Tag Archives: los angeles

Hopeless Romantic

Posted on February 15, 2024 | Leave a comment

Does “hopeless romantic” mean that you cannot help but be romantic? That’s my impression. Could it be instead that you have no shot at ever being very good at it? Asking for a friend.

My life posture is to invest in the community I find myself in, which is far less complicated if you do not move around the country every couple of years. It is difficult leaving people and places that you love, but fully investing in a new community means, for me at least, that I cannot devote too much attention to the rearview mirror. Being wistful for days gone by can be debilitating, but every once in a while, a thought will sneak in from the past that makes me wistful anyway.

Somewhere in our North American tour after leaving Los Angeles in 2019, I’m sure it was around Valentine’s Day, I got all wistful when remembering a tradition that I developed while here in the City of Angels when I would get up even earlier than normal on Valentine’s Day, beat the crazy traffic to Downtown L.A., and snag a parking spot near the Los Angeles Flower District. The Flower District advertises “a spectacular and unequaled array of the freshest flowers, greens and fillers available, many of them California grown, along with an impressive, overwhelming selection of floral supplies.” All I know is that they have a heck of a lot of flowers and that I felt the strong need to go there each year and buy my wife roses for Valentine’s Day.

I understand that you can order flowers in many ways that are far more convenient than driving to Downtown Los Angeles, but I found that I really missed the inconvenient approach. Getting up extra early was never a problem on those occasions. There was something about the experience itself that made it wonderfully worthwhile. Not the shopping or purchasing process so much (actually, I was always utterly confused while there), but the whole idea just felt special.

This year, on our first Valentine’s Day since moving back to L.A., I knew what I had to do.

I arrived at the Flower District at 5:52am on Valentine’s Eve, utilized what appeared to be a legal parking space, and stepped into the craziness. As expected, I was soon overwhelmed. It was dark and yet colorful, and I felt like I joined a swarm of ants attacking an unattended slice of red velvet cake but that I was the only ant unaware of where I was going. I noticed lots of duos carrying long, Christmas-tree-sized cardboard boxes, and they definitely knew where they were going. I’m not sure who all was represented in the swarm, but I assume wholesalers and vendors, small business owners and growers, and maybe even silly husbands like me, although I can’t be sure. I simply wandered in and out of shops, deflecting all the can-i-help-yous until I saw what I wanted, which was news to me, too.

Was I supposed to barter? Well, I didn’t. The price quoted was less than what I would have paid ordering those flowers from the comfort of anywhere other than in-person in Downtown Los Angeles, so I just handed over the cash. Thankfully, I am freakishly tall; otherwise, getting out of the chaos carrying a large vase of roses might have been even more eventful, but by 6:16am, I was back in my car and on the road, driving home one-handed to protect my floral purchase through the burgeoning automotive ant swarm.

I made it home an hour later and proudly presented the roses to my wife, who smiled and laughed the sort of laugh that says, “I am married to a certifiable idiot, but I think he must really love me.”

Which was the reaction I hoped for.

To be candid, I don’t think I am a hopeless romantic under either definition. I like to think of myself more as a hopeful romantic—hopeful that I will be better at it along the way.

Given such a goal, I am glad to be reunited with the Flower District.

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The Answer, My Friend

Posted on October 29, 2023 | Leave a comment

The stunning natural beauty of Southern California is no secret, providing compelling reasons for the ridiculous housing prices in the form of abundant sunshine, glistening beaches, mild temperatures, ocean breezes, and rugged mountains all together in one spectacular package. Likewise, the opposing natural forces are equally well known, i.e., terrifying earthquakes, dangerous mudslides, and raging wildfires, but there is one negative that comes to mind less readily if you do not live here: Santa Ana winds.

If the popular SoCal picture is driving down PCH with the top down, a gentle breeze caressing your face, then the Santa Ana wind experience is more like having your face used for a punching bag by someone wearing clothes irons instead of boxing gloves. Seriously, imagine howling, constant, hot, dry winds, with frequent hurricane-force gusts, and you’ll get the picture.

The Santa Anas heighten wildfire fears for good reason, and they are even thought to affect the mood of the entire region. In 1938, Raymond Chandler wrote the following passage in his novel, “Red Wind:” “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen.”

The Santa Anas arrived last night and are howling as I write this afternoon.

