You see a lot of weird things when you're living on the streets, but a lot of it is not stuff most people imagine. In the media, when people talk about homelessness, there's a ton of talk about needles and poop everywhere. Yeah, I see where people have taken a dump on a regular basis, since there are not enough public restrooms. And once in a while, I see needles somewhere from an addict, but not very often. But I see a lot more day to day, than those things. Like the dead roach above, that somehow got stuck on a piece of bubble gum, and died. This was on a sidewalk in a nice area of The Valley. I just looked down and said, "What the fuck? How did that happen?" All the things humans do to kill roaches, and no one has tried bubble gum. Crazy.
When the work that brought me back to California didn't work out, I headed down to Orange County, where I spent the summer of 2019. I lived in the Huntington Beach area for most of the 20 years from 1987-2008. But I just kept getting pushed from one area to another that summer. So I headed up to L.A. county, and landed in Hollywood with 85 cents in my pocket, in early September of 2019. I was looking for a place to try and sell my Sharpie art on the street, and figure out what to do next. The guy in gray above, a break dancer, was one of the local street artists at Hollywood and Highland daily, pre-Covid. He would stand there motionless, until someone put a dollar in his jar, then start dancing, and try to draw a crowd.
But he's not why I took this photo, I shot him for an interesting foreground. See that little fenced off area in the background, which has something light colored in it. It looks like there's some construction going on, right? Nope? Inside that fenced area, under a piece of plywood, with a sandbag on top of it, is Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. While not much happened on the Mexico border that he was always drumming on about, Trump got a fence built... around his star. For much of Trump's presidency, this is how his star in Hollywood looked, hidden from all the people who might want to damage it, disguised as a bit of construction. So he did get a fence built, a little bitty one. I always found that funny. Fuckin' douchebag.
While selling little pieces of art in Hollywood to survive, I spent the nights over the hill in The Valley, where things were less crazy at night. There were still a lot of homeless people in the area, but it wasn't as nutty, or as dangerous, as Hollywood a night. This area, a corner of Studio City by Universal Studios, called Universal City, had some good street art appear from time to time. You know that guy who does the Obey stuff? Yeah, this is one of his pieces, that popped up around the time of the 2020 election. "Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere." It's more true now than when this poster showed up.
This was an actual mural, on a boarded over building. There's a small business in the building, but they just put plywood over the old windows, and got a couple murals painted on the wood, by a local artist. This was actually up
before Covid showed up on U.S. shores, and became more timely. On Ventura, near the bottom of the hill. It's been tagged over since.
Possibly the most iconic street art image of our times. The late Andre' the Giant, stylized, reminding you to blindly Obey. Or not. Universal City area in 2022. #streetart, #steveemigphotos
Stay up! One of the lesser known pieces from that Obey guy. This one stayed up for many months. Right above the "ey," someone wrote, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me." Rage. #steveemigphotos, #obey, #streetart
.JPG)
