LA is an odd town. It goes to bed early, but it never sleeps. The streets are quiet, but the skies are full of buzzing ghetto birds. The air is cool and crisp and clean -- but it'll kill you eventually. You can't stay here; and you can't leave.
LA is full of artists dreaming of steady jobs and lawyers with screenplays tucked in their filing cabinets. It's bright and green and lush and fabulous and filthy and corrupt and covered in garbage. Garbage and palm trees; dirty mattresses and pomegranates.
But tonight feels like Fall. Tonight feels quiet -- except for the gut-shaking bass on the car that just drove past my window. It feels like tonight, maybe, the bad guys took the night off.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Parking Day
Last week, we built a park in a parking space on Santa Monica Blvd. We set up for the second year in a row across from the Cahuenga Branch Library -- in front of the East Hollywood Light Yard -- to make a point about the lack of parks in the neighborhood. Fifty-three thousand people and no park. None. There I was at eight in the morning sweeping Santa Monica Boulevard before laying down my carpet of astroturf and setting up my backyard swing.
Put a quarter in the meter and you've got a park.
A reporter from the LA Weekly stopped by. I told him it was a crime against humanity for poor kids to have to kick soccer balls against razor wire fences and ride their bikes up and down their driveways. He asked if I felt guilty about taking up valuable parking space. What do you have to say to people who say you're slowing down traffic and making it harder to park, harder to get around and get things done?
Well, I said, it's a pretty serious issue. A crisis, really. I pointed to the library and said the City has decided to close them down for two days out of every week. The schools are a mess. There's no jobs, no parks, nothing for a kid to do except watch the traffic go by. Everyone here -- working hard to create a tiny, temporary space for the people in the neighborhood -- is volunteering his or her time. It's inconvenient for us too -- but it's kind of important.
The people who walked or rode their bikes past us seemed to get it. They smiled, they stopped, maybe sat down for a few minutes and had some food or a drink. If you build it, they'll come. Right?
The reaction from people in their cars was just the opposite. Anger, frustration, rage -- murderous rage -- because we slowed them down for .78 seconds on their rush to get where they're headed. I swear, they would have run us over if they thought they could get away with it. But like FDR used to say about the ugly rich -- I welcome their hatred. I mock them from my picnic table, a greasy tamale in one hand, my blackberry in the other. Sending messages to other troublemakers and traffic impediments.
I fill up with rage every day thinking about this town. How selfish, how cruel it is. Everything ugly about America is here and cranked up to full volume. This City is like Marilyn Monroe: crazy and cheap and flashy -- but beautiful and sad and fantastic. I love LA and I always will -- just like I grew up loving Marylin.
Still ... I'm not sure I can take it for the rest of my life. I'm not sure I can stay so angry all the time.
But for now, that's what gets me out into the streets -- that and love. Love. LA -- they've got you all wrong. Sure, you're dark and heartless -- but they don't know you like I do. All they can see are your stretchmarks and your stripmalls -- they don't know you like I do.
Put a quarter in the meter and you've got a park.
A reporter from the LA Weekly stopped by. I told him it was a crime against humanity for poor kids to have to kick soccer balls against razor wire fences and ride their bikes up and down their driveways. He asked if I felt guilty about taking up valuable parking space. What do you have to say to people who say you're slowing down traffic and making it harder to park, harder to get around and get things done?
Well, I said, it's a pretty serious issue. A crisis, really. I pointed to the library and said the City has decided to close them down for two days out of every week. The schools are a mess. There's no jobs, no parks, nothing for a kid to do except watch the traffic go by. Everyone here -- working hard to create a tiny, temporary space for the people in the neighborhood -- is volunteering his or her time. It's inconvenient for us too -- but it's kind of important.
The people who walked or rode their bikes past us seemed to get it. They smiled, they stopped, maybe sat down for a few minutes and had some food or a drink. If you build it, they'll come. Right?
The reaction from people in their cars was just the opposite. Anger, frustration, rage -- murderous rage -- because we slowed them down for .78 seconds on their rush to get where they're headed. I swear, they would have run us over if they thought they could get away with it. But like FDR used to say about the ugly rich -- I welcome their hatred. I mock them from my picnic table, a greasy tamale in one hand, my blackberry in the other. Sending messages to other troublemakers and traffic impediments.
