Well the packing continues, and we’re almost done. Painters and carpenters, realtors and workmen have been constantly coming in and out of the front door as I have packed and hauled boxes and things out of the attic and basement. Opening boxes of stuff I haven’t seen in years, giving stuff away and holding an estate sale which got rid of my record collection and most of my movie poster collection and my comic book collection. Yet there is so much left in this house!
When I first moved into this neighborhood called West Adams or Kenny Heights or Western Heights, a historical neighborhood just west of downtown Los Angeles, the neighbors called my three story, 65-foot-wide house built in the Spanish Mission Arts and Crafts style – the Hacienda because it looks like a Spanish Hacienda. And that name stuck not only as a nickname but as a reference to our house and also as the name of the business that grew out of having four extra bedrooms and other living spaces that this piece of property provided.
It’s hard to watch furniture that you’ve had in your life for 20-30 years, and in a few cases since I was born, being carted out the front door and loaded onto a truck by two men who really don’t care about the furniture at all. They are junk man and I have hired them to clear my house after on an estate sale that really didn’t get rid of a lot of things. I also don’t have time to hold endless garage sales to try in make this stuff go away. My house has 17 rooms. Why 17 rooms you ask? Are you an idiot? Well my first wife and I bought it for a song and then it became a business and I’ve run it as a guest house and an AirBnb since 2005. Literally hundreds of people have stayed at my house as guests. I’ve made friends with people all over the world. I met my second wife here. We’re no longer together but for a while she helped me run this place and also helped me write a one man show about my experiences of running a guest house where people from all over the world stayed.
But it’s time for me to move on. And it’s hard to see furniture that you care about being taken out and just thrown on the back of a truck with no attempt to protect them. You hope that they will end up going someplace where somebody cares for them but you’re not sure. It’s part of letting go. It’s not easy but it’s necessary.
I wonder if furniture has karma? Whether tables and chairs, sofas and antique desks have feelings and wonder where they’re going and what their outcome will be? Will they end up with someone that cares about them or will they end up in a junkyard?
I know houses have that because I felt it. My house and I’ve had a symbiotic relationship for 20 years. When I first bought her, she was in terrible shape and no one had lived in her for six years and over the past 20 years I have replaced the plumbing, the wiring, the roof, the furnace twice, painted the entire interior of the house all 17 rooms except for the dining room (I just never got around to that), sanded all the floors and made her beautiful and livable again. All during that time she has taken care of me by providing me with an excellent side income. Yet it is now time for us to part ways. I can’t afford to do the repairs that she needs to have done that will elevate her from just a comfortable house to an amazing house and that’s something she deserves. And my time in Los Angeles has ended and it’s important for me to go somewhere else. I will miss her. She has taken care of me and watched over me and provided me a place of comfort and retreat when the outside world got too tough. But as we part ways, I am hopefully she will be reborn as the magnificent house she deserves to be.
I miss my furniture, but I knew by taking it with me it would just weigh me down and I needed to let a lot of things go both materially and spiritually. I’ll miss my beautiful old house. She’s been my constant companion for 20 years. The place I could always come back to and be rejuvenated. I will miss my magnificent lady, my Hacienda, my house, my home!
I am sure you have heard the old cliche about the guy who gets a divorce from his wife, sells his house and all his possessions and then takes off on a trip around the world to find himself? Well, I always thought that was a stupid idea! The wanderlust part of me always thought it was kind of cool, but the practical part of me thought it was absolutely ridiculous. Who gives up their life, their possessions, their job, their business to set out around the world to find themselves because wherever you go there you are. So just deal with it!
Well I have become that cliche!
The Cliché
Due to a dissolving marriage caused by lies, cheating, manipulation, and resentment, my wife and I decided to divorce each other after nine years together and five years of marriage. A very stormy relationship filled with passion and anger and arguing and love. Our views on marriage were just too different, and so what at first was two people trying to figure out how to hang onto each other became two people who were tired of the battles until it became two people who just didn’t care anymore. Like most guys, I hung on longer than my wife did. It has been my experience that when a woman tells you that she’s no longer in love with you, that’s the end and she’s not coming back. Guys tend to hang on longer and rehash the relationship over and over again to find out where it went wrong or what they did wrong or how they can put it back together or will she come back, and the answer is always no. So I found myself still hanging on and waiting for my wife to come back even though she had already found another lover and had moved on with her life. Unfortunately, she never told me that. She kept telling me that she was still just licking her wounds and staying at home to avoid the pandemic and working extremely hard at her job as a film translator. We had decided to blocked each other on social media to save conflicts and hurt feelings, yet one day a good mutual friend showed me her Facebook page and it was filled with references to her new boyfriend and the exciting new life they were leading. So what had started out as an amiable divorce proceeding that we did ourselves quickly dissolved into anger and accusations that ended up with us both ending all communication with each other.