We have been given the ridiculous opportunity to live in a tiny apartment directly on the Pacific Ocean for the past few months until we move on to campus, and it has been an awesome privilege to lie in bed at night and listen to the waves. It is truly amazing. Last night, however, we listened to the winds howl instead, and this morning I was out in the street surveying damage and retrieving the trash cans. With the sunrise, I noticed that the waves kept coming, but the powerful winds took a layer of ocean spray each time and lifted it to the sky like a LeBron James powder toss (see picture above, although it doesn’t do it justice).

Just another day in paradise.

As today unfolds, something I had forgotten about this crazy phenomenon returns to mind, and that is how beautiful it is afterward. The absurd winds seem to cleanse the sky of any hint of haze, and it looks like someone drew the horizon with a Sharpie. The winds come and go, and in the aftermath, it is more beautiful than ever.

I remember many a Bible lesson about the Greek word translated “Spirit” (that really means, “Wind”), and how you cannot see the wind as it blows, but you can surely feel it and notice its effect on things. That seems relevant to life in general as I look out my window this afternoon. The winds of life surely come and go, sometimes gentle and refreshing, sometimes harsh and destructive, but regardless, when they die down, something remains. Whether those winds cleanse us or wreck us, as surely as the Santa Anas visit Los Angeles, they surely clear out the haze and produce some clarity.

If you really want to know what is there down in the depths of your soul, like I often do, maybe Dylan nailed it when he said that the answer is blowing in the wind.

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Hooray for (Mt.) Hollywood

Posted on October 7, 2023 | 3 comments

I am pleased to report that we hiked the Mt. Hollywood Trail this morning (not to be confused with Mt. Lee of the famed HOLLYWOOD sign). To do so, we left Malibu just before sunrise and arrived in the Griffith Observatory parking lot before 8am, well before you have to pay to park there but nowhere nearly before significant numbers of folks arrive to enjoy the spectacular hike, e.g., as we approached the trailhead, a large high school cross country team was stretching in preparation for some serious hill work.

From one perspective it turned out to be an easy hike—wide trails, easy to follow, and just 1.2 miles to the summit—but the 550 feet of constant elevation is anything but simple. Case in point: The many runner passersby did not appear to be whistling show tunes. And although I refuse to complain about SoCal weather, while the weather app said it was 67 degrees, most of the trail was exposed to the sun and it was the hottest 67 degrees imaginable, maybe with our slowly approaching the sun and all.

There were fun, quirky parts of the hike, like the Berlin Forest, complete with a road sign sharing that it is 5,795 miles to Berlin, Germany, one of L.A.’s sister cities, and a rest stop sponsored by Tiffany & Company, but of course, where one can sit and enjoy a nice view of the HOLLYWOOD sign. But the panoramic views along the way were the real stars of the show: looking back down on the Observatory and Park, looking out at Downtown Los Angeles, and on a clear day like today, looking all the way to Catalina Island and the vast Pacific Ocean.

For our purposes, it was simply another nice day to be together, out in nature, seeing something special, and not to be overlooked, enjoying the beautiful human diversity found in this City of Angels. It was a good morning from start to finish.

We stopped at one point on the trail in an area ominously named Dante’s View, partly to see what was there, but mostly to stop going uphill for a minute, and in that brief moment yet another small pack of the young cross country team passed us by, and when they did I overheard one young leader encouraging his teammates by saying, “This is going to make us better.”

Well said, my young friend. Well said. That’s why Jody and I got up early today and drove across Los Angeles—to be better, both individually and together.

This morning, thanks to a young runner that I didn’t even look up to see, I was reminded that courageously pushing ourselves up the hills of life surely isn’t easy, but it makes us better, and the views from the top are absolutely worth the struggle.

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Feeling Free

Posted on September 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

I was born on Mexican Independence Day, Mexico’s Fourth of July, but for over half a century now, other than an annual “Happy Mexican Independence Day!” from my good friends, Hung, Corinne, and Kate, I have never combined the two celebrations—until yesterday when Jody and I drove to Downtown Los Angeles to spend the afternoon on Olvera Street.

Olvera Street is special. To share straight from its website, “Olvera Street, known as ‘the birthplace of Los Angeles,’ is a Mexican Marketplace that recreates a romantic ‘Old Los Angeles’ with a block-long narrow, tree-shaded, brick-lined market with old structures, painted stalls, street vendors, cafes, restaurants, and gift shops.” If that sounds lovely, the reality is even better, and it struck me as a terrific place to celebrate my birthday and Mexican Independence Day.

On the sixteenth day of September in 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costillo spoke to his little parish church in central Mexico and urged them to fight for independence from Spain, which led to his execution a year later and over a decade of fighting, but ultimately, an independent Mexico. And yesterday, 213 years after his initial “Cry of Dolores,” beautiful families gathered together, children danced in festive costumes, and Mexican flags flew proudly in the City of Angels.

