Business Improvement Districts crushing Hollywood under their golden heel, their oppression protected, enabled, and obscured by heavy thunderclouds representing secrecy, regulatory capture, and impotent, sycophantic politicians.Louis Brandeis famously stated that “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman. And publicity has already played an important part in the struggle against the Money Trust.”1
Steve Seyler composing poetry on his employer’s time.Aristotle once said that “poetry needs either a sympathetic nature or a madman.”1 We’ll leave it up to you, our beloved reader, to decide, after you read the following little gem (the line breaks of which we’ve inserted for your convenience), which branch of that dichotomy is most applicable to the case of Steve Seyler, poet laureate of the BID patrol: Continue reading Steve Seyler, Hitherto Unknown Poet Laureate of the Boulevard of Broken Dreams→
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. Continue reading Sunset-Vine BID Supports Outlaw Tagger’s Work in Hollywood→
Steve Seyler, the Vodka NaziIf 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: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
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 Continue reading Steve Seyler, Vodka Nazi→
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 aboutLike 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 DowntownWe 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. Continue reading Exuberance, Freedom, Commerce, Blossom in Rare DTLA BID-free Zone→
Vexatiously intelligent sociologist Harold Garfinkel righteously, like Peter Pan, moved to rapture by his own brilliance
Right here you can listen to the following words of wisdom from the October 23, 2014 meeting of the Hollywood Media District BID Board of Directors:
Mike Malick: Uhhh….OK. Bus stop shelter removal. Steve Whiddon: Yeah, I think I wanted to take…uh…the temperature in the room for two…um…bus stop shelters that are…um…close to Highland and the Kodak Building. I know that they seem to be [unintelligible] placed for…uh…for some activity, um, [unintelligible] even waiting for the bus, so, have you guys discussed this before? Unidentified Interlocutor: No. Continue reading Steve Whiddon, Looking to Destroy Bus Shelters, Instead Finds Epic Ethnomethodological Fail→
Sharyn Romano, Obersturmbannführerin of the Hollywood Beautification TeamRight here you can listen to Sharyn Romano, Obersturmbannführerin of the Hollywood Beautification Team, saying the following words:
And we cleaned up a homeless encampment, a small one, and then…I’m a little hesitant to talk about the homeless encampments and the…five issues where we found homeless belongings in parks that were left there because legally we’re not allowed to touch them and we’re supposed to be walking away from them. My crew didn’t tell me if they did that or not so I assume they walked away. (laughter from audience)
Here’s an interesting story. A world-famous city, rich in culture and in wealth, has nevertheless some neighborhoods with undesirable inhabitants. Addicted to drugs or alcohol, mentally ill, sexually deviant in public ways, just generally offensive to good taste. The government seems neither able nor willing to deal with the problem so private citizens form self-help groups and begin discouraging the undesirables by various means. They do a pretty efficient job and before you know it the government is forming public-private partnerships and subsidizing the work of these groups. They move from strength to strength. Property values go up, business is good, they even manage to host the Olympic Games so that all the people of the world can see their stunning success. And then… Continue reading A tale of two cities→