So much stuff to get rid of
The result of which was a deep depression that was helped along by the COVID-19 restrictions in Los Angeles which took me a long time to work my way out from. Then one day I woke up and knew it was time to get out of here. I’ve lived in my home for 20 years. It has taken care of me, provided for me, created a business for me, and for much of my adult life as it was the first thing I had ever owned it defined me to a degree. It’s a large arts and craft house located in a historic neighborhood in Los Angeles and I have lived there with great pride as I have tried to restore this home over 20 years. In many ways I thought I would always be there till the end of my life. Yet with the dissolution of my marriage I realized that the City of Los Angeles a place that I’ve lived in for almost 40 years had suddenly seem to become two blocks wide and one block deep. That all my neighbors seemed to know more about me than I did. I felt like I had become a social pariah and that nobody wanted to talk to me or be my friend. Of course that was not true but everything in my house and everything in Los Angeles had become an emotional trigger for me that made me recall my wife and our failed relationship.
The stuff that is going with me.
So one morning I woke up and I became the cliché. The feeling became so strong then I could literally not sit still. I became the man who is literally getting rid of all of his possessions in an effort to find a new direction and a new life. My destination at least temporarily is an apartment in Atlanta, Georgia where as soon as I arrive and unpack my few possessions, I will probably jump on a plane and go to the Caribbean for two months to work on a suntan, lick my wounds and drink my share of umbrella drinks.
One of these is mine!
Yet, trying to sell your house and get rid of all your possessions takes a little bit more time than you might think. I was thinking that I might be able to accomplish this in just a few weeks. Yet this odyssey has been now going on for three plus months. My house is 116-year-old, and while wonderful does need a few upgrades. It’s a hot market and it’s a hot property but there’s a lot of stuff to get rid of, there were things that my realtor wanted me to deal with before he would put it on the market, and I had to deal with a tenant problem. I have a guest house in the back and a tenant that I needed to move out yet because of the COVID-19 rent restrictions and California’s tenant relocation laws, I had to pay this man several hundred dollars to leave because it’s not his fault that my life has imploded. There is a sum that I’m legally required to pay him, yet he wanted to hold me up for much more money because of the COVID-19 eviction restrictions so this caused a logjam. My realtor wanted me to spend hundreds of dollars on fixing up certain parts of my house which I knew the next owner is just going to come in and rip out, so we came to an understanding. And trying to find a reputable estate sale company took some time but we’re almost there. The few repairs start in just a couple of days, the tenant will be leaving by the middle of the month and the estate sale is next week, so progress is made. If all goes well, I’ll be out of here in a month saying goodbye to LA and headed to my next adventure wherever that may be, Atlanta or beyond.
The packing never ends.
This will be a little bit of an ongoing series that every once in a while, I’ll drop in a new story about my wanderings as I transitioned from one life to another. I hope you enjoy the ride and thanks for continuing to be part of my blog.
When you are a director of either film or theatre, or any other type of live or filmed performance art form, the ultimate excitement is to be able to do your project with a truly excellent group of professionals. Professionals who are dedicated to their craft and actually know what they’re doing. That was my experience recently when I shot the short film Divorce During Pandemic, a short film script that I had written based on real events and I had the opportunity to turn into an actually short film.
Crew shooting a close up of the lead actor.
Of all the types of directing that exist in the performing arts, directing film is the ultimate experience for a director. In any other form of live performance as much as the director wants to control the final product they cannot, because it’s live and the final product will change every single performance. Live performance is up to the live performers not to the person who conceived it or directed it or produced it. Yet with film, the director gets to choose how to tell the story because they control the edit of how the film will look. Now of course they had to get the correct shots and coverage in order to be able to tell that story but once you have that you can tell a story out of sequence, or you can change the narrative of who the story is about, or really the possibilities are limitless given the imagination of the director and the amount of footage that they shot.
Director of Photography Fernando Madero framing a shot.
Divorce During Pandemic is exactly that. It’s a true-life story of what happened when a married couple that is breaking up exchanges divorce documents during the early weeks of the pandemic. That could be sad, but the situation could be surreal as well, because the couple is wearing masks and gloves and practicing social distance. The film could be funny or a comment on not only the breakup of the marriage but the distance that’s created between a couple when they’re forced to wear mask and gloves to deal with each other. So in the editing room I was presented with the opportunity to either make a dark comedy or a sad tale of two people struggling to move on with their lives. I’m not going to tell you which choice was made you’ll just have to wait to see the film. Yet the opportunity to work with skilled professionals – a director of photography, a sound mixer, a camera assistant, a grip, a production manager and first assistant director who were top notch and a team of producers who gave me everything that I needed to shoot my movie under budget was amazing. Who could ask for more!?
The director discussing the next setup with the DP.
Yet we had the added element of shooting during a world changing virus, so we had to be concerned for the safety of the cast and crew who were truly heroic in shooting this short. My producers provided us with all the PPE that we needed and tried to keep following social distancing, but shooting a film is so all encompassing when you are doing it that it is hard to always remember to stand 6 feet apart. Yet, we managed and all are safe and well, and the film looks great.
The talented Laura Walker (The Wife) waiting for her next take.
So the film is currently in post-production as we do color correction, fix the sound, and work on the opening title and closing credits. Hopefully, the film will be on the festival circuit in the next few weeks and we’ll be talking about it more here at TripswithJames.com. I would like to take the opportunity to thank my cast and crew for the outstanding work that they did that day, and to thank them for the amazing ultimate experience of directing – shooting a film with professionals on a script that you have written and watching it all come to life beautifully ! What more could have film artists ask for? My answer – absolutely nothing!
