Out and Out Dread

 “Never let the weeds get higher than the garden.” Tom Waits

Kids are back in school, at distance, through digital pipes that bring their teachers to them on screens. Covid-19 is still here, people are still wearing masks, nine blocks of State Street are still off limits to vehicle traffic. The outdoor eating areas take on a more permanent aspect. After six months it still feels somewhat surreal, and it’s definitely spiritually and emotionally draining. 

By itself the pandemic is enough of a disturbance and worry, but America is on a slippery slope and I find it impossible to ignore the incessant political noise. It’s more than fear and loathing, it’s dread, out and out dread. Our racist president cannot bring himself to speak the name Jacob Blake, shot in the back seven times by trigger-happy police, or acknowledge the murder of two people at the hands of a teenage vigilante. Trump can’t do that, but he can ramble on about property damage and the threat Black Lives Matter protesters pose to delicate white women; he can spout nonsense about “dark shadows” from the Left who control Joe Biden. Trump, a coward pretending to be tough, has nothing but praise for law enforcement. Trump’s racism is as blatant as his ignorance and corruption. Racism is what propelled his political run in the first place, it’s the only card left in his tiny hand, and he will play it because racism has always been a reliable political tool in America. 

Out and out dread. Inescapable. No savior, no miracle, no intervention from a benevolent god. 

Judging by the amount of construction going on, Santa Barbara’s building business is still healthy. While there are many empty storefronts on State Street, the renovation of the Paseo Nuevo Mall, no longer anchored by Macy’s and Nordstrom, is nearing completion. That looks more and more like a losing bet. Why pour money into a mall when malls are becoming obsolete, relics of another era? Near the building where I work, the corner of Santa Barbara and De la Guerra Streets, two new buildings are rising from their foundations dug twenty feet into the ground. Every inch of both lots used. Three stories, underground parking, white stucco and red tile. Piece of paradise for those that can afford the asking price. 

I can’t. 

For me SB is a town full of ghosts, vague memories, shadows. My wife can remember very specific details from high school, I can recall very few. That time was a blur. It felt endless while it was happening, but soon was far in the rearview mirror. I left SB in 1977 and didn’t return for good until 1988. A lot happened to me during that time, and a lot was starting to happen in SB. By the time I returned, my hometown had a different vibe, and that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. American Riviera, baby! Wine country. Home of Hollywood stars, Oprah, Jeff Bridges, etc. SB had long been a sleepy tourist town, but it became a destination. Come LA. Come Europe. Come Japan. Come China. Come one, come all, let’s have a fiesta! And come they did, and come they do, even in a pandemic.

Now the narrow brick building that houses The Pressroom, an iconic watering hole beloved by soccer fans, is in jeopardy, its fate in the hands of developers and the planning commission. You see, SB needs more elegant-downtown-white stucco- tiled entryway-wrought iron balcony-red tile housing for the deserving wealthy, and that is what is proposed for the block. Might spell the end for yet another local institution. The Pressroom might survive a move, but there’s something about that particular block, the shape and contour of the building itself, the interior, where the barstools and tables are, the spot outside where smokers gather. It’s a one-off, dependent on the space for its particular atmosphere. Would Harry’s Plaza Cafe be Harry’s anyplace but Loretto Plaza? You can’t manufacture character, character is built over time, by surviving through the years, changing and adapting as needed, but never at the expense of essence. 

Money. The way the economy is structured, money never stops looking for growth opportunities. Finance people and developers know a desirable city like SB is a good bet, a magnet for money. If you build it, someone will buy it, rent it, lease it. The developers may have local ties, deep ones in some cases, but money has a powerful pull and a logic of its own. After much hand-wringing by local officials, money usually wins. 

Lost at sea, seven miles south of Purgatory; the sails are torn and our flag is in tatters. Looking into the gloom an old sailor says what most of the crew is thinking: “We may not see land again.” 

