This Venice Activist Reminds Us: Don’t Fake the Funk
Mike Bravo aka Chicano Tony Stark is 5th generation Venetian & fights to keep the neighborhood real
There’s a lot to fall in love with in Mike Bravo’s backyard.
Maui, the adorable little Chihuahua; the handmade art celebrating most of LA’s sports teams (sorry, Clippers); there’s even local squirrels stealing a sip of water from the feeders attached to the trees.
“Yeah, there’s squirrel friends,” Bravo says lovingly, but seriously.
“I always make sure to leave water out, especially during the summertime. People forget we are in a drought and the animals suffer. Whether it’s the birds, the squirrels, or the miscellaneous creatures who walk through here.”
And almost on cue, a skittish squirrel zig zags down a tree, pecks at the water and hauls ass back.
Probably spooked by the stranger with the microphones.
One of the many reasons I wanted to talk with Bravo is because he is 5th generation Venetian and has seen a few things.
“If you look in that kitchen right there. I have a little picture of my grandmas on a postcard,” he says.
Soon I am looking at the beautiful black-and-white photo of three of his relatives standing in front of a life preserver that has VENICE 1926 written on it.
Mike Bravo: It’s my grandma, my great grandma, my great-great grandma at the Venice boardwalk at like the little photo stop they had back in the day, but in 1926.
But they were around Venice even before that because of all the agricultural worker on here… canneries and things of that nature. So that’s what they did. And they eventually got this house in late-1948–49, around there.
Tony Pierce: Where did they come from?
So before that they were living in Las Cruces, Mexico, which is where my great grandma was born. When they came to Venice, my great grandma was probably like 12, 13. Before that: Michoacán, Mexico.
One thing that I noticed right away with you, is you’ve got these ear — what do you call these? They’re not earrings.
Technically, they’re ear plugs. Ear plugs / eyelets.
They’re big. What gauge is that you got going?
So this is an inch and five-eighths, maybe.
What does it represent? What are you trying to say? What should people get when they see this?
I never really intended it to be a statement, per se. It was more a natural inclination. Of course there’s also an association with native culture.
I didn’t know that.
Oh yeah. The Indigenous, Aztec, Mayan, Inca cultures back in the day — they didn’t have this exact style, it was different.
When I was young in Catholic school, I would pierce my ears. But my mom didn’t want it and you couldn’t have earrings in Catholic school.
So what I would do is — my oldest sister taught me how to do this: I would get a little Bobby or a safety pin. Then I would clean a piece of straw from a broom, clean it off with alcohol, then a little Neosporin and make it real small and just throw it in there.
So when I was walking to school, I would be like, “yeah, I’m rocking my earring,” but when I get home I’m taking this shit off.
I was inclined in my teenage years, to have three, four — in my nose. I just had to pierce myself all the time. I kinda just kept going with it.
So your mom didn’t want any or ear piercings —
Yeah, or tattoos.
And yet you’ve got one of the biggest earplugs I’ve seen and you’ve got tattoos all up and down your arm. Has your mom chilled out on this?
Yeah. I mean over the years. So I’m 46 now, but when I was like —
Get out of town. You look fantastic.
Thanks man.
You look 26.
Thanks. I appreciate it.
Minus a few backaches, you know, and uh, a couple of muscle strains. I feel 26.
I got my first tattoo — actually [his uncle’s] ex-wife did it years back. She has a tattoo shop here on Lincoln, the oldest tattoo shop in Venice.
What’s it called?
Ink Ink. Lincoln and Lake, essentially. Next to the old Cafe ’50s. The longest running tattoo shop in Venice.
That Cafe ’50s shutdown, right?
Yeah, maybe about 5–6 years ago now. It’s been a minute.
Did you cry?
No, but I was very disappointed because that was one of the very few least-hipster-landia type food spots.
You go there, people know you, the food’s good. They’ve got this little All-American pancake breakfast, lunch or whatever. A good place for dates. It was just nice.
I’ve seen in the movies people hanging out at ‘50s-style bars. Every time you went there it was like a mini version of Grease or something.
Let’s talk about gentrification. My first apartment ever was in Venice in the mid-1980s. Venice in the ‘80s was perfect for me in a lot of ways because Santa Monica was a little too clean and shiny.
But I didn’t even consider this side of the 10 (the south side) Santa Monica. I considered it Venice.
There’s a lot of areas where it blurs on the Westside.
Santa Monica and Venice have a very intimate history as well because a lot of the folks, when that freeway was built, a lot of people who moved to Venice in the late ’60s and ’70s.
Like the First Baptist Church of Venice — that we’ve been fighting for — it was actually the Second Baptist Church of Santa Monica and when they came to Venice it became the First Baptist Church of Venice.
Tell me about this fight.
The fight started back in late 2017, which is when I jumped on to help out.
I was already involved in general anti-gentrification… putting out a bunch of fires, so to speak.
Originally a crooked pastor sold the seven-lot property — probably the oldest Black property in the neighborhood.
It was a Black church?
Yeah. The oldest Black church in Venice. And so he sold it to the Penske’s. So Jay Penske, the son of Roger Penske: media, oil conglomerate, racing car, billionaire. Owner of Rolling Stone, Variety all that stuff.
