Venice is a Poem

By Mary Getlein

I walked on the beach, the sun was shining brightly, sweet winds blew over our heads. We looked up: sea gulls riding wind currents over our heads! I was so astonished! It was so beautiful!

I was so glad I finally got to California. My boyfriend came back from a summer in Santa Cruz ranting about how he had to go back and did I want to go, too? Did I want to go? Leave Richmond, Virginia, where at 3:00 am it was 101 degrees? HELL, YES!

We ended up in Venice in October, 1971. October days were so warm and beautiful. The ocean was a deep blue and the sunsets were magnificent. The place was swarming with hippies. Everywhere you looked, you saw hippies. People smoked dope openly in front of the cops. I walked around with my mouth hanging open – there was so much to see! It was like an every day carnival. There were belly dancers, and snake people that would dance with huge pythons. There was an incredible mix of talented artists and musicians. People here were so friendly and FUNNY – probably because the majority of the population was HIGH at any given time.

In 1971 people had not heard of “political correctness” yet, so things could get ugly very fast. Police were called pigs openly, and a lot of people challenged the police on a daily basis.

My second apartment in Venice was at 17 Ozone Avenue, and there was a head shop right at the end of Ozone. It was there that I picked up my first copy of The Beachhead. It was very radical and printed all sorts of rants and raves about the political mess we were in at the time.

Its politics reflected the view of the Venice community. We wanted to save this oasis of beauty and warmth for ourselves. Why not? Not many people wanted to live in Venice then, too “dangerous”. It was perfect for hippies. Low, low rent and barters and exchanges made it possible to live a happy life and not spend too  much time working. A giant hippie playground, with cute little restaurants and eating places to hang out in. Another thing we had then was benches. Lots and lots of benches along Ocean Front Walk. Also, the old pagodas were built of wood, so you could sleep on them. The city purposely replaced the old, homey pagodas, with new ones built with concrete benches to sit on, which are not very comfortable.

On the Ozone side of the Boardwalk, there lived a lot of Jewish survivors of concentration camps from World War II. They were fun to hang out with and hear stories of their lives.

There was Harold’s Bakery, where you could get a loaf of bread for 25 cents. Ruthie, who worked at Harold’s Bakery, was so sweet and kind to all of us crazy hippies. You could get a potato knish and it would fill you up all day.

We all loved The Beachhead and looked forward to the new issue coming out. I liked the fact that they published so many poems and promoted so many radical views. The idea of Venice Cityhood was really strong then. If you go back and read the old issues, you see the problems and you see the solutions.

The ‘70s was the emergence of free clinics, free legal services, domestic violence shelters, Women’s rights, Chicano rights, the Black Panthers, The Grey Panthers, Vietnam Vets Against The War – it was a time of self-discovery, and a back to nature movement. The Environmental Movement was approached on a crisis level – Save the planet right now!

The rents in Venice were  incredibly cheap, so for $100 a month you could live in a tiny apartment right on the Boardwalk, where you could listen to the ocean day and night. There is nothing like seeing a harvest full moon hang in the sky at 3 o’clock in the morning.  This place splashes us with beauty every time we turn around.

It was very beautiful in the ‘70s, but there was also a lot of drug abuse, battered women, and lost or forgotten people ending up on the streets. There was a free box on Brooks Avenue, and you could go there and leave clothes, or food, or even joints, and pick up what you needed.

There was a lot of violence that happened on the Boardwalk. A lot of street gangs fought over drug territories, just as they do now. I always say, “It’s still Venice”. Just because all these yuppies have moved in here and jacked the rents up and turned Abbot Kinney into Melrose Ave, doesn’t mean the drug/gang problem has gone away. There are still victims of shootings in Oakwood and other parts of Venice. In the ‘70s, people would beat each other up, or a gang would beat up one guy, and the police were never there. And in the 1992-94 gang war in Venice, the police response was nil.

Now it’s the year 2012, and The Beachhead is still in front of the issues, taking them on, again and again. “Support Your Local Artists” used to be a slogan that was used a lot here. If you claim to love this community, then spend your money here. Put up, or shut up. Artists can’t live on dreams. They need to pay bills and eat, too. This place is crawling with artists, poets, musicians and lovely, tolerant people. It’s also becoming global – you can’t even eavesdrop on tourists anymore, because they are speaking in German, French, Japanese, etc. Venetians who have lived here for years are usually very tolerant with a highly developed sense of humor. You have to have a sense of humor when you live in a carnival.

