All posts by kohlhaas

Besley, Morrison: Hollywood’s Not Pleasant Cause it Ain’t Manhattan; TED-Talking Visionaries Will Fix Everything

Visionaries converging on Hollywood in order to fix EVERYTHING.
Visionaries pouring out of a Kool-Aid drenched TED talk on their way to Hollywood to fix EVERYTHING, especially stuff that ain’t broke.
At the November 11, 2014, meeting of the Central Hollywood Coalition, kommisariat of the Sunset-Vine “Baby BID,” there was some discussion of visionaries doing something or another to do with “mobility”6 in Hollywood.2 One of the visionaries mentioned was Janette Sadik-Khan,5 late of the erstwhile nouveau-Napoleonic Michael Bloomberg NYC empire, who now works for Bloomberg-the-corporation spreading Bloombergian bullshit around the world as fast as they can shovel it out and also gives TED talks.1
Kerry Morrison about 36 minutes before she pronounced Hollywood "not pleasant."
Kerry Morrison about 36 minutes before she pronounced Hollywood “not pleasant.”
Bloomberg is one of these pezzonovante self-styled “reformers” like Eli Broad who thinks that because he’s a zillionaire he understands everything. Sadik-Khan is his Charlie McCarthy.4 These people’s zombie clones brought Los Angeles, among countless other horrors, Dr. John Deasy, who finally left this city with a stake through his heart and unsettling thoughts of Mark Berndt’s cookies dancing through his jug-like head. They’re probably up in the hills right now scheming to bring Michelle Rhee in to replace the guy. Of course, this kind of the-wealthy-gonna-fix-everything Kool-Aid is irresistible to the CHC-slash-SV-BID, a group whose entire foundational principle is “rich people must be smarter cause otherwise why is they so rich?” Hence their eagerness to let Sadik-Khan explain it all to you.

Anyway, Besley’s description of what’s obviously an impending trainwreck3 moved Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Executive Director Kerry Morrison to opine thusly:
Continue reading Besley, Morrison: Hollywood’s Not Pleasant Cause it Ain’t Manhattan; TED-Talking Visionaries Will Fix Everything

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CIM Group Supervillain Takes Break From Ruining Everything, Reads This Blog!

CIM Group taking aim on Hollywood
CIM Group taking aim at Hollywood
While grepping around in our server logs, we noticed that someone from CIM Group is a regular reader of this blog! You can see the raw November logs here. Note that the whois record for 12.96.123.68 shows that it’s leased or owned by CIM Group. There seems to be but a single user agent involved, so we believe that a single person at CIM is making these visits.

We were going to use this post to make merciless fun of that person, but then we realized that maybe they’re sorry for what they done and we should be nice and invite them to repent by anonymously slipping us a bunch of documents or something. With that in mind, we are pleased to announce our new Invitation to Whistleblowers, which contains some hints on anonymous communications, encryption, and so on. Please have a look.


Image of Lex Luthor is ©DC Comics and first appeared in Action Comics Vol. 1, No. 23 (1940). It’s included here under the doctrine of fair use.

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In Characteristically Cynical Move, Corporate Scofflaw CIM Group Infiltrates Minion Monica Yamada Onto BID Security Committee

Monica Yamada, minion of corporate scofflaw CIM Group, reports to HPOA on continuing efforts to criminalize all aspects of lives of non-rich people
Monica Yamada, minion of corporate scofflaw CIM Group, reports to HPOA on continuing efforts to criminalize all aspects of the lives of non-rich people
CIM Group, widely known for sending out demolition teams in the dark of night to tear shit down in violation of their building permits,1 leading a judge to invalidate those permits after tenants had already moved in to the building, deputes minion Monica Yamada to serve as its representative to the Joint Security Committee of the Hollywood Entertainment District BID and the Sunset-Vine BID.

The purpose of the Joint Security Committee is, we suppose, to oversee the operations of Andrews International Security, with whom the BIDs contract to provide patrol services. The mission the BIDs have given to A/I2 is explained in the 2014-15-WORK-PLAN-FINAL-VERSION1-1:
Continue reading In Characteristically Cynical Move, Corporate Scofflaw CIM Group Infiltrates Minion Monica Yamada Onto BID Security Committee

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Hollywood Area BIDs Get all Jeansy-Creamsy Over Multiplying Starbuckses, Garcetti Grins All the Way to the Bank

Eric Garcetti, thinking about his Starbucks stock and smiling upon the machinations of the city's BIDs
Eric Garcetti, thinking about his Starbucks stock and smiling down upon the machinational shenanigans of the city’s BIDs
There’s no question that the BIDs love them some Starbucks. Even the Sunset-Vine “Baby BID” loves its Starbucks. Heck, even the Hollywood Media District, the most thuggish of the Hollywood area BIDs, was caught loving up Starbucks in its macho, cowboy-faced manner on August 6, 2014.

