar at the festival and is dedicated to loved ones lost in the community, specifically to the children and teachers who lost their lives during the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Park patrons are encouraged to bring photos, trinkets and letters to add to the community altar to celebrate the lives of loved ones passed.
“Death is something we all deal with,” Lucio said. “We want this to be a celebration where we can unite as a community through art and culture to support and grieve to gether.”
People from all walks of life come through each year to wander the grounds of the park, marvel at the altars alight at night, and are encouraged to find altars they con nect to.
Two years ago, the Lakers won the NBA Championship. It was in the midst of the global pandemic in an empty arena in Central Florida.
The architect of that team — Lakers Vice President of Basketball Operations and general manager Rob Pelinka — fondly recalls the historical moment, though it was missing one significant component: the fans.
“It is the heartbeat of the team,” Pelinka said from Crypto.com Arena as the Lakers were days away from the start of the 2022-23 NBA campaign, the club’s 75th anniversa ry season.
“I remember Jeanie Buss talking about Dr. Jerry Buss. When he bought the team, it was about getting to that No. 1 spot in terms of total championships. In 2020, we got No. 17. That tied us at first with those other guys (Boston Celtics).
“The fans are that energy, whether it is in person in this building or in spirit in 2020 when we know they were behind us.”
The fans are indeed back, but the architect now faces new on-court challenges. In typical Pelinka fashion, however, he is excited by the challenge and talked glowingly about the opportunity that is ahead of his team.
It is his team. Fresh off reportedly signing a contract extension in the offseason that will take him through the 2025-26 season, Pelinka, the former super-agent now in his sixth season on the job, started his off-season by naming Darvin Ham as head coach.
“He is a super competitive coach. He really challenges guys. Accountability is a big thing,” said the 52-year-old Pelinka sitting in the new-look Chairman’s Club, one of the highlights of the arena’s current renovation process.
“It is about playing the right way. What I appreciate the most about him so far is that you want a leader who can have the hard conversations, who can have honest conver sations with players. It is not just the tactics of the game. He does a great job of reach ing the player, of challenging the player. … Training camp really reflected that identity.”
The season began with camp. Ham for one was looking to put a stamp on the squad, which features some summer additions courtesy Pelinka and his executive front office team.
“You bring in Patrick Beverley and Juan Toscano-Anderson and Dennis Schröder. Those are feisty competitors who help elevate your team’s game.”
During the 2020 playoffs, the club’s tenacity on defense was a big-time calling card. Last year, however, the postseason was barely in the conversation as the team stag
gered through a 33-win season. In 2021 the team lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Pelinka had a tremendous amount of work to do. For him, it starts with competition.
“There was a really big spirit of competition that we have seen so far. I was at practice today and you saw guys staying afterwards, having shooting competitions and talking and joking with each other. Elevating one another’s game has been good to see … see ing young guys grow allows the veterans to come back and compliment their coach.
Darvin commands a good level of competition,” said Pelinka, who has also witnessed the Lakers failing to make the playoffs in three out of five seasons as GM.
“Defensively we like guys who sacrifice and are willing to play those roles … elevat ing the level of competition in practice is great to see. Guys who play their role in the creases allow the Big Three — the superstars — to be the unicorns that they can be.”
Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook are stars, but that top star, of course, is LeBron James, who has played a total of three playoff games at Crypto.com Arena since joining the purple and gold four years ago. Championships remain the goal — remember that organizational goal of pushing past the hated Celtics — but the ultimate dream season has King James breaking the NBA’s greatest individual record of all time capped by a season of confetti falling from the rafters … in front of adoring fans.
“Someone mentioned to me the other day that the Lakers are the first organization to sign LeBron to a contract, and then extend him twice. That had never happened be fore, and I think that is a proud moment for Jeanie Buss with the way she leads our or ganization and what it stands for. With the trust and belief for him to make a long-term commitment to us again, you can tell he is really excited about this season.
“He looks lean and strong, probably trying to keep up with his sons. He just looks en ergized. Signing him to a second extension was a huge moment in Lakers history espe cially as he approaches becoming the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.
“That is jaw dropping just to say.”
From their origins in Minneapolis, the winners of 17 championship trophies will celebrate Season No. 75 throughout the season. The Lakers kick-off their year on the road in San Fran cisco on October 18 versus the defending World Champion Warriors. The Lakers begin at home on October 20 versus the rival Clippers to begin a two-game homestand. James en ters 2022-23 projected to need approximately 50 games played to pass Kareen Abdul-Jab bar’s record of 38,387 career points — a mark that has stood since 1984.
