People’s Reactions While Canvasing for Proposition 37 (YES! to Labeling GMOs) at the Ukiah Safeway 10/28/2012

“I’m a felon

I can’t vote!

And I didn’t murder the guy.”

“I’ve already voted,”

sly, grim smile;

with emphasis:

“by secret ballot.”

“I’ve already voted YES!”

YES! YES! YES!

big, happy smiles!!!

“YES! I’m planning to vote for it!”

thank-you for being out here!”

more smiley faces.

“YES! I’m in a wheelchair and

voting for it with my last leg!”

“YES! I’m obese!

GMOS are forced upon us

with no scientific or health studies whatsoever.”

“WOW! look at that photo of a rat’s

giant tumor from eating GMO corn.”

“It’s people’s own fault they

(SUPERSIZE ME!) drink too much soda.”

“I only shop at Farmer’s Markets so it doesn’t affect me.”

WRONG! Monsanto sues small farms

when Monsanto’s hybridized seeds

contaminate farmer’s heirloom and heritage crops.

“Don’t want no more guv’mint regulations.”

“There will be too many lawsuits.”

“It will cost the consumer.”

Price of a new label : .001 cent.

“It will benefit the Co-op.”

Hooray!

“We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses.

We don’t vote.

We believe God will solve the world’s problems.”

?????????????

“I’m voting YES!

I care about our Earth,

our health, and our children’s future.”

– Erica Snowlake

Viva Pachamama! – Bolivia Celebrates Law Granting Rights to Mother Earth!

By ENS and Erica Snowlake

La Paz – Bolivia marked the International Day of Mother Earth, April 22, with a ceremony in the Plaza Murillo, the center of political power.

An ancient ritual shared center stage with speeches in which authorities in this Andean nation extolled the Law of Mother Earth – the world’s first legislation that grants to all nature rights equal to humans.

President Evo Morales, the first indigenous leader of Bolivia, is the architect of the Law of Mother Earth. Supported by politicians as well as nongovernmental organizations, the law is expected to easily pass the National Congress where Morales’ ruling party, The Movement Towards Socialism, has a majority in both houses.

The first article of the Law of Mother Earth says “Mother Earth is a living being” and that every human activity has to “achieve dynamic balance with the cycles and processes inherent in Mother Earth.” It defines Mother Earth as “a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains, and reproduces all beings.”

In parallel, a fair was held to raise awareness about global-warming and its effects, and the Bolivian-led crusade for nature protection. Minister of the Presidency Oscar Coca affirms Bolivia has the “conviction” to promote awareness of the climate change program in all nations across the planet.

“President Evo Morales says the planet can live without humans, but humans can not live without the planet and reminds the world today that the rights of nature should be equal to those we, ourselves, enjoy,” Coca said. The Morales government intends to establish a Ministry of Mother Earth to implement the Law of Mother Earth, which will establish new rights for nature, including :

* the right to maintain the integrity of life and natural processes

* the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered

* the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration

* the right to pure water

* the right to clean air

* the right to balance, to be at equilibrium

* the right to be free of toxic and radioactive pollution

* the right to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities

The law promotes “harmony” and “peace” and “the elimination of all nuclear, chemical, and biological” weapons.

At the same time, President Morales is set to announce on May 1 that he will be “dismantling the privatization model,” thereby expropriating privately owned zinc, silver, and tin mines. Soon after his election as President in 2006, the Morales government took over gas and oil refineries, all in a bid to have the government control the country’s natural resources. As a result of these policies, foreign investment in Bolivia has plummeted.

Xeriscaping in Venice

By erica snowlake

For those who get around our fair city on bike and by foot, the diversity of front-yard and street-facing landscaping is remarkable to behold. Equally functional and eccentrically artistic, a day’s perusal of the green belt reveals most Venetians are eco-friendly and hip enough to have embraced Xeriscaping and Xerogardening, landscaping and gardening in ways which reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental irrigation. Let’s spread this good news and conscious practice to all our neighbors in Venice, greater Los Angeles and beyond!

