2004 Journal Notes

Page 1
Santa Monica Big Blue Bus #10
Rider

There is a certainty of anonymity while riding buses along the streets and freeways of Los Angeles.  People are silent and obedient as they gaze towards an imaginary blank screen that shields them from the visual field of a moving landscape where cars, trucks, and other buses compete for momentary lane space.  The communication of individual fear and revulsion is expressed via the medium of transitory separation of self from action.

The cool wind is mixed with diesel exhaust and remnant particles of the several million vehicles that have recently passed through "here" (i.e., the temporal space experienced while moving forward along the most congested freeway in the world).  The fine dust smells of environmental chaos.

I'm looking out towards the sunset.  The endless flow of vehicles provides an entertaining array of colors and shapes.  Every so often I'll look into the cars that pass alongside the bus.   The various objects that are scattered on the floors, seats, dashboards, as well as the clothing that is worn by the drivers and passengers presents compelling puzzles that must be solved within the few seconds of each encounter.  I attempt to discern their social status and their point of departure/arrival.  

The architecture of momentum is flawed.

The mechanism of transport is inadequate.

There is a strangely silent group of people traveling at 70 mph on the Santa Monica Freeway.  There is no talk of subjugation or rebellion.  There is no sharing of ideas.  There are no voices to fill the air with our collective humanity.

Page 2
Metrorail Subway Red Line
Rider

The All-Day Pass costs $3.00 and allows the bus and light rail rider to potentially travel several hundred square miles of Los Angeles.

I've decided to ride the entire length of all four light rail lines today (Blue, Green, Red, and Gold).  But my decision has been preempted by a series of perceptual catastrophes that condemn me to spend many hours underground along the subterranean path of the Red Line.

When I boarded the northbound Red Line train at Wilshire and Western Station, a young man was bleeding profusely from his mouth and ears.  His first suicide attempt was unsuccessful.  I was sitting directly across from him and stared at the steady crimson stream that flowed down his chest and arms onto the seat.  His face was covered with a tattooed image of his dead father (I'm certain that there must have been a definite genetic resemblance to the son).  He spoke to me in a non threatening tone:

I shot myself the other day.  The bullet was intended for the brain but hit the neck.  This morning I dropped five hits of acid but the Paxel cocktail with tequila chaser killed the high.  Man, I just give up. When I get off this train I'm gonna kill myself and take a few of you motherfuckers with me.

I exited the train at Sunset and Vermont Station.  I walked with the crowd as far as the escalator.  I was compelled to take the next train and remained on the platform.  There were many people waiting to board the southbound train.  The claustrophobic effect of the station is enhanced by poor ventilation, dim lighting, surveillance cameras, and armed police who appear to be poised to attack at the slightest hint of inappropriate behavior.

The southbound train was preceded by a gust of tar-scented wind and arrived with the brakes emitting a piercingly loud screech.  I boarded the nearest car and found myself confronted by nearly a hundred people representing all classes, ethnicities, ages, sexes (and sexual preferences), and fashion styles that make Los Angeles such a dynamically charged mirage of myth and cultural heresy.  The train accelerated causing the concrete tunnel to appear as though it bended and expanded as we moved forward and down to a deeper level of insecure placement at the bottom of whatever is societally possible.

Several men and women were kissing wildly while others read newspapers or napped.  A young mother fed chicharones (fried pork rinds) and orange soda drink to her two infants.  An old man prayed as he clutched an incomplete set of Rosary beads that had been stolen from a true believer during an earlier era. There were several conversations taking place simultaneously in more than twenty languages.  A man with an unidentifiable face spoke to another man of undeniable suffering:

You should visit the Shrine of the Unknown Liberator.  It's located in an alley behind a lost street of Boyle Heights.  There you will be able to find your true destiny.  There have been so many who have entered the shrine never to be seen alive ever again.  I prefer prostitutes because ambivalence causes cancer.  I've been sucked dry of every body fluid.  I'm so dry.  I'm so dry.

The train pulled into the Civic Center Station where I exited quickly as unknown hands passed over my body just before the doors slammed shut.  I waited motionlessly on the platform for more than three hours before the next southbound train arrived.  I was the only person on the platform and was surprised to find that the train was devoid of any other people.  I felt as though I were being drawn into the train by the vacuum suction that was generated by the nothingness of isolation.  I sat down as the train began to move quickly.  The journey was extended over several hours without ever encountering other stations as the tracks seemed to lead the train to a secretive restricted zone.  I closed my eyes for an eternal moment and found myself being nudged awake by a police baton.

