In the 1990s, living without a car in Hillcrest, I frequently encountered the violent threats faced for "walking while gay." Shouts of "fuckin' faggot" from big wheeled pickups screeching down University came my way, snickers of hate from suburban roughnecks in the cab not unlike those shot from Mr T.'s Tank.
With help from Mars Inc. the "born again Christian" living in Sherman Oaks peddles good ol' boy nostalgia for the cartoon masculinity of A-Team/Rambo/Reagan:
a world destroyed by limp wristed pacifists like Unitarian Universalists and "The Church of Liberalism" as described by Ann Coulter.
The battle for big gun, fast car, blow-em-up, Death Race/ oil rig reality manliness verbally fought out daily by Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly conveys the suffering of former army privates now forced off food stamps inspiring shotgun revenge.
Every man wants to be a macho macho man
to have the kind of body, always in demand
Jogging in the mornings, go man go
works out in the health spa, muscles glow
You can best believe that, he's a macho man
ready to get down with, anyone he can
--"Macho Man," The Village People
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
My Book On NPR
Well not quite.
But a story last Saturday on Weekend Edition captured its essence.
If someone asks what my book is about, one answer would be it is a 240 page reply to this story.
But a story last Saturday on Weekend Edition captured its essence.
If someone asks what my book is about, one answer would be it is a 240 page reply to this story.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Blog going NoHo
After nearly two years the story is changing.
I've decided to shift from writing about the broad interconnective tissue of transportation to writing about a micro-muscle, an eyelash--the redevelopment of North Hollywood. My near-hood is becoming the center of controversy as a model of TOD, transit oriented development, and I will be investigating what it all means.
Please check out my new blog NoHo Slumming.
Some of the questions arising over this transformation include:
What are the various visions of a more urban neighborhood?
Who is included and excluded in these visions?
How are the changes in North Hollywood linked to globalization?
Will gentrification mean worsening conditions for the urban poor?
How will the goal of reducing sprawl conflict or coincide with the goal of providing quality affordable housing?
I've decided to shift from writing about the broad interconnective tissue of transportation to writing about a micro-muscle, an eyelash--the redevelopment of North Hollywood. My near-hood is becoming the center of controversy as a model of TOD, transit oriented development, and I will be investigating what it all means.
Please check out my new blog NoHo Slumming.
Some of the questions arising over this transformation include:
What are the various visions of a more urban neighborhood?
Who is included and excluded in these visions?
How are the changes in North Hollywood linked to globalization?
Will gentrification mean worsening conditions for the urban poor?
How will the goal of reducing sprawl conflict or coincide with the goal of providing quality affordable housing?
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Soiling Green Vehicles
You tell everybody.
Listen to me. Hatcher.
You've gotta tell them!
Soylent Green is people!
We've gotta stop them somehow!
The growing list of cities, including Los Angeles, that provide free parking to low emission vehicles requires that I clarify my objections to these mechanical stimulants for enviro-wanna-bes.
Most important, these cars are NOT eco-friendly. Yes, Americans so wish we could buy our way out of earth's destruction, but consumption of any massively complex mobility toy requires large scale plundering of natural resources--different metals for engine and sound systems, petroleum for multi-plastics, who knows what for interior seat plushness--and accompanying planet spoliation. Furthermore, driving these pacifiers of greeny lust contributes to the So-Cal lifestyle of earth stretching asphalt profligacy no less than driving a Hummer H2.
Nearsightedness in councilmembers hardly surprises, but hearing lefty stalwarts at KPFK give voice to clean car hawkers brings the reflux of vodka sauce beyond control of Prilosec to the brain.
Personally, I would love to replace my fifteen year old red paint faded Prizm with a shiny blue bluetooth Ipod comptatible new Prius, but I just don't have 25,000 lying around.
And who does? Certainly not the guys keeping your auto pristine pretty at the local car wash: an investigation by the LA Times recently found these workers living in superexploitation land--many are paid only in tips for a "trial period" after which, if they were good, they might get minimum wage.
So how exactly does doling out free parking and HOV lane access to Whole Food shoppers of almond crusted goat cheese over baby mixed greens with tarragon infused champagne vinegar dressing benefit the working poor? It doesn't.
