Excerpt about my last year in Los Angeles.......

Potential boom towns: lots of room here for trailerhouse slums, prefab school buildings, motor pools, sewage lagoons, truckyards, and the other usual benefits of development, such as a bullish alcoholism, a flourishing divorce industry, and a booming crime rate.  Familiar social phenomena to most Americans by now, part of the price we have agreed to pay for progress and prosperity.

—Edward Abby, Down the River

*

LOS ANGELES—I entered her like a bug in a street lamp, a greasy mist pooling in the gutters, feeding the trash rivers headed for sea.  Palm fronds lashed in a smoggy wind, everything wrapped in a polluted neon glow—cars raced by in all five lanes (that felt like 50), swerving like suicide bombers, foot taped to the pedal, mind glued to private schedules, ear stuck to a cell phone.  Someone's pulled over in flashing police lights, squinting into the glare of law enforcement while other cars race past either dangerously swaying on blown shocks or gleaming with a fresh wax.  Great orbs of light surround strip malls and gas stations, empty theme parks—is there really human life out there?  I felt instantly transported to some sick biosphere where a group of scientists wait on the outside experimenting with just how bad things can get before the people inside realize.

It'd not been much time—mid-June to first of September—but it felt like a fog lifted from my eyes, or a wall from around my heart—looking into the luke warm night of a million lights, struggling to see how I ever could've imagined continuing to live within the dying confines of this social structure—trying to imagine how I ever survived it in the first place.  A city so spread out it has no identity—all are lost, milling endlessly around their respective quadrants of this mass cage called Los Angeles.  Overpasses and exit signs trodden by the wealthy in their SUVs, amid the dearthly poor traveling in whatever happens to be running, with lots of folks caught in the middle racing against the traffic to that next job hoping for success—the price of gasoline making or breaking them.  The rivers are paved in concrete and graffiti.  There's no sense of what this place used to be—(a desert flood plain at the base of a 10,000 foot mountain range ending in a wild Pacific sea-coast)—no, all of it's natural history is found in books, it's not actually here anymore.   It's been enterprisingly replaced by the AM/PM Mini Mart and the AMC Twenty-Plex.  Go and pay eight-fifty and you'll see something wild on a giant screen in a room packed with a few hundred other desperate souls coughing and sneezing, their babies crying, everyone force feeding popcorn and caffeine soda into smiles of glee.

It is amazement, it is depression—that life can survive like this—so many people are happy here it's shocking—the population swells, the freeways expand, the people happily working in an absolute nightmarish version of life.  The future is now, welcome BladeRunner, it's all been wonders and amusement, but the gigs up, the wad's shot, and reality is biting at our heels—we're creating Hell out of Eden.  Pollute the good air, foul the fine streams, develop the open space, then start selling it all back to us for millions—that'll keep us working instead of thinking.  It's fascinating really—the pure ignorance (arrogance?) of the human species, to keep blindly digging our own graves.  Millions are dying, billions are poor, droughts, famines, you name it, the writings on the wall, but the masses just continue to work, watch their cable TV, worry about millionaire sport stars personal problems—now they even want to privatize the water (now that they're done artificially fluorinating it with toxic waste)—make a profit off 90% of what makes us human, sure, go ahead, we'll buy it.  When you sit back and look at it, say, from a high peak in the Sierra Nevada, it's beyond insanity—it's pure suicidal madness.

When I returned to Los Angeles, home was like an island, on it's hilltop above everything, ah fine Whittier Hills, I respected them more now that I could truly feel the sadness of the beast which surrounds them—even deer might graze out the window, and the coyotes howl in the night, our neighbors peacocks nesting on the hillside.  The conservancy has bought all the land now that the Archdiocies of L. A. has finally decided against it's proposed cemetary development (and you should've seen the proud crowd of 500, mostly senior citizens who showed up at the city council meeting to shut that cemetary plan down, most beautiful moment of environmentalism I've ever witnessed, the atmosphere was likely that if you supported the cemetary, you'd be the first to lay in it)—so there is actually a protected wildlife corridor from the Whittier Hills all the way back to the Cleveland National Forest.  The local gangs and some party kids like to use the "remote" areas of the canyon and hilltop on the weekends to crank the music, pound the beer, and occaisionally get violent—remember John's little experience?