The Isolation Diaries No. 30

“Those jobs will all be back.” Donald J. Trump

Another lovely day in Santa Barbara. The wind kicked up and chased the marine layer from the sky. I rode my bike to the office where now anyone entering the building must wear a facial covering. One of the contractors working on the heating and cooling upgrade never wears a mask. He looks like the kind of person who would say, “I don’t need a mask. It’s just the flu, and I never get the flu. It’s totally overblown.” Part of Canon Perdido street has been repaved, but the lane lines are yet to be laid down. Next door to the office a new building is under construction, a monster that runs from property line to property line, not an inch wasted, and rising three stories. Offices and apartments. Luxury living in beautiful downtown Santa Barbara. Mountain views. Across De La Guerra street, another project is underway and the street is blocked off to allow heavy equipment room to operate. I watch a man bust chunks of a sandstone wall with a sledgehammer. I hear the sound of hammers, saws, diesel engines. 

Whatever you believe about Barack Obama, the facts prove that his administration was one of the cleanest in modern American history. No scandals. No pornstars. No Russian agents.

As I ride my bike around there seems to be more activity, more cars, and more people out. A loosening of the net. But stores are closed, some retail spaces already wear For Lease banners, and the Nordstrom store that anchored one end of the Paseo Nuevo mall for decades has announced it will not reopen. We bought a lot of stuff at Nordstrom over the years, from shoes to cosmetics to jewelry to clothing. No Macy’s. No Nordstrom. No Forever 21. Who will fall next? I still believe that the majority of the general population has no idea what lies ahead. We’ve been hit hard by Covid-19, but the right hook coming from the economic collapse will send us reeling. 

Don’t ask me, ask China, says Donald Trump before he scurries from an uncomfortable press conference. An Asian-American woman half his size tried to hold Trump accountable. Donald hates accountability, whether in business or his personal life. Strong women frighten Donald and he doesn’t know how to react. He likes his women flashy and dense, not professional and determined.  

The crime is obvious to anyone, says Donald Trump, referring to a make-believe conspiracy called Obama-Gate. I don’t know any details about Obama-Gate, other than it’s likely manufactured from the detritus of fevered imaginations. Whatever you believe about Barack Obama, the facts prove that his administration was one of the cleanest in modern American history. No scandals. No pornstars. No Russian agents. Obama’s reign was clean and mostly efficient; while I don’t agree with how he did it, I recognize that he kept the nation on the rails in 2009 and 2010, when the rigged housing market collapsed and the paper economy buckled. 

“We have met the moment and we have prevailed,” says Trump, like a gladiator. According to MSNBC, 81,468 deaths and more infections than any other country. Testing per capita still trailing, though Trump insists that We Are No. 1. The CDC guidelines for safely reopening society are ignored by Trump himself. 

The US has five percent of the world’s population and thirty percent of coronavirus cases. MAGA, baby, this is the “transition to greatness”. We’re going to come roaring back like a locomotive in the third quarter. It will be beautiful, tremendous, like nothing anyone has ever seen, the world will envy us. 

Trump has never failed this spectacularly. This is the apex, the pinnacle, the room at the top of the world, the Emmy and the Oscar and the Tony, a diamond-studded Super Bowl ring, the Masters Green Jacket, the World Cup trophy, and the Olympic Gold Medal of Trump’s long run as a huckster and conman. Trump is the Meryl Streep of con artists, a man of the media age, where facts and truth are overrun by images and simplistic plot tricks. He didn’t just ratfuck a casino or an airline this time, he ratfucked an entire country. Trump knows the sales pitch, the slogan, the mirage, but nothing else. When the shit goes down, he cowers away, hides behind bogus lawsuits and bankruptcy protection. Trump’s a punk who thinks he’s a big boss. 

I miss soccer, it’s like a void. Marcelo from Real Madrid just turned 32, but it seems like he’s been at Real forever. Same with Sergio Ramos. Both are great players, fun to watch. This long hiatus must drive top players crazy. They are like racehorses, primed to gallop, not be cooped up, even if that means cooped up in luxury. 

May. The merry month of May. The mail carrier is wearing blue latex gloves and a face mask. It’s May in the time of Covid-19. It might be May on the edge of the abyss. 

It’s May as far as we can see. 

