DOWNTOWN L.A.’s GRAFFITI TOWERS

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In this installment of J.T. the L.A. Storyteller Podcast yours truly sits down with P, the horrible vandal, to discuss L.A. City Council’s recent approval of over $4 million to “remove graffiti covering three abandoned skyscrapers in downtown L.A., secure the site, and restore the public right of way on the adjacent sidewalks.” We also go over the state of L.A. graff’ in the era of TikTok, and how it just may dove-tail with the [2028] Olympics scheduled to come back to town soon. It’s a truly can’t-miss episode and we salute @therobinsonspace for our special studio-time!

Find our latest for Making a Neighborhood, “The Eviction Machine of Los Angeles,” here. Also, did you know that Making Our Neighborhood: Redlining, Gentrification and Housing (2021), the magazine, is once again available for purchase? Grab your copy today, which supports only more storytelling and documenting for our communities, here.

(0:01) Hey, what’s going on Los Angeles? It’s J.T. and it’s Friday, April 12th, 2024
(0:25) Before we get started, a slight correction for the record
(0:44) Re: the marches for Immigrant Rights in the United States…
(1:05) Let’s take this opportunity to go through a brief list of the largest marches ever? THE TOP 5, historically, are…
(3:48) These were definitely larger marches than the March for the Great American Boycott, or the March for A Day Without an Immigrant, but it does still stand that in Los Angeles the Day Without an Immigrant March of 2006 remains the biggest in L.A. history
(4:20) With that said, here’s yours truly along with P, the Horrible Vandal, on graffiti in L.A.
(5:07) Introductions, and a shout out to the Robinson Space for Los Cuentos de Los Ángeles
(5:32) Welcome P, the Horrible Vandal
(7:06) Shout out Koreatown since if you know, you know
(7:47) The state of graffiti today with respect to the gentrification in L.A.
(9:33) Business Insider on Oceanside Plaza, now better known as the site of the Graffiti Towers
(11:20) Is LAPD still arresting people for graffiti given all of the homelessness on the streets?
(14:28) The Broken Window Theory
(20:20) Like other subcultures, graffiti has also grown into a major industry
(25:33) To be sure though, how do we engage the youth on graffiti?
(28:41) Regulating Social Media corporations vs regulating graffiti
(32:26) Looking into muralism and other “responsible” art-making for P
(36:04) If so many outsiders can make a living off L.A., why can’t artists from here make a living too?
(38:34) At the end of the day, graffiti is for everyone
(41:19) Shout out to the Horrible Vandal for the time, and all the writers. 100 percent

To make a one-time donation to my nonprofit work for working-class communities in Los Angeles, please do so here. To support the production of J.T. the L.A. Storyteller Podcast for as little as $5 a month, check out my page at patreon.com/jimbotimes.

J.T.

IT’S MANCHO ES UNA ARTISTA DESDE BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA QUE AHORA ENSEÑA EN MADRID

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BARCELONA. MADRID. BOGOTÁ. LOS ANGELES.

Notas oficiales se publican pronto. Por ahora, gracias otra vez a @itsmancho por una platica tan divertida sobre la importancia de arte y urbanismo accesible para todo el mundo. Estoy muy agradecido; estoy muy inspirado!

Recuerde también que la Excursión por los Barrios de Barcelona está en la segunda de seis semanas, y que la mejor manera de mantenerse al día con nosotros es a través de una membresía en patreon.com/jimbotimes. Toque o suscríbase durante los primeros 30 días, luego, antes de su primer cargo, ¡cancélelo!

¡Muchas gracias, como siempre!! ☺️🤞🏽

Para Los Cuentos de Los Angeles,

J.T.

EPISODE 46 – REDLINING, GRAFFITI & MUTUAL AID IN EAST HOLLYWOOD

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In our 46th episode, we chat with Ali Rachel Pearl: @alirachelpearl, who teaches writing in one of USC’s honors programs, and who’s directing a very special art campaign drawing attention to our Redlining, Gentrification and Housing Panel Series with This Side of Hoover: @samanta_helou. In addition to details for the campaign, Ali and I chat about her arrival to East Hollywood, her coming to terms with her initial entry into the area “as a gentrifier,” favorite intersections and moments in East Hollywood, and violence in suburbia VS violence in the inner city. We also discuss Ali and friends’ new East Hollywood Mutual Aid project. RSVP to our panel series ASAP!

J.T.

Los Angeles is Better for its Graffiti

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Although many business owners, police officers, parks and recreation teams and other professionals might disagree, to a young person in The City with a passion for self-expression, the art of graffiti is unquestionably a respectable and dignified way to get started.

In my teenage years I was a little writer or “tagger” myself before becoming a literary one. Marking my name out there in trailblazing fashion was an ambition that I shared with my peers at the time, and why wouldn’t we be ambitious about it? We were in the City of Stars, after all, surrounded by billboards from Calvin Klein and Coca Cola, which took their space above us regardless of how we might have felt about it.

Even beyond the billboards, however, American culture was just as crazy about “disruption” then as it is today. That is, the idea of American exceptionalism, or the sense of doing it anyway was just how my peers and I cut ourselves a piece of the American dream in our own little way. I can see no reason why it’d be any different for those still out there taking their space in this fashion today, letting their contemporaries and anyone else know with each ‘tag’ that:

They were here; that they made it; and that they are still going.

Of course, as time passed, graffiti art became for me just one of many ways to express myself. The fact of the matter is that after so many of the young graffiti writers around me were criminalized, I had to make a choice. I could either continue to subvert the laws and write my name out until the law of the land forced me stop, or I could just let it go and find something else to do. I chose the latter. Today, the one thing about graff that’s clear to me is that if you want to do it, it’s best to get the proper permissions first.

But it’s a lengthy process to come of age in the City of Los Angeles no matter what we do. As such, JIMBO TIMES salutes the graffiti writers of L.A., old and new alike, wherever they might be in their journey out here. Without them and their ambition, L.A. could only be half as glitzy and glossy for this scribe.

J.T.