 At night, I looked out over the field of lights that stretches to a hidden Pacific Ocean beyond, in the blackness, miles away (you can see it shimmer around sunset), watching the twinkling of all the different colors, amazed at the amount of life out there—almost like another human species—a human that's become adapted to more sterilized, manufactured, perfected, fashioned existence.  Lots of little squares, straight lines, orderly rows of planted trees, elaborately "landscaped" lawns that don't even approach the beauty of just a plain Sierra meadow.  I used to be there, completely enveloped within all of it, accepting the city as reality.  Something that had made so much sense before was revealed in all of its false truth—this is no way to live.

I had to finish high school—college would be another thing, but I had to get through this final year, with visions of the mountains haunting me.  I cut my hair, shaved my spit of an adolescent chin beard, and bought a few new clothes with money from my mom.  Mostly though, I didn't care what any of the other kids thought, as far as I was concerned I'd already moved beyond this year, and was just waiting for it to become official. 

Winter rolled on, and we began to get quite a bit of rain, the small streams flooding their banks and running down city streets.  The seasonal creek in our canyon at times became a full fledged raging river of brown water.  Hillsides collapsed in Malibu—we were all hearing about it from live helicopters on the scene—filming as people got swept to their death in flood-plain trailer parks.  At least the damage was striking both rich and poor alike.  There was something I found incredibly desperate about the number of deaths, disasters, and crises caused simply by a big rain storm in Los Angeles.  It blared loudly to me how out of control the human race has really become when a rainstorm is killing people.  Maybe I need to repeat that: a rainstorm killing people.  Raindrops, just lots of little specks of water falling, and it's enough to tip the balance.  You would think the fatal freeways would be enough population control, but the city is still swelling with happy pilgrims from all over the U.S., Mexico and the World—all pining for their ratty piece of the city of Angels—Hollywood, the movies—everyone's rich, you'll see.

I would just sit in my room, or look out off the deck, maybe call John at the Lodge to find out how much snow was hitting the Sierra, put off doing homework till I'd be in danger of failing and then do just barely enough.  I was feeling pretty lonely that winter, tormented and desperate, and not surprisingly I fell sort of in love with three different girls—all such nice friendly people that I couldn't help it.  It was good company for my spirit to obsess itself with some fine conversations on the phone, or a movie, or the hope of a first kiss.  But none of it ever really went anywhere—they all knew I'd be packing my bags during graduation, and leaving from the stage.  I felt lost without a wild high canyon to walk in, and wild friends to live with.  Inspired by reading more Kerouac I would sometimes think their might be a romance to the city, in the lost alleyways of New York, or the intellectual conversations of coffeehouses—all the people, the live music, there must be good energy to tap into—and maybe if I'd been in New York, I might've found something, but I was in L.A. which is hell in many ways to New York's heaven as far as cities are concerned, you have to drive everywhere, but thank god I never found anything anyway—or I might just be like everyone else, wondering about a dream but never living it—laughing about it but never giving it a chance—just a whim, ha ha ha, ahh come off it and get back to the real world!

Not surprisingly, I hated school—except for the girls that I was in love with of course—and the lunch hours bullshitting with various bros I'd known since I still occaisionally peed my pants.  Old Tony.  I'd known him since kindergarten.  A good guy, and it was fun seeing him four years older and still the same old Tony.  Wonder what's become of him now?  We had a deep enough bond, that I could still have fun with him, even though so much had changed for me.  There were a few other people like that, but not many.  And of course I made new friends who were funny people and made good jokes, sly humor, whatever, but I couldn't escape the grave line in Thoreau's Walden, when he pronounces that "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."  I really felt it that year.  It was like I could see it in the teachers faces—the exhaustion of years of watching hundreds of kids cycle through.  There was no magic in this education like there had been at Crossroads, it was more akin to a factory, an assembly line, producing semi-literate kids for semi-literate jobs to keep this semi-literate economy rolling—the less we know the better.  And I saw it in the faces of my friends and even people I didn't know—this collective gloom as they trudged slowly into morning classes, called by the bell, that everpresent bell ringing us like god damn cattle to the trough.  Man it was nuts.

I would often bring John Muir's Mountains of California with me to read in the cool grey mornings before that god awful bell rang us into class.  I would disappear into Muir's observations of the Sierra Nevada.  I'd seen enough to be able to relate to everything, and still be captivated by lots of mystery.  The more conservative folks thought I was reading the Bible, or "the good book," as they called it.  No, I'd tell them, I'm reading John Muir.  "Who?"—"John Muir, Mountains of California"—"Oh, huh."  And that'd be about it, and I could go right back to dreaming about Muir's Yosemite and discovering living glaciers and all the fine freedom and beauty he found.  I can't tell you how badly I wanted to lie next to a rushing Sierra creek and observe the habits of a water ouzel—and how deep I would sink into his words, only to be broken, torn, ripped by the cold fuckin' school bell as it clanged like the gates of a jail cell.