National Emergency: The Long Death of America's Soul

“The even larger problem is that a chronic complacency has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing real to anyone -- except their friends on the Google jet and those nice people at Goldman.” Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion

For me, living in America right now is like watching a train wreck in super slow-motion. The daily insanity coming out of Trump and the Republican Party, the outright cruelty, racism, stupidity, intolerance, corruption, and incompetence is real, and yet, unreal. It hasn’t directly impacted me yet, or the city I live in; Santa Barbara is still gilded, full of well-to-do, smug hipsters, wine bars, craft breweries and gourmet noodle shops, upscale boutiques, and yoga studios. Like they do elsewhere, the rich live well here. The City debates the scourge of electric scooters and the fate of the Paseo Nuevo shopping mall. The latter is a big deal because the Paseo anchors the State Street retail core and a large space once occupied by Macy’s has been vacant for nearly two years. The City and the Paseo’s operators have struck a deal, a lease extension in exchange for $20 million in renovations and upgrades and some dough for services for the homeless -- presumably to keep them away from the Paseo during business hours. The renovations are said to include fire pits and a bocce ball court. When I read this I burst out laughing at the absurdity, but this is the Age of Amazon, 1-click satisfaction, and retailers must resort to all manner of gimmicks to lure people into actual stores; not only do they have to sell products, they must provide the customer an “experience.” No wonder this country is so fouled up. Mindless and endless consumption is our true religion.  

The Orange Menace, unable to garner support by legitimate means for his vanity wall, has declared a National Emergency and will pursue his personal Moby Dick without the consent of Congress or the citizens, who overwhelmingly oppose this monument to racism, xenophobia and fear. The only emergency on the Southern Border exists in what remains of Trump’s fevered brain. His insipid declaration will wind up in the courts, but Trump will no doubt claim a great victory anyway. That’s how he operates, always characterizing his failures as big wins. His gullible followers cheer and wave their red MAGA hats. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, a man as debased and detestable as Trump, backs the president’s play though he probably understands that the courts will throw a spanner in the works -- which will allow Mitch to shake his head and say, what can you do about the courts?

God, how working people in this country have been had, played, manipulated, lied to and betrayed. We let the neoliberals destroy unions, ship jobs overseas, create powerful monopolies, and privatize the commons upon which we all depend. We are overworked, underpaid, spied upon; our votes are almost meaningless, if we are able to vote at all. America is an oligarchy, owned and operated by the rich for the rich. How many of the people who represent us in Congress are multi-millionaires? You think they care about working-class people? They never have. Not Bill-I-Feel-Your-Pain-Clinton or Barack-Hope & Change-Obama. Not Nancy Pelosi. Definitely not Chuck Schumer. With a few rare exceptions, the American working class has given the game away without a fight. We lost our sense of solidarity, allowed ourselves to be torn apart and divided, pitted against one another by neoliberal promises of great jobs manipulating data, boundless opportunity for entrepreneurship. In the meantime, damn near everything we need -- medical care, education, child and senior care, clean water and air, basic services in our cities and towns -- have been privatized by the relentless force of capitalism. The rich and corporations declared a tax holiday for themselves many years ago and barely pay any now compared to what they ponied up in the 1950’s and 60’s. The result? Massive income and wealth inequality, with just a handful of people owning as much wealth as the other half of the entire nation. This is a massive, legal but immoral shift of wealth to people who need it least. Read Martin Luther King, Jr., he knew, he saw it coming and he called the rich out. Then he was killed.

The oligarchs have hijacked our language. Profit, loss, cost-benefit, branding, leverage, synergy, curating, thought-leading, though-partnering bullshit that has spread like a virus. Public agencies now talk like corporations. It’s despicable.

We are down to one functioning political party -- and the Democrats function at a low level of effectiveness because their leadership is corrupted by money -- a bad spot for a so-called democracy to be in. The GOP is now a criminal gang, forcing their minority views on the majority of citizens, giving the government away to special interests, lobbyists, and the Pentagon, which devours about 57% of our total federal spending, an obscene, unjustifiable amount that benefits resource extractors and defense contractors and all the other parasites who suck at the War Machine’s teat. Our wars go on and on and the citizens could care less because too few of us pay attention and none of us are being drafted. The Trump junta is right now doing everything it can to gin up a war against Iran, a nation that isn’t a threat to the United States or any other country at the moment. But taking Iran out has been a wet dream of the neocons for decades. Wars of choice, people, how fucking insane is that?

I once thought that despite America’s very checkered history we were a country with a decent heart and soul, that though we had the capacity to do tremendous harm, and frequently did, waging war wasn’t our first inclination when faced with a problem. I thought there were some things we agreed on, like the dignity of work, a fair wage, reasonable security from want, care for our young and our elderly, a shared sense that we were together. No more. Capitalism has destroyed America’s soul because it is a soulless system. We have become monstrous, deluded, cruel and belligerent. Trump’s bloated, snarling face is our face. America is in its death throes and our democracy is soon to be completely extinguished.  

