Traffic Jamming

Before I owned a car I once took the bus from Encino to Eagle Rock to meet a friend visiting from out of town. It took me over two hours. But the real problem is returning at night. Because buses travel so infrequently, you can be left waiting at a dark corner for the amount of time it would take you to get home by car. So if I am going somewhere that requires several connections and I plan to be out late, I now surrender to the freeway sludge.

You might be surprised to learn that my 93 Geo Prizm gets 38 mpg on the freeway. My co-parasites on the road hate me for this. They don't hate me because I get better mileage than their brand new Maximas, after all, how could they know what kind of mileage I get? They hate the way I drive in order to get that mileage. The secret to high mileage is no complicated mechanical formula-yes you can get a tune-up, (I haven't had one since I've owned my car), yes you can keep your tires inflated properly (I never check mine)--the secret is simply to drive slowly.

Next time you are in a traffic jam try an experiment. See how far you can drive without hitting your brakes. I tried this on my way to Eagle Rock yesterday. The key of course is to leave plenty of space between you and the car in front of you. It means going much slower than the cars surrounding you with their pattern of speeding up and braking. What happens? You start hearing this continual banging of horns, demanding you close the gap. The mass of oil leeches can't recognize that traffic jams are a product of simply driving too fast and not permitting enough space between cars.

Freeway drivers, like internet porn addicts, lose all ability to reason in their need to jack off in a hurry.

It is very stressful to have people honking, speeding by and giving you dirty looks. So I think: What if I put my emergency blinkers on? Drivers might stop grousing if they think car problems explain why I am driving so slowly. It works great! The world wasters, gaining the temporary thrill of a 4 year old beating daddy in a race only to fall on the sidewalk and start balling uncontrollably, drive around me only looking at me to ask "Why is this old beater still on the road?"

However, after a short while I hear the blare of a bullhorn, "Turn your hazards off or pull off at the next exit." I look in my mirror and see a big tow truck behind me. I had noticed it before, but now I realized it was following me, probably waiting to give me a tow. I consider following his order, but he doesn't have his lights flashing. What's he gonna do-arrest me? I ignore him, and he finally speeds past with the rest.

When I finally get to the Harvey Drive Exit, I am proud to say that in an hour of continuous stop and go traffic, I only touched the brakes once, merging at the 134/5 intersection. I've always been the competitive type. Maybe I should enter the Dakar 2007.

Art of the Shade

June 21 was the summer solstice, meaning the sun is the highest it gets in the sky. When the sun is strong, a strange performance emerges at the bus stop, where bodies hide in any piece of shade to be found. The sign from a gas station, a telephone poll, a tall bush might shield two if it is wide enough, but be prepared to endure the smell of cooked urine. Sometimes you will arrive at a bus stop and think no one is waiting until the bus starts coming down the street and a half dozen people emerge from the shadows. Of course, it can be risky if you are stationed too far from the stop or in a place without a clear view of the approaching bus, you might get passed by.

At a few of the larger intersections one finds a bus shelter, although it seems quite random. Why on one side of the street but not the other? These shelters are a temporary home for the silent men with long white beards and toes breaking through the edges of grey sneakers. Not only do they shield already pruned faces from the sun, they are a place to rest legs and arms from the continual pushing of broken shopping carts and lugging of multiple duffle bags. Hiking with all that one needs hitched to the back may be romantic to a 25 year old traveling through Europe, but when you're nearing 60 and hiking is your full time job--with no days off--it's just not that much fun anymore.

The bus driver is occasionally frustrated by these hard working Americans taking a coffee break. The bus slows to a stop, but when the man in the shade doesn't move, it quickly accelerates. On the other hand, often the driver will glance at the figures with stained sweat pants and unwashed hair and cruise right past them--as if they are Duane Hanson sculptures that no longer fool him. Of course, sometimes these sculptures are actually waiting for the bus, and as we fly by an angry shout of "hey!" comes at us.
"Did you hear something?"
"Nah, just the screech of tires."
"But that man waving his hand in the air."
"Oh that, that's one of those Trompe-l'œil's. They've got'em all over L.A. now. Pretty realistic huh."
"Yep, pretty realistic."

