Tag Archives: Bacon Dogs

$19,000 Fashion District “Repositioning” Report On Santee Alley Claims Latinos Will Be Confused By Grilled Cheese And Lobster Rolls But Will “Resonate With” Bacon Dogs, Sports On Flat-Screen TVs, Soccer Promotions, Arcade Games, And Dance Floors — Ultimate Goal Is To “Soften” Santee Alley Experience To Attract Neo-Hipster Authenticity-Seeking Urban Tourists

July 9, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

It seems that last year the Fashion District BID hired some outfit from Berkeley known as MJB Consulting to study the so-called “repositioning” of Santee Alley. Here’s a copy of MJB’s proposal offering to do the work for $19,000. And here is a copy of the report they produced. And what a piece of work it is, friends.

Unfortunately the sheer weirdness of this document is probably beyond my power to describe, so I’m going to end up quoting a lot of it. But the stuff in the headline is all in the report, and so much more besides. It’s 25 pages of deep crazy, centered around the socioeconomic interplay between blue-collar Latinos and an imaginary social group called “neo-hipsters.” The methodology is based on “psychographics,” which was made up by Mr. MJB himself, Mike Berne. It is, according to Mike Berne:

In contrast to demographics, which characterizes customers largely in quantitative terms (e.g. household income, home value, etc.), psychographics considers them qualitatively as well, based on their lifestyles, their sensibilities and their aspirations. A classic example is the perceived difference between those who shop at Wal-Mart and those who prefer Target (or “Tar-zhay”).

That’s social science, friends, and you can’t argue with science! And neo-hipsters? Glad you asked!

“Neo-hipster” is a term coined by MJB Consulting, referring to a specific psychographic segment. … The major data-mining outfits, like Claritas and ESRI, have developed frameworks for delineating different psychographic segments – PRIZM and Tapestry, respectively — but MJB Consulting, feeling that those schemes do not adequately reflect the nuances of urban consumers, has devised its own for such markets, in which the “neo-hipster” figures prominently.

And, with this vocabulary firmly in hand, including the prominent figuration of the “neo-hipster,” the report commences a freaking deep dive off the freaking deep end. In short, even though it’s counterintuitive, Santee Alley should continue trying to serve blue collar Latinos. Blue collar Latinos will only be confused by fancy food like grilled cheese and lobster rolls because they have high unemployment and large families and they like bacon dogs.

In some sense, I guess, it’s superficially¹ heartening not to see the kind of casual anti-Latino sentiment that pervades the Hollywood BIDs, to the point of their hatred of Latino-influenced art genres and surreal anti-Peruvianism. These people want to keep their Latino customers, I guess.

On the other hand, the sheer number and variety of the stereotypes at work here are deeply disconcerting. Ultimately, it’s yet another manifestation of the cluelessness of the white supremacists who run the BIDs of Los Angeles. As you’ll see below, they only want to keep the Latinos because they can’t figure out how to get the neo-hipsters to move in.

Here are some more examples: blue collar Latinos will be happy if Santee Alley installs dance floors, soccer promotions, flat-screen TVs running sports, and so on. The ultimate goal seems to be to attract “neo-hipsters” to Santee Alley by promoting the blue collar Latinos as an authentic part of a “cultural tourism” experience, although they’re evidently a little scary so will need to be “softened.” Santee Alley as zoo, Latino customers as exhibits, neo-hipsters as patrons. Think I’m kidding? Turn the page for actual quotes.
Continue reading $19,000 Fashion District “Repositioning” Report On Santee Alley Claims Latinos Will Be Confused By Grilled Cheese And Lobster Rolls But Will “Resonate With” Bacon Dogs, Sports On Flat-Screen TVs, Soccer Promotions, Arcade Games, And Dance Floors — Ultimate Goal Is To “Soften” Santee Alley Experience To Attract Neo-Hipster Authenticity-Seeking Urban Tourists →

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Street Vending

The True Facts About the May 28, 2015, Community Sidewalk Vending Meeting at Boyle Heights City Hall Revealed Here (With Audio) for All to Hear and Judge and Opinionate Upon! Part 2: Devin Strecker

July 31, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Devin Strecker, Director of Communications and Social Media of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance.

