Rainy streets, at last
Month: November 2014
Yes, we’re finishing it…
Today I paid five bucks for a cup of joe at a discreet and cool industrial-looking coffee house, down in the Arts District. Not some soda-sized caramel macchiato whipped cream extravaganza from Starbucks, just a plain cup of coffee in the type of cup they used to set in front of you at Denny’s at 3AM in the middle of an all-nighter. Five bucks.
‘It’ll be six or seven minutes to prepare. We need to whip the almond milk.’
Oh, okay….
I’m in no position to pay that kind of money for anything which fits in the palm of my hand. This is my second consecutive Christmas of ‘oh, let’s at least have a tree.’ I service my debts….and I do so honorably. Beyond that, my fiscal horizons are brutish and short. It’s no way to be living at this point in my life. So on Small Business Saturday, if I’m not going to be able to afford to window shop, we can put some miles on the Skechers and take in the city a bit. Start in Echo Park and work our way down east of Alameda. My day began with a re-habbing jury-rigging of the kitchen door with mismatched brackets I had dug out of a box of old construction materials. A shameless piece of hack work I didn’t even attempt to conceal with paint, which succeeded in keeping the stiles and rails connected and allowed for the door to swing shut for another winter. We watched Searching for Sugarman last night, so I was both in a poetic and appreciative frame of mind. I did what I usually do when I’m in that state: I left the Valley.
So out came the coffee. My almond-whipped, individually prepared, fair-trade, put my feet out after a long week and savor the moment premium cassis.
Ghastly.
Sour.
Strange.
Imagine a rusty freighter hijacked by Somali pirates. Now imagine a cast iron bucket at the bottom of the hold the hostages are forced to use as a piss pot during their captivity. Then imagine that cast iron bucket being purchased on eBay by some fancypants collector of conflict memorabilia, which through a comedy of errors is mis-routed to Los Angeles where a hipster doofus decides to re-purpose it as a coffee pot. For authenticity’s sake. Old camp stove coffee. Almond-whipped. And all those rich, brine-y flavors working their way into the foam….
‘We’re finishing it,’ my wife announced, reading my mind, but setting down the cup with a grimace.
I went back inside for some sugar. A lot of sugar, which appeared to offend the staff behind the counter.
‘The cup is nice,’ she offered optimistically. ‘I like cupping a warm cup in my hands. It almost makes the coffee taste better. or would if it were better coffee.”
Maybe we just don’t have the proper palate, we decided. It can’t be as bad as it seems.
Until we sipped a little more.
We let Giles lick the foam off the spoon, which he did without complaint. We considered the five bucks a sidewalk rental, and made the best of it. Slowly, steadily, working as a team, we drained the cup. Hell if we’re going to waste five bucks on anything.
On the walk back to the car, she posed for an album cover. I thought: how could anyone look this good after 15 years of marriage?
She can. Yeah, we’re gonna finish this, too. I got all the sugar I need.
Ladies Night Out on Magnolia
Friday night in Burbank
Swap meet stall
Hold on tight…
Salvation and Pity on the Boulevard
The Forbidden River
As a failure of civic will, the Los Angeles River is a thing of wonder.
Fifty-one miles of contiguous watercourse snaking through the one of the world’s great cities…linking mountains, canyons, the Valley, the Narrows, the Basin, with the Port of Long Beach…and pretty much all of it, with some notable exceptions, off-limits to the public. For a progressive city, Los Angeles has few developed public spaces. No greater resource is more undeveloped than the River itself.
There are scattershot plans to redevelop industrial fields near downtown. Artist renderings have been on the books for decades. Should they come to fruition, there might be -yes, for half a mile!- a fully realized greenway, with enough eco-restoration and bio-swales to bring the New Urbanists to a state of ecstasy. Conveniently tucked away in the least populated, most inaccessible location, cut off from the surrounding city by both railroad tracks and San Fernando Road, an Omaha Beach-like kill zone for bicyclists. If the Taylor Yards Restoration happens it will, like most things which get done in Los Angeles, arrive through the pathway of least resistance. Meaning few people were opposed to it in the first place. Because we’re speaking of orphaned ground, permanently disconnected from any other part of the river or any path network.
Fortunately, up in the Valley, we have miles and miles of shaded, landscaped river frontage, lined on both banks with walking and bike paths. A suburban Champs Elysees where one communes with nature in the purple evening air….oh, wait.
We sort of, kind of, have something like that.
Except no one is allowed to go there.
We can take its measure through the chain link fence, as we drive past on the boulevard.
We can imagine it. Not difficult to do, when it’s 80% built already.
Or we can be scofflaws. In the name of civilization we can hop the fence (Giles and I have done this many times. Only in the interest of blogging of course) and prowl about and think: wouldn’t it be cool? And the corollary: what the hell is wrong with liberals in LA?
Somehow cities with far fewer resources than Los Angeles, and I’ll just say it aloud, conservative politics, have managed to not only develop their urban rivers and abandoned railways but put them front and center. Let’s take a tour:
This one really annoys me. Even the narco-state of Nuevo Leon, the Bagdad-on-the-Border, headless torsos stacked by the on-ramp, modern-day Dodge City that is Monterrey, Mexico, has managed to offer the Little People something which looks suspiciously like a pleasant place to walk.
Not for the first time, I feel obliged to say it doesn’t have to be this way. Particularly in a city as geographically blessed as LA. Few us know today in 1930 the sons of Frederick Law Olmstead drew up a master plan for Los Angeles County designed entirely around creeks, rivers and greenways, connecting neighborhoods from Palmdale to Palos Verdes.
The Rubicon
For the adventurous who go to the website to fill out the on-line application, there’s a box you can check:
YES! I am available to meet with your Company in Los Angeles, to become a PORNSTAR (sex with men, on camera), LATER TODAY.
Later Today! No sleeping on it. No consulting with Facebook friends.
I guess this means they send men to your dorm room who carry you off on a litter like Cleopatra. Subject to terms and conditions, of course.
Is it winter yet?
Rainfall may be 50% of normal for the second year running in Los Angeles, but today we got our first joyful, gloomy autumnal day in the Valley. I actually wore pants.
Yay! Fall, leaves, fall!
Yellow now, ye sweetgums and Chinese elms. Blush crimson and drop your veil. Flutter and flail and land where you must. Find your savasana on the rooftops and leaflet the storm drains. If we can’t have raindrops, may we at least have you.
No more sipping pumpkin spice latte with a sweat damp forehead.