LA vs SF

The NoCal/SoCal rivalry is epitomized by the battle between San Francisco and Los Angeles. I know people who have lived in the Bay Area for over a decade and have never been south of Monterey. San Francisco partisans will disparage everything about L.A., claiming it is ugly and lacks "true" culture. Angelinos attitude toward S.F.? Too expensive.

But the comparison really makes no sense. San Francisco, which is sometimes called a "real" city like New York is tiny by comparison. It has less than half the land area of Queens for example and about a third of that borough's population. To compare it to L.A., which covers about ten times more land and has more than 4 times the population, makes even less sense. Instead, it might be better to compare the metro region of San Francisco with the city of Los Angeles.

According to the somewhat arbitrary formulation of "Metropolitan Statistical Areas" (MSA) by the U.S. census, S.F. is grouped along with Berkeley and Oakland making it the 12th largest metropolitan region. But why not throw in San Jose whose metro area is directly south? The city of San Jose is actually bigger than San Francisco, so perhaps San Francisco should be considered part of San Jose's metro area which is currently ranked only 30. I know several people who do the San Jose-S.F. commute going one way or the other. And for lucky transit riders Caltrain now has express service that connects the cities. Of course, relatively few people use the service since transit ridership in the San Jose area is much less than in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a region five notches below it in population size.

Linking San Francisco MSA to San Jose MSA is not even close to the population of the Los Angeles MSA. However, it is only slightly larger than the population of the city of L.A. Throw in Glendale, Santa Monica and a few others and you've got a match. But San Fransicans may not like being connected to their larger neighbor to the south. San Jose is Kraft Cheddar next to San Francisco's grass fed fromage de chevre, and that indistinguishable mass of industry "parks" along 101--Sunnyvale, Menlo Park, Belmont--Oh where am I now? The headquarters of Flexnel?--is Velveeta, great for melting on top of your next Tuna and Macaroni Hotdish.

The Love Boat

It must be close to midnight on the 150 heading back from Universal City Station. There are maybe six people on the bus. A woman in her forties unsure where to get off sits next to the driver and keeps asking, "Is this it? Is this it?" A young guy in the back listens to headphones. A professionally dressed man talks on his cellphone. Yes one does see businessmen from time to time amid the teenagers, elderly and mass of L.A. service workers who survive by wiping the smudge from plastic windows.

The professional gets off and the bus picks up speed. As there are few people waiting at this time of night, only stop lights slow us down. This is what makes riding the bus at night fun. The bad part is the long wait since it runs so infrequently, but once you are on, it really flies.

Suddenly, an Isuzu Trooper--or some other little SUV--starts honking and driving erratically in front of us. Someone in the car seems to be shouting at the bus. The Trooper stops in front of the bus and a guy jumps out of the passenger side of the car waving and shouting at us. He seems to want the bus to stop. The bus slows down for a moment, but then accelerates around the Trooper. He can't just stop in the middle of the block!

Wow, we're hitting a nice speed now, but here comes that Trooper back up on our side. Hmm, maybe they want to race? This is exciting, but it seems a bit unfair. The bus is fast but not that fast. The Trooper burns rubber and gets a block ahead of us now. Someone gets out of the car and stands by the bus stop. The bus arrives and opens its door. It's the professional, and he is very distressed. "I left my organizer on the bus, did anybody turn in a small black case?" The driver shakes his head no. He comes to the back of the bus where he was sitting but it's not there. In anguish he shouts "Oh Shiii.."
"Is this yours?" The kid with the headphones asks.
"Yeah!"
"I wasn't taking it. I was just looking for who it belonged to."
"Oh thanks man. This had everything in it!"
He thanks the driver and gets off the bus.