Crazy, Cruel & Venal: Another Week In TrumpLand

“In American the quirk was that people were things...A slave girl squeezing out pups was like a mint, money that bred money.”  Colson Whitehead

The United States is failing in so many ways that it’s mind-boggling. The slow-motion train wreck continues to unfold, one ghastly image heaped upon the last, from terrified migrant children to the idiotic Melania, to the scowling visage of Stephen Miller. This nightmare can’t be happening, and yet it is, the dark, slimy underbelly of America exposed for the world to see, though most nations have understood for decades the brutality of my country. Except for the Vietnam War in the 60’s and the Nixon Administration, I can’t remember the country being so divided against itself, so full of hatred and fear.

The Trump junta is crazy and cruel and venal, playing to a small base of the misguided who don’t know where to direct their ire. Trump’s diehard supporters continue to believe -- against all evidence -- that their man is working for them and that their circumstances will improve, as the Orange Menace promised. That they won’t is a foregone conclusion. Trump and his cronies and family members are making everything worse for the many, as I knew they would. Kleptocracies serve the very few, and only the very few. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, Trump spreads chaos and confusion. He clearly enjoys doing so. Immigration, trade, foreign policy -- there may be some twisted method to what Trump says and does -- but usually his actions seem driven by whim and pique and caprice.

I was listening to Thom Hartmann on the radio the other morning, on my way to the dojo for a kickboxing session, and he was talking about the many ways the people who own and run this country operate. They could never succeed by coming straight out about their aims to reduce regulation on corporations, slash corporate and personal income taxes, bankrupt the social safety net, and keep wages low. Wouldn’t fly and the owners know it. They have to wrap their true aims in claims about murderous immigrants, dangerous Muslims, welfare queens (who are invariably African-American), drugs and drug dealers, morale decay and decline whose only cure is personal responsibility (thus no welfare check without a job), and the Christian church, prayer in public schools, etc.  We elect scads of politicians who spout these sentiments and then once in office, vote to cut regulations on corporations, slash taxes on the wealthy, gut social programs, and punish the poor. Bait and switch.

Short Takes:

Belgium and France are playing reasonably well in the World Cup, Mexico is through to the Round of 16, and Germany is back on track after some late heroics from Tony Kroos. Great, entertaining stuff. Brazil and Argentina are lurking, too. Portugal, as it did in the Euros in 2016, finds a way to advance. The number of Mexico supporters who travelled to Russia is astounding. How do they manage it?

This week I’m reading The Bonanza King by Gregory Crouch, Reporter by Seymour Hersh, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and Rendezvous with Oblivion by Thomas Frank. And the Lady and the Monk by Pico Iyer. Some of these I will review for the Santa Barbara Independent, my other job that brings me a lot of satisfaction and allows me to meet interesting and accomplished people. The day job is a necessity and I’m OK at what I do, but books and ideas feed my soul.

Earlier this year the local media reported that the annual Solstice parade (one of SB’s major tourists draws) might not happen due to lack of money. The fires and floods, road closures, loss of life and general disruption had dried up donations. The parade came off yesterday, though the Solstice organization was literally pushing a giant black hat mounted on wheels up and down the street, while volunteers angled poles with bags tied on the end into the crowd, hoping to come away with a few bucks. Bills to pay and all that. It costs money to block off streets and pay the police and clean up the mess afterwards. It’s always difficult to tell at street level, but the parade didn’t appear as well attended as in the recent past. The marine layer was thick and the sun never broke through.

Sinking into a Sea of Fire

Another week in TrumpLand. As far as I know, the US hasn’t launched another barrage of cruise missiles at Damascus. How many times have I heard right-wing politicians moaning about “entitlement” programs, but then do a 360 and vote to give the Pentagon and the defense contractors even more money for more bombs? Most of my adult life. War after war after war. The list of supposed enemies of our country is long. We always have money for war, death, destruction, it’s a profitable enterprise, addictive as opium. Meanwhile, there are tent cities in places like Los Angeles, in the shadows of sleek high-rise office buildings; children that go to bed hungry, water that is poisoned. Average people care about these things, but the political class serves other masters and doesn’t care, not even a little. Profit is paramount, making money; money is power, influence, juice, respect, the ultimate in human achievement, the only worthwhile measurement of a human life. Trump wants to up the volume of US arms sales to the world, exceed the heights reached by Barack Obama; Trump must best the black man or the deep inferiority complex he carries everywhere will swallow him.

