The Not So Glamorous Side of Life on the Road

Life on the road is not all glorious moments, full of breathtaking vistas and exotic foods in far off distant lands.  There’s housekeeping to be done.  Today is laundry day, which if I were home would be a simple and thoughtless affair.  Clothes dirty, wash clothes.  But on the road, one must first find out where the heck the “lavenderia” is and how much it costs and how to unlock its door.  First there is a treasure hunt for laundry detergent.  Which by the way, in Santiago, the little bottles have special locks on them so laundry detergent thieves do not make off with them and sell them in back alleyways.  “Psst, senior, detergente de lavandería?”

I’m not sure why all of this causes such stress, but it does.  For days I felt as though I was preparing to scale Kilimanjaro.  Gathering the necessary gear, preparing in my mind how I was going to approach the person at the desk and ask for directions and the key to the laundry in horrible Spanish.  It’s the bane of being an introvert in a foreign land I suppose.  Of course when I finally did make my way down things went relatively smooth, except after I put in my coins the machine did nothing.  Dam it! Am I going to have to take all these clothes out and wash them in my tub.  But I did what any highly trained IT professional would do, I just kept pushing buttons until the thing started spitting out water.  

And it’s not just the laundry, it’s things like finding food.  The market down the street does not sell eggs, and only vegetables in bulk, so my scrambled eggs will have to wait until I can find a market that sells, well eggs and tomatoes in something less than a 5 lb bag.  Contact lens solution was at least three trips to different stores before I figured out it’s behind the counter at most pharmacies.  After going home and studying how to say “solución para lentes de contacto”, to which the clerk just replied with a puzzled look; I was finally able to mime cleaning a contact in my hand and bam.  That’s how that’s done.

So I guess what I’m saying here is that while traveling can be and is full of the usual wonderful cliches, it is some work.  But I would gladly go through all of it (except maybe that fucking bus ride) for just one Bangkok train station, or sharing a Pisco Sour with my daughter in Lima, or one walk down Bui Vien in Saigon.  Now excuse me I have to go figure out how to turn on the friggin dryer downstairs.

Taking A Breath

On Sunday Santiago takes time to breathe.  My apartment sits on one of the busiest streets leading into El Centro.  During the week it’s non-stop cars, every one of which has a fully functioning horn.  Every one of them.  Today when I awoke and opened up the curtains and slid open the big glass door overlooking Santiago... nothing.  Not a car in the street.  They closed down Lira street and only a few cyclist were slowly cruising down a street that would normally kill them within minutes.  The word that keeps popping into my head while walking around Santiago is “civilized.”

After the last three weeks it felt like I was finally able to breathe as well.  Friday and Saturday were nerve racking as Melanie had gone off the grid in Lima and forgot to tell her father.  I called Liam Neeson for some advice on how to deal with the Peruvian drug lord that, in my mind, had stolen my daughter.  Lucky for him she had just gone camping.  Before that was the three day bus ride from hell, proving once again that I should not be making travel decisions for myself. Who in their right mind would ever think that was a good idea.  I seriously get nauseous looking at the pictures from inside that bus.

The previous two weeks were Lima, which was wonderful because I got to drink lots of Pisco Sours with my miha.  But it was still a big exhausting challenge figuring out the buses and cabs and dealing with the noise and heat and lack of sleep.

But now it’s Sunday in Santiago, and the city is relaxed and breathing and the streets are empty except for people walking and cyclist meandering about while not getting run over.  I walked over to a different Starbucks because my normal one is closed on Sunday. It was in this city's version of La Rambla called Paseo Ahumada.  It’s a pedestrian walkway full of people and shops and street performers.  Last night, Saturday, it was insane.  This is one of the truly great things about traveling to other cities; the concept of La Rambla.  Every city has at least one.  A place where people go just to be with other people.  I guess we do have mall’s,  but somehow that’s just not the same.  This feels more organic, more human, more breathable.

chau

Pre Nostalgia

This is a gift really.  The ability to know ahead of time that you will be missing, a few months from now, all that you see.  It’s at the same time sad, delicious and wondrous.  It’s what my life has become.  Blown by the wind a tumbleweed is a passenger.  Never knowing from one minute to the next where it will be.  Maybe the tumbleweed knows this and likes it.  Maybe this ball of thorns and skeleton, carried along by forces outside itself, can feel a moment is precious because it knows it’s fleeting.

I only have a month and a half left in downtown LA and as I walk these busy, frenetic, crowded streets filled with thousands of urban people I will soon not see, I already miss it.  I savor it, I taste it, I feel it and absorb it with the passion of a man on his last few days.  I drink it in with the thirst of a man without water for weeks. It’s so sweet.  

