Welcome to Field of Weeds, an ongoing series of essays from the streets of LA. This is episode #19 for January 27, 2011: E.O.C.
The devolution of society is entertained briefly before the ground of rebellion, and a hustle on the blue line.
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A very nice guy, dirt poor, talked to me about what I was writing. I told him how podcasts work, my circle of influence, my signature carpentry — all of this. He was missing a few teeth, and didn’t have on the right clothes for an interview, where he was headed. “Have a wonderful, wonderful…” and he was gone.
There’s a lot of hustling in the world. I guess that means everyone. Too bad we can’t all be born into money. What kind of world would that be? The end of civilization? I push the button for the crossing light a hair too late, so I didn’t get the little man telling me it’s OK to cross. I wait patiently for the next, and my bus passes. If you miss an LA bus you’re damned sorry, let me tell you that. But you’ve got time to work that out.
At 18th and Sepulveda a couple get on wearing backpacks, the whole setup. LA’s that kind of city. I never thought about it, but you could camp for the night in a million places. You’d have to keep moving. A boy outside on a skateboard pleads with the bus driver to let him in. He’d been running for blocks. She didn’t bother to respond. I’m sure there was a cold bench somewhere where he could suck it up.
Right now I’m taking three trains and a bus. Survival mode. Maybe I’ll try to find work in North Hollywood, but it’s not exactly raining jobs. It does take the wind out of you sometimes, living this way. It’s how I adapted after being a Zen monk. Now the work is the important thing, what I’m scribbling here. Before I worked to support Zen practice, now it’s to put me in the right place where I can produce some quality work. Maybe it doesn’t pay off. If I had plenty of money, would I be pressing this hard, going so far into the scenes I pass through? Can you write a compelling story of luxury and ease, that gets down to the crazy depths? I’m sure you could do it, right? For myself, I can only imagine what it would be like of course, but I’m suspicious of what it would do to my character, and you probably wouldn’t hear much from me. Our story is our struggle. Without it there is no plot, no victory. But if you think about it, the end of struggle is what we’re after.
There’s a group of mentally handicapped that always get on in Manhattan Beach, by far the happiest bunch. Have we grown too smart for our own good? Our tracks are erased as soon as they’re set. Forget wanting to be some other kind of human, wanting things to be different. Maybe a bit of devolution could do some good, but I wouldn’t change a single hair on a single head.
The freak show begins near Watts, friends with much lower requirements than mine, who don’t mind asking for a handout. I was lost in thought for a moment and I got hit with the deaf person selling pens. He moved to fast for me to hand them back, so I had to hold his deaf pens for awhile. If it’s true, why take it to the subway? You have to have your facilities to be homeless. The whole thing smells wrong. Of course he could be deaf, and I’m sure he needs the money. A sad contact, a sad exchange. The signal was jammed for most of the way with a comedian talking loudly behind me, some kind of mental tap, someone begging for attention. “The Golden Globes, did you hear that? Ricky Gervais said that everybody in Scientology was a homosexual.”
It was a relief when I finally got on another train. Somehow it went the wrong way, so I got some down time at Union Station. I was churning with lost time, but there was a point where I passed where I was before and my hope was renewed. There were no carcasses to delay our progress, not tonight, but the thing is run by jackals. What we need is Bruce Willis to stand up to the broke machines, the slow stoplights, the double no -U-turns. He’d burn down the signs. Instead we have this half-working, frustrating transit.
I open a new bank account and they inform me a few days later that they’re holding the money for 15 days. I guess it makes sense to someone. Kye Soen assures me it’s because I’m not listening. How often I’m put into peril these days, and I have detractors. It’s a good thing we’re civilized. I go to the bank to see what can be done and it’s closed, so I’m on the rail. A new route today, down Vermont. The hustle quotient is high. The tension settles over me like a blanket of fire. Underneath all of the snapping, crackling, I’m completely at ease. The day is full of sparkly things going red. A lady stands over me in a pretty green blouse with tiny mirrors sewed in. Under all these witnesses I appear to flutter madly. I have to watch the stops, as my sense of direction is crap. I get by on landmarks and logic, which is often backwards. As the woman turned to leave, her silhouette was animated with a preternatural awareness of her limbs, her movements dripping with it, like a demon possession, a zombie with a million eyes. The girl that followed her out was just a girl, no hyper-awareness, no puppet-like movements. As if to complete the picture, an extremely large woman came in after and communicated with the driver. They knew each other.
How much cement and steel hold the train above the city lights? Just for the small number of us, comparatively? Who made this decision? In all the time I’ve spent on the subway, I’ve seen few suits, none of them crisp. It’s definitely the low end of society. As much as I’m confounded by the inefficiency of the system, it’s remarkable that we have the luxury, we meaning the sad lot I’m thrown in with these days. I walk under Vermont to the subway, my brain frozen. All of my life is traveling now, handling problems, waiting. I could use a cup of coffee.
