Your South Bay housing bubble blogger, courtesy of the South Bay Tea Party

Hi everybody!

Recall that last week I posted announcements about the South Bay Tea Party to be held on April 15. The reason why I volunteered to help organize this event was because we need to hold Washington and Wall Street crooks accountable for their toxic contributions to the economic mess we now face - including housing prices that in my opinion are still way too high. We need balance sheets to come clean in order to restore some health and sanity to our asset markets - including our housing markets. Financial fraud, reckless spending, pork, borrowing, and money printing MUST stop.

Here's a report on what happened immediately before and at the South Bay Tea Party.

Yours truly fulfilled her secret fantasy of becoming a sign twirler and stood at the corner of Aviation and Rosecrans on the evening of Tuesday, April 14, fighting the wind and freezing her ass off, advertising this event. I made signs with an Alice in Wonderland theme (she had a famous tea party, you know!) so I dressed up as the Queen of Hearts. One of my signs said "NO bailouts for weasels! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" which unfortunately, was not photographed.

On the day of the event itself, somewhere between 1000 and 1500 people showed up.

The wind was hellacious and did not let up all day, making it just about impossible to put up our banner and hold up signs, but we somehow managed. The sand was blowing into our faces and eyes making things even harder, plus it was quite cold and it got very overcast in the afternoon.

El Segundo Police told us in the morning they got a brief from ACORN saying they might crash our party. The police weren't worried about us - they were worried about ACORN. Ultimately, ACORN and other dissenters did not show up. They probably thought we were too small to mess with.

I ended up out in the parking lot for most of the event helping people register and giving them signs to hold if they wanted. So unfortunately I didn't hear most of the speeches. Tammy Bruce was the guest speaker. There was also a moving speech by a young black man who served in the military, raised in a single-parent household of six kids. I heard some of it, but wasn't able to hear all of it from where I was in the parking lot.

Not a whole lot of press was there, which may have ended up being a good thing. Somebody from USC journalism was there for just about the entire event. Daily Breeze was there, and that reporter in fact interviewed me. I got a kick out of the guy from AP. Turns out he's from Mexico, and he said he left Mexico because of the wacky politics and came here and lamented about how now "this country is being ruined."

Contrary to media reports, this party was not run by any local GOP club. In fact, our organizer told the local GOP chapter when it asked about getting in on the action - thanks but no thanks.

I heard from a friend of a friend who attended a party in NYC that his party "got hijacked by Fox News and the GOP" but that didn't happen here. Our party REMAINED our party. Some of my fellow protesters, staunch Republicans, told me how they've been slamming their phones down on the GOP, vowing not to send another dime to them.

I designed roughly 24 posters for this event. Our living room looks like a cyclone tore through an art supply store. The poster that seemed to really push peoples' buttons the most was my Somali pirates sign. A lot of people, including the two reporters I talked to, took photos of that sign or gave me a thumbs up. The wind was so bad that this strong fellow had to help me hold it up.

Yours truly was also quoted in the Daily Breeze's coverage of this event:

Dockweiler State Beach Tea Party blasts governor's special election, Prop. 1A, by Max Zimbert

1500 people showing up for this event may not seem like much, but let's put that in perspective. I've been a Ron Paul supporter for many years, having donated to his Congressional campaigns on and off since maybe 1998. Before the presidential primaries I registered as a Republican so I could vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. The weekend before the primaries, at the last possible minute, I became a precinct leader and spent that weekend leafletting not only my precinct but helping out another person's precinct. Only then did I realize that there simply were not enough arms, legs, and mouths to spread the idea of limited government reined in by the Constitution. Roughly a year later, our organizer, Nathan Mintz, held his initial meeting with only 2 people. His group of helpers grew to about 12 - including me. Now we had this event, held on a midweek day in freezing windy uncomfortable weather in a location that wasn't exactly obvious or easy to get to. I'd call that progress.

You can view photos we took of the party here. If you like the idea of restoring health to our asset markets - including our housing markets - by stopping reckless borrowing, spending, money printing, and holding politicians accountable for the corruption that runs Washington and Wall Street, join us and sign up at South Bay Tea Party. You can also find us out on Facebook.

I've got the L.A. Business Journal in my backpack and a pile of other stuff to blog about the housing market. I hope to be back in the blogging saddle shortly.