Scientific studies recently compared the greenhouse gases absorbed by ornamental turf grass (lawns) to the amount of gases emitted by the irrigation, fertilization, and mowing of them. The results confirm keeping a lawn is not good for Mother Earth. Turf grass covers 1.9 percent of the United States and is the most commonly irrigated crop. Gasp! That’s a lot of water! According to Paula Daniels, an L.A. Public Works Commissioner, 40 percent of the drinking water we import at great financial and environmental expense is used for lawn-watering. Over half the household water usage in Southern California is in the yard – averaging 238 gallons per day for a family of four. This demand far exceeds the capacity of the bioregion’s 10-15 inches of rainfall per year to fulfill. Worse, overwatering results in pesticide and fertilizer-laden runoff into the groundwater, sewer drains and the ocean.

Implementing bans on watering from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily has been a successful measure. Joining the (anti) grass-roots movement of Xeriscaping (and collecting rainwater) makes common sense. Xeriscaping (from the Greek, xeros, dry) is the art of arranging gardens with drought-tolerant plants, a tradition originating in fifth and sixth century Persian courtyard paradises, where diverse arrays of native palms and cactus provide havens for butterflies, birds and poetry lovers. Venetians share a similar aesthetic and have a wide variety of lawn alternatives to choose from…. sedum (stone crop) and creeping red fescue to edible groundcovers, fragaria chilolensis (the wild strawberry), nasturtiums, mints, and nutritious chickweed. Flowering shrubs with little water maintenance include the entire sage (salvia) species (growing up to five feet in diameter), the california redbud, the monkeyflower, lilac and verbena. Stroll idyllically past rainbow bougainvillea, wild rose, vines of cascading honeysuckle and jasmine, and sidewalk hedges of rosemary, lavender and thyme. Native trees providing shade for groundcovers to thrive are laurel, juniper, chaparrel and oleander. Other green spaces solely feature succulents, from towering St.Peters, agave, and yucca cactuses to tiny hens and chicks.

The time is ripe to compost that lawn! Keep in mind a bylaw exists stating no more than 45  percent of the land can be hard-scraped, as this process contributes to desertification and depletion of the soil. Sustainable landscaping using drought-tolerant plant species makes water available for other uses and more people. It recharges the groundwater and allows less polluted run-off to flow into the ocean. It reduces maintenance and mowing, which results in less urban noise and a lower water bill! Most importantly, here’s our chance to affirm Mother Nature knows best. We’ll breathe easier existing in co-creative harmony. Lighter footprints! Astroturf is not an option!

The local chapter of the California Native Plant Society hosts planting tips for urban gardens on their website (www.lasmmcnps.org.) Farmer’s markets sell a variety of native plants. For water conservation info visit www.bewaterwise.com.

Profile: Venice Singer Simone White

By Erica Snowlake

Introducing Simone White, she who wanders whither and hither around the world, charming audiences with her (encore!) prodigious gifts of singing, songwriting, and fine guitar playing. Our lithe lovely mingles the tradition of the bard (wandering) and the chanteuse (crooning) with a voice evoking the honey-dripping bird tribes of Hawaii while boldly upholding the enlightened craftfulness of a female Dylan. It’s in her genes, with a folk-singing Mother, light-sculpture artist Dad, and grandma a burlesque queen in her day.

Her inherent whimsey charmed us upon first sight, we’ve been friends ever since. Let’s catch up! I say upon arriving at the Zen home in Venice she shares with filmmaker boyfriend Bob, stepping gingerly across a little wooden bridge over a pond of sparkling white and golden koi. Sipping hojicha, Simone’s happy to be home once again. She’s been touring steadily the past three years, recently returning from a month-long engagement with singer/songwriter Victoria Williams in Spain, playing in chapels and community halls to upwards of 500 people, rapt in pin-dropping silence as she delivers songs from her new CD “Yakiimo” (delicious mountain sweet potato in Japanese). Raving of the pleasures of playing in Europe (Portugal, Basque Country, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Womad and Green Man festivals in the UK, Scotland, Ireland) and overseas in Japan, she expresses gratefulness for the respectful way in which touring artists and musicians are cherished, celebrated and honored. Many of her performances were free, subsidized by local government grants. We bemoan the financial cuts of art and music programs in public schools across America, sadly acknowledging the reason behind this country’s current and ongoing downfall : addiction to War.

Simone’s first CD I Am the Man, recorded in Nashville, features a peace brigade of anti-war tunes, including “The American War” “Great Imperialistic State” and “We Used to Stand So Tall”, reflecting her intense disillusion with the Bush administration (I recall flowing tears while listening to the latter). She is especially touched by the appreciation German audiences demonstrate for her political songs, encouraging her to continue playing them, even as Obama has since (supposedly) replaced “the greater evil”. “Why am I still haranguing America?” she ponders, while in the next moment quietly affirming “the wars are continuing….”