The gifted David J. Phillips plays The Husband.
More to come on Divorce During Pandemic in the coming weeks!
Special thanks to Corbin Timbrook, Shelby Janes, David J. Philllips, Laura Walker, Fernando Madero, Garrett Stone, Reece Miller, Genaro Magana, Kirk Bruner, Attic Studios.
Followers of this blog know that I am a director of stage and film, and I am proud to announce pre-production for my new short film – Divorce During Pandemic – loosely based on a true situation.
We start shooting on August 12th and we will be dropping info about the shoot and the film on this blog occasionally over the next few of months. So stay tuned!
Leaving Los Angeles on Thursday, July 16th, I drove north on US 101 on a brief road trip to get out of Los Angeles after being cooped up in my house for months. I wasn’t going to go visit anyone or go party, I just needed to see some different environments and to experience what was going on in the world of California during a pandemic.
Fort Ord Beach, Marina, CA
The observations that I’m going to make are wholly unscientific . I didn’t take any polls or do any headcounts or any interviews. This is strictly my observations as I walked through sections of different communities and noticed roughly how many people had masks on and did not have masks on as they interacted with other members of the public. While every store that I went into required face coverings of some nature, I was surprised at the amount of people in California who were not wearing face coverings at this moment of increased infection rate and a new push by the governor for people to stay home, wear face masks, and practice social distancing.
The Author at Cannery Row, Monterrey, CA
The first place I stopped was in Santa Barbara for lunch. I first took a long walk on the bike path along the shoreline just south of the Marina. It was about 11 AM when I got to Santa Barbara. The sky was overcast and it was a cool late morning. Most of the people that I passed along the bike path were doing some kind of exercise and they are allowed not to wear a face covering while their exercising, but of the mothers is walking their babies, couples casually riding bicycles or people walking their dogs, I would say 50% of them were not wearing a face covering.
Pismo Beach with Pier in background.
As I drove up State Street was one of the main shopping streets in Santa Barbara I notice that the street was blocked off in many areas so that the restaurants could move outside to have outside dining. I parked in one of the many municipal parking lots that Santa Barbara has in that part of town and went to a CVS to get some supplies for my trip and get a sandwich for takeaway. Now many people consider Santa Barbara to be a very upscale community and overall that is true , but along State Street there has been a noticeable decline in the quality of the businesses. You see many more homeless people and people who were just down on their luck than you used too. So the population that I was looking at was everything from a homeless person all the way to very affluent people and many tourists. You could not go into any store or any restaurant whether it was ordering inside or sitting outside without having a face covering. Yet, I was amazed at the sheer amount of people who walked around either with a face covering underneath their chin or with nothing at all who were interacting with other patrons or service people who were waiting on them. The strangest situation for me is when a family of four or more people will be walking around and half of them will have masks and half of them won’t. I can’t quite figure that out. The choice of wearing a mask or not wearing a mask seems to cross all ages and all races from very young to very old, from white to African-American to Hispanic and Asian.
Local signs in Pismo Beach that no one seemed to consider.
Back in the car I headed north towards Pismo Beach where I was going to spend the first night of my road trip. Pismo Beach is quite spread out but I stayed in a tourist area known as the motel district off of Price St. This is a four by four block section filled with restaurants, bars, gift shops and hotels that are near the beach and near Pismo Beach Pier. I got to Pismo Beach about 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon and checked into my hotel and went out walking around this area until about 8:00 o’clock at night. The beach was very crowded and all the takeaway places had long lines in front of them since out indoor dining was completely closed off. The three places that offered outdoor dining were jammed with long lines waiting. This part of Pismo Beach has a large cross section of all types tourists and easily 75% of the people that I saw on the streets either had no mask at all or just did not wear them. They would hold them in their hand, in their pockets or wear them underneath their chin. It was like nobody knew that we were in the middle of a very contagious pandemic and that you could infect or get infected by the person standing right next to you. Again the family dynamic of some wearing a mask and some not wearing a mask was very interesting.
Sand Dollar Cove off PCH in Pacific Valley, CA
Next day I drove up PCH through San Simeon and Big Sur. I also stopped at my favorite place along the coast which is an area called Pacific Valley and specifically a State Park that leads down to a beautiful beach called Sand Dollar Cove. I’ve been coming to Sand Dollar for over 30 years as long as I’ve lived in California. It is always been a very popular place but in the last 6 to 7 years it has become exceptionally busy. This weekend was no different with 50 or more cars parked along both sides of the highway and the small parking lot at Sand Dollar completely filled. Now of course we’re in the outdoors at a beach and a campground and social distancing is very easy to practice here but at least 60 to 70% of the people that I saw walking around had no masks on them at all. This was a very white group of people . I didn’t see a single person of color the entire 2 hours that I was there, but it was families, surfers, backpackers, and people who were on the road in vans and large campers so again a cross section of people all ages and not many masks
Tree on the beach in Carmel, CA
My stop for the evening was Carmel, California home of Clint Eastwood and a very wealthy white enclave with a much older population. After I checked into my hotel, I wandered over to Ocean Street which is the center of this shopping area of Carmel. I noticed almost everyone had masks on. Of course again no indoor dining but a lot of outdoor establishments for people to sit drink wine and have dinner. All service personnel had masks on and the majority of the people walking or standing in line getting into places had masks on. It was actually noticeable when someone did not. Maybe that’s because they’re wealthier or they’re older so they’re more concerned about their health or whatever reason you would like to come up with, but Carmel had the highest ratio of people wearing a mask on the street that I had seen thus far. It does not mean they like it though. I heard several conversations of people complaining about the uselessness of masks.
