"Move Along"

from the series LA NIGHTS | tab above |

  Los Angeles, 07.03.2021 

Day 3

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE steps, is the count for this beautiful stairway in front of the central library in downtown Los Angeles. I lived a block away with my kids, and we woke up everyday at 5am and ran up these stairs three times, unto Hope Street and downhill to Hill Street where our building stood: a beautiful earthquake refitted 1920's subway station. A block to the right of the building was the Geffen Theater and the Disney Music Hall; two perfect examples of the opulence in this area.

On our run around the wide block we came down a hill, beneath a bridge; today overtaken with tents which is the residence of many. The contrast is staggering. Looking down from Hope street we can see the Central Library...

... and a small change in our perspective... 

...and you can see the front door...... 

...and a gentleman trying to catch some sleep.

... before the city employees and security approach him to gently ask him to "move along" which it appears it is the city of Los Angeles new modus operandi to deal with the homeless. But move along where? There are not enough beds to the thousands of people who live in the streets in this area, which is in full display by the tents; improvised homes, in one of the most expensive commercial real estate per square foot in Los Angeles.

     A block from our home, there was a park; nothing special: a water fountain, dog park, playground for children, and on Wednesday, a farmer's market filled the space with fresh fruit and vegetables and artisans selling their creations. It is one of the most beautiful images I have of my ex-wife, an amazing chef, as she took her time prodding and choosing, her face beaming with fulfillment. 

     Ironically, the people who could use some fulfillment, the homeless, who hang out on that park daily, were never there for the market. I never understood where they went. When the day was over, I sometimes saw them roaming around the nearly empty tables getting the spoils from the well to do people who lived in the buildings nearby.

     Also not there were the teenagers I met while living here: gay teenagers who were forced out of their home by their parents when they decided to come out of the closet. Their Christian parents, not approving their "choice" followed the principles mandated by the bible and the Roman Catholic Church and tossed them out. Apparently, God does not approve of homosexualism and they wander the city of angels finding warmth, understanding in each other's arms. In a time of their lives where they should be planning their college route, as Anna did, they spent their days leaning on each other trying to understand how their lives ended up this way. My relationship with any God ends when he begins telling us to hate and despise each other. 

     But it is 10 years later and the teenagers are no longer there, in fact, neither are the homeless; a few security guards hired by the buildings are making sure to move them along. Where is not of anyone's concern; as long as it is not here. 

     So, at night, they ride the subways until the very last train and after that, they hop onto the buses all night to sleep. An existence that I am observing to be inhumane, as well as a very hard way of living. 

But it appears, it is okay to the rest of us, as long as the streets are clean and we don't get to see them.

"Volver a los Diecisiete" written by Violeta Parra | 1962 |

 

| sang by Milton Nascimento e Mercedes Sosa | | 1976 |

The "life coaching" Industry.

      Doesn't anyone have dreams anymore? Is it all about the paycheck? There are a few professions I could never do and coaching is one of them, for sure. Every single commercial on social media is about "making money coaching" which is a euphemism to cheerleading. Ironically, all the commercials are about becoming wealthy and none about being passionate about something with your body and soul.

     Strange society we are building; I am not a person prone to retrogressive ideas but there is something to be said about building something, striving to do something difficult that takes years to achieve. Something you do alone; because anything worthwhile you will do alone.

     It isn't until you reach a breaking point in your work and the clock on the wall marks 3am, 4am, and you make coffee, have a banana nut keto muffin  to eat and the last thing in your mind is sleeping; it isn't until then that you know: you are doing what you were meant to be doing. 

Hiroshi Shimizu

 

Dante

(click on photo )

Dante Alighieri

Divine Comedy  | click on picture |

Im an addict!

      First step of recovering, says the literature on beating any addiction, is acknowledging it; "beating the dragon," " conquering your demons," all clichés one can think of, point to the core of any addiction: it is not about the drug you ingest, but human beings need to self medicate their psychological afflictions. 

     It's about pain; pain that you don't recognize you have; pain that lies so deep inside all of us that we engage together in destructive activities searching for a bit of happiness.  And we create a family of sorts to display our pain, Leo Tolstoy said it beautifully in Anna Karenina: " All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its on way." 

     Together we engage in our drug of choice, the demons inside each of us tormenting us into behavior we will regret just about the time we succumb to it: shame and low self worth seeping more and more into the fabric of us. Demons that make us take drugs, drink, take countless selfies, abusing others on social media is a new ceremony  we engage to destroy and be destroyed. All the while feeling a fleeting happiness that's so sweet that we want more of it. Immediately after the shame subside. 

