This video essay deals with two types of informality I was researching while studying a semester at an MFA programme of OTIS College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. The street artists on the one side, the seemingly free spirits of Venice Beach who make clear to function outside the system by choice, performing their sidewalk shows as a daily form of resistance against the establishment. And on the other side the illegal vendors in Downtown L.A., often immigrants who through their socio-economic position are forced to take part in the informal economy. Although many are repeatedly arrested, they continue trading in pirated music, nowadays sold on sd and usb cards, jewelry, clothing and fast food, sold out of carts, trucks parked on street corners and the occasional ‘shops’ stacked up against the wall of a parking garage. Next to these performers and vendors I spoke to Caleb Zigas, a San Francisco entrepreneur who provides a platform for groups of illegal home cooks to develop their practices in an official manner.