Happy One Month
MacArthur Park Media has been live for exactly one month today, and we think we really love life on the web. LA Daily wrote about us, and so did Boing Boing. LAist, Univision, and Marketplace sent fan mail, the last of which was serious enough to make Antonio of MPM’s Tamales on the Run a national radio star on their show today. Many neighbors have written; some of the nice ones have commented. More than 1,000 people have visited MPM in this first month, a lot of them via a search for “macarthur park fake IDs” which I find amazing.
Also amazing: this photo and its makers, Louise Baker on Photoshop and Silas Dilworth on font design. I like the photo because I like the sign, and I like the sign because it lets you know that MacArthur Park still feels much of the time like it’s in the 80s. This is when infrastructural development essentially stopped here; refugees from El Salvador were arriving en masse, rent was cheap, the crime rate high, and for these and other reasons the neighborhood was left to date. So we still have signage like this, hot pink with jade and purple pop lettering. We still have Stand and Deliver murals. We still have stores of payphones, and the people who pay for them.
The other thing about the sign Westlake Mall is that it says Westlake Mall. To be clear, the neighborhood is actually named Westlake. We know this, city planners know this, so do people who work at the CRA. But people in the neighborhood, apparently, do not: when they say Westlake, they mean Westlake Street — the one just east of Alvarado. White people seem similarly confused, very often associating Westlake with Westlake Village, a suburb in the Valley, or (not kidding) The Westside Pavilion, a shopping center.
MPM loves MacArthur Park for all of its irony, this included, and we have so many more stories about this place on the way — stories of fake ID busts, Asian/Latino race relations, the future of bilingual education, and reporters’ notebooks from ride-alongs in bullet-proof vests with the Rampart Division’s gangs unit. We’re excited. We love it here.
More soon,
MPM
And I thought I was the only one who felt the 80’s (and even 70’s holdover)vibe! Take a walk on Sixth street and you’ll be sure to hear Rod Stewart and Led Zeppelin blasting on the speakers outside of a swap shop. Has anyone noticed all the (rock bands)Iron Maiden and KISS t-shirts being worn throughout the MacArthur Park area? These bands must have way overproduced these shirts back in the day and ended up being purchased for pennies by a local clothing distributor. I haven’t seen so many heavy metal band t-shirts promoting bands of the 70’s and 80’s since I was a kid in white suburbia Chicago.
Anybody else out there start humming ‘Rock and Roll all Night’ in their brain while seeing a KISS t-shirt being worn on Wilshire or Sixth, while the wearer probably has no clue who this band is? Not to mention the Ramones shirt I just saw today. Let me know if anyone else has felt a sense of nostalgia while mingling throughout our ‘hood.
Felicitaciones! Only one month and I’m on the edge of my seat… every post, photo, and audio to date has been loaded with authenticity; it’s so refreshing to experience an unguarded eye that humbly takes in and honestly story-tells out the true cultural character(s) in our midst, the tales that too often go unseen and unheard… thrilled to see all that MPM will offer the mentes of our mundo in the many meses to come!
Hey MPM
I finally got my computer up and running and ran to your site because I heard had to see you… great to read that so many out there are loving you! I have much to catch up on, and can’t wait to do so. brilliant new photo!
All of the pieces have been excellent, done with great care. May this site have many more birthdays.