“We need to…WE NEED TO… get -on-the-sidewalk… GET ON THE SIDEWALK%2 

Wrapping up this Veterans Day with Mr. Fish of truthdig.com who had a brilliant solo show of his clever, nuanced and obsessively crafted drawings at Santa Monica art compound Bergamot Station’s Berman Gallery

Word is the cartoonist will be a guest on NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly, 

Another Veteran Day contribution. A fellow soldier is the subject of chow time on the Mortar Range. Note the crates of 81mm mortar rounds on the horizon. Hard work placing those on target.

“Born to Eat” was an outward expression of the inwardly held values of this fellow soldier we  photographed when it was all fun and games, before the empire-building-shit hit the fan big time. The price for that can be seen here, fitting and reverent photos by Magnum shooter Paul Fusco. But on this Veterans Day we recall fondly our contribution to our nation’s defense. Everything we needed to know we learned in infantry school, Ft. Benning, but never put our skills to test in the great combat actions of our time, having served in the Army National Guard’s Rainbow Division, whose distinctive patch is composed of blue for the seas we never crossed, red for the blood we never shed, and yellow for the reason why. Missed the liberation of Grenada and the friendly fire casualties of that war are sadly remembered today. Missed the freeing of Panama from dictatorship and as Gulf War I broke, we were on the Lido in Venice, polishing a degree in Renaissance Venetian painting; between Titian and titties, we missed the deployment. But our cohorts who served and marched passed Iraqi armor shot through with depleted uranium rounds and returned with a still unrecognized chronic illness, we don’t envy.  And today we also recall shaping up at the funeral of Pfc. Luis Moreno, 19, of the Bronx, attached to the 69th Infantry, he caught a bullet standing on a street corner in Baghdad, guarding a gas station and became the unit’s first combat death in 2004. His uniformed corpse looking out of place in that Bronx funeral home and his grieving relatives, to a person, could not utter one word explaining what his death was for. Seven years down the road, that still remains unanswered.

 Art inspired by the Great Recession has yet to make a cultural impact, so this impresses: One of Alex Scheafer’s burning Chase Bank paintings fronts this months Artillery, the West Coast art mag that-unlike NYC-based Artforum and Art in America- is actually readable. We regularly run into Scheafer as he pounds tall boys and paints during Downtown LA Artwalk in his corner of the Hive Gallery. Swell guy if not all that ambitious a painter; we’re glad to see he’s swirling the cadmium flames and three months since   making the LA Times front page, still running with  his fifteen earned after cops rolled up on his en- plein-air-painting ass outside a Chase bank in Van Nuys. Searched his home too, which hasn’t happened to a single banker.

Never did enjoy a meal at Mario Batali’s joints-both Otto in NYC and Mozza in LA disappoint big time-but his TV persona keeps the energy up, his cookbooks are worth their weight in gold (just owning one will get you some) and now he’s won our admiration for his convictions and sincerity, as he recently spoke out against the banksters. Even though these crooks are his customers, not blinking at $1,126 dinner for two at Batali’s NYC eatery Del Posto, he ain’t afraid to call them out. The guy has a pair. Read on to see what he dropped on the banksters:

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“From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast ” Poe wrote. Now we hear on this dull and dark- for LA anyway- Autumn day that the Hollywood house of horrors formerly known as Green Jello house is soon to fall. Here, Paul Zero, major domo.

Damn ear worm of “Mic check” from our days reporting from occupyLA got us thinking of blog-check. A world wide revolutionary movement inspired us to at least update the LegmanLA and banish the multi-column page to the trash bin of history. We all FRESH with the exciting words sure to come for Fall 2011.

We can’t walk down the stretch of Hollywood Boulevard a bit east of the tourist joints without growing wistful with thoughts of the Deuce back in the day. We appreciate the pageant of down and outs from nearby SRO’s like the Mark Twain, crusty punks down from Seattle for bum break, and LA’s ethnic melange of thugs all mingling amid the backdrop of tatoo joints, a couple edgy bars( Legman’s music editor-at-large Chris Namon was recently carried out of dive Loaded by an ugly mob) and the grease stink of crap eats.  Now  the Hollywood experience is usually Times Square light, but violence has been ticking up, especially after the douchey clubs let out from Thursday through Sunday. Last night under the Halloween spirit lent cover to a spectacular flare up of beat-downs. This reminds us that the old Times Square was no great shakes. And If you avoid the boulevard, you ain’t missing anything.