The path to success for those with some ability or unrelenting drive — this is something new for human society. You can exist without using your skill as a hunter or farmer. Now we are hyper-specialized for the production of money, and no one understands anyone else’s abilities. A rocket scientist? A factory worker? A taxi driver? I don’t know any of these. None of the peculiarities can be accurately conveyed. We all live in sterile cages. The loneliness that devours us! It is the cancer that eats away at our delicate humanity, surely a dark force for most of us.
We can live in darkness, celebrate it, fuse with it. I guess that’s what is required, to externalize it, to work with it symbolically, as in a dream. But a lot of people I know are lost in this process, identify with it. These are the ones you can easily name, the stereotypes: stoner, goth, skater, thug. Can these living souls be defined by their external processes? Doesn’t any of these have the same range of emotion, needs, desires, as anyone? We are constantly judged by those unqualified to judge us, never understood for accepted for what we are, or given the benefit of the doubt. The degree of alienation is insurmountable. It becomes a quest for money, prestige. Maybe people will see you as important, as more than the image you portray — but you merely pass from archetype to archetype, and no one cares which one. To truly be what you are is the intent behind all these movements, but the self can’t be defined.
I’ve always felt this way, refused to take any role seriously. It’s not a path to riches. It’s very specialized. Everyone will still peg you to their own satisfaction. I don’t know why this matters, to anyone, but we don’t like to be observed. We take it personally, however unqualified the source. Peer pressure — the ground of rebellion. Someone, maybe a group, has classified you in some way. You’re no longer a living thing to them. Who wants to be alive? I hear a crash and bang — is it the sound of your retreat? Go back then.
To be accepted for what you are doesn’t happen externally — whole lives are lost to this. Once you resolve your own existence, once and for all, you’re able to resolve everyone else’s — you can see their truth, beyond the stereotype. It doesn’t mean anyone will reciprocate. You’ll still have to filter what people say to you through their tendency to label, compartmentalize. Funky vision, but if you love them you allow the failing. Who cares? But the world is ruled by its insecurity. The modern condition creates itself. We have no place.
I pass a handsome couple on the platform. The woman looks at me in desperation, so intently that her boyfriend noticed. As I read the story, she was frustrated with him, looking for a way out. He was aware of this, defensive, angry. A kid gets up in front of me and asks for money to buy a drum for a trip to Washington. The people in front gave him a few quarters, but thought twice about it. “That kid ain’t goin’ to no Washington D.C. Look, that’s his mother back there.” She heard the grumbling and sat beside me. She was dressed like a gypsy, pretty. Shit, everyone’s got to hustle. It really upset everyone, but the kid was good — a fact that escaped them. If I’d had any amount of change he would’ve had it, no question. They got in an argument that lasted nearly all the way to Rosa Parks.
“My boy will get up and speak his mind. He will not be a street thug.”
“Why isn’t he in school?”
“He’s home schooled. He’s getting a good education.”
While this was going on, a poor Mexican walked the aisle with a box of candy for sale. All that indignation was making them hungry. Everyone seemed revived from the outburst. The enemy had been found, named, and expelled. Liberated from the beast, I was soon liberated from them — quick alliances that form and dissolve, and reappear. When I got to the green line, the boy was in the car again, with his dad. He didn’t mention Washington D.C.
The train was a refuge, no question. I don’t understand its importance. I don’t share this with anyone — well, with you. How could this be in any way soothing? We are pressed together here. No choice. All of the faces carry such turmoil. The communications are forced, humans encountering each other in the wild. My observations you already know, but I would add here that most of our encounters are positive, supportive. We are great, noble creatures, like dogs. The lights on the street flash through the glass in complex patterns. Humans. The overall experience is haphazard, no sense to it.
Tonight I learn the sobering fact that trains no longer care if they are red or purple. It’s a gamble. Try it out — you may end up in Koreatown. Why would a train say it’s red when really it is purple? I guess it makes sense to someone. Maybe it’s funny. Who cares if I or anyone wastes an hour down below? People wait in droves, like cattle. Yeah, there’s a train coming. Some time there will be a train.
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That’s all for this week. Thanks for joining me for another episode, another look into the decaying fabric of our modern world. Fascinating to witness, certainly a good time to be a writer, to be engaged. A lot of great things coming up — I’ve got a limited release of this Field of Weeds series, that will be for sale on Amazon so you can enjoy at your leisure. The first printing will be local only — free copies left in a few spots around North Hollywood, the cover of the book will be a photo of the place, with the book in it. These should be ready in a couple of weeks — I just have to typeset them. Also you can read the series on Scribd, buy the Android app, coming soon to the iPhone — all the links on www.fieldofweeds.com
Surrender. I surrender to it, this field of weeds.
Posted on January 28, 2011
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