Venice has always been a party place, a bohemian place, a runaway oasis, for far too long to change now. We will always be a place for people to run to, even if all you can do is sit at the edge of the world and stare at the water.

You move here and you become a sun worshiper and an ocean worshiper, and all the other things leave your mind. A slogan of The Beachhead is “This paper is a poem”. Well, this place can be a poem too.

Chariots Coming to Venice

By Greta Cobar

The Hare Krishna Festival of the Chariots is the world’s oldest religious observation, and this year marks the 36th such celebration in Venice. Called Ratha-Yatra, the festival is a celebration of the Deity Jagannath. People attend the festivities to catch a glimpse of Jagannath, whose statue only comes out of the Temple during this festival.

“Birth class determines who may or may not enter the Temple in Puri,” according to Sthavira-Bhakti Dasa, a Hare Krishna Pujari, or priest. The statue of Jagannath from the Temple in Culver City is brought out for the parade in Venice.

Although similar celebrations are held throughout the world, the largest of them all takes place on the East Coast of India, at the Temple in Puri, and is attended by three million people. Three richly decorated chariots commemorating the annual journey of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balarama and their lady Subhadra are pulled through the streets of Puri. Those chariots are five times bigger than the ones we have here, in Venice.

This year the Hare Krishna Festival of the Chariots takes place on Sunday, August 5, with twenty thousand free vegetarian food plates, music, dancing, and parading.

“Make all those poor people go away, Daddy!”

By Mary Getlein

Well, sweetness, we are doing the best we can – we’ve made it illegal to sit in the sand after midnight – that probably gets rid of a bunch right there. It’s illegal to feed them. It’s illegal to give them money. It’s illegal to talk to them. We have to isolate them – it’s the only chance we have. We don’t want to end up like them, do we?

So we turn people invisible. All you have to do is be poor, and people can’t see you.

Sometimes I hang on the beach and there is this big mound of bread delivered to the poor. What’s sad is, there are so many older people who rely on this. At the end of the month, when everyone has spent all their money, the bread goes very quickly. And many older people are disappointed, and don’t get any bread. Google and other companies notwithstanding, there are still hidden “pockets of poverty” all through Venice. It would be nice if we could help people in- stead of trying to get rid of them.

You might miss out on a great friendship with someone you wouldn’t ordinarily meet. The poor have a lot to tell you, but you don’t want to hear how it feels at the bottom rung of society, right before they come and take you away, for being crazy in public. Not eating regularly, not having enough water to drink, living on the streets, in a car, or in an alley, that life takes its toll on you. It’s hard to stay sober when you’re trying to “make it through another day.”

This country has so much money, wouldn’t you agree? We need shelter for our citizens. We need to stop criminalizing people for being poor. We need our beach back. Our beach was ripped off by the L.A. City Council and “closed” from 12 am to 5 am. The Coastal Commission says every Californian has 24 hour, 7 days a week access to the beach. What is Ven- ice Beach without the beach?

Criminalizing people and throwing them in jail only creates money for the prison system. Every time

they move a prisoner (from jail to court and back again), the State gets charged. It should not be a crime to be homeless. The real criminals are the banks, which led a lot of people down a pretty path to economic ruin. And yet our country bailed the banks out. They need to bail our citizens out of poverty, persecution, and fear. We have a caste system in place and we don’t really care what we do with the “Un- touchables,” as long as we don’t have to look at them or see their reality.

Venice needs to have more input with the deci- sions that affect Venice. Most of the citizens of Ven- ice are not on the side of the “homeless haters.” Most people are able to put their prejudices aside and see the person there, not the cartoon figure they have in their mind of what a homeless person is supposed to be. 

Big Wheel Keeps on Rollin’ – Over Venice Residents

By Greta Cobar

Do Venetians want a ferris wheel installed in Windward Plaza, between the police substation and the skate park? Judging by the emotional comments made by Venetians at the March 5 community meeting, the answer is NO.