Dump the hybrid and get in the fight for a thousand strong fleet of articulated buses rushing past traffic on dedicated freeway lanes. You might not meet mid '90s sitcom stars, but you will meet the people that mow their lawns, clean their toilets, iron their blue jeans and yep wash their cars.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Springtime for Summary and Partial Manifesto
Well hello Canada!
My roll of recognition hit two last week. A producer at CBC's Definitely Not The Opera contacted me for an interview. The popular culture show's host asked me to explain the impact of traffic on people's personality. Why, for example, does weather seem to bring us together while traffic divides? Why do people have a sense of entitlement when they get behind the wheel? What leads to road rage? (You can listen to my interview here.)
Regular readers should know by now, but this provides an opportunity to recap, reset, reader's digest the past two years:
People love cars because they provide the feel of controlling a powerful machine amid a too complicated modern world.
Auto independence celebrated in action films, race car tv, and curvy empty road cruising ads masks the drivers profound dependence on others--from miners to highway engineers.
This fantasy of self-reliance extends equal blindness to the environmental devastation spreading far beyond smog and carbon emissions to the massive chemical spillage and metal extraction required for racing grave pits of personal mobility.
While feeding an illusion of unspoiling innocence, hybrids, electrics, biofuel Benzes all contribute to this high speed poisoning and ever further sprawl of eco-ruining asphalt-brick-steel ex-urban lives.
The micro-horrors of bus riding razor cut the personal party balloon, tiny leaks hissing the deflation of dreamy separation from quotidian vagabond grime. At least for a moment, one must confront the extreme inequality wrought by planetwide financial propping of U.S. super-consumerism.
This blog seeks to articulate the links between local/global pleasures/pains, with a politics of partiality not unlike Donna Haraway's:
"There is no unmediated photograph or passive camera obscura in scientific accounts of bodies and machines; there are only highly specific visual possibilities, each with a wonderfully detailed, active, partial way of organizing worlds. All these pictures of the world should not be allegories of infinite mobility and interchangeability, but of elaborate specificity and difference and the loving care people might take to learn how to see faithfully from another's point of view, even when the other is our own machine."
--Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective
My roll of recognition hit two last week. A producer at CBC's Definitely Not The Opera contacted me for an interview. The popular culture show's host asked me to explain the impact of traffic on people's personality. Why, for example, does weather seem to bring us together while traffic divides? Why do people have a sense of entitlement when they get behind the wheel? What leads to road rage? (You can listen to my interview here.)
Regular readers should know by now, but this provides an opportunity to recap, reset, reader's digest the past two years:
People love cars because they provide the feel of controlling a powerful machine amid a too complicated modern world.
Auto independence celebrated in action films, race car tv, and curvy empty road cruising ads masks the drivers profound dependence on others--from miners to highway engineers.
This fantasy of self-reliance extends equal blindness to the environmental devastation spreading far beyond smog and carbon emissions to the massive chemical spillage and metal extraction required for racing grave pits of personal mobility.
While feeding an illusion of unspoiling innocence, hybrids, electrics, biofuel Benzes all contribute to this high speed poisoning and ever further sprawl of eco-ruining asphalt-brick-steel ex-urban lives.
The micro-horrors of bus riding razor cut the personal party balloon, tiny leaks hissing the deflation of dreamy separation from quotidian vagabond grime. At least for a moment, one must confront the extreme inequality wrought by planetwide financial propping of U.S. super-consumerism.
This blog seeks to articulate the links between local/global pleasures/pains, with a politics of partiality not unlike Donna Haraway's:
"There is no unmediated photograph or passive camera obscura in scientific accounts of bodies and machines; there are only highly specific visual possibilities, each with a wonderfully detailed, active, partial way of organizing worlds. All these pictures of the world should not be allegories of infinite mobility and interchangeability, but of elaborate specificity and difference and the loving care people might take to learn how to see faithfully from another's point of view, even when the other is our own machine."
--Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Sunday Driver, Yeah!
My blog has not yet cracked any of the top L.A. lists. My vain search for fame and an Amazon sales rank above 100,000 seems destined for dust. But has this dust been given the breath of life? This week Sue Doyle of the LA Daily News asked me to comment for a story she's writing on the decline of the Sunday drive, so here it is...
