Heat

The temps soared to 98 in Highland Park today; there’s no AC in the house and although there are ceiling fans throughout the living room area, there’s no such thing in our bedroom and the small space is like a sweat box this evening. If any of my L.A. people have an electric fan they can spare, please hit me up. Funds are going to be tight this month since I need to purchase our own internet connection for the laptop and pay off a few personal loans related to the move. If anyone can recommend an affordable wireless internet card for laptops (a package that does not require clean credit), please pass that along as well.

This afternoon we strolled down the hill to Classic Burger on York Boulevard for lunch (excellent), purchased three tee-shirts at the T-Shirt Warehouse in the mini-mall anchored by the 99 Cents Store, and headed back home, whereupon Lela swept spider cobwebs off the front porch and I enjoyed a few Bud Lights with Gabriel and Robert across the street, a couple of colorful forty-something working-class stiffs that I have fallen in with since moving in two weeks ago (more about them later). Overall, we love the neighborhood — friendly, earnest, warm-hearted people just trying to get by. It’s a nice feeling sitting on the front porch with my coffee every morning and getting a friendly wave or shout-out from my neighbors as they go about their day.

Here in the flatlands of the street we live on, nestled up close to Figueroa Boulevard, the neighborhood is predominantly Latino; but as the road climbs upward you find the remodeled and somewhat gentrified enclaves of Anglos who drive by in their BMWs and Toyota Prius’s with their windows rolled up tight and their eyes fixed intently on the road ahead. It’s a comical sight, really; as my friend who owns the house remarked today during a phone chat, “You can hear their assholes tighten up as they drive by.”

We are not in Las Vegas anymore, that much is certain — for one thing, as Lela pointed out this afternoon, there’s not a video slot machine standing between us and the person we’re trying to converse with.

Glendale 2011

Last weekend I strolled Brand Boulevard in Glendale, my old stomping grounds, and was frankly astonished to witness that very little had changed; all of the storefronts were pretty much the same with one exception: the massive, two-story Borders Books had been shuttered for good; there was one other change that was instituted by what my friend Walter referred to as “the smoking Nazis” — smoking is prohibited on public streets.

Searching for the Poet, written for L.A. Stories in July 2006, was a glimpse at one of my typical downtown Glendale shopping experiences five years ago …

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Some people get compulsive about the series finale of their favorite TV show. I get compulsive about books. It’s all relative.

Back in May of 2004, the latest object of my literary obsession was Michael Connelly’s 1996 novel “The Poet”, to date the only stand alone novel the former Los Angeles Times crime reporter had penned after a series of best-selling thrillers starring fictional LAPD detective Hieronymous “Harry” Bosch.

There’s a decent Borders Books and Music on Brand Boulevard in Glendale, as well as new Barnes and Noble further east on Glendale Boulevard. But the life of a freelance writer sometimes excludes paying full cover price for books so I avoided the trendy and pricy Borders and Barnes and Noble and headed instead to Brand Bookshop.

Pushing through the glass door of the book shop I spotted over my shoulder a very large black man. His hefty frame practically burst through the olive-colored fatigue jacket he was wearing. His black jeans were encrusted with stains of various sorts. His shock of scruffy black hair was infused with a streak of silver. He was neither menacing nor inviting. He might have been one of Glendale’s numerous homeless. He pushed through the door of the book shop right after me.

I gave a perfunctory nod to the elder shop clerk behind the counter, made a right turn after the bins displaying vintage LPs, and headed into the long side corridor that houses the shelves stacked floor to ceiling with used paperbacks.

The black man loitered on the main floor of the book shop.

“May I help you with something?” I heard the clerk kindly ask the man after a few moments.

I had found the Mystery section of the used paperbacks. Every damn Connelly novel was there – all dog-eared, some in better condition than others – except the one I was looking for.

“I’m looking for a particular book,” I heard the black man huff in reply to the clerk’s offer of assistance.

“Do you remember the name?”

“Of the book?” the black man asked. As I emerged from the used paperback vault he was standing in the center of the room, rubbing three fingertips through the wild mane of beard falling from his chin. “I don’t remember the name of the author or the name of the book. It was a long, long time ago that I read it.”

The shop clerk seemed amused.

“Time sure does move fast, doesn’t it?”

I gently navigated around the black man’s impressive girth to make my way for the exit.

“Here it is, almost the end of May already,” clerk continued. “Yep, time moves fast.”

As I started out the door, I heard, over my shoulder, the black man’s terse response.

“What I think it is,” he pronounced, “I think it’s all this technology we have now making time move faster.”

I shuffled through the door without a word or glance at either man and headed south down Brand Boulevard. It looked like I would have to pay full cover price for ‘The Poet’ after all.

Updates Tomorrow

Sorry for the radio silence of late but things are still hectic after the move. Heartfelt thanks to all who have contributed to our moving fund, which went a few hundred dollars over budget (Pay Pal is rodger_jacobs@yahoo.com); we’re still walking a stinging straight razor financially until May 8 but I’ll update events tomorrow, Tuesday, at some point, to add greater detail.

But, all in all, man, bad or good, broke or rich, it’s great to be back home in L.A.

Los Angeles 90042

Today was our first full day in our new community, which is not, according to most maps, quite Highland Park, nor is it Garvanza, which is two blocks away, across the street from Luther Burbank Middle School. It is simply Los Angeles, 90042.

