Story of a Mad Bus Rider

A Short History

2008-07-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

San Fernando Valley covers approximately 345 square miles to the northwest of downtown Los Angeles and contains over a dozen different communities, most within the city limits of Los Angeles. The Valley was annexed in 1915 to allow for construction of the Owens Valley aqueduct, and over the course of the twentieth century it went from a land of farming and ranching to "America's Suburb" (Kotkin, 2003). The subdivision of Lankershim was first established in the 1880s as a community of farmers growing a variety of fruit and nut trees (Link et al., 1991, p. 45). With the growing presence of movie studios, Lankershim was renamed North Hollywood to emphasize its connection to the rapidly growing industry (Link et al., 1991, p. 54).

In the 1940s housing developments replaced farmland as the Valley became a significant location for the defense industry, and the completion of the Cahuenga freeway in 1940 linking North Hollywood to the rest of Los Angeles further spurred postwar growth (Link et al., 1991, p. 63). In the 1950s, the central shopping district of North Hollywood, Lankershim Boulevard, became the downtown of the Valley (Link et al., 1991, p. 72). But when Laurel Plaza opened in 1955 a mile to the northwest and in the 1960s more malls were built in the west valley, business on Lankershim began to decline.

In the 1970s, white flight further contributed to the decline of North Hollywood. Restrictive covenants prohibiting sale to non-whites covered most of Los Angeles in the early decades of the twentieth century. Although these were outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1948, racial discrimination in housing continued to be the norm. Indeed, when California passed a fair housing law in 1963, a coalition of realtors quickly mobilized to place a proposition on the ballot to have it revoked, which passed with overwhelming support (Meyer, 2000, p. 179). A Fair Housing Act was enacted at the national level in 1968, but because of strong opposition, its enforcement powers were weak (Massey & Denton, 1993).

In the Valley, African Americans were restricted to the neighborhood of Pacoima, and Mexican Americans, although facing somewhat less discrimination, lived primarily in Pacoima and San Fernando (Roderick, 2001; Uranga, 2006). This began to change in the 1970s through school desegregation. While blacks and Latinos might not be able to live in white neighborhoods, the courts successfully required San Fernando Valley to integrate its schools with children from more diverse neighborhoods in central Los Angeles. The plan was eventually repealed, but it inspired many whites to move to outer suburbs such as Simi Valley and Santa Clarita (Davis, 1992, p. 185).

The movement of middle class whites to the urban periphery corresponded to a similar shift in manufacturing jobs. While older industry left the East Valley, new high-tech industry expanded in the West, first to the Chatsworth/ Canoga Park area and then to Ventura County (Scott, 1996). The recession of the 1970s and the reduction in defense spending after the Vietnam war further contributed to the East Valley's decline (Mulholland Institute and Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, 2004, p. 10).

Declaring the area "blighted" in 1979, the city established North Hollywood as a redevelopment project area. This gave the CRA (Community Redevelopment Agency) various tools, including tax increment financing and eminent domain, for use to revitalize the area. Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s the agency assisted in the construction of various office, retail and housing projects, the most prominent of which was the Academy of Arts and Sciences Complex completed in 1991 (More, 1999, p. 64). With a giant replica of the Emmy Award centered in a plaza surrounded by office and retail space, the developers hoped it would become a major tourist attraction and the center of a revitalized neighborhood, but the building failed to attract retail and the plaza remained largely deserted.

The failings of the Academy Complex epitomized what many viewed as the redevelopment agency's inadequate effort to revitalize the area. Some critics noted the CRA dedicated fewer resources to Valley projects than to projects in other parts of the city (Garza & Sheppard, 2002). Others saw the agency's approach to redevelopment itself deeply flawed and claimed that it increased rather than reduced urban blight (McGreevy, 2000).

The extension of the red line subway to North Hollywood in 2000 brought renewed enthusiasm for the project area's potential. A seventeen acre mixed use project adjacent to the new subway station called Noho Commons was approved in 2001. After many delays the first phase of apartment buildings was finished in 2006 and the second phase, containing a mix of apartments and retail, in 2007 (Vincent, 2008). While the CRA's plans for North Hollywood had long faced controversy, construction surrounding the red line station brought a new dimension to the conflict. It was in the discussion surrounding plans for several new developments adjacent this transit hub that the meaning of valley urbanization took on a central role in the debate.

