Speak bitterness to ICE agents
Karen Bass's war on raves, bagel boy sellouts, ramen noodle red flags, and more.
ICE was spotted in Los Feliz this morning. Please stay safe. If you want to be directed to specific ways you can help, please DM me. I will send you to the right spot.
In today’s letter: I’m republishing a piece I originally ran in June; Karen Bass’s war on raves; a submersible in Macarthur Park Lake; and more.
As always, send tips and feedback to nobaddaysinla@proton.me
In times like these
[Originally published June 2025]
I asked some friends for advice on how to be useful in “times like these” (which is the language I use with my psych because I’m still not sure what side she’s on). Here is what Commune Mag founder and former managing editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books Chloe Watlington had to say:
I’m no Maoist, but I am a mother, and I know that nobody likes to get a talking to by a mother. I think people need to start using this Cultural Revolution tactic of speaking bitterness. Speaking bitterness is when poor people got a chance to vent to the rich landlords about what scum they are for taking their labor and giving nothing in return. In this movement against ICE deportations, this could take the forms of picket lines by grandmothers and mothers who can speak bitterness to the ICE agents at the hotels where they are being housed. Already there have been hundreds-of-people-deep protests at the AC Hotel in Pasadena, The Best Western in Sherman Oaks, and at the Arcadia Hilton. We can’t let them catch a break, so that they break. The same heat must be applied to California National Guard and the Marines. Look, there’s no way around it: There will need to be a time when the armed forces step down. That’s the only way the liberation movement can pass into the next phase. It sounds impossible and it is. Those with their eyes on the impossible get the prize.
I met Brandon Sward many years ago but became better acquainted through our work with Writers Against the War on Gaza. He’s also been coordinating rapid emergency responses to the ICE raids, as he did in the aftermath of the LA fires. Here’s his call to action:
I can tell you to donate, to call some number, but what we really need in situations like these are boots on the ground. There are more of us and our skills are many. If you have medical training and can help those brutalized by cops, we need that; if you have a car and can transport the injured, we need that; if you have a grill and can cook up a bunch of hotdogs, we need that. The streets are safest when we’re all out.
I’m sure you’ve seen Ash Lukashevsky’s “I hate a neutral ass bitch” tanks around town. This is their rec for being useful:
Join the Community Self-Defense Coalition— a network of 50+ grassroots orgs protecting our community from ICE kidnappings. Attend a training with them or Ground Game LA to get linked with a rapid response group in your neighborhood. Donating is welcome, but if you are able, eyes and bodies on the ground patrolling and disrupting raids/kidnappings on progress are extremely important. They also do KYR trainings and community outreach.
My old friend and born-and-raised Westsider, Jasmine Delgado, has some advice for Westsiders:
Through Westside Rapid Response, I’ve been participating in neighborhood surveillance to warn undocumented community members of ICE presence. It can be time consuming, but it has been incredibly rewarding work, especially when folks send their many thanks and words of appreciation.
Busted bass
A dispatch from the underground warehouse rave scene by my resident rave DJ slash perfumer, Maxwell Williams, founder of UFO Parfums:
Going out in L.A. inherently means skirting the law. With a 2 AM last call, underground and warehouse parties have long filled the gaps in the city’s nightlife. Recently, Flapjack the Kandi Kid—a legendary L.A. happy hardcore DJ—lent his gear to an underground party that was subsequently busted, resulting in the LAPD confiscating his CDJs and mixer. In a 14-part Instagram story, Flapjack documented the six-week ordeal of getting his equipment back, during which police told him it was being held “as a punishment,” despite the fact that he wasn’t even at the party.
After visiting multiple stations and filing stacks of paperwork, he eventually recovered his gear—but not before a detective admitted that the entire vice squad had been reassigned to cracking down on underground raves at the direction of Mayor Karen Bass. According to a desk officer, authorities had always been aware of these parties and largely ignored them, but that changed following a June 2022 rap event where three people were killed in a shooting. Other recent incidents—such as a fatal stabbing of community organizer Amanda Torres at Underwar3 and a shooting at Sxtcy—have only intensified scrutiny of the warehouse scene. Nowadays, ravers are lucky if an event isn’t rolled.
