Classic American West Coast Boxing

[The Kid]

HEY RICK AND ANY OTHER BRAVE PERSON.

THIS BOTTLE WILL LAST FOR YEARS,BECAUSE IT IS SO #$@$% HOT THAT YOU CAN ONLY TAKE A MICO SPOT OF IT ON ANYTHING. OTHERWISE YOUR MOUTH COULD BE WITHOUT FEELINGS FOR MONTHS!

Dave's Insanity $4.79
The original hottest sauce.
On Sale Now!
www.Pepperheads-Hotsauces.com

[The Kid]

Rog,

Great pictures of the famous Tijuana. I went to San Diego High from 1973 - 1976. I use to sell popcorn at the Wrestling matchs on Tuesday nights at 15th & E.

Saw all the greats, Bobo Brazil (RIP), Freddie Blassie (RIP), Mil Mascaras, Ernie The Cat Ladd (RIP), The Sheik, John Tolas, Andre The Giant and the list goes on

and on. And you Rog? What part of Diego did or do you stay in?

[The Kid]

Hi Randy,

Yes that Cota guy rings a bell. Give me some info on your boxing years. Randy ? Shields? No, he fought Miguel Mayon in San Diego. Randy The Hitman Hart? No, thats a wrestler. Randy Jones, No. He played baseball for the Padres. LOL

[bennie]

My son is growing up little by little. 2008 started out great with him winning the 2008 Naitonal Silver Gloves. Around this time last year he won the Junior Olympics for the third year in a row. Then the game of life began to deal us sad cards. My wife's grandma pasted away. Then my wife cousin crashes into the ocean (Oceanside) while flying one of those four man planes. My wife close friend goes. Then my dad gets cancer and we end up taking care of him all summer.
The whole summer Mo is sleeping with my dad in order to get him things during the night. We would train in Chula Vista in the afternoon and run at a local lake, in the College Grove area. I say all this to say that during all this drama and saddness, Mo was able to stay focused at the right time and still win the Ringside Boxing tournament in Kansas City for the third year in a row. He had already commited to box in Long Beach this past September and one week prior my dad pasted. Now he didnt look like the greatest but he sucked it up and won the bout. You can see this bout on YouTube. Just type in his name Mighty Mo Orozco.
His inter-strenght amazes me in that he almost puts himself in a semi trance when he performs or boxes. He is beginning his fourth year boxing and currently he is coming off a long neeed vacation of three months. He has had 66 bouts in that time and has won 60. He last fought in December in Mexicali and won. Of his six losses, he has defeated four of those guys in rematches, some 2 and 3 times. Those other two loses were to guy 24 months older and more mature. We will get them when they meet after 17 and the strenght in more on the same level. I have Mo going to a privite conditioning coach to work on his strenght. Medicine ball throwing, pushing ups, hopping, sprints, light weights, and the stuff I never did. LOL
He is in a pre-teen age but I keep a tight rope on him so he does not hang himself with bad decisions. He is set to box May 15th in Long Beach, if the California State Athletic Commission allows amatuer boxing to continue. If your not informed, the State forced all shows to cease due to some greedy people up north who used the kids to make a buck and now all hell as broke due to this. There you have the lastest on Mo. Below is a link to a documentary on him a little over a year ago.

The Kid




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJlArWxqBB4

Wow, this kid is dynamite!

[dagosd2000]

Rog,

Great pictures of the famous Tijuana. I went to San Diego High from 1973 - 1976. I use to sell popcorn at the Wrestling matchs on Tuesday nights at 15th & E.

Saw all the greats, Bobo Brazil (RIP), Freddie Blassie (RIP), Mil Mascaras, Ernie The Cat Ladd (RIP), The Sheik, John Tolas, Andre The Giant and the list goes on

and on. And you Rog? What part of Diego did or do you stay in?

Danny
I graduated from Point Loma High in 1965. I used to take in the wrestling matches too. Mr. Moto. Don Manookian(you pencil neck geek),and remember The Destroyer? BTW. Burke Emery who used to manage and train Art Hafey owns a bar in Clairemont where I live now. We talk on occasion. He's starting to feel the affects of a long career in boxing.

You like hot sauce? My wife is from Michoacan. She makes her own. I think her salsa is the best,but she has to make two kinds. One for me(not too hot) and one for her. Sets off the fire alarms. Rog

[scartissue]

Rog,

I fought under the name of Rudy Ramirez. I go by Rudy Orozco now but that another story for another day. Ruben Castillo, Maunel Lujan use to spar all the time. I hung out with Manuel's brother John in high school, San Diego High. I use to train in San Ysidro and my coach was Norman Bumpy Parra, some know him as Buzzsaw from his boxing days. My mom still lives in Encanto, right there by Lemon Grove.

Rudy! You old bastard! Welcome aboard. I should have known who this was, you're the only person who was able to verify that Famoso Gomez-Art Hafey result down in TJ. Seems like yesterday that you, Rick and I were in El Gato's lawyer's hospitality suite toasting Rodolfo Gonzalez as the latest inductee in the WBHF.

Scartissue

[dagosd2000]

Rudy(sorry I've been calling you Danny),
When you were at San Diego High,did you know the football coach Stan Murphy? I played ball with him at City College. He was quite a player. Rog

Also do you remember David Love?

[kikibalt]

Eastside high schoolers get a lesson in oral history


Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times
Ofelia Esparza, 77, a renowned artist and altar-maker, is one of the five filmed for the project. An unedited version of the documentary was showcased at the Southwest Oral History Assn. conference at USC.

A small group from Roosevelt High volunteers in a 10-month program organized by Cal State L.A. to film a documentary about five influential women in the community.
By Esmeralda Bermudez
March 29, 2009

Steve Barrios knows all about passing along stories. The kind of fleeting tales that zoom through cyberspace via MySpace and e-mail recounting the latest gossip on campus.