It was not our first time to visit Olvera Street, but it was our first since returning for Part Two of our California adventure, and during yesterday’s visit I recalled that familiar and wonderfully unsettling sensation of feeling like a tourist in your own homeland. I have come to relish that feeling.

Now, given my personal appearance, I rarely look around any place and get the feeling that I fit in exactly. On certain dramatic occasions, like wandering through an Indian bazaar high in the Himalayas or briskly walking down a side street in Nairobi, the gawks and smiles of locals showed how apparent this was to everyone, but I feel out of place in all sorts of locations, like the cosmetics aisle of any department store, or to be honest, Bass Pro Shops.

But as I said, in a certain way, I now find that feeling almost intoxicating.

Independence absolutely has a dark side, including the colonizing mindset that views your independent self as God’s gift to unfortunate people not like you, but I felt independent in a good way walking through Olvera Street on Saturday—independent in the sense that I am not contained by familiarity, at least not anymore.

I’m not sure that I’m making sense, so let me try it this way: I felt both humbled and alive on Olvera Street yesterday, humbled and alive with the fascination of this beautifully diverse planet on which we live, and the realization that the differences all around me are better embraced than critiqued, and that in that sense—the sense of the heart—“my” people can be “all” people.

I hope that you enjoyed your Mexican Independence Day, too!

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An Emma Lazarus Poem in the Heart of Malibu

Posted on August 27, 2023 | 1 comment

She was disruptive, to say the least. A woman, scowling, mentally unstable, stalked the parking lot like a cornered tiger, roaring words at full volume toward the universe, at least half-threatening, and seemingly half-afraid. We were celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Malibu Community Labor Exchange with a big fiesta, complete with delicious food from Kristy’s, a troupe performing traditional Oaxacan dances in festive costumes, and a highly-energetic mariachi band. But, as I mentioned, she was disruptive, to say the least.

Some tried to help, appropriately, and unsuccessfully. At times, her behavior escalated toward a possible physical confrontation, and several of the workers on hand rose and drew near like tender bouncers, ready to assist. Oscar, a friend and protégé of the legendary Cesar Chavez, who for six days a week for thirty years now—that’s something like nine thousand times—has driven to Malibu from South Central Los Angeles to direct the center and handle situations exactly like this one, stood close, observing, listening, caring. At the conclusion of the dance performance, the teenage dancers shared a special dance involving pineapples, which triggered a barrage of the verbal outbursts, but the young dancers kept their composure and performed flawlessly, while occasionally darting an eye to the woman lurking at stage left. But nothing stopped the beauty of the night; and, in fact, the uncomfortable interruptions seemed somehow to complete a full picture of the three decades of the Labor Exchange in Malibu: humanity, in all its complicated forms.

I loved being there alongside workers and supporters, as always, and at night’s end was talking to Oscar who, speaking of the woman, leaned in to share with that trademark magical twinkle in his eye like he is witnessing special things in the universe: “Do you know what she shared with me when she left? She said, kindly, ‘Oscar, thank you for tonight.’”

As she stalked out into the night, alone, she said, Thank you.

I know there are many ways of making sense of the universe, but I happen to be a follower of Jesus. I have often thought of the Malibu Community Labor Exchange as a modern version of the story that Jesus told about the Rich Man and Lazarus, but at the party on Saturday night, the scene was more like the wild story where a man called Legion because of his many demons screamed and screamed at Jesus in a cemetery—or a later version where a follower named Paul had a similar encounter with a woman in Greece. In those stories, the demons got tossed out. I really wish that I could toss out her demons, too.

In the meantime, I am glad to know that there is a place right here in Malibu that is willing to offer patient hospitality to those battling demons who accept an open invitation to the party.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

– By Emma Lazarus, from The New Colossus

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The Last Bookstore

Posted on August 5, 2023 | 2 comments

“A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.” – Neil Gaiman

I went to The Last Bookstore today. Not to worry, that’s just its name. If you are curious about the name, the owner opened his independent bookstore when physical bookstores were closing all over and thought, Well, maybe I’ll just open one more anyway. That was nearly twenty years ago, and the store has now grown to 22,000 square feet. Take that, Bezos.