So we were battling them for maybe three-and-a-half years until they sold it last year to one of their associates.
But to us it’s still in develop/gentrification hands, so it’s still the same.
But it’s against the odds. He’s a billionaire, his wife’s a Victoria Secret model, she affluent in her own right. Against the neighborhood council, against the city council, against the local council people —
All those people did not want Penske to turn this into…?
All those people were against us the whole time.
The politicians and the billionaire wanting to turn the oldest black church into —
Their personal mansion to raise their family.
How far away from the beach is this church?
I’d probably say less than 10 blocks. Maybe eight blocks from the beach.
And you said six or seven lots?
Seven lots.
So where we’re at right now is one lot. And this is big, man. This is a really big lot.
You know where Oakwood Park is, right? It’s the church across the street: that big, huge, a-frame.
We have a good team of people. There’s been strong prayers and blessings and opportunities to advance on our prayers.
We’ve been able to stop them and we don’t have the property in our hands yet, but it’s about to get historic designation to the City of LA city.
That’s not the end-all be-all, but it definitely puts a major damper in any developers’ ideas for the properties.
It sounds like you are fighting this cause because you and your family have seen Venice, house-by-house block-by-block, get turned from what Venice used to be into… what now it looks like a millionaire and billionaires’ dream.
The last 10 years we’ve been in a mode of what we call hyper-gentrification. It’s definitely a lot more homogenized, whether it’s economically or racially… the patterns go hand-in-hand.
You might get some working class, Black and brown folks, but they essentially more of an Anglo-aspiring type of comfort level as far as how they act. They don’t really relate to a lot of the local Black and brown folks here. Not that they can’t be different or can’t be affluent, but it says a lot when you come to places and you can’t relate to your own people.
I do a lot of native activism, spiritual activism, education work. That’s more of my core youth education work.
But a lot of that is knowing your history, knowing about where you’re at on the land, Tongva land right here: pre-Los Angeles, pre-California, pre-Mexico, all that.
At the end of the day it’s native land and the natives are still here, the Tongva people of this area. So a lot of the fights has been for sacred sites, whether it’s the Ballona wetlands down there at the Playa Vista complex — built over burial grounds.
I relate to protecting sacred sites. And if you understand how white supremacy works… there was a big gang war back in the ‘90s, here. Black and Mexicans. One of the worst Black and brown, Mexican-on-Black gang wars, probably in the country, if not the worst.
But given that, there’s always been still a lot of love despite what happened: the crack, the poverty, all these elements that are very combustible.
And then you put people in this little pocket, and of course stuff like that’s going to happen.
Did anybody win that war?
The developers did. LAPD won that war. Gentrification won.
What’s Mike’s Beef with German In Venice?
I watched one of your YouTube videos and you were raging out against was German in Venice.
I very critical — passionately critical. I don’t know if I was raging.
I don’t mean to over-dramatize it, but it surprised me because when I watched German in Venice, I see this kind of lovable guy who immigrated here from Germany, like 30 years ago.
He’s got a very quaint little storefront on the boardwalk. He does henna tattoos and he shoots videos almost every day about Venice. Recently his videos have been about homelessness. And so he’ll talk to homeless people here, in MacArthur Park, even in Beverly Hills.
Echo Park too
And so I kind like him because I would rather see certain things through his point of view than on your traditional news, where it’s a guy in a suit and all that.
But it seems like you’re not the only critic of German in Venice. So, tell me what I’m missing when I watch him.
I’ll say, I agree with you too. I watch his videos and I was like, oh yeah he’s a guy with a very distinct personality, very charismatic and all.
He likes Michael Jackson.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, his personality… he’s a very nice guy and very friendly. It’s kinda hard to dislike him. So I’m not saying I dislike him on a personal level. It’s more his impact.
If you look at his audience on YouTube, 95% are just these right-wing, garbage, racist people,
So if I read his comments, I would see —
Which is his audience. In the last five months or so since he stumbled upon this homeless topic, he’s getting all these extra views, and the bulk of them are right-wing.
So do we blame him for the bad comments?
No. But if you’re doing things and you’re a nice guy, but you’re giving them platform and you’re kind of catering to this very distinct racist classless audience, that’s your impact.
So turn off the comments, then?
Someone just died. The mom’s there. And you got someone talking about, “well, the mom knew that he was living in the car… blah, blah, blah.” And they use not-so-nice words.
Dude, there’s no place for that.
You can have your opinion about homelessness, that’s fine. But a mom just lost her son. Just delete that comment.
So he should moderate his comments?
Moderate the comments, for sure, and be mindful of his audience.
Another point is he claims he’s been here 30 years. Maybe he has, I don’t know. But there’s a video where, um, a friend of mine, who’s a general gentrification and homeless activist out here.
And she was cussing him out and had her hand in his face… in a way she was being a little extra with him, but whatever.
But other elders and folks from the neighborhood, generational people as well were out there and people who’ve been activists for decades and he didn’t know who these people were.
And then in the video he was referencing them as those people or them, and these are people of color.
