The walk

I awoke around 130-2 o'clock in the afternoon feeling groggy but spritley. Last night had been my first night back at work in almost two days. I had felt unbelievably exhausted from that long week of working graveyard shifts. No one knows the insanity of that kind of work until you actually do it. It can drive you a little insane if your not careful. My grandfather talked about how he begged his boss to put him on the day shift after working nights for a year. All I know is that it says something when you find four am to be a decent bed time. 

I threw on a shirt and stumbled out to the kitchen. My roommate was making a breakfast of eggs and potatoes. He offered some and I quickly obliged. I then stumbled out to the front porch. The house sits in a hill over looking a valley of houses. My neighbor was telling me how the nieghborhood was originally italian until Dodger stadium drove all of the Mexicans and Asians into the area in the early 60's. 

It was a cool afternoon and the skies were blue. I had heard in New York that people were dealing with snow and extreme cold. Was I jelouse that I was not part of it? Yes and no. I didn't need that darkness just yet. I sat on the front porch and talked to my other roommate about this pain I was feeling in my back. I had embarrassingly tweaked it while doing push-ups the night before. You try to take care of yourself and you end up making it worse. Great such irony that is life. I asked what I should do sense the pain was a sharp pain when ever I made sudden movements. Their biggest suggestion was to stretch it out and take it easy. Great take my time with it I thought. I work with a guy who's in his 50s and gout has done a number on his body. Man I hope that's not me. After a little bit I knew I had to go out. 

Echo park is right next to downtown Los Angeles. Boarded on the south east and north by freeways, it's been for the past 40 years an home for newly arrived immigrants from Central America and Southeast Asia. Gangs roam the streets but that's just a fact of life for those living in the less aflaunt areas of Los Angeles. Families who are in search of the American dream work, pray and live in this nieghborhoods all with the hopes that their children get a piece of that fantasy known as the Anerican dream.But in the past couple years there has been an influx of young people looking for cheap rents and a lower cost of living in the celebrity capital of the  world.

If your like me, you've spent most of your adult life living in the roughest nieghborhoods in America. Of course there  was a part of me that always romatizised that as a kid. Maybe it was all of the old Warner Brothers movies, or maybe it was West Side Story. Of course if you actually move to that insanity, it's less romantic then you would think. But you grow to love these nieghborhoods and cherish them. At the same time you want to live in the hip trendy area with the bars and girls and hip places to eat. But places like that are always missing something. I hate to sound tool esque but it's missing heart. Yes it can be trendy, but where is its soul? Now I find myself in a new nieborhood called Echo Park

When you live in LA it's so easy to stay in all day. Especially if you live in a nice house which I now did. But in New York you have to go out. It's a thing that drives you. Like if you stay in for the day you feel like your wasting your life. Yes LA is the town where you can go surfing in the morning and ski in the afternoon( if I had a dollar  for how many times I've heard that), but it's also a car city that is unbelievably spread out. Most neighborhoods are less neighborhoods and more just strip malls that are not within walking distance. But echo park is different. 

I threw on some clothes brushed my teeth and left the house. 

I walked down my street and headed down to sunset. Sunset of course that street made famouse by movies and songs. This stretch of sunset is not the one you see in movies except for police corruption films where the cops are gang members with a badge  and a stuffy politically minded cop is trying to take him down. No this is the sunset strip of working families and people trying to make some kind of life  in a city that's known to destroy people.  I got to sunset . I looked over to the fancy gas station on my left. If I went that way I would end up in Chinatown and downtown. I wanted to see the city but I didn't want to go that far. I went right and headed towards the main drag of echo park. 

Walking down the main drag of echo park I could already see families and young people about. Yes it was afternoon but everything felt so buoyant. I passed the Asian supermarket. A guy I worked with knew one of the cashiers in there, a sweet girl from Taiwan named Ming. He asked me if I was seeing someone. He wanted to set her up with me. I politely declined, I was seeing someone and wasn't in the mood to date several women at once. Contrary to popular belief it just leaves you exhausted most of the time. He said it was too bad. The guy I worked with was about 50 and had lived in Echo Park for almost 20 years. He like many people had come out to LA with a dream of stardom. It hadn't happened and he hadn't reconciled it. So now he was a bitter racist man who loved to spread his unhappiness with the world. He wasn't as bad as they said he was, but he wasn't as great as he thought he was. He was another example of what can happen in LA if you're not careful. 

I continued past the Asian grocery and passed the stairs up the hill that I would sprint up occasionally. I passed by the vintage stores which I found myself frequenting these days.  Back in New York whenever you went to one of those places it usually cost you an arm and a leg. Of course I was no fashionista.  Far from it. I was just looking for a jacket or something cheap I could buy since I wasn't willing to spend  300 dollars on jeans at Diesal. Maybe it was the catholic in me but sometimes it seemed bad and a little morally wrong that clothes would cost that much. That could of been why I had stopped wanting to buy clothes. Of course people choose clothes to help define who they are as people. It does say something about a person what they wear. Out here in Los Angeles whenever you see people overly dressed up you know they're trying to be bigger then they actually are. Try to fake it till you make it, the motto of the entertainment industry of Los Angeles. Now I was just trying to find comfortable clothing. 

