I live in a moderately rough part of town. This is intentional; in LA, you can find great apartment values in neighborhoods that may look a bit “transitional” but in fact be perfectly safe. My ‘hood, although safe, is filled with both actual gangbangers and those who look like ‘bangers. Every day as I walk to get lunch, I see Latinos in white wife-beaters and baggy jeans, or African-Americans wearing red. Today, walking back from the store, I saw three such worthies, tall, big, African-American, lounging on a car; one was wearing a “Stop Snitchin’”:http://www.blackstarvideo.com/videos2/Stop-Snitching.html t-shirt. As I walked past, the tallest one said “hey, ‘scuse me, yo!”
Me: “Yeah?”
Banger 1: “Yo, you know where rainbows come from?”
Me: “Yeah, they’re light refracting off water droplets in the sky.”
Banger 2: “I told you so!”
Banger 1: “Yo, where you hear that?”
Me: “Some science teacher”
Banger 3: “That’s ’cause it’s a scientific fact!”
Banger 1: “I don’t believe that, you know, ’cause light is the giver of life, so a rainbow seems more meaningful than all that. It’s like a statement about new life and beauty.”
Banger 2: “Thank you for your help, sir”
Me: “You’re welcome”
Banger 1: “You have a good day”
Palms: where my personal racism is challenged every day.
6:44 am, December 7, 2006Courtmack /
Mmmmmm. Happy rainbow talk at lunch. Pensive bangers rule, as do preppy guys who stop and converse with them. Palms is good for stuff like this, even the Cheviot-Hills-Adjacent part.
3:06 pm, December 7, 2006Vivian /
Beautiful people saying wonderful things are what I like to hear about. Thank you.
1:03 pm, December 8, 2006Jasmine /
This makes me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy inside <img src='http://juniorbird.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' />
1:13 am, December 9, 2006geoff /
Almost sounds like a scene from the Simpsons or something. Surreal contradictions is one of the things I love about LA, which I think plays no small part in making it a great creative capital.
4:56 am, December 9, 2006Auros /
Definitely Simpsons-esque. There are great moments when Snake, or the two punks who hang out with Nelson, will deliver some bit of goofy philosphy…
1:32 pm, December 9, 2006juniorbird /
I’ll be honest, I expected no comments on this and a flurry of condemnation of “my musical taste” :http://juniorbird.com/archive/002974.html. I’m not sure what to make of this disjunction between expectation and reality, but I bet I can find more entries like this one out there.
5:18 am, December 12, 2006Auros /
Your liking of Xmas muzak shows execrable taste, but I figured that was so obvious as to require no comment. And really, if you want to be gauche in your own journal, that’s your prerogative… *g*