Some of the BID Patrol’s anonymous warriors. We’re taking on the project of identifying these people.Today I’m pleased to announce a bunch of new documents. First of all there is a ton of new information on the HPOA’s sleazy sweetsy-heartsy lease of city property for a homebase-slash-mothership for its cleansy-upsy crew. So much that we started a whole subpage for the matter. What’s new are some emails between CD13 and the HPOA about the lease and the actual lease application filled out by the HPOA as part of the leasing process. This includes beaucoup info about the inner workings of the HPOA, including full federal tax returns for 2011 and 2012. Read it!
Next there’s the first set of documents in our new project to identify by name, photograph, and badge number, every BID patrol officer currently working the streets of Hollywood and as many of the past officers as possible. I’ve set up a new subpage dedicated to this endeavor, and the first two documents can be found there. They’re invoices from A/I to the HPOA for personnel, listed by name, for the week beginning August 14, 2015. Also get them here: HED BID and S-V BID.
Kerry Morrison chooses which of the two masters she’s gonna love and, consequently, which she’s gonna hate.In the last two weeks, two cataclysmic changes in the the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority‘s mission have made it, in not just our opinion but in the opinion of any sane observer, impossible for Kerry Morrison to ethically continue to serve as both a LAHSA Commissioner and the executive directrix of the HPOA. Since as of a few years ago she was earning $192,794 per annum1 from the HPOA we’re guessing it’s not that job she’s gonna quit. What happened is this: both the Los Angeles City Council and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are poised to ask LAHSA to (a) decide where across the city to locate service centers for the homeless and (b) to stop breaking up homeless encampments. Kerry Morrison counting a homeless person, no doubt using the local methodology that “[f]ederal officials are disputing,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Unfortunately, Kerry’s masters on the BID Boards expect her to target the homeless for hyperenforcement even as they scoff at the very idea that homeless human beings have rights and, accordingly, she’s directed her flunkies (we’re talking about you, Steve Seyler) to arrest homeless people in encampments and for any other random thing that pops into their heads. She can’t ethically do both, for, as a wise man once said:2
No one can serve two masters, for either he
will hate the one and love the other; or else
he will be devoted to one and despise the
other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.
What rights are being violated here? What torts being committed? Is the photographer violating trademarks? Performance rights? Rights of publicity? False light?!? Are we violating any of these rights by republishing this photo? I guess we’re gonna find out! At least the BID Patrol can’t pop old Elmo for violating LAMC 41.47.2. At least not this time…We recently had occasion to write about the HPOA’s continent-spanning conspiracy with a bunch of their creepy counterparts in Manhattan to abuse intellectual property law, to violate California Penal Code §158, to constructively violate the first amendment, and both stridently and characteristically to act the fool with respect to the burning issue of street characters. You can’t trademark breasts, so what are they going to do about topless street characters when they get to L.A.? One might argue that women can bare their breasts legally in New York but not in California. That’s not the kind of law that’s going to withstand any pressure, though. It just hasn’t been rigorously tested here….yet!
Since last we examined this issue, the NYPD has gone nuclear by asking Disney and Marvel to sue the street characters, something which those companies seem to have proved unwilling to do. Of course, what the city and the local BIDs really don’t like is the naked ladies. Some of the information we were missing then we’ve obtained now. First, you will recall that in a finger-down-throat-fawning set of emails Kerry Morrison advised Tom Cusick, the dude who’s her counterpart at the Fifth Avenue BID, that they hadn’t had much luck with their criminal attempts to incite litigation against street characters. She mentioned to Tom, though, that the HPOA had managed to get Sesame Street to send cease and desist letters to Big Bird and Elmo one time under special circumstances. We now have copies of those letters. Read on for analysis. Continue reading Kerry Morrison and/or Minions Almost Certainly Lied to Sesame Street to Evoke Anti-Big-Bird, Anti-Elmo C&D Letters→
The earliest of nine photos taken by the BID Patrol at Cameron Diaz’s star ceremony.On June 22, 2009, Cameron Diaz got a star on the Boulevard out in front of the Egyptian Theater. Someone, sometwo, or somemany Andrews International Security peeps were there, snapping pictures at a rapid rate of speed.
We’ve heard so darn much about the NSA and all the evil stuff they can learn via metadata, so we thought we’d try some of the same moves on this sequence of images, of which we have nine in our possession. Here they are all in a row (click to enlarge), and you can see and get the individual full-sized files after the break:
Kerry Morrison, late of the California Association of REALTORS®, formerly known as the California Real Estate Association, an immensely influential Twentieth Century California white supremacist group, sitting extraordinarily close to some guy whose name we don’t know.While poking around in the bowels and hidden bits of the HPOA’s website recently, we happened to notice, in friend Kerry Morrison’s bio, the following intriguing statement: “Prior to coming to Hollywood, she spent 14 years in public policy and senior management roles at the California Association of REALTORS in Los Angeles.” Maybe it was the ALL-CAPS that caught our eye, so weirdly dystypographical and yet so clearly intentional,1 or maybe something else. In any case, we resolved to discover just for whom it was that Kerry had spent 14 years working for prior to the BID and why it seemed so important to her to include this in her biosnippet. Note, by the way, that the California Association of REALTORS® was formerly known as the California Real Estate Association.2 California real estate agents have done far, far more to shape this state for evil and for good than is commonly acknowledged in popular discourse.