She shares an emotional moment she experienced in Japan, breaking down while facing the giant Kuan Yin (the Goddess of Compassion) statue marking the memorial of the Temple of the Fallen Soldiers of WWII (or the Pacific War, as they term it). It is here in Japan she first hears the haunting, atonal prayer of the Yakiimo man, praising his wares of roasted yams warming in a hand-held cart he wheels thru alleys and narrow streets. Though the cart has been mostly replaced by trucks and the nostalgic cry with recordings, the heart of the old-fashioned original inspired the title track of her CD, a beautiful rendition of the call her Japanese fans say evokes childhood memories of reverently holding the mouth-watering offering. We joke about our past lives, as Simone reckons “the parallel times happening all at once” and how matter-of-factly such beliefs are held by the people she’s met in India and Japan.

Our thoughts turn to Venice, fragrant with Spring jasmines and magnolias blossoming in every garden. Simone enjoys riding her bicycle along the ocean, finding spaces with “nothing to buy” healing for the soul. She supports the Venice Farmer’s Market every Friday, across the public library on Venice Blvd. and Rawesome Foods, an organic membership club at 665 Rose. She’s disappointed with people trashing Venice, especially when “everyone knows better littering here eventually winds up polluting the ocean.” She takes responsibility in caring for our home seriously, citing the fact the 100 million ton garbage patch, ninety percent plastic, floating in the North Pacific Gyre, is made up of individual purchases. Her gentle admonishments takes a whimsical approach as she suggests people wanting to throw something down upon the earth might find a creative release in composting, an art Simone and Bob maintain wherever they live (it’s easy to do!) She likens co-creating the new black dirt rich with worms pure alchemy, the sensation of being part of the cycle of life to turning lead into gold.

Before we part, we feed Bootchii, the mama squirrel who lives in the giant palm tree, walnuts, while listening to Simone’s joyful cover of Victoria Williams “You Are Loved”. She mentions seeing “Love is the Change” graffiti on Rose Avenue. I think she sees love everywhere.

To hear “Yakiimo” and a listing of Simone’s upcoming shows: www.simonewhite.com

Praising Howard Zinn: A People’s History of the United States, and The People Speak

By Erica Snowlake

It is good to recall Ms. Thelma Trotty, the first teacher who blew (enlightened) my mind. She taught high school history in the late seventies in upstate New York from her unique perspective as a native Iroquois and a gay women’s rights advocate. Condemning the recorded history of our textbooks “propaganda” she initiated the dissemination and discussion of versions of the past which didn’t necessarily serve “liberty and justice for all”. Opening our eyes to the suffering of the oppressed, and the ongoing struggle for equality in our society, she encouraged independent thought and critical analysis with the liberating anarchist mantra “Question Authority!” infusing our hearts with yearning for the dignified community of all beings in solidarity. Radical compassion! I began to shed (in layers) the skin of a privileged young white woman.

In 1980 Professor Emeritus Howard Zinn published The People’s History of the United States, encouraged by his wife Roslyn to spread to an ever-widening audience the lectures he gave students at Boston University. The book re-tells American history from the point of view of “the people who have given this country whatever liberty and democracy we have”; the brave souls who have eloquently spoken out and organized resistance against genocide, slavery, war, poverty, and racial and gender inequality, while in the midsts of enduring it, often having sacrificed their very lives for it. These voices of our ancestors; Native Americans, slaves, soldiers, war dissenters, union organizers, immigrant laborers, peace marchers, yippies, feminists, resonate louder than ever today, reminding us democracy only originates and prospers by and for the people who serve to vigilantly nurture and uphold it.

Howard Zinn died in January, leaving us the inspiring legacy of his life as an educator, prolific writer, historian, playwright, social activist, remorseful WWII bombardier, and compassionate human being. He was instrumental in supporting the non-violent actions of students at Atlanta’s Spelman College in fighting segregation, including the writer and poet Alice Walker. Arrested more than half a dozen times for civil disobediance, it is rumored on his last day at BU, 100 students enthusiastically accepted Zinn’s invitation to join him in a picket line. He did not shy from telling the truth of the genocidal depredation of Christopher Columbus, the blood lust of Theodore Roosevelt, or the racial failings of Abraham Lincoln. His last piece was a critical expose urging President Obama to follow the policies of Dr. Martin Luther King. It is no surprise those who call him friend include Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier.