But not until recently did the 16-year-old discover a new kind of storytelling, the ancient form of oral history. The Roosevelt High School sophomore took part in a 10-month project organized by Cal State Los Angeles that pulled students off computers and put them face to face with five female activists from across the Eastside to conduct interviews and document their histories.

Eastside's oral historyTheir work will be part of a 20-minute video documentary that will be archived at the university and other institutions. It is also slated to debut at the college's film festival in May. On Saturday, Barrios and others for the first time showcased an unedited version of "Las Grandes de East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights: Women as Community Builders" at the Southwest Oral History Assn. conference at USC.

The event offered a four-day series of panels highlighting community groups often overlooked in history books.


An altar made by Ofelia Esparza, in her East L.A. home, displays photographs of her deceased husband and mother. Others featured in the film include an acclaimed playwright and an influential teacher.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
March 28, 2009

Topics included Mexican surfers in Venice, Chicano activists on the Westside, Japanese Americans in the San Fernando Valley, and gays in Oceanside and Camp Pendleton.

Baby-faced with a head full of tight curls, Barrios stood out in a room full of librarians and historians, men and women armed with PhDs and master's degrees in the art of storytelling. He is one of three remaining members of about a dozen students originally recruited from Roosevelt in July to participate in the project. Most of the teenagers were distracted by social lives, sports schedules and "other things that seemed cooler than oral history," Barrios said.

He had always wanted to know more about his Boyle Heights neighborhood but didn't know where to start until he volunteered for the video project.

"I learned a lot about the legacy of a person," Barrios said. "About stuff I'm not gonna find in books or the computer, and that I want to tell my kids about one day."

The project, paid for by the California Council for the Humanities, was led by Dionne Espinoza, an associate professor of Chicano studies and liberal studies at Cal State L.A., and Claudia Rodriguez, a writer and performer. The two chose five influential women from the Eastside, an area that has gained national attention in the past for powerful grass-roots movements organized by women.

The list includes Juana Gutierrez with Mothers of East Los Angeles Santa Isabel, a decades-old group that fights for social and environmental justice in the area; Theresa Soriano, president of Casa del Mexicano, a Boyle Heights center that reaches out to immigrants; Ofelia Esparza, a renowned artist and altar-maker; Josefina Lopez, an acclaimed playwright and founder of a community theater house; and Susana Reynoso, an influential teacher at Roosevelt High School for 15 years.

"We really wanted to draw out how women are contributing to this community," said Espinoza, who hopes that, once the project wraps up in May, the idea will be picked up and continued by a community organization.

In a separate project, the Chicano Resource Center at the county's East Los Angeles Library is launching its own oral history program with a $10,000 media grant. It will recruit high school students from across the Eastside to interview more than 100 community elders about their lives and the area's history.

Students will be taught video skills and their work will be archived at the center.

Persuading students to participate in the Cal State-organized project, sans school credit, was no easy task. Espinoza and Rodriguez launched a MySpace page promoting the idea, did presentations on campus and incorporated video into the project, rather than using an old-fashioned voice recorder.

In the interviews, the students' bashful voices can be heard asking the influential women how they reached their goals, what obstacles they faced and why they chose to continue living on the Eastside after all these years.

"People take from the community, but you also have to give back," Lopez, the playwright, explains to the teenagers.

The experience made Frances Pacheco, 17, more curious about the past and, in a way, about her future.

"If I ever get to be someone important, I want to be like that," she said. "To go back to Boyle Heights and live there, give back and enjoy the memories."

[email protected]

[kikibalt]

L.A. THEN AND NOW
Pro baseball in L.A. was more homey, personal


Los Angeles Times
Hollywood Stars first baseman Chuck Stevens bats in a Saturday afternoon game in the early 1950s at Gilmore Field. The team’s fans included actual Hollywood film stars -- plus mobster Mickey Cohen.

Long before Dodger Stadium existed, games were announced by a bugler on horseback; Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Humphrey Bogart cheered from the stands; and L.A. had its own Wrigley Field.

By Steve Harvey
March 29, 2009

Professional baseball got off to a slow start in Southern California.

So slow that in 1898, the San Jose Prune Pickers and the Santa Cruz Beachcombers were chosen over the Los Angeles Angels to join the California League.

Major leagues arrive Long goneImagine, depriving rival fans the joy of chanting "Beat L.A.!"

But the Angels, their status no doubt elevated when they were purchased by a pool-hall operator, were granted a franchise in the newly organized Pacific Coast League in 1903.

Of course, it was by no means certain that a small, insignificant town like L.A. could support a minor-league club. Some newspapers called the team the Tourists, implying that its stay wouldn't be long.

But the team developed a faithful following at Chutes Park (capacity: about 8,500), south of Washington Boulevard between Grand Avenue and Main Street.

Two of the most passionate fans of the Angels/Tourists were defense attorney Earl Rogers and his daughter, who grew up to be the author Adela Rogers St. Johns.

One day at Chutes Park, St. Johns recalled years later, "somebody started the yell that became a tradition in the Pacific Coast League. . . . 'Kill the umpire! We'll get Earl Rogers to defend you!' "

The Angels even had a greeter, the late columnist Matt Weinstock wrote:

"A jovial fellow in a baseball uniform rode a horse slowly through the downtown streets, Main, Spring, Broadway, waving at friends and occasionally blowing a bugle call by way of announcing the baseball game at 2 p.m."



It was a time, baseball historian Paul Zingg wrote, when ballparks were "shaped by the city blocks on which they were built, home to players who often lived in the same neighborhood as the fans."

Chutes Park was moved slightly east after the 1910 season when Hill Street, which then dead-ended at Washington, was extended south. The stadium was renamed Washington Park and several Angels were on the construction crew, including pitcher Frank Murphy, "who dug holes [and] surveyed," The Times reported.

Meanwhile, the Pacific Coast League installed another team in the industrial town of Vernon.

After a squabble with the city, however, the Vernon Tigers moved to Venice in 1913. It wasn't just the team that moved. Co-owner Eddie Maier dismantled the stands, fences and clubhouses and took everything along, writer Jay Berman later noted in The Times.

