Skid Row
I am dating myself here, but, I loved that band. And, being a nutter, I have been intrigued by the actual Skid Row ever since that Sabastian Bach guy, with what was once deliciously huge hair, sang about “the youth gone wild” and “18 and Life” and “I remember you”.
I opened up the Downtown News on the Metro yesterday and read about how ‘celebrities and volunteers will be feeding soup to Skid Row on 5th outside of the Los Angeles Mission on Good Friday’. I thought about it because Skid Row is a mere 5-6 blocks from my office and my boss has been engaged in the clean up of downtown for decades. Fateful, at best, I go home and read my email only to find an announcement in my inbox for a STOP HUNGER scholarship for $4000. “Must prove a commitment to fighting hunger in your community”. Perfect. I could now see what Skid Row was like by not only participating, but maybe benefiting from said participation (c’mon, it’s LA. You think the ‘celebrities’ are doing this to be nice?). My intrigue would make for a great story and the scholarship, along with the humanitarian aid…I suppose… would provide the impetus.
I scoped it out today on my way back from a meeting in Burbank, so that I wouldn’t just be walking around downtown looking for the Mission, like every other bum in LA. Then, I turned a corner and found it. Absolute mayhem. I can’t even describe what LA’s Skid Row is like, other than to say it’s RAW. Hundreds of people milling everywhere, no teeth, talking and screaming to the cosmos and to me in my car, walking in traffic, laying, picking, sifting through stuff, fighting. I looked to the left to a COMPLETELY filled park. To the brim. There was not a square inch that was not inhabited by either a person, by their shopping cart, or by a ghetto blaster. It was all sorts of jacked up and busted. I think when they ‘cleaned up’ the downtown, they put every single schizophrenic, homeless, crackhead into two square blocks. I locked the doors and proceeded to roll to my corner of downtown, where it’s only semi-raw and semi-jacked up and busted, and where I actually breathed a sigh of relief in my semi-nonsafety.
I drove away thinking, “F#*% THAT”.
I believe I will cancel the photoshoot I was going to have at Skid Row tomorrow and continue to fight hunger the way I am familiar with: by feeding my own piehole.
Happy Good Friday (that’s a little weird),
BB
April 6th, 2007 at 7:05 am
On that note, Tucson isn’t so bad. And allowing them to spread out, too.
April 9th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
So sorry you let first impressions dictate your blog. Those persons to whom you refer are in need of help not another drive by. Food, clothing, housing, medical care and jobs.
By the way, you might check with Muriel Garza at the news. We do serve gruel or soup. We did offer consume to those in line if they desired. But our meal was ham, vegetables, homemade mac & cheese and desert. Nobody including the celebrities complained.
If you’re ever back in the neighborhood, please stop by.
April 9th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
I do agree with you and commend you immensely. Keep up the good work, Herb. You, and many others, are good, good souls. I honestly have never seen anything like your area. It probably would be a good thing for me to consider what I could be doing rather than seeking to just tell it like it is. I appreciate your comments and tend to think, even if in the venue of South Park comedy, any discussion is good discussion. …And I may take you up on your offer and swing by.