If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll recall that earlier we wrote on the May 28, 2015, meeting at Boyle Heights City Hall about street vending, focusing on Hollywood Entertainment District BID board member Alyssa Van Breene’s comments. You will also recall HPOA Executive Directrix Kerry Morrison’s description of the proceedings:

there were a series of four hearings that the chief administrative office staff held on the… the sidewalk vending ordinance. … It’s just this kind of amorphous set of hearings, which were completely dysfunctional, disrespectful, and almost, um, resembled a circus.

Now listen, O citizens of Hollywood, to HPOA staffie Devin Strecker speaking before the same meeting:

Also sprach Devin Strecher:

There’s a transcription after the break if you care to read rather than to listen, and after the break’s where we’re going to separate the wheat from the chaff, which is a valid if cliched metaphor even if, as in this case, there’s no wheat atall.
Continue reading The True Facts About the May 28, 2015, Community Sidewalk Vending Meeting at Boyle Heights City Hall Revealed Here (With Audio) for All to Hear and Judge and Opinionate Upon! Part 2: Devin Strecker →

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Street Vending

The True Facts About the May 28, 2015, Community Sidewalk Vending Meeting at Boyle Heights City Hall Revealed Here (With Audio) for All to Hear and Judge and Opinionate Upon! Part 1: Alyssa Van Breene

July 31, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

The Boyle Hotel at 101 N. Boyle Avenue, appearing here because we don't have a picture of the Boyle Heights City Hall, which is about half a mile west on First Street from the corner of First and Boyle. — The Boyle Hotel at 101 N. Boyle Avenue, appearing here because we don’t have a picture of the Boyle Heights City Hall, which is about half a mile west on First Street from the corner of First and Boyle, that being the location of this building.

We recently wrote about Kerry Morrison’s description of the series of public meetings sponsored by the Chief Legislative Analyst of the city of Los Angeles regarding the framework for legalizing street vending that’s being studied by the City Council. Well, interestingly enough, it turns out that the Council’s Economic Development committee has a website set up devoted to the issue and found thereupon are audio recordings of three of the four meetings held to-date.¹ Astute readers will no doubt recall Kerry’s description of these meetings:
there were a series of four hearings that the chief administrative office staff held on the… the sidewalk vending ordinance. … It’s just this kind of amorphous set of hearings, which were completely dysfunctional, disrespectful, and almost, um, resembled a circus.

Wanna know what "frabjous" means? You gotta ask Mr. Humpty Dumpty, or look it up in the Dictionary, for God's sake. — Wanna know what “frabjous” means? You gotta ask Mr. Humpty Dumpty, or look it up in the Dictionary, for God’s sake.

Well, frabjous day, friends! We have listened to the first of these, held at the Boyle Heights City Hall on May 28, 2015, and clipped out some representative bits for your audiosthetic pleasure and we’re sharing them with you here. First listen to HPOA Board Member Alyssa Van Breene (transcriptions after the break if, like us, you’d rather read than hear):

Listened up? Good! Let’s take this nonsense one lie at a time, shall we?
Continue reading →

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Hypocrisy, Street Vending

Marie Rumsey and Thuggish Rodriguez Strategies Flack Jessica Borek Plot with the HPOA Board to Keep Arresting Bacon-Dog Sellers and Heladeros

March 26, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Heladero chained to a bench in 2007 courtesy of the BID Patrol. José Huizar's proposed ordinance would end this kind of sadism in Los Angeles, but the BIDs, with the connivance of CCA and Rodriguez Strategies won't give up so easily. "It is our God-given right to handcuff the heladero!" — Heladero chained to a bench in 2007 courtesy of the BID Patrol. José Huizar’s proposed ordinance would end this kind of sadism in Los Angeles, but the BIDs, with the connivance of CCA and Rodriguez Strategies won’t give up so easily. “It is our God-given right to handcuff the heladero!”