The People’s History of the United States has now been read by over two million people! I recently discovered the graphic adaptation entitled A People’s History of American Empire, which opens with the events of 9-11 and explores U.S. imperialism from Wounded Knee to Viet Nam, the Iran-Contra scandal to the invasion of Iraq. It chronicles Mr. Zinn’s own story, the son of poor Jewish immigrants growing up in Brooklyn tenements.

A few months ago, the History Channel aired a two-hour spoken word and musical performance based on Voices of a People’s History of the United States. “The People Speak”, narrated and co-directed by Howard Zinn with Arnold Arnove, features readings from live performances at Boston’s Cutler Majestic Theater and Malibu’s Performing Arts Center by a variety of acclaimed actors and musicians, bringing to life the valiant speeches, poetry, dying words, and shining integrity of those throughout history who refuse to be compromised by greed, privilege, and power. Performers channel the immortal words of Chief Joseph, Frederick Douglas, Mark Twain, Genora Dollinger, Langston Hughes, Woody Guthrie, Caesar Chavez, Marion Wright Edelman, and dozens of jes’ plain ol’ regular folk with guts.

In an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, Howard Zinn summed up our chances for a universal peaceful co-existence: ”If you want to end terrorism, you have to stop being terrorists, which is what war is.” For all his insight into history’s cruelties, he always held hope, reminding us human history is equally filled with acts of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness. In his autobiography, You Can’t Be Neutral from a Moving Train, he promises “If we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is a succession of presents, and to live now as we think humans should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself, a marvelous victory.”

Thank-you Howard and Roslyn Zinn, you are in all hearts that are dreaming for freedom.

Women Speak Out! From Howard Zinn’s “Voices of A People’s History of the United States”

Emma Goldman, the Lithuanian immigrant, feminist orator, agitator, and anarchist, arrested in 1917 on conspiracy charges of “inducing persons to not register” excerpted from a 1908 speech in San Francisco before the outbreak of WW1, entitled Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty:

What, then, is patriotism? “Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels.” (quoting Dr. Samuel Johnson) Indeed, ignorance, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism, which assumes our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.”

Such is the logic of patriotism…..Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time. The centralization of power has brought into being an international feeling of solidarity among the oppressed nations of the world; a solidarity which fears not foreign invasion, because it is bringing all the workers to the point when they will say to their masters, “Go and do your own killing. We have done it long enough for you.”

Sojourner Truth, the black abolitionist, freed from slavery in 1827, at a women’s convention in 1851, in which she “joins the indignation of her race to the indignation of her sex”:

“That man over there says that a woman needs to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches…..Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles or gives me any best place. And ain’t I a woman? Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I would work as much and eat as much as a man, when I could get it, and bear the lash as well. And ain’t I a woman? I have bourne thirteen children and seen em most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them!”

Rose Chernin on Organizing the Unemployed in the Bronx in the 1930′s:

I would address the crowd gathered in the streets below : “People, fellow workers. We are the wives of unemployed men and the police are evicting us. Today we are being evicted. Tomorrow it will be you. So stand by and watch. What is happening to us will happen to you. We have no jobs. We can’t afford food. Our rents are too high. The marshal has brought the police to carry out our furniture. Are you going to let it happen?” Our fight was successful. The rents came down, the evicted families returned to their apartments, the landlord would stop fighting us. Within two years we had rent control in the Bronx.

–Erica Snowlake

January 2008 – Lakota Nation Declares Independence. Can Venice Be Far Behind

By Erica Snowlake

Haumikole! Hello my friend!

On December 19, the Lakota Freedom Delegation announced unilateral withdrawl from all U.S. treaties to a small group of Press and well-wishers in the Plymouth Congregational Church in Washington, DC. The same church hosted the American Indian Movement in the1970s.

Delegates Mni yuha Najin Win, Phyllis Young from Standing Rock; Oyate Wacinyapin, Russell Means, Pine Ridge; Canupa Gluha Mani, Duane Martin Sr., Hill City, Black Hills; and Tegihya Kte, Garry Rowland, Wounded Knee, made presentations, sang and drummed traditional songs, and cut up their driver’s licenses.

The delegates have been in discussion with traditional treaty councils across Lakota in the communities of Pine Ridge, Porcupine, Kyle, Rosebud, Lower Brule, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, and Flandreau. The withdrawl is said to be vested on the power of the Lakota people and their children, in accordance with the Strongheart Warrior Society and its Grandmothers.