Mystery, drag racing and one more life saved from a tragic fall. It's L.A.'s new thrill ride that tourists from across the world are longing to experience for themselves. Come on Board! Captain Stubing welcomes you!

The Message

Walking back from the Sherman Oaks Trader Joe's, which is at the very inconvenient corner of Riverside and Hazeltine, I notice a couple people waiting for the 96 heading back to Ventura Blvd. Normally I would not bother waiting for a bus that only runs once an hour on the weekends, but the pair waiting indicates the bus must be coming soon. I ask the elderly woman with a walker and the teenage boy, who for some reason is sitting on the ground, when the bus is supposed to come. The woman tells me with a sigh that it was supposed to arrive 15 minutes ago. Well, I think, that must mean it will be here fairly soon, so rather than walk in the hot sun all the way back down Van Nuys Blvd, it will certainly be worth the wait.

Sure enough only a couple minutes later the bus arrives. I had assumed that the walker belonged to the woman, but as they get up I realize it is the boy's. He raises himself on the aluminum legs and moves toward the bus door, but then the woman takes the walker from him. In order to get onto the bus, it seems he has to crawl on his arms and drag his legs behind. I suppose the driver could have used the lift, but for the old bus they use for this route the lift is in the back and requires a very elaborate process to operate. And sometimes it just doesn't work. So everybody involved probably thought it would be faster and easier to just have him crawl.

For a moment I am transported back to High School and the old buses we rode. I remember how there was a separate bus for the "handicapped kids." It took a special route that stopped right in front of their houses and had a lift for those in wheelchairs. This bus must be from about that time period, the early 1980s, maybe older. It is a "Blue Bird", which I recall was the name of the orange-yellow buses we used to ride. The dark green seats are benches that sit in rows all the way back, and the mirror over the windshield is the same rectangular one kids would hide from after they threw a piece of bologna at your head. It makes a loud grinding noise as we take off.
Image from turbosquid.com

When "The Message" came out in '82, C- students memorized every one of those 90 something lines and shouted them in unison from the back of the bus...

"It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth
But now your eyes sing the sad sad song
Of how you lived so fast and died so young

Its like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under"

Who Killed The Electric Car?

I don't care.

If you haven't heard there is a new movie with this title coming out. Last week on NOW with David Broncaccio they interviewed the director, and I wanted to throw cottage cheese with walnuts at the TV. Everything this guy said came out of the imaginary world of Hollywoodland. The stars of his film are wealthy entertainment personalities driving highly subsidized concept vehicles. In one scene they conduct a mock funeral for their EV1s, and as one woman spoke tears welled up in her eyes. It could have been a scene from the new Pixar film Cars. And these EV1 owners are like the audience for that film, living in an upside-down childlike world, where objects become humans that love and care for one another, go to the drive-in movies and screw in the backseat of the...?

These guys are the worst of the GM conspiracy theorists and Prius Progressives combined. "GM and the oil companies destroyed our vehicles so we couldn't save the world." In fact they interview a guy, with a photo of crushed trolleys in the background, who rehashes the old myth about why there are no more trolleys in L.A. and thus why the transit here sucks. But isn't this a contradiction? How can you both love your cars and then say, "Oh, but if they still had that trolley system from the 1930s, I'd be riding it for sure." Pardon me, we do have that system, but instead of trolleys we have buses, which are much more convenient than those trolleys ever were. Give it a try some time, and see what you think.

"But my electric car had zero emission!" There really is an appalling lack of scientific understanding in the U.S. No wonder a majority of Americans don't believe the theory of evolution. Look, unless your car is run by solar panels, it is not zero emission. And this also would assume all the energy that went into the production of your solar car was created via sustainable sources. This is highly unlikely. And, despite what those ads for the mining companies that sponsor Gwen Ifill's Washington Week might say, the raw materials that went into the production of your vehicle were NOT attained in ways that leave the earth with pristine and beautiful wildlife habitats. But I've already talked about this.

