Blue jeans, black Ts and shoulder length hair mark the two as rockers. Her voice lowered by smokes, his beaten by dope, closeness in pitch makes them hard to distinguish but for his soft saliva sucking through--perhaps false--front teeth.
Nearing the Van Nuys Station, county government buildings rise on the horizon.
"I'm glad I don't have to go there anymore," he comments. "You know what that is right?"
"Hmm."
"The county courthouse. I'm glad I don't have to go there anymore."
We roll past industrial lots into the residential streets of Valley Glen.
"Wow, look at that!"
"What?"
"Did you see that mansion?"
"Uh Huh."
"I wonder how much that property is. That was HUGE."
"Not as big as Ozzy's though."
"Yeah, well."
"In England, Man!" she chortles an awe.
"Did you feel that?" His voice softens only slightly, "A guy behind me just sneezed on the back of my head."
"Aww shit."
"If he gets up I'm going to say something. That's what I hate about taking the bus."
On December 8, 2004, schizophrenic former quickieluber Nathan Gale stormed the stage during a Damageplan concert at The Alrosa Villa in Columbus Ohio, unloaded multiple rounds of a Beretta 92 and killed four people, including "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott. Gale's mother bought the semi-automatic pistol for her son out of pride for his service in the Marines and before the diagnosis that led to his discharge. Inside the grainy black and white menace of a nose guard's shaved head is certainty of identity and lyrics stolen by the Pantera lead guitarist, now buried with Eddie Van Halen's Charvel bumble bee guitar from the back cover of VH II.
"We was broke and hungry on a summer day
They sent the sheriff down to try an' drive us away
We were sittin' ducks for the police man
They found a dirty-faced kid in a garbage can, uh ha
Ooh! And I'm alone, I'm on the highway
Wanted, dead or alive
Dead or alive..."
The breeze of her hair waving to an internal rhythm, matching the rhythm of the whirring gears, touches my neck.
"You know that? D.O.A."
"D.O.A."
"D.O.A. Hehehe yeah."
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
River Rigoletto
Dieser Gott kommt aber nicht mit Kanon. Er kommt mit der Stimme von Caruso.
--Fitzcarraldo
With wealth from rubber trees accessed through aria, he will build an opera house in the bleakly luscious Peruvian rainforest. As the wild blond man's steamship chugs up the Amazon, a Pathe gramaphone perched on top projects Caruso's mud-cleansed torrent of grief, sinking in the bubbling greenness that surrounds, clarifying the operatic cruelty of colonialism.
L.A.'s Amazon--the 405--passing through the impenetrable savagery of Brentwood and Bel Air, carries streams of leather seated super-powered canoes projecting interior stirrings of the latest Syd Barrett/Nick Drake inflected voice to hit the Morning Becomes Eclectic playlist. The high fidelity components for this wall of sound are now being manufactured in China. Delphi corporation, a leading maker of car stereos and the now de rigeur GPS systems, has 26 locations there, including a plant in the enormous Suzhou Industrial Park.
According to a 2004 article in E Magazine: 'To the west and east of the city, where two industrial parks are growing by nine miles a year, centuries-old villages are being bulldozed to make room for 20-story apartment buildings, foreign-owned mega-corporations, landscaped parks and western-style subdivisions. "Development," reads a Suzhou billboard, "is an Immutable Truth."'
Suzhou is one of China's ten "model environmental cities," but its canals remain polluted along with adjacent Tai Lake. In June an algae bloom on the lake forced officials to cut off water to the city of Wuxi. Environmental activist Wu Lihong had warned of this danger but was arrested in April and remains in jail.
Tai lake is a pond in the sprawling Yangzi delta, endplace of arterial gift to China's rice basket, now clogged by the largest hydroelectric project in the world. After 13 years of construction, the Three Gorges Dam nears completion ahead of schedule and under budget, promising to keep the economic bonfire burning. The 1.13 million displaced persons will have dreams of the Baiji's soft screaming song to remember.
Image from The Nature Conservancy
--Fitzcarraldo
With wealth from rubber trees accessed through aria, he will build an opera house in the bleakly luscious Peruvian rainforest. As the wild blond man's steamship chugs up the Amazon, a Pathe gramaphone perched on top projects Caruso's mud-cleansed torrent of grief, sinking in the bubbling greenness that surrounds, clarifying the operatic cruelty of colonialism.