Fort Ord Beach and Dunes
The next morning I drove a short distance to Seaside, CA where I was staying the night. This was definitely a working class neighborhood and the percentage of people I saw wearing masks was about 50%. I stayed here so I would be close to the Fort Ord Dunes Park which is located along the Monterrey Bay where the former military base Fort Ord was located. It is now a federally and state protected area with wonderful biking trails and a lovely mostly unused beach which stretches for 4 miles along the coastline. After the spending the day hiking around Fort Ord. I drove over to Cannery Row in Monterrey for dinner. Cannery Row is a huge tourist magnet and here you got a pretty good cross section of races and ages. The very interesting thing that Monterrey was doing was you were required to wear face mask and if you got caught not wearing one by the police, they gave you a $100 fine. So almost everyone had a mask on all the time.
Cannery Row at Sundown
So what is this little snapshot show us? Really nothing definitive. Just that there are still a large contingency of Californians or tourists who visit our state, who don’t wear masks. Also it’s just not when they’re walking by themselves or they’re with their family, they do this when they’re interacting with other patrons, other tourists and service personnel at the height of an incredibly contagious pandemic. Make of that what you will.
The City of Angels is awake. It’s not that it’s been asleep, it’s only been taking a nap. For the last three months, we have been doing what is known as ‘sheltering in place’. Meaning that our local government authorities wanted us to basically stay in our house and not go anywhere. And they did make that difficult because they closed all the beaches and the parks, all the bars and restaurants, and all the stores. So really where was there to go?
(Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)
But finally we are starting to open. Bars and restaurants, barber shops and hair salons, nail salons and department stores are all open for some kind of business. But is it too much too soon or was this all Much Ado about nothing. It depends on who you talk to and what your opinion is of COVID-19. Is it a great pandemic or is it a left wing hoax?
Through history man has always dealt with pandemics before with diseases that could not be cured and that killed hundreds of thousands of people through the ages. There’s the Spanish flu of 1918, polio, black plague, measles, and one of the greatest diseases of all time although not many people think about it anymore is tuberculosis which for centuries all the way back to the Greeks was the greatest killer of humans on the planet. Of the five diseases that I just mentioned only two of them forced humans to change their lifestyle to such degree that it caused people to leave cities or to stay inside. That’s the black plague and the Spanish flu. The other diseases that I mentioned plus many others while horrible did not cause society to change. People caught these diseases and many died but the general population just went on living their lives. So which approach was the correct one? Well we’re told that the difference between this disease and other ones is that it’s so contagious and it has never appeared before on the planet. That we possess no natural defense for it. That’s why health officials said wear a mask, wash your hands, social distance and stay inside.
Bartender Jennifer Priddy, left, and bar manager Kandis Conner of The Blue Door Bar in Fullerton (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)
People want to stay well . They don’t want to go out in public and get sick. But people also cannot stay home forever. It’s summer in Los Angeles and the sun is shining and the weather is perfect. And everyone in the city is suffering from Lock Down Fever. Even before the ‘shelter in place’ order was lifted since Easter you could already tell that people were beginning to disregard the laws. Gone were the empty freeways and the empty side streets and the empty parks. People began coming out more and more and driving places and riding bikes and getting out in the weather and just trying to find some normalcy in a time where there is no normalcy
For 2 1/2 months I stayed inside. I faithfully wore my mask, washed my hands and rarely went out except to go to a grocery store or pharmacy. I sanitize my kitchen every other day with Clorox wipes and every time I stepped back into the house I used hand sanitizer. I also carried hand sanitizer with me everywhere that I went . And I got it! I got a very mild case of it, but it got me. So, I am very scared of COVID-19. The idea of going to a restaurant or a bar is now almost frightening. While I understand that people have to get back to their daily lives and make a living, the casualness with which some seem to deal with COVID-19 to me is mind boggling.
The bars and restaurants in Los Angeles opened on June 5th, and I ventured out to see what would happen. I live not far away from Culver City which for many years was a very sleepy little town that would close up at about 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon but now is a happening crossroads with 20 to 30 restaurants and bars in its downtown district. Culver City for movie aficionados is the home of MGM Studios which later became Sony Pictures. The area that I went to investigate was where Culver Blvd. crosses Main Street in Culver City.
