So there I am, waiting for my number to come up, when this young guy comes stumbling through the door, heading towards the counter…but he never makes it and ends up collapsing on the floor. Mi gente (my people) and I look down at him lying on the floor, then up at each other, then back down at him. There is a general tsking and murmuring of “pobrecito” amongst the women. One older black woman gets up with a look of annoyance, as if she’s thinking, “Oh lordy, just what I need, a stupid white boy screwing up my morning;” and wanders out into the hall, presumably looking for help.

After a few moments I get up and go to the window…

“Excuse me,” I say to the woman behind the glass (she has the longest damn fingernails I have seen in a long time), “there’s a man lying on the floor out here.”

“What?”

“I said there’s a man on the floor…man down!”

“Oh my!” She exclaims, hitting the panic button.

Suddenly the room fills up with clinic staff, wheeling in carts from the two doors that service the waiting room. Next thing you know there are six or seven people swarming all over the guy; trying to take his vitals, and asking him his name and other questions that the medicos ask when they don’t know what else to do.

The guy, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, doesn’t look good.  He seems to be turning a reddish purple and is muttering inaudibly something about not being able to breath. He doesn’t know where he is or what his name is, or doesn’t understand the questions that are being fired at him.  He’s your typical Long Beach hipster: tattoos, Chuck Taylor’s, jeans, Pendelton, black rimmed glasses, purple face (well, that part isn’t typical). The medical ID band on his wrist says his name is Darryl A. but beyond that little is known about him.

The gallery and I watch the unfolding drama with concern, all the while maintaining our distance from it. We are fascinated, but at the same time, we don’t want to be inconvenienced by this guy’s troubles, either. What if he’s got some kind of communicable disease? What if we all have to move out while they do their business (thus losing our places in line)? What if he dies? The pending inconvenience of this thought is sobering, to say the least.

Darryl isn’t looking too good. He’s sprawled on the floor with two doctors and several nurses/clinic staff leaning over him. Someone calls the paramedics, and while we wait for them to come, keeps asking him where he came from.  The medical bracelet is from St. Mary’s Hospital which is about twenty blocks north of us, but, apparently Darryl couldn’t get any help there, so he magically showed up here.

About ten minutes later, the boys from the LBFD showed up. There were five of them, two carrying toolboxes (presumably loaded with medical gear & supplies). They all had their fire gear on except for their coats and hats. I only mention this because whenever I see the guys from the Fire Dept. getting their morning java, they always have their coats on. Their coats have their names emblazoned across the back…no coats, no names. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Perhaps not.

The doctor gave the lead fireman all the info that he knew: name, BP, respiratory, pulse, lung sounds…while the other fire guys surrounded Darryl on the floor.  Then they began to take his vitals and ask his name and what was wrong with him, as if they didn’t believe what the clinic doctor had just told them. They poked him and nudged him with their feet as if he had just passed out on the sidewalk. “What’s your name?” “How much have you had to drink?” “How’d you get here?” “Do you know where you are?” “What’s the matter?” All this to a man who was practically comatose.

At one point, one of the firemen said to Darryl, “I’m gonna sit you up, ok? Give me your hand.” And when Darryl feebly raised his hand the fireman pulled him up by his arm into a sitting position.  The thing is, Darryl was clearly not able to sit up on his own and as soon as the fireman let go, he fell right back down. It seemed to me that these guys weren’t treating him with much compassion. Maybe I don’t understand their jobs very well…I thought they were there to help people in their time of need, regardless of their circumstance. I may have misunderstood.

One of the firemen found a sheet of paper in Darryl’s pocket and proceeded to read it outloud to all of us in the room. Maybe he assumed that we were all frightened poor folk who spoke little English, or that we would want to know what a loser this guy was, maybe to distract us from our own miserable lots in life. I don’t know what he was thinking as he read the paper and commented on its contents to Darryl: “Why, you’ve been a very busy boy, you’ve been arrested at least fifty times all over L.A. for being drunk in public.”