L.A.'s Amazon--the 405--passing through the impenetrable savagery of Brentwood and Bel Air, carries streams of leather seated super-powered canoes projecting interior stirrings of the latest Syd Barrett/Nick Drake inflected voice to hit the Morning Becomes Eclectic playlist. The high fidelity components for this wall of sound are now being manufactured in China. Delphi corporation, a leading maker of car stereos and the now de rigeur GPS systems, has 26 locations there, including a plant in the enormous Suzhou Industrial Park.
According to a 2004 article in E Magazine: 'To the west and east of the city, where two industrial parks are growing by nine miles a year, centuries-old villages are being bulldozed to make room for 20-story apartment buildings, foreign-owned mega-corporations, landscaped parks and western-style subdivisions. "Development," reads a Suzhou billboard, "is an Immutable Truth."'
Suzhou is one of China's ten "model environmental cities," but its canals remain polluted along with adjacent Tai Lake. In June an algae bloom on the lake forced officials to cut off water to the city of Wuxi. Environmental activist Wu Lihong had warned of this danger but was arrested in April and remains in jail.
Tai lake is a pond in the sprawling Yangzi delta, endplace of arterial gift to China's rice basket, now clogged by the largest hydroelectric project in the world. After 13 years of construction, the Three Gorges Dam nears completion ahead of schedule and under budget, promising to keep the economic bonfire burning. The 1.13 million displaced persons will have dreams of the Baiji's soft screaming song to remember.
Image from The Nature Conservancy
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Beer Run
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight! Schlemiel! Schlemazl! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!
Give us any chance we'll take it
Read us any rule we'll break it
We're going to make our dreams come true
Doing it our way
Nothing's going to hold us back now
Straight ahead and on the track now
We're going to make our dreams come true
There ain't nothing we won't try
Never heard the word impossible
This time there's no stopping us
We're going to do it
On your marks, get set, and go now
Got a dream and we must know now
We're going to make our dreams come true
And we'll do it our way, yes our way
Make all our dreams come true
When we do it our way, yes our way
Make all our dreams
Come true
For me and you
--theme from Laverne and Shirley
At the Days Inn 15 miles outside OshKosh Wisconsin (as supermarkets erased farmers, OshKosh B'Gosh assured their continued mimicry in miniature) in the orange tiled lobby, where a "continental breakfast" of burnt coffee and plastic wrapped sweet rolls is served from 8 to 10 am, a twelve inch square white board hung on the wall reads in pink marker "Guest of the Day". Below in blue is a name randomly chosen from the night's registrants. The honoree, at departure, opens a small plastic bag to find granola bar, bottled water and trial size hand lotion.
In the summer of '83 T and I drove mom through Wisconsin and the U.P. to grandma's summer home in Northern Michigan. Mom was to drive grandma to Florida while T and I drove back to St. Paul.
At that time the drinking age in Michigan was 21, but in the state that industrialized a German-Polish imbibing lifestyle, the home of Laverne and Shirley's Chaplin via I Love Lucy inspired beer bottling opening credits' scene, the drinking age was 18.
So, on our way back, in the border town of Marinette, we hit a convenience store for picnic supplies: bologna, sliced cheese, white bread, mustard, chips and a case of Old Style. As we lean against T's '69 Le Mans in the city park, nourishing a buzz, a couple of twelve year old girls leap from their swings and begin prodding us from across the playground fence.
"Hey, where you from?" One of them wearing a blue checkered jump suit asks.
"Minnesota," T replies with a grin.
"What are you doing here?"
"We're just eating lunch."
"Who said you could do that?"
"Whaddya mean?" I ask.
"Who said you could do that?"
"This is a public park, we can eat here," T plays outrage.
"No you can't," the other girl jumps in with authority.
The game of adolescent sentence senselessness builds to laughter, and any worry that it's already two in the afternoon, we still have 300 miles to drive and we're on our third beer, is far from the mind.
Finally, we promise to return in 5 years to marry the girls, jump back in the car, and peal out down the highway to Wausau, smoking a joint and cranking "Led Zepplin II".
200 miles later at Chippewa Falls, its time for a refill. We stop in a bar that serves a glass of Leinie's and shot of Jack Daniel's for a buck. After two or three of these, we're almost wasted but still 90 miles from home.
"You drive," T says.