As this handy grid from the State of California shows, less than 11% of our electricity comes from renewable sources. So when you plug in your car every hundred miles or so, you are mostly burning natural gas, which by the way is what most of the MTA buses use. But the second largest contributor to your so-called clean car is the very dirty coal.

Mining is the second most dangerous job in the United States. This year already 47 have died. So when you see those EV1 owners marching in mock sadness, just close your eyes, hold your breath and imagine you are being buried in coal dust. And as you fade into unconsciousness let the sweet voice of Owen Wilson, playing Lightning McQueen, say to you "Don't worry, its all just a cartoon."

Angel on the Corner

I'm at the corner of Roscoe and Balboa, in the borderworld adjacent the Van Nuys Airport. Is this Reseda, North Hills, Northridge, Lake Balboa? The last of these I've never heard used but found it on a "community" map of Los Angeles. Why I am here is another pointless exploration of Valley neighborhoods. In order to get here I had to wait almost an hour for the 236 at the Balboa Orange line stop. The people who were waiting with me had waited two hours. And on my way back from this borderworld I waited 45 minutes for the 240 at Roscoe and Reseda, a bus that should be at most a 20 minute wait.

But right now I'm at the corner of Roscoe and Balboa. There is one other guy waiting with me and we do the normal exchange about schedules and time, wondering when the next bus will arrive. Soon a third man approaches and begins looking through the garbage can for recyclables and maybe something resalable or edible as well. It's not a strange sight. As a bus rider--as a resident of the city, someone digging through the garbage is like a pigeon squashed on the road, I will look the other way for a moment, but after a while it just blurs into the concrete background.

The man waiting with me looked just as much the hardened urbanite, but he had some strange superpower that enabled him to maintain what Tibetan Buddhist's call "nying je", a critical sensitivity toward the suffering of others. He walks over to the man digging through the garbage, gives him a couple dollars and tells him to get something to eat. While seeing a man digging for aluminum cans didn't shock me, seeing this man walk up and a give a man a couple dollars who hadn't even asked was like seeing a dead pigeon pick itself up and fly away.

"You hate to see that." The man said to me. "People going through garbage looking for food."
"Yeah. It's crazy."
Soon we are talking about the politics of homelessness and what a sad country we live in where people live in billion dollar palaces right next to those who sleep on sidewalks.

What most impresses me is that this guy is probably not that far from living on the streets himself. He is just scraping by from one job to the next like most bus riders. He tells me about the band he plays in and gives me a sticker. I give him a dollar and say "take this for the sticker."
"What man? Naah, you dont have to pay for it!"
"Hey man, I feel guilty." I smile. "You're out their spreading the wealth, so I gotta spread it a little too!"
"Alright, thanks man." He smiles back.

His band is called Maintain, and they play R&B and Soul. The website on the sticker www.maintainmusic.com is no longer there, so I'm not sure if they still exist or if they have disappeared into the former band firmament, which would not be surprising since one of their band members is inhabited by an angel.

The "GM Conspiracy"

When I tell people that I take the bus in L.A. the first thing I often hear is "Did you know that GM bought up all the streetcars in L.A. and replaced them with buses so that people would buy cars?"
"No I didn't know. Because it didn't happen!"
It appears to be easier to blame social change on the conspiracy of a big corporation rather than the blind desires of everyday people. It certainly makes for a better movie, because you don't want to leave the theater feeling like you or your ancestors are the true criminals.

But that's history: a history of crimes committed by the majority to fulfill perverse desires for mobility.

Let's be clear:
GM, Firestone, Standard Oil and other companies did have stock in National City Lines which replaced streetcars with buses in L.A., and GM was even convicted of anti-trust violations for their involvement in the company. But their crime was not choosing to replace trolleys with buses, which most cities including L.A. were doing long before National City Lines came along, rather it was supplying the system with exclusively GM products. It's called a no-bid contract--our government does it all the time.