Darryl mumbles something about not being drunk and rasps out; “I’ve got Pancreatitis.” Of course, if you look up the symptoms for Pancreatitis, you see that it is often brought on by a drunken binge (which is, of course, another trait of the classic Long Beach hipster crowd – I know because I was a raving drunk myself, not too long ago).

You can tell that the firemen have already formed an opinion about our boy Darryl, and it’s not a good one. He’s a bum; living off someone else’s good will or on the county dole (as are most of us in this room). He’s part of the dregs, a bottom feeder. In short, Darryl isn’t really worth the effort. His existence is almost an affront to them. It makes me wonder what they must think of the rest of us, seeing as how we are all in the same room, waiting for the county handout.

Eventually, they got him on a gurney and rolled him out to the wagon. I guess they took him to Harbor/UCLA, where all the poor emergency people end up. I know, that’s where I went a while back.

But the whole episode has bothered me all week. Granted, I understand that being a fireman, no, dealing with the public in general can make one cynical and pissy, but if you don’t like it, don’t do it! We look to firemen and EMTs for help and sure, sometimes our need for help is pretty silly (the old cat up a tree image comes to mind), but that’s part of the job description. What happened the other day seemed awfully insensitive to me.

Being suddenly struck down by some unknown ailment and losing your “control” is a scary thing indeed. It can bring the ‘scared bunny’ out of even the biggest, tough-as-nails, SOB. I’ve been incapacitated and confused by a medical emergency, I know how scary it is to have shit happen to you and not have an explanation for what or why. Doctors, for the most part, don’t seem to know what the fuck is going on and really don’t know how to interact with the patient (maybe it’s the result of being detached emotionally that fucks everything up), but we turn to them in times of trouble for answers.  Same with the “first responders”; we may really be just frightened bunnies looking for some assurance, even if it is totally erroneous, but we need it.  And all I can say is I sure hope these guys don’t come to my rescue, in my time of need. And I can hear you naysayers out there saying that I should be happy if ANYONE comes to my rescue…and maybe you are right.

We’ll see how you fare when you don’t get the treatment that you think YOU deserve…we’ll see how you react when you find out that you are an insignificant speck of dust in the way of someones having a good time…

BTW a day later, I see our boy Darryl, with a couple of other low-lifes cruising down the street, as if nothing had happened. Maybe the firemen were right about him after all.

The Donna Ramble

When I got the news

I didn’t shed a tear

But got straight to

Work on the dishes

A daunting task

At best

As I had let myself go

To seed

Reduced to just getting by

On a pot, a pan and a bowl

While the sink began to

Look and smell like a

Plane crash in a swamp

So at best

It was ominous work

But it had to be done sometime

And sometime arrived with that

Phone call

I put on some lively radio

And while the sink filled

With hot, bubbly water

I took a hit off the pipe

I was ready

The pile of porcelain and

Blackened metallic things began

To disappear amongst a

Billowing cloud of milky white

Bubbles

I dove in

It was dirty work

But as the job progressed

I found my groove and

Settled into a rhythm

While I was on auto-pilot

I thought about you (not

The generic “you” that

I often think about

While doing the dishes

But you, my dearly departed friend)

I thought about my seeming

Hard-heartedness

How I had no tears for you yet

Maybe you are not dead to me

Maybe you are still going to

Call me back

Maybe I’m mourning you

Over a sink full of metaphors…

(continued at Heavy Bear 4)

Since the last entry, I have been to another reading, this time at the Sacramento Poetry Center with Bill Gainer.  Our hostess, the ever elusive Eskimo Pie Girl of Sacramento Poetry, Arts & Music (that’s right, SPAM), emceed the night with panache.  It was a reasonable sized crowd and I managed to sell four books (thus paying for the gas and part of the car rental)…not bad.

Saw my dad too, but couldn’t make it back up for Thanksgiving, so it was a little bittersweet.  But this was balanced out by my being able to visit with some friends that I hadn’t seen in quite a spell.  That’s what makes these trips worthwhile, otherwise I’d just drive up the day of the reading and drive back the next day…bim, bam, boom! Instead I went to Grass Valley, Shingle Springs (to see Michael Paul and his wife Claudia Licht), drove around the Sierras for a few hours, went to Sacto and then, on the trip home, stopped in Bakersfield to visit Nick Belardes before getting into the rush hour traffic in L.A.