I did experience one wonderful break from the dreariness of L.A. school-kid life.  I talked to John up at Rock Creek, and he said he was going to be down in Joshua Tree for awhile doing some rock climbing with his friend Bruce, and so I planned to meet them for a long weekend.  Bruce is a wild, crazy, crass, hazardously brilliant, angry little man I'd met briefly up at the Lodge that summer.  It was a long drive, after school one day, getting there in the dark, but it didn't matter, I was so fuggin' pysched to get the hell out of town and see my friends that I was blazing with energy, and I found and followed all their notes posted on info boards in the Park telling me where they were camped, and finally pulled in to see two of my "first summer in the sierra" heroes sitting right there around a nice blazing campfire getting ready to smoke a pipe of weed—it was like a revelation, a dream, a holy baptism, I don't know, but to come out of L.A. all re-adjusted to dealing with the school urban city-life-scene and there in a true wonderful VISION, sat John and Bruce, and all the ways and memories and jokes and looseness and everything flowed right back into my soul, and I stepped out of the car and immediately got stoned with them.  During those brief few days driving around Joshua Tree dirt roads in Bruce's fantastic Dodge van, I just tried to absorb the feeling of freedom as much as I could—the feeling of real life not tied to school and homework and requirements.  Just living free and having fun.  We climbed the classic crack Sail Away and top-roped at Thin Wall and bouldered in random spots—just plain hanging out and smoking weed in the desert.  I was once again with my Narcissist Brothers.  I became thoroughly learned in Bruce's art of "tommy watching", and accurately labelling potential "tommy tourists" and the like.  "Hey here comes Sammy Subaru!"  or "Looks like this Tommy has a little case of Speed-up-itis" he would say to explain the interesting nature of some folks to speed up as you try to pass them on the road.  It was too good of a time to suddenly have to drive away back to boring old L.A. classrooms, but it was a good reminder, which I held dear for strength.

Besides my ruminations on the meaning of life and the desperate nature of L.A., romantic aspirations to get myself a girlfriend managed to fill the gap left by the mountains and the mountain people.  I really wanted a girl, my soul ached for one—yet I knew that I had to return to the mountains.  That I would be leaving.  I filled page after page of my journal with pathetic poems of yearning for love and companionship.  In fact, I was often lying in the dark of night of my bed, crying about my aching loneliness, directing it towards the need of a woman.  The truth is I just had a big void there, and I'd always had it, never understanding it.  The mountains had made it better while I was there, but I still hadn't filled the void.  It was far worse being at home, and around lots of attractive, interesting girls at school.

I'm so glad I never convinced any of the girls to go with me, because it would've been such a mistake.  Trying sure helped the creeping and crawling of the weeks till graduation, and finally the day arrived, thank god.  And the next morning—following a sleepless, drug-less and alcohol free Grad Nite of throwing bowling balls, drinking soda pop, and performing kereoke—I got in the car with my brother Eric behind the wheel and we hauled ass for the Eastern Sierra—leaving behind so many terrible urban nightmares and depressed youth scrawling hatred with a spray can.  Through my bleary eyes, as I floated in and out of sleep, I saw the gates of the deepest valley in North America (10,000 feet deep!) swing wide to greet me—with lots of snow still covering the peaks.  I felt glad - so glad - at seeing this fine gesture that I woke up for good and DJ-ed the stereo system while my brother drove fast. 

Arriving in Rock Creek Canyon for another summer, snow patches still lingered among the buildings, and the nearby summits were still skiable on their north sides.  John was there, but only for a short time because he was taking off for the summer to do backpack trips,  but his friend Chyner, who he's known his whole life would be there for the summer, and in the end John showed up quite frequently all summer, inbetween trips—and the old Los Angeles sad half dreams of love and possible future nightlife satisfaction drifted away forever into the puffy afternoon thunderheads of the High Sierra.  What a delirious delusion all of the past several months had been.  I was back to the Zen bliss of scrubbing toilets, making beds, splitting kindling, and washing dishes—drinking beer and smoking weed with friends in the warm sun of mountain afternoons. 

When I threw my bags into my fond blown out trailer, there was no shock, there was rejuvenation, love, happiness.  Home sweet home was never so sweet.  I knew I would never have to leave again.  College wasn't something I considered absolutely required.  No one could force me to go—finally—I was free.

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