So it’s like, if you’ve been there for 30 years and you don’t know who these people are and you refer to them — and they don’t like you. You’re not repping Venice.
Did the Sheriff’s Dept help Venice?
Let’s talk about the LA Sheriff Department, because they’ve been accused of a lot of things. There’s been banners that have been flown over the 10 freeway that say Google —
LASD gangs.
Right. And some people are saying that the Sheriff himself is racist. Now the Sheriff came to Venice last month, even though this really isn’t his jurisdiction. I mean, Sheriffs can go wherever they want, but when there is already LAPD, they’re supposed to kind of stand back a little bit.
Especially when it comes to Venice Beach, there’s like multiple jurisdictions going on.
The actual boardwalk: the concrete part is LA city.
A lot of people refer to Venice Beach as a park — the boardwalk — it’s not. The actual concrete is actually an LA street.
Once you walk onto the grass — that becomes county property. Not only is it county, it’s coastal property too.
Everything within one mile of the coast is under a special protection in what they call the coastal zone. So everything PCH and west is afforded extra protections in general.
But so technically, the agreement with the boardwalk is that LAPD takes care the general law enforcement of that area. And then the county does the park maintenance of the beaches and what have you.
So the Sheriff was in the right? If the tents were on the grass, then it was okay for him to come here. But he probably should’ve coordinated it better?
He’s stepping on toes. There’s no agreement. There’s a stipulation with the county, the coastal… beaches and harbors, parks and rec, LAPD, city and county.
So there’s been the program and he kind of came in just like… we’re doing an interview and then some guy comes in like start sticking a microphone and does his own interview in the middle of your interview type of thing.
Some people say the Jones lawsuit is what encouraged people to pitch tents during coronavirus because Project Room Key really wasn’t working and there just weren’t beds for these people. But then when the vaccines happened the sheriff decided, “the cops aren’t handling this, Mike Bonin is not handling this properly, I’m gonna come in here and handle it.”
Do you agree with what happened when the Sheriff “swept” the people away?
I don’t think he was even the one to really sweep. I know he helped facilitate a few people to find the deficient services that are available. But it was more of a show. I don’t think he really actually did anything.
If anything he probably put spotlight on these other agencies and their deficiencies.
It’s hard to say things for certain, but sometime I feel like they’re just all putting up this little fucked up game that we’re all losing.
Where should we eat?
I love Venice and I want to be a good person whenever I visit. Are there places that I can eat at or shop that you would recommend that would honor and respect and support people who believe in your causes?
Yeah: people who are within principle.
There’s newer spots that people will consider gentrifiers spots, but they are people who’ve shown solidarity as opposed to charity.
Hoagies for sure. The Great Western Steak & Hoagie Co. They’re a generational family, an old-school spot on Lincoln. Great hamburgers, hoagies and all that.
La Fiesta Brava, right here on Hampton, just a quarter block from The Rose Cafe.
It’s probably the best organic-principled, family and business — as far as food goes.
I like Flake as far as Rose Avenue goes. A lot of old school folks go there too. It’s a little pricey for original Venice standards, but it’s still a good spot. And I go, and I feel at home and people say hello.
There’s no shade there for me.
Are there any places on the Boardwalk?
Food-wise… yeah, not really dude. I mean, I mean, obviously you’ve got Red’s Tacos right there on Winward, which is cool. It’s affordable, it’s trendy but it’s not like a local-local spot.
I was in my room and I was just like staring at the wall thinking about everything. But then again I was thinking about nothing…
One thing that blows my mind about the Westside in general, and this isn’t just about Venice, if Suicidal was starting today, I don’t think there’s a club that would play them in Venice. They’d have to go to Hollywood, right?
Has that been the case as long as you’ve been here? It doesn’t seem that Venice supports local bands. Are there any rock clubs in Venice right now?
No.
Isn’t that weird?
Yeah. Because even now when one of the bands that my uncle played in afterward, Horny Toad, they’re kind of like punk/ska… they’re not in their heyday anymore, they still play shows every so often.
But when they do play now, they play in Mar Vista, they have to play like in some American Legion in Santa Monica, or in the very outskirts of spots that are not hyper-gentrified parts of the the West Side.
The feeling that I get when I notice that there’s no venues in Santa Monica and it doesn’t seem like there’s any venues in Venice, is the rich people are saying, “we don’t want rock and roll in our town. We’ll allow huge mural of Jim Morrison. We’ll, we’ll allow all these tapestries of Bob Marley, but don’t play actual rock and roll here.”
Yeah. That’s very indicative of this phony liberal, phony progressive facade that Venice has.
For instance, like Suicidal Tendencies — they’re the ones who musically, as far as real Venice bands go — put Venice on the map. So people associate The Doors with Venice. The Doors lived here for a while too. But they’re not from Venice.
They’re a Hollywood band.
Yeah. So you’ll see all these murals everywhere of The Doors but how many Suicidal murals do you see in Venice? There’s none. There’s none. There might be some reference like, “Suicidal” or “S T” — some component of a mural —
Do we need to go get some spray cans and fix this problem?
Yeah. Do a Suicidal mural somewhere. Like like the whole OG band.
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