Action in the East Village

The missus and I had some friends over to our apartment in the East Village section of Long Beach, and since it was a Friday night, the police serenaded us with a low-flying helicopter for the majority of the evening. From our back balcony we could tell that their spotlight couldn't be too far away, so went to the living room to look out in the direction opposite to the balcony:

I realize these pictures are blurry; you'll just have to bear with me, they're through a screen and I'd had a few drinks. The cops had Lime Ave blocked off, and weren't letting pedestrians through.

The helicopter had its light shining on one particular complex, but in this next shot it looks like they're re-orienting the spotlight, and could be hitting the street somewhere.

It looks kinda like a UFO or something...

Well, official story is in the complex there had been shots fired, and that a woman had been arrested after shots were returned. The tiny article in the paper was written by a nice women named Pamela Hale-Burns, who is the sister of Nathaniel Hale, who is also known as Nate Dogg.

Crazy little Long Beach world.

Also mentioned in the article is a Lisa Massacani, spokeswoman for the LBPD. I plan on trying to get to the bottom of this, and I think starting with those two women, I think that'll be possible.

Three Marines Walk Into a Gay Bar...

It's not a bad joke, it's the start of a sad affair that's playing out in Long Beach. Maybe it wasn't three marines, but it was some, and they went into a bar to do some drinking. So far, so good.

If a gay bar is where some marines want to go have a drink, so be it, sounds fine with me. I've met some marines, and those guys would not like to go to a gay bar, not that  they had any particular problem with gay people, mind you, just with actually going to a  gay bar.

Well, these fellas went stepped into a place on Redondo, the name escapes me, and by witness accounts, they looked uncomfortable. They proceeded to make unflattering comments to the bar tender and some patrons, and just after leaving got into a fight with another patron, sending him to the hospital.

There're many bars along Redondo. Hell, there are many bars right around where I live, but fuck, guys, use your eyes. Apparently too proud to just leave when they didn't comfortable, the stuck it out, eventually getting into a fight.

If you're standing on a corner of Alamitos and Broadway, there are a few choices for watering holes. One side of the street has a neon shamrock surrounding the name Clancy's. Across from it is an establishment lined with rainbow flags called Hamburger Mary's. I imagine we all could guess which bar those marines would choose.

Mary's all the way, man, lookin' for action of some kind...

Corpulent Beach Goers in Long Beach over Labor Day

If you look close enough at my profile picture, or even notice it a little, you can see that I'm a tow-headed fella with blue eyes. With my broken leg, the trip we took to the beach over the Labor Day weekend had a little extra sweat and struggle working.

One thing I noticed from or spot is that the majority of the beach going denizens are of Latino background, which I'm all for. By "majority" I mean vast majority. Like, I don't remember seeing any other whiteys on the stretch of beach that we were chilling. They're probably closer to the pier and the whiter neighborhoods, and farther from the working class people's entrance. I'd also like to say how much better/cooler that was.

But I did notice that the percentage of corpulence was higher than most health-teachers in the public schools and universities would like it to be. It was actually quite shocking. The beach is a place I used to go to with regularity, if it was even just a bike ride, and it was certainly never as crowded as Sunday of the Labor Day Weekend. The crowds were far greater that I'd ever seen (in Long Beach in the shadow of the Villa Riviera), which was pretty cool.

The levels of what can only be guessed at as less than ideal nutritional intake are higher than societal goals would like.

That's a fancy way of saying: there were lotsa' fatties at the beach the other day.

The real question is what to do about it. I've got some ideas, but that's fodder for another post on another blog.