So yeah, I drove thirty-eight miles, one way, through summer beach traffic and into swarming Downtown Los Angeles just to go to a bookstore. What, you might ask, would cause a person to drive thirty-eight miles, one way, through summer beach traffic and into swarming Downtown Los Angeles just to go to a bookstore? Well, it’s a cool bookstore. To wit: I arrived ten minutes before the doors opened at eleven, and there was a line. Some were there, I’m sure, for its Instagram popularity, ironically, but most appeared to be my people. Book people. Awkward, strange, beautiful book people.

You should know that me and my people, and this is hard to explain, think that a bookstore is a place where invisible magic happens. We really do. Good magic, mostly, so as you’d might expect, we’d rather be there than most any place around, except possibly our own special reading spots where we take the treasures we find in a bookstore. At the bookstore, we wander slowly through the stacks believing that magic is happening all around us. We’re searching for our own magic, so we do an odd little dance, sideways shuffling down the stacks, rarely making eye contact with our fellow citizens and wordlessly exchanging places with one another like a clumsy do-si-do, respecting the magic that we know is flirting with our fellow readers, too.

We believe and do all of this because our lives have been changed, magically, in a bookstore. We have been transported back in time, and I’m talking literally, and if you don’t know what I mean, then I can’t explain it to you. We have discovered new worlds that we had never imagined and now can’t live without. We have found ourselves in a bookstore, including soulmates that were dead before we arrived on this planet but who now live with us, magically. We have lived the lives of many others, too, vicariously. Maybe vicariously. Sometimes it is hard to tell.

I went to The Last Bookstore today and left with two new treasures: Box Socials by W.P. Kinsella, and Morgan’s Passing by Anne Tyler. At the checkout, with a line behind me, the staff member wanted to talk about Anne Tyler. We talked about our favorite Anne Tyler books, and for a few moments, we seemed to forget that this was actually a place of business. Probably because we knew it was much more.

So, I’ll be back, traffic be damned. Although I may take the subway next time since I noticed that The Last Bookstore is very close to the Pershing Square station. That way I can read a book.

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What Goes Around…

Posted on August 19, 2019 | 1 comment

blog picIn December of 1993, over a quarter century ago now, I was a young high school basketball coach in Arkansas trying to come to terms with what it meant to truly follow Jesus. My struggle pointed toward the margins of society and the conclusion that I should go love people in places that others might not. Specifically, I decided to move to a major city and teach in an inner-city school, and although I had never been further west than Dallas, I chose Los Angeles.

I then went to tell my mother. That was no fun. I told her that I planned to drive (yes, drive) to L.A. on spring break to look for an apartment and return to finish out the school year before moving that summer to begin a new life. She was heartbroken. I, as you can tell, was clueless.

This was pre-Internet, at least for me, so I had no idea how to pull this off. On New Year’s Eve, I mailed a typewritten cover letter and resume to the Los Angeles Unified School District in an envelope with no street address and a zip code I must have found in the reference section of the public library. I somehow expected it would get there—by divine courier if nothing else.

I never made the trip. Instead, while at a high school basketball tournament on New Year’s Day—the same day I had dated the cover letter—a beautiful young woman introduced herself and changed my life forever. That spring break, instead of driving to L.A., I proposed marriage. That summer, instead of moving away, we married.

At some point, my letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District was returned to sender—by divine courier, I suspect, but via the local postal carrier. It remains to this day one of my prized possessions.

Fast forward to last week, and our oldest daughter accepted a job teaching deaf and hard of hearing children at an elementary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Same day, our youngest daughter—around the age I was when I sent that letter—began her post-college life using her bilingual skills at a middle school in the San Antonio Independent School District.

I don’t know what to make of any of this. Still, after so many years, I remain clueless.

Clueless, yes, but also amused at the irony of life. And proud of those two young women that I have had the privilege to teach and to love.

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L. A. Extra

Posted on February 4, 2019 | 2 comments

rams game (2)Los Angeles has taken the Noah’s Ark approach to professional sports by lining up teams two-by-two in professional baseball, basketball, hockey, and football, and during the past eleven years while I have called L.A. home, one franchise has at least made it to the championship game(s) in each respective sport. Kobe and the Lakers won the NBA Finals in 2009 and 2010. Quick and the Kings hoisted the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014. Kershaw and the Dodgers came up just short in the World Series in 2017 and 2018. And just in time to round off the set before I head to Music City, Goff and the Rams go and give the Patriots a run for their money in the Super Bowl in 2019. Not a bad record for a single city.