Keep the peace by making war, by creating a river of refugees, by killing children. Has this country always been depraved, all of my nearly 59 years; did I simply not want to see? Through the Nixon presidency, the first I was really aware of, Ford, Carter, Reagan (who reigned when I was serving in the Air Force overseas and believed that the USA kept the world safe for democracy), both Bushes, Obama, he of the silk tongue and hammer fist, and now this madman, Trump, who launched missiles at Syria for reasons other than those stated to the American public, who he cares not a whit about. No real effect on the Assad regime, of course. Trump thumped his man-boobs and felt virile. Draft dodgers often get orgasmic on war, having never faced the terror and stupidity and absurdity of it, been the target of bullets and bombs, flying metal, glass, plaster, arms, legs, viscera, brain matter.

These days. Heavy. Like being on a ship that is slowly sinking into a sea of fire, but powerless to stop it. The captain is on the bridge, mad as a hatter, a blend of Ahab and Queeg, barking commands as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening, as if the lower decks aren’t taking on water, drowning poor passengers; on the luxury deck, under the crystal chandeliers, booze flows, food is plentiful, music plays, waiters in white coats step lively, beautiful people shimmy on the dance floor, diamonds winking in the light. The rich people on this level can’t hear the screams of the people below, and even if they could, it wouldn’t move them to relinquish an ounce of their privilege, which they believe with all their might is deserved, earned, justified, even if handed to them on a platter, even if ill-gotten, made off the sweat or gullibility of other human beings.

That’s what it feels like. Not drowning yet, but the threat hangs on the horizon, always, a gray smudge that only grows darker.

Short Takes:

Just finished reading and interviewing Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, a wonderful novel that seeped into my skin. Doerr is a friendly, down-to-earth guy, wonderful to converse with, and a fine writer.

I can’t believe the amount of building activity I see around town these days; the new stadium project at Santa Barbara High, the condo complex rising near the Santa Barbara Bowl, more condos down Milpas; backhoes, cement trucks, a huge machine that slices perfect lines in the street, skip-loaders; I think of money flowing into SB from other places, Los Angeles, New York, who knows? Money has no home these days. Money moves through the ether, ducks, dodges, takes refuge, hides, stands out, blends in, invariably finds the pockets of the very few.

My Chelsea boys have won two straight away league games for the first time in 2018, and are trailing Spurs for a Top 4 place by five points. I still believe Chelsea will finish fifth, where we belong, because we have played inconsistent and sometimes maddening football this year. Too many matches lost against sides we should beat, home and away, a dismal, fearful, abject performance at Man City, a loss at Old Trafford, a loss at home to Spurs. Not enough goals scored, too many let in by a defense that has often been shambolic. Antonio Conte has moped on the touch line, his face pinched, all the joy and passion sucked out of him. Game in and game out, he can only depend on N’Golo Kante and Cesar Azpilicueta to put in a shift.

J. Edgar's Ghost

“The FBI took a shotgun approach to target and harass protesters partly because of its belief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps toward the possible ultimate commission of an act which might be criminal.” 1976 Senate Report on the FBI

The FBI has come up with a new threat, BIE, which means Black Identity Extremists. Echoes of cointelpro in the 1960’s and 70’s when the FBI spied on civil rights activists and leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. If you actively protest the killing of unarmed black people by white police officers this might make you a “black identity extremist.” If you march, picket, hold a sign at a rally or follow Black Lives Matter on social media you might land on the FBI’s radar. Are black human rights activists -- because that’s what we are really talking about here, human rights -- a threat to the republic? More than the resurgent KKK and white supremacists armed to the gills? As far as I can determine, Black Lives Matter doesn’t advocate for the wholesale killing of white people; it’s goal is to stop the unjustified killing of unarmed black people by police officers.