Great City Attractions (GCA), a company operating out of Scotland, is eager to install a 200-ft, 320-passenger wheel providing 14-minute rides for $15/person. The profits would be split between the GCA and the city of Los Angeles. Venice would get more tourists, less parking, increased traffic and the trash that usually follows all of the above.

Scheduled to operate twelve hours per day, seven days per week, the wheel would be able to accommodate more than 16,000 riders per day.

While locals were firm that Venice is full to capacity with tourists, Nigel Ward, GCA representative, maintained that the wheel will attract only the people that are already here as opposed to drawing in additional visitors. However, according to Ward himself, the number of visitors to the National Railway Museum in York, UK, increased from 700,000 to 900,000 subsequent to the installment of a GCA ferris wheel.

Ward also stated that GCA currently has 5 wheels in operation and that it has completed “over 30 successful wheel projects” in the past. However, their wikipedia page mentions only one operating wheel.

According to the GCA wikipedia page, the company went into receivership in Beijing after breaching the conditions of a loan. The same source also indicates that GCA allegedly embezzled money in Berlin and it was thus named in a report lodged with the prosecutor’s office.

“They are unaware that their wheel is leaving their town,” said Ward when asked where the wheel proposed for Venice is coming from. Although unable to tell us its current location, Ward informed those present at the community meeting that we will not be getting a new wheel.

The wheel would be set on a 75×60 foot platform and it could be installed in ten days and taken down in a week, according to Ward. When asked about strong winds and earthquakes, he said that “if the wheel fell over, there would be nothing left of LA by then.”

While trying to re-assure the outraged audience in his heavy Scottish accent, Ward did not seem to understand basic logistics of Venice. For example, people come to Venice to smell the ocean and escape their air-conditioned cubicles, not to sit in the enclosed, air-conditioned capsules that his wheel would provide.

Furthermore, Ward’s wheel concept would include a VIP wheel capsule serving champagne. When asked how he is planning to obtain an alcohol permit inside a city park, he proved to be unaware that in this country we have such a thing.

Safety-wise, there is a reason why the Santa Monica ferris wheel is placed parallel to the ocean as opposed to perpendicular, like the one proposed for Venice, which would maximize wind resistance and therefore its likelihood of falling over. Also, the Santa Monica wheel is only 82 feet tall, while the one in Venice would be 200 feet.

And why would we need a wheel in Venice when the one in Santa Monica is only two miles away, offering an almost identical view, half of which is the ocean. Why doesn’t the GCA put its wheel somewhere with a better view, more parking, and in need of more visitors? Not for lack of such location.

Piggy-backing on Venice’s coolness to make a profit is not news to Venetians, although the Scots might have felt ingenious to come up with such a popular location, where tourist scarcity is not an issue.

The California Coastal Commission (CCC) will have to approve the proposed ferris wheel, which does exceed the height limits set by the CCC itself. In addition, the wheel would obstruct the view of the ocean, which is also against the CCC’s regulations.

The company proposing the wheel is applying for a 3-year permit, with what many locals see as likely extensions after that. If history is to be learned from, we should remember that the Masonic, V-like sculpture currently standing in the Windward Plaza was supposed to be there temporarily. So was the Eiffel Tower, by the way.

Venice is already overcrowded with shoulder-to-shoulder pedestrian traffic, with Windward Plaza being the most crowded spot in the area. While I understand why GCA would choose to put their wheel here, I don’t see how we will be able to access the bike path and why we wouldn’t choose to live downtown if we wanted to stare at a 200-foot man-made structure instead of taking in the immensity of the ocean.

Please call the CCC at 562-590-5071 to voice your concerns about the proposed ferris wheel.

Zev Comes to Venice

By Anne Alvarez

Have you ever wanted to ask a city official: “Can you provide an accurate accounting of the money generated by the City-Owned, County-Operated parking Spaces in Venice – and where is the money being spent?”

That is  what  VNC  member  Jake Kaufman asked Zev Yaroslavsky L.A County supervisor and guest speaker at Venice Neighborhood Council’s (VNC) monthly meeting.