Those who believe the conspiracy romanticize the age of the trolleys, thinking that they must have been so much better than our "horrible" buses of today. But Angelenos of the past looked at buses and thought "they must be so much better than the horrible streetcars of today." Buses could maneuver around traffic rather than get stuck behind pesky automobiles. They would be quiet and smooth, not screechy and bumpy. And they could easily change their route if a detour was required. How wonderful the bus must have seemed from the perspective of a streetcar rider!

Of course, there was also this little thing called the automobile that supposedly was forced down people's throats by GM and nobody would have used if they hadn't destroyed the streetcars. I hate to tell you this, but the tooth fairy was your mother. People in the 20s and 30s saw cars as much like the coming of the Savior himself to remove all ills from the world. And streetcars were an ugly sign of the sinful past that blocked the way toward goodness. At least buses didn't destroy the streets with their dangerous tracks.

Here Walter Benjamin's Thesis IX from the Philosophy of History is appropriate:
"A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we percieve a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; its has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."

Paul Klee "Angelus Novus"

The "third place" experience

I exit the Orange Line at Laurel Canyon in North Hollywood and get ready to take the 230. Noticing a couple men sitting on the bench, I ask if they know when the next bus is supposed to come. They shake their heads no, and look at me curiously. I take out my large system map, which shows all the routes in L.A. county and lists their frequency.
"Are you a tourist?"
"No. This is just a map of all the bus routes."
"Where are you going?"
"Oh, I'm just going someplace north of here."
I didn't want to say I was going to a church rummage sale in Sun Valley. It sounded odd when I thought about it--going on such an elaborate excursion to check out a rummage sale listed in Penny Saver. But I wanted to see what Sun Valley was like.
"Do you want to buy a map of the stars?"
"Um, no that's ok." I become curious. "So how much are your maps?"
"A hundred dollars." At first I think he is serious.
"Wow, who do you have on there?"
"Whoever you want. Anjelina Jolie, Ashley Simpson, Cameron Diaz..."
"Is there anybody that lives in the valley."
"Yeah Yeah sure. Shaq has a home down in Sherman Oaks and Kobe has a home in Encino."
"Shaq still has a home here?"
"Oh yeah. These guys you know they have so many homes."
"A hundred dollars huh. Wow."
"Nah, I don't have any maps." He laughs.
I laugh with him. Then a man comes up to ask me for money.
"I really need to get something to eat."
"Sorry Man, I don't have any change. Why don't you ask that guy." I point to the guy who was joking with me.
"No. I know him. He doesn't have any money."
"Oh, sorry." I then realize these guys aren't waiting for the bus. They're just resting. The bus benches are their version of Starbucks, what the brilliant marketers behind that coffee chain call a "third place"--neither work nor home but a place "in between" to relax and chat with your neighbors.
Of course, these guys wouldn't be in Starbucks too long before customers began complaining that the "third place" experience was being interrupted by people from "the last place" anybody wants to be: the streets.

When I get to Sun Valley, I'm disappointed. The rummage sale is a couple tables with odd toys and children's clothing. I casually walk by as if headed somewhere else. It looks like there is a mall on the corner with a Mervyn's in it. Maybe they have polo shirts on sale.

Prius Progressives

There used to be something called "limousine liberals." Now we have "prius progressives." After toasting their willingness to do something for the environment with an organic wine purchased at Whole Foods, last year they successfully lobbied the California legislature to create a special decal that allows hybrid vehicles to drive in HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes.

The equivalent of the smily face button during the 70s--a time of U.S. sponsored war crimes, recession and presidential travesty--the hybrid decal points to how car drivers live in a fairyland disconnected from the excrement they produce. It's as if the only natural resource consumed by cars is a highly refined bundle of biological waste, the collection of which often devastates an ecosystem. Cars also consume metals, rubber, glass and plastic made from raw materials that are abstracted in ways that bring wealth to global elites and destroy the lives of native populations. The example of the "World's Biggest Mine" operated by Freeport in West Papau shows how hard it is to scrub the blood from our modern technology.

