They took a bus tour to meet artists?

For those of you new to my blog and my blogging in general, I love to write about where I live and the people I meet and what they do and where they eat and all of it. Presently, I reside in a former toy factory and auto parts storage building on the edge of Downtown Los Angeles(hereafter referred to lovingly as DTLA,) near the L.A. River. In addition to writing, I also enjoy taking photographs of the people and things I encounter on a regular basis. Or an irregular basis, depending on the time and place, another fascinating aspect of living near Skid Row: no matter what time of week, day or night, sunny or cloudy, there's something going on around here, and what it is is sometimes frighteningly clear.


People have a long and selective memory for certain knowledge, particularly when bad shit happens to either them or the place in question. Since the mid-1970s and especially for "the 50 most dangerous blocks in America" as the area was once known around this neighborhood, DTLA has gotten bad rap. Some of it is warranted obviously, but a great deal of it was over sensationalized in the media, often the over-active and unimaginative local media. Let's go downtown, film some poor, destitute homeless dude drunk and pissing on himself and call it a day. Or the occasional bank robbery. Or the Lakers winning a championship. All of these things brought negative mojo to the region and it kind of stuck the way the dried blood and vomit sticks to your shoes in the crosswalk on a sunny day on 5th and Wall. SEE? That's exactly what I mean! Even I'm doing it!


Nowadays, my friends and I lovingly refer to this patch of pavement as "skid row-adjacent," the same snarky way a realtor on the Westside of LA would try to sell you on a place near a UCLA frat house as being "Bel Air adjacent," which is technically correct I guess, but karmically all wrong. Which brings me back to my main point: things have changed around here, albeit slowly. Exactly how secluded and shut-in and frightened do you have to be in the suburbs to get on an air-conditioned bus on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and be driven to an artist's loft?


Well, I guess I shouldn't be complaining either, but damn, the white wine and cheese crowd displacing the purple hair and nipple rings set is going to take some getting used to. At any rate, it was nice seeing one of my dear friends getting some exposure not only for his art, but also his bathroom drawer contents!


Emmeric J. Konrad and I go back to the dark days of 2005 when I was a fledgling human rights activist and I got invited to a "loft party" at a friend of a friend's place. When I found out he was artist I was instantly intrigued, and the rest they say is histoire. Some 15 or 16 purchased pieces later, I can now say as both a collector and friend that this opportunity was a great one. Here's a little sample of what it looked like today. Enjoy.


First, you have to meet the people.










Then you show them your loft.






Then you try to explain your wicked sense of humor and styling to people who usually see art behind glass in snooze-seums in foreign capitals.

From 2008, Big and Bad. And sadly, slightly out-of-focus.

I'm quite certain they left with a new if not altogether different idea of what it means to be truly "downtown" these days. And I hope they tell their friends!