To which Yaroslavsky did not have an answer, however the following day his office sent this response to Kaufman: “ Kerry Silverstrom from (L.A County Dept) Beaches and Harbors said they only manage the three lots in the sand (Washington, Venice and Rose). Those spaces generate roughly $3.5 million in annual revenue, and is used to offset the cost of operating the beaches.

“The County maintains the beaches the City has jurisdiction over them and the  California Coastal Commission (CCC) plans and regulates the use of land and water in the coastal zone.

The CCC had this to say about the OFW ordinance when asked about it by the Beachhead in February: “The city does not have any approval from the CCC to implement the ordinance.” And according to Yaroslavsky  the city is solely responsible for implementation,in particular the L.A.P.D.

Another prevalent subject at the meeting was the issue of homelessness. Yaroslavsky, known as one of Los Angeles leading political advocates for homeless issues, created a county pilot program in 2008 called Project 50, aimed at identifying and providing permanent housing to the 50 people most likely to die on the streets of L.A.’s Skid Row.

Many criticized Yaroslavsky’s efforts, including his colleagues; however since founding the program, 130 people have been placed in permanent housing and provided with a wide variety of social services including medical treatment, mental health counseling, rehab, job training and placement.

Other cities have replicated similar programs, including Santa Monica, the combined number of people permanently sheltered by all cities is 640 including participants in Project 50. The program’s success inspired the Veterans Administration in co-ordination with Yaroslavsky to create “Project 60” using the same methods to help homeless veterans in Los Angeles.

According to the Supervisor’s Senior Field Deputy Flora Gil Krisiloff and co-creator of Project 60  “since its inception 120 extremely sick and fragile veterans have been placed in permanent housing.”

All of this has been done in conjunction with  Ocean Park Community Center in Santa Monica, St. Joseph’s Center in Venice, Hollywood’s Step Up on Second, and  San Fernando’s Valley Mental Health Center, all of which help to identify and treat the homeless veterans, whom are then housed with VA vouchers.

This January along with Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas, Yaroslavsky helped  establish The Los Angeles County Interdepartmental Council on Homelessness(LACICH), whose goal is to bring together the County stakeholder departments and agencies to coordinate the County’s efforts to end homelessness in the community.

Yaroslavsky was asked about the recent mistreatment of  dozens of homeless people who lost their personal belongings when  a homeless encampment at 3rd Ave. between Rose and Sunset Avenues in Venice Beach was raided, he stated that was the city not the county’s doing as he is not a fan of sending in the police to harass homeless people. He added “you’ve got a problem in this community which needs to be addressed NOW” there’s a gentle way to go about this, in a civilized way.

When the county is involved in cooperation with the L.A.P.D, we ask people to decamp and gather their belongings by a certain time, if they don’t, we gather their belongings and store them at a facility in Marina Del Rey where they can later be retrieved.

Yaroslavsky said there are two main concerns pertaining to homelessness: 1. We’ve got to find permanent housing 2. Solving the problem here and now,  this is something the community needs to come together and figure out. He made it clear that he thinks transitional housing doesn’t work as he feels the money spent on such services could be applied towards finding the homeless permanent placement.

Other matters addressed to the Supervisor was the gridlock that recent construction has brought to our area as well as the public health issue of broken restrooms, to which Michael Tripp from department of Beaches & Harbors (DBH) responded, “we are in charge of the sand and the parking, the city is in charge of the bathrooms.”

In response to a question about fixing the Venice parking lot, Tripp assured Venetians that “DBH is trying to have repaving complete before summer season begins.”

When asked about a possible run for Mayor in 2013, he replied “I have not made a decision and as soon as I do I will let the world know.”

When asked if he supports the effort to save the Venice Post Office from being moved from its current location, he said yes.

If you are interested in finding ways to help the homeless in our community, you can contact:

Zev Yaroslavsky at (213) 974-3333 or e-mail zev@bos.lacounty.gov  500 West Temple Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012

For issues pertaining the city ( public restrooms, OFW ordinance). Bill Rosendahl at 310-575-8461  or councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org

Beach parking lot issues contact: Department of Beaches and Harbors at  310-305-9508  Vivian Sanner (parking unit) or e-mail  beaches.lacounty.gov    

Venice in the 1970s

By Sam Schatz

I moved to Venice when I was 17 years old from freezing cold Pennsylvania. It was the weather, the ocean, and the bohemian lifestyle that made me fall in love with this little part of Los Angeles. Back in the early 70’s Venice was the bohemian nexus of Southern California, much like the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco was to Northern California.