"Prius progressives" heap scorn on smog spewing junkers, but they are responsible for perpetuating auto-normativity, while driving something that costs only a little less than a Lexus. The Prius is actually engineered to get better mileage in city driving than on the highway, and for half the price you can buy a Toyota Yaris, which gets over 40 mpg on the highway. If I had the money this is what I would buy. And when I first step in to breathe deeply that "new car smell", I would get high from the slight scent of dead flesh emanating from the dashboard. . . remembering that modernity is nothing but cannibalism by another name.

A trip to Norwalk III

After doing my research, I decide to take the 62 bus rather than transfering twice to get back downtown. It may take slightly longer than the trains, but this allows me to get more reading done, and I always like taking new routes. The 62 runs through the former industrial boomtowns of Downey and Commerce. In response to deindustrialization, both cities have converted former factory sites into shopping malls. In Downey a Boeing plant became Downey Landing, and in Commerce a tire factory became Citadel Outlets.

At times we travel next to I-5 and actually pass some of the cars caught in traffic. The route follows Telegraph Ave, which is a fast road. I'm feeling rather happy about my choice until the bus engine stops. Immediately I think, "another breakdown." And I can't even see the downtown skyline through the smog, so this would be a long walk. But the bus starts up, and we begin moving again, although as the bus takes off I notice a loud groaning I hadn't heard before.

I am soon back absorbed in my book until somewhere around Alameda and 6th the bus stops again, and this time everybody starts getting off the bus. I get off as well, and start asking fellow riders what happened. They look at me blankly. Nobody seems to care, it's just the routine breakdown. One man tells me angrily "Ask the bus driver!" Asking a bus rider why the bus broke down is like asking a teenager why he has pimples: it just adds to his humiliation about something he can do nothing about.

I begin to walk, at least now I am only a mile or so from downtown, but a man calls me. "Hey you! Another bus is coming!" I run back. Actually there are two buses, and I am just in time for the second, which has plenty of space since most of the abandoned already are on the first. Another assist from a random rider saves the day.

A trip to Norwalk II

I had just transfered three times and was waiting at the Norwalk green line station for the local Norwalk bus. I walk to the only bus I see and ask the driver, "Do you know where the County..."
"You want number 4"

I wait about 10 minutes for the bus to arrive and then it's off to downtown Norwalk. It's a sad little city, with the look of Irvine or Thousand Oaks but no money. I arrive at the Civic Center on the corner of Norwalk Boulevard and Imperial Highway. It's a mix of fences, construction sites and strip malls. Somewhat out of place is a large green space with a sculpture of children playing in front of a fountain. It evokes a past when kids played freely outside of parent supervision. This time no longer exists, not so much because of parent paranoia about sexual criminals--although this exists--but because of the danger presented by automobile dominated streets.

Many claim to know the sign of the devil. It's found in the index and pinky finger rising together, the number 666, the pentagram, the crescent moon, Pan and other signs associated with the Masons.

But the true sign of the devil is the 32 lane intersection. An intersection where at every turn the pedestrian has 8 lanes to cross and must wait 4 signal cycles before walking--left turn lane signals and green lights one way, left turn signals and green lights the other way. The young and spry can make it across before the light turn's red, but the elderly are lucky to make it half way across before having to wait another cycle as cars speed by.

Collective outrage greeted the arrest of an 82 year old woman trying to cross Foothill Boulevard in the valley, but no-one pointed out the satanic cult of transportation engineering responsible for this woman's fate. It is this cult, which thrives on the Angelinos auto-eroticism, that created the 32 lane intersection and 50 mph speed limit on pedestrian shared streets--devices meant to make driving safe and walking like getting your toenails manicured by a chewing pig.