I looked across the street and saw that Berigans was still closed. Berigans I had discovered one night with my roommate after a show of his. Imagine four  guys ages 26-33 crammed into your dad's rental that happened to be a mustang. It was a drunken hilarious site as motley crew of guys rolled up on this place that was the hangout of the local Hispanic youth. The margaritas where cheap and the chips and salsa was free. It was a poor mans paradise. But now it was closed for various reasons. My friend  and I at least had the gold room. 

Yes it sounded like a strip joint. No denying that. But the gold room was one if these bars that fit my style. Dark with neon lights, at night it was packed beyond capacity with young Hispanic youth looking for a good time. But during the day it was filled with old men and mariachi rap on the jukebox. The drinks where cheap and it had the atmosphere that made me feel at home. I had discovered that I was one who loved the dive bar. Maybe it was because no one was trying to impress anyone in those places. It always felt like a throwback to the old Irish bars I hung out in back in New York like Mccormicks. Yes it was a good place to get stabbed but put me more at ease then going to some place like the Roosevelt or Chatue Marmot where people are deep in the bullshit that is LA. 

By now I had made my way to Echo Park and Sunset. It was the center of the nieborhood. I looked around and saw everything I loved about the nieborhood . Immigrant families and young people mixing together. People weren't trying to be cooler then each other. No they where just simply living. 

I walked past sunset and echo park and passed the Mexican joints that ranged from classy to ghetto. You don't realize how much you've been gyipped until you have good mexican food. In New York the food is brilliant and amazing on all levels. But there is something unique about going to region of the world and exsperiencing the local food first hand. Of course you ask yourself what is he talking about? It's one thing to have a "New York style" slice of pizza in Seattle, but to go to New York and actually eat a slice of pizza from a hole in the wall pizza joint is a religious exsperience . Same with Kansas City style barbaque or northwest salmon. Mexican food in Los Angeles is beyond belief. Espeacially when it comes from a taco truck or street vendor. It's usually homemade and sold by old ladies who've seen more then you'll see in a year. 

I kept on walking west on sunset past the thrift shops. I passed the library which was closed because of Presidents' Day. As a kid you embrace everyone of those holidays due to the fact there usually was no school. But as an adult working the jobs I did, you realized that there where no days off. It's a sad fact to realize. Yes if you work certain corporate jobs or work for the federal government most 75% of jobs don't take holidays. You work and try to get the big two off. But usually that doesn't happen. I knew I had to work and I wasn't looking forward to it. Few jobs I've worked have I looked forward to going to work. I guess it goes back to find what you love to do and do it philosophy. Of course the truth be told you're lucky if that happens. 

I walked towards sunset and alverado. Traffic wasn't too bad yet. Usually between four and seven it would be hell on earth for anyone driving. Of course a person could go on for days about the craptastic awfulness that is traffic in Los Angeles. It's such a part of the American sychie. It could stand as an allegory for making it in LA. Everything feels like it's going nowhere and if it is it's going very slowly. I crossed Alverado and went into the donut shop on the corner. 

Donut shops are usually the same in LA. It's as if 1982 never ended and they're 90% of the time run by Asians. Donut shops are such an intergal part of the Los Angeles city scape as pizza is to New York. There is even a ban on Duncan donuts in California. I ordered a cup of coffee and an old fashioned donut. Cantonese pop was playing in the back ground. The place was empty except for myself and the lady working behind the counter. I sat down and enjoyed my food. I looked out at sunset. I could see the downtown skyscrapers in the distance. Old salvadorian men dressed in flannel and wearing cowboy hats walked with Cains while women barely five feet tall pushed strollers . That's what I loved about this place. No one was trying to impress anyone. No bullshit that makes you want to puke . Just life was happening. 

I got up and crossed sunset and headed east. I passed the diner my friends and I frequented and crossed the over pass over Glendale. I saw that the vintage clothing store that specialized in sports clothing stop has that Shawn Alexander jersey for sale. The Super Bowl win was still fresh in my mind. After years of suffering my team had won. I thought back to my favorite Seahawks I had as a kid. It defiantly was Ricky Waters, Shawn Springs and Cortez Kennedy. Of course this was when they were losers. But now that seemed like a distant memory. The team that had won was a group of cast offs and losers. These guys weren't supposed to win and they did. Maybe that's why I identified with them. My whole life going back to when I was a kid I had been considered a cast off. So many times adults had underestimated what I had been capable of doing. But each and every time I had done the unexpected. Wheather it was leave town and go to New York to act. Keep with it after others had left it. Blow people away with a performance in a show or film. I was the underdog who beat the odds. I guess that was my greatest strength.  I was determined no matter what to get what I wanted and prove that yes I was worthy and that good. 

I kept walking and briefly stopped in a bookstore before heading towards the park. Families where out having impromptu weekday barbaques. Men sold Italian ices and fresh  papayas. There was a sense of  joy that ran through the park. Laughter, running, singing. The joy of life was alive and well in Echo Park. It was infectious. I couldn't help but smile. I sat down and looked out towards the downtown LA skyline and thought this is my home.