Tomorrow I will be somewhere else, somewhere wondrous no doubt, but not here.  Not Broadway as the sun sets and becomes dark.  Not a bridge over the LA River or the 110.  Not Grand Park in the cool of the evening or the grit of Chinatown or the scary desolation of Santee after sun down.  The magic of Art Walk or opening night for the Lakers at Staples Center will stay with me forever.  DTLA is magic.  

Why are you leaving, you might be asking.  Good question, but a tumbleweed does not have a choice.  It must go where the wind takes it, and by it’s very nature it can’t decide these things for itself. The wind must decide.  

Crazy Central

It's been a fantastic two weeks on the road, seeing Melanie in Denver and driving down endless miles of incredibly gorgeous desert.  I belong on the road, but it's nice to get home and do laundry too.  The first day back is like being in love again, it's everything that makes me smitten with downtown.  The energy, the buildings, the people, the smell of bus fumes, concrete and stale urine.  Home.

I'm back and forth so often between LA and Orange that I don't really have a rhythm here.  All I know is, if I have been here a while, meaning over four days, I start to get antsy.  Some of it is the small living space, and the heat seems to make it worse.  Some of it is the lack of green space and places to just sit outside and watch people.  But that didn't seem to explain the level of suffocation.  I think I figured it out while picking up some contact lens solution at the Rite-Aid on 5th and Broadway.  Or what I call crazy central.

If you want to see the core of DTLA crazy, maybe even the heart of it, go to the aforementioned Rite-Aid.  Downtown is trying really hard to become urban chic, but it's DNA is still the homeless.  People laying on the corner outside, before I had even made it three steps into the store, two people with that glazed look of too much time on the street had leaned in and mumbled something to me.  I can only assume it was asking for money, it usually is.  This ragtag assembly of street people (residents) were floating around the store in a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and in the back by pharmacy three or more people where yelling.  I can't tell if it was at each other or just out loud for anyone to hear.

It's simultaneously terrifying, intriguing and tremendously sad.  Without launching on a soliloquy on the state of (lack of) mental health care in our country, there are a lot (A LOT) of people here in LA that need serious help. They seem to concentrate downtown.  It's as if four giants picked up the corners of a huge sheet under LA County and all the marbles rolled into the center, which is downtown.  The Rite-Aid is where they all clack into each other.

After being here for four or more days and seeing the amount of people that are alone, both physically and inside their own heads, and seeing the size of the problem, it starts to drag me down.  That may be a horribly selfish thing to say.  I can, and do, escape regularly. There is no escape for them.  They are most likely permanent.  It's painful to watch.

I don't feel threatened by it, I don't really get scared of the guy standing on the corner yelling about god or screaming bible verses.  I've never had anyone be rude when I told them, sorry, I don't have any money to spare. If anything they are a lot nicer than the snarky hipsters behind the coffee counter or the cold blooded businessmen.

As I was paying for my solution, I told the women behind the register.  "It gets pretty crazy in here"  she just smiled that {you have no idea} smile and said "you should see it at one in the morning."  A chill went down my spine.

I Love DTLA. I Hate DTLA.

I love downtown.  It's young and vibrant and full of art and life and people and mess and passion.  I hate downtown.  It's lonely and full of piss and hipsters and young people and purpose and I'm not connected to any of it. I'm from another generation.  I'm beat.  And not in a cool hipster way, the way the original term was conceived.  Beat down, at the bottom of the pile.

I went for a walk through J Town yesterday evening.  It was cool.  The soft light of sunset sweeping 1st street.  Lots of 20 somethings hanging out at cool restaurants.  A group of dancers in kimonos at the Japanese American Cultural Center.  As with everything downtown, I get to see it, but not take part. This is not a town for old men, old dreamers, old souls.

Every time I step outside I feel invigorated.  Life is happening here.  It's full of people who are doing important stuff.  Almost everyday, there is something being filmed.  Parking lots full of trucks and equipment and people with radios on their belts, hurriedly going to and fro, setting up for hours for a shoot that will take place 6 hours from now.  I can't explain the excitement it creates.  It's palpable.  Something's happening.

Everywhere you look there are round pegs, not fitting into square holes.  So many of us just don't fit.  I saw a women today on Spring during rush hour, with no pants on, wiping herself.  LAPD was about 50 feet down the street.  Nothing.  Thank god.  I've seen her around, she's a resident.  They (we) are invisible.

As I walked back from J town last night, it stuck me how comfortable I was the closer I was to Skid Row.  Los Angeles street is the hard edge.  To the left is the Yin of capitalism.  To the right is the Yang.  For reasons I will never comprehend, the closer I am to the black, the more comfortable and interested I am.