I fill up with rage every day thinking about this town. How selfish, how cruel it is. Everything ugly about America is here and cranked up to full volume. This City is like Marilyn Monroe: crazy and cheap and flashy -- but beautiful and sad and fantastic. I love LA and I always will -- just like I grew up loving Marylin.
Still ... I'm not sure I can take it for the rest of my life. I'm not sure I can stay so angry all the time.
But for now, that's what gets me out into the streets -- that and love. Love. LA -- they've got you all wrong. Sure, you're dark and heartless -- but they don't know you like I do. All they can see are your stretchmarks and your stripmalls -- they don't know you like I do.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Crisis in East Hollywood
Maybe it's the weather, I don't know. Just sitting here at my dining room table, I'm drenched in sweat in two minutes. Two days ago, I had a 102 fever. Three days ago, a film crew of about 25 people had taken over my house to film a movie about Soviet-era Budhapest.
Last night, we had a meeting of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council. After begging and pleading for a month, we finally managed to secure a space at LA City College. That got me thinking: what is it about East Hollywood and the lack of public space? I suppose it's like this all over LA. Los Angeles is so beautiful, so rich, in its private spaces -- but what is there for the general public? In East Hollywood we have Barnsdall Park -- and it's one of the most magnificent spots in the entire City -- but it's not very inviting. I lived in the neighborhood for five years before I knew what it was. I thought it was a cemetery. I've heard that from other people as well.
As far as parks go, that's all we've got. There's a dirt lot down by the 101 freeway where kids sometimes kick around a soccer ball, and one of the local schools has agreed to share it's playground with the neighborhood kids. But as far as any real open space -- the kind people in other cities all over America simple take for granted -- we have none.
None!
I'm sorry if that makes me angry, but I can barely type that without wanting to go down to City Hall and grab a councilman by the collar. Last night, we got a visit from a representative of our new State Senator. Prior to becoming a Senator, he was a member of the State Assembly. And after that, no doubt, he'll rotate into the City Council, or the Board of Commissioners, or some other elected position.
It's a game of musical chairs, and no one seems to have any time for the people who actually live here.
I had a busy weekend, so I didn't get a chance to read this story in the LA Weekly till today. It starts out:
The skinny, redheaded teenager looks skittish as he approaches a 21-year-old homeless youth we will call Ricky. The pale boy is looking for weed, and passes Ricky $14. This illegal scene unfolds at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue at the entrance to a busy subway station, and under the watchful eyes of a motley crew of homeless youth.
Right across the street is Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti's Hollywood field office. If he and his staff were to peer out, they could easily see what a failed enterprise the city's mangled regulation of medical marijuana has been.
For almost a year now, I have been trying to get the vacant office space that sits above this notorious subway stop to be used as an office for the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council. It's currently a CRA project -- and some half-a-million dollars have been allocated to turn into a facility for the Bicycle Kitchen. But the Bicycle Kitchen hasn't done anything about it for years -- so it sits vacant, except for the drug dealers.
When I ask about the possibility of using it for the Neighborhood Council; when I tell the people in charge that we could staff the facility with retirees; when I tell them that it will create a presence on the street, a place where people in the neighborhood can bring their concerns -- the answer I get from everyone is always the same: It can't be done.
I'm going down to City Hall tomorrow. I'm going to fill out a speaker card and bang on the podium. I'm sick of being nice.
Maybe it's the heat. I don't know.
Last night, we had a meeting of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council. After begging and pleading for a month, we finally managed to secure a space at LA City College. That got me thinking: what is it about East Hollywood and the lack of public space? I suppose it's like this all over LA. Los Angeles is so beautiful, so rich, in its private spaces -- but what is there for the general public? In East Hollywood we have Barnsdall Park -- and it's one of the most magnificent spots in the entire City -- but it's not very inviting. I lived in the neighborhood for five years before I knew what it was. I thought it was a cemetery. I've heard that from other people as well.
As far as parks go, that's all we've got. There's a dirt lot down by the 101 freeway where kids sometimes kick around a soccer ball, and one of the local schools has agreed to share it's playground with the neighborhood kids. But as far as any real open space -- the kind people in other cities all over America simple take for granted -- we have none.
None!
I'm sorry if that makes me angry, but I can barely type that without wanting to go down to City Hall and grab a councilman by the collar. Last night, we got a visit from a representative of our new State Senator. Prior to becoming a Senator, he was a member of the State Assembly. And after that, no doubt, he'll rotate into the City Council, or the Board of Commissioners, or some other elected position.