Beginning NoHo

2008-07-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

Well I have finally put pen to paper and begun writing.

Introduction

In their preface to The Suburbanization of New York Hammett and Hammett write, "Today New York is on its way to becoming a 'theme park city,' where people can get the illusion of the urban experience without the diversity, spontaneity, and unpredictability that have always been its hallmarks" (Hammett & Hammett, 2007, p. 20). Their concern echoes an analysis made by many scholars that cities are becoming increasingly similar. Andrew Wood and Anne Marie Todd argue that as big box retailers and fast food chains become more prevalent, neighborhoods lose their distinctive characteristics and become more like the generic city of the Simpsons: Springfield (Wood & Todd, 2005). Marc Augé sees places with distinct traditions being replaced by "non-places," spaces "which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity" (Augé, 1995, pp. 77-78). And George Ritzer describes the tendency of mass-produced goods to displace local and distinct products as the "globalization of nothing" (Ritzer, 2003, p. 3).

But the tendency for cities to become more generic seems to be countered in Los Angeles: while New Yorkers worry about their city becoming more like an American suburb, in Los Angeles, a city known for suburban sprawl, some worry their city is becoming too much like New York. In an editorial responding to zoning rule changes that permit higher density development, urban researcher Joel Kotkin asks, "Why the rush to Manhattanize L.A.?" Kotkin despairs that "only a handful of politicians . . . seem to recognize that some Angelenos think that adding density to our already crowded region won't necessarily improve the quality of life" (Kotkin, 2007). Kotkin is referring primarily to large development projects downtown, but the anxiety over growing density extends beyond downtown to the San Fernando Valley--once the quintessential American suburb. In February 2008, a public meeting in North Hollywood brought out hundreds of neighbors, mostly voicing their opposition to several large scale developments in the southeast San Fernando Valley (Lopez, 2008).

If residents of suburban Los Angeles express concern about their neighborhoods becoming more like urban New York, an important question becomes what exactly "urban" means. Does it mean, "ethnically and economically mixed" with "diverse neighborhood scale stores" (Hammett & Hammett, 2007, pp. 19-20), dense and crowded multistory apartments where "human activities are more important than sunlight, nature or individual privacy" (Kotkin, 2007) or something else? The struggle over the meaning of urbanization in the Valley relates to the struggle over its physical transformation. This relationship will be the focus of this paper.

The paper first provides a brief history of North Hollywood and its establishment as a redevelopment area. Second, the debate over plans for North Hollywood's growing density is discussed. The anger over increased density has been interpreted as reflecting Valley residents' desire to maintain their suburban isolation, which historically has been a major factor in local politics. However, as explored in the next section, the new development surrounding North Hollywood does not represent the ethnic diversity traditionally feared by suburbanites. Rather, the "NoHo Arts District" at the center of redevelopment resembles more closely the upscale urbanism of gentrified Manhattan. The paper concludes by noting how the working class immigrants in North Hollywood, despite suffering most from overcrowded housing and declining infrastructure, are largely neglected in the debate over new development.

The Loft Lifestyle

2008-05-29T15:21:00.000-07:00

As recorded in Sharon Zukin's now classic Loft Living, the idea that raw building space designed for manufacturing and storage could become a sign of upscale trendy living got its start in an area of lower Manhattan that, by the 1960s, many viewed as an industrial wasteland.

Proponents of Manhattan redevelopment hoped to replace manufacturing that remained on the island with what they considered to be more valuable real estate devoted to business services. Few people saw the value of preserving some 500 cast iron buildings designed for production that was increasingly moving to the urban periphery.

The low rent of these buildings along with their undivided space, high ceilings and large windows made them quite attractive to artists for studios. Although artists had been living in these lofts since the 1930s, it was in the 1960s their presence became prominent. Due to concerns over fire hazards, many artists faced eviction and in response organized to win the legal right to reside in SoHo lofts.

Artist's appreciation for buildings previously considered arcane structures for a declining manufacturing sector helped led to widespread support for their preservation and helped create the loft aesthetic. The New York Times, architecture magazines and other media began to celebrate this aesthetic and soon wealthy professionals replaced working artists as the primary consumers of loft space.

Consequently, although SoHo still carries the cache of an artist's unorthodox lifestyle, in reality few artists can now afford rents for a studio apartment that average above 2000 a month.