Watch, listen, and learn¹ as Marie Rumsey of the Central City Association and PR flackette Jessica Borek of thuggish PR RICO Rodriguez Strategies fill in the HPOA board on their strategic schemes to allow the BID Patrol to continue to arrest, shackle, and humiliate the ice-cream man. These people are so power-mad they want to ban bacon dogs, the national food of Los Angeles!(Transcription, as always, after the break).

Even after all this time, it’s hard to understand why these people are so dead-set against legalizing and regulating something that’s not only happening now, but is going to be happening in the future because it’s an integral part of the culture of Los Angeles. We have some ideas, but whatever their reasoning is, we don’t think it would be too much to ask that they tell the truth while they’re opposing it.

Marie Rumsey of the Central City Association at the March 19, 2015 meeting of the HPOA Board, lying through her teeth about pretty much everything.

First of all, Marie Rumsey wants you to know that there are only nine health inspectors for all of LA county and there are 50,000 street vendors. The point is that it’s unlikely that food vendors would be inspected sufficiently. Let’s forget, just for a second, that currently none of the vendors are inspected, so inspecting ANY of them would improve public health. According to Bloomberg, there are 10,000 illegal food vendors in Los Angeles (granted, out of 50,000 vendors total, but health inspectors don’t worry about balloon-sellers, do they?) That’s lie number one, Marie. Next, we can’t find hard data for the number of health inspectors in LA County at the moment, but a moment’s googling told us that in 1989 there were 47 of them, and in 1997 there were 161. That the number has dropped to 9 in 2015 seems beyond implausible. That’s lie number two, Marie.

And this brings us to Rodriguez Strategies flackette Jessica Borek.
Continue reading Marie Rumsey and Thuggish Rodriguez Strategies Flack Jessica Borek Plot with the HPOA Board to Keep Arresting Bacon-Dog Sellers and Heladeros →

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

Sarah Besley, Urban Planning, Freeway Overpasses, Moral Panics, Confirmation Bias, Idées Fixes, and Sitcom Nazis in Hollywood

January 29, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Pollyanna and her cynical, unhappy mirror self encouraging their own cognitive bias by gazing into reflections rather than the world around them — Pollyanna and her cynical mirror image encouraging their own cognitive biases by gazing only at reflections rather than seeing the actual world around them

Pollyanna, the most famous optimist in American literature, is known and celebrated as the originator and primary evangelist of “the just being glad game.” Listen, O citizens of Hollywood, as she explains it to Nancy:¹

“Why, it’s a game. Father told it to me, and it’s lovely. We’ve played it always, ever since I was a little, little girl…the game was just to find something about everything to be glad about—no matter what ’twas.”²

Now, Pollyanna gets a bad rap these days, but she’s our hero, really. We haven’t the space to defend her, though, because we have to analyze a May 2014 blog post by Sarah Besley, evidently the Associate Executive Directrix of the Hollywood Property Owners Association and stuff.

Check it! Sarah Besley is scared of freeway overpasses:

In Los Feliz, even the goddamned overpasses are cute, cute, cute!

[An overpass] may be one of the worst statements EVER to anyone who visits and certainly to anyone who lives in or around it – especially if their community has been severed in half. An overpass literally says: this community favors cars over people and I dare you to walk underneath me and emerge on the other side alive. This is the message I’ve been getting for the past couple years as I commute from Los Feliz, along Franklin Avenue, down Argyle…³

But wait! Maybe Los Felizites are scared of freeway overpasses because they don’t have any there?⁴ The terror of the unknown is formidable and possibly overwhelms slurbians when they come to the big town.⁵ Hollywoodies, living in raw urban splendor in the very heart of the city, surely just take them in stride, don’t they? The answer would appear to be yes, even on Sarah Besley’s testimony:

I’ve started noticing the unexpected number of pedestrians walking from the hills north of Franklin into downtown Hollywood with their yoga mats, shopping bags, or strollers in tow. I’m struck by the fact that people seem to walk so confidently underneath what seems to me like a very scary place.
Continue reading Sarah Besley, Urban Planning, Freeway Overpasses, Moral Panics, Confirmation Bias, Idées Fixes, and Sitcom Nazis in Hollywood →