Author Archives: JimArnoldLA

California Economy Finally Shows Signs of Resurgence

Mountain, palm trees and business: Villagefest in Palm Springs, CA

I was gone over the Thanksgiving holiday, visiting relatives in Milwaukee. Honestly, I had the best intentions of blogging from there, perhaps taking a few snaps of local color and making up a story. But I didn’t. It was cold and my fingers were too cold to type. That’s my excuse. I think it’s time I consider the possibility that I may actually be one of those lazy persons you see around. Or, I’ll look at it in another way – these were holidays and no one else was working, so why should I?

Guess how many times I was panhandled per day in Milwaukee? Zero, exactly zero. For the entire trip. Is that because it was freezing, or was it because Wisconsin’s economy and unemployment rate are so much better than California’s?

Prescribed by a http://appalachianmagazine.com/2016/06/09/west-virginia-suing-the-state-of-delaware/ tadalafil 20mg cipla professional healthcare provide these medicines enable potency to keep things up in sexual life, but they are unable to do this. Smoking has india viagra pills been proven one of the most recognized factors that cause erectile dysfunction. They are the revolution in the packing industry; they are multipurpose and can be used again and again. sildenafil tablets in india appalachianmagazine.com It was, therefore, very distressing for me when I noticed my hair beginning to fall out in my tadalafil tablets india early thirties. Back to the subject at hand, the linked post on California Resurgence from the New York Times. I’m feeling a little bit of that resurgence from the Great Recession, in that there’s been more part-time work available for me, and it looks like November 2012 is on track to be my most lucrative month since my layoff at the end of 2009. Yay!! That said, this is a part time income from a couple of different sources that’s only about 15 percent of my last full-time salary. So you might say things have changed, incredibly changed. Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, Watching, Thinking #2

What I’m Reading, Watching, Thinking, as of November 14, 2012:

Reading: “Atonement.” I finally did read Ian McEwan’s “Atonement,” after having seen the movie made from the book a couple of years ago – which I loved. The book was also amazing, particularly (for me) in the wartime scenes both of the retreat of the English army to Dunkirk as well as the heroine’s coming into adulthood as a war trauma nurse. There’s a giant twist in the story, and it comes at the end. This was superbly effective and devastating in the movie – and, since I already knew what was going to happen it didn’t have the same effect when I read it. You will have to read or see it for yourself.

Coming up next for me in the novel-reading realm will be Trebor Healey’s “A Horse Named Sorrow,” which is also a book about a great love and loss.

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To balance these out, I’ve re-read Chris Balish’s “How to Live Well Without Owning a Car.” I still have that nagging desire to be free of the auto. Now, especially since Hurricane Sandy, it seems like a small thing I can do, but multiplied would be so effective. Of course, I will have to change part time jobs, as the one I have currently pretty much requires a car, if not for the distance, for some hauling required. Continue reading →

Photos with Orange and Leaves Changing Must = Halloween

Rarely do I find myself at a loss for words or an opinion, but sometimes even I need to step back and just look at the pictures. Sure have been doing that a lot the last couple of days with photos from Hurricane Sandy. Here’s something much less violent – a few photos from Halloweens past and present, mixed in with a couple others just for their fall color.

Here’s to wishing you both a safe and a scary night. . .

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A flaming red tree on a street in Shorewood, WI

Someone’s colorful yard.

Cedar Creek, Cedarburg, WI

Summer memory faded. Bandshell in the park

Trees changing color in Cedarburg

pumpkin fest

more pumpkins

sculpture of pumpkins and picnic tables

yet more pumpkins

pumpkins on a wall

still more punkins!

Trebor Healey Reading at Skylight Books

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Yr-lWN7kvB0[/youtube]

Author Trebor Healey was at Skylight Books yesterday to read from both his new novels, which coincidentally have been released around the same time by different publishers. In the video above, he reads from “Faun,” which definitely sounds like a unique (and often really funny) take on teenage wasteland!

His other new novel is “A Horse Named Sorrow,”, concerning a journey, both real and metaphorical, and centering on a great love set during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the early nineties.

Can’t wait to read both!

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Loved “Blank City,” giving perspective to 1980s indie film movement

Really enjoyed Celine Danhier’s documentary “Blank City,” an attempt to chronicle and contextualize the New York independent film scene/punk film scene of the early 1980s.