Noho's Etymology

2008-05-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

Noho as a term for a section within North Hollywood can be traced to the 1980s, but its use as term for a neighborhood district can be traced at least to the early 1970s when people began applying it to a neighborhood of warehouses and factory buildings north of Houston Street in New York City. This label emerged after the parallel district south of Houston received the label SoHo in the 1960s.

New York's SoHo is probably the most famous, but it was not the first. A district in London named Soho dates to the 17th century. By the 19th century, London's Soho had become a neighborhood for immigrants, including Karl Marx in the 1850s, as well as home to a seamy nightlife of music halls and prostitution. In the twentieth century, the unconventional atmosphere of the district attracted artists and poets to its pubs and music scene, and in the 1950s coffee shops became the center of Beatnik culture. Soho also became the launch point for British Rock and Roll, with The Rolling Stones performing for the first time at the Marquee Club in 1962.

When the name from a neighborhood in one city is applied to the neighborhood in another city, some of the accumulated associations of the original neighborhood are extended to the new neighborhood.
These associations may ultimately have little connection to the complex history of the original neighborhood.

In the case of the NoHo arts district, local business leaders explicitly intended to borrow from the image of SoHo in New York, where a formerly industrial area became an arts district and then a trendy upscale shopping area.

For this reason it is valuable to provide a brief overview of how SoHo's transformation took place.

Blog going NoHo

2008-04-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

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.

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?

Soiling Green Vehicles

2008-04-02T08:32:00.000-07:00


              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.

Springtime for Summary and Partial Manifesto

2008-03-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

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

Sunday Driver, Yeah!

2008-03-08T07:40:00.000-08:00

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

Rocky Mountain Malling

2008-02-25T13:13:00.000-08:00

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 Flatiron Crossing, 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

Spirit of the '80s

2008-02-12T09:57:00.001-08:00

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.

Busterranean Homesick Blues

2008-01-30T19:56:00.001-08:00


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."

My stop arrives.
"Good luck."
"Thanks."
I step off and dont look back.

Taste of Cherry

2008-01-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

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...

gentrification of slush

2008-01-07T09:41:00.001-08:00

"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.

entrée libre

2007-12-19T08:13:00.000-08:00

Just past North Hollywood High by a small pool of water on the sidewalk lies a mouse, stomach slightly distended, pink toes softly outstretched to the side.

As if fallen from the sky she appears, a magical contra-Claus shrunken into her 70s teetering on chicken bone legs, grasping in each hand garbage bags overstuffed with plastic jugs and bottles. Riding hands free requires surf skills lacked even by many So-Cali young, so, after a few shaky stops and starts, she sits on edge of seat, back still towards me, stressfully pulling back obstructions as the quizzical squeak by, until time to drag clotted treasures of ubiquity through exit for inevitable liquidation.

In a 1960 episode of the Twilight Zone, Art Carney plays a hard luck boozer whose once a year financial boost comes from role as department store Santa.

Suit and beard cannot hide the breath-stink as he stumbles late into work of boosting kid consumerism. Canned to the street, a magical bag appears that conjures gifts for tenement tots whose parents aren't quite the Miracle on 34th Street Macy's-Gimbels merchandise wish-fulfillers with cash flows maintaining the essence of black Christmas. Formulaic Irish Officer Flaherty accuses tattered Kringle of thieving to mimic some slum squashed Robin Hood. In exoneration, sack reveals tin cans and alley cat--holiday gift-giving becomes phantasmagoria of the exterior.

For the holidays, everything must go.

choo-co-cheap-aholics

2007-12-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

In Leçon 24 of French in Action, Robert, l'Américain un peu naïf, wonders whether the train always arrives on time in France.

Mireille, la jeune Française sage, replies: "Évidemment, les trains sont toujours à l'heure. En France, les trains sont très ponctuels. Ils partent exactement à l'heure, et ils arrivent exactement à l'heure."

I thought of this last summer when Dad considered taking Amtrak from Simi Valley, home of Soviet style Ronald Reagan shrine, to catch a plane flying out of San Diego the same day.
"Dad, rent a car," I said. "This isn't France."
I could hear him grimace.

Reaganites like Dad gorged on the anti-effetist mythology of monster government pickpocketing hard worker Joe America to destroy private enterprising efficiency. Of course, under private enterprise U.S. passenger rail quite efficiently went to rot by the 1950s while Europeans taxed and spent their way to rail rider Valrhona 70% dark.