Citing provisions of the1868 Fort Laramie Treaty which have never been upheld, the Lakota have been subject to colonial apartheid conditions, an ongoing catastrophe on the Reservations of alcoholism, drug abuse, unemployment, and extreme poverty, suffering high incidences of diabetes, tuberculosis, infant mortality, and teenage suicides, possessing one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation, and the lowest life expectancy of any country in the world.

Further, “Lakotah, have waited at least 155 years for the United States of America to adhere to provisions of the treaties, whose continuing violations have resulted in the near annihilation of our people physically, spiritually, and culturally.” These violations have been in breach of Article VI of the United States Constitution rendering all treaties made “the Supreme Law of the Land.”

The five-state area of Lakotah emcompasses North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska. It’s all now Lakotah! The mineral-rich Black Hills, the Paha Sapa have always been held as sacred ancestral land by the Lakota.

Invasions into the Paha Sapa by gold-seekers in the1870’s provoked the so-called “Red Cloud’s War” leading to the legendary Battle at Little Big Horn, 1876, where George Custer was defeated, and the subsequent infamous massacre of hundreds of unarmed Hunkpapa and Mniconju men, women, and children with Si Tanka (Chief Big Foot), at Wounded Knee in 1890.

Legends live on, and the descendants of assasinated spiritual warrior leaders Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Dull Knife and Conquering Bear still cry for justice today and their cries will be heard.

Lakota have always maintained their insistence upon the return of the Paha Sapa, accusing the U.S. of violations ranging from Homestead and Citizenship Acts to forced relocations, disallowment of their religions, and truly, the intentional genocide of their race.

Emerging from the conflict in the Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973, the International Indian Treaty Council formed with more than 5000 delegates representing 98 Indian tribes and Nations from North and South America to create a Manifesto from the wisdom of the People, their Ancestors, and the Great Mystery. Acknowledged within the 1974 Declaration of Continuing Independence is “the historical fact that the struggle for independence of the Peoples of our Sacred Earth Mother have always been over sovereignty of land, historical freedom efforts involving the highest human sacrifice.”

As international nations welcome and recognize Lakota independence, they will begin the adventure of birthing a new nation into Being. To this end they will issue passports, driver licenses, and a tax-free economy, provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship. They will also begin to administer liens against real estate transactions made by non-Lakotas.

To celebrate and mark this autonomy, 44 people mounted horses on December 15 in Standing Rock to ride the spirit trail of Chief Big Foot and his people in the 21st Annual Ride. They will be joined by many others along the way, swelling their numbers to over 100 on the 13 day journey, returning to Wounded Knee a Free Lakota People.

“We are no longer citizens of the United States and all those who live in the 5 state area encompassing our country are free to join us.”,  declares Oyate Wacinyapin, Russell  Means. We at the Beachhead commend this action and hope it may inspire Venetians to restore Venice cityhood, entering into a liberating independence from Los Angeles.

After visiting the embassies of Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, and South Africa, the Lakota Delegates will continue on their diplomatic mission in bringing the good news of their freedom to the world.

Mitaku Oyasin! – We Are All Related!

For more information and to show your support: http://www.republicoflakota.com

January 2008 – An RV Fairytale

By Erica Snowlake

Against my friend’s better judgment, I don’t drive, have never owned and am loathe to even entering nasty, metal, polluting obsessions in which one miraculously floats while seated above asphalted earth at high speeds weaving humanity’s frenzied chaos group mind death wish, blithely deluded about the importance of getting somewhere, no thank-you, I AM honing my skills for a spaceship and a road with no lines, i.e. a garden, nevertheless, I recently accepted a gift, a godsend I thought at the time, the temporary loan of a 1985 Chevy truck/camper.

You see I was planning on heading up north to work in the seasonal harvest trade, puffpuff, and wanted to provide a place for my now very ex to crash in if he found himself on the street. Note to self: never underestimate certain people’s charmed capacity for attracting serial bleeding hearts! ……Nonetheless, this is a city of angels and doing unto  others is a noble and natural endeavor, giving one a chance to embody true Compassion, and, despite financial backfires, substantially frees up one’s karma all around. This tale, however, is an oddball mix, demonstrating not only the vast, portenous holes in my rationality,  puffpuff, but exactly how magickal thinking can fuck you right up the jimmy as well.

