“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.”