This is the end of the line.  Show me your pass.  Get off the train or I'll cite you.  Move!

Page 3
405 Freeway @ Sepulveda Pass
Driver

Today is an atypical workday because I am driving.  I've driven nearly one million miles in my lifetime.  This day, I'll probably drive a total of sixty miles from start to finish.  Usually, the daily use of public transportation will add several hours and many diverted miles to the total distance and time required to complete the roundtrip.

Automobiles encapsulate the lone driver with the safety glass windows placing him/her in the position of being the viewer/participant/subject.  Emotional attachments to other drivers is oftentimes short lived and restricted to bursts of road-rage.  Occasionally disdain is replaced by momentary lust but mostly quick glances create an unavoidable deposit of nameless faces to the memory bank that fuels dreams and false memories.

Individualism is represented by the type of car that one drives.  It's difficult to imagine oneself as an orderly worker ant until big influences threaten to squash everything that define comfort and stability.  Increasing gas prices, random lethal violence, explosive/fiery crashes, strangers getting in the way, ugly design lines of most new cars, center dividers that prevent us from greeting our neighbors head-on, and other factors make driving a celebration of motion regardless of speed or trajectory.

The 405 Freeway is most often a completely jammed artery that connects major population centers that are separated by a nearly impenetrable mountain range.  Movie stars, venture capitalists, pornographers, domestic workers, students, and adventurous runaways can oftentimes be seen racing in both directions to reach their preferred stuccoed mini strip-mall.  Sometimes, imported and indigenous wildlife can be seen roaming the mountains.  I've wondered why the deer, coyotes, baboons, mountain lions, and hawks appear to be looking at the humans as though we are the inferior life forms.

There is a static wall of traffic as I approach Brentwood.  The delay could take more than an hour.  A multi-vehicle accident has occurred several miles away near the state-sponsored road work that has already narrowed the passageway to two lanes.  Horns are honking, radios are blaring loudly, every vehicle attempts to be first in line, exhaust emissions are poisoning the air, the sky is getting darker, and the potholes punctuate the experience of an intensely bothersome stiff neck.

I listen to talk-radio for the duration of the drive on the freeway:

So you want your babe to treat you like a real man. How can she if you are such a pussy?  You've got to follow the rules.  Don't spend money.  Don't give her compliments.  Don't call her.  And don't get her pregnant.  Do you want to pay her for the next eighteen years?  And what if the kid has a brain and goes to college? You'll be paying for low quality sex for the next twenty-one years.  Thanks for calling in.  Poor sucker is stuck on the 405 Freeway right now worried that his "babe" might not wait for him to show up for his dinner date with her.  Hey buddy, if you're still listening, she'll wait, she'll be starving and you'll pay more for dinner than you would have had you stayed home.  There's still time to turn back.  Just slam on the brakes and save your time and your money.

Page 4
Westwood Village
Pedestrian

Whenever I walk in L.A. it is important to be focused on the invisible elements of instinct that could warn of hidden environmental and social dangers that could prevent me from reaching my destination intact and free of trauma.

I oftentimes walk three to six miles a day usually carrying a heavy backpack filled with books and supplies.  Sometimes the parking lot is one mile away from where I'm scheduled to meet a friend or colleague.  At other times, a bus stop for a particular line does not intersect with another bus line requiring me to walk another mile or two.  Light rail stations are mostly situated in locations far removed from places of interest and necessity.  In order to conduct essential social and business contacts within L.A. it could require me to travel more than one hundred miles per day.  Walking could be considered to be  an inappropriate form of reaching my goals.

Walking in Westwood reminds me of my youth when I would walk and balance atop the pedestrian guard rail on the Lorena Street overpass of the 5 Freeway in East L.A.  At that time there was no high chain link fence to prevent children from falling into the speeding traffic below.  I'd walk across the freeway everyday after school.  It wasn't until a friend failed to live beyond his eleventh birthday that I stopped engaging in that particular risky act.  Walking in Westwood requires me to balance all that I know about urban Chicano culture and all that I've come to learn about American mainstream culture.  There is always the danger of falling over the edge one way or the other.

©2004 Harry Gamboa Jr.