Every day something disappears, NY to LA to SF

 

 Every day something disappears, NY to LA to SF 

Feb 20

Everyday something disappears. 

That's part of being alive. 

Things change. 

Things we care about disappear. 

Leaving town, I started seeing notes about congestion pricing. 

I've lived in New York for decades. Always knew we needed some way to reduce congestion, get people onto public transit, support renewables, decarbonize, fight climate change, etc. Worked for years and years on this. Watched it come and go and come and go many rounds. And I got an email from Transportation Alternatives:

Dear Ben,

“Yesterday afternoon, President Trump instructed the U.S. DOT to cancel federal approval of congestion pricing. And in the two hours that followed, we rallied a massive force at Grand Central to oppose this dangerous, totalitarian, and unlawful order. Can you support the fight to save congestion pricing? Congestion pricing is exceeding all expectations: New York is seeing fewer cars, more foot traffic, fewer people injured in traffic crashes, more businesses moving in, even skyrocketing sales on Broadway and better tips for yellow cab drivers. Our city’s future rests on what we do next. Here’s how you can help: Call Governor Kathy Hochul. Thank her for defending congestion pricing and ask her to stay strong against Donald Trump: 518-474-8390”

Every day something disappears.

I’m holding and letting go and holding and letting go.

The kids are long out of town, by way of Boston and Los Angeles, where I flew last Thursday, walking out of the apartment at 315 AM, strolling into the cold, chatting with the homeless guys on the train on the way to JFK, arriving in LA a few hours later, walking out into the sunny morning, blue skies, sun out, strolling the mile to the #6 bus on Sepulveda to Westwood, where I met the college kid amongst the cool college kids, roaming about, carrying their laptops, writing and planning on their majestic campus there.

The kid in class,  I find myself thinking of lost worlds, Navalny’s last days, the long ago days, of “Dancer from the Dance,” Andrew Holleran’s story of  a lawyer immerse in a queer counter public,  vibrant, often chaotic gay 1970s New York City, between East Coast, West Coast, sometimes one person changes everything. Only a few years later, the cancer the author worries about is consuming his friends, arrived in town, changing everything. 

That was the San Francisco I arrived into in 1992.

Been going ever since.

But first a stop in LA, where the kids tell me stories about the fires. 

Hanging tough with my old homie, in her new haunts, buddies everywhere... poems on the walls... 'death is a social construct,' says one on the wall in her suite. 'You are my other me. I do harm to myself.  I love you and respect you. I love and respect myself....' The students here tell stories about growing up in Tokyo and Hong Kong, even Long Beach, getting arrested or beaten up at the student encampment here last spring, running from fires, ravaging their town.  LA lives.

We go out into the night, eating Sushi, exploring a loopy Japanese market, take in the pingpong tournament, and sleep.

Feb 21 and 22

Los Angeles

Ahh glorious, strange Los Angeles, where the flight took off as the shuttle was trying to find it. I wander back to the number six bus back to Westwood. The driver didn't stop. Eventually, I found my way back to campus. The trees leaned and loomed outside the sculpture garden.  We took another bus for Korean food, and waited to get inside a tiki bar, called the Don the Beachcomber, ordering Ray’s Mistakes, a concoction of “1. Passionfruit · 2. Bitters and Falernum and Pineapple Juice · 3. White Rum and Cheap Gin · 4. Soda, Lime, and Ice · 5. The Secret Ingredient: honey syrup.”

A wild ride, as the hot day turned into a freezing night. Ahh LA.

San Francisco

Feb 23

Wound our way out of Westwood, to LAX, north to SF, train to CIvic Center, down to SOMA, up 7th, across Jones, past the dreamers and harm reduction programs, past a mural memorializing the trans riot at Compton's Cafeteria, home of the Compton Trans Riot of 1966, in the Tenderloin district, a response to the violent and constant police harassment of trans people, particularly trans women, and drag queens, across  Kearny to Stockton, old hotels and stories, past the Green Door, up to Chinatown, around to Vallejo to Cafe Trieste, was here the college kid wrote poems, as Harold and company used to. There, Molly and Jane and I talked about the Brooklyn Dodgers, and poets living and dead, and Flatbush, and  soon enough James joined us and then we talked with Vale about Diane DiPrima at City Lights, and then met Dion in the Castro and the conversation continued into the night.

Feb 24

Sleep, finally sleep,  I woke up early after the first full night of sleep in days. Ron and I walked out on the beach in Pacifica, watching the surfers. And joined  Laurie, who I last saw in Hong Kong, at 11am in a little park called Parque Ninos Unidos, 23rd St @ Treat.

There, Laurie wrote,

"Most of us start the prep work there at 10:30, then we give food out 11:30-12:30. Around 11 we do a circle and check in with everybody, introduce new volunteers, etc. So it'd be perfect for you to join us at 11. Then. After we're done with cleaning up (1ish), we'll drop by Tree's garden a block away. After that, we can head to Delores Deluxe (10-min walk away), where my jazz jam is.

At the garden we met friends Sam and Jeanie, who still live at the commune, says Laurie,

"The commune was founded by Irving Rosenthal, who published Kerouac and Ginsburg...https://www.nytimes.com/.../books/irving-rosenthal-dead.html…

After some music, we walked to the Castro to join Dion and the teenager and for hearts.

“Whose broken the hearts?” asks Dion, a metaphor for everything, playing cards all afternoon.

And Dion and I made out way to Twin Peaks and Little Orphan Andy's meeting his tribe, a cute Irish bartender, a friend who was at Twin Peaks the night it opened in 1972.  We talked about his best friend, my moms, Truman to Harper, his beloved friends, their stories, gossip, who did what, sex jokes, stories about Columbus, Ga, Mom’s Mom, getting away from all that. finding something else, in ourselves, in this left coast city, continuing a conversation we've been having for years, decades and decades.

Between cities, at the airport, I found myself flipping through the old City Lights poetry collection, I’d picked up on Saturday, thinking about the weekend, reading 

“the touch of marvelousness” by Philip Lamantia, a sense of wonder enveloping me. 

“The mermaids have come to the desert

They are setting up a boudoir next to the camel

Who lives at their feet of roses…

I am looking beyond the hour and the day 

to find you Bianca.”

So am I.

Feb 25

On the way back, I think about the world ... everyone pushing back in big ways and small. The trainwreck is happening.

I heard about Roberta. 

Oh my, oh my... no one took us to that high and lonesome place like her. There is a scene in tongues untied, between violence and hate, and racism and homophobia when the protagonist. On the sidewalk, beaten after a gay bashing, sees a face. And her quiet words, "the first time ever i saw your face" fill the screen. And everything changes. Sometimes they were never the same. Oh my.  RIP Roberta.

 

 

 

 

Little Orphan Andy's