[mouse]

hey grr_arg, if you're still around, let me know what you end up deciding to do. i think we have mutual friends, cos i ended up running into an old roommate and the gold room came up, and she mentioned your story before i had a chance to.

i still think a sit-in or other protest act might be dangerous there, though......

[opheliathemuse]

will you send me details via pm, Sonik?

[sonik]

The show will close the 9th of Sept, Mouse.

[mouse]

oh, crap, sonik, i'm leaving town from the 1st through the 5th. will it still be up after the 5th do you think?

[sonik]

That's awful, Grarrg! In this day and age...i am speechless.

For anyone who's interested, the exhibition i'm taking part in is held in the ADM gallery in Hollywood. The opening is on Sept 1st. It's up for about a week.

[ferraro]

damn. thats fucking ridiculous grr_arg! i agree that the sit-in could be dangerous. maybe write a letter to your local paper/alternative weekly/gay press? i'm sorry you had to go through that.

i just moved to albuquerque. anyone one in the area/have any suggestions?

[mouse]

oh, my god, grr arg. that's awful. and i love(d) the gold room! hardly a "family place" for sure.

i don't know if any sort of storming of the bar would be a good idea, though. there are still gangs in echo park and i don't necessarily know if that would be worth it; it might get you into too much trouble. how about finding someone bilingual to explain the situation to the owner, and if he still refuses to stop discriminating, you could suggest bringing in the aclu.

i'm so sorry you had to deal with that, though. ((grr arg))

[grr_arrg]

Haven't been around in a while cuz I finally got a job, but I needed to post this here.

Two nights ago, my girlfriend and I went to one of my favorite local bars, The Gold Room (1558 W. Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park). I love this bar mostly because it's usually full of local Latinos and not the tragically hip crowd found in some other local places. You can just go there, have a beer and a shot for 3.25, listen to the occasional mariachi band, and eat free carne asada, popcorn and peanuts. Love it.

Well we were there having a few beers and talking, with an occassional peck in between topics of conversation. Nothing heavy, no making out, no tounges, no groping.

All of a sudden security approaches us, and tells us that we need to stop or leave so fights don't break out.

???!!!???

This isn't the first time we'd been there or anything, but all of a sudden, it's a problem.

He went on about how *he* doesn't have a problem, but he's just trying to avoid upsetting other customers. We're going around and around about it, when finally the manager comes over, feigns ignorance of the english language, and keeps telling us "family place."

Theytold us that sometimes husbands and wives will come in, and they don't want to see this kind of thing.

I look around at all the large breasted, barely dressed waitresses, and the all the older men sitting by themselves drooling over the waitresses, and have a hard time imagining it as a family place.

My girlfriend handled it well, made a lot of good points to the security guy, and we left. I was stunned/angered into shaking silence and have regretted this silence ever since.

I wanted to let you guys know about how these people choose to do business and to ask you to not patronize this establishment.

Some friends are talking about some kind of future 'sit in' or guerilla gay bar type action, and if something like that does get planned, I will post it in here as well for those who wish to join us.

Thanks for your time!

[opheliathemuse]

oops, I keep forgetting this is here! please keep me informed if we're having a meetup, I'd so like to again. This thread hasn't seen this much action in a while, whew!

[mouse]

hey halcyon, my friend has tonik; cheap and designed for young people etc.

[halcyon]

Hi gals! I've just moved to Southern CA and love being back home. I need some help, though...I'm in that awkward stage where I'm just out of college with no job and no health insurance, and I'm having trouble finding a group plan I could join. My friend said there are some organizations that have this sort of setup; anybody know of a good one?
thanks!

[mouse]

aw too bad sonik!
what's the show going to be called? i want to see it anyway.

not sure how i feel about a meetup, but i might be able to be convinced.......also, whatever happened to harpua? did she even follow us to the new board? who else is missing?

[sonik]

Hi all. I'm not going to make it to LA. The exhibition is the 1st of Sept, and not Oct, as i thought. Anyway, i'll visit LA sometime in the future, i'm sure!
Also, the venue will not take place in Hangar 1018, but in the ADM Gallery in Hollywood. The Hangar is going under/changing hands, and they're trying to get out of booked shows. The girl who organizes all this didn't want to deal with the whole hassle, so she immediately started negotiating with another gallery.

Anyway, thanks for all advice, i'm always interested in large cities, urbanism, and the like, so to hear about LA from people who actually live there is very interesting.

Congrats with you drivers license, Maryjo!

[ms.gb]

i agree with all that has been said thus far...the valley isn't worth looking at as it is way too pricey and porn infested...hehehe

congrats on passing your uk driving test!

i prefer to live as close to my workplace as possible to avoid the heavily congested freeways that sap your life from you--just something to think about blykn....

i'm throwing feelers out for a RHCB meet up--something simple--coffee.....or bowling. End of august. We can bitch about traffic, weather (did any of you see the lightning sat. nite?), etc.

[maryjo]

Passed my driving test! Yay! I'll probably still have to sit the US one, but hey, now I have a British licence.

I'm definitely going to look into carpools. My flatmate goes to USC too though, so hopefully our schedules will coincide somewhat and I'll be able to hitch a lift with her.

[mouse]

maryjo, there's also a carpools section on craigslist that might be useful. i tried to find a carpool to my job to no avail, but i have a pretty unusual commute (i work out in the san gabriel valley and generally the traffic goes the opposite direction from there). you're just going to usc tho right? i would imagine you might have luck with finding a carpool

and yeah, people certainly do survive on the bus. unless they're really crowded or filled with smelly people, it's really not a bad experience, you just have to allow yourself a lot of extra time. they're usually air-conditioned and there are these hilarious bus-tvs that play news and stupid commercials and random trivia. quite frankly i'd rather have a metro line that goes to the west side than tvs on the buses, but hey, i'm not in charge of the mta's budget. hrmph.

THOUGH! i got really excited about this--there's a commercial for a stupid dating service that plays on the bus tvs, and they show a lesbian couple!

[maryjo]

I leave on August 1st, zoya. At my mum's house packing things into boxes to ship right now.

I'm also sitting my UK driving test in two hours so I will *hopefully* have a licence - though I don't intend to get a car at least at first, mainly because I don't see how I could possibly afford one on my $18,000 stipend while paying $700/month in rent. Plenty people do survive in LA using the public transit system, crap though it may be - I'll just have to be one of the plebs. At least my roommate has a car.

I have to say, it sounds hilarious to me to see people complaining about the price of gas in the US. I've never had a car here (obviously, since I don't even have a licence yet!) but I am pretty sure that in the UK petrol costs at least twice what it does in LA...

[zoya]

bklynhermit - if you read down and through the archives, you'll see where we discuss a bit about the metro and public transport. It sucks here. Especially if you are used to NYC. Its SLOW.. and the subway / trains pretty much go nowhere unless you are super near one of the stops and work or need to be right near another stop.

sad, but true. oh yeah, and gas costs a frigging fortune here. .50 cents higher (sometimes more) a gallon than anywhere else in the country - and I do not exaggerate.

[bklynhermit]

thanks everybody! that gives me some idea about how the neighborhoods work. are the craigslist rents for those areas about typical? also, i have to say the whole driving everywhere thing really fazes me. what's the deal with the metro? does it just not go anywhere useful?

[zoya]

Mary Jo - I think that it's a great idea to live with a friend while getting your head around the city. That's what I did for the first year I lived here, and then found my own place (living with the friend was great, but I wanted to be in a different area, and she didn't want to move) It really allows you to learn more about the city.

are you in LA yet??