But attendance was disappointing in Venice, and the prodigal club returned to Vernon in 1915, trucking the stadium back again.

The appeal of otherwise humble Vernon and Venice was that they were the only towns in Los Angeles County where alcohol could be purchased.

The left-field area of Vernon's Maier Park featured an entrance to Doyle's Thirst Emporium, which boasted a 100-foot-long counter. Vernon left fielder Jess Stovall was known to step into the joint for a drink between innings. The Vernon Chamber of Commerce now occupies the saloon site.

In 1925, Washington Park was forced to close when the third base area was condemned by the city. It wasn't the third baseman's fault. The city wanted to extend Broadway south from Washington Boulevard, and third base was blocking the way.

So the team was purchased by chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley, who moved the Angels into a new stadium at 42nd Place and Avalon Boulevard, now Gilbert Lindsay Recreation Center.

L.A.'s Wrigley Field (not to be confused with the Chicago stadium) was larger than Washington Park. But it was still intimate enough, Zingg wrote, that Angels slugger Lou Novikoff could find inspiration by "having his wife sit in a box seat behind home plate with instructions to taunt him as loudly as she could."

The Vernon Tigers went through several more owners, including comic Fatty Arbuckle, who complained that the games made him too nervous. The Tigers later reconnected with the showbiz world when they adopted a new name in 1938, the Hollywood Stars.

The team's home was Gilmore Field, now the site of CBS' Television City. The real stars were such fans as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Humphrey Bogart, who sat in the stands rather than seek shelter in executive suites as celebrities do today.

Mobster Mickey Cohen occupied a box right behind the Stars' dugout. The understanding among the players "was that if anybody in [Cohen's] box said anything, just smile and wave," Stars first baseman Chuck Stevens told baseball historian Dick Dobbins. Cohen, luckily, was never known to issue the order, "Kill the umpire!"

In late 1957, the major leagues came to the West Coast and that was the end for the local Pacific Coast League teams and, soon after, their little ballparks.

The Los Angeles Angels name, of course, lives on in Anaheim.

The Hollywood Stars, on the other hand, are just a memory, though a more vivid one than the San Jose Prune Pickers and the Santa Cruz Beachcombers.

[email protected]

[dagosd2000]

Eastside high schoolers get a lesson in oral history


Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times
Ofelia Esparza, 77, a renowned artist and altar-maker, is one of the five filmed for the project. An unedited version of the documentary was showcased at the Southwest Oral History Assn. conference at USC.

A small group from Roosevelt High volunteers in a 10-month program organized by Cal State L.A. to film a documentary about five influential women in the community.
By Esmeralda Bermudez
March 29, 2009

Steve Barrios knows all about passing along stories. The kind of fleeting tales that zoom through cyberspace via MySpace and e-mail recounting the latest gossip on campus.

But not until recently did the 16-year-old discover a new kind of storytelling, the ancient form of oral history. The Roosevelt High School sophomore took part in a 10-month project organized by Cal State Los Angeles that pulled students off computers and put them face to face with five female activists from across the Eastside to conduct interviews and document their histories.

Eastside's oral historyTheir work will be part of a 20-minute video documentary that will be archived at the university and other institutions. It is also slated to debut at the college's film festival in May. On Saturday, Barrios and others for the first time showcased an unedited version of "Las Grandes de East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights: Women as Community Builders" at the Southwest Oral History Assn. conference at USC.

The event offered a four-day series of panels highlighting community groups often overlooked in history books.


An altar made by Ofelia Esparza, in her East L.A. home, displays photographs of her deceased husband and mother. Others featured in the film include an acclaimed playwright and an influential teacher.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
March 28, 2009

Topics included Mexican surfers in Venice, Chicano activists on the Westside, Japanese Americans in the San Fernando Valley, and gays in Oceanside and Camp Pendleton.

Baby-faced with a head full of tight curls, Barrios stood out in a room full of librarians and historians, men and women armed with PhDs and master's degrees in the art of storytelling. He is one of three remaining members of about a dozen students originally recruited from Roosevelt in July to participate in the project. Most of the teenagers were distracted by social lives, sports schedules and "other things that seemed cooler than oral history," Barrios said.

He had always wanted to know more about his Boyle Heights neighborhood but didn't know where to start until he volunteered for the video project.

"I learned a lot about the legacy of a person," Barrios said. "About stuff I'm not gonna find in books or the computer, and that I want to tell my kids about one day."

The project, paid for by the California Council for the Humanities, was led by Dionne Espinoza, an associate professor of Chicano studies and liberal studies at Cal State L.A., and Claudia Rodriguez, a writer and performer. The two chose five influential women from the Eastside, an area that has gained national attention in the past for powerful grass-roots movements organized by women.

The list includes Juana Gutierrez with Mothers of East Los Angeles Santa Isabel, a decades-old group that fights for social and environmental justice in the area; Theresa Soriano, president of Casa del Mexicano, a Boyle Heights center that reaches out to immigrants; Ofelia Esparza, a renowned artist and altar-maker; Josefina Lopez, an acclaimed playwright and founder of a community theater house; and Susana Reynoso, an influential teacher at Roosevelt High School for 15 years.

"We really wanted to draw out how women are contributing to this community," said Espinoza, who hopes that, once the project wraps up in May, the idea will be picked up and continued by a community organization.

In a separate project, the Chicano Resource Center at the county's East Los Angeles Library is launching its own oral history program with a $10,000 media grant. It will recruit high school students from across the Eastside to interview more than 100 community elders about their lives and the area's history.

Students will be taught video skills and their work will be archived at the center.

Persuading students to participate in the Cal State-organized project, sans school credit, was no easy task. Espinoza and Rodriguez launched a MySpace page promoting the idea, did presentations on campus and incorporated video into the project, rather than using an old-fashioned voice recorder.

In the interviews, the students' bashful voices can be heard asking the influential women how they reached their goals, what obstacles they faced and why they chose to continue living on the Eastside after all these years.