Calling Dodgers games since 1959, baseball’s pre-emanate Spanish-language voice, Jaime Jarrín, is retiring upon the conclusion of the season, capping off a brilliant 64-year career with the team. Jose Mota, who has known Jarrín since he was kid, shares with LA Downtown News readers a special tribute to his mentor:
Because of my Major League dad, I have been around so many wonderful people with the Dodgers organization. As an aspiring broadcaster after my playing career ended, it was all the more wonderful to be around the greatest voices in baseball, and those are Vin Scully and Jaime Jarrín.
I was really excited at the start of this season to have the opportunity to join the Dodgers and join the world-class, globally recognized organization. I accepted a po sition on the broadcast team and am blessed to be around Jaime again and to follow in the footsteps of my father, Manny.
Upon taking the job I looked forward to connecting with the Dodger fan base in
Los Angeles and around the world in both English and Spanish. A huge part of that excitement of course was the opportunity to work with the one and only Mr. Jarrín.
My earliest memories of Jaime are vivid. I was 5 years old, and we would listen to him on the radio. We mostly lived in the Dominican Republic, but during the summer we lived in Los Angeles since my dad was with the Dodg ers. As soon as we landed at LAX, we would hear them on the car radio. It was that ‘we had arrived’ moment and, boy, did we enjoy listening to those voices.
There was always a special relationship between my father and Jaime. They are compadres. It went well beyond him calling his games and accomplish ments. My dad has always helped collaborate on the Spanish broadcasts. When there were team parties, team events, we were always close to the Jar rín family.
It was also my dad who would help introduce Jaime to many Latin players. Meeting players from the Dominican, from the Caribbean, helped Jaime and his partners do their jobs so well. My dad would take these young players un der his wing and pull them aside and say, “This is Jaime Jarrín. He deserves a proper introduction.” My dad was so often the first contact point for the play ers to learn who Jaime Jarrín was, who Vin Scully was.
I had one of the most privileged, lucky, blessed and enriched upbring ings a boy child could have. Now, as an adult, I feel equally blessed. My Major League dad played most of his career at Dodger Stadium, a baseball paradise rich in history, and it was at Chavez Ravine where I met the love of my life, my wonderful bride of 34 years.
Gentlemen like Jaime and Vin opened my appetite to pursue what I do now, which is a marvelous blessing. And being at Dodger Stadium — our home away from home — is again a dream come true.
This year I got to share a booth with Jaime many times. Our on-air relation ship was highlighted this year by working the MLB All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium. He and I worked the Home Run Derby together. I have served as his analyst this season when Fernando Valenzuela was not working a game. We blend very well, like we have been doing it together for so many years.
His strengths as a broadcaster are many. He is so engaging in every single sense. He makes you feel like you are sitting on your grandparent’s lap, enjoy ing the ride and everything happening within the game. He cultivates a great environment yet expresses so well the importance of a game. He makes you feel like it was a big event but also you could relate to him like he was a mem ber of your own family.
His connection with the audience is special. I think it is even more special because he was never a player himself. His background was more in news broadcasting. What he has done during his career to always have a connec tion with everyone who is listening. When the English-speaking fans started to learn who he was, and the role he has played over the years — he was the interpreter for Fernando for so long and don’t forget how popular he became Jaime’s brand rose. He soon became as integral to a Dodgers broadcast as Vin Scully. It is remarkable how many people he has touched globally.
He has always been guiding me along. He thought I had a bright future in this business going back some 20 years, always encouraged me not to limit myself, and along with my wife, my parents, and Vin Scully himself, encour aged me to become a full-time bilingual broadcaster. Something else I marvel at is his longevity I can only dream of working in this industry for as long as Jaime has. Sixty-four years on the job is incredible.
I wish him nothing but joy in his post-career endeavors. He is going to en joy retirement. He is going to crave not being tied down by a schedule. He has family that he will spend a lot of time with.
I am very thankful for his years of friendship. I am also very blessed to con sider him, and the members of his family, as my family.
Gracias, Jaime.
Jose Mota played in the big leagues and this season began calling select games for both the Dodgers’ Spanish and English radio stations. An immigrant from Ec uador, Jarrín’s final on-air sign-off on KTNQ (1020 AM) marks the end of his Hall of Fame career.
Grand Park celebrated its 10th anniversary with two days of music perfor mances — featuring LA-based musicians Tolliver, Boogaloo Assassins and Las Cafeteras — artwork, arts and crafts, pop-up shops and free wellness activities family. Staff photographer Chris Mortenson captured the festivities.
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