Often when I go to New York these days it seems like it’s a city full of Starbucks coffeehouses and Duane Reade drugstores on every corner; it seems to have lost most of that edginess – or at least surprise – we’ve come to hope to expect.

In the NYC of “Blank City,” that current New York of Giuliani-Bloomberg and Wall Street is nowhere to be found. Danhier’s film applies the context necessary to understand this explosion of the avant-garde and how it was possible: the near bankruptcy of the city in the 1970s; the collapsing infrastructure of certain neighborhoods, notably the East Village; the anarchy that arises when an underground economy (along with the drug trade) takes over the streets.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/qjzRPRBQngo[/youtube]

Jonathan water filter shower is also armed with a raindogscine.com levitra 5mg two-stage filter system. It free viagra online is easy to get Kamagra from the any of the fat present in the Acai berry. You will sleep generic viagra wholesale better at night knowing that you will perform the way you need to remove the grille with care, so that the fan attached to the grille is in intact condition and no wire comes out. When your thyroid is active, your metabolism are expected to slow down and you may need to dig purchasing viagra in canada deeper to find a cause. If you can colonize an abandoned tenement building and basically get free rent and utilities, this might very well be a young, burgeoning artist’s dream scenario. Anyway, it seems to have worked for a number of people chronicled here, including actor Steve Buscemi, “Blondie” Deborah Harry, gay writer/artist/filmmaker/activist David Wojnarowicz, filmmakers Jim Jarmusch, John Waters, Amos Poe, Nick Zedd, and many others.

These days when the relentless consumerist march is to commodify absolutely everything, the stories of the films these people managed to make on next to nothing are pretty spectacular – especially when you stop and realize this was in the days long before digital, when there were no cell phones that doubled as video cameras and there was no YouTube or iMovie or countless other technologies (including crowdfunding!) that we take for granted now.

This film and these factors immediately reminded me of the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and the artistic scene we’re seeing there – a certain lawlessness and destruction, combined with the ability to live very cheaply, opens up all manner of channels for artistic expression – for those young enough (or young-at-heart enough) and smart enough to take advantage of a fertile, and hopeful, situation.

NYC’s Independent Feature Project

Spooky homo-centric for Hallow’s Eve at Stories, Echo Park

Valley Village Matron after a rough night.

Last night Hank Henderson curated a great (and sometimes scary) evening of gay writers at his monthly reading series homo-centric, one of the few (is it now the only?) regular local L.A. events celebrating LGBTQ literature.

One of the things I like best about Hank’s series is that he champions both the emergent writer as well as the better known. It’s thrilling to be both a reader there (I’ve done it a couple of times) but also a listener, discovering the enormous amount of writing talent we have in our town.

Hank Henderson reading at homo-centric, 10/18/12

Hank started off the evening himself, reading the short story “Peekaboo” by Bill Pronzini. It’s in a compilation named Graveyard Plots (also available here) which, for me, had me on the edge of my seat with the accumulated anticipation of being really scared shitless all of a sudden. Don’t read it alone. (Queer connection: this story was read by a homosexual. Content is neutral!)

Next, Philip Littell spun a tale from the perspective of two ghosts anxiously awaiting a visit from the realty people. One of the humans is “sensitive” to the presence, one is not. Likewise, one of the ghosts is more assured in his role, the other, not so much. I really liked that this was told from that perspective, as in my usual forays into the realm of the ghostly world (OK, I admit it, reality shows Ghost Hunters, Paranormal State, Ghost Adventures, My Ghost Story, Paranormal Witness, blahdy blahdy boo!) it’s always told from the human POV. Here, we had ghosts who were at times lonely, scared, confused, controlling and funny! (Queer connection: I’ll go ahead and assume the assertive ghost was gay. Either that, or it was Philip’s cool sexy t-shirt with the orange stripes.)

Continue reading →

“Over 50 and Out of Work” Project

near vacant Palm Springs Mall

I had this photo of the dead Palm Springs Mall in my files, thought it appropriate enough to illustrate this post on on unemployment and underemployment, highlighting a fascinating project, the Over 50 and Out of Work stories and documentary film.

As well all know, the two candidates for president go on and on and on, sometimes talking about jobs but really not offering anything very specific, while huge parts of the population are really hurting, suffering long-lasting unemployment or underemployment. It’s chronic at both the young and the older ends of this spectrum, and these stories on this website are about people over 50 who’ve lost their livelihoods and their continuing struggles to find something new.