It’s always the full plate with me.

October was a rotten month for me, work-wise…barely scrapping by on five days wages. It was tight, so tight in fact, that I thought I might have to move into my car and live on the street.  I did that for almost a year back in ’83, but I had a homemade camper shell on a truck.  I think it would be easier now because the modern technology  allows much more mobility than back then.  Between cellphones and Wifi, it’s much easier to stay in touch with the world.  Truth be told, I wasn’t too worried about staying in touch back then…near as I could tell, nobody gave a good Goddamn about me anyway.  I was pretty much on my own (some things never change), making my own way as I have done for most of my life.  Maybe that’s why it’s always raining on my “inner” landscape.  Maybe that’s a source for my eternal melancholy, this constant need to be on my own.  It does kind of wear you down though, always flying solo.

To be honest, I kinda miss having a girlfriend.  I used to have “girl” friends, but they all got boyfriends and that was the end of that…you know how it goes.  We get together sometimes, but not nearly as much as I would like.  I guess I’m always going to be the third wheel, which is sad, because it’s nice to have some companionship, or someone you care about to cuddle with.  But no one has been interested in curling up with me in quite a while.  It’s okay, I’m used to it (wish I wasn’t, but…)

BTW I should mention that book sales for the titles I have published in the last two years are starting to increase.  In October, when I thought I was gonna lose my apartment, one of the things that saved me was Internet book sales, specifically Pris Campbell’s Sea Trails which sold like hotcakes right up to the end of the month!  Now, at the end of November, her books are starting to sell again, along with a few other titles (it’s the trickle-down theory at its best). Next year I’ll be publishing a number of new titles, including Hard Landing by Rick Smith, Steel Valley by Mike Adams, Drive By by John Bennet, and a cookbook (!) by 5 star chef and poet, H.L. Thomas.  Also on deck are poetry from Gerald Locklin and Jane Crown and Scott Wannberg.  Hell, I might even put out a new collection myself!  If I can just get enough of a roster together I might be able to support myself by selling poetry, instead of having to work out in the wind and cold. I hate to harp on it, but if you are reading this blog and you haven’t been to my website to checkout some of the really excellent titles that I have published, you really should check it out at www.lummoxpress.com Do yourself a favor, buy a good book of poetry…it makes a great gift!!

We all need a dream. Trick is to just keep plugging away and not let the bastards get to you too much.

Finally, a note in passing for my friend Donna Gebron, who just died rather suddenly from a very aggressive form of cancer.  We had planned to drive up to Sacramento for that reading I just mentioned, but she took a sudden detour from which there was no return.  She is already missed by many in the L.A. poetry community and I would like to dedicate this post to her memory.  Rest easy, girlfriend…

Let me elaborate…As I was driving up to Santa Cruz yesterday for the reading at the Mill Gallery, I began thinking about that line.  It’s something I’ve mention to a few people over the years, most recently to my friend Sanchez, who was playing the Girl With the Flaxen Hair (Eric Satie) on his guitar while we sat outside watching the rain come down last Wed. It was such a perfect moment! Beautiful. And somehow after he was done, I said; “You know, when I close my eyes, it’s always raining…”

So, I’m driving up the coast and it’s an impossibly beautiful day. Blue skies. Unlimited visibility. Delicate hues of green and beige. The works. And as I’m taking this all in, that line kind of emerges from the shadows and slowly makes itself known… And I’m just observing it, like you would watch some wild thing, something feral that you want to see but you don’t want it to notice you noticing it, because you don’t want it to bound off just yet.  So, I’m thinking about that line and the imagery of it and I start to have little snippets of memory, but the snippets are not memories of moments that have transpired in my life; the snippets are of memories that I’m pulling out of the air…

And the most disconcerting thing about this is that I’m thinking, huh, this is interesting; like it’s an everyday occurrence. But, of course, it’s not.  It’s something new and slightly alarming.  Who’s memories are these that I am so deftly intercepting? Is it like one of those things where you say to a friend, hey remember that time we were in the jungle and you…oh wait, no that was a NatGeo special. Or is it one of those red flags that warns you that your mind is slipping into someplace dark and scary?