It is certainly true that home entertainment--tivo cable connected plasma system--has meant more reasons to stay in, and negotiating contemporary crowded highways brings connotations of stress rather than fun--why choose to drive on Sunday after weekdays filled with sometimes hourlong freeway fights?
But the decline of pleasure driving must also be placed in historical context.
The automobile's rise to dominance in the U.S. contains a central irony. In the early twentieth century the car was celebrated as bringing health to city dwellers by providing access to the country, but ultimately the auto's popularity destroyed the country through urban sprawl.
People who wish to escape the city for a scenic drive must drive farther and farther before finding scenic landscape for a peaceful roll. From San Clemente to Ventura, Redlands to Santa Clarita extends one large conurbation of strip malls, tract homes and office "parks" linked by very unpeaceful rubber screeching, metal flashing, smog packed asphalt.
The Sunday drive is dead, unless it's a drive to the mall, where, strangely enough, people like to walk--because a walk down Valencia's McBean Parkway or Thousand Oaks' Moorpark Road just lacks the same charm.
Park Oaks Shopping Center on Moorpark Road--Loopnet
It is certainly true that home entertainment--tivo cable connected plasma system--has meant more reasons to stay in, and negotiating contemporary crowded highways brings connotations of stress rather than fun--why choose to drive on Sunday after weekdays filled with sometimes hourlong freeway fights?
But the decline of pleasure driving must also be placed in historical context.
The automobile's rise to dominance in the U.S. contains a central irony. In the early twentieth century the car was celebrated as bringing health to city dwellers by providing access to the country, but ultimately the auto's popularity destroyed the country through urban sprawl.
People who wish to escape the city for a scenic drive must drive farther and farther before finding scenic landscape for a peaceful roll. From San Clemente to Ventura, Redlands to Santa Clarita extends one large conurbation of strip malls, tract homes and office "parks" linked by very unpeaceful rubber screeching, metal flashing, smog packed asphalt.
The Sunday drive is dead, unless it's a drive to the mall, where, strangely enough, people like to walk--because a walk down Valencia's McBean Parkway or Thousand Oaks' Moorpark Road just lacks the same charm.
Park Oaks Shopping Center on Moorpark Road--Loopnet
Monday, February 25, 2008
Rocky Mountain Malling
Photo of Denver International Airport by mcwatt00
Cool-Whip topped Brown Betty, deserted dessert in a back road alter-Denny's Diner, DIA just sits there waiting for the breakfast rush. Moist melt in the mouth crust, lush brown cattle displaced bison range, waiting to bloom asphalt, stucco, ceramic tile, crawls with scifi monster-cockroach tractor-scrapers.
Along Boulder-Denver turnpike emerge gumdrops on rolling hills, Monet haystacks in winter afternoon orange. A sign declares Beautiful Wildgrass Homes from the 200,000s.
At Westminster Center, two teens, plaid drooping over Soundgarden-T, zipped Hollister hood sweat, truck longboards onto coach for university town sidewalk cruising.
Snow frosted pine cliffs of Flatiron jutt behind tourists strolling Pearl Street for crafty treasures of authentic Coloradocity: jagged to heal migrane black purpelized crystal chunks, handwoven finger puppets--could be coyote, could be mountain goat--dangly bead earrings, framed watercolor kitsch sunsetting over rocky-mountain-high.
Brick towering shopping cliffs of Flatiron Crossing lit by red neon to pastel blue chains of familiarity--PF Changs, Dillards, Crate & Barrell--backdrops obelisk marked Mainstreet at Flatirons, coming soon to mimic neotraditionalist mimicry of nineteenth century small town parochialism, in the view from fourth floor Broomfield Townplace Suite by Marriott.
The walk from Broomfield Park-n-Ride, Highway 36 at Highway 121/ Wadsworth Parkway at West 120th St/Old Wadsworth Blvd at Highway 128/Interlocken Loop-- traverses Interlocken Advanced Technology Environment "a 963-acre, full service advanced technology business park," with "nearby safe, affordable communities . . . Interlocken offers pacesetting companies the location and resources they need to compete in today’s globalized economy, including an advanced infrastructure, superior multi-modal transportation access . . . extensively landscaped parks, trails, child care facilities, athletic fields . . ."