During those days, many small California bungalows were for rent. These small homes were originally built as beach homes for people who lived inland. Most of these bungalows were laid out in a plot or two of land in a rectangle grid like configuration, two rows of 3 or more bungalows from street side towards the back of the lot in a row with a strip of grass lawn separating the two rows of bungalows. Due to the proximity of each bungalow, neighbors would get to know one another well. The rent was $85 to $95 per month. I remember a single family home on Millwood Ave. and Palms Blvd. selling for $16,000 to $18,000. A larger corner house sold for $28,0000. Those were the days.

I lived on California Avenue about a block from West Washington Blvd. (now known as Abbot Kinney Ave.) with my sister, Amy, in 1973. I ended up living in Venice for the next 25 or more years. The local public library was at the corner of California and Electric Ave. Also, at this time, the “Babe Brandelis Brig” bar was owned and run by the ex-boxer Babe, and his wife Betty. I knew the Brandelis’ pretty well. Obviously, Abbot Kinney has changed a lot.

Generally, Venice was home for artists, hippies and a good contingent of the gay and lesbian community. Everyone commingled and got along pretty well. In the early seventies, there were drugs, bikers and gang activity. However, all of these elements were what made this area exotic and alluring.

A very interesting area was the canals. The homes there now are 3 story modern designs that cost millions for someone to own. The canals have been dredged, manicured and detailed. In the old days, bungalows dominated the canal area since the canals were filled with sediment and were mildly odiferous from lack of maintenance. Every year, there was a large multi-block “block party” known as “The Canal Festival.” Everyone opened their homes for the long weekend party. There were bands and dancing. Artists would display their pieces as people would gather to party, people- watch, and enjoy. I’ll never forget someone made a lot of real grain alcohol at 150 plus proof. That was a first for me. Another first for me was when my friend and I asked this beautiful peacock feather and other elaborate accessories decked transsexual if we could use his restroom. The transsexual owner of the home was leaving and told us, “No problem, go in the door and down the hall.” My friend and I were from a conservative town and had never been exposed to gay people. As we approached the bathroom door, we stopped and glanced into a bedroom to our left. There was a large orgy in progress and the participants beckoned us to join upon noticing our arrival. We kind of freaked out and fled from the house and into the afternoon. As I lived, interacted, and made many friends over the years of different races and in the gay world, my homophobia dissipated.

Six months after arriving in Venice, I met Rosa, a wonderfully wild Italian gypsy dancer. Some of you old timers may remember her. We fell for each other and I rented a great large studio apartment right on Ocean Front Walk near Clubhouse. I built a platform bed above the front door. There was a large radius window at the head of the bed. I painted over the window and left an oval porthole unpainted so that we could peer out upon the ocean and people.

Rosa was an amazing dancer and all the people at the beach loved her. There was a group of conga drum players that would gather at the pagodas and pound their tribal beats all afternoon. Rosa made friends with the group and would dance. Sometimes, some of her exotic friends would join in the dancing. Rosa was not into wearing a lot of clothes and she definitely didn’t wear underwear. Eventually, as Rosa danced on the Venice Boardwalk, many people would stop and watch her dance. A hat would be passed around, and it was because of Rosa’s dancing that the era of the Venice beach performance art was born.

Historically, the beach area had its share of physical and political changes. When I arrived in Venice, the old “POP” Pacific Ocean Park pier was mostly burnt down. The pier was located where Ocean Park Blvd. meets the beach and a bit south. Every weekend more of pier was burner. The dog town boys would surf there and after a few years, I got to know them personally, and especially Bobby Biniac. It was due to my association with the Dog Town Boys that I was allowed to surf at the old pier. To surf at the burnt pier was dangerous because there were burned out posts sticking out all over the place. Eventually they cleaned up the debris and pulled all the posts out.

