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I’ve recently been reading The White Album by Joan Didion and today I heard that Vincent Bugliosi passed away. I thought this would be an appropriate passage about that strange, dark time.

There were rumors. There were stories. Everything was unmentionable but nothing was unimaginable. This mystical flirtation with the idea of “sin” - this sense that it was possible to go “to far”, and that many people were doing it - was very much with us in Los Angeles in 1968 and 1969. A demented and seductive vortical tension was building in the community. The jitters were setting in. I recall a time when the dogs barked every night and the moon was always full. On August 9, 1969, I was sitting in the shallow end of my sister in law's swimming pool in Beverly Hills when she received a telephone call from a friend who had just heard about the murders at Sharon Tate Polanski's house on Cielo Drive. The phone rang many times during the next hour. These early reports were garbled and contradictory. One caller would say hoods, the next would say chains. There were twenty dead, no, twelve, ten, eighteen. Black masses were imagined, and bad trips blamed. I remember all of the day's misinformation very clearly, and I also remember this, and wish I did not: I remember that no one was surprised” 

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I just like how all the Diebenkorn Ocean Parks look together.

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Top - L.A. Plays Itself, colored pencil on paper, 48″ x 84″, 2015

Bottom - LLYWOOD, colored pencil on paper, 36″ x 60″, 2015

Both drawings are currently in an exhibit titled Witty and Urbane located at the Fellows of Contemporary Art in Chinatown.

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Drove down Pico from Santa Monica all the way to Alvarado yesterday. Saw some great signs along the way and so much great architecture. You never know what will be gone tomorrow so I took what pictures I could.

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Top, storefront for sale in East Los Angeles

Bottom, Margaret Kilgallen quote

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I've been spending a lot of time on MLS just looking at L.A. bungalows. So many amazing photos.

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U.S.C (Urban Swarm Contemplated), colored pencil on paper, 4' x 6', 2014

I've been neglectful of this space. I spent the last part of 2014 working on this commission.

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I made a mini-love letter to the people of Los Angeles in the form of a 30 second video.

First is a clip of today’s police brutality march where 1,000+ of us shut down some streets of downtown LA. It was partially in solidarity with events in Ferguson, but mainly in memory of the multiple unarmed men of color the police have killed in our own city in the past couple of weeks. It’s ridiculous that this is so common of an occurrence. Apparently, someone else got shot by LAPD during our protest mere blocks away.

Shortly after, a few minute walk away, I came upon a three-block long oval of elderly Japanese women performing a choreographed dance routine to Pharrell’s “Happy.” It was cute and kind of a culture shock after shouting at the LAPD… yet also, in a weird way, kind of fitting. 

We got a lot of work to do, Los Angeles; keep being awesome in the meantime. 

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Saw this picture of a house for sale in my neighborhood. Looks like they put all the outlets on the outside of the house. Seems legit.

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Square Favela

Aerial view of Rio das Pedras shantytown (favela), next to Barra da Tijuca, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 28, 2014

Picture: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

Source: The Atlantic In Focus

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Santa Monica Pier (Big Night), colored pencil on paper, 15” x 40”, 2012

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Our house is not what you imagine when you imagine Los Angeles.

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I've been making these small, colored pencil drawings based on night aerial views. Pretty fun to make something in a couple of hours.

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The entire city of Florence, Italy is the same size as this highway interchange in Atlanta, Georgia. Via

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http://elitedaily.com/news/world/controversial-anti-homeless-spikes-prevent-homeless-sleeping-doorways/624292/

http://www.travelandpositiveliving.com/2014/04/whats-purpose-of-concrete-spikes-under.html

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2012/07/photos-guangzhou-sets-concrete-spikes-under-bridges-to-drive-away-homeless-people/

http://stsnext20.org/vignettes/2014/03/26/when-parisian-benches-have-politics-street-furniture-and-the-strategies-of-spatial-exclusion/

http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/photo-rue/2009/11/26/empecher-les-sdf-de-sasseoir-la-ville-ne-manque-pas-didees

http://www.morbleu.com/le-tiers-exclu-iv-des-dispositifs-architecturaux-anti-sdf/1547124430_1854ccee23_o/

http://fictioninternational.sdsu.edu/wordpress/catalog/issue-43-walls/do-not-remain/

http://www.bogoboo.com/bizarre-park-bench-spikes/

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Some interesting views I've seen lately.

The top one is the International Space Station as it glides over Los Angeles. It goes all the way around the earth every 90 minutes! But you can't see it during the day (too bright) or in the middle of the night (no reflection from the sun).

The second is a broken Sig Alert traffic camera that tipped towards the ground.

Up and down.

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Took a trip up north this week and happened to drive by the grammar school me, my brother, sister, niece and nephew attended K-5th grade. My mom worked there as a kindergarten aide too.

It recently closed for a year or two and is now re-opening as a school for  children with disabilities. The doors were open so I popped in.

It looked a little worse for wear but you can't beat the view from the playground.

Some of these photos look like they would be more at home at architecture of doom.

The interior had changed not at all since I went to school there over 30 years ago. Same textured walls, built in cabinets, blue classroom doors, same green linoleum.

I loved going to school here. The kids that went there all lived in the neighborhood. Our parents knew each other. We played at the same park every summer. The teachers were some of the best I've had. They would read novels to us while we made drawings, something I now do for a living.

 Standing on the playground, it was totally silent except for a tether ball chain pinging against it's pole, like something from a strange and beautiful dream.