So I don’t complain about L.A. as a sports city—the quality and quantity is really amazing. The only odd thing is that (rabid Laker/King/Dodger/Ram fans notwithstanding) there is so much going on in this great American city that Sports-mania never really takes over the town. It would be crazy to know how many Angelenos were unaware that the Super Bowl was yesterday—I suspect far more than there would be in other smaller market cities with a team in the big game.

This is neither bad nor good—just odd—and I attribute it entirely to the sheer size and diversity of Los Angeles. Over 100 million people watched the Super Bowl yesterday, a mind-boggling number, but even crazier is that over 10 million people live in Los Angeles County (a recent graph showed that 43 states have a smaller population than L.A. County!).

So there’s a lot happening here. That’s one of the things I have really enjoyed about living in the City of Angels. But it is possible to miss remarkable things happening in your own backyard because there is so much going on.

There’s your life lesson: Keep your eyes open. The extraordinary is all around us.

 

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VaLENTine’s Day

Posted on February 12, 2018 | Leave a comment

a85ca8954783df5e6278101ff626bdde--valentines-dayFor those keeping score at home, Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day arrive simultaneously in just a couple of days, thus providing the rare opportunity to dump a boyfriend or girlfriend for Lent. Bad idea, of course, but it’s on the table.

I, on the other hand, am forever in love. I have now spent half my life with Jody and am just getting warmed up. My Wednesday plan is to get up crazy early before the traffic gets ridiculous and drive to the Flower District in Downtown Los Angeles to pay jacked up prices for flowers that we will manage to destroy in a matter of days. It is our tradition, and we are hopeless romantics. (Or at least hopeless.)

Oh, I could order flowers, sure. That sounds convenient and makes sense on multiple levels. But love isn’t famous for making tons of sense. It does, however, have a reputation for doing things that seem a little silly. Count me in for the silly.

Now that I think about it, Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day make a fantastic combination. True love requires sacrifice. What will you give up for your love? In the spirit of the holidays, and just for starters, I will kick the day off by giving up good sleep and money and logic for another chance to say I love you.

Happy VaLENTine’s Day.

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The Homeless Count

Posted on January 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

FB_Shared_1I set my alarm at 4:15am last Thursday and predictably objected on multiple counts when the time arrived to rise and shine. But it wasn’t just the oppressive hour. My head pounded and my body ached after a terrible night of sleep, and the day ahead was scheduled to end seventeen work hours later. That I should stay in bed was obvious, but I slowly eased up and out of bed anyway and arrived at Our Lady of Malibu Catholic Church by 5am per my commitment.

I wasn’t alone. There were 25-30 volunteers there, including my friends David, Reese, and Steve from church, along with an impressive spread of coffee and pastries. I don’t do coffee, and I should not do pastries according to gastrointestinal feedback, so I declined the goodies, which surprisingly included the option of chocolate pie for breakfast. Or whatever the 5am meal is called.

After registration and a training video and a couple of speeches from law enforcement personnel, we were divided into groups and sent out into the morning darkness to conduct our portion of the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. We church buddies found our way into a group all our own and armed with a flashlight, clipboard, map, tally sheet, and bottled water we drove to Point Dume and Zuma Beach to do our part to provide accurate numbers so that much-needed services may be distributed appropriately.

David drove, Steve navigated, Reese tallied, and I contributed insightful and entertaining conversation (or at least that’s what I told myself). We noted some homeless individuals, automotive “homes,” and located one encampment in our designated area. We were four of over eight thousand volunteers that turned out across Los Angeles to serve in this capacity this year.

I wish I could say that I got out of bed on Thursday out of the goodness of my heart, but it was undoubtedly an awful lot of guilt instead. How do you really convince yourself that you can’t get out of your warm bed in your spacious house to count homeless individuals because you feel sick and had a rough night’s sleep? I couldn’t figure it out on short notice at least.

And I wish I could say that this small bout of volunteerism revitalized my health and produced a day full of rainbows and cotton candy, but I felt pretty terrible all day long. Seventeen hours later I made it home and went straight to bed. And as I crawled into bed feeling achy and chilled and generally crappy, my first thought was of those folks who were homeless again that night. And how they probably felt.

So I’m writing a blog about it for no particular good reason.  A blog entry surely doesn’t make a difference. It would take a national commitment to collectively end homelessness, and don’t hold your breath. There is no national conversation, much less commitment; instead, there are mostly local conversations across the nation as to how to push homelessness into the next community.

But there are individuals who are engaged and trying anyway. I am impressed by those doing something to make a real difference one person at a time despite the odds. Maybe someday, I, too, will have that sort of courage that reflects the counsel of Mother Teresa who said, “Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.”

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