"People take from the community, but you also have to give back," Lopez, the playwright, explains to the teenagers.

The experience made Frances Pacheco, 17, more curious about the past and, in a way, about her future.

"If I ever get to be someone important, I want to be like that," she said. "To go back to Boyle Heights and live there, give back and enjoy the memories."

[email protected]

Frank
I like this article. Being a teacher in a achool that's 90% Hispanic(mostly Mexican and Chicano),the kids know practically nothing of their heritage. It's to the point now that they don't want to know about it. If it's old,it's no good. They talk about their grand parents like they're some distant relic. Not that they're disrespectfull,but they don't feel a connection with them.

If you listen to what these kids listen to as far as music,it's not Mexican derived except for the language. Crossing the border with my wife yesterday,I heard more car radios playing Chicano rap,than Vicente Fernandez. I hate the argument that someone like Vicente Fernandez is old and out of touch.

[dagosd2000]

L.A. THEN AND NOW
Pro baseball in L.A. was more homey, personal


Los Angeles Times
Hollywood Stars first baseman Chuck Stevens bats in a Saturday afternoon game in the early 1950s at Gilmore Field. The team’s fans included actual Hollywood film stars -- plus mobster Mickey Cohen.

Long before Dodger Stadium existed, games were announced by a bugler on horseback; Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Humphrey Bogart cheered from the stands; and L.A. had its own Wrigley Field.

By Steve Harvey
March 29, 2009

Professional baseball got off to a slow start in Southern California.

So slow that in 1898, the San Jose Prune Pickers and the Santa Cruz Beachcombers were chosen over the Los Angeles Angels to join the California League.

Major leagues arrive Long goneImagine, depriving rival fans the joy of chanting "Beat L.A.!"

But the Angels, their status no doubt elevated when they were purchased by a pool-hall operator, were granted a franchise in the newly organized Pacific Coast League in 1903.

Of course, it was by no means certain that a small, insignificant town like L.A. could support a minor-league club. Some newspapers called the team the Tourists, implying that its stay wouldn't be long.

But the team developed a faithful following at Chutes Park (capacity: about 8,500), south of Washington Boulevard between Grand Avenue and Main Street.

Two of the most passionate fans of the Angels/Tourists were defense attorney Earl Rogers and his daughter, who grew up to be the author Adela Rogers St. Johns.

One day at Chutes Park, St. Johns recalled years later, "somebody started the yell that became a tradition in the Pacific Coast League. . . . 'Kill the umpire! We'll get Earl Rogers to defend you!' "

The Angels even had a greeter, the late columnist Matt Weinstock wrote:

"A jovial fellow in a baseball uniform rode a horse slowly through the downtown streets, Main, Spring, Broadway, waving at friends and occasionally blowing a bugle call by way of announcing the baseball game at 2 p.m."



It was a time, baseball historian Paul Zingg wrote, when ballparks were "shaped by the city blocks on which they were built, home to players who often lived in the same neighborhood as the fans."

Chutes Park was moved slightly east after the 1910 season when Hill Street, which then dead-ended at Washington, was extended south. The stadium was renamed Washington Park and several Angels were on the construction crew, including pitcher Frank Murphy, "who dug holes [and] surveyed," The Times reported.

Meanwhile, the Pacific Coast League installed another team in the industrial town of Vernon.

After a squabble with the city, however, the Vernon Tigers moved to Venice in 1913. It wasn't just the team that moved. Co-owner Eddie Maier dismantled the stands, fences and clubhouses and took everything along, writer Jay Berman later noted in The Times.

But attendance was disappointing in Venice, and the prodigal club returned to Vernon in 1915, trucking the stadium back again.

The appeal of otherwise humble Vernon and Venice was that they were the only towns in Los Angeles County where alcohol could be purchased.

The left-field area of Vernon's Maier Park featured an entrance to Doyle's Thirst Emporium, which boasted a 100-foot-long counter. Vernon left fielder Jess Stovall was known to step into the joint for a drink between innings. The Vernon Chamber of Commerce now occupies the saloon site.

In 1925, Washington Park was forced to close when the third base area was condemned by the city. It wasn't the third baseman's fault. The city wanted to extend Broadway south from Washington Boulevard, and third base was blocking the way.

So the team was purchased by chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley, who moved the Angels into a new stadium at 42nd Place and Avalon Boulevard, now Gilbert Lindsay Recreation Center.

L.A.'s Wrigley Field (not to be confused with the Chicago stadium) was larger than Washington Park. But it was still intimate enough, Zingg wrote, that Angels slugger Lou Novikoff could find inspiration by "having his wife sit in a box seat behind home plate with instructions to taunt him as loudly as she could."

The Vernon Tigers went through several more owners, including comic Fatty Arbuckle, who complained that the games made him too nervous. The Tigers later reconnected with the showbiz world when they adopted a new name in 1938, the Hollywood Stars.

The team's home was Gilmore Field, now the site of CBS' Television City. The real stars were such fans as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Humphrey Bogart, who sat in the stands rather than seek shelter in executive suites as celebrities do today.

Mobster Mickey Cohen occupied a box right behind the Stars' dugout. The understanding among the players "was that if anybody in [Cohen's] box said anything, just smile and wave," Stars first baseman Chuck Stevens told baseball historian Dick Dobbins. Cohen, luckily, was never known to issue the order, "Kill the umpire!"

In late 1957, the major leagues came to the West Coast and that was the end for the local Pacific Coast League teams and, soon after, their little ballparks.

The Los Angeles Angels name, of course, lives on in Anaheim.

The Hollywood Stars, on the other hand, are just a memory, though a more vivid one than the San Jose Prune Pickers and the Santa Cruz Beachcombers.

[email protected]

Frank
Another nice story. It was the same down here with the old PCL Padres. I remember taking the "O" bus from Ocean Beach to get to the ball park.Dropped you right at the front of Broadway and Pacific Highway. Lane Field was right across the street from the water. I belonged to the "Knot Hole Club" for the kids. Saw a lot of future big leagers on the way up and some former ones on their way out. One Mexican player who was very popular here was Rudy Regalado. Played for the Cleveland Indians for a while. Cleveland was the Major League team for the Padres.