In this area there are 25 bars and restaurants, a Trader Joe’s, and the world-famous Culver Hotel with its jazz club lobby all in a six block radius. The rules were that people had to wear masks as they came into the restaurant, sitting was limited to only 25% capacity and people needed to maintain social distance. Every place handled it differently but the idea of socially distancing when people have not been out in public for 3 months is kind of silly at best. People who wanted to come were doing so to see their friends and eat in a restaurant. Some were coming out in groups of 10 to 15 people and sitting at large tables. One restaurant known as Public School has a very extensive patio but they were only seating 4 tables on the patio at a time so there was immense space between those customers. However, you went around the corner to Roscoe’s Tavern where you were met at the door by a man wearing a mask who took your temperature and told you to wait until a table became available based on social distancing rules. Yet seated right next to the maitre-d’ and potential new customers less than two feet away was a table of 15 people all day eating, drinking and nobody had a mask on, so at best the results were mixed. There were new restaurants that had just opened few months before the COVID-19 fiasco hit and somehow they managed to hang onto their spaces for 2 1/2 months with no business and now they were just trying to make as much money as they could. There is a new Irish bar that had just opened about six months before COVID-19 hit with the social distant rules posted at the door but there was no one practicing social distance. In an Irish bar it’s impossible, it goes against the very fabric of an Irish bar.
(Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
I have taken an informal poll of my very good friends here in Los Angeles to see who was up for going out to grab something to eat or meet somebody in a bar for a drink. Well the results were pretty much 85% of those polled were not ready to come out because they were afraid of catching the virus in public, the other 15% couldn’t wait to go someplace where they could actually socially interact with other people.
Myself I’m kind of on the fence. Staying at home for 2 1/2 months and missing social interaction and the daily activities of my life was very difficult for me. I would honestly say that it affected my mental state. Yet the fear of catching this disease in a social setting when there is no cure and no vaccine scares me even more.
So, Los Angeles is open! But we are open with uncertainty! There is no clear path to the future, and it causes dismay and restless nights about what the future will hold for you as an individual, your city as a community and our country as a whole. New cases of COVID-19 , new hospitalizations and a rising death toll are concerning to health officials here while to others it’s just the price of living your life. Which is the right philosophy? Well that’s up to the individual but as we try to return to something that resembles normal life before the pandemic we’re actually looking at a whole new reality with no conclusion and no clear solution.
I was in the midst of publishing a blog about Los Angeles’ uncertain opening following the COVID-19 lock down that has been part of daily life in Los Angeles since March 15th. Yet the death of George Floyd and the resulting public outcry across the country for justice, the protests in many cities and the looting that has followed those protests cause me to change my mind on what I wanted to talk about.
The subject on everyone’s mind is the heinous murder of George Floyd that everyone in America has seen. While I know nothing of the city of Minneapolis or its police force or its racial history just watching a white man kneel on the neck of a black man for 12 minutes until he died tells me a lot. One of the other officers who was involved and fired is an Asian American. He is a person of color, yet he did nothing. It seems that the bond between police officers to back each other up outweighed their duty to protect the public at least in this case.
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Los Angeles my home city is under curfew tonight. The entire city from Downtown Los Angeles all the way to Santa Monica is closed. The curfew started at 8:00 PM and will last until 5:30 AM on Sunday morning. There were fires at the Grove, a popular high-end shopping mal,l and looting and burning along famous shopping district of Melrose Ave. There were also reports of fires in Beverly Hills and in other parts of the city. When the curfew started at 8:00 PM and for the next 2 hours you could hear police sirens going off in all directions and for some unknown reason also a tremendous amount of fireworks.
What follows are two completely different views of what happened at a protest rally at Pan Pacific Park near the Grove and the historic Farmers Market on Fairfax Ave between Beverly and 3rd. This is an old historical area that is going through many changes and now it’s a very upscale shopping area. Today it was the scene of a clash between police and protesters that ended up in police cars being set on fire and certain buildings being looted or also set on fire. At one time the police shot rounds of rubber bullets into the crowd to make them disperse.
The first voice you’re going to hear is from Godfrey Santos Plata, a Democrat running for the California State Assembly, District 53 in the general election this coming November 3rd. He was at the protest at Pan Pacific Park to be there in support of the protesters who he claims were incredibly well organized and peaceful until the police showed up. In a series of tweets on his site @godfreyplata, he wanted to talk about a few things that the public was not being shown by the mainstream media about what really happened at Pan Pacific/Fairfax rally. First that multiple families of murdered black folks were present, and the leaders of the protest did a roll call. And that #BlackLivesMatter co-founder Patrice Cullors gave a rousing and moving speech that was in no way inciting the crowd to violence.
Protest Downtown LA
Also, Plata pointed out that there were multiple groups of volunteers who were passing out free water to the demonstrators, and folks were reminding other people to continue to wear their masks. He further remarked that most of the homeowners in that area are white and they came out to honk their horns or pump their fists and to show support for the demonstrators. There were many remarks online about the mayhem that was taking place in the intersection of Fairfax and 3rd where motorists seemed trapped in their cars. Plata states that the mayhem was actually demonstrators trying to direct the traffic where to go.
Finally it is Mr. Plata’s assertion that when the police began to shoot rubber bullets into the crowd, a cry went up from the demonstrators for all the white people in the group to come to the forefront to help protect the people of color behind them. And he says this actually happened. He goes on further to say that for all the anger and rage that the crowd was feeling, they basically had come there to support the other demonstrations that were going on in other cities and demand that killer cops be prosecuted and to defund the Los Angeles Police Department. In the Mayor’s newest budget, it has seen an extraordinary increase in the amount of funding that LAPD is to receive while the city is cutting back on housing and workforce development and education.
