Last night I took the kids for a short walk and brought along my camera just for you folks!
This is where we live. We’re the fifth house back. All the houses before us are now vacant. Hey, more parking for us when we party! Our front door faces these peoples bedroom in those apartments. They don’t like us when we party. Seriously.
People, here, party in their front yards. This house is occupied by Mexican’s and they are ALWAYS partying in the front yard!
Our residential streets have speed bumps. That’s probably so you don’t run over the drug dealers or taggers as you’re trying to get the fuck home before dark!
I took this picture just for DraMa! Who puts plastic deer in the front yard of an apartment building? DER!
This is what we call Dead Body Park. Last October a nude, unidentified, white woman’s dead body was dumped behind those bushes on a Saturday night. Nothing was in the paper or on the news about it. If it hadn’t been for me seeing the Coroner’s van there we wouldn’t have even known about it at all!
We even have our own raunchy trailer parks! I think this one is filled with…can you guess? Yup. Mexican’s!
We’ve got auto shops ALL OVER the place! On this street there were three of them! Two were right across the street from each other!
And just like our auto repair places, we’ve got Carniceria’s all over the place. Umm, that’s a Mexican meat market for you white people. At this one you can buy bomb ass meat and good sweet bread.
Most houses have bars on their windows and security doors. 90% of our streets also have these islands in the middle of them, too.
To help spruce up the place, our city has added fountains. EVERYWHERE. This one is across the street from my parent’s house and its not uncommon to roll by here on a Sunday morning and find the fountain, corner and the street filled with soap suds! LMAO I’ll keep an eye out for that to get a picture for you.
Why do Mexican’s paint their houses the UGLIEST and BRIGHTEST colors they could find? Anyone? Oh and incase you haven’t noticed yet, there are power lines EVERYWHERE.
Not only do they paint their buildings bright colors but they paint their bricks to match their buildings! I’m just grateful the people down the street bought the last can of tangerine orange.
And finally, if you look closely you’ll see a pair of tennis shoes tossed up there on the power lines. As funny as it seems because some little black kid is now without a pair of sneakers, its not funny at all. Here, tennis shoes in the power lines are a signal to others that drugs can be bought there.
Well I hope you enjoyed your five block ghetto walk. I’ll have to do it again, but next time crossing Garfield Ave!

21 comments
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September 27, 2007 at 3:49pm
yakimafarmgirl
I’m cracking up because I lived down in LA for a long time (most of my family still lives there) – what part are you in? My bro is in Venice, but not the nice part. They got a house in the hood – the serious hood – sure, they got a good deal on it, but there are drug deals in front of their house EVERY night! And they have little kids! Gotta love living in LA! Seeing your pics actually makes me miss Cali! Except for the dead body story…that’s pretty dang scary! Where I lived in LA helicopters went overhead every single night with the big search lights. Fun times!
September 27, 2007 at 3:59pm
*~*Cece*~*
Yakima, I’m in Paramount which is a few minutes North of Long Beach. Speaking of helicopters last night those suckers were circling FOREVER! I think they finally went away close to 10pm!
September 27, 2007 at 5:21pm
Frazzled Farm Wife
That was pretty enlightening for me to see! I am so used to our small town country living I can’t believe that they put houses so close together. I am pretty naive about alot of things living here…I would have never guessed that tennis shoes on the power lines would have been a sign for anything. Thanks for sharing and please share some more.
September 27, 2007 at 5:36pm
Beehive Goddess
Dude, I’m having flashbacks! OMG, I remember you yelling at that lady in the apt to shut her window when we were out partying, then turning to me and saying, “Fucking Mexicans!” *snort*
Dead body park. The fountains. Oh man. Can’t wait for March!
Oh, and tennis shoes on a wire here is nothing more than a sign of a pack of really bored teenagers trying to make the “runt’s” life a living hell. Then again, I’ve also seen fishing lures hanging from power lines. Oh, oh! And when going down to Paul’s parent’s…there is a “shoe tree”. Yep. A whole freaking tree with pairs of shoes tossed into it’s branches. Say it with me now….
“Fucking white people!”
LMAO!
September 27, 2007 at 5:40pm
L Sass
That looks sooooo California to a New Yorker like me. Even the sun looks Californian!
One of the great things about the lack of yards in NYC = NO PLASTIC LAWN ANIMALS.
September 27, 2007 at 6:36pm
Craze
Damn, all that shit looks familiar yo! I so did not know that about the tennis shoes!
Mexican meat market, funny shit man!