It's a game of musical chairs, and no one seems to have any time for the people who actually live here.
I had a busy weekend, so I didn't get a chance to read this story in the LA Weekly till today. It starts out:
The skinny, redheaded teenager looks skittish as he approaches a 21-year-old homeless youth we will call Ricky. The pale boy is looking for weed, and passes Ricky $14. This illegal scene unfolds at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue at the entrance to a busy subway station, and under the watchful eyes of a motley crew of homeless youth.
Right across the street is Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti's Hollywood field office. If he and his staff were to peer out, they could easily see what a failed enterprise the city's mangled regulation of medical marijuana has been.
For almost a year now, I have been trying to get the vacant office space that sits above this notorious subway stop to be used as an office for the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council. It's currently a CRA project -- and some half-a-million dollars have been allocated to turn into a facility for the Bicycle Kitchen. But the Bicycle Kitchen hasn't done anything about it for years -- so it sits vacant, except for the drug dealers.
When I ask about the possibility of using it for the Neighborhood Council; when I tell the people in charge that we could staff the facility with retirees; when I tell them that it will create a presence on the street, a place where people in the neighborhood can bring their concerns -- the answer I get from everyone is always the same: It can't be done.
I'm going down to City Hall tomorrow. I'm going to fill out a speaker card and bang on the podium. I'm sick of being nice.
Maybe it's the heat. I don't know.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
City versus Country
I tell myself and my friends that I'm a City Person. I grew up in Chicago -- sure, it was a suburb of Chicago, but it was dirty, industrial suburb attached like a carbuncle to the ass-end of a city that is affectionately known as the "Hog Butcher to the World."
When I was a kid, we would go into the city for a little fresh air and the finer things in life.
Jen and I both come from Chicago, so we tend to take most of our vacations there. An urban destination, to be sure. But Jen's mom lives in the middle of the forest. It's a lovely little suburb called Palos Park, and it's as close to the country as you're going to get within fifty miles of Chicago.
Actually, as we were descending into Midway Airport two nights ago, we flew over Jen's mom's neck of the woods. "What is that?" I thought. "A lake?"
In the middle of the glowing orange sprawl of the city is a dark spot the size of Anaheim -- no lights, no streets, no cars -- just black, inky darkness.
It's the forest primeval, and it spooks the crap out of me.
In the city, I know where to go if an unsavory character is following too closely. I can duck into a liquor store or (even in Los Angeles) call a cab, get on a bus, get out of the area. But out in the forest, I always feel like I'm going to be eaten by a dingo or fall down a crevasse.
I mean, I just don't get it. Today, I'm riding my bike (Jen and I bought bicycles this trip to keep in her mom's garage for the next fifty trips to the Midwest), and I feel like a sheep at a wolf convention. Peddling down narrow roads that edge abruptly into narrower gravel shoulders, my fingers clenched in a death-grip on the handlebars, I can only pray that the carload of dope-smoking frat boys barreling down this rutted strip of asphalt can see me in the mottled shade of the overhanging oaks.
In some places, the road simply merges with the forest on either side, so a cyclist has to duck low-hanging tree branches and dodge squirrels darting across the highway. At one point, I turned into a forest preserve in hopes of finding a trail that might take me where I want to go: a place where all I'd have to dodge are horses, not humvees. But all the trails simply go in circles to nowhere.
It's like a trap -- this place -- a tiny imitation of paradise hemmed in by murderous wreaths of marauding death-cars. I actually found myself saying "I can't wait to get into the city, so I can ride my bike."
When I was a kid, we would go into the city for a little fresh air and the finer things in life.
Jen and I both come from Chicago, so we tend to take most of our vacations there. An urban destination, to be sure. But Jen's mom lives in the middle of the forest. It's a lovely little suburb called Palos Park, and it's as close to the country as you're going to get within fifty miles of Chicago.
Actually, as we were descending into Midway Airport two nights ago, we flew over Jen's mom's neck of the woods. "What is that?" I thought. "A lake?"
In the middle of the glowing orange sprawl of the city is a dark spot the size of Anaheim -- no lights, no streets, no cars -- just black, inky darkness.
It's the forest primeval, and it spooks the crap out of me.
In the city, I know where to go if an unsavory character is following too closely. I can duck into a liquor store or (even in Los Angeles) call a cab, get on a bus, get out of the area. But out in the forest, I always feel like I'm going to be eaten by a dingo or fall down a crevasse.