Again, this is all according to Mr. Plata who was running for political office In Los Angeles
Mayor Eric Garcetti setting curfew in place
Yet after four days of continuing violence and protests about George Floyd’s death, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti had reached his limit. He requested that Governor Gavin Newsom send in the National Guard to help LAPD which had repeated clashes with protesters as they pillaged businesses and torched police vehicles.
The Mayor was quoted as saying, “The California National Guard is being deployed to Los Angeles overnight to support our local response to maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city.” The mayor had ordered a rare citywide curfew until Sunday morning.
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
According to NBC Channel 4, referencing the same area that Mr. Plata was in as one of the hardest hit areas. The Grove which sits next to Pan Pacific Park is where hundreds of protesters swarmed the area and showered the police with rocks and other objects and vandalized stores. The mostly peaceful demonstration devolved when protesters set several Police Department cars on fire, broke store windows and climbed on top of a bus. Police used batons to move protesters back and shot rubber bullets to scatter the crowd.
The scale of the damage in Los Angeles has been compared to the 1992 Rodney King riots when over 1 billion dollars in property damage was done. Currently there’s no estimate about how many businesses have suffered damage during the protests but it’s clearly extensive.
On Friday night protesters rampaged through downtown late at night smashing windows and robbing jewelry and other stores and the police ended up arresting 533 people.
Mayor Garcetti initially imposed a curfew for downtown but then quickly expanded it to cover the entire city as the violence seemed to be expanding everywhere. The curfew is to last from 8:00 PM on Saturday night till 5:30 AM on Sunday morning.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by ETIENNE LAURENT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
NBC Channel Four also reported that a large group of demonstrators actually entered the city of Beverly Hills and held a protest on Rodeo Dr, one of the most famous shopping streets in the world. Channel 4 says they were mostly peaceful and as you can tell from the photograph of the Beverly Hills protest, it seems quiet and respectful. Yet, in spite of that, social media has posted lots of video posts showing marchers chanting ‘Eat the Rich’ while a crowd broke into the high-end stores and fled with merchandise
As in Minnesota where the governor has accused out of state right wing extremists as the cause for the looting and violence in Minneapolis, California’s governor said that authorities were closely monitoring organized violent extremist groups who may be trying to use the protests for their own agenda.
“When the violence escalates, no one wins,” Garcetti stated. “I’m asking all of Los Angeles to take a deep breath and to step back.”
The mayor of Los Angeles closed down the city on March 15th, 2020. The governor followed the next day shutting down the entire state on March 16th, 2020, with a “shelter in place “order. Since that time all schools, restaurants and bars, churches, parks have been closed. The beaches are closed. Our famous hiking trails throughout Los Angeles are closed. All movie theaters, museums, any place where people would gather are closed. This is what it’s like living in Los Angeles, California, in the time of plague.
When I first came to Los Angeles in 1984, it was already an overpopulated city. There were too many people, traffic jams, incredible air pollution, a growing homeless problem, and you had to add 20 minutes to any trip that you were going to take anywhere in the city just to be on there on time. But it was also the capital of filmmaking in the entire world and I wanted to be in the entertainment business, plus it had great beaches, incredible sunsets and that incomparably great weather.
Thirty-eight years later, it’s even more crowded. The traffic jams are even worse. You have to add 45 minutes to any trip that you’re going to take now. The pollution is a lot better, but our homeless problem has grown to such proportions that by itself is larger than most mid-sized cities in the United States. It’s still the movie capital of the world but there’s now five world class museums, two sports teams in every major category: baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer. And still we have those incredible beaches and sunsets, and still enjoy the best weather in America.
But Los Angeles is closed.
I’ve been sheltering in place since March 16th. On the 15th, two days before Saint Patrick’s Day, I went out to an Irish bar and had a Guinness while sitting in the most distant corner of the bar to keep social distance between myself and others. Other than going to a grocery store or a pharmacy that’s the only human interaction I’ve had since March 16th. I have a roommate, so I have someone to talk to. But I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who lived by themselves and can’t venture out. Humans are made and programmed to be around other humans and to not have any human contact is almost inconceivable.
Few days ago, I was allowed the opportunity to take a Corona virus test. The week before I had reached out online to the testing authority here in Los Angeles to see if I had symptoms of the virus, and I was told that I didn’t and stay home. But then I was contacted by them because I fit into a certain age category and have an underlying health condition. They allowed me to come be tested. It was very strange as the photographs show. It took place in a large parking lot of a church. Everyone was dressed in hazmat suits and you were told to roll down your window just a little bit so they could slip you a test kit. No one personally tested me. Those photographs or videos that you see on the television or online of someone sticking a swab up another person’s nose didn’t happen for me. What happened was they gave me a plastic bag with a swab inside of it, a small vial filled with a toxic liquid, a list of instructions and two smaller plastic bags. The man who handed it to me at the side of my car told me what I needed to do. Then he asked me to repeat it back to him, and then he told me the instructions one more time. At that point, I was supposed to pull off to the side in the parking space and perform the test myself.