But why do they love Starbucks so much? What is in it for them? It can’t be the coffee. Not even the BID folks are that depraved.

Never fear! We are going, inspired by the creative example of our Hollywood area business improvement districts, to explain it all to you!
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Sunset-Vine BID Supports Outlaw Tagger’s Work in Hollywood

Article from Sunset-Vine BID newsletter showing unseemly enthusiasm for work of outlaw tagger Thierry Noir
Article from Sunset-Vine BID newsletter showing characteristically hypocritical enthusiasm for work of outlaw tagger Thierry Noir, who used to be arrested by people hired by people like the BID Board of Directors, but who now has a certain cachet due to his acceptance by wealthy art patrons.
Outlaw tagger Thierry Noir, who the Sunset-Vine BID claims is known for his illegal graffiti1 but is no longer a criminal as far as we know, recently tagged a building in the Sunset-Vine BID. The BID is generally opposed to outlaw taggers, but manages to work up an awful lot of enthusiasm for this guy tagging this building. And his work is lovely, there’s no doubt.
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Unvandalized Tree Flourishes in Rare Hollywood BID-Free Zone

Emmanuel Goldstein or the Vine Street Tree Vandal: You decide!
Emmanuel Goldstein or the Vine Street Tree Vandal? You decide!
The Vine Street Tree Vandal was a topic of conversation at the November 11, 2014 meeting of the Sunset-Vine BID as he or she has been for so very long now.1 Sarah Besley reported that, despite her announcement last month of an imminent arrest, the tree vandalism continues.

Just as she did last month, Besley claims that there will be “more to report next time.” You can see even earlier discussion of the Tree Vandal in boffo security king Steve Seyler’s reports to the Joint Security Committee. The investigation has been about to produce results for an awfully long time now. If we hadn’t seen the damage with our own eyes we’d be starting to wonder if the Tree Vandal might not be named Emmanuel Goldstein.

We suggested previously that the vandalism might be an act of protest against the repressive atmosphere the BIDs create in Hollywood. Here’s more circumstantial evidence that this is the case:
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Kerry Morrison Pisses, Moans about Inefficiency of Feds, Runs Crying to Mommy State

The SSA building on Vine Street; a soft target?
The SSA building on Vine Street; a soft target?
Listen here as Kerry Morrison, at the November 11, 2014, meeting of the Central Hollywood Coalition, bosses of the Sunset-Vine Business Improvement District, discusses what is to be done about the Social Security Administration building on Vine Street above Santa Monica Blvd:
Kerry Morrison: So…um…just in terms of solving a couple stakeholders’ requests we, we’ve been getting a lot of…um…complaints about people gathering around the Social Security building on Vine Street. It’s a rather unsecured building after six o’clock…um…and there’s been…if you drive by there you see it, especially on the weekends, people sleeping in the parking lot…
Unidentified Interlocutor: And it’s in the BID?
Kerry Morrison: And it’s in the BID, on Vine Street, so it’s south of…um…Picture Head…
Unidentified Interlocutors: [interrupting] [something unintelligible about the surplus store] Kerry Morrison: So we met with…um…the owner of the building and the federal police? And general services department and the Social Security folks and our BID security to just do some problem solving on how to harden the target [unintelligible] Kind of a, you know, a lack of mobility of the federal government to really secure that building…uh…[unintelligible] They say they don’t have the money to put in a fence, or and the federal police work Monday through Friday from nine to five and they’re supposed to be the ones who are patrolling that property but they’re off [unintelligible]… So, um, we’re kinda [unintelligible] a little bit frustrated because it’s kinda become a, a bit of a drain on our resources and…um…the owner of the building had a great idea, he would like to reach out to our congressional representatives and maybe they have some pull with the federal bureaucracy. So [unintelligible] reached out to congressman Adam Schiff’s office and immediately they jumped all over it, said we should have been in that meeting too, you know, we can help you with the general services department, so we’re gonna write a letter, kind of outline what our issues are, and see if we get some help with that…

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Steve Seyler, Vodka Nazi

Steve Seyler, the Vodka Nazi
Steve Seyler, the Vodka Nazi
If you read through Security Kahuna Steve Seyler’s reports to the Joint Security Committee of the Hollywood Entertainment District BID and the Sunset-Vine BID you will notice, among many other weirdly inappropriate obsessions displayed by the man in his semi-literate prose, a fixation on the brands of alcohol that his victims are drinking when arrested. When his officers take their trophy pictures of arrestees they hold the open containers in the frame with the brand visible, and Seyler evidently can’t resist giving his opinion. What this has to do with law enforcement we don’t know.

