I was in in Santa Fe, New Mexico visiting Danielle Carr and her chickens. She took me up to Abiquiu over the weekend to tour Georgia O’keefe’s old house (where you can see unreleased prototypes of some Eames chairs and hear some revisionist history about Miss O’keefe) and then we swam in Lake Abiquiu, which reminded me of the calanques in the south of France. Perhaps I’m self-soothing, because based on my Instagram stories, every LA “artist” and “writer” I know of nebulous employment is there this summer, again… Friends, we have Marseille at home! Come back!
We also stopped into Bosshard Gallery, and met John Bosshard, who for a decade was a part-owner of the Licorice Pizza chain of record stores in Los Angeles (after which the PTA film is named). Before we left, we had to see Dar Al-Islam, the first intentional community of Muslims in the US. The mosque was closed for a private event, so we didn’t get to see the campus, designed by Egyptian architect by Hassan Fathy, but we explored a bit of Plaza Blanca, located on the same site. Then we took some unexpectedly delicious beef green chile burritos for the road from Bode’s. It’s a bit too far out of the way for a rest stop, but LAX has direct flights to SAF.
Inside: read an interview with the organizers of the NOlympics, conducted by Erik Abriss. A ton of weekend events at the bottom!
I’m predicting that, in the next five years, members of the upwardly mobile creative class, responsible for the unrecognizable transformation of Silver Lake and Echo Park and adjacent neighborhoods, will start moving west and reclaiming former hippie enclaves like Venice Beach and even Hollywood proper. Here’s the evidence supporting my prediction:
The end of LA’s “dry heat”. This summer has been unusually humid, but Angelenos should get used to it. This will soon be our new normal. And I just don’t think the pampered creative directors and part-time DJs of the “Eastside” will be able to handle it. (As someone who unwillingly spent an inordinate amount of time in Austin the last couple of years, I should know!) No one likes sweating through their $400 chore jacket! Santa Monica will start to look a little enticing under these conditions.
Higher rents. Rent in Silver Lake is 31% higher than the national average, according to Apartments.com. That was kinda fine when that meant you lived in a unique, walkable neighborhood lined with local independent businesses. But now that means you live next to a Parachute Home, a Sweetgreen, and three different perfume stores backed by private equity. Which brings me to my next point…
“Westside creep”. This is a phenomenon I dubbed myself, which describes the process of “Westside-coded” businesses moving into the neighborhood (such as Bacari and Great White1), which draw in social media influencers, as well as the corporatization of its strip malls (Cashbah Cafe replaced by a Colombe Coffee; Mohawk Bend replaced by a Pitfire Pizza; a fancy Mexico City churro chain displacing Patra’s; and so on and so on). This is a tale as old as time, the final stage of “gentrification”2. See: “Abbot Kinney”, Williamsburg, etc. Even local chains like Ggiata will become implicated in this process. When every neighborhood has a Ggiata, a Kumquat Coffee, a Great White—where do you go for something that feels different?
Now imagine: waking up every morning to ocean spray in your face because you’re sharing a 2-bed with a roommate for $1,500/month in Santa Monica. You’re in walking distance of a hundred great restaurants, coffee shops, and bakeries and a bus ride away to Malibu. They have Win-dow burgers and Parachute stores out there too. The proposition becomes more attractive with every passing 90 degree day!
The city’s annual homelessness count showed a 7.9% increase in Angelenos living outdoors or in cars. Local media framed this as a “fresh blow” to Karen Bass’s reelection campaign. What if we didn’t treat slight modulations to an endemic crisis like a political football?
Mayor Karen Bass paid a visit to A Good Used Book.
There is no one who deserves more praise for the reopening of the Cinerama Dome than Ben Steinberg of Save Your Cinema. Thank you, Ben, for being so annoying no one could ignore you. Regardless of what you think of the corporate partnership that’s taking over the space, it’s a relief to know the building won’t deteriorate into non-existence.
The new owners of the Graffiti Towers have started removing the graffiti. To honor these monstrosities’ only redeeming quality, Rent Brigade is leading walking tours in August tracing the history of their development and downtown displacement more broadly. Spots going fast.
What happened to all the free beverages at art gallery openings? I was at the Armory show in New York two or three years ago, where, even in the VIP section, you had to buy your own drinks. The gallerists were stressed about the a of sales. But last year, it appears there was a rebound. Bring the free bevs back!
