Sunday, June 7, 2009

Glendale Blvd: Spain Bullfighting Mural



After that small chronic break that was the last post, I'm back to my photos of Glendale Blvd.

Just past the Geometric Fields and the Strange Symbols is the restaurant Spain. I've been here once, and I wasn't totally impressed, and I don't think I'm alone in that opinion.

But while the food at this place isn't that great, I do like this mural of the blond bullfighter thrusting his pelvis into the side of the bull that seems to be floating on another plane with swords swinging from it's side like laser beams.



Speaking of bullfights, for those that are interested there is a bloodless bullfight that takes place in LA. It's down in the Portuguese section of Artesia (LA has a section for everyone) and I checked it out about three years ago. Instead of using swords, they have wooden dowels with Velcro on the end and the bull has a patch of fabric strapped to his back. A matador goes around planting the Velcro sticks on the bull's pad until the bull gets tired and kind of just chills out. The LA Times actually just ran a story about it recently because the group Animal Cruelty Investigations called the cops on the event.

I thought the event was really cool. The fight itself takes place in this small arena built right in the middle of this totally normal LA neighborhood. They had really cheap booze and great Portuguese pork sandwiches, all of which were being sold by a couple of neighborhood dads out of Igloo coolers. It was pretty great.

While I didn't think the animals were treated all that great, it was the young men who would get the bull back in the pin after the fight who took the worst beating. What would happen is eight or so guys would come out in these matador outfits and stand in a single-file line in front of the bull. The bull would charge them and they would all pounce on it, one on the horns, a couple on the sides, and one dude would hold the bull's tail. And every time this happened, it seemed like one guy would get really fucked up by the bull. From what I could tell these were local guys who did this to be macho.

Here's a video that illustrates exactly what I'm talking about.

Artesia Bullfights,



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