hope u r / wish u were t/here
On a train ride from SLO to LA, I send a text message describing the scenery. You will receive the message in another country, two time zones away, within a few seconds. The sun is going down, the sky is mostly gray, cold, damp. The train is delayed by about 2 hours. I read an interview with one of the Tigres del Norte. I'm not too keen on the interviewer's cultural brokerage, but the band is from SanJo, my hometown, and the interview is okay. Immigration, narco-corridos, I think about my dad.
Another delay.
A disturbing dream, crossed signals, people from my past. No one will be able to pick me up at Union Station, it's okay, I can always walk to my place from there, it's not that far, just a little sketchy is all.
hope u r good.
hope u r good.
hope u r good.
I am not good. I am bad. I am very very bad.
Somewhere between SLO and LA the re-circulated train air efficiently delivered germs up my nostrils. Already they are at work. Soon I will be laid flat for several days, head filled with mucus, fevered, sneezing, coughing.
...head cold...heart cold...fingertips cold...eyes cold...
How do I interpret this text?
-- S C R E E N --
[every single person in my family is suicidal]
[hope u r good]
-- S C R E E N --
Over the new year, the subject of my ex's new baby comes up. My mom accidentally blurts out, "That could've been MY grandkid!" half-joking.
Haha.
Happy new year.
My friend Stephen is depressed. His friend Tulio is suicidal. Both of them are on their way to Shanghai (already there by now). They swing through LA and pick me up on their way to the Bay Area in a beat-up old white Chrysler four-door they've driven all the way from Missouri. The last night we're all in town together in San Pancho, we go see Shortbus in a collective movie house in the Haight-Ashbury. I buy a large popcorn, but nobody else wants any, even though Stephen says it's the best he's had in his life. It's the second time I've seen the movie. Stephen loves it. Tulio says he likes it, but he doesn't seem too impressed. He doesn't seem too much of anything, actually.
But then, after the movie, as they're driving me back to SanJo, Tulio suddenly picks up his cell phone and calls his girlfriend in Hong Kong. They talk for a few minutes in Mandarin. Stephen knows the language; I don't. But I don't ask what the conversation is about, I can tell it's just a short, sweet hello, I can tell it is nothing and it is a big deal at the same time.
When I'm in SanJo, my mom and I go to the place of my earliest memories, what used to be our house. It's not there anymore, just a park. She tells me about my family's connections to the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians, about my great-grandpa, Charlie Chaplin's tailor, how he was a Freemason, and how he had to flee LA to México suddenly because of some scandal that nobody would ever talk about. We drive to the East Side, pass by a few of the places we lived in during the 1980s. Then, we come up on Story and King, the heart of Chican@ life in East SanJo, our Whittier Blvd, and my mom is suddenly completely shocked, tripped out, and loses her bearings. She hasn't been here in a few years, and she can't believe how different it is.
Because even here at Story and King, with the Tropicana, and Mi Pueblo market, y la Pink Elephant down the street, and the little spot where my mom used to pick up the food stamps to feed us—even this place is now the same as every other place, all beige walls, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, T-Mobile, Target, you know the architecture, the prices, the goods. They call it "Plaza de San José," a "$73.5 million revitalization of a historically blighted shopping center." It's got these tacky faux-MesoAmerican statues (beige, of course), and tacky palm trees.
"Oh my god," my mom says, dazed, a little angry, "I can't believe it, it looks like everywhere else now."
Then, getting back on the 280 freeway: You remember a place, she says, and you picture things that happened there in your life, you can picture the place, and later when you go back to that place, you expect it to be at least a little bit like you remember it, but it's not at all, everything is different. But it's even more strange because even though it's different from before, it's the same as everywhere else now...
; meanwhile, back in downtown LA, Tweedledee and Tweedledum are calling me from the same automobile but from their own individual cellular telephones pingponging on my cell phone running update on their punctuality progress as I try to ride my bicycle, almost there, almost there, okay now we're parking the car, okay now we're walking, okay now we're standing right in front of the place okay now we're standing right in front of you okay now we're saying hello okay now you're saying hello back okay now we're hanging up our cell phones okay now we're...
—ahh, I can't help but love them both, they belong together, such a perfect pair of panoptical parakeets—
...okay now we're looking into each other's eyes okay now we're late we're late okay now we're both crackheads okay now we're realizing how perfect we are for each other okay now we're okay now we're okay now we're okay now we're okay...
