LA on ICE

Greetings from L.A. – that burning, trash heap of a city invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals! A dangerous, hellscape of paid insurrectionists intent on ripping away the fabric of our country!!

The place that I call home.

Well, guess what TACO —

WE LOVE L.A.!!!!

And thanks to you, now more people than ever, in NOT ONLY the country BUT THE WORLD, love it.

That’s because this week everyone saw us trying to save democracy by exercising our constitutional right to protest.

And if the worst you can say about protestors in a city of about 12.5 million is that there were no fatalities and comparatively little violence or vandalism (Note: The worst of the latter being a couple of self-driving Waymo cars being set on fire, something I myself contemplated doing in frustration long before any protest) we’re doing pretty well.

Especially because it’s not every day you see your home experience a real invasion. The kind where the federal government sends in masked, unidentified and armed federal agents to infiltrate your neighborhood and arbitrarily grab your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances and fellow citizens off the street, throw them into vans and, for no discernible reason they will articulate, attempt to disappear them into custody, perhaps never to be heard from again.

It’s like some crazy old rich 79-year-old Floridian-transplanted-from-New York’s birthday wish in a pretend game where he’d get to be president of the United States for the next four years and do anything he wants.

Oh….

I know. It’s not funny. But it could be because this should all just be some massive American punk move from a gaggle of overprivileged man-boys and mean girls with too much money and time and privilege on their hands.

Oh…

Since Homeland Security’s “invasion” of Southern California earlier in the week, the only real and true invasion going on in any of the many neighborhoods I know includes secret ICE agents joined by 2000 members of the National Guard and 700 fighting-ready U.S. Marines with military weapons, all guarding the federal building downtown and patrolling a few key blocks nearby for no reason other than they were ordered to by a rogue federal government commandeered by a rogue president.

Which is to say nothing of the hundreds of L.A. police and sheriff officers shooting rubber bullets and tear gas bombs downtown on Saturday (6/14), as millions in other cities nationwide symbolically joined us in the No Kings Protest against the democracy-breaking Trump policies.

But let’s back up a little.

Earlier this week, our current, ahem, POTUS took power over the National Guard from the governor of a state (Note: In this case, California but coming soon to a state near you) for the first time in more than 60 years, a power grab now being fought by California in appeals court and soon likely the U.S. Supreme Court. A couple days later he topped it off with commanding U.S. (Note: OUR) military troops, the kind trained NOT to keep the peace but to instead be efficient killing machines in places as far off as Fallujah, Kandahar and soon likely…well, you get the idea…into our city to pick off anyone who couldn’t pass for a white Afrikaner farmer. (Note: Let’s just say even I could in a pinch).

Meanwhile, here in L.A. hundreds of non-white children and adults are being pulled off the streets from Home Depots, schools, supermarkets, playgrounds and farmlands. This week the local news was rife with six and eight year olds crying and screaming as a parent was literally dragged away from them as their older teenage sibling, barely managing to hold it together, tried to comfort them. Then there was the story of the late twenties Black military vet shoved to his knees by one of these uniformed baboons and put in a chokehold because he had the temerity to walk up the steps of the Veteran Administration building downtown to check on his benefits (Note: This was midday and there was no reason NOT to enter the V.A. that day). Though the one seared into my brain is that of the ICE agents with kerchiefs around their mouths chasing down a Mexican farm worker from the Central Valley through a strawberry patch he was employed to work in.

Of course, all this was nothing compared to what happened to the senior United States Senator from my home state of California, Alex Padilla, when he dared to pose a question to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, aka ICE Barbie and renowned dog killer, Kristi Noem. Cosplaying her version of chief immigration enforcer – she, of the petrified plastic surgery face accentuated by plentiful hair extensions and full pageant-style makeup, was telling a series of mistruths that culminated with this ominous threat to anyone thinking of protesting anything she or her agents choose to do in southern California.

“We are NOT going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

At which point OUR senator, the one who was democratically elected, along with our governor and our mayor by me and millions of other Californians, proclaimed from the back of the room as he approached:

“I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary. Because the fact of the matter is …”

At which point he was grabbed by a bunch of agents, dragged out of the room, tackled onto the ground and physically held down by several men on the floor who grabbed his wrists behind his back and handcuffed him in full, proud view of the cameras. And no, I’m not exaggerating even a little bit. If you haven’t already, you can view it here.