I was supposed to open the kit and take out the swab. Then I was to swab the inside of my mouth three times. Then I was to break the swab in half so it would fit into the small vial with the toxic liquid and close it. I was warned several times not to let this liquid spill on me. Then I was to take that vial and put it in the smallest plastic bag and seal it. Then place that bag in the next size bag and seal that one. And finally put that bag in the bag that the test kit came in and seal it. I was then to drive to the exit of the parking lot and throw the bag in a large container that had all the other test kits that had been used. That was 10 days ago. I still don’t have my test results. And I have my doubts that that is the most effective way to test people for coronavirus. What if they don’t understand the instructions? What if they get confused? What if they don’t do the test in the correct way? Don’t think that’s the most effective way to do it. No human interaction whatsoever. Self-testing seems like it leaves a lot of room for confusion and improper testing.
Three days ago, I was so stir crazy that I decided to drive down to Santa Monica. Just to see what there was to see. Nothing. Empty streets. Closed stores. Hardly anyone on the street at all. The 3rd Street Promenade and Santa Monica Pier were completely closed and empty of anyone. Standing on the cliffs overlooking Santa Monica beaches, they were completely empty.
There was a movie that came out in 1959 or 1960, that I remember seeing as I was growing up. It starred Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire. It was called On The Beach. It was based on a controversial book that had come out in the late 50’s about a possible nuclear war that happens between the Soviet Union and the United States. The war happens and the fallout from the radiation kills everyone on the planet. Gregory Peck is the commander of a submarine that was at sea when the attacks happen and, they survive. The eerie scene of the submarine sailing into San Francisco Bay to find nothing. The city wasn’t blown up, it was just empty of people. No one there. Empty streets, empty buildings, just empty. And that’s what Santa Monica reminded me of. It was very spooky and eerie and unsettling.
What will life look like on the other side of this plague. Will we remember to be nicer to each other as we are now? Will we maintain the slow pace of life that we have managed to accomplish now? Will the pollution continue to get better because there are less cars and less movement on the streets now? Or will it return to the way that it was before with overcrowded freeways, and the hustle and bustle of a massive city.
Life will begin to return to normal. Movie theaters will open, churches will open, schools will open, restaurants and bars will open, and life will begin to return to something that resembles normal. The beaches will open. The parks will open. And there’s still the incredible sunsets and the beautiful weather. Right now that’s in the future and no one knows when that will happen.
Los Angeles lives one day at a time. Some people still go to work but many people have lost their jobs because film production is stopped, and the service industry of bars and restaurants have shut down. And the ripple effect has affected almost everyone that I know. Whether they are renters or homeowners or landlords or just regular business owners because all nonessential businesses have closed as well. Los Angeles is closed. And we don’t know when it’s going to reopen.
When it does, those of us that live here hope you come back because our city exists on tourism as a major source of our income. But will you want to come here? Will you trust that you can fly in a plane and not catch the virus? Will you want to be on the Hollywood Walk of fame with hundreds of other people, will you want to go to our fabulous beaches with hundreds of other people, or want to go to our museums, the 3rd St promenade, and the Santa Monica pier?
Los Angeles is closed. And the Los Angeles we used to know will be very different than the one that arrives when they finally lift the shelter in place order. And I wonder what that will be like?
We should be thankful all across the country for the men and women who work as doctors, nurses, EMT’s, grocery store clerks, people that restock stores, pharmacists and their colleagues in drug stores, Amazon drivers and UPS drivers, and the growing business of food delivery. All those people risk their lives every day being confronted with the possibility Covis-19. I don’t know that I could do their job. Yes, they’re making a living because they have to but they’re also brave. I really don’t know if I could stand behind a cash register as hundreds of people walked by me maybe with the disease or maybe not. The odds of not getting it are not Vegas odds, but they’re still not good.
In the meantime, please stay inside, when you go out wear a mask and remember social distancing. The reason that California, the most populous state in the United States, has some of the lowest Corona virus numbers is because our mayor and our governor got out in front of this and our curve is a lot lower than other places especially New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Louisiana.
Yes, for those literary types who caught the reference, the title of this blog references the famous novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera. The title of this famous book references a disease but the term Cholera as it’s used in Spanish can also denote passion or human rage in its feminine form. Therefore, the title of the book is a pun: Cholera as a disease and Cholera as a passion.
For those of you that have been following this blog for a while, you know that I am an AirBnB host in Los Angeles. And in this time of Coronavirus and very limited travel, I decided to write about what’s happening to the hosting business in Los Angeles.
Hosting for me has been a passion and a way of life since 2011 when I joined AirBnB. And I was playing host to students from University of Southern California for five years before that. So, hosting for me has been going on for about 15 years. In that time, I have hosted over 300 people and have over 150 positive reviews and only two negative reviews. I was a Superhost for three to four years losing that last year when I canceled someone who I thought was a danger coming into my home.
Some of my best friends from around the world I have met through hosting. Some of the people that I have hosted in my home, I have ended up staying with them when I traveled to their country, and conversely, people that I met while traveling have come in stay in my home when they’ve traveled to Los Angeles. My marriage which is now ending unfortunately was also a happenstance of my hosting a woman from Denmark and we ended up being married for five years.
