In Washington, a president is sworn in to another term while his daughter professes her allegiance to the Dark Lord. Meanwhile, today is a strange, smoky day in Los Angeles. On La Brea towers pluck cars from the stretch of curb below Santa Monica. And an aggravated man grabs copies of LA Weekly and hurls them into the intersection, creating a blizzard of newsprint across the asphalt. Security guards from the shopping center watch and laugh.
Last week, a similarly off-balance man walks up to me and Deep as we stand and talk in front of Groundwork on Cahuenga. He aims his hands at Deep like a Magnum and tries blowing him away. His skin flakes horribly and he sways a little as he draws his bead on us. He shambles off then, but Deep sees him a couple days later. The man walks past an innocent bystander and stops and hits him in the face. For no reason. Guess he was out of bullets.
Sometimes I think of this place as a weird, complex machine with innumerable working parts, whose boundaries always shift, whose thirst drains the soul and whose every nook, crevice and rift are home to a howling mad ghost.