     And my shame is somewhat justified since I'm not addicted to any cool drug that would make me edgy, cool; a paragon of artistic display that would make Jackson Pollock proud. No, I've never been drunk in my entire life, don't touch alcohol. Drugs, for some reason, very early on was the things losers do and so I escaped that too. There's nothing cool about my addiction, in fact is not even illegal. We sell to men, women, them, they, children and even pregnant women. We built shelves at supermarkets at a child's eye level so that they can get addicted too;  and we offer flavors such as heart attack, diabetes, diabetes type 2, diabetes type 3- formally known as Alzheimer's disease- obesity, amputations, strokes, pulmonary embolism and many many more.

I am addicted to sugar; and my drug dealer was my beloved grandmother.

     My grandmother would take an empty glass and place on the table; because I was so young, around four or five years old, my eyed level, directly across the surface of the table would give me a perfect view, and I watched her take two containers and place them next to the glass. She would take a spoon and fill half of the glass with the white powder; then she would shift her attention to the second container, and would fill the other half of the glass with a brown power. She would slide the glass to me and hand me the spoon; and I would take my time enjoying my chocolate powder and sugar cocktail. The most ironic memory of it; the countless times they told me to calm down. I had the strange habit of climbing every tree I encountered, tap on my chest, late at night, my favorite songs until the moment I collapsed into sleep or I would get hit with something to quiet me down. Whichever came first. 

     No movie star, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician would admit in public this sort of addiction; yet it causes more deaths than drunk drivers and  overdoses combined. At the end of World War II we counted around 15,000 amputations in the six years the war lasted. Diabetes causes roughly around 420,000 amputations in 6 years.

     I long lost my grandmother, so my supplier these days is Starbucks. And they are amazing at it. 24 hours a day. Everywhere I walk in United States I can find one within a few blocks of each other. 

2 butter croissants lightly toasted

1 lemon loaf

1 tall dark roast coffee with 1 raw sugar- in a grande cup.

$ 14.40  ( in Santa Monica, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades )

$13.40  ( anywhere else in Los Angeles )

     Close every liquor store in the world and unless someone told me, I wouldn't notice. I wouldn't  know where to begin looking for drugs to buy if my live depended on it and yet, my life depends on giving up drugs. At least if I want to assure a better quality of life to my older self.  After many prolonged fasting and being sugar free for months and months only to succumb again and again to it, I decided to approach this addiction in a different way. . 

I went for a hike at Griffith park and while admiring the Hollywood sign had a serious conversation with myself. More a visualization than anything else. I imagined myself at sixty, seventy, eighty years old and honestly asked myself a simple question: 

what kind of debilitating disease are you willing to suffer from in you twilight years?

The answer was an emphatically: NONE. So I just gave up sugar again. For more times than I can recall.

     So I ask the same from you: what kind of disease are you willing to suffer from:? Because even thought we've never met I know that you are as addicted as I am. In conversations with people about my concerns, I always hear back that they eat sugar in moderation and that is the same as stating that you take poison in moderation. But the odds are not in my favor that you are even reading this now; you probably stopping reading at the second paragraph once you realized that my addiction was to sugar. How pathetic!

     To that, I challenge you to stop. Cold turkey. No more sugar. No more more refined carbs: bread, pasta, pizza. None of it. Fast for five days straight drinking only water with pink Himalayan salt for electrolytes and minerals. If you don't cheat, you will realize by the second day how seriously addicted you are and you will stop judging addicts for being so weak and unable to get their lives together. Your third day without sugar will make you wish you were dead.

     In the event you are able to complete the five days, you don't get to praise yourself and return to sugar. You are done. You will never touch a pipe again, snort, shoot or whatever other way people ingest drugs. You can't eat bread ever again; no more pasta, no more pizza no more sweets or deserts of any kind. You will cleanse your body and remain in ketosis until your final days. 

You are sugar free. Congratulations! Now we can sit together and wait to get a glimpse of Dante and Virgil when they walk by; or Godot. 

    

The Human Existence in SEVEN BOOKS...

 I began reading these books again in the order bellow,  I think it depicts the emotional arc of our very short existence..

1

| The Very First Bible |

2

| Ernest Beckers's THE DENIAL OF DEATH |

3

| Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO | ****

4

| Echhart Tolle's  A NEW EARTH |

5

| Miguel de  Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE |

6

| Dante Alighieri's DIVINE COMEDY |

7

| Antoine de Saint-Exupéry" THE LITTLE PRINCE |

**** For my fellow Brazilian artists that for whatever the fucking reason still enamored of communism. They call it something else but they are not fooling anyone. Especially when the president of Brazil loves Fidel Castro and choses China and Venezuela as partners against the "evil empire" United States. I hate politics and politicians but history is clear: wanna see people truest malignant inner being flourish? Give a selected few total power and make everyone else comrades. The irony is that, every place in the world that has tried, the artists are the first to get killed; along with the gays, the faithful and everyone else with an opinion.