For the first time since somewhere in the beginning of 2012, my rooms are empty. I have always been full since that time. I have 4 bedrooms and a guest house and an apartment which I converted from the former servants’ quarters in my large house in Los Angeles. I’m not wealthy. I bought a derelict house and have spent the last 19 years restoring it. It’s taken a lot of time, lot of effort and a lot of love. Working with AirBnB has allowed me to pay my mortgage and pull myself out of debt and repair my ancient home. For some of you around the world, this house would not seem old since it was built in 1904 but for Los Angeles which tears down everything after about 50 years, this place is ancient.
My 4 bedrooms are empty. The guest house and the apartment are rented to tenants thankfully at the moment, but the main house is empty. On around March 14th, the Mayor of Los Angeles and the City Council closed all bars, restaurants and gathering places. The only thing open are grocery stores, pharmacies and other essential businesses. All groups of 50 or more people were not allowed to meet and instantly all concerts and events and conventions that were in the Los Angeles area were cancelled. Within a space of three days all my business for March, April and most of May has completely disappeared. If you listen to the CDC out of Atlanta instead of President Trump, you realize that America is in very bad shape to meet such a pandemic. Believing the science more than I believe the propaganda, the experts are predicting that in Los Angeles, the crest will come sometime in late March or early April, if then. Erring on the side of caution, I’ve also decided to cancel any new reservations for the month of April because the coronavirus is just now arriving in Los Angeles in force. And we are warned that we will soon look like New York or New Jersey or Louisiana in terms of cases and rates of infection and community spread and rates of death.
So, for the first time in my hosting career I am turning people away. And part of me is very sad. But after living in a house full of strangers for the last 15 years part of me is also happy. For the first time the place is quiet. There’s no one around. I don’t have to be worrying about how much noise I make or if I can play billiards in the pool room downstairs past 11:00 PM or play the stereo loud. I’m here by myself. I’ve been self-quarantining for about 11 days and on certain levels I am extremely bored and stir crazy but on the other hand the peace and quiet is kind of nice. It actually makes me think that maybe I’m not going to host anymore. I might rent a couple of rooms to students from University of Southern California but leave the rest of the house quiet.
Hosting in the Time of Corona. It’s a time of reflection. It’s a time of sadness because I have friends who have already passed and many friends who are currently battling the disease. So far, I’ve been lucky. But that doesn’t mean that I will escape it. It’s just now cresting in Los Angeles, so the possibility of me getting it in the next few days or next couple of weeks is very strong. You can’t stay indoors forever.
Yet the peace, the quiet, the reflection and the time to myself has been very nice. So, here’s to the 300 plus people that have lived in my house. Here’s to the 150 plus good reviews that I’ve received for my work and allowing people into my home and treating them like family and friends. Here’s to nine years I have been an Airbnb host. I don’t know if this will continue. It takes a lot to operate a house this big – 6 bedrooms, three bathrooms, living room, dining room, pool room, guest house, an apartment and on and on and on. But I wouldn’t have changed the last 15 years for anything.
Please stay safe. Please stay healthy. Many people seem to take this virus as something that’s not really that important. You’re wrong. This virus is a killer. Most people won’t get very sick but those that do it’s a terrible way to die. Gasping for breath. My thoughts are with everybody around the world as we go through this world changing event. And my prayers are with those who are very sick or who have passed from this terrible disease.
Hosting in the Time of Corona. A life changing event for everyone and one in which the future cannot be known.
The death of Kobe Bryant caught me completely by surprise. As I’m sure it did everyone. As a lifelong Los Angeles Laker fan even when the team was not doing that well, I have always supported the team and cheered on its heroes. Yet for me the biggest hero is not Jerry West, or Magic Johnson, or Kareem , or Shaq, the biggest hero is Kobe Bryant!
I happen to be in Africa the day when he had passed, specifically Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, and believe it or not, I had been to a snake farm that day and had actually seen a black mamba. It’s not a cosmic coincidence, it is just a fact. The Black Mamba is called the most deadly snake in the entire world, and actually, seeing a black mamba in person and knowing how deadly it is it made it all the more exciting. In front of me was a long powerful black snake whose venom could kill up to 10 men with one bite. That’s how strong its venom is.
And that night when I heard that he had died I immediately thought of that snake and Kobe’s nickname, the Black Mamba. And I understood the comparison. The snake is dark, powerful, silent and extremely deadly, and Kobe because of his determination, his will to win, and his desire to be the best that he could be made the comparison apt.
Kobe wasn’t always a hero. There was the rape charge that he bought himself out of whether he did it or not. It is not for me to pass judgement on him because I do not know what happened. Yet, the accusation remains and will tarnish his image and legacy forever. According to rumor, he wasn’t exactly the easiest person to get along with in the locker room or with his teammates. Yet he led the Lakers to 7 championship series of which they won 5. And that’s what we remember. The championships, the last-minute buzzer shots, and the drive to succeed above all else.
I will miss Kobe. He seemed to be turning into an excellent man. Loving father, husband, businessman, and Oscar winning producer. We will never know where his will to succeed would have taken him. My heart goes out to his family for the loss of Kobe and his daughter, and to the other eight people who perished in that crash.
Kobe and his daughter, Gianna.
Death of a Laker. Death of a champion. Death of a hero.
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