After going to Mexico with y’all I totally get why they use those funky ass bright colors. It’s all over TJ.
And they’re called Ghetto Birds ho!
September 27, 2007 at 6:45pm
DraMa
You crack me up! I love your descriptions of the pictures:) Thanks for proving my point about the ridiculous lawn deer!
September 27, 2007 at 6:49pm
DraMa
Oh and when I lived in the Phoenix area (which is now pretty much just like L.A) we called those helicopters the “Ghetto Birds”. They were out every night lookin’ for someone!
What cracks me up around here is the Virgin Mary shrines that all the Mexicans put up in their front yards… then they get lights for Christmas of course.
There is one house near my IL’s house (A big Mexican neighborhood) that decorates with so much shit it’s unreal. Lights, plastic figures, random light designs and colors… nothing matches or makes sense. It’s just bright… BRIGHT.
I call them…. the Griswaldos.
(As in the Griswalds from the Vacation movies?)
September 27, 2007 at 6:59pm
The Diva's Thoughts
HAHAHA! Great pictures girl.
September 27, 2007 at 7:25pm
*~*Cece*~*
Frazzled, that’s how I feel when you share pictures!
Behive, we’ll have plenty of time in March, I should totally take you guys walking! Its only a 7 minute walk to my parents house anyhow.
Sass, you’re turn! I showed you CA now you’ve got to show me NY!
Craze, I bet it looks familiar! lol I’m sure I could even send you to the corner store for smokes & a 40 & you wouldn’t get lost! lol
Drama, plastic lawn crap is dumb. Just dumb. What cracks me up around here is the Virgin Mary shrines that all the Mexicans put up in their front yards… then they get lights for Christmas of course. OMG! I can’t believe you said this! At the corner apartment building there was a Mexican family that had the SAME shit! I kid you not! The Virgin Mary sourounded by fricken Xmas lights ALL. YEAR. LONG. I went looking for it last night to snap a pix but they must’ve moved or got told to clean up their space b/c the yard was empty. Bummer, that would’ve made a great picture. lol I’m sure I can find more though.
Diva, it was actually pretty fun doing this, too. My kids kept asking And why are we taking pictures of our city? I told them I was working on a project. lol
September 27, 2007 at 8:14pm
minijonb
ah, you gotta love urban spaces…
and those plastic deer!!! haHA! i laughed my ass off!
September 27, 2007 at 9:28pm
Tuesday Girl
Wow, that was interesting.
September 27, 2007 at 9:59pm
Slick
Well, i like the pictures but did you remember to take your Uzi with you too?
Tennis shoes and small trailer parks go hand in hand, right?
September 27, 2007 at 10:40pm
~JJ!
GhettoFabulous.
September 27, 2007 at 11:09pm
Beth
I LOVE this tour of your ghetto!!! It looks like my ghetto…only a little better.
September 28, 2007 at 4:23am
Ms.L
I LOVED this!!
I’m stealing your idea..
Thank you for the tour. It’s neat to see where you live.
Your Dead Body Park reminds me of our dead woman park when we lived in the big city,a woman was beaten to death 2 blocks away from my house…guess where her murderer lived? Right next door.Ack!
September 28, 2007 at 4:43am
Gino
i grew in south gardena, near the harbor gateway strip.
this is sooo deja vu.
but this was 30-40 yrs ago, and all our mexicans(not really mexicans, they been in this country for a couple generations and where really darker shade americans) were all related.
we, even they, called it 3 degrees of separation. every mexican was either somebody else’s uncle, cousin, cousin in law, auntie in law…
and the whole hood went to the same large catholic church (in english). i miss the yearly festival, where everybody was a part of it.
on a positive note: i was never in the company of strangers. i miss that part of my life.
and they paint the bricks to cover the grafiti, of course.
September 28, 2007 at 5:59pm
Not a Granny
The tennis shoes mean the same thing here in Florida.
September 28, 2007 at 6:41pm
Dixie
Wow. Your ghetto looks sooo much nicer than mine!
I’m jealous.
September 29, 2007 at 9:08pm
the walking man
Ain’t no empty houses in Hispanic Hills portion of Detroit, but it is the only part of Detroit where if you’re not Black they pretty much know you came over to their ‘hood to eat and not shoot. So it’s cool as long as your not in Patton park after dark.
Nothing wrong with a flashy ghetto
Peace
TWM
October 2, 2007 at 5:15am
Carrie
Damn. I can’t see the pictures. I’ll need to see if I can see them on the desktop.
We have the tennis shoes on the power lines everywhere here.