We are quite comfortable in this tight-knit, working-class community (our neighbor, Martha, has already strolled across the lawn to introduce herself); Lela spent most of the day unloading boxes from our U-Haul truck, which is due back tomorrow with a gas refill that I fear will put us in severe arrears where our moving budget is concerned.

In the days ahead, I have three new California-centric writing grants to apply for: one is the California Arts Council’s Arts and Accessibility Technical Assiatance Program grant, which provides funding for travel to exhibit, showcase, or perform an original work within the state of California (with funding also provided for purchase of supplies, equipment, etc.); for that grant I am thinking of a reprise of my Kerouac show, The Ragged Promised Land, for Vesuvio Cafe in October of this year.

Next, the California Council for the Humanities has re-opened grantmaking for their California Story Funbd project, this year “for projects that address the meaning of democracy.” I’m still working on my pitch for them. As for the third grant … to be honest, at this late hour and as tired as I am after the long day and drive yesterday, I’ve completely forgotten what it is.

The point is that for years I have encountered writers who subsist on grants in order to complete and/or create projects and have always wondered how one gets a foot in the door. Now, thanks to relief grants from the Authors League Fund and the ASJA, I have grants to “build off of” for other grants and programs for professional writers. It’s time consuming but it’s a wholly creative (and about 40 percent business) enterprise.

We had dinner on our first night back in L.A. at Mando’s Family Restaurant on Figueroa Boulevard, two blocks from our new home; it’s a hole-in-the-wall dive with a menu of Mexican and American dishes, situated in a small strip mall with a thrift store, an excellent donut shop owned by a Vietnamese family, a check cashing and Western Union store, and an establishment that sells bottled water, baseball caps, and phone cards. The food at Mando’s was cheap — it’s a working-class neighboorhood, again, so their customers are pinching pennies — and damn good food, too. Lela had carnitas that was smoked and roasted and fork-tender. I opted for a traditional steak and eggs, also excellent, both meals for $6.99 apiece.

The living situation we’re in for the time being is unique: we will only be subsidizing half of the cost of utilities and no rent, which allows us to save money for the first time in five years so we can find something of our own; because of this unique offering, I will be in the position to repay, in full, any donations that may come our way to help defray the extra costs in our last-minute move from Las Vegas to L.A.

So far we are a little more than $200 in the hole and my monthly disability check does not arrive until May 3; the fuel refill for the truck tomorrow will bottom us out, leaving us with less than fifty bucks for the next ten days. If you can donate anything — a sawbuck, a twenty — let me know if you require repayment; it may take about three weeks but you will be reimbursed. Pay Pal is rodger_jacobs@yahoo.com and the U.S. Bank donation account set up for us in the wake of The New Homeless story for the Las Vegas Sun is still open.

Thank you.

POSTSCRIPT: As I glanced at my cell phone a few moments ago to check the time (12:58 AM) I realized that I also have to purchase for more air time; apparently, I’m down to five bucks; that’s a $15.00 minimum for air time and minutes, though I may switch over to a flat-rate plan of $60.oo per month with unlimited calls and texting (AT&T). So there you go … another expense rearing its head.

Daring Escape!

 As of 8:30 p.m. PST, April 20, 2011, we have officially landed back in Los Angeles via Highland Park after a long and exhausting journey fraught with strong winds in the desert, fog in the Cajon Pass, a broken wireless USB adaptor thanks to clumsy moving assistants — which required a detour to the Target store in South Pasadena, only to discover that there are no wireless hot spots in our immediate neighborhood, so there goes twenty-five bucks out the window but the tool will eventually come in handy – and a rushed lunch at Carls Jr. in some wind-blown pit stop off the highway. Lela greatly enjoyed her tutkey burger, a new menu item arising from CJ’s new affiliation with Men’s Health magazine.

According to my post-journey financial calculations, our escape from Las Vegas cost us more than the $770 that was originally projected, thanks in no small part to fuel prices and the detrimental effect that driving directly into strong winds has to do with fuel consumption (an equation I’ve never quite understood but the truth of it is undeniable).

So the immediate upside is that we do not have to fret over where our rent money is coming from this week; the downside is that we have to make do until May 3 with less than $100. But, for now, we’re here, damnit, we are free of the Budget Suites, the Fiesta Casino Sports bar (well, that was my vice every so often), the cheap gas station mini-marts, Wal-Mart as our only outlet for groceries, and an absolute absence of intelligent human beings to engage in a discussion unless said conversation is taking place over a video slot machine.

Quite compellingly, the Las Vegas Sun expressed absolutely no interest in assigning a fourth and final installment of my New Homeless series (Leaving Las Vegas … I know, an obvious title but still in keeping with their original conception of the series) as we were on our way out the door. Too bad. I really could’ve used the flat-rate $350 that the paper would have paid for the story but sticky, internecine newspaper politics got in the way, if I’m reading the tea leaves properly and I think I am.

There is much, much more to share about our journey of the last 24 hours — hell, the last week — but it is 2:23 in the ayem and the air is still outside and birds are enjoying a late-night melodic discourse in the trees and, goddamnit, I’m back in L.A. and away from a town that should never have been, save for a federal dam project and a Jewish east coast mobster with the unlikely monicker of Bugsy.