Allow me to dig….grass……hmmm, living in an RV in Venice is certainly a timely….controversy. Why? It could be all wine and roses, a cozy home on wheels, takes us back to the original ROM people, wandering together in horse-drawn gypsy caravans, gracefully putting to pasture in idyllic meadows outside town, setting up camps, harkening strange enchanted music, offering tinkerer’s trades, exotic gemstones, fortune telling, bizarre yogic feats of skill, hey, sounds just like the Venice boardwalk on a good day without an ordinance!

The truth is, people in Venice, locals and visitors alike, are being downright persecuted and systematically harassed for choosing to live in their RVs, and are being methodically run outta town.

Again, Why? Zero Tolerance? Complaints based on Fear? Grumpiness? Envy? Status? What exactly is so wrong?

Disregard for personal effects? Based on what? the smell of piss? I honestly believe given current statistics most people living in RV’s are law-abiding, mind-their-own-business, honest and responsible folks. Does their homes being mobile entitle their fellow kind to forfeit their rights or to withhold their respect?

I am all for simplifying Life, downsizing possessions, and hitting the road in wanderlust, even if all one can swing these days happens to be parking curbside until things perk up……so where exactly is that affordable Venice-by-the-sea RV park hook-up facility with supervised maintenance, hot showers, clean public washrooms, and campfire sing-alongs?

Meantime, back to my story. My x nixes the RV, passes it to Mark, a mechanic acquaintance currently living in his jammed-full truck on 4th and Rose. He “needs more space”, promises he’ll move it on street cleaning days. I head off, his number becomes unreachable, i can only pray…..two moons later, i’m searching up the proverbial Rose,….. nothing on 4th, panic, loan, remember? On 5th i spot the white elephant, parked, looming, all wobbly-like, yes, i admit, a megalith of an eyesore in the neighborhood. A ventured knock is opened by two fine gentlemen, whom: a) make their dough recycling and b) happen to enjoy being typsy ALOT. Introducing Ron Garcia and Ezekiel. Ron i’ve seen plenty on the boardwalk waving giant old glory weaving dandy dance improv, Zeke’s a lion-like master of many trades…… PEACE!

Assuring me they love me they launch into the unknown whereabouts of Mark, on a bit of a lam, conveniently taking the one ignition key with him. Handing over a parking ticket, they swear it’s the only one. The smashed windshield and triangular side window are explained in more tales, involving bricks, and being chased and beat up by a big, scary skinhead with spiderweb tattoos. Don’t get me wrong, i already love these guys, immensely relieved and grateful the truck is even there, glad they’ve had shelter for a few, but it’s obviously gonna cost me……(and guys? why’d you send me on that wild goose chase?)

So follows a two-week long saga of repair, i call in Elisabeth, the owner of the truck, a sweetly angelic lady who doesn’t bite my head off, or the guys. Together we get a new key made, (TripleA), replace the dead battery, fix the broken starter motor, spend hours going downtown with my friend Rippley to find a $35 windshield at U-pick autoparts, climaxing in an exciting just-beating-the-rains-coming grande finale in the 99 Cent Store parking lot securing the fit of the lockbead seal.

Total value of my freak lesson in misguided divine providence? 300 bucks, a mere monetary output paling in comparison to the sum total of all our love and energy, the feeling of completing a herculean-like task with the true camraderie of total strangers, the jokes, the bible quotes, the cantankerous b.s., gads of useful? truck lore, our precious time and emotions turning to silly putty….. The CARING! the SHARING! meeting the homeless, limping, shot up in nam sarge-friend of the guys, who, between laudable john wayne impressions, relived the moment he brought home ALIVE! all seven men of his company to their families

waiting at the San Diego air force base, aaaiiiyyyeee! That was a tear jerker.

And who can forget the sound, Praise Jesus!, of the motor finally turning, and yes, adding yet another gas-guzzling stinkbomb on the road but now this one felt kinda sentient-like from its journey, like it grew a heart there on fifth and Rose, transforming itself into a heavenly metaphysical  home for us angels/freaks. Then, suddenly like the wind, without getting too overly sentimental, the best ephemeral gypsies in town all got their groove on moving on.

Moral of the story? Everybody – HAVE SOME RESPECT! RV Dwellers – Keep circulatin’, park in less residential sites, above all DO NOT PISS on thy exorbitant rent/mortgage-paying “neighbor’s” daisies. The rest of you? Meditate on Compassion while driving. Me – I’m walking, (following the Pied Piper).