And over dinner tonight, Joe (Pachinko) says to me, you know what’s weird, man? It’s when you have a memory that isn’t really a memory and you think, shit, how could I forget that…until you realize, shit! That isn’t even one of MY memories…and I look at Joe like he’s just told me that he’s been having an affair with my mother, a look that is a mixture of awe and horror and god-knows what else.

This makes me think that maybe it’s not so uncommon, this process of  remembering orphaned memories. Maybe this happens a lot but nobody talks about it. But back to the theme…

In my mind, there is a woman, not surprising, and maybe it’s from one of those calvin klein commercials where the story has nothing to do with the product.

I don’t know, but it’s visceral, this image. Almost as if I can sense the rain before I see it.  In fact, come to think of it, I don’t think I actually see the rain so much as feel it.  But I know it’s raining, and I know that it’s a neutral rain, not a sad rain or a happy rain; it’s just raining.  I think there might even be music, but it’s just barely discernible.

So, it’s raining and there’s music…something moody and subtle, dark but not bleak. And the rain is slow and steady like it’s going to be staying in town for a few days or a week. It’s determined, but not crazy stalker impulsive. So, it’s kind of a gloomy wet afternoon with maybe a tenor sax and a piano making love to an upright bass…and somewhere in all this  there are flashes of honey colored skin, unblemished and porn star perfect doing friendly things to my cheek and fore arm. And there’s a room, muted tones, maybe darkened by a shade but I can still feel the rain coming down.  The music is coming from behind my left shoulder…I think about turning around, but don’t know what I’ll see.

So, if you see me out somewhere and my eyes are closed, this is where I’ll be.

What? A considerate suicide? WTF?

So, since my last post, the job market for me has steadily declined to the point where I’m actually trying to make a living selling poetry books…You know times must be hard if that’s the case.  This ain’t no San Francisco Heyday, no small press renaissance, not yet anyway. Maybe after the revolution moves thru town the people will develop a hunger for what Lummox Press has to offer. But for now, I’m taking on whatever I can find and believe me, there ain’t much out there…at least not for me. Perhaps I have offended the powers that be, the gods of menial labor, I just don’t know. Is my English too good? Am I too old? Does my breath stink? I don’t get it.

I’ve never had a problem finding work before. It scares me. I’ve actually started looking at other cities to move to, because this one is getting too expensive to live in. Or maybe I should buy a van (with what money, that’s the problem) and go mobile…I’ve done it before, of course I was younger and more resilient back then. But it’s easier to do now, what with WIFI and cel phones…all you really need is a place to store your shit and a place to flop, which could be the same place if you play your cards right. You can eat hot meals pretty cheaply. You just need a secluded place to sleep, one where the cops won’t be rousting you.  You can take a sink shower if you have to, where you get your coffee. It’s not like I’m gonna lose any friends over this…I don’t have many friends to begin with.

Still, not having a place to call “home” does kinda suck. I do remember that about the four years I lived in a house truck. It was a bit like living on a boat, but less sloshy. If I had my way now, I’d have a camper truck or a camper van and I’d just travel around, going wherever I felt like going.  There’s only a couple of things stopping me from doing that: 1) I don’t have any money;  2) I don’t have money for gas (and I’d need a lot of gas); 3) I don’t have the money to buy the aforementioned camper van and 4) where will I store all my shit?

Aside from that, I’m good to go.