So when Parade middle America Sunday milquetoast magazine asks: "Will rail travel resurge?" Our answer: we prefer Hershey's, "The Great American Cardboard Bar!"

Winter Wonderland

2007-11-30T10:32:00.000-08:00

In the alley outside my window, like the jingling sleigh bells and clip clop of Clydesdales, the clinking bottles dug from dumpster into mudclad overcoat, near soleless sneakers, broken boombox overflowing grocery cart and thud of hinged lid dropping sounds not quite the squeak and pop of a clarinet player hunched on the 118 off-ramp at Tampa Thanksgiving morning. Between the quick gasp, achingly soundless downbreath, saliva squirts, key clicks, puff strained cheeks--lost embouchure with lost teeth--here and there, always sharp or flat, chirps an abject hint of Bye Bye Blackbird.

A crumpled reincarnation of Rafael Garrett: I first saw him in the mid 80s blowing a battered silver tenor outside the Wrigley field El Stop before midday drunk Cub fans looking askance or laughing and throwing him a quarter--just another raggedy lookin' black man--oblivious to the legacy of this multi-instrumentalist, who studied clarinet and bass under DuSable's Captain Dyett, recorded with Coltrane, helped found AACM, performed and taught across the world.

But for free improvisers busking truth--and for black men in Reagan America, which institutionalized the racist character of homelessness (49% of streetpeople are African American)--life could be shit 'til the next meal, so he might, to scrounge a little extra cash, crash another guys' gig--like Lester Bowie's trio playing in the back room of a West Side record shop. Bowie looked a little startled when half-way through his first set the old man walked in, but he graciously allowed Garrett's string tied bag of bells and whistles to transform tightly rehearsed arrangements into mismatched inflations of a tear.

Bloodshot eyes, are you listening?

After Hours

2007-11-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

Oh, someday I know
Someone will look into my eyes
And say hello
You're my very special one

But if you close the door
I'd never have to see the day again
--Lou Reed

Near 11pm the crowding at the Taco Bell trough outside my window hits its peak.

They idle in U-shaped noxiousness--gold plated Escalade, Honda CRV, BMW E90, Toyota Sienna, 1980s Cutlass no paint on bondoed fender olive hood mismatched to maroon body rear bumper hanging into street.

AC hums on max to cool restless perspiring double chin neck to leg flab pinched by nylon belt--to think outside the bun.

Stomachs search in Kierkagaardian anguish a moment of gloried hope as nacho cheese beef gordita nears mouth. With bite brown drips to upholstery. Ice grabbed from 32 ounce pepsi moistens paper napkin--dabbing dabbing, dabbbing--but it's no use. 360,000 gallons of oil spreads through the Kerch Strait--58,000 through SF Bay--shedding death from Black Sea to Muir Beach.

Clyfford Still 1949 No. 1 (PH-385)
1949 oil on canvas © Estate of Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still Museum

voi siete un clown

2007-11-08T08:53:00.001-08:00

In his remembrance for Criterion Collection's The White Shiek, Leopoldo Trieste recalls when Fellini asked him to take the role of Ivan Cavalli, the preening husband who has brought his new bride for a rigorously scheduled honeymoon in Rome:
"'You want me to be a comic actor?'
I actually got mad at him. I spoke ancient Greek. I could read Aeschylus like you read the paper.
'I'm a dramatist! You've got me all wrong! Leave me alone.'
'Listen Leopoldo, you belong to the race of clowns.'
I remember his exact words.
'You are a clown.'"

"Uuunnh," as I sit, rises a groan nearly whimper, like from a broken foot dog abandoned on outskirts of Rome circa 1940s neorealism. Soft sound hard to trace amid rackety hum, its source blends into tint windowed vegetable patch. Thin grey beard on balding cabbage head dressed in casual business attire but third look finds half shirt tail hanging, coffee stain on breast pocket, dirt rimmed cuffs on khakis.

The groan loudens, now punctuated by tiny croak gurgle whisp of belly bubbles. Hand grabs waist, bending, swaying forward, swallowing, "Ooooooaaah."

On-setting illness vague no more, image of chunk funky acid splatter to shoelace and nostril, passenger neighbors move to bus front.

