Welcome to the blog of writer and musician Andrew Martin. Here I'll post original photographs and observations as I encounter the history and culture of the San Fernando Valley, the City of the Angels, Alta California and the far-flung Pacific Rim… but mostly the Valley.
I went for a walk around NoHo looking for some cheer this 5th of November. Didn’t find any. It’s not just quiet, it’s eerie.
This is the normally one of the busiest corners in the Valley. Everyone seems to be expecting riots or a civil war to start tonight. Damn everybody who puts up plywood, especially these former porn studios. I think all the fear of a rebellion is snidely performative, a way to make a casually racist statement of power. Feh. As if any protest would instantly target these places for revenge looting! Grow up, scaredy-rabbit Buddhists. You’re in NoHo. The most interesting sight was a broken-down homeless-home jalopy, overloaded with survival supplies, slowly coughing down the backstreets, looking for a free parking spot to crash for a few hours, days, weeks. Sigh.
As I walked the weather went gloomier too. Dad’s birthday, too. Came home and am fretting the results of the Election in the garden, giving in to the gloom, with a Beefeater martini, very dry.
Trump’s already declared victory. I didn’t have to call in Sybill the Soothsayer to predict that. But I should’ve checked with her, before putting my faith in the salvation asteroid we were promised. It didn’t show up yesterday. We’re not in smithereens right now. Sweet death isn’t saving us. There was no Election Day firestorm of rebuke from heaven for our shabby values, and there is no liver-eating eagle to chastise us for setting fire to nature ourselves. We’re not going to “All Go Together When We Go.” Science, wisdom, knowledge, and all the whiz-bang fantastic computers we have, didn’t help us. Neil DeGrasse Tyson has feet of clay.
The heavenly asteroid wasn’t the only no-show, the Blue Wave also failed to roll in with the tide. Maybe it’s still out there off the continental shelf, gathering strength, waiting to roll right in to shore and lift all boats, inexorably, progressively. It seems more likely Red and Blue will just go on sparring for weeks to snatch whatever vague schizophrenic upset victories they can for their sides, and we’re back where we were four years ago. Except this time, we’re broke unemployed sick lonely isolated and terrified. We can’t fool ourselves that hard work will help, or a better policy will be crafted, or smarter minds than ours are thinking of the future. Reading, blogging, building social media platforms, marching, organizing, calling strikes, reading the constitution or meeting together in small groups to discuss what we’d like in our NEW Constitution, all are a waste of time. Instead, go re-read Anna Karenina, or maybe spin a yo-yo on the beach. Where Trump leads, he’s leading with even bigger margins than last time. OK then.
The promise of the asteroid was that we wouldn’t have to go to all this embarrassing trouble about counting every vote for or against fascism, pretending “the system still works.” Whatever that even means, when the system elects bigots, gun nuts, Q-Anoners, eccentric millionaires, TV creeps and moronic closet-cases; and it can’t even do that without cheating and shutting down ballot boxes and dirty tricks.
Why read the news? Why keep up on the amazing discoveries of medicine for the rich? Why worry about the endangered species? Why struggle with one’s own racism, or bother to understand how a new, fairer economic plan just might save Creation for our kids? Why pray, make, dance, sing? Just pour the coffee. Pick out a pair of jeans that go with that shirt. Feed the cats. Despair until dinner. Fret before bedtime about the Republicans and the Court’s imminent and well-discussed plans to repeal your life-line health care sometime before Christmas. Sleep fitfully; repeat.
Damn those false asteroids. Raising people’s hopes.
Janet, who voted weeks ago (and made sure I did too) turned up like a patriot on the couch at 4pm to witness the results, or really, the Election Night Pre-count Analysis. Janet is representin’ USA, and also demonstrating what really is at stake for her, and for all of us in this election. She looked so adorable I had to take some snaps. Votes For Women!
100 years ago. Damon and Janet dreamed up this lovely tribute to the Suffragists, the women who gave themselves the vote.. You’ve come a long way, baby!
When we lived in Venice we voted on the beach, at the Lifeguard Station. Larry Freedman gets to vote at the Hollywood Bowl. But imagine — some lucky stiffs downtown get to cast their vote in the serenity and splendor and perfect social distance of the old Ticketing Room at Union Station. If I lived in that precinct, I would certainly not have mailed my ballot this year. I’d want to go in and do it, just for the feel of it.
The Valley Village View 