Here’s the thing about our Senator Padilla. He’s a graduate of MIT and an engineer, an L.A. native who was put through school by two Mexican immigrant parents – a Dad who worked as a short order cook and a mother who cleaned houses. A guy who trained as an engineer and could have made a ton of money doing that but instead chose to enter politics in the 1990s because he wanted to give voice to a community of people who didn’t have the education and power to speak for themselves to the powers that be. A guy who’s soft-spoken, hard-working and extremely well-liked by his Senate colleagues. Someone who would never think of killing their 14 month old puppy instead of taking the time to train it properly, or ever consider being the public face of a modern-day version of Hitler’s Brownshirts.

If I sound a bit worked up over this it’s because:

I am. And –

2. While Sen. Padilla was being ICE-handled by Cruella’s goons on Thursday, I was five blocks away sitting in a large room at the L.A. Criminal Court House waiting to be called in for jury duty.

I can’t say I was shocked when the news alerts about all this popped up in my phone but nevertheless I was taken aback. That is until another potential juror, a thirtyish woman from Thailand, nervously approached me and tentatively asked if I’d ever been on a jury before. She was smart, had a cell phone, was conversive in the language but underneath it all looked terrified. It was as if she felt like if she made one wrong move or gave one wrong answer some masked man out of the corner would emerge out of the shadows and take her away.

I chalked it up to me just being dramatic (Note: Or as my shrink has said more than once, “inclined to piece things together in order to tell a story.”). But when we were upstairs, sitting on benches outside the courtroom door to which we’d been assigned, and she requested to sit by me so I could “help guide her” through it, I wasn’t so sure.

Turns out I was right…and then some.

Somehow being right this time didn’t feel this good

Once inside the courtroom, I looked around at about 40 or so of my fellow potential jurors, well more than half of whom were of Mexican, Black, Asian or some other non-white ethnicity – truly an L.A. melting pot — and heard us all verbally answer the judge’s questions about our jobs, previous experience with law enforcement, and prior jury service. What quickly became abundantly clear to me – storyteller or not – was that the demeanor of every single non-white person ranged from cautious and concerned to absolutely intimidated and frightened. People stumbled over their words, told stories of police harassment and witnessing violent crime, and expressed outright concern over what constituted a right or wrong answer or whether they’d said too much or too little.

As for the answers from the majority of us white folks, and the manner in which we gave them, well let’s just say I wish there was a new term for, um, Caucasian privilege, (Note: Did I make one up?) since everything about the term is so profoundly embarrassing and enraging to me.

As it should be to anyone who cares about democracy in 2025 and beyond. #Resist.

Oh, and P.S. – After I confidently said to the defense attorney I’d have no trouble at all with the concept of reasonable doubt in the case potentially before us, one where a woman of color was being tried for a crime against the state, I was immediately dismissed by the city’s prosecuting attorney from jury duty.

Make of that what you will. But also know that this very kind of Caucasian privilege is what too many of my “kind” in Washington are fighting to preserve.

Randy Newman – “I Love LA”

01.12.25

by notesfromachair

City on Fire

January 11, 2025

Greetings from fiery Los Angeles.

I am one of many thousands of people who had to evacuate their home with little notice and in mere minutes. To say it was shocking surreal, horrendous and many other adjectives I can’t think of at the moment, and probably wouldn’t do it justice at all, does not tell even a fraction of the story.

But I am also one of the lucky ones who survived, and whose home and immediate neighborhood stands pretty much untouched in comparison to what’s left of the Mad Max terrain in the former gorgeous towns of Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Altadena and others.

Thanks to the L.A. Fire Department, the response of local officials and the fact that the winds had died down enough for it to be tackled by air, the massive flames in the hills of Hollywood, aka the Sunset Fire, were contained relatively quickly. Though if you lost your home, or someone close to you, this doesn’t mean very much at all.

Over four decades, I have grown to love Los Angeles as much as my hometown of New York City and that’s really saying something. I can’t really tell you exactly why other than to say L.A. is part of California and that people have been coming to California for years for the freedom to be who they are and live the way they choose. It’s a mirage of sorts but not fully. There is something about the vastness of the state and what has become its melting pot of a population during the many years I’ve been here that has more and more made that mirage a bit more real. I mean, you might not get what you want but you have a ton of space to do it in and a vast number of tribes you can sample if you’re looking for a place where you can truly belong.

