Triumph and Recrimination

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Whatever day you had today, you didn’t shank the final penalty kick off the post to be eliminated from World Cup competition.  Gonzalo Jara, in the moment which will define him for posterity.

Instant replay in the head
A sportsman’s lament, the first of many.
A public wedding, Futbol-style
A public wedding, Futbol-style

An eighth of an inch adjustment on the downswing of the foot, and the ball bends left, flutters the back of the net, and 150 million people watch you circle the pitch like Achilles, arms extended like a hawk, hair bouncing in super-slo motion on the Man-glam cam.  But for that, you’re now the answer to a trivia question. You’re that guy. The guy who could have deep-sixed Brazil on their home field, but biffed it instead.   I think of the numerous 1/8th of an inch adjustments I’ve made in my life, and how so many of them could have gone differently, even tragically. Moments like this make me grateful for everything I have in my life.  Even if it’s a stucco box in Van Nuys.

Springbok, 10 AM

Germany 1, USA 0
Germany has just scored. One person on the patio is happy.

I spent the Ghana-USA match chatting with a guy from Guadalajara, now an American citizen,  who candidly told me he had a public breakdown, with tears, on the patio of Springbok in 2010 when Mexico was eliminated. In the round of 16. If they got past the quarterfinal this summer, he couldn’t be responsible for himself.

Both Mexico and USA have advanced to the knockout round. Only Belgium, Argentina, Netherlands and Greece stand between the joy of the past two weeks and a city-dividing, household-dividing, bullets-in-the-air, flags-on-trucks, beer-bottles-in-the-streets test of loyalty in the semi-finals. What then? A moment of truth for Los Angeles.

It could happen
Dual loyalty on Delano Street

In Dogpatch

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Family drama summoned me back to Northern California this week.  Driving through the Dubai on the Pacific that is now San Francisco, I wondered: are there any remnants of old, industrial SF anywhere, which are still….sort of,  functionally industrial? Then I remembered this neighborhood across the freeway from Potrero Hill,  down by the waterfront, which I used to drive through on the way to Giant games at Candlestick, and made a detour.  Fittingly, it not only now has a name, and a trolley stop, but a historical designation.

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Dogpatch used to be a neighborhood of shipyards and loading docks and warehouses with simple, inelegant (by Victorian standards) clapboard houses for the families who worked there, often built by the owners themselves.  Because it survived the 1906 earthquake and fire intact, it has some of the oldest housing stock in the city.

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They are put to different uses today. The love labor of John Swan, shipbuilder, now hosts something called Uncanny Communications. As well as something called theLab:

Aren't you curious?
Aren’t you curious?
One needn't wander far for gourmet truffles
In Dogpatch one needn’t wander far for gourmet truffles
Hither now, all ye laptop-toting, Italian treats
Hither now, all ye who tote laptops, Italian treats await

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But what of all the old ship and ironworks? Within the carcass of those buildings, someone, somewhere, must be doing something with their hands down there.

Well, there's this...
Well, there’s this…
And this.  Work, in this case, is deployed as a signifier of some sort
And this. Work, in this case, deployed here as a signifier rather than a verb

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Most of the original buildings simply no longer exist,  however, having been razed and replaced by live/work condominia. Work which perhaps involves frequent trips to Piccino. I type in envy.

Live/works spaces with glass tile garage entrances
Live/work spaces…with glass tile garage entrances.
The ersatz crackhead ethos of Third Street is just not the same
The erstwhile crackhead ethos of Third Street is just not the same
Development is ubiquitous
Development is ubiquitous
Not without detractors
And not without detractors

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I kept walking.  Between two gravel yards servicing the many big crane projects in the nearby China Basin/Mission Bay area, a narrow street descended down toward the waterfront.   I followed it around a corner and came upon a cluster of brick buildings which once belonged to the old Union Iron Works. They were cordoned off with chain link and barbed wire.

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Venturing beyond, I came to this vast warehouse, open and unlocked.  I wandered in, thinking perhaps I had found what I was looking for.

A great cathedral-like space, the size of an airplane hangar. Empty.
A great cathedral-like space, the size of an airplane hangar. Empty.
Form as function. Utilitarian beauty.
Form as function. Utilitarian grace.

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I followed the conduits down from the ceiling to this service panel. Here I reached the end of the journey.  But where was I?   According to Google, the former Plate Shop of Bethlehem Steel. But why was it empty? No one was writing code here, or designing hemp shoes of making fair trade cacao-based desserts.

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On my way out, I found the answer to the riddle.  The last industrial space in Dogpatch is, fittingly, a food truck rodeo.

Conjunction of desire

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Barbecue and plastic surgery. Fatburger and plastic surgery.  Big Gulp and plastic surgery.  Just to the lower right, and out of view, beer and snack foods…and plastic surgery.  There is no ‘Or’ in this tableau. The American Id is unrestrained. I want to eat what I want to eat when I want to eat it and I want to look like the people in the ads when I’m when I’m washing it down with carbonation.  And why can’t I, dammit?   Billboard riddle: why is ‘acne’ highlighted here? Has Van Nuys been profiled by the cosmetics industry as a bad skin neighborhood?