Triple A four diamond crown of past-present-futurist techno-habitation, Omni Resort, with "390 deluxe accommodations and suites . . . elegantly appointed and full of modern amenities" supplies "a wealth of on-site pleasures." 27 hole golf course, "ranked third best resort course of Colorado," hosts John Bronco God of Denver Elway/ Sun Microsystems Celebrity Classic. "Or if you’d just like to escape into a sanctuary of relaxation in Mokara Spa, two outdoor pools and whirlpool . . . The Omni Interlocken Resort is sure to sweep you off your feet."
Cold swept air burns fingers gripping duffel trooping through miles of dormant sod embracing perches of hexagon maroon office retreats. Rushes of headlights cut through disorienting darkness. At last, around a bend, a speckled grey rabbit flips through brush at warmth of motel lobby door.
Oh, all the trees are calling after you
And all the venom snipers after you
Are all the mountains bolder after you?
--VU
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Spirit of the '80s
The sun beams down on a brand new day / No more welfare tax to pay / Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light / Jobless millions whisked away / At last we have more room to play / All systems go to kill the poor tonight
--1980, The Dead Kennedys, "Kill the Poor"
Susan Meiselas, New York Times Magazine
December 11, 1981, the U.S. trained Atlacatl Battalion massacred 900 men women and children in El Mozote, El Salvador. In response, President Reagan, with characteristic vicious smirk of a well-trained Stalinist, brushed off flesh shrunk to scattered skeleton images as liberal media fictions.
January 30 in Simi Valley, machine gun tenderized corpses wreak from faux library colonial ivory halls while Gipper children McCain et al. soak in pink powdered sugar mist of Disney store raving mad x-trip plush toy history.
But 1980s presidential illness extended beyond checkbook deathsquad anti-communism fueling blowback across the globe. The cruel Reaganite virus dealt equal brutality to the domestic sphere. Cowboy actor rode to victory on the horse of hatred, demonizing urban poor as dependent on the dole. He whipped straight out racist rage against "excesses of the 60s"--strangely echoed by Obama--such as the pittance of aid to inner cities ravaged by decades of desertion--while billions continued to flow in white people welfare--suburban freeways, homeowner tax breaks, weapons contracts--toxic encrusted tickytack hill prosperity. Fed commitment to public housing abandoned, thousands sent to life of shower free butt cracks stench rising up my nose to nauseousness, so I pop a coughdrop and suck hard on eucalyptus but can't smother it away.
The big O, who worked on the South Side, should know better, but no less sad our Ba-Rock-Star candidate failed to call out the chicken manure of Clintonite hypocrisy. The Arka-Mart prez of neo-liberal nineties lapped a labrador sloppy slurp kiss on "starve the city feed the burbs" policies and piled on with baseball bat cracking across face of underclass, cheerfully signing malicious race-baiting "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act."
Last week, LAT transportation columnist Steve Hymon wondered where transportation policy would go in Campaign 2008. Answer: where clothespin nosed homeowners toss table scraps that might help street weary city folk survive in the shadow of sprawlholic backyard barbecue blackpeppered swordfish steak mango chutney lifestyles--in an unsacred waste burial ground just north of the Roxford Street exit on the Golden State Freeway in Sylmar.
--1980, The Dead Kennedys, "Kill the Poor"
Susan Meiselas, New York Times Magazine
December 11, 1981, the U.S. trained Atlacatl Battalion massacred 900 men women and children in El Mozote, El Salvador. In response, President Reagan, with characteristic vicious smirk of a well-trained Stalinist, brushed off flesh shrunk to scattered skeleton images as liberal media fictions.
January 30 in Simi Valley, machine gun tenderized corpses wreak from faux library colonial ivory halls while Gipper children McCain et al. soak in pink powdered sugar mist of Disney store raving mad x-trip plush toy history.