Around 1974, a section of the Venice Beach, from the Windward breakwater to the next breakwater south of Rose Ave., became known was the “Nude Beach,” a mecca for nudists, straight, gay and lesbian beach goers. This was a wonderful summer with lots of afternoon sunshine, good body surfing waves, and great camaraderie amongst a diverse group of people.

The area of sand covering this part of the beach is very wide from the water to the walkway. This area was relatively remote, so it was perfect for nudist activity. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe the nude beach may have carried on into the summer of 1975. The demise of the nude beach started with the voyeurs. The voyeurs, mostly fully clothed men, would perch and leer at the women. Then some of the nudists got very comfortable with their state of undress and walked to the liquor stores naked! Obviously this was not good. The police and lifeguards had to be commended though. Through this “nude beach” period, the police were very professional and ignored the nudity while still protecting the public. At times, the waves would get so big, some of the nudists, including Rosa, had to be rescued by the county lifeguards. However, like all good things, the nudist beach came to an end as the city council decreed that the nude beach was not legal.

Nonetheless, the 70s were good times in Venice.

The Venice Oceanarium: The Grunion Are Running

By Tim Rudnick

Last month, June 3, the Venice Oceanarium presented its 16^th annual grunion party. Six to seven hundred hearty Venetians made their way to the beach at 10:30pm to watch these amazing fish come out of the waves to spawn. Young kids played in the surf and waited for the first of the grunion to appear. Older folks just watched. The night was moonless, but the darkness only increased the mystery of these fish.

No other fish in the world does what they do. Grunion hunting is a waiting game. At first only a few grunion appeared – two to four with each wave. The night was cool, so those not prepared for an ocean evening left early. Those who stayed began to see the numbers increase. Within an hour, 30 to 40 grunion started to “run” our shore. The excitement swelled as people began to observe the mating rituals. Many folks left at this point.

But the real reward came forty-five minutes later, just before midnight. At that time the shore became a virtual carpet of fish. Thousands and thousands of fish – everywhere glistening in the dark night. For those who waited, the night ended in a crescendo.

And how does the Venice Oceanarium know exactly when the grunion are going to run? How can they predict it six months ahead of time?

The grunion run four to six times a month from March to August. They run on the high tides of the month, usually after a full or new moon. Therefore, it is easy to predict with a simple tide calendar!

It is during these tides that the ocean climbs highest on the shore. This wet sand offers the perfect conditions for the female grunion to lay their eggs. The following tide, the next night, falls short of this wet sand where the eggs have been deposited. The fertilized eggs remain in their wet sandy womb for two weeks. When the water returns in the next high tide the eggs are ready to hatch and re-enter the ocean. Millions of young hatchlings fill the waters and stimulate the waiting schools of grunion to come onshore and continue the life cycle.

How do the first fish know just when to come ashore? Natural Selection! The fish that didn’t lay their eggs just at the high tides had their eggs washed away too early to be hatched and were eliminated from the gene pool.

The Oceanarium selects the dates for its parties very carefully. Usually the grunion are running at odd hours like 2:00 in the morning on a Tuesday or Thursday night. Obviously this is not a good time for a party. The Oceanarium has a party when the grunion run around 10:00-10:30 on a weekend. That usually happens only once or twice a year.

When the Oceanarium started having these grunion parties, hardly anyone knew the grunion ran in the middle of the city, at Venice Beach. Since then, the Oceanarium has put the Venice grunion on the map. This is important and was the main reason why the Oceanarium chose to do these parties. By identifying the presence of grunion in Venice, the Oceanarium emphasizes the importance of having a dark and quiet beach at night. And it makes the argument to keep the lights of the developing beach-front dim on the shore.

The next grunion runs will take place July 3 11pm-1am and July 4 12-2am. After that they will run again July 16 10:30pm-12:30am and July 17 11pm-1am, but these last two days are late in the season and the grunion turnout is expected to be low. For more information visit the Oceanarium’s website at http://www.veniceoceanarium.org.