I also remember Steve Bilko who plyed for the Hollywood Stars. Hit 66 home runs one year. The Cubs brought him up,but he had trouble hitting a curve ball. At least a Major league curve. BTW. When Phil Silvers was picked to play the motor pool Sergaent in the TV series,they used Steve Bilko's last name and gave it to Ernie Bilko.

Carl's Baseball in on 16th and Market Street was the watering hole for a lot of the players and fans.Lots of pictures of Ted Williams,Joe DiMaggio,Lefty O'Doul,Harry "Suit Case" Simpson. Now it's a Rescue Mission.

I wish someone would rescue us from these fast times that I can't keep up with and don't have the desire to try.

[dagosd2000]

The fish taco stand at the corner of 3rd and Negrete. Best fish tacos in town. Shrimp tacos too. And consume(the broth) made either from the fish or the shrimp. The guy has got take to take in 500 a day. What am I doing trying to teach kids who don't give a damn?

[kikibalt]

Eastside high schoolers get a lesson in oral history


Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times
Ofelia Esparza, 77, a renowned artist and altar-maker, is one of the five filmed for the project. An unedited version of the documentary was showcased at the Southwest Oral History Assn. conference at USC.

A small group from Roosevelt High volunteers in a 10-month program organized by Cal State L.A. to film a documentary about five influential women in the community.
By Esmeralda Bermudez
March 29, 2009

Steve Barrios knows all about passing along stories. The kind of fleeting tales that zoom through cyberspace via MySpace and e-mail recounting the latest gossip on campus.

But not until recently did the 16-year-old discover a new kind of storytelling, the ancient form of oral history. The Roosevelt High School sophomore took part in a 10-month project organized by Cal State Los Angeles that pulled students off computers and put them face to face with five female activists from across the Eastside to conduct interviews and document their histories.

Eastside's oral historyTheir work will be part of a 20-minute video documentary that will be archived at the university and other institutions. It is also slated to debut at the college's film festival in May. On Saturday, Barrios and others for the first time showcased an unedited version of "Las Grandes de East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights: Women as Community Builders" at the Southwest Oral History Assn. conference at USC.

The event offered a four-day series of panels highlighting community groups often overlooked in history books.


An altar made by Ofelia Esparza, in her East L.A. home, displays photographs of her deceased husband and mother. Others featured in the film include an acclaimed playwright and an influential teacher.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
March 28, 2009

Topics included Mexican surfers in Venice, Chicano activists on the Westside, Japanese Americans in the San Fernando Valley, and gays in Oceanside and Camp Pendleton.

Baby-faced with a head full of tight curls, Barrios stood out in a room full of librarians and historians, men and women armed with PhDs and master's degrees in the art of storytelling. He is one of three remaining members of about a dozen students originally recruited from Roosevelt in July to participate in the project. Most of the teenagers were distracted by social lives, sports schedules and "other things that seemed cooler than oral history," Barrios said.

He had always wanted to know more about his Boyle Heights neighborhood but didn't know where to start until he volunteered for the video project.

"I learned a lot about the legacy of a person," Barrios said. "About stuff I'm not gonna find in books or the computer, and that I want to tell my kids about one day."

The project, paid for by the California Council for the Humanities, was led by Dionne Espinoza, an associate professor of Chicano studies and liberal studies at Cal State L.A., and Claudia Rodriguez, a writer and performer. The two chose five influential women from the Eastside, an area that has gained national attention in the past for powerful grass-roots movements organized by women.

The list includes Juana Gutierrez with Mothers of East Los Angeles Santa Isabel, a decades-old group that fights for social and environmental justice in the area; Theresa Soriano, president of Casa del Mexicano, a Boyle Heights center that reaches out to immigrants; Ofelia Esparza, a renowned artist and altar-maker; Josefina Lopez, an acclaimed playwright and founder of a community theater house; and Susana Reynoso, an influential teacher at Roosevelt High School for 15 years.

"We really wanted to draw out how women are contributing to this community," said Espinoza, who hopes that, once the project wraps up in May, the idea will be picked up and continued by a community organization.

In a separate project, the Chicano Resource Center at the county's East Los Angeles Library is launching its own oral history program with a $10,000 media grant. It will recruit high school students from across the Eastside to interview more than 100 community elders about their lives and the area's history.

Students will be taught video skills and their work will be archived at the center.

Persuading students to participate in the Cal State-organized project, sans school credit, was no easy task. Espinoza and Rodriguez launched a MySpace page promoting the idea, did presentations on campus and incorporated video into the project, rather than using an old-fashioned voice recorder.

In the interviews, the students' bashful voices can be heard asking the influential women how they reached their goals, what obstacles they faced and why they chose to continue living on the Eastside after all these years.

"People take from the community, but you also have to give back," Lopez, the playwright, explains to the teenagers.

The experience made Frances Pacheco, 17, more curious about the past and, in a way, about her future.

"If I ever get to be someone important, I want to be like that," she said. "To go back to Boyle Heights and live there, give back and enjoy the memories."

[email protected]

That one was for you, Rog, knew it would resonate...

[dagosd2000]

Frank
This one's for you. JUST KIDDING JUST KIDDING

[Randyman]

Frank
This one's for you. JUST KIDDING JUST KIDDING

Rog, that was pretty cheesy joke, really.

Randy

[dagosd2000]

Rudy
Did you see that fight between Hafey and Famoso in TJ? I talked to Burke Emery about that fight. He said he'd never take a fighter to Tijuana again.
I thought the fight was in favor of Art,but everytime Gomez landed something the crowd went hysterical. Rog

[kikibalt]

Frank
This one's for you. JUST KIDDING JUST KIDDING

I just got sick, Rog, will send you the doctor's bill....

[kikibalt]

Frank
This one's for you. JUST KIDDING JUST KIDDING

Rog, that was pretty cheesy joke, really.