I love DTLA.

Desolation at Dusk

The wind blows bits of paper around streets that are almost empty.  Most of the steel shutters are down already as the sun has set, but occasionally a late shop keep will pull one down with a chilling rattle.  It feels very "30 Days of Night" as though the streets will soon be filed with zombie vampire mutants who can't decide if they want to eat your brains or drink your blood or just growl and scare you.  It's terrifying and a little exhilarating.

I walk down a street that is completely deserted except for a lone resident (homeless person) setting up camp for the night.  He's talking loudly to himself which is not surprising.  Except as I walk past I see there is a women lying on the ground, supplying the fuel to this fire.  Jeez, can't a brother catch a break even when he's sleeping on half an inch of cardboard.

Finding a doorway that I hope leads to the roof of a parking structure on Olympic and Wall, I head up the stairs.  Typically the worst thing that can happen going on the roof of a garage to take pictures is that some over zealous security guard will tell me to leave, but it's a little thrilling none the less.  As I make it up to the roof, a parking attendant looks at me, and I pause, until he smiles.  From three floors up I see in the distance a six story parking garage that promises vision of grandeur over the Los Angeles skyline.  Except it looks so far away and the city is getting darker.  Man, is that a zombie or mutant on Olympic, it's hard to tell this high up.

I'm telling myself no, it's too far and too dark, but my body is not listening as I seem to be heading down Wall towards my next perch anyway.  When I get there a few residents are hanging around and somebody is picking up trash.   There is a half open gate by some stairs and I start to trudge up the six flights hoping that no one closes that gate behind me and I'm not stuck sleeping under a truck to keep warm.  I make it to the roof, breathing hard, and get some very nice shots of Santee and the downtown skyline. I don't stay too long and start to head home, getting more great shots of deserted streets and alleyways on my mile walk back home, making it just inside the doorway of the Huntington as I hear the howling of werewolves running down the street....

Surprise and Terror

A great adventure comes with two elements.  Unexpected surprise and terror. Tuesday there were clouds in the sky, at least early in the day.  This makes photographers smile and check there gear, camera wise I mean.  Nothing is more boring and less dramatic than 72 and sunny with clear blue skies.  Yawn. We need falling light or dark brooding thunderheads or a wet street to be happy.  It's part of the adventure of photography, trying to capture something elusive, something that only lasts a fleeting second and then can never be repeated in the same light at the same moment.  We're capturing time.

Metaphysical meanderings aside; Tuesday evening I took my roundabout way over to the Art District to climb up on the 6th street bridge.  The reason I take the long way is because Skid Row lies directly in the path from my apartment to this newly discovered awesome neighborhood and the LA bridges. Now every single person I've met that appears to be living on the streets have been unfailingly nice.  The scariest people downtown, in this order, are the sheriffs, the police, security guards and shop keeps.  My guess is all these people carry guns.  Homeless people can't afford the bullets. But truthfully, I'm still a little uncomfortable tempting fate and I head over to 4th before turning east towards the river.

I loop back south and head up the 6th street bridge.  I've shot from the 1st, 4th and 7th street bridges before but never the 6th.  It turns out to be the best of the bridges for a photographer.  It's beautiful, has lots of places to stand out of the way of foot traffic and some great vantage points.  It's about 5:30 and the sun is setting and the clouds I had hoped for have all evaporated.  There is another photographer on the bridge and I'm glad.  We end up talking and setting up our tripods near the same spot.  He obviously knows what he's doing and we shoot and chat.  It's fun not being alone.

It's getting pretty dark out.  As we talk, out of nowhere comes the horrible screeching of car tires. A van had swerved to narrowly miss a cyclists on the bridge and the noise was chilling.  The van was going very fast and missed him by inches.  It makes me sick to think of what could have happened.  I can't imagine what it was like for the guy on the bike.

It's getting late and dark so I say goodbye to my new friend, we exchange contact info.  Now I have a choice to make.  Do I loop back around the long way to get home or do I head south into the unknown and try to take the skinny way around Skid Row.  By skinny I mean, try to get to 8th and then head west. Skid row is between 4th and 7th.  Going up either 3rd or 8th you feel fairly safe.  I head in the direction of 8th, passing 7th, but I can't find it.  I start to see the 10 freeway and realize I'm not going to find 8th and I'm surrounded by dark warehouses.  It's too late to go all the way back through the Art District and I'm exhausted so I take my chances and go up 7th.  Honestly there were moments were I had to make myself not run, but I made it without getting hassled and my expensive camera gear intact.  Suddenly my neighborhood feels a lot safer.

Here are some of the shots I got, well worth the adventure.