Thursday, October 25, 2012

10 Months Later

I was just reminded that this blog exists. Somebody quoted from it in the description of a facebook event. I didn't recognize the passage, but it was credited to Mateo's Blog, so I searched around a bit and it was indeed mine. I haven't written here since New Year's Day of this year, and though it seems like a wasted effort to write something new for an abandoned and most likely unread blog, the spirit is moving me, and I know better than to fight her. 

The event that I was quoted in is a party at my (ware)house, the Casa de Angelopes in Inglewood, California. The reason for the party is to mark the end of an era. The Casa is CLOSED. After two or three years of chaos, creation, destruction, and noise, the neighbors finally managed to figure out how to get us removed from this delightful little compound at the intersection of West and Hyde Park. Given that, I find it fitting that my last entry here was about feeling at home here in Inglewood. 

Now, however, I am about to be homeless. More or less by my own choice. I don't want to live in a collective anymore. However, I am also jobless with very little money saved. I plan to put most of my things in storage and live out of my van, which will be parked in the Echo Park / Silver Lake area. That is where the rest of my house-mates are moving, and that is where most of my business is these days, on account of the fact that I am the newest member of the very busy Manhattan Murder Mystery. I found out that the Casa was Over while on tour with MMM. I had been seriously contemplating moving out, anyway, so I was almost glad to be pushed out. 

I am deeply saddened, however, that this giant tin shack is about to have its heart ripped out. From the first moment I stepped in here, I felt as if I was in a giant living work of art. Everywhere you look, there is something brilliant to behold. (It feels like I'm going in the direction of a full-on text description of this place, and I know I don't have the time to carry out that monumental task. I am also suspicious that I don't have the skill, so I'll leave the subject with this: As sad as it is, it seems almost right for it to have to die. This thing burned far too bright to last very long.)

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Roots


My grandfather was born in Los Angeles. His parents were Russian jews who fled the pogroms of the early 1900's. They converted to Catholicism, and that's how my grandfather was raised. I didn't find out he was jewish until after he died.

My dad grew up in the neighborhood I live in now, around Crenshaw. He and his family left the area in the late 60's, shortly after the Watts riots. Thinking about it now I am reminded of my grandmother's mild racism. She and her racism are dead now, buried at Holy Cross cemetery on Slauson Blvd., near the 405.

I didn't realize when I began living here that I was, in a way, moving "home". I knew my dad grew up in the city, but I didn't know what neighborhood, exactly. I grew up in the north central part of LA, near Glendale. I've never felt much like an outsider here in Inglewood even though maybe I should, seeing how I grew up white and comfortable and this neighborhood is more brown and struggling. Now, though, having seen the house where my dad grew up and the place where his parents are buried, I feel even more at home here. I feel a mild sense of history and belonging that I don't even feel about the place I grew up. I'd say it's nice, but that's a pretty banal commentary. It's something, though.