Loreto is introducing a fish and chips night. Every Thursday at the bar.
El Ruso opened a brick-and-mortar in Studio City.
No Olympics Anywhere: A Conversation with NOlympics LA Organizer Gigi Droesch
This interview was conducted by Erik Abriss, the author of General Inquiry, a newsletter documenting the history of the general strike.
The Boyle Heights warehouse fire certainly cast a shadow over Los Angeles’ buzzy World Cup hosting duties last month. While local and visiting soccer fans congregated in bars and on blocks across our sprawling city, a black column of toxic smoke from a cold storage facility owned by Lineage Logistics blanketed the sky above the working-class neighborhood in East Los Angeles, while the wind carried unhealthy air to surrounding areas.
Mayor Bass—out of town again as a fire ignited, this time attending Obama’s library opening—declared a local emergency but downplayed the risk. Neighbors seeking clarity on the particulate pollution advisory wondered whether official FIFA watch parties in outdoor fan zones near Boyle Heights might explain her oddly reassuring language. The fire has been knocked down, but pests and rotting food stench persist. Mounting community outrage and demands for relief have grown into a new political conflagration for both Bass and Governor Newsom.
Gigi Droesch, an organizer with NOlympics LA, sees the city’s actions as an example of how elected officials govern under their obligations to the corporate interests of mega-events. NOlympics, an organization formed in 2017 to oppose Mayor Garcetti’s Olympics bid, has spent years warning that environmental degradation, hyper-gentrification, militarized policing, and surveillance have infected every Olympics host from Rio de Janeiro to Athens.
Amid an intensifying housing and affordability crisis and a federal occupation of our streets, NOlympics’ predictions continue to arrive at our doorstep. These problems are only going to be felt more acutely as Los Angeles rolls out the red carpet for the global capital, private equity, real estate developers, and federal law enforcement that will come as a packaged deal with the Olympics.
I shared a conversation over email with Gigi as the soccer, industrial disaster, and atrophied City Hall response played out. In between “engaging in some old-fashioned disruptive action,” she took some time to explain how our emerging dystopia will continue to reveal itself over the next two years, and the kind of bottom-up solidarity that will be required to resist it.
Take me back to the genesis of NOlympics. What conditions in the city led to the organization’s formation?
NOlympics LA began in 2017, before LA was awarded the 2028 Olympics. At the time, the city was bidding for the 2024 games. Our coalition came from conversations that socialists organizing tenants, both housed and unhoused, were having regarding gentrification in Los Angeles. We realized that all of their organizing challenges would accelerate if LA got the bid—more sweeps, more Ellis Act evictions, and more displacement. Organizers in police abolition spaces had also been raising the alarm since 2015. We knew every Olympic Games funnels more resources towards policing in every city they arrive in. At the time, LA had no organized resistance to the bid even though everyone on the left knew it was a bad idea. NOlympics LA was founded as a coalition to bring all of these organizations together to fight the bid.
Who else comprises the coalition?
Basically, the core organizers opened up their proverbial rolodexes and called every org they could to get them on board. Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN), LA Tenants Union, DSA-LA, CCED, K-Town for All, Streetwatch, Ground Game LA, and over a dozen others signed on immediately. We also took an internationalist approach to the issue and immediately reached out to anti-Olympic organizers in Hamburg, Rio, Tokyo, and anywhere else we could find them. Not only did we want to learn from organizers in other cities, but we recognized that the Olympics are a global organization that needed a global resistance. We didn’t want to be Olympics NIMBYS who pushed the problem on some other city. We wanted to end the Olympics entirely. Together with Hangorin No Kai, Anti Pyeongchang Olympics Alliance, and other anti-Olympic organizers around the world, we founded the NOlympics Anywhere movement to bring all of these struggles together, and in 2019, we attended the first Anti-Olympic summit hosted in Tokyo.
Can you talk about how then-mayor Eric Garcetti was able to lead the bid for the Olympics without first allowing a public vote? Readers might not know just how shady and anti-democratic it was.
