FIELD NOTES #3: TODAY, I’M A SPORTS FAN

ECHO PARK, LA - Nov 1, 2025, 8:30 P.M.

It's been thirty minutes since the Dodgers defeated the Toronto Blue Jays in the MLB World Series and already, the city is going nuts. I'm standing on the corner of Sunset and Echo Park Avenue wearing a shiesty like I'm about to rob a gas station. In reality, I just don’t want my face to be featured in whatever KTLA report airs tomorrow about the impending riot that’s about to occur. 

It’s an unspoken rule in L.A. that a Dodgers win means $100,000 in property damage, minimum. God forbid some poor bastard orders a Waymo in the two-mile radius surrounding Dodger Stadium. Angelenos have become experts in setting them ablaze since Trump deployed the National Guard last Summer. By the way, if you’re reading this, stay the hell away from burning Waymos. Our videographer Ethan still has a lingering cough from inhaling the toxic gases that emanated from their burning lithium-ion batteries. We think he’ll be alright, though. He’s back on scene tonight, getting uncomfortably close to moving cars as they do donuts at various intersections in-and-around Sunset Boulevard.

Speaking of donuts, a white Nissan Altima is currently ripping a few as I write this in less-than-perfect figure eights form. The driver is clearly not as sober as one would hope someone executing such maneuvers would be. Sitting shotgun is a lunatic in full Dodgers gear, screaming “Fuck Canada!” at the top of his lungs. Well, he's not really sitting—he's hanging out the passenger window, inches away from having his face erased by pavement, pulling fireworks from his pockets and shooting them into the crowd. Somehow, I'm not even remotely uncomfortable around such reckless displays of vehicular mayhem, but probably because this is my third-go-around. The Dodgers won the World Series last year and back in 2020. Both times, I was there – witnessing virtually the same thing in the same location. 

Then the LAPD cavalry arrives. Actual purebred horses. Not a fever dream, not a metaphor—real, terrifying animals with cops in full riot gear sitting on their backs, thundering down Sunset like a mongol horde crossing the steppes in thirteenth century Asia. 

Abruptly, the horses stop and surround the crowd in circular formation. Graffiti writers have already emerged from the bars around the area. Tags are appearing on anything with a surface—walls, mailboxes, doorways, you-name-it. I really feel like I'm wasting time explaining surfaces to you. I’m also with twenty graffiti writers. The air smells like gunpowder. Explosions everywhere, some of them fireworks. Last year, a local father lost a hand to a cherry bomb in the Walgreen’s parking lot. I whisper a silent prayer to Echo Park’s higher power that everyone makes it home with all their fingers tonight.

This neighborhood means a lot to me. The first meaningful period of time I spent in LA was back in 2019, shortly after I moved into the RV with Nic. Back then, a dive bar called Cha Cha Lounge was the spot to meet like-minded, sensitive dirtbags in their early twenties. However, the bar was in a trendy neighborhood called Silver Lake which is loaded to the brim with avant-garde cop callers. It’s basically the Hollywood Hills with traditional tattoos and there was nowhere we could park our 28-foot RV without being towed, cited or bitched out by a homeowner. So we opted to park our RV in Echo Park, which was then a working-class neighborhood. 

Our first parking spot was on 1131 Echo Park Avenue, just down the street from the famed ‘pink house’ where Lil Peep lived prior to his tragic passing in 2017. As usual, we woke up to a knock on the door at the crack of dawn, convinced that a SIlver Lake-style karen had arrived to reprimand us. Instead, it was a Mexican mother of seven who lived in the home that we’d parked in front of. She’d cooked hot breakfast for us, invited us in for a shower, introduced us to her entire family and promised us a permanent parking spot so long as we’d play video games with her youngest son, Nestor. The mother – named Maria – asked for a dollar and treated us as her own children for absolutely no reason. 

Those are the real families and solid gente of Los Angeles. Not the online influencers and out-of-touch celebrities who give this place a bad name. Of course, they’ve been priced out of Echo Park since then. The inner-west side of LA – or the ‘eastside’ as it’s called by transplants and White people from Santa Monica – has been under hipster siege since COVID and feels like Bushwick, Brooklyn on a regular afternoon. 

That said, the displaced families of Echo Park return in force when the Dodgers win – often identified by ECKO UNLTD gear and massive tattoos bearing the neighborhood’s name. A bunch of the homies are out too. 

I turn around and see my homie Neckface, a legendary graffiti writer and decent skateboarder who I last saw over three years ago. He is wearing a demon mask and holding a nitrous oxide tank in his left hand. 

"Whattup Drew Dog!" he yells..

Drew Dog. Neck – and for some reason Barry McGee – have always called me that. I think it has something to do with their affinity for San Francisco rapper Andre Nickatina, who goes by the nickname “Dre Dog.” Though originally from Stockton, Neck came up in Frisco during Nickatina’s prime. I’d probably be in the Bay too if tech didn’t burn the spot. 

"Rip this,” he says. Gotta think fast. 

“Yee.” 

I’m aware of the adverse health effects of inhaling nitrous oxide. Yet there are two places, in my mind, where huffing gas is acceptable without debate: LA sports riots and in the parking lot of Phish concerts.

I hit the balloon and the room tips fifteen degrees. Sound goes flangey, like a blown speaker underwater. Time gets elastic—forty seconds plays like a small eternity. Nitrous has its own unique relationship with time. The colors don’t bloom so much as shimmer; the edges vibrate. When I blink back, I see Tupac Zapata standing there grinning. Tupac is a guy who used to do voiceover work for Canal Cinco, my Spanish-language channel, back before we switched to original content. He just landed an entry-level gig at ABC Channel 7, which is a huge deal. I give him a hug because I’m proud of him. 

"So foo,” Tupac asks, “how do you think this compares to five years ago?"

"It's more mellow," I tell him, realizing as I say it that I actually have a basis for comparison. God damn, I’ve been here for 5 years. That’s longer than I’ve lived in New Orleans and more time than I spent in Seattle as a teenager. I guess this is my community now.

Let’s go Dodgers!

AC