Stomach upset memories of degurgitations, bent head over some strange Edina toilet, absent parent party weekend--how did you get here?--my incapacity stoking another of the recurrent grab and shoves between T. and K. over who will drive mom's Honda back to Saint Paul.

Fear to fascination--will rotting internality dissolve or burst? At Van Nuys the wrenching pauses then stumbles toward closing doors. Too late, rubber bound glass squeezes swelling melon. "Back door! Back door!" voice surprisingly strong, trap opens to release the suffering. It waddles then straightens--feeling better now?--just to end of platform. Arms outstretch, wings of a penguin leaning forward feeding the cement little liquid trickles. Again. Again. Again.

A Balmy Day in FLA

2007-10-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

In 1974 Broward County boosters, hoping to attract game fish, dump millions of nylon bound tires to create the Osborne Reef. Over time storms bust them loose to shred nearby natural reefs and wash up on North Carolina shores.

On ocean edge of ecodisaster emulsion blots of hyperglobality--petrolium tankers, containerships of lumber, orange marmalade, t-shirts--import/export from Port Everglades Foreign Trade Zone.

The air a carwash interior, droplets to downpour shampoo the yellow heat. Creamsicle skin strained muscles amble and pump along faint lightning steamed sand.

A man, squirting cartoon sweat, waddles with one leg twice-thick the other--salt rusted frontyard flamingo stem peglike limb.

Squeezed between cement skeletons of soon to be jacked up tropi-glamour condos

W Fort Lauderdale Hotel/Residences, with an interior that "incorporates elements of fenshui, color therapy and aromatherapy,"

and Trump International Hotel and Towers, "a one of a kind destination for the select few,"

are the broken plastered bones of 1950s era unsentimentalia.

My economy hotel room overlooks patio turned parking lot. Mattress squishes next to chipped veneer of nightstand on dull cracky linoleum floor. Half-inch of screw sticks out on bathtub faucet knob. Water drains slow through clogging sand.

Banyan tree swamp, former Fort Liquourdale, now Venice of South Florida, multimillion dollar yachts park along white tablecloth purple aquarium dining elegance. Open collared fifty somethings with blonded companions strut the sparkle studded sunglass boutiques of Las Olas Boulevard competing with the concierge and valet parking of chilled dry faux art deco Galleria Mall a mile north on Sunrise Blvd.

Not quite competing a half mile east at downscale curving Sunrise Lane, "The World Famous Parrot" hides amid neon xxx Playboy paraphernalia and tatoo parlor with hand on hips artist gruffing "Tattoo Bro?" to passer-by me.

By a smoke shop, a man stands on the sidewalk in white to grey Chuck Taylor low tops, ripped jean shorts, bare torso--body hair bleached by the sun, tufted over broiled apricot skin. He crosses the street to confront me sticking a two inch square gash on inside elbow in my face, "Hey Buddy, can you spare some change for some gauze and bandage?" I wave him off and pass by souvenir shops selling drunken sexhibitionist T-shirts--a Men's Room figure missing top circle with the caption "UNIVERSAL SIGN FOR NEEDS HEAD".

Back on A1A, a golftourist in SLK convertible, clubs sticking out the back, flips off a grey Dodge van with cardboard for one back window, "Go to fuck!"

Warm moist wind sways darkening palms.

With you, my life

2007-10-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

Napoleon put his hand on his heart because his hand was cold.
I put my hand on my heart because my heart aches.
--Ralph Kramden.

"Tell her I can do her make-up and hair tomorrow afternoon"
A splash of pink on the forehead sprouts from the spiked black hair of my Wednesday night traveling companion. Phone perched upon shoulder, she drags on board a roll-bag containing tools of a beautification student.
"Who?
What?
Shut up. You spoke to her?
I thought she hated me.
Oh my god, I miss her so much. I so want to talk to her.
Should I call her?
Tell her to call me.
Ok, love you."

Five minutes later rings the tinny mimicry of a pop tune.

"Hello?
Hey, I am so glad you called.
I am so sorry about what happened.
Y'know I totally didn't mean that.
Yeah, and Susan was totally trying to fuck with us.
I was so stupid and immature then.
I felt so bad.
You were my best friend, and I would never want to hurt you."