But 1980s presidential illness extended beyond checkbook deathsquad anti-communism fueling blowback across the globe. The cruel Reaganite virus dealt equal brutality to the domestic sphere. Cowboy actor rode to victory on the horse of hatred, demonizing urban poor as dependent on the dole. He whipped straight out racist rage against "excesses of the 60s"--strangely echoed by Obama--such as the pittance of aid to inner cities ravaged by decades of desertion--while billions continued to flow in white people welfare--suburban freeways, homeowner tax breaks, weapons contracts--toxic encrusted tickytack hill prosperity. Fed commitment to public housing abandoned, thousands sent to life of shower free butt cracks stench rising up my nose to nauseousness, so I pop a coughdrop and suck hard on eucalyptus but can't smother it away.
The big O, who worked on the South Side, should know better, but no less sad our Ba-Rock-Star candidate failed to call out the chicken manure of Clintonite hypocrisy. The Arka-Mart prez of neo-liberal nineties lapped a labrador sloppy slurp kiss on "starve the city feed the burbs" policies and piled on with baseball bat cracking across face of underclass, cheerfully signing malicious race-baiting "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act."
Last week, LAT transportation columnist Steve Hymon wondered where transportation policy would go in Campaign 2008. Answer: where clothespin nosed homeowners toss table scraps that might help street weary city folk survive in the shadow of sprawlholic backyard barbecue blackpeppered swordfish steak mango chutney lifestyles--in an unsacred waste burial ground just north of the Roxford Street exit on the Golden State Freeway in Sylmar.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Busterranean Homesick Blues
DRIVING POINT OF VIEW
We are looking at pedestrians on the sidewalk through the
windshield of a moving car.
ED (V.O.)
There they were.
All going about their business. It
seemed like I knew a secret--a bigger
one even then what had really happened
to Big Dave, something none of them
knew...
On Ed, driving.
ED (V.O.)
...Like I had made it to the outside,
somehow, and they were all still
struggling, way down below.
--Joel and Ethan Coen, The Man Who Wasn't There
"Can you tell me how I get to downtown L.A.?" Blond sandpaper patchy Vandyke, fist clutching plastic bag, blue T-shirt too chilly for the weather exposes multi-tattoos and band-aid inside left forearm.
"The red line will take you there."
"How do I get to downtown L.A.?"
"At the end of this line you cross the street and take the red line."
Eyes in wide grief after the shooting of a white-tail fawn, "Look, I just got out of the hospital. I just need to get to downtown L.A. How do I get to downtown L.A?"
Wrenching frustration at simplicity, "When you get to the end of the line just follow everyone else!"
He turns down the aisle as my eyes close, primal game of fort-da, retreat into lingering bubble of a northern pike beneath the ice of Island Lake white-shards in purple pine lined sky, until, of all the open rows, why does he choose this one?
The woman in front of me twists back to offer him a quarter to which he opens his hand and reveals a half dozen tokens.
"Do you know how to get to downtown L.A.?," he asks her. "I'm not from here. I don't know why they brought me here."
She struggles to explain and then looks back at me, "Inglés?"
With a sigh I open my eyes fully, "Where this bus ends, cross the street, go underground and that train will take you downtown."
"Will you show me? I just got out of the hospital. They got me pumped with all kinds of stuff. I'm a little out of it."
"It's really easy. You can just follow everybody else."
"I have all these tokens. Do you want to buy them. I'll sell them for a buck."
"I don't have any money," I lie.
"1.50," the woman says. She points to each token, "1.50, 1.50, 1.50, 1.50."
"Do you want to buy them? Four bucks. I don't know why they gave them to me. I need to buy some food."
She shows him a bag of change.
"That's ok. Stores take change." He gives a slight smirk. "Dealers no. But I'm not gonna buy drugs. I'm hungry. I need to buy some food."
She holds out a mix of coins and bills. He drops the tokens into her hand. She drops the money into his.
"Gracias Señor, I mean Señorita. There's this great restaurant on 7th I used to work at. They'll give me a discount, and I can buy a hamburger. My friend's picking me up in downtown LA. Do you know Santa Monica? That's where I live. He's going to take me home."
"I don't have any money," I lie.
"1.50," the woman says. She points to each token, "1.50, 1.50, 1.50, 1.50."
"Do you want to buy them? Four bucks. I don't know why they gave them to me. I need to buy some food."
She shows him a bag of change.
"That's ok. Stores take change." He gives a slight smirk. "Dealers no. But I'm not gonna buy drugs. I'm hungry. I need to buy some food."