Anyway, Seyler’s bête noire is something called Taaka Vodka. He has effectively criminalized its possession in the BID-occupied areas of Hollywood:12014.07.07.seyler.vodka.1

He’s also obsessed with a brand of vodka called Borski, to the point where he seems overjoyed that it was involved in the BID patrol’s thousandth arrest of 2013:3
2013.12.09.seyler.vodka.2

Seyler has, like the guy whose hat graces his head in the satirical picture above, evidently inspired his officers to form a mystical cult whose rituals include some kind of idolatry involving Taaka:2
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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Promotes Mindset that Aids, Comforts Los-Angeles-Area Serial Killers

Lonnie David Franklin, Jr.
Lonnie Franklin
We were lucky to be able to attend the first L.A. screening of Nick Broomfield’s new film, Tales of the Grim Sleeper yesterday at the Egyptian Theatre thanks to the American Film Institute (see trailer here).1

Broomfield’s film exposes the fact that the City of Los Angeles allowed a serial killer to operate with impunity for 22 years, murdering untold numbers of women. Neither the LAPD nor the City government took the case seriously because the victims were black women, many prostitutes or drug addicts. This point was made repeatedly and convincingly, both on screen and during the Q&A after the film, by stars Pam Brooks and Margaret Prescod, who has been pressing the LAPD about the killings since 1986, thereby earning the wrath of, among other geniuses, Darryl Gates, our city’s second worst mistake. Gates, in his inimitably idiotic way, called Prescod and her compatriots in the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders “dummies” for even raising the issue.

Broomfield’s stunning work shows that Prescod and her allies have been right all along, though. The film gives an irrefutable performative demonstration of the fact that the LAPD has never taken this case seriously: In 2009 the LAPD knew of one survivor of the killer’s attacks. In 2014, before Broomfield started filming, that one survivor was still the only one known. But in the course of filming Brooks managed to locate and arrange for Broomfield to interview not just one additional woman who survived the Sleeper’s attacks but four. How is it possible that a serious investigation could leave such major witnesses to be discovered, and not even discovered by the police, four years after a suspect’s arrest?

It’s unconscionable. The City of Los Angeles will never live down the shame of having, through racism and indifference, abandoned dozens or hundreds of its most vulnerable citizens to a cruel thrill-killer (or killers; the true extent of the damage may never be known). It couldn’t have happened without the utter dehumanization of these women, each and every one someone’s child. According to Joshua Kleinfeld of Northwestern University, “in Southern California, police slang in the early 1990s for the murder of drug dealers, gangsters, prostitutes, and other lawbreakers was the vivid and extremely disturbing term, ‘NHI (no humans involved) Homicide.'”2 And once the police and white Los Angeles have dehumanized people to the point that they can be killed without consequence, killers will flourish. Why wouldn’t they?
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Exuberance, Freedom, Commerce, Blossom in Rare DTLA BID-free Zone

The RAND corporation, imagined as the Pied Piper, plays the tune called by the one who pays, while happy imaginary children under the influence of LSD obtained from Herman Kahn
The RAND corporation, imagined by Kate Greenaway as the Pied Piper, plays the tune called by the piper-payer while happily dancing imaginary children under the influence of LSD obtained from RAND-ite Herman Kahn frolic about
Like many superfluous, quasi-criminal, quasi-public institutions, the BIDs of Los Angeles are terrified that people will notice they’re a dangerous nuisance and proceed to abolish them. One symptom of this anxiety is a craving for academic justification stronger than the craving of tweakers for meth.

So one rich guy calls another rich guy and soon enough the RAND Corporation of Santa Monica, California, mostly famous for paying cold warrior par excellence Herman Kahn to analyze potential preemptive nuclear strikes on China while under the influence of LSD,1 has prepared a report on how beneficial the existence of BIDs is to the city of Los Angeles. TL;DR: Confuse correllation with causation and the tune that was called by the piper-payer ends up played by the piper.

BID free zone on the East side of Downtown Los Angeles
BID free zone on the East side of Downtown
We decided that we were going to do some research of our own. Luckily, the existence of a small sliver of land surrounding Olympic Boulevard between Central and Stanford is not claimed by any BID and thus allows us to analyze how beneficial the nonexistence of BIDs is to the city of Los Angeles. We obtained a small private grant and set out into the field.2 We think you’ll be interested in our results.
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