Randy

They got the chesse out in the open so all the flies can eat chesse....

[dagosd2000]

Frank
This one's for you. JUST KIDDING JUST KIDDING

Rog, that was pretty cheesy joke, really.

Randy

They got the chesse out in the open so all the flies can eat chesse....

And after eating the cheese they can shit on it. I don't think that's going to dissuade any of the locals from buying the cheese.

[Randyman]

Hi Randy,

Yes that Cota guy rings a bell. Give me some info on your boxing years. Randy ? Shields? No, he fought Miguel Mayon in San Diego. Randy The Hitman Hart? No, thats a wrestler. Randy Jones, No. He played baseball for the Padres. LOL

Hi Rudy, thank's for the reply. I only had a couple of fights, both were in 1976. I started training either at the end of 74 or the beginning of 75. My trainer was Mel Epstein. Much of the time was spent training for fights that never materialized. You know how that goes. I tried again in 1980 training under Larry Soto, but as the saying goes "It just wasn't in the cards".

My name is Randy De La O. I have always wondered what happened to Nacho.

Randy

[dagosd2000]

Gonna' take Adam to the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park now. Be back later.

[Randyman]

Yesterday Jeri and I were craving pizza. When I'm really craving pizza I want it New York Style, thin crusted with a slightly charred crust. We usually drive up to Main Street in Seal Beach to a little place called "A Slice of New York", it's our favorite pizza joint and worth the drive. It's a two minute walk from the pier too, so that's a plus.

Yesterday though I decided to try another pizza joint called "Mammlucco's" in Brea. I found the name in an internet search and decided to give it a shot. I'm glad I did. It turned out to be full scale Italian restaurant. The walls are full of pictures of Sinatra, Martin,and the rest of the Rat Pack, Rocky; Balboa and Marciano, DeNiro and Pacino and Brando as the Godfather, and quite few pictures of New York, along with family photos, and on and on. Usually it's an overdone and stereotypical theme but at Mammalucco's it's done tastefully.

I made it a point to talk to the owner. I mentioned to him about the other pizza joint in Seal Beach. Turns out he heard of it and didn't think much of it. He said the owners were not Italian and the pizza does not come close to real New York pizza. So I had to ask "Are you Italian?" "Yes I am and I'm from New York too". I could see that this was a big deal to him and knowing that, I knew that he was a man that took pride in his food. Turns out I was right.

The menu had a lot of my favorites in it, including sandwiches, and I was tempted to get something other than pizza but I stuck with my original plan. We ordered a half cheese and half Margherita pie. Plenty of gooey cheese but not overwhelming. It has to rate as one of the best pizza I've had. It was satisfying and tasty and I took the Lion's share of the pie. I couldn't help it. I'm going back again but this time I'm going for the pasta, maybe the Lasagna. Next time I'll take my camera. http://www.mammaluccos.com/

Randy

[Randyman]

Gonna' take Adam to the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park now. Be back later.

Have a good time Rog!!

Randy

[Randyman]

James Ellroy details his search for love in Playboy



The crime fiction writer says his mother's unsolved murder led him on a quest for the perfect woman.

By Scott Timberg

It's the kind of house Hancock Park is famous for: unemphatic but impressive, with a perfect lawn, fresh coat of paint and ivy crawling up the walls. By Los Angeles standards, this is old-school cool. ¶ James Ellroy, all 6 feet 3 of him, is stomping across that manicured lawn, sporting a Hawaiian shirt and golfer's cap and pretending to walk a nonexistent dog. He mimics staring into the window, then simulates masturbating to what he sees inside. ¶ "Just like that," he offers. ¶ This was how the writer, then a gangly teenager living off inhalers and stolen booze and dreaming of literary greatness, spent his youth. Or at least that's the story he's telling today. ¶ Ellroy often behaves as if he's on camera -- offering off-color anecdotes, barking like a dog and generally acting out. But today he actually is: He's walking around this old-money neighborhood (and, the day after, through the city of El Monte) with a video crew from Playboy. ¶ They're shooting a documentary to accompany "The Hilliker Curse," a four-part serial he's writing for the magazine about his relationships with women. The first installment appears in the April issue, which has just hit the stands. The video, meanwhile, will appear at Playboy.com to launch a "Walkabout" series with important writers. ¶ The "L.A. Confidential" author later says he never masturbated on neighbors' lawns -- "That was just hyperbole!" -- but he was a dedicated peeper and self-described "perv" during his teenage years.

"I have been inside that house, illegally, on numerous occasions," Ellroy says proudly, pointing to a handsome Spanish Colonial near the intersection of 2nd Street and Plymouth Boulevard.

He's stolen pills, underwear, a turkey breast and "a five spot" from this place he still thinks of as "Cathy Montgomery's house." All this despite the fact that security signs started to appear on well-tended L.A. lawns in the summer of 1969, thanks to the Manson family.

Ellroy has covered this ground before. In 1996, he published "My Dark Places," a memoir that even those skeptical of his overheated crime novels consider a literary accomplishment. With that book, he revisited his mother's unsolved murder in El Monte -- in 1958, when he was 10 -- as well as his lost years as a peeper, binge drinker and neo-Nazi in Los Angeles.

Much of the book concerned his search, with a Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide detective, for his mother's killer.

"That was a great book," Ellroy declares unapologetically, "but it's largely a crime book. This is a love story."

Of course, not quite a conventional love story.

"I'm always," he says, head hanging like an abashed 12-year-old's, "looking for love."

"The Hilliker Curse" -- Hilliker was his mother's maiden name -- appears as Playboy is, like most print publications, going through strange times.

Declining circulation (about half its 1970s peak) is a worry, but not as much as the sense that, like founder Hugh Hefner -- who recently starting charging for parties at the Playboy mansion -- the magazine no longer reflects its time.