A number of friends have suggested I move in with my mom or my brother, but that is highly unlikely since neither of them gives a good God-damn about me or my troubles (having plenty of troubles of their own). As I recall my life of some twenty-five years ago, when I first had to move out onto the streets of South Redondo (not a cop show) into a homemade camper truck, most of my family thought it was something I wanted to do…some kind of wacky adventure, like I should be floating down the L.A. river with some black guy named Jim…

I have a friend who has been living out of her car, her CAR, for the last two or three years; trying to find a job and get back on her feet again so she can get an apartment and start life anew. While she has been living in this struggle, she has finished writing a novel, kicked a meth habit, and met an array of creepy users hell-bent on taking advantage of her. Her story is a reminder of what I would call the minus side of the tally. You can add to that being harassed by the cops at every turn and being an easy mark for thieves.

But there are pluses like not spending as much money (tho that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be saving that money) on rent and utilities (Christ! It costs too much just to have the basics!). And it’s not like I can become any more of a pariah than I already am. I’ve become a solid weirdo and that’s not gonna change anytime soon. So why am I paying so much for a “storage” unit?

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Did I mention that it’s always raining when I close my eyes?  Something for the next entry. Think about that…

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
He’s a man who won’t fit in.

Robert Service – 1874 – 1958

I’ve loved this poem, ever since the day I found it in the Collected Works of Robert Service.  Granted, it was written in the late 1890′s, over 100 years ago, it still applies today…at least, it still applies to me, cautious gypsy that I am. I haven’t traveled beyond the North American continent, but I too, have not done such a great job of fitting in, just ask all my exes.

I’ve always been somewhat of an oddball, living the glorious oddball life.  In the past thirty years, I’ve had one job where I had to clock in and out. I’ve always done things my way; living in some of the weirdest places imaginable.  For example, I lived in a house truck for three years, partly parked off the Venice canals.  I lived in a converted gardening shed for a few years. You’d think I’d end up living on a boat, but that hasn’t happened…yet.

All my dreams have been of oddball things: I always wanted to drive the Al-Can Highway, but with gas prices nowadays, I’d have to be rich or sponsored to do it and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.  I’ve always wanted drive from Cape Agulhas  (South Africa) up the eastern side of the continent to Port Said (Egypt). Again, not real likely in this day of universal hatred for all things American.  I used to dream of living on a scow and plying the waters off Catalina as a marine handyman (I settled for the land-based trade instead).

But what have I done?  Somewhere along the line I fell in with a group of folks who were of a creative bent. And I ricocheted down the trail until I reached this place where I can count many, many poets and writers and even some musicians and a few painters as friends & acquaintances (and even a few enemies).  I’ve tried to find a gang to hang with but it has never worked or lasted long.  Seems I am easier to deal with from a distance.

I can live with that. It’s easier now, as I ease into my 6th decade, like an old man easing into a tub of hot water; sure it’s uncomfortable at first, but you know it’s going to get better very soon.  I sure hope so.

Walter Kronkite, one of the best father figures this country has ever had,  was there, too, guiding us through that momentous occasion.  He was on the edge of his seat, just like the rest of us, waiting for that one moment, that one heart-stopping, joy producing moment when it all would make sense even if only for a short time. When it came, he heaved a sigh of relief and wiped away a few tears of pride, just like the rest of us, knowing that America still had it.

It was hard, in those days to see that America was a great country.  There was so much hatred and conflict and suspicion going ’round.  Even in my high school, ’69 was a hard year for me. There were issues that we, as students, tried to address, both within the school setting and without.  School politics seemed so important back then, but I can’t really remember what all the hubbub was about today, 40 years later.  It must have had something to do with the intersection of the Vietnam War  and our protests of it.  And there was a dress code that seemed to be ridiculous back then, though it pales in comparison to the Draconian measures taken nowadays…uniforms?  In high school? WTF?

Everything seemed much more dramatic back then. Perhaps it was because our lives were more quiet and uninteresting. The use of drugs and alcohol weren’t widespread among my peers, though there was a marked increase of experimentation with weed and acid among certain of my friends. After I graduated from H.S. a number of low-lifes O.Ded as drug use really began to rise, but it was still an exception rather than the rule.  And sex was still something that “bad” people did, so teen-pregnancy was almost unheard of (more I think because it was kept hush-hush, than anything else). STD’s were something that impure people got (our students were all “pure”).  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a Quaker school…we were all, for the most part, horny as hell.  We just didn’t know how to deal with it, yet. We learned later on, oh how we learned!