Color Comes to the Beach

By C.J. Gronner

June Gloom has arrived here at the beach. It makes it extra hard to get up early in the morning to have my walk along the shore, but we do it anyway. It really does affect my mood, this thick mass of gray, and so it was that as we walked along this morning, my mind wandered to darker things. Things like why are there so many big clumps of tar along the beach this morning? The BP horror show in the Gulf of Mexico has been in my thoughts a lot lately, obviously, but there’s no way tar clumps could be HERE already, is there? It HAS been spewing for over a month … I don’t know. I do know that I have to scrub my feet for a half hour when I get home, and that’s with being careful where I step. I walk this stretch of beach every morning, and it’s way more tar than normal. Even if it’s completely unrelated, there shouldn’t be tar washing up, period. And as for the Gulf, people need to go to Jail. For life. No question. And don’t even get me going on the huge profits BP has made lately. What an absolute dirty joke.

My friend Jenny and I get pretty riled up in our discussions about such things, and it wasn’t until we were walking past the huge tractors digging up sand near the sewage outlet (Again, I’ll refrain from THAT digression of pollution in our waters – just for now), that we saw and remembered that this morning was the unveiling of the first three painted Lifeguard Towers for the fantastic Portraits of Hope project.

By the time the Summer is in full swing, all the lifeguard towers from Zuma Beach in the North, to Palos Verdes in the South, will be completely decked out in brightly-colored patterns. They were all painted on boards by kids and volunteers around Los Angeles, and the panels will be put up on the towers by construction teams.

As we got closer to the last tower before the Santa Monica Pier (the one where we usually take a water break and stretch on), I had to crack up a bit, because something felt different. I realized that the beach was the most immaculate I’d ever seen it in my life – fully raked and groomed, not ONE piece of garbage, and the homeless guy that has been crashed out sleeping near our tower EVERY morning for over a year, was nowhere to be seen (Paid off to move? How does that work?). Then I saw the reporters and cameras assembling on folding chairs by our tower, as well as guys in suits and the Venice H.S. Marching Band, and connected the dots that they would want to have a pristine beach for all the photo ops that were about to happen. Kinda funny, but nice to see the beach like that, real or fake.

The three towers were shrouded in gray tarps, matching the mood of the weather. The line-up of city officials began, with the speechifying that usually accompanies such events. We stood there in our tarry feet for quite a few speeches, and it went on and on.

L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky talked about how L.A. beaches are some of the most recognizable in the world, and this lifeguard tower project is going to brighten it all up, from land, sea and sky,  all summer long, until October. After that, many of the wood panels will be sent to Haiti to provide both shelter and color to a place that sorely needs it. Wonderful! Supervisor Yaroslavsky said it was actually kind of nice that it was so gray out, as the contrasting brightness of the towers would be all the more noticeable. True, but when our beloved Sunshine is back, it’s really going to be something.

The Venice Marching Band played (and it warms my heart in this increasingly electronic age that there are still kids that sign up to be in Marching bands), and little kids ran about learning about Ocean stuff (and hopefully avoiding tar).

Then the brothers behind the Project of Hope, Ed and Bernie Massey, were up next to speak, but it was all taking so long that we really had to split and get our days started.

Please go to their website – PortraitsofHope.org – to learn more about this great organization that stresses the importance of teaching ART to kids, while making them feel that they’re a part of something BIG, which this endeavor surely is.

We kept turning around as we walked to see if they had pulled off the tarps yet, and all the way back to Venice, they STILL hadn’t. (I get it that people work hard on things and want to say their bits, but, Man. Short and sweet, People).

My morning felt a little unfinished not having seen the dramatic unveiling, so I pedaled back down there this afternoon. Sure enough, through the gray mist, the colors popped out at me, even from quite a distance. I love it. With all the gloom and doom and fear shoved at us on the evening news every single night – environmentally, politically, financially, and even in our own community with more bike thefts, OPD fights, redtape hassles and other lameness like that, it can be real easy to fall into that line of thinking. Especially when the marine layer socks us in on top of it, it can be like S.A.D. disorder around here.

So when an entire 30 mile stretch of beach fights back against that to proclaim – NO! This is going to be a Summer of Color! (that’s actually the theme of the Lifeguard Tower project, painted across the top of each of them) – it makes you embrace the color inside yourself, and fight back in your own mind against all the heavy gray that looms around you.

Color. Hope. Community. Fun. YES! And all just in time for Summer. A Colorful Summer. Embrace it.