Also, if you don’t like it you can always leave. Literally no one will judge you for it. Out here most of us eventually learn that it’s up to an individual to make themselves happy. California won’t do it and especially L.A. won’t make it happen for you. You have to figure out how to make it happen.

This is one of the many reasons these L.A. fires have been so devastating for me. Watching it happen is like watching the beauty of all those dreams and all that stunning space get fried to a crisp in real time right before your eyes. Everything is ephemeral but the breadth and randomness of such mass destruction feels unusually, and most particularly, cruel.

Which does not mean we don’t feel that and more for all kinds of cruel destruction. No one has the market cornered on those type of regrettable feelings. In fact, maybe if there were more recognition of the latter, the world wouldn’t feel like the hateful place it all too often does these days.

Still, watching firefighters from neighboring states and countries flying in to help the people of L.A. has been quite something. Not to mention how quickly the American Red Cross, World Central Kitchen and dozens of other organizations and volunteers have opened outlets, service areas and phone lines to help us begin to cope and, eventually, recover.

But here is what is NOT helpful. Playing the Blame Game.

I get the country is divided and L.A. is an easy and often willing target (Note: Yes, we’re in on the joke. Duh). But you’d think an estimated $50 billion in damages from the largest city in a state that sends more money than any other to the federal government, would be enough to satiate the naysayers at this point.

Because I don’t trust myself to 1. Explain this properly and 2. Not go on a tangential, unhelpful and hysterical tirade in this sensitive moment, I want to instead share a very wise social media post from my friend Michael Colleary. This weekend he very smartly and very succinctly explained what happened in L.A. in an effort to offer some truth and reality to friends, family and acquaintances from out of state who have been hearing and reading all kinds of things. It goes as follows:

Dear FB Friends – I have received many messages and emails particularly from friends and family on the East Coast, asking after our safety. A million thanks for your care and concern. I would like to answer a few questions I have been asked repeatedly, particularly about fire hydrants and firefighting crews and LA’s overall response to the fires.

Let me try to provide a little perspective for those of you back East …

The Palisades fire began as a wilderness brush fire at 10:30AM on January 7th.

Driven by 80 MPH winds – hurricane-fast winds – within 24 hours it had burned 12,000 acres and hundreds of structures.

Any chance of LA fire crews – the best trained and most experienced in the world – containing it, let alone extinguishing it, drop to zero because air tankers and water-hauling helicopters can’t fly in 80mph winds.

So, to recap: 24 hours, 12,000 acres burned.

For my New York friends: Central Park is 850 acres. So, imagine a firestorm that incinerates 14 Central Parks in 24 hours. Or more to the point perhaps, imagine a firestorm that blows through Central Park, incinerating every blade of grass FOURTEEN TIMES in 24 hours.

For my NJ friends: our hometown of Montclair gets off a little better. At 4,000 acres, it would have been reduced to ash only THREE times in 24 hours. Imagine every single resident of Montclair becoming homeless on one night. Imagine the violent energy required for that to happen. Because it did, 3 times over.

And Palisades is only one of the massive fires burning here. The Eaton fire has burned 14,000 acres on the eastern edge of LA.

And it’s still going. As of this minute, the Palisades fire is closing in on 40,000 acres. That’s bigger than San Francisco (thankfully most of it is – for the moment – in remote canyons teeming with scrub foliage; yes, LA is that huge).

As shocking and overwhelming and devastating as this has been for so many thousands and thousands of people – my sister and brother-in-law lost their home; his niece and nephew both lost homes in separate fire areas – it is excruciating to hear these endless lies and blaming and gibberish about how DEI and budget cuts somehow caused or contributed to this absolute apocalyptic disaster.

No city, no county, no state, no country on the planet would or could be prepared and equipped to confront what’s happened here.

Because what has happened here is much closer to a volcanic eruption than a “brush fire.”

Our neighborhood is now within sight of the Palisades fire which overnight spread to Brentwood. Shan is packing her clothes. I have to go inside now and get my mother – already evacuated once with just the clothes on her back – up and ready to go should we be ordered to leave.

Friends, I know there’s not much you can do from far away – aside from donate to the Red Cross, etc.

But I humbly ask that – if you hear someone spreading the all-too prevalent lies being spewed for political score-settling – tell that person – from me – to STFU. Because they have no idea what’s really happening here.