I mean, I just don't get it. Today, I'm riding my bike (Jen and I bought bicycles this trip to keep in her mom's garage for the next fifty trips to the Midwest), and I feel like a sheep at a wolf convention. Peddling down narrow roads that edge abruptly into narrower gravel shoulders, my fingers clenched in a death-grip on the handlebars, I can only pray that the carload of dope-smoking frat boys barreling down this rutted strip of asphalt can see me in the mottled shade of the overhanging oaks.
In some places, the road simply merges with the forest on either side, so a cyclist has to duck low-hanging tree branches and dodge squirrels darting across the highway. At one point, I turned into a forest preserve in hopes of finding a trail that might take me where I want to go: a place where all I'd have to dodge are horses, not humvees. But all the trails simply go in circles to nowhere.
It's like a trap -- this place -- a tiny imitation of paradise hemmed in by murderous wreaths of marauding death-cars. I actually found myself saying "I can't wait to get into the city, so I can ride my bike."
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
I'm Not a Crazy Preacher!
So, Jen told me my last post made me sound like some kind of crazy preacher. Well, I'm not. I think I wrote the last post on the plane from Burbank to Oakland. I always get a little mystical on a plane. I take my last look at Earth every time we speed off down the runway. Last night, as I was flying home from San Jose, I thought "why are clouds such bumpy things?" They look so soft, so gentle -- but I swear sometimes when I'm passing through a cloud I feel like it's going to tear the wings off.
That's never happened as far as I know. But then -- I don't want to know.
Anyway, Jen stopped me in my tracks a little bit. I thought I should go back, edit, make changes. But then I decided not to worry about it. I'm getting on another plane this morning -- this time to Sacramento. The sky is full of clouds, but I try not to complain about clouds in LA. Even if it means a white-knuckle descent into Burbank tomorrow night.
That's never happened as far as I know. But then -- I don't want to know.
Anyway, Jen stopped me in my tracks a little bit. I thought I should go back, edit, make changes. But then I decided not to worry about it. I'm getting on another plane this morning -- this time to Sacramento. The sky is full of clouds, but I try not to complain about clouds in LA. Even if it means a white-knuckle descent into Burbank tomorrow night.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
These pictures came to us in the mail. The young girl in the pictures -- now in her 60's -- stopped by with her daughter while I was out front pulling weeds out of our crazy "garden."
What is it about 1949? The people in these pictures display a kind of innocence and optimism that seems to be gone forever. Definitely the lives of children have changed since these children posed for the camera. Children today know so much more than I knew as a child -- and I grew up knowing more than my parents did when they were children.
My parents -- and the people in these pictures -- grew up without television -- and I grew up without the Internet.
But knowledge can't be bad -- right? I believe that. I believe the truth will set you free.
But something real and something beautiful has been lost -- and it was knowing that killed it.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lost their innocence by eating from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Not Good and Evil itself -- but the knowledge of good and evil.
Isn't that what human beings do? Seek knowledge? It's what makes us human.
I've always thought of the story of Adam and Eve as a metaphor for human nature. The Bible tells us that we are all sinners -- and the original sin was that first taste of knowledge. But how could we have done any differently? We're only human after all.
Would any of us trade the Internet -- and all it's brought to the world, and all it's yet to bring -- for the chance to sit in a sunny kitchen or stand in front of a neat hedgerow on a well-trimmed lawn and smile those 1949 smiles -- if even for only one day?
Tempting isn't it?
In 1949, American was perched in front of the greatest economic expansion in the history of the world. We were a young empire in an age when empire fades fast. Why shouldn't these people smile? Why shouldn't they be optimistic.
Well, for one thing, they're African-American. It would be 60 years from this day in 1949 until a man like their father would sit behind the desk in the oval office. My friend, John Harris -- who's lived in East Hollywood for more than 30 years -- tells me that this neighborhood used to be mostly African-American. Slowly, steadily, the character -- the color -- of the neighborhood changed.
And change, like knowledge, is good -- right?
Rilke, the poet, said "beauty is nothing but the start of terror we can hardly bear." Who would not be terrified if all the slow change of the past 60 years happened in an instant?
But 60 years is less than an instant when compared to the universe.