She holds out a mix of coins and bills. He drops the tokens into her hand. She drops the money into his.
"Gracias Señor, I mean Señorita. There's this great restaurant on 7th I used to work at. They'll give me a discount, and I can buy a hamburger. My friend's picking me up in downtown LA. Do you know Santa Monica? That's where I live. He's going to take me home."
My stop arrives.
"Good luck."
"Thanks."
I step off and dont look back.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Taste of Cherry
A forest green Chevy 1500 pickup, front end crushed inward to the shape of California's eastern border, slows to a stall. Horns pout, tires wheeze past. Red liquid drips then pours--hopped up Kool-Aid Man busting forth smiley face painted black bright eyes through cardboard radiator of exhaustion--onto wet pavement.
The deliciousness of antifreeze comes from ethylene glycol, an alcohol like sweet Pernod-Ricard when mixed with water to white fizz Marseillais of the Marcel Pagnol trilogy, yearly freezing the brain of 90,000 pets and 4,000 children who no doubt confuse it with that other twentieth century mega profit "thirst-aid" of the food engineer--Gatorade.
Some states now require mixing antifreeze with a bitter, not the bitter of once popular Gin and Bitters but all-purpose tongue repellent denatonium benzoate.
Compounding bitterness would likely fail to end the mass ingestion of liquid bollworm waster by Vidarbha Farmers--20,000 suicides and counting--who gag on debt from gilded seed shillers of Ameri-corpo-ag Cargill-Monsanto-ADM green to brown revolution, and, oh yeah, pesticide.
Non-swallowing farmers still soak in toxin walking rows shooting rainshowers of organophosphates, shapeshifting to Wizard of Oz Scarecrow--Ray Bolger not to be confused with Tin Man Jack Haley replacing nearly killed by aluminum dust face mask Buddy Ebsen--brain damaged by concentrations of monocrotophos 158 times safe limits.
Cotton, back alley chemical addict, eating the big P at rates far exceeding its crop size, certainly contributes to what Rachel Louise Snyder estimates as the 3/4 pounds of chemicals in the average pair of jeans--the remainder coming from dyes and acids creating that comfy soft faded fit sliding down our hips of lust.
notice me...
The deliciousness of antifreeze comes from ethylene glycol, an alcohol like sweet Pernod-Ricard when mixed with water to white fizz Marseillais of the Marcel Pagnol trilogy, yearly freezing the brain of 90,000 pets and 4,000 children who no doubt confuse it with that other twentieth century mega profit "thirst-aid" of the food engineer--Gatorade.
Some states now require mixing antifreeze with a bitter, not the bitter of once popular Gin and Bitters but all-purpose tongue repellent denatonium benzoate.
Compounding bitterness would likely fail to end the mass ingestion of liquid bollworm waster by Vidarbha Farmers--20,000 suicides and counting--who gag on debt from gilded seed shillers of Ameri-corpo-ag Cargill-Monsanto-ADM green to brown revolution, and, oh yeah, pesticide.
Non-swallowing farmers still soak in toxin walking rows shooting rainshowers of organophosphates, shapeshifting to Wizard of Oz Scarecrow--Ray Bolger not to be confused with Tin Man Jack Haley replacing nearly killed by aluminum dust face mask Buddy Ebsen--brain damaged by concentrations of monocrotophos 158 times safe limits.
Cotton, back alley chemical addict, eating the big P at rates far exceeding its crop size, certainly contributes to what Rachel Louise Snyder estimates as the 3/4 pounds of chemicals in the average pair of jeans--the remainder coming from dyes and acids creating that comfy soft faded fit sliding down our hips of lust.
notice me...
Monday, January 07, 2008
gentrification of slush
"We've landed, but we're in Sioux Falls," after open flips and activation jingles a clichéd Jay Leno one-liner replays through the 737 cabin. Delightful blizzard's poor visibility closed MSP, forcing a short stay on the FSD tarmac, but soon we are dropping into grey nimbostratus above white chocolate flakes rushing in slants.
Weeks of drifting gifts from blinding sky dump last year's Minnesota holiday bare ground memories. Snow inches on the road mix to root beer float slush above black ice occasionally exposed for perfect hookie-bobbin' conditions.