Give us any chance we'll take it
Read us any rule we'll break it
We're going to make our dreams come true
Doing it our way
Nothing's going to hold us back now
Straight ahead and on the track now
We're going to make our dreams come true
There ain't nothing we won't try
Never heard the word impossible
This time there's no stopping us
We're going to do it
On your marks, get set, and go now
Got a dream and we must know now
We're going to make our dreams come true
And we'll do it our way, yes our way
Make all our dreams come true
When we do it our way, yes our way
Make all our dreams
Come true
For me and you
--theme from Laverne and Shirley
At the Days Inn 15 miles outside OshKosh Wisconsin (as supermarkets erased farmers, OshKosh B'Gosh assured their continued mimicry in miniature) in the orange tiled lobby, where a "continental breakfast" of burnt coffee and plastic wrapped sweet rolls is served from 8 to 10 am, a twelve inch square white board hung on the wall reads in pink marker "Guest of the Day". Below in blue is a name randomly chosen from the night's registrants. The honoree, at departure, opens a small plastic bag to find granola bar, bottled water and trial size hand lotion.
In the summer of '83 T and I drove mom through Wisconsin and the U.P. to grandma's summer home in Northern Michigan. Mom was to drive grandma to Florida while T and I drove back to St. Paul.
At that time the drinking age in Michigan was 21, but in the state that industrialized a German-Polish imbibing lifestyle, the home of Laverne and Shirley's Chaplin via I Love Lucy inspired beer bottling opening credits' scene, the drinking age was 18.
So, on our way back, in the border town of Marinette, we hit a convenience store for picnic supplies: bologna, sliced cheese, white bread, mustard, chips and a case of Old Style. As we lean against T's '69 Le Mans in the city park, nourishing a buzz, a couple of twelve year old girls leap from their swings and begin prodding us from across the playground fence.
"Hey, where you from?" One of them wearing a blue checkered jump suit asks.
"Minnesota," T replies with a grin.
"What are you doing here?"
"We're just eating lunch."
"Who said you could do that?"
"Whaddya mean?" I ask.
"Who said you could do that?"
"This is a public park, we can eat here," T plays outrage.
"No you can't," the other girl jumps in with authority.
The game of adolescent sentence senselessness builds to laughter, and any worry that it's already two in the afternoon, we still have 300 miles to drive and we're on our third beer, is far from the mind.
Finally, we promise to return in 5 years to marry the girls, jump back in the car, and peal out down the highway to Wausau, smoking a joint and cranking "Led Zepplin II".
200 miles later at Chippewa Falls, its time for a refill. We stop in a bar that serves a glass of Leinie's and shot of Jack Daniel's for a buck. After two or three of these, we're almost wasted but still 90 miles from home.
"You drive," T says.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Pleistocene Drip
Relax a stare at pavement: sparkling pepper jewels, freckled with ginger, shadowed, grease spotted, tire skidded, patchworked, manholed, yellow striped, notations spraypainted of utilities below. Occasional white spots bubble in gaps of campfire blackened marshmallows not ready for s'mores. The breakfast lunch and dinner, the all-in-one energy bar, the bowl of milky cornflakes topped with chopped banana, Blue Bunny neapolitan, no-brand peanuts and canned chocolate syrup--of motor vehicle diet.
25,000 years ago a 3,500 pound ground sloth, dazed by the art of a juniper, stumbled into a salty molasses funk and sunk. The black goop of La Brea Tar Pits is actually not tar--a derivative of coal--but asphalt. The tedious work of mining these pits ended in the early twentieth century as a process of refining road's dark essence from crude oil emerged.
Asphalt plants, scattered throughout our metro areas--All American Asphalt in San Fernando, Valero Energy in Wilmington--generate the gravy of automobility. A 2004 study showed one neighborhood downwind of a plant had not just the predictable increased rates of cancer and respitory illness but also a more than threefold growth in suicides.
Gravy needs meat--bitumen needs gravel. Seventeen pits in San Gabriel Valley supply hard crumble for 70% of California roads. But please no dusty mess in Santa Clarita. A proposed gravel mine drew outrage from these clean exurban livers and a bill to prevent its construction by Assemblyman Cameron Smith. "We need to do everything we can to protect the quality of life in the region," Smith says with a straightface.
Drive 35 miles east to the development blaze of Antelope Valley and find Caltrans workers widening Highway 138 under fire from flying burritos and bb guns.
There was a piercing scream from the woods, followed by a pistol report. "Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain't punished at all?"
"Jesus!" the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money I've got!"
"Lady," The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, "there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip."
--Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
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