Are the Dodgers doing free promo for The California Post? It’s going over poorly on X. This is a team that has yet to acknowledge the ICE raids, even though immigrants compose a large segment of their fanbase. (Will former LA Times writer Dylan Hernandez, who once wrote headlines like these, be able to do the same under his NY Post overlords?) You know who else is doing free promo for the California Post? Karoline Leavitt.
Meanwhile, the broey maximalist bagel slinger known as Yeastie Boys appears to be hiding negative comments on its collab with the Murdoch paper. Founder Evan Fox posted an anti-ICE Instagram story on both his personal and business accounts, likely to repudiate any MAGA associations being made by his audience.
On X, Gavin Newsom’s Deputy Director for Rapid Response says they’ve been issuing near daily corrections to the Post on its coverage of California.
John Alle, the property developer and landlord of Langer’s Deli, tried to launch a submersible into Macarthur Park lake to find dead bodies allegedly abandoned there. Park rangers allegedly stopped him, although the failing California Post is trying to pin the obstruction on Eunisses. (Alle, if you’re unaware, is the guy who tried to fix LA’s homelessness problem by simply giving unhoused folks a one-way ticket out of town.) Macarthur Park is going to be a lightning rod issue for this election year, it turns. Expect more publicity stunts like this one!
I really wish we wouldn’t give Sp*ncer Pr*tt more air. This is not a serious guy… (John Alle, btw, is retweeting him.)
MAGA Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli is trying to take credit for the discovery of the $23 million homelessness fraud. The real hero of this story is lefty LA Controller Kenneth Mejia, whose Fraud, Waste, & Abuse Investigation Unit conducted the audit (which Karen Bass tried to block) of Inside Safe. The big red flag? Ramen noodles.
The LA Times talks to five writers in the wake of the Altadena fires. (It’s not lost on me they can’t find any writers who live in the Palisades…)
NBD friend Fat Tony was also on KCRW talking to Madeleine Brand about the impact of the fires on his life. I talked to Tony in November about what he lost in the fires and his favorite things about LA.
The Eastsider LA confirmed last week what has already been reported here: Taix is finally closing, for good this time. Have you seen what they’re going to replace it with? I won’t be including the renderings here as it really hurts to look at, but you can follow the link to see for yourself.
My joint birthday party with Eyefi Studios founder/curator Mary Rachel was already planned for the day after the announcement was made. The place was packed when we got there and the hostess let us know they were closing at 10 PM. They let us stay until midnight, as per usual; after which we took the party to El Prado.
Candice linked me to this Anahid Nercessian essay about Taix which names at least four of my friends, Taix regulars: “Literally the scene at your birthday.” Which was truer than she realized, because indeed Rosie Stockton was in a booth, nursing an espresso martini. Unlike Anahid, I don’t walk to Taix but on Saturday, [Redacted] and I took a bus there. I will miss it so dearly.
[Redacted] ordered us the famous strawberry cake from Chinatown’s Phoenix Bakery, the oldest-running family-owned bakery in Los Angeles. This past summer, the Chan family had to impose a surcharge on their cakes for the first time in their 87-year history because of the rising cost of ingredients.
🎶 Community notes
NBD reader Emel Shaikh invites you to Reading As A Political Act: Feminist Book Club Launch & Poetry Reading on January 30. It will open with “a poetry reading by Vianney Harelly and will feature a discussion of Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda—a raw and unflinching collection of short stories focused on women navigating survival, violence, and resistance under failed systems.” RSVP at the link.
NBD reader Jessica Mach shared this street art project by Jennifer Watkins Bielasiak that documents protest media during Trump’s second term. It functions as an archive of posters, graffiti, stickers, chalk messages, and other forms of visual dissent.
Happy Birthday's
No Bad Birthdays