Imagination of Dirt

2007-10-08T09:08:00.001-07:00

On a breezy fall afternoon, from the sidewalk, a glance at the park interior, a woman sagging naked scrubs herself with soil, grass, leaves in the shade of an oak. The confused appears as a blotchy black and white reproduction of Boticelli's Birth of Venus in a scribbled 1950s high school textbook.

The grape tomato worm ricy grit tasteless on the tongue stuffed down to gurgling belly, gums laced with black goop, the condition of Pica, the condition of Rebeca in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude palpitates our Freudian pulmonary artery--the maniacal fist feeding of dirt, the drive toward dark essence, the intestinal brick-making lust, the nourishment of decomposition and death, the lowly exaltedness of bourgeois pretensions.

This residue of unexpressed sickness expresses itself in the rumbling blast of highrise apartments in the "Noho shopping cArts District". The MTA recently approved a billion dollar office-housing-retail tower near the Noho red line station as part of our Mayor's dream of bringing the New York subway lifestyle to rubber boinking buggyville.

But a study by the LA Times shows previous attempts to link housing to rail stops in Hollywood, Downtown and Pasadena simply increased congestion since residents continue to drive.

Blind sticking smudged fingers down throats, pushing yuck to the yuppies, inters the clarity of solving planned foolery.

Why not simply require the new housing only be rented to people without automobiles, saving money on constructing needless parking structures and reducing traffic snarls?

Because people without cars are also the city's poor, and to build housing for poor people cuts deep with the anxiety of failed romantics.

Chanson d'automne

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
Monotone.

Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l'heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure

Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m'emporte
Deçà, delà,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.

--Paul Verlaine

inbetween bleakness

2007-10-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

Passing through the park a red orange feathering into grey tail squiggles after a squirrel perches on a "Ron Paul Revolution" sign. The squeaky bark of a Bichon hanging from a Honda CRV rings through the pines.

The sorely broken pungency of a refrigerator interior, not the moldy abandoned grime of a Frigidaire abandoned in an alley off Devonshire in Mission Hills but the ordinary unpealed onion, wrinkly peach, ziplock bag of fried rice and tofu, hoping it will not seep to tinge one quarter remaining half gallon fat free milk, melancholy soaks the dialogue of strangers sitting in the back bus seats facing one another.

"You headed for school?" asks the older man who has the height and headshape of Alan Arkin and a low creaking voice.

"No work," replies the younger. He recounts a one minute life story of wished I had-almost completed-still plan to... "Right now I am a mover."

"Moving is a good job. At least you stay active. Take care of your health and stay out of trouble because when a big break comes along if you're not healthy or you're in trouble, you won't be able to take advantage of it." Light tongue sticking to mouth roof ends the aphoristic exhaling.

A man with captain bars pinned to a camouflage hat crosses legs on the front seats, pulls a Binaca blast from his duffel and starts misting the surrounding sadness. He sprays the head, left-right shoulder, opens his mouth and takes it on the tonsils.

I blink at a pinch in my neck.

Gridlock Poppycock

2007-09-24T08:20:00.001-07:00

From LA City Photo Gallery

The Texas Transportation Institute annual congestion report again lists L.A. as number one street clogger in the nation, scorching by an extra 12 hours of delay second place metro areas San Francisco, Atlanta, DC. But according to local planning officials, the study significantly underestimates snarl by assuming cars move at 35 mph during rush hours when freeway sensors show speeds closer to 20 mph.

In August of last year, digital cameras clicking, Councilwoman and Mayor unveiled the new needlepointing approach to L.A. street slogging: bright signs in "anti-gridlock zones" prohibit parking weekdays 7-9 am and 4-7 pm, creating more lanes for stealhead cased creepy crawlies during crushy crunchy.

Has the Mayor's "small things" traffic solution helped? Drive down Sepulveda near Ventura 'round 8 am--bumpity-bumpity-bumpity--I'll beatchya on feet.

Reversing the escalator over the hill world of mudsludging requires closing not opening car lanes: Auto-authoritarianism must confront its assassination by frustration.

At least one person in our planning department is in the fight. Emily Gabel-Luddy, head of the department's Urban Design Studio, says in a September 18 LA Times Magazine interview, "What we're trying to do is reverse-engineer decades of thinking about the city." This requires making major boulevards "dramatically less efficient as automobile arteries."

To boost walking, bust on driving--including of feelgoody hybrids and electrics.