I remember watching the CBS Evening News with Uncle Walter during that time; watching as our world expanded from sleepiness to awakening.  Conventions, riots, assassinations, Viet Nam, strikes, protests, scandals, moon landings, the space race, political shenanigans, the works…Walter K. was there to draw attention to it.  And with such class, even back then, he was an elder statesman for the news.  Walter had been around for a long, long time…longer in fact than I could imagine, I mean, he was 52 in 1969, for chrissake!  I have a hard time dealing with the fact that I’m 58 now!

Walter was cool.  He stated what was going on matter-of-factly, but he wasn’t without emotion, he wasn’t a robot. He was moved by things, which allowed us to be moved as well.  I remember him losing it at the Democratic Convention in ’68 when the Police were beating the snot out of the protesters outside the convention hall.  Up to that point a lot of us had thought we were just pissing into the wind and having little or no effect on the status quo/ business as usual crowd.  But Walter let it be known that enough was enough. It was at that point that he became a hero in my book. Not because he went into a burning building or jumped on a grenade or took a bullet to protect someone, but because he raised his voice in protest, adding it to all the other voices.  And when Walter spoke, a lot of people listened.

Sure he could have sat there reporting the news impassionately, but he chose to react, and he had enough clout that CBS didn’t censor him.

But now, Walter is gone.  Who are we going to turn to for answers now?

I have a theory about this.  My theory is that these people (and let’s face it, we all have been these people at one point or another) move so slow because they are making a statement…that’s right, a statement!  They are saying, “I may not have any control over my life, but I can stop traffic, at least for a little while.  I have some power after all.”

It’s true. Try it.  The next time you are feeling marginalized, like you don’t count except as a statistic, like you work and slave all your waking hours and for what?  For nothing, that’s what. The next time you think about doing something rash, like getting out the deer rifle and climbing up something tall so you can get a clean shot, or taking your Glock down to Bob’s Boobs and Brew just hoping someone will be foolhardy enough to cross you, before it gets to that point, try this: try walking across the street s l o w l y and see how it makes you feel.  Empowered, right?

Let’s face it, there’s not a whole lot of leeway for us bottom feeders (BF)…we have to do our jobs, whatever that might entail (from raising a family to driving a forklift) and we have to try to make it work on a tiny amount of money.  But, BUT, we also have to fight with THE DREAM all the time, because the dream is never quite what we think it should be…well, nothing is quite what we were told it was going to be anyway; so we’re constantly pitted against our ‘nature’ – our upbringing, against THE DREAM, not realizing until it’s too late that the dream is a farce, a con…but I digress.

As I was saying, down here at the foot of the ladder, it’s hard to scratch out a life that matters for something. It’s hard on the street for more than just the pimps, it’s hard for the peeps too. Hard making ends meet, hard finding love, just plain hard living. We do what we have to, to get by.  Everyone does it, everyone struggles. I hear that even rich folks struggle…look at the Jackson’s.  Thing is, though, the rich can hire someone to walk slow and make everyone wait for them, whereas you and I, we have to do our own walking.

Everything moves at an inconvenient pace, for someone, and for the BF just about everything is out of our hands.  We have no control over anything except our ability to cross the street or move forward in line.  We wait on everything, so when we get a chance to make someone else wait, you better believe that we are going to make them wait…and if they get annoyed, well that’s just icing on the cake, brother!

RD Armstrong

San Pedro, California…it’s not just a small town clinging to it’s past, it’s also a concept, a mindset, if you will. The locals here used to call it The Island, because in order to get into town from the north (Los Angeles) you had to drive over a bridge, and later, from Long Beach to the east, it was another bridge (because the ferry was too slow). Eventually the Harbor Freeway dead-ended here, but you still cross that old bridge, you just don’t know it anymore. I don’t know if the locals still call it The Island, but the islander attitude still exists here. But things are changing, even though the town is resisting.  Well, some of the town, at least, still struggles to keep it’s Pedro-ness; fighting against the massive real estate buildup that threatens to turn every square foot of the old downtown area into over-priced “artist” lofts and trendy, slick storefronts that no one seems to be interested in leasing. So, the old downtown becomes a modern ghost-town in which only a few businesses can thrive.