When I was six, the neighbor kid got the best of an ice fight. Frozen face burning within, my eyes descend down bare elm canopied street to find the approach of rolling sedan, legs scramble beneath torso inside puffed brown corduroy, half-pint offensive tackle's full force shoulder plunges into antagonist's back, murderously dreaming, boy slides, snow tires brake and skid at incline, but somehow grill fails to crush sixty-five pound pine cone frame squirreling for the curb.
Freeze shielded suburban shopping interiors long ago shoved winter garbed icy sidewalk feet shifters from downtown St. Paul, now preserved in black and white at Minnesota History Center with parking lot snowpile framing skyline of revitalized desertion.
Ever hoping for urban flight reversal, upscale "loft living" has arrived on former flood plain/ garbage dump Shepard Road. Working class immigrant West 7th re-imagined as West End Arts District with 19th century Schmidt's brewery--bought by Heileman in the 70s to produce Grain Belt now tattered sign of 1989 closing due to killer competitor wheaty fizz marketing blast of Clydesdale nationalism and animated frogs delighting nacho cheese dip munching football fan paunches--the centerpiece plan for a mixed use "urban village" includes 100 "artist live-work spaces."
Yet less than a mile down the road Summit Brewery, begun in 1986, thrives with "craft" beers sold throughout the Midwest and consumed by the quart at Axel's in Victoria Crossing where blond crew cuts revive the 80s in Cosby Show Argyle sweaters and, after cheers of encouragement, one jumps on stage for sticky hip re-enactment of Billie Jean as daughters of Thor lick lips to three inch captures of the event.
Although the T Cities house more Hmong and Somali immigrants than any other U.S. metro area, Crocus Hill remains a white bubble along Grand Ave, so when piano dueler starts harmonica several times, tantalizing cheers, only to switch tunes, then finally breaks into Billy Joel's ironic tribute to alcoholism, not a false dry eye in the place fails to sing along...
He says, Bill, I believe this is killing me
As the smile ran away from his face,
Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place.
Weeks of drifting gifts from blinding sky dump last year's Minnesota holiday bare ground memories. Snow inches on the road mix to root beer float slush above black ice occasionally exposed for perfect hookie-bobbin' conditions.
When I was six, the neighbor kid got the best of an ice fight. Frozen face burning within, my eyes descend down bare elm canopied street to find the approach of rolling sedan, legs scramble beneath torso inside puffed brown corduroy, half-pint offensive tackle's full force shoulder plunges into antagonist's back, murderously dreaming, boy slides, snow tires brake and skid at incline, but somehow grill fails to crush sixty-five pound pine cone frame squirreling for the curb.
Freeze shielded suburban shopping interiors long ago shoved winter garbed icy sidewalk feet shifters from downtown St. Paul, now preserved in black and white at Minnesota History Center with parking lot snowpile framing skyline of revitalized desertion.
Ever hoping for urban flight reversal, upscale "loft living" has arrived on former flood plain/ garbage dump Shepard Road. Working class immigrant West 7th re-imagined as West End Arts District with 19th century Schmidt's brewery--bought by Heileman in the 70s to produce Grain Belt now tattered sign of 1989 closing due to killer competitor wheaty fizz marketing blast of Clydesdale nationalism and animated frogs delighting nacho cheese dip munching football fan paunches--the centerpiece plan for a mixed use "urban village" includes 100 "artist live-work spaces."
Yet less than a mile down the road Summit Brewery, begun in 1986, thrives with "craft" beers sold throughout the Midwest and consumed by the quart at Axel's in Victoria Crossing where blond crew cuts revive the 80s in Cosby Show Argyle sweaters and, after cheers of encouragement, one jumps on stage for sticky hip re-enactment of Billie Jean as daughters of Thor lick lips to three inch captures of the event.
Although the T Cities house more Hmong and Somali immigrants than any other U.S. metro area, Crocus Hill remains a white bubble along Grand Ave, so when piano dueler starts harmonica several times, tantalizing cheers, only to switch tunes, then finally breaks into Billy Joel's ironic tribute to alcoholism, not a false dry eye in the place fails to sing along...
He says, Bill, I believe this is killing me
As the smile ran away from his face,
Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place.
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