LA was a deeply undemocratic place run by milquetoast Democrats who were fully in the pocket of developers at the time. Garcetti had the Herb Wesson-led council thoroughly whipped. In 2019, LA Podcast ran the numbers and found that over the previous five years LA City Council voted yes unanimously 99.37% of the time, which is an astonishing number and tells you how undemocratic the last decade in particular had been. Also in that last decade, featuring Garcetti’s rise to mayorship, we saw the city of LA gift $1B for nine different hotel developments in a very shoddy deal for the city and a slew of councilmembers get indicted or convicted of pretty brazen, briefcases-of-cash-in-Vegas-style, development-driven corruption.
The IOC does not require host cities to vote on whether or not residents want the Olympics. In fact, they hate when that happens. Just a few weeks ago NOlympia Hamburg organizers forced a second vote on Olympics in the last decade, and they won both times. In Los Angeles, it’s extremely expensive to even qualify for a ballot. Back in the 2016-2017 “bidding” cycle, LA Olympic boosters ran a lot of shoddy polls (including one by LMU pollster Fernando Guerra, while he was a registered lobbyist for four downtown LA hotel developments) claiming dictator-like numbers of approval. Los Angeles was sadly at that time the Eric Garcetti Show. He was positioning himself for a presidential run in 2020 or 2024. Anyone remember the banger, “Ready for Garcetti?” It seems absurd now, but this was going to be his Mitt Romney-esque catapulting into the national political scene. Obviously, that flopped.
LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman has been in the news a lot lately, and not for anything good. Can you talk about his involvement with LA28 and how this unelected businessman has seemingly been able to warp the city to his financial interests?
Where to start with LA28 chair Casey Wasserman? He probably wouldn’t like it if I began by saying he once emailed Ghislane Maxwell to tell her he couldn’t wait to see her dressed in all leather, so I’ll start there. He’s the grandson of Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, who at the age of twelve carried the Olympic torch for the LA84 games. He’s gone on to become the owner of major talent management company Wasserman Media Group, now known as The Team after Wasserman was exposed as a Lolita Express frequent flier. This was public knowledge since 2019, but talent only began dropping him en masse in 2026 because establishment press only began reporting on his friendship with Epstein after the recent Epstein files drop.
Wasserman managed big-name talent in the fields of sports and music and wants sports mega-events in LA because he can use them to book gigs for the talent he manages. He’s a member of the LA Sports & Entertainment Commission, which is the non-profit that advocates for bringing events like the Olympics, World Cup, and Super Bowl to Los Angeles. Alongside leaders in the fields of sports media, real estate, aerospace, and surveillance technology, Wasserman brings these events to benefit him and his LASEC friends. Similarly, members of the LA28 Board are involved in some industries that benefit from the Olympics, or straight up work in leadership at Olympic sponsors like Starbucks, and many have clear conflicts of interests. We put together a corruption dashboard to track all of their ties.
What were the initial demands from NOlympics upon Los Angeles being selected as the host city for 2028?
We’ve held the same line that we had before the bid was awarded: Los Angeles should not host the 2028 Olympics. We knew that regardless of how “successfully” they are executed, these Games will expose tens of thousands of our fellow Angelenos to incalculable risk and feed the problems which are already devastating and destroying the fabric of our communities today, while depriving us of the resources we need to make the city better. Our goal was, and still is, to stop the Olympics. We continued to insist on Homes not Games, the abolition of police, and an actually democratic Los Angeles.
Unlike the city council and mayor that brought these games, we actually engaged with Angelenos by holding town halls, carrying out surveys, and canvasing neighborhoods known to be Airbnb hotspots. Airbnb is a major sponsor of the Olympics, and their business model gentrifies neighborhoods affected by the tourism industry. Since LA media was so laser-focused on supporting Garcetti’s mega-event agenda, we created our own media, including podcasts, blog posts, websites like WhereisGarcetti.com, livestreams, short videos, a strong social media presence, and even music! So, to this day, we maintain that the best course of action for Los Angeles would be to cancel the 2028 Olympics.
What more recent developments has NOlympics been bringing attention to?
Lately we’ve been sounding the alarm about a concept we call The Forever Games. Basically, Casey Wasserman and the LA Sports and Entertainment Commission are trying to put Los Angeles into a permanent state of exception through multiple consecutive mega-events. This is why, between 2022 and 2028, LA has held or is planning to hold two Super Bowls, a World Cup, and an Olympics. Historically, the Olympics would wait a generation or two—enough time for the cultural memory of harm to fade—before attempting to return to a prospective host city. But with global bids dwindling, the Olympic machine is now circling back faster than ever. After Tokyo 2020, Japan immediately floated a 2030 bid for Sapporo. Local developers are setting their sights beyond new stadium and venue construction—plotting instead to develop large-scale “entertainment districts” that will more rapidly gentrify already vulnerable communities. Over the past decade, as Olympic popularity among potential host cities has nosedived, many pundits and boosters have suggested that the problem with the Olympics is the existing rotating city model. They’ve gone on to suggest that Los Angeles could be one of—or the sole—permanent home for the Games. This would be a huge disaster for Los Angeles.