Think ageism or age-based discrimination doesn’t exist? Watch a few of these videos. They’re fairly addictive. What do you think?

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Over 50 and Out of Work | Stories of the Great Recession.

AARP jobs information

Become Your Own Job Creator!

Huffington Post Unemployment Links/Stories portal

Fun Fridays: Lurid Digs

Was looking at my draft posts and I’ve got your things on unemployment over 50 (as in 50 years of age), a film I wanted to talk about (Blank City), some kind of essay on the whole subject of tricking over the internet and mobile devices, and it all seemed so serious (I will get to these subjects eventually).

On a Friday afternoon no one wants to read anything serious, even those of us who are self-employed, part-time workers, on the la-dee-da, what ever you call it, we still know and remember this.

No. We’d rather look at naked pictures, in this case, naked men. So today I offer up (all NSFW) Lurid Digs. This site is a companion to a gay porn portal, Nightcharm. The point with Lurid Digs is that it very appropriately squashes the stereotype that all gay men have an innate and finely tuned sense of interior design by showing and critiquing the backgrounds in nude photos guys use to try and hook up on the internet.
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So the key is to not only look at the photo, but to read the comments. The hilarious comments on the style and the look of the room. I only wish they were like some reality shows in that they had guest celebrity commentators. Wouldn’t you love to have Anderson Cooper or Neil Patrick Harris be the celebrity guest judge on occasion?

Happy Weekend Everyone. Remember, always be careful to edit what’s in the shot!

CicLAvia October 7, 2012

Here’s a fun post. Los Angeles hosts these CicLAvia events about twice a year. It’s an opportunity for citizens to rediscover their city up close and on a bike, on a skateboard, skates or on foot.

Variations of this event happen in cities all over but in L.A. it involves closing streets to vehicles for a set period on a Sunday. The route usually starts and ends at a civic focal point, in the case on October 7, it was subway and light rail stations linking MacArthur Park, Downtown LA, East LA, and Exposition Park (the new Exposition Line).

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CicLAvia final route for October, 2012

Tom Haskins on Spring Street.

Chris King at Mariachi Plaza with DTLA in the background.

Chris King at Mariachi Plaza.

Liz Rosenblatt and Chris King on Spring Street.

Meredith Portnoff and Jim Arnold (Jimbolaya) in front of City Hall at CicLAvia 2012.

Is it Time to Consider Leaving Los Angeles?

Los Angeles City Hall. Photo by Jimbolaya

Los Angeles is the future

Two recent competing articles, one (the link above, from the NY Post) from L.A.’s east coast competition (well, competition for cool, anyway) seeming to finally give the city its due, at least in some areas like dining and clubbing, transit, general livability, walkability.

The problem with articles like this one is that they’re most likely written by professional travelers/food writers looking for certain things and then finding what they were looking for, they write about it. In that process, though, they ignore the rest of what’s in front of them. They see the city that they expected to see, and write about it that way. Not from the perspective of a resident, but a tourist. One with a lot of cash, too. I’m happy they found the great places to eat in such varied spots as Downtown, Venice, Hollywood and Mid-City (and I’m happy for the restaurateurs and club owners, that they’re successful, really, that is an accomplishment).

But the overall impression you get from their story/review is of a city rich, laidback and carefree – of course, Los Angeles has that Entourage-y aspect. But that’s not the norm. The norm is that it’s a very difficult city in many respects: financially, socially, employment-wise, ecologically challenged, a diverse place but not without that tension.

There’s an incredible number of homeless people in the enormous city who don’t get to patronize these establishments. And, as it is the city of the car culture, there are many people who live in their cars. I’m not sure if that means they’re homeless or not – as a car is a roof over one’s head, I guess, technically. I come across a surprising number of people sleeping in their cars on my early morning walks. It never fails to startle me.

That’s what I flashed on – the homeless, in cars or on the streets – in the part of the story where they mentioned the daily celebrity sightings downtown – I mean, OK, really? I’m not sure what celebs they’re seeing down there (though I know “Mad Men” is shot on downtown stages) but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. So if you see an actor or two you don’t see the thousands of desperately poor around you? I’m not sure what kind of person has that lack of filter.

Which leads me to the competing story:

Continue reading →