What is missing in all the media furor over presidential condolence calls to the kin of fallen service members? Put aside the Orange Buffoon’s idiotic blathering -- by now we should know that Trump will always say the wrong thing, then lie about what he said, then attack someone when they question his lie. The question not being asked is why the United States deploys military personnel to places like Niger. Why are we there? Why are US military forces still based in Japan and Germany, Italy and England and South Korea and Turkey? Why are US soldiers in Kuwait? Why is the US still in Afghanistan after 16 years of futility? These are the questions that should be asked, debated, and justified.

Such a debate will never happen. The empire is a force that can only be perpetuated, never questioned. The military budget is sacrosanct. To argue against military spending is to be branded as someone who “doesn’t support our troops.” OK, I don’t, because I see America’s military power as a destabilizing force in the world, a force that is used to impose America’s brand of cut-throat capitalism and market domination.

The temperature soared to 102 degrees in Santa Barbara yesterday, a record, The heat was thick, oppressive. I watched the hills for signs of smoke, but thankfully saw none. The winds were calm. I sat on the deck with a cold IPA and listened to a podcast on FAIR.Org. Inside the apartment every fan was going full bore but having no real effect. I thought of the memoir I’m reading, For Love of the Dollar by J.M. Sevrin, an undocumented immigrant’s tale of survival in the northeast of America in the last decade of the 20th century, around the time Disney was scrubbing Times Square in NYC, making the area safe for tourists and small children. This made me think of the gentrification happening here in SB, on Haley Street and along Milpas, big projects on small lots, with limited parking and the usual exorbitant price tags that no wage worker can afford. Across the country affordable housing is in short supply, but in SB the supply is infinitesimal. The retail corridor on State Street is struggling mightily, and losing, the battle against behemoth Amazon and many storefronts sit vacant, windows staring. City fathers and mothers and the merchant class lay the blame for State Street’s woes on the homeless, demand the police run the homeless off to places where they can’t be seen by tourists. Out of sight, out of mind, but still a problem, only for someone else. The five mayoral candidates talk about leadership, vision, water, and housing, but the problems faced here are much larger than any of them will admit. The SB I was raised in died many years ago and is never returning. Another foodie joint, craft beer hall, wine bar or yoga emporium isn’t going to save the city.

And so it goes.

Under the Cobalt Sky

Most of the country is snowed under or enduring freezing rain, but here in Santa Barbara it’s a balmy January evening with a full moon rising over the Lobero Theatre. My wife and I are walking down State Street toward the beach with no particular destination in mind, out mainly because we don’t have our kids and the evening is too lovely to spend indoors. Tourists and pods of young people pass us by, a panhandler plies his craft without much success, and a street musician strums a beat-up guitar.

We stop before a vacant storefront and struggle to recall what had occupied the space. I think it was a jewelry store but my wife remembers it as a place that sold imported bric-a-brac. Not often being in need of bric-a-brac, imported or domestic, I can’t say if she’s wrong or right. We move on, enjoying the air and the cobalt sky. The recently shuttered Borders book store looms before us, hollowed out and empty, outlines on the carpet and walls where display shelves once stood. Across the street Barnes & Noble has also closed, so except for the venerable, cozy Book Den on Anapamu Street, downtown Santa Barbara is without a bookstore. I know my wife is also contemplating the demise of downtown bookstores; over the years we spent many, many pleasurable hours browsing the stacks in Borders and Barnes & Noble and it’s hard to imagine our downtown without a major book retailer.

“Our downtown” is perhaps overstating things because, in my opinion, downtown SB hasn’t belonged to locals like us in a long time. SB was a town but has been transformed into a travel destination, hawked in glossy magazines and on the Internet in the same way advertisers sell soap or beer. Brand recognition. The American Riviera they call it. Santa Barbara Magazine makes it all look beautiful and refined, clean, safe, a charming paradise where life is fulfilling and rich, and unpleasantness has been forever banned.

I’m old enough and have lived here long enough to remember JC Penny, the White House, Lerner’s, Lou Rose, OTT’s, the lunch counter at Woolworth’s, the Earthling Bookstore and the Copper Coffee Pot – all relics of memory now. My wife reminds me of the many banks that lined State Street in our childhoods, which brings to mind Crocker Bank, where my mother once worked as a teller. How long ago did Crocker Bank close its doors? Twenty-five years at least, perhaps longer.

A hazard of living in the same place for many years is watching it change. Whether the changes are good or bad depends on one’s sensibilities. Businesses and people come and go, landmark stores and eateries close their doors, slip into memory and become fodder for conversations that start with “Do you remember…?”