Kerry, as the first and sole director of the HPOA since 1996, has clearly formed and molded that organization in her own image. Thus, we thought, it might be illuminating to understand the professional crucible in which that image was forged. So we sent our faithful correspondent out onto the wild uncharted moors of scholarlandia through the portals of Google scholar, JSTOR, and UCLA. Our minds were well and truly blown by what he discovered, and perhaps yours will be too. There’s far too much material to cover in one post, so we’re going to lay it on you in increments, starting today with some background and a shocking episode from the long hot summer of 1948. Continue reading HPOA Precursor Organization and Former Employer of Kerry Morrison California Real Estate Association Sought to Warp, Pervert, and Destroy U.S. Constitution in 1948 to Prevent “The Threat of Occupancy by Negroes”→
Exceedingly powerful LAPD officer Bea Girmala, pictured here with sidelong-glancing former Inglewood PD guy Steve Seyler who, we gotta admit, has nothing to do with this story, but here he is in the picture anyway.OK, listen up! Long-time readers1 of this blog will recall that in 2010 and 2011 the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition, the Media District BID, some LAPD folks, and some random neighborhood residents all engaged in a “mediation process” of some type, mostly aimed at getting the food coalition to move its nightly feeding program out of the BID. The whole document is well worth reading, stunning as it is vis–à–vis its truly astonishing level of crazy, but we’re focusing on just one episode. Let us now lay out the dramatis personæ.
First we have facilitator Peter Robinson, now at Pepperdine. We don’t have much to say about him except that, according to his Pepperdine bio, he’s got an excellent sense of humor. He’d have to have, wouldn’t he? Official LAPD photo of Deputy Chief Girmala, cop extraordinaire and interferer-by-proxy in the private real estate dealings of citizens of Hollywood.
Second, we have then Hollywood Patrol Commanding Officer (now Deputy Chief) Beatrice Girmala,2 who, although not actually present at the moment about which we write, was nevertheless in control of everything that transpired in a way in which we, free citizens of a constitutional republic, do not expect to be associated with our police. We are certainly pragmatists, though, and understand that once the police can gun us down on the streets with impunity they can a fortiori randomly interfere in our lawful business dealings as well. Read on for the real crazy! Continue reading In Rare Conflict with BID LAPD Deputy Chief Beatrice Girmala Exercises Totalitarian Veto Power over Private Real Estate Transactions in Hollywood, Insinuates that Protecting, Serving Homeless is Waste of LAPD Time→
No one is safe when the BID Patrol is out rounding up street characters to satisfy Kerry Morrison’s warped sense of propriety. Even if you think Barney ought not just to be arrested but ought to be shot on sight, it’s important to remember that if Barney’s rights aren’t respected, no one’s are respected. If Barney’s not safe from the depredations of the BID Patrol and their allies, the LAPD, then no one is safe. IF BARNEY AIN’T FREE, AIN’T NOBODY FREE!Tonight I’m announcing the availability of three new sets of documents. First and least interesting we have a random selection of UPS Media District Greenshirt daily activity reports. You can find them either in our static storage or else via our local UPS page. I didn’t see anything particularly interesting here, but you’ve probably noticed that my colleagues can spin 600+ words of gold easily out of what seems to the casual onlooker to be nothing but straw, so maybe that’ll happen someday.
The brave, the stalwart, the wise federal judge Michael W. Fitzgerald of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, kicking ass and taking names.Note that formerly Ukrainian first amendment maven and all-round mensch Eugene Volokh has already explained this better than we’re ever going to, so you may want to hop over to there for background. TL;DR is that the city of Inglewood sued Inglewood resident Joseph Teixeira in federal court, claiming that Teixeira’s reuse of their city-produced videos of city council meetings to create weaponized mockery of, among others, Inglewood mayor James Butts violated their copyright in said videos.
Well, Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (that’s federalese for “Los Angeles”) not only dismissed Inglewood’s case, he terminated it with extreme prejudice. You can read the order here if you wish, and it’s smoking hot. The salient bit for this blog is, according to Volokh, that:
The court held that, under California law (see, e.g., County of Santa Clara v. Superior Court (Cal. Ct. App. 2009)), cities can’t claim copyright in public records. And while the city claims that this provision is trumped by federal copyright law, the court rejected that argument — federal law treats local governments as political subdivisions of the state, and a state has the power to control what its subdivisions do (including which federal rights they claim).