Yet the idea of Pedro (by the way, pronounced Pee-dro) lives on.  It lives on in street fairs and in graduations held at the old Warner Grand Theater. It lives on in the diversity of its people, in Latinos and Anglos, punks and blue-collar workers, in dock workers and businessmen, all sharing the sidewalks and bars on any given day or night. It lives on in its Serbs, Croats, Italians, Greeks and Pilipinos; all descendents of the fishing fleets that used to bring their catches into the canneries on Terminal Island. Its docks were once laden with nets and smelt and tuna, and bustled with fishermen and stevedores doing a brisk business, the canneries running full tilt, 24-7.

Now Terminal Island is quiet.  The canneries are gone, as is the fishing fleet, though day sailors still come and go from the nearby marina. The harbor caters to giant container ships and the docks are stacked high with brown and gray steel boxes that are destined to be delivered to faraway places.  Sailors no longer roam the streets looking for ‘action’. It’s all become very sanitized and self-contained; very post 9/11 safe…very unremarkable.  In short, it is becoming a quaint ‘sketch’ of the past, a nostalgic representation of something barely remembered.

But, San Pedro is more than historic (even faux-historic) buildings and locations; it is also home to a richly divided, multi-cultural people. In the “flats” you find the working class folks, the ones who do most of the grunt work…”mi gente*”. Every day you see them along the two main thoroughfares of Gaffey Street and Pacific Avenue, the two streets that run north and south through the heart of ‘old’ San Pedro. On weekends, especially, you’ll see people from almost every walk of life (from that side of the tracks), cruising down Pacific, between 9^th and 4^th: white punks, putas, Mexican families, low-riders, evangelists, Booster Clubs from Pedro High hawking car-washes, single women, single men, artists, crazed street people, ex-hippies, ex-marines, cops, tranies…what you don’t see much of are the middle class white folks who populate the hills to the west and south and who are almost always in the malls along Western.

Yes, Peedro is kind of a throwback to another time, a time that has all but disappeared out here in the west; replaced by a slick yet sanitized corporate neo-American dream. There are pockets of authenticity scattered throughout the L. A. basin (old neighborhoods that still live, though they are decrepit and just a wrecking ball’s slap away from extinction) where “mi gente” eke out a living.  But, I fear that soon enough, we will all be living in an urban, Disneyland version of West World…it’s only a facade away.

Speaking of the big city…I’ve got to get back to Long Beach.  Ciao, baby.

*Mi gente – Spanish for ‘my people’.

I keep noticing things that go quietly by in the news stream that seem to point to the diminishing fabric of the individual, like the way you wear out the knees on a pair of jeans…it just gets thinner and thinner until one day there’s only a few strands left and then nothing.  Only in this case there may not be a patch that can cover the hole.

Ever since 9-11, the spin doctors (not the band) have been cranking out more and more mythology regarding this idea that everyone is a hero.  That’s nice, but it seems to whitewash the reality behind that which is that the boys in the backroom are working really hard to marginalize the rights of the individual.  One could almost believe that there’s a government conspiracy prepping us for some kind of radical shift in the American dream. I try not to subscribe to such fuzzy logic, but I just can’t help but notice these little, subtle tweakings of the Great American Dream Machine.

It seems like every day I hear of some “adjustment” to the mainframe of the bill of rights. And it scares me. It scares me because I’m getting older and will soon be at that age where I will be existing in the world of older Americans.  I’ve already had a taste of Public Health Care and, my friends, it is bitter and unpalatable.

I want to maintain my individuality, of course, it’s one of the tenets upon which America was built.  But I’m afraid we are quietly watching it slip away from us; distracted as we are by all the gossip and visual horror on the evening news. I’m afraid that those Hulu commercials I keep seeing on TV are trying to tell me more about the big picture, than what’s on the small screen…