Free--to ravage you and me--thinkers of the Pacific Legal Foundation object, "So long as people ardently desire to live and raise children in detached homes with a bit of lawn, there is virtually nothing that government bureaucrats can do that will thwart that."

Portland, the bête noir of these auto-pitying libertarians, proves them wrong. While traffic congestion is worse, commuters spend less time in traffic than in other cities. Why? Because they live close to work and can actually walk or take the bus.

A study by the Urban Land Institute further supports the Portland model. Popping California politicos environmental egos overpumped by proposals for CO2 downing--higher fuel economy, cleaner fuels, greener building--ULI calls for the kooky idea of living closer to work. "Shifting 60 percent of new growth to compact patterns would save 85 million metric tons of CO2 annually [equal] to a 28 percent increase in federal vehicle efficiency standards."

But density alone is not enough. We need fast, frequent, inexpensive transit: bus-exclusive lanes as found in Jakarta, Bogota, Ottawa and many others following the Curitiba trail. The first important step towards this goal takes place on Wilshire Blvd, so write councilwoman Wendy Gruel and ask her to secure funding for Wilshire Bus-Only lanes.

Address:
Councilmember Wendy Greuel
Transportation Committee Chair
City of Los Angeles
200 North Spring Street, Room 475
Los Angeles, CA 90012
email: councilmember.greuel@lacity.org

Dogon A.D.

2007-09-18T07:56:00.001-07:00

Stone Arch Bridge, Minneapolis

Growing up in The Cities, Mississippi cliffs drew us to dark threats of joy--landscape of wind sent condom wrappers caught in chokeberry shrub, beer cans--Schmidt's, Hamm's, Grain Belt--beaten into stone bends, pockmarked by graffiti carved caves. Nothing to do on a summer night? Find an overlook with a pint of peach schnapps and gaze at barges twisting through birch crunched gorge.

One Saturday in the summer of '85, after a week of stocking detergents to dust-mops at Target mornings and phone-hawking the St. Paul paper evenings, I saw Julius Hemphill beneath cirrus striped sunset concussing free the structure of sandy silver floating from a bandstand on Nicollett Island.

A half-mile down river rough gray lines distinguished the undistinguished bridge--as Mom said, "It's hard for me to get in my mind--not like the Lake Street or Hennepin Avenue bridges, y'know, you can picture those"--which six weeks ago became loathsomely vivid mangled steel and concrete topsy turvy like Matchbox cars rolling off Tuna Helper boxes masking taped to tin foil fabricated cities.

After repeat dialings ending in overloaded circuit signals, I reach family, friends and learn of the almosts: my stepmother's book-club member drove over an hour before, my brother E. biked under that morning...

"But everyone's ok," I sigh.
"Well, not everyone," Mom's wry wise reply.

Walk on, walk on

2007-09-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

Juan Genoves, "Cuatro fases en torno a una prohibicion" (1966)

East of Laurel Canyon on Magnolia the one lane of traffic at rush hour can feed irritation as sugar to ants crawling from the palm up the arm depicted in the creepy surrealism of Un Chien Andalou to the point where that itch must be scratched--ants squashed.

Somewhere near three in the afternoon on a Friday walking through a plywood tunnel, avoiding rusty nails that might punch through flip-flops, breathing orange dust from the demolition of another 1940s era courtyard complex to be replaced by multistory luxury "apartment homes" with underground parking and fitness center, a nasaled horn blasts from the boulevard and as if in homage to Pavarotti's pipes holds on at a steady pitch.

"AAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN."

Must be a mechanical malfunction causing the electric buzz to freeze. But as the cry gets closer I see its source: in a silver Xterra a man with a growling face pushes forearms mightily into steering wheel plastic. He follows a shocked to tremble woman glancing frequently in the rear view mirror of her 1990s era white Sentra.

A half-block down the sidewalk a police officer chats with some locals gathered at the steps of an apartment building. Suddenly, the officer dashes to his car and flies away, lights flashing.

As I reach the building I nod "Hello" to a man still standing at the steps.
"Did you see that?" he replies.
"Hmmm?"
"Road Rager."
"Oh yeah. I was wondering..."
"This guy was just laying on his horn. The cop was pissed," he laughs.
"That's crazy. So what was he doing here?"
"Huh?"
"What was the cop doing here?"
"Oh, he was just finishing up an accident."
"Crazy."

Walking on an ant crawls up my left toe, but I let it ride.