I think people might be shocked to hear just how the IOC and corporate sponsors use host cities as laboratories for testing new models of rent-seeking and policing. Can you elaborate on just what kind of harms the Games bring?
ICE’s collaboration with the LAPD is another huge issue in Los Angeles right now. The Department of Homeland Security classifies major events like the Olympics and World Cup as “National Special Security Events” (NSSEs). This classification means local police and sheriffs will coordinate closely with the FBI, ICE, Customs and Border Protection, the Secret Service, and the U.S. Military. The NSSE threatens any effort to make LA a sanctuary city, putting undocumented Angelenos at risk. What’s wild is that the NSSE designation for the LA 2028 Olympics started four years early, on January 30th, 2024, at Mayor Karen Bass’s request. No other NSSE has ever started so early. Trump’s Secret Service already has an office they are working out of in Los Angeles. There have been some calls to remove ICE from the World Cup stadiums, but those don’t go far enough. ICE doesn’t belong in our city or region at all. But unfortunately, ICE is part of the World Cup by design.
We’re also finding out more about the militarized Olympics Zones that will surround Olympic venues. At major sports events, the areas around stadiums are fenced off to create a “security perimeter,” blocking or limiting access to people’s homes and businesses. At past Olympic Games, people who live or work in these areas have had to show a QR code or identification that proves that they can be in this area. This can disrupt the livelihoods of small business owners, workers, and street vendors, not to mention unhoused people who will be unable to prove that they live within the Olympic Zones. These security perimeters will be patrolled by armed military troops and police.
We’ve seen increased sweeps on unhoused people all across the city, as more and more public spaces are fenced off and politician wannabes stoke violent rhetoric against unhoused people. Six people a day die on the streets of Los Angeles, twice the number that did when we first started our campaign. We have had people at sweeps tell us that the police are telling them that this is because of the upcoming Olympics, and that they should expect more sweeps as we get closer to the games. The city wants to look “clean” to the rest of the world. Instead of working to get people in permanent housing, the city is resorting to social cleansing.
Evictions, especially Ellis Act evictions, near Olympic venues remain a problem. Landlords are attempting to evict long term tenants in rent-stabilized units in favor of wealthier tenants. On Flower Drive, which is across from the LA Memorial Coliseum, an entire block of tenants was evicted for what was originally pitched and approved in city council as a hotel for Olympic tourists. A second block on the street has organized with the LA Tenants Union as the Flower Drive Tenants Association and is still fighting their evictions. Sex workers are also in an increasingly precarious position. Law enforcement argues that increased police presence is necessary to combat an increase in sex trafficking at major sporting events. There is little evidence to support these rumors.
Basically, the Olympics and other mega-events are a racket meant to use public resources—our transit system, city programs and personal, ever-expanding police departments, parks, and more—to subsidize a two-week party for the rich that funnels more money into real estate, big tech, surveillance companies, and media. It’s a massive wealth transfer from the working class to the rich.
We’re officially two years away from the Olympics. How can readers get involved in the fight?
Readers in LA should definitely join NOlympics LA. We will be having another new member meeting soon—follow our IG or join our mailing list. You can also join our meetings on Zoom every other Monday. Email us at no@nolympicsla.com or DM us on social media for meeting information. If Mondays and Zoom aren’t your thing, we encourage you to join any of our coalition orgs! They are all doing great work. If you are a member of an organization that would like to join the NOlympics LA coalition, or collaborate on a teach-in, strategy session, screening, direct action, zine, etc, email us to get that process started.
People in other cities should join their local tenants union, ICE watch/cop watch group, or other efforts to organize the working class in their cities. Keep your ear to the ground and launch a coordinated effort to oppose any bids before the Olympics machine has time to manufacture consent. If you’re part of a labor union, fight to make sure your union knows that bringing an Olympics to your city means higher rents and lower wages for workers, and that the IOC can’t be bargained with. Build mutual aid networks to keep each other fed, clothed, and safe. The Olympics is the ultimate expression of capitalist excess, and it can only be fought by building a city that is allergic to the whims of capitalists.