And that's the riddle of human nature. We constantly thirst for the knowledge that feeds on our innocence, yet every day that innocence is reborn. Look at the pictures your friends and family send you today on Facebook. Can't recognize at least something of that same innocence and optimism in their eyes? But if we look back at those same images in 20, 30 or 60 years, how much do you think will be lost?
Adam and Eve ate the fruit that morning in the Garden of Eden (and how like Eden East Hollywood looks in these grainy old photographs!) to bring on the terror of human existence -- a terror we can hardly bear. They did so, I believe, because they had no choice, and because it was the right thing to do.
By eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they sacrificed their own innocence. They brought truth and beauty into the world. It was the moment when the first spark of humanity flared in the heart of a being whose ancestors were "merely" animals, incapable of either innocence or decadence. Incapable of comprehending -- in a human way -- the terrible beauty of existence.
God, I love this dirty town! I love this crazy, catastrophic Eden on the edge of the desert. I love the people in these photographs -- and, by extension, all people.
You see how easy it is? You see how little our differences matter? If I am different from the people in these photographs, then those differences are only on the most shallow, surface level: the color of my skin, my sex, my age. On a fundamental level -- one that stretches back to the Garden, to the first evolutionary spark of consciousness -- I am the same as the young black girl standing in front of the house where I now live.
What is it about 1949? The people in these pictures display a kind of innocence and optimism that seems to be gone forever. Definitely the lives of children have changed since these children posed for the camera. Children today know so much more than I knew as a child -- and I grew up knowing more than my parents did when they were children.
My parents -- and the people in these pictures -- grew up without television -- and I grew up without the Internet.
But knowledge can't be bad -- right? I believe that. I believe the truth will set you free.
But something real and something beautiful has been lost -- and it was knowing that killed it.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lost their innocence by eating from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Not Good and Evil itself -- but the knowledge of good and evil.
Isn't that what human beings do? Seek knowledge? It's what makes us human.
I've always thought of the story of Adam and Eve as a metaphor for human nature. The Bible tells us that we are all sinners -- and the original sin was that first taste of knowledge. But how could we have done any differently? We're only human after all.
Would any of us trade the Internet -- and all it's brought to the world, and all it's yet to bring -- for the chance to sit in a sunny kitchen or stand in front of a neat hedgerow on a well-trimmed lawn and smile those 1949 smiles -- if even for only one day?
Tempting isn't it?
In 1949, American was perched in front of the greatest economic expansion in the history of the world. We were a young empire in an age when empire fades fast. Why shouldn't these people smile? Why shouldn't they be optimistic.
Well, for one thing, they're African-American. It would be 60 years from this day in 1949 until a man like their father would sit behind the desk in the oval office. My friend, John Harris -- who's lived in East Hollywood for more than 30 years -- tells me that this neighborhood used to be mostly African-American. Slowly, steadily, the character -- the color -- of the neighborhood changed.
And change, like knowledge, is good -- right?
Rilke, the poet, said "beauty is nothing but the start of terror we can hardly bear." Who would not be terrified if all the slow change of the past 60 years happened in an instant?
But 60 years is less than an instant when compared to the universe.
And that's the riddle of human nature. We constantly thirst for the knowledge that feeds on our innocence, yet every day that innocence is reborn. Look at the pictures your friends and family send you today on Facebook. Can't recognize at least something of that same innocence and optimism in their eyes? But if we look back at those same images in 20, 30 or 60 years, how much do you think will be lost?
Adam and Eve ate the fruit that morning in the Garden of Eden (and how like Eden East Hollywood looks in these grainy old photographs!) to bring on the terror of human existence -- a terror we can hardly bear. They did so, I believe, because they had no choice, and because it was the right thing to do.
By eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they sacrificed their own innocence. They brought truth and beauty into the world. It was the moment when the first spark of humanity flared in the heart of a being whose ancestors were "merely" animals, incapable of either innocence or decadence. Incapable of comprehending -- in a human way -- the terrible beauty of existence.
God, I love this dirty town! I love this crazy, catastrophic Eden on the edge of the desert. I love the people in these photographs -- and, by extension, all people.
You see how easy it is? You see how little our differences matter? If I am different from the people in these photographs, then those differences are only on the most shallow, surface level: the color of my skin, my sex, my age. On a fundamental level -- one that stretches back to the Garden, to the first evolutionary spark of consciousness -- I am the same as the young black girl standing in front of the house where I now live.
Monday, June 1, 2009
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