;
and I'm back home, in LA, and everthing's different, everything's the same.
p.s.
Repeat after me:
I'm very good
I'm very good
I'm very good
and i do not think
u r
............................................................................
SEE:
Romance (Catherine Brellait, 1999)
Another delay.
A disturbing dream, crossed signals, people from my past. No one will be able to pick me up at Union Station, it's okay, I can always walk to my place from there, it's not that far, just a little sketchy is all.
hope u r good.
hope u r good.
hope u r good.
I am not good. I am bad. I am very very bad.
Somewhere between SLO and LA the re-circulated train air efficiently delivered germs up my nostrils. Already they are at work. Soon I will be laid flat for several days, head filled with mucus, fevered, sneezing, coughing.
...head cold...heart cold...fingertips cold...eyes cold...
How do I interpret this text?
-- S C R E E N --
[every single person in my family is suicidal]
[hope u r good]
-- S C R E E N --
Over the new year, the subject of my ex's new baby comes up. My mom accidentally blurts out, "That could've been MY grandkid!" half-joking.
Haha.
Happy new year.
My friend Stephen is depressed. His friend Tulio is suicidal. Both of them are on their way to Shanghai (already there by now). They swing through LA and pick me up on their way to the Bay Area in a beat-up old white Chrysler four-door they've driven all the way from Missouri. The last night we're all in town together in San Pancho, we go see Shortbus in a collective movie house in the Haight-Ashbury. I buy a large popcorn, but nobody else wants any, even though Stephen says it's the best he's had in his life. It's the second time I've seen the movie. Stephen loves it. Tulio says he likes it, but he doesn't seem too impressed. He doesn't seem too much of anything, actually.
But then, after the movie, as they're driving me back to SanJo, Tulio suddenly picks up his cell phone and calls his girlfriend in Hong Kong. They talk for a few minutes in Mandarin. Stephen knows the language; I don't. But I don't ask what the conversation is about, I can tell it's just a short, sweet hello, I can tell it is nothing and it is a big deal at the same time.
When I'm in SanJo, my mom and I go to the place of my earliest memories, what used to be our house. It's not there anymore, just a park. She tells me about my family's connections to the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians, about my great-grandpa, Charlie Chaplin's tailor, how he was a Freemason, and how he had to flee LA to México suddenly because of some scandal that nobody would ever talk about. We drive to the East Side, pass by a few of the places we lived in during the 1980s. Then, we come up on Story and King, the heart of Chican@ life in East SanJo, our Whittier Blvd, and my mom is suddenly completely shocked, tripped out, and loses her bearings. She hasn't been here in a few years, and she can't believe how different it is.
Because even here at Story and King, with the Tropicana, and Mi Pueblo market, y la Pink Elephant down the street, and the little spot where my mom used to pick up the food stamps to feed us—even this place is now the same as every other place, all beige walls, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, T-Mobile, Target, you know the architecture, the prices, the goods. They call it "Plaza de San José," a "$73.5 million revitalization of a historically blighted shopping center." It's got these tacky faux-MesoAmerican statues (beige, of course), and tacky palm trees.
"Oh my god," my mom says, dazed, a little angry, "I can't believe it, it looks like everywhere else now."
Then, getting back on the 280 freeway: You remember a place, she says, and you picture things that happened there in your life, you can picture the place, and later when you go back to that place, you expect it to be at least a little bit like you remember it, but it's not at all, everything is different. But it's even more strange because even though it's different from before, it's the same as everywhere else now...
; meanwhile, back in downtown LA, Tweedledee and Tweedledum are calling me from the same automobile but from their own individual cellular telephones pingponging on my cell phone running update on their punctuality progress as I try to ride my bicycle, almost there, almost there, okay now we're parking the car, okay now we're walking, okay now we're standing right in front of the place okay now we're standing right in front of you okay now we're saying hello okay now you're saying hello back okay now we're hanging up our cell phones okay now we're...
—ahh, I can't help but love them both, they belong together, such a perfect pair of panoptical parakeets—
...okay now we're looking into each other's eyes okay now we're late we're late okay now we're both crackheads okay now we're realizing how perfect we are for each other okay now we're okay now we're okay now we're okay now we're okay...
;
and I'm back home, in LA, and everthing's different, everything's the same.
p.s.
Repeat after me:
I'm very good
I'm very good
I'm very good
and i do not think
u r
............................................................................
SEE:
Romance (Catherine Brellait, 1999)
posted by kualyque at 00:47
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