📆 THIS WEEK
🎥 WEDNESDAY: Cinema Land at Human Resources presents the Middle Ear Project
🍝 SATURDAY: The historic Garibalidina Society invites you to a night of “precision DJ induced revelry, nourishing food, rococo desserts, perhaps a little caffeinated pick me up, and vibrational wine.” Tickets $10 at the door.
⚽️ SATURDAY: For Your Viewing Pleasure is partnering with Goals for Gaza to host the Anti-Cup, “a one-day tournament of 5v5 games on both a turf and futsal fields.” Proceeds will go to benefit the Lajee Celtic Football Club of Aida Refugee Camp in the West Bank and families in Iran and Venezuela. Not a player? Not a problem. There’s food and music for you to enjoy. Get tickets here.
💪 SUNDAY: Come learn ceramic handbuilding at CLAY GYM in Lincoln Heights. No experience necessary, all materials provided, chill and supportive environment led by teaching artist Marina Weiner. Register here.
⛱️ SUNDAY: Come to a Pool Party hosted by Buckmonster, Banoffee, and others. Early bird tickets are still available at $23, which is a great price for an open bar.
🥪 MONDAY: Get a Canter’s pastrami sandwich for 95 cents.
👀 LOOKING AHEAD
🌭 AUGUST 6: While other art galleries are nixing their free drink programs, Wilshire Online is offering hot dogs.
🍗 AUGUST 8: Lasita is celebrating 5 years in Chinatown with food, music, and a mini marketplace. Tickets here.
💦 AUGUST 9: Join Friends of the LA River for Riverfest for “live music, local food, hands-on activities, and thousands of your fellow River lovers.” Free for all.
💨 AUGUST 7-14: The Windgrease Festival, presented by Georgia Anne Muldrow, Mythscience, and Minaret Records is “a week of experimental concerts and workshops in the battle for the creative soul of Los Angeles.” Tickets here.
The uproar against Great White is really funny to me. It’s technically a local chain, and has as about as many locations as Ggiata, but not one seems as upset about the latter moving into Echo Park. (And Great White is replacing a Shake Shack.) Is it the racism allegations? I could name a handful of popular eastside restaurants with similar policies…
When I was a baby reporter at USC, I reported on how gang injunctions were used to drive Mexican families out of Silver Lake and Echo Park. One of the residents I talked to told me how he had to start dressing different to avoid being profiled by the police. It really illustrated, for me, the subtle but brutal ways gentrification starts to change the character of a neighborhood.
Humidity in Venice/Santa Monica has been over 80% and not only is the ocean about 70 degrees but the waves and rip currents are dangerous right now. (The upcoming-almost here-maybe already here-El Niño forecasts multiple Pacific hurricanes. The one off Mexico (cat 4 as of today) is what’s feeding the humidity.
The only escape that seems reasonable is camping out in movie theaters (but not the indie ones because their a/c is too iffy). Also, ULTA, Gelson’s & medical clinics have really good A/C. Go fan yourself with the doors of the frozen food cases. We should share a b list of all the cooling places-we will need them.
I suspect bouts of hot and humid weather will be with us until the deluge comes in November. Keep in mind that parts of Venice are in the 100 year flood zone.
Also—the ‘84 Olympics were great fun!
Bunch of fools left town fearing terrorist attacks. The freeways were empty & average people were able to get tickets to all sorts of events. (One that remember that I saw: field hockey and also the end of a marathon at the Coliseum.)
There were art festivals. I attended and reported on (for CSUN’s vs paper) a wonderful international animation festival.
Housing that was built for the visiting athletes increased dorm rooms at UCLA. There are facilities that were built for that event that are still standing.
It was the 80s though. Another time. I didn’t have the feeling that the 1% were screwing the rest of us over constantly. The corruption was more subtle. (Even Ray-Gun’s stuff.) But Bradley was our Mayor & the folks I hung with (a bunch of open space advocates and tree huggers) loved that man!
Stay cool & be grateful we aren’t having the winds we had January 2025 or are breathing smoke again.
🙌 We have a new member meeting tomorrow 7/30 if anyone is interested in getting involved in our work!