"Hefner's aura of Gatsby-esque sophistication is ever more at odds with his advancing years, and a changing world," London's the Independent judged in October. Plummeting stock prices, the recent resignation of his daughter, Chief Executive Christie Hefner, and a rumor, since denied by Playboy, that the company might be for sale, haven't helped.

It's also a period of transition for Ellroy. His celebrated "L.A. Quartet" of novels -- "The Black Dahlia," "The Big Nowhere," "L.A. Confidential" and "White Jazz" -- published in six years. But it's been eight years since his last novel, "The Cold Six Thousand."

Such a drought will end this fall with the publication of "Blood's a Rover," which completes the "American Underworld Trilogy" begun with "The Cold Six Thousand" and "American Tabloid." It also marks what the author calls his farewell to "the autobiographical elements," although it's not clear where he'll go next.

"This is the end of Act 2 of my career," he says of the trilogy and his Playboy project.

Besides the enormous success of Curtis Hanson's "L.A. Confidential," films of Ellroy's books have not worked out. Still, he remains a powerful writer, especially for fans of a style that mixes the minimalism native to the hard-boiled tradition with his own maximalist overkill.

"The Hilliker Curse" has the mix of hyped-up prose and rapid storytelling that readers expect from Ellroy's novels, blended with a reflective quality he's rarely shown in the past.

Whereas the first installment revisits his childhood, the unsolved murder and his teenage peeping, ensuing chapters look at how his mother's death drove him to search for the perfect woman, to seek out both prostitutes and (fruitlessly) women of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, to pass notes with his phone number in coffee shops, to send literally thousands of dollars in flowers.

Now 61, he is, he says, in "an erotic frenzy." ("James Ellroy: Why I Chase Women," Playboy's April cover boasts.)

Amy Grace Loyd -- the literary editor who scored a coup by bringing National Book Award-winning novelist Denis Johnson to Playboy last year with a serial novel -- calls Ellroy "a good fit" for the magazine.

"One of the things about Playboy," Loyd says, "is that it's always been a marriage of high and low. Ellroy has innovated genre fiction into something more sophisticated, but he's also driven by appetite, driven by urges."

Loyd is with Ellroy in Hancock Park, following as he leads the video crew past a row of houses that goes from Spanish revival to mock Tudor to Florentine in the space of half of a block. She playfully pulls her Egyptian cotton shawl over her head each time he goes too far.

Walking down 2nd Street, Ellroy waxes rhapsodic: "Girls in sherbet-colored gowns going to cotillions, Marlborough girls in uniforms. . . ."

As for his current taste in women, he says, "I want rectitude, brain power and passion."

But: "Quite often I take what I can get."

'Spiritual document'

A few days later, Ellroy is talking again, this time in the Rossmore Avenue Art Deco-era condo where he has lived since 2006. The place is decorated with framed Deutsche Grammophon records, black-and-white photos of 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles and dozens of copies of his books. He's an exemplar not just of romanticism, he says, but of the "symphonic romanticism" he learned from Beethoven and Bruckner.

"The Hilliker Curse," he believes, is "a spiritual document. There's never been a male memoir like this one. It was the desire to consistently update my state of mind and spiritual condition pertaining to women. To honor the women I've been with, to chart this journey of transcendence."

He discusses the three great loves of his life -- ex-wife Helen Knode and two other women he prefers not to name -- and describes the evenings he spends stretched out on his couch, speaking to them in his mind.

And yet, he claims, he's no longer exorcising a demon, as with "My Dark Places," but exploring his obsessive soul.

"I'm made for obsessiveness," Ellroy says. "I'm built for it. I'm big and skinny, and I run at a high rev. I love to be alone most of the time. I'm emotionally hungry, I'm horny, I have a profound conscience. I have never messed around with a cheesy woman."

Will "The Hilliker Curse" destroy his tough-guy image?

It may, he says, but "only with a bunch of authenticity-seeking young men. You know how men seek authenticity through the most specious and vile male human beings?

"Thinking artists like Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson are authentic. Au contraire. It's puerile. Real guys love God, Beethoven and women."

[email protected]

Frank, I had a chance to meet with Elroy in the early 90's.His real life persona is so different than what you would think. He seemed somewhat shy and timid. I have read many of his books. A great writer. You have to get used to the derogatory terms used whenever referring to Mexican Americans in many of his books but it was written in the context of another era. Still, I flinch a little when ever I read his books.

My cousin David Robles talked with Elroy at length about their parent's unsolved murders. As you know, my uncle Ray "Wild Red" Robles' murder was never solved either.

Randy

[kikibalt]

James Ellroy details his search for love in Playboy



The crime fiction writer says his mother's unsolved murder led him on a quest for the perfect woman.

By Scott Timberg

It's the kind of house Hancock Park is famous for: unemphatic but impressive, with a perfect lawn, fresh coat of paint and ivy crawling up the walls. By Los Angeles standards, this is old-school cool. ¶ James Ellroy, all 6 feet 3 of him, is stomping across that manicured lawn, sporting a Hawaiian shirt and golfer's cap and pretending to walk a nonexistent dog. He mimics staring into the window, then simulates masturbating to what he sees inside. ¶ "Just like that," he offers. ¶ This was how the writer, then a gangly teenager living off inhalers and stolen booze and dreaming of literary greatness, spent his youth. Or at least that's the story he's telling today. ¶ Ellroy often behaves as if he's on camera -- offering off-color anecdotes, barking like a dog and generally acting out. But today he actually is: He's walking around this old-money neighborhood (and, the day after, through the city of El Monte) with a video crew from Playboy. ¶ They're shooting a documentary to accompany "The Hilliker Curse," a four-part serial he's writing for the magazine about his relationships with women. The first installment appears in the April issue, which has just hit the stands. The video, meanwhile, will appear at Playboy.com to launch a "Walkabout" series with important writers. ¶ The "L.A. Confidential" author later says he never masturbated on neighbors' lawns -- "That was just hyperbole!" -- but he was a dedicated peeper and self-described "perv" during his teenage years.

"I have been inside that house, illegally, on numerous occasions," Ellroy says proudly, pointing to a handsome Spanish Colonial near the intersection of 2nd Street and Plymouth Boulevard.