The School on 103rd Street by Roland S. Jefferson is a fine political conspiracy novel as well as a stunning roman des riverains1 planted firmly in early 1970s Black Los AngelesToday’s book is The School on 103rd Street, by Los Angeles author and psychiatrist Roland S. Jefferson. It seems reasonable to review it here for two reasons. First because it so vividly evokes the peculiar time and place of early 1970s Los Angeles, a spatiotemporal locality that’s dear to my heart and second because its subject matter, racial politics in Los Angeles (including a vast conspiracy the nature of which I can’t really reveal without spoiling the plot, which is something I’m not willing to do) aligns closely with the focus of this blog.
I’ll move on to the serious matters below, but first, check this description of protagonists Elwin Carter and Sable having an evening out in 1973:The Cyrano building at 13578 Mindanao Way under construction in 1967.They had dinner at Cyrano’s in Marina Del Rey and then went to the Name of the Game on Century Boulevard for some dancing. At midnight they went down to the Lighthouse to hear Gabor Zabo, and, on the way home, they dropped by Shelly’s Mann Hole and caught the last set by Gerald Wilson. Carter had taken the Ferrari, and, although Sable offered no resistance, she didn’t encourage him. From Shelly’s they headed down Highland toward Wilshire…3
Now, I don’t just read novels for Los Angeles geography porn, but I’m always happy to find it, especially when it has restaurants! Cyrano was a “fine dining” or “continental” sort of place, opened early on in Marina Del Rey. Given the character of the Marina in 1973, at the time Elwin and Sable had dinner there the joint was probably full of cocaine, swinging-in-the-worst-sense, disgusting 1970s facial hair, and gelatinous sleaze coating every surface. Advertisement from the Los Angeles Times, December 14, 1969, announcing the grand opening of Cyrano.
The Name of the Game was a dance place in Inglewood at Century and Crenshaw. Here’s how the Los Angeles Sentinel described it on September 2, 1971:
It’s called The Name of The Game, and to many, many persons it’s the name of the place they find attractive and a lively cynosure for a truly good evening of pleasure. Located at 3000 W. Century boulevard, it has music by Dave Holden, and dancing space for frisky feet or those who just love to move and groove. There’s no cover charge, either. The Name of the Game also affords daily luncheon specials, and daily half-price cocktails. So what could be better for the jaded tastes than a visit to The Name of the Game?4
Unfortunately I can’t find a picture of the place. Note also that there was a sensational killing there in 1973. I don’t have space to go into it, but it was well covered in the Sentinel, starting here.11
Next they head off to the Lighthouse, a famous and still-active jazz club in Hermosa Beach which I’d discuss more if I gave even a fraction of a shit about either jazz or Hermosa Beach. Finally, “on the way home,” they head to Shelley’s Manne Hole which, coincidentally, played an important role in my last recommendation, so I won’t belabor it here. However, these two live in Baldwin Hills, meaning that the Manne Hole, at 1608 N. Cahuenga Blvd., is in no sense but the sense that this night should never end on the way home from Hermosa Beach. Ah, youth!
Now, despite my breathless temporogeographical musings, this novel is much more than a travelogue. It’s an immensely important document about the state of racial politics in Los Angeles eight years after the Watts Rebellion, with more than a little relevance for the present day (as well as being a bitchin’ thriller). Read on for details! Continue reading The School on 103rd Street→
Bill Bratton, AKA “the Commish,” seated with unindicted and evidently unhappy co-conspirator and co-author Zach Tumin in 2012, about 8 months before the world didn’t end that DecemberLong-time readers of this blog will be familiar with the HPOA’s crazed vendetta against street characters and, by extension, the very foundations of American government. If they could destroy the former by destroying the latter we have no doubt that they’d not only do it, they’d also destroy the latter just on the off chance it’d give the former a bad day. We’ve published evidence for this, but anyone who listens to any of their blather for any amount of time will hear their rage expressed in quite certain terms. Imagine what would happen if lady street characters on Hollywood Boulevard started walking around naked like they do in Manhattan. Heads wouldn’t just roll, they’d explode. What we need is a little free-the-nipple in Hollywood like they got at Venice Beach
And they don’t just conspire with LA locals like the city attorney, their conspiracies reach across the very continent to Manhattan, because that’s how bad street characters are, friends, they’re a transcontinental destructive force. Anyway, BID buddy Bill Bratton, affectionately known to Kerry Morrison and zillions of other fans as “the Commish,” is all in a lather over the desnudas of Times Square, who are evidently topless women in body paint (NSFW) who pose for tips with tourists. He’s frothing at the mouth. He was actually quoted in the frickin’ New York Times begging, nay, pleading for a chance to violate his oath of office: Continue reading Yet Another Reason Kerry Morrison’s So Ooshly-Gooshly about the Commish, Bill Bratton→
![Kerry Morrison counting a homeless person, no doubt using the local methodology that "[f]ederal officials are disputing," according to the Los Angeles Times.](https://michaelkohlhaas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Kerry-makes-a-comnnection.jpg)