We continue strolling as the moon climbs to mingle with the stars, lost in reverie and nostalgic feelings for childhood and a bygone era, and the trance holds until our senses are assaulted outside Abercrombie & Fitch by pulsing music and the overpowering smell of men’s cologne. Abercrombie, Juicy Couture, Old Navy, Macy’s, Nordstrom, GAP, Betsy Johnson, Restoration Hardware and Banana Republic, big name retailers that have displaced locally owned mom & pop stores. Some might call this progress, and they would be right, of course – cities either change or perish—but it leaves me feeling alienated from the main street of my hometown.

At Cota Street we cross to the other side of State and head back uptown, past the fountain near the Metro Theatre where a kid with matted hair and a dragon tat on his chest asks for change. He smiles politely when we decline to aid his cause; I’m sure he has no idea that Crocker Bank ever existed or that SB boasted a Woolworth’s with a lunch counter. He may not even realize how quickly the present becomes the past.

But his moment will come.

Fire, Fire Everywhere

The Tea Fire shut the Balcony down for a few days, focused
all attention on the here and now, on the direction of the wind,
the temperature and the latest count of homes destroyed

Helicopters chugged overhead like a war zone, only now fighting devil winds and unforgiving heat

The moon turned orange, soot blanketed our cars; the home of a friend went up, an aunt lost everything in less time than it takes to drive to Ventura

Power went out and we fumbled for flashlights and candles as sirens cut the smoky darkness; the blaze jumped and skipped across dry hillsides, laughed at the men who gathered to make a stand in million dollar cul-de-sacs

Rich and poor got the same treatment, not from God but from the hand of careless Man

Drunk maybe, stoned maybe, or maybe just giddy with Youth, playing with fire in a field of tinder; an errant ember latched onto the devil wind’s breath as the sun slipped from sight

One spark to one bush to one tree

And then a car and a house

And another and another, and the sky dripped flame while the wind ran in circles, herding sparks to still more bushes and trees, unstoppable now, an insatiable force, indiscriminate, uncaring

Disaster on Thursday, disbelief on Friday, despair on Saturday, destitution on Sunday

Survivors poke through the rubble in search of miracles

Viva!

It’s Fiesta time in Santa Barbara and the city is geared up for brisk tourist business, catering to wide-eyed Europeans flush with cash, out-of-towners here to enjoy Flamenco dancing and overpriced tortas. Most locals head for the hills when Fiesta rolls around, or, if they stay in town, do no more than check out the happenings at Our Lady of Guadalupe church, where the scene feels organic and authentic and one isn’t likely to see many Caucasian guys wearing silly sombreros and shouting “Viva La Fiesta!”

Again this year, the “El Presidente” is a pudgy Caucasian fellow with a European surname.

Fiesta wasn’t always such a big production around here. True, the event has always had a commercial angle, though in the old days it wasn’t as crassly commercial as it is now, but then again, the entire U.S. economy grooves to a crassly commercial tune, twenty-four hours a day, so why should the good merchants of SB (most of them now upscale corporate chains) miss an opportunity to hawk their wares? If some German tourist is willing to lay down $10 for a watered-down house margarita, and $25 for an official Fiesta T-shirt, what’s the problem?

Our Spanish heritage is hailed without getting into the messy details of what the Spanish did to indigenous people during their reign. Instead of an imperial campaign for God, Gold, Guns, and Genocide, the arrival of the Spanish in SB is placed in a benevolent light during Fiesta; the Spanish were decent folk who came to spread the Good Word and bring civilization to the heathen. OK, maybe some Indians croaked laying adobe bricks for the Mission, but on the whole it was a worthwhile endeavor, right? Maybe a few Indians didn’t cotton to the new arrivals, didn’t appreciate their style, and made it a point to say so and were summarily beaten to a pulp, but that was the exception, not the rule, the work of some bad apples. Just like Abu Ghraib a few hundred years later, right?

But despite the commercialism and the historical myopia, it’s still sweet to see the kids in the parade, and the dancers who work so hard at their art. For a few days these events take our minds off the failed Occupation of Iraq, the crumbling economy, and the nastiness of the Presidential campaign.

So bring out the mariachis and let’s get our collective Viva on!