He's stolen pills, underwear, a turkey breast and "a five spot" from this place he still thinks of as "Cathy Montgomery's house." All this despite the fact that security signs started to appear on well-tended L.A. lawns in the summer of 1969, thanks to the Manson family.

Ellroy has covered this ground before. In 1996, he published "My Dark Places," a memoir that even those skeptical of his overheated crime novels consider a literary accomplishment. With that book, he revisited his mother's unsolved murder in El Monte -- in 1958, when he was 10 -- as well as his lost years as a peeper, binge drinker and neo-Nazi in Los Angeles.

Much of the book concerned his search, with a Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide detective, for his mother's killer.

"That was a great book," Ellroy declares unapologetically, "but it's largely a crime book. This is a love story."

Of course, not quite a conventional love story.

"I'm always," he says, head hanging like an abashed 12-year-old's, "looking for love."

"The Hilliker Curse" -- Hilliker was his mother's maiden name -- appears as Playboy is, like most print publications, going through strange times.

Declining circulation (about half its 1970s peak) is a worry, but not as much as the sense that, like founder Hugh Hefner -- who recently starting charging for parties at the Playboy mansion -- the magazine no longer reflects its time.

"Hefner's aura of Gatsby-esque sophistication is ever more at odds with his advancing years, and a changing world," London's the Independent judged in October. Plummeting stock prices, the recent resignation of his daughter, Chief Executive Christie Hefner, and a rumor, since denied by Playboy, that the company might be for sale, haven't helped.

It's also a period of transition for Ellroy. His celebrated "L.A. Quartet" of novels -- "The Black Dahlia," "The Big Nowhere," "L.A. Confidential" and "White Jazz" -- published in six years. But it's been eight years since his last novel, "The Cold Six Thousand."

Such a drought will end this fall with the publication of "Blood's a Rover," which completes the "American Underworld Trilogy" begun with "The Cold Six Thousand" and "American Tabloid." It also marks what the author calls his farewell to "the autobiographical elements," although it's not clear where he'll go next.

"This is the end of Act 2 of my career," he says of the trilogy and his Playboy project.

Besides the enormous success of Curtis Hanson's "L.A. Confidential," films of Ellroy's books have not worked out. Still, he remains a powerful writer, especially for fans of a style that mixes the minimalism native to the hard-boiled tradition with his own maximalist overkill.

"The Hilliker Curse" has the mix of hyped-up prose and rapid storytelling that readers expect from Ellroy's novels, blended with a reflective quality he's rarely shown in the past.

Whereas the first installment revisits his childhood, the unsolved murder and his teenage peeping, ensuing chapters look at how his mother's death drove him to search for the perfect woman, to seek out both prostitutes and (fruitlessly) women of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, to pass notes with his phone number in coffee shops, to send literally thousands of dollars in flowers.

Now 61, he is, he says, in "an erotic frenzy." ("James Ellroy: Why I Chase Women," Playboy's April cover boasts.)

Amy Grace Loyd -- the literary editor who scored a coup by bringing National Book Award-winning novelist Denis Johnson to Playboy last year with a serial novel -- calls Ellroy "a good fit" for the magazine.

"One of the things about Playboy," Loyd says, "is that it's always been a marriage of high and low. Ellroy has innovated genre fiction into something more sophisticated, but he's also driven by appetite, driven by urges."

Loyd is with Ellroy in Hancock Park, following as he leads the video crew past a row of houses that goes from Spanish revival to mock Tudor to Florentine in the space of half of a block. She playfully pulls her Egyptian cotton shawl over her head each time he goes too far.

Walking down 2nd Street, Ellroy waxes rhapsodic: "Girls in sherbet-colored gowns going to cotillions, Marlborough girls in uniforms. . . ."

As for his current taste in women, he says, "I want rectitude, brain power and passion."

But: "Quite often I take what I can get."

'Spiritual document'

A few days later, Ellroy is talking again, this time in the Rossmore Avenue Art Deco-era condo where he has lived since 2006. The place is decorated with framed Deutsche Grammophon records, black-and-white photos of 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles and dozens of copies of his books. He's an exemplar not just of romanticism, he says, but of the "symphonic romanticism" he learned from Beethoven and Bruckner.

"The Hilliker Curse," he believes, is "a spiritual document. There's never been a male memoir like this one. It was the desire to consistently update my state of mind and spiritual condition pertaining to women. To honor the women I've been with, to chart this journey of transcendence."

He discusses the three great loves of his life -- ex-wife Helen Knode and two other women he prefers not to name -- and describes the evenings he spends stretched out on his couch, speaking to them in his mind.

And yet, he claims, he's no longer exorcising a demon, as with "My Dark Places," but exploring his obsessive soul.

"I'm made for obsessiveness," Ellroy says. "I'm built for it. I'm big and skinny, and I run at a high rev. I love to be alone most of the time. I'm emotionally hungry, I'm horny, I have a profound conscience. I have never messed around with a cheesy woman."

Will "The Hilliker Curse" destroy his tough-guy image?

It may, he says, but "only with a bunch of authenticity-seeking young men. You know how men seek authenticity through the most specious and vile male human beings?

"Thinking artists like Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson are authentic. Au contraire. It's puerile. Real guys love God, Beethoven and women."

[email protected]

Frank, I had a chance to meet with Elroy in the early 90's.His real life persona is so different than what you would think. He seemed somewhat shy and timid. I have read many of his books. A great writer. You have to get used to the derogatory terms used whenever referring to Mexican Americans in many of his books but it was written in the context of another era. Still, I flinch a little when ever I read his books.

My cousin David Robles talked with Elroy at length about their parent's unsolved murders. As you know, my uncle Ray "Wild Red" Robles' murder was never solved either.

Randy

Randy, I have never met the man, and the only book of his I've read is L.A. Confidenial, which I loved, and great writer along the same lines is Walter Mosley, "Devil In The Blue Dress", among others.