A trip to Norwalk

I had never heard of Norwalk until I decided to file a small claims suit. That's a separate story--about my car and a car wash. Yes, I do have a car. It's a 1993 Geo Prizm , and I use it for trips beyond L.A. county. While you can get anywhere fairly easily within the county, our regional system stinks. Again, I have to do the sad comparison to the East Coast. On the DC to Boston corridor the trains run frequently and on time. In California, expect a delay of an hour.

Norwalk's major attraction is the County Recorder's office. Hopeful entrepreneurs travel from across the county to register their businesses. Couples enter the matrimonial bureaucracy. And future performers on Judge Judy do research for their cases.

I take the orange line to the red line to the blue line to the green line--every color except the yellow. At the green line station there is a big bee sculpture by Meg Cranston, a reference to the Shoshonean name for the area as well as the contemporary "industrious" commuters.

According to the artist:

"For this project I wanted to convey a sense of history but also to reflect modern times. I chose bees as an emblem for Norwalk because they are linked with the area's earliest population. Like many of the commuters who use the station on their way to work, worker bees are industrious, peaceful, productive, and contribute to our survival (through cross-pollination). Bees also have exemplary social instincts—bee colonies are much like families.

As an artist I am interested in craftsmanship and I wanted to maintain the sense of a homemade object. I tried to give the bees a joyful attitude—to make them bright and fun. Something that would provide a smile to people both going to work and coming home.”
(Quoted at L.A. MTA Art Site.)

The danger of this careless mixing of "history" and "modern times" should be evident. First, the absurd desire to "bring a smile to the worker bee" mimics hopeless attempts to pacify the already weary urban fighter. Second, celebrating the "industrious" insect not only falls blindly into the criminal hierarchical logic of modern business theory, which many years ago Donna Haraway brilliantly linked to sociobiology, it also makes no sense in a post-fordist economy where the struggle to find and maintain a job is more important than the struggle on the job.

A more obvious problem: where are the honey bees? Isn't this the very definition of Simulacrum? The copy has replaced the real. The relationship of the native Shoshonean to the honey bee evokes a romantic vision of sustainability. In contemporary L.A., the buzz of an actual bee evokes a fear of getting stung. I've seen two hundred pound men run like preschoolers at the sight of a couple bees hovering around a squashed soda cup.

This is why the struggle to save the farm in south L.A. is so important. This farm provides just a tiny reminder that, despite our ruthless attempts to hide it, we are connected to the earth.

Corn syrup is bad for the world.

Delay on the Way to Burbank

"How long have you been waiting?" This is a question I ask to get a sense of when the next bus will arrive. Timetables are pointless on streets like Ventura where traffic makes keeping a schedule sisyphusian. Anyway, during the day the bus usually comes at least every ten minutes.

"About ten minutes," he says, obviously frustrated. "I have to be in Burbank by 3." Right now it's about 2, and we're at Ventura and De Soto. There's no way he's going to make it, I think.

"Why don't you take the Orange Line? You could get to North Hollywood pretty fast and then take a bus from there."

"No, No. That won't work." He lights a cigarette and leans on his cane. "See, I've got it figured out."

"Oh," I nod. He looks to be in his sixties. Perhaps he plans to transfer to the 96 at Van Nuys, which would be one less transfer, but I still think he would have a better chance taking the orange line.

"I have to meet my niece and her daughter at the train there."

"Oh."

We are waiting at the stop for the 750 Rapid, but I see that the local is coming, so I start walking toward the stop for the 150, about 20 yards to the East. (If the local ever comes before the express, its best to hop on the local--better to be riding than waiting.)

The man with the cane appears to follow me, so when the bus doors open, I delay getting on. The driver looks at me angrily. "What are you doing? Are you coming or not?!"

I step on and gesture at the man walking with his cane, "I think there is a man who..."

The door shuts behind me, and the bus shoots off. "He wasn't at the stop. We can't wait."

I look back at the man waving his arm hopelessly. I sit down with guilt on my shoulders. What could I have done?

What could I have done?