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For the first half of the 1990s I worked at a hospital near downtown Los Angeles.

The hospital itself is an old, fine institution that provides excellent care. I was proud to work there. The neighborhood, however, was dangerous. The Pico-Union/Westlake district, otherwise known as the LAPD's Rampart Division, had the worst numbers for population density, low income, and violent crime in the entire city.

Drug sales and gang gunfights were common, and strongarm street robberies were a constant threat. Central American, Mexican, Filipino and even Japanese gangsters were all competing for drug territory.

For the last two years of my employment I lived in hospital-provided housing. The commute was across the street and the rent was subsidized: great deal! But I had to deal with the neighborhood: not great.

Around the corner from my building ("The Pink Palace") there was another hospital-owned apartment building. It was used as a kind of hotel for patients' families who had to come from afar, and also housed some aged poor people per the donor's charter. You could see these old folks lurching about the neighborhood looking frail, and I was always afraid they'd be killed and eaten by the locals.

There was a lot of graffiti. Most of it was incomprehensible but I enjoyed trying to figure it out. I knew what a crossed out name or 187 meant, but most of the rest was a blur. The gang members' names were great too. But I was unable to predict oncoming battles or anything neat like that.

One day I noticed a new graffiti pattern. Near the hospital, on sidewalks and news boxes and transformer cases, I saw sharpie'd tags of the typical kind, but with a weird message: GRINGOS WORLDWIDE. Some of them said GRINGOS WORLDWIDE KILLERS.

What the hell? I'd never seen an obviously white gangbanger around here, except maybe some guys who got in one of the Spanish-speaking crews. And who would call themselves gringos? That's not even proper street talk! I wondered if some college kids were commuting in to prank, or if the LAPD had finally snapped and gone into surrealist mode.

Coming back from the liquor store that week I saw one of our impoverished senior citizen tenants strolling down 6th Street He was a typical old white guy: polyester sansabelt pants, old sneakers, nylon windbreaker, fishing hat. He stopped in front of a transformer box, whipped out a Sharpie, and wrote GRINGOS WORLDWIDE FOR LIFE on the green metal. He then turned and looked at me defiantly.

I avoided his gaze and just strolled by, murmuring "sup." Because that's what you do with gangbangers. Otherwise, who knows what might happen?

both via the American Punk 78-91 archive at Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/punkarchive/

Our own local nuke disaster! Two cheers for Rocketdyne.

An odd thing about Rocketdyne. There was an incident at that same Simi plant in the 1980s where they had some bad rocket fuel chemicals they had to get rid of. To avoid the complicated and expensive right way of doing things, they sent a couple of guys out on the range to burn the toxic rocket goop. Instead it blew up and killed both of them. One of them shared my (very rare) last name and is therefore almost certain to be my relative.

Another odd thing about this story: The Rocketdyne plant and the nuclear accident were both up in Santa Susana, which is where Charlie Manson lived. Hmm.

Study Says Lab Meltdown Caused Cancer
Scientists say details about the 1959 accident near Simi Valley continue to be withheld. Other contamination at the site is much clearer.
By Amanda Covarrubias
Times Staff Writer

October 6, 2006

Radioactive emissions from a 1959 nuclear accident at a research lab near Simi Valley appear to have been much greater than previously suspected and could have resulted in hundreds of cancers in surrounding communities, according to a study released Thursday.

( Read more... )

Some time in the late 1980s I was in Westwood Village, which is the part of L.A. just south of UCLA. It had been a big entertainment district, the place to be on Friday and Saturday Night, but was in a steep decline. Most of the fancy stores and restaurants had gone, things were dirty, and most of the pedestrians were lost souls. I was among them, since I was taking the bus from my unsuccessful psychotherapist back to my grimy Hollywood apartment.

It was maybe 9 pm, cold and blustery, and the first drops of rain were moistening the blowing trash so it stuck to people and objects unpleasantly. Coming up towards the bus stop, I came upon this scene:

In the doorway to an office building, one of the local homeless poor had set up camp. He was about 35, dressed in what had once been a decent suit which was torn and stained and shedding buttons. He himself had a mop of blonde hair and a dirty face wreathed in a joyous smile. He had a boom box going full blast and was singing along lustily, with a cap on the ground in hopes that someone would reward this piece of impromptu street karaoke.

The song he was performing? Barry Manilow's 1976 hit "Looks Like We Made It".

I still wonder about that guy. He certainly wasn't seeing the dingy, damp, urban failure in front of him, or the RTD bus or the other bums or me in my jeans & jacket & backpack looking at him in horror. He was in heaven, maybe onstage in Vegas. Maybe he even was Barry. Looks like we maaaaaaaade it! I wonder what happened to him?

Went to pick up my mother at LAX. International Arrivals is great people watching. Today was also the day of Themed Plane Arrivals:

My mom's flight was Singapore Airlines from Tokyo/Narita. Almost all of the passengers were Japanese business guys who immediately pulled the cellphone out of one pocket and the cigarettes out of another and rushed outside to use both. One spiky haired young Japanese guy wearing stripy weird clothing and Vans was met by an obsequious limo driver.

An Aeromexico flight from Guadalajara brought what looked like about 50 Mexican art students. All of them were about 20 and most of them were carrying some kind of portfolio. I think it's time we woke up to the danger here. All those art students are swarming across the border and taking our barista jobs and/or seats at the coffeehouse where they can whine about not making it.

Finally an El Al jet disgorged lots of beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Jew girls all of whom had long flowing dark hair, big earrings, classic Mediterranean features, and huge smiles. They strode happily down the ramp and were immediately intercepted by nervous men in yarmulkes before the rest of us could get at them.

There was also a Sikh family of about 25 who all greeted each other expansively with a factorial number of hugs exactly in the gangway so no one could get through. This happens each time and I suspect it's the same family.

The Dutton's bookstore in North Hollywood is closing. Another great place bites the dust.

Please, everyone shop lots at Doug's Dutton's Brentwood and Beverly Hills. We can't afford to lose those.

You can order from both online and learn more about them at the Dutton's Brentwood Booksense Site.