The Strawberry Blog

July 25, 2006

Southern California weather is the climactic equivalent of Henry Mancini. Ninety-five percent of the year it is mere background. To some, it serves as impetus to get up and meet the surf; for others, it is the entire reason for living in a congested maze with many a movie rat. Some view it as a most pleasant foundation upon which to pursue their dreams (approximately 3.4 million of them—mostly from Indiana); some exult its near perpetual state of arid bliss. I have noted that talking about the weather is not something that southern Californians do, other than to say, “Man, it’s beautiful. This is why I love it here!” But most of the time it is wallpaper.
Not so this week. Southern California is talking weather, baby! Straight up. Bordering on obsessive. Manic. Depressive. Impressive in its volume.
At a recent screening of “Pirates of the Caribbean” we sat behind a woman who was slumped on the shoulder of her companion. Asleep or dead, we couldn’t tell—not until a friendly face arrived next to us, at which point Little Miss-Asleep-Not-Dead rubbed the crusties from her greens and started singing the weather blues. I have never heard such whiners:
“Can you believe how hot it is? Our air conditioner didn’t even cool the bedroom—in the bedroom! We’ve been too hot to do anything. And our cat is pissed.”
“I know, I know…does anything get accomplished in this kind of weather?”
And on and on…and on it went. Fifteen minutes to wax weather before Johnny Depp swaggered, at once fay and Keith Richards. Fifteen minutes to read the same sentence in my book fifteen times because Miss Former Texan, Formerly Dead or Asleep just couldn’t over “the humidity! Ugh!” She was still slumped on her equally tired companion’s shoulder, wondering how she was going to “make it through the movie”—in which pirates fight the ocean turbulence, outrun cannibals, outwit slimey sea creatures, and do battle with imperialists.
We have become a very sad nation, indeed. I am not immune to this Urban Refusal. But I’m from places with real, regular weather patterns. Sort of.
Just as I was going to recommend “Pirates of the Carribbean” to several friends (all back, in, or from New Orleans), just when I thought, ‘What a great way to beat the heat, go see this!’ I thought better of it: So much water. So much looting.
All that water.
So I kept the thumbs up to myself. Because it’s been eleven months since the Flood and people are dying from depression. Not because their once hardy constitutions can’t take the heat, but because there aren’t enough beds in the psych wards and because there is only one public mental health facility left—located in the old Lord & Taylor department store. Because they can’t get home.
I’m concerned; selfishly so. When people are obsessed with their own nasty weather, they can’t be bothered about the havoc it wreaked somewhere last summer. War and reality tv are one diversion, but humidity where it never rains? I’m worried everyone will forget, for once and for all. I’ve been asked too many times, “So, everything’s alright there now…right?”
I return home to New Orleans this Friday, after four months away, for business and for pleasure. To revel in what is found only there—and to lament the passings and losses.
I can almost hear a second line….

July 13, 2006

Maybe it’s the flâneur in me, maybe it’s the American Studies major, but I get a kick out of living history—as in live, direct, up close history: Roman ruins, Druid stones, old theatres. I feel the same way about personal history—worn, common, and un-trumpeted. Which is why my native Washington, D.C. thrills me. I walk it for miles, finding spirits in sticks and stones, greeting new ones in concrete and tarmac. Gordon Parks also felt this way. He walked the same U Street corridor in the 1940s documenting ordinary life, as I walk today. I get a kick out of the interconnectness of people, places, and things. I guess I’m just a simple girl in love with nouns.
But I’m obsessed with verbs. I’ve been reading Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, And What We Can Do About It (2005, Mindy Thompson Fullilove, M.D.), about the palpable disquiet that develops once neighborhoods are destroyed, once the city power structure has its way with the territory. A meditation on the interconnectedness of global urban pillaging, it is also an oral history of those on whom these terrible wrongs are wrought. Terrible wrongs like much of Urban Renewal. Terrible wrongs like destroying community. Dr. Fullilove weaves seamless historical analogy between Paris and Pittsburgh; between poor French people and working class Americans (It is poetic retail justice that I bought the book at the National Building Museum after seeing the “Newer New Orleans,” and “Washington: City and Capitol” exhibits).
In the heat and humidity of Monday afternoon I walked around Columbia Heights in Northwest D.C., checking on the progress of the old Powell Junior High School where my father used to shoot hoops. Last year I’d wanted to shoot it for my mini documentary but it was razed the year before, so I’m resigned to 1948 black and whites that an unnamed photographer thought fit to make. I feel a connection to that photographer for capturing time and place for one moment so that I can use it in the many moments on screen. I was curious what went up in Powell’s place, what might serve the community better today. It is now a curvaceous, salmon bricked multicultural institute with new basketball courts. Better than I had expected.
Between the construction all around 14th Street and the bustle of people at Columbia Heights Metro Station, it feels like a lot of life has returned. But underneath, below the surface of a short row of façades preserved, is the sensation that not all of this demolition and re-construction is meant for them. How many upscale live/work shopping temples can Columbia Heights support?
I walked toward my father’s old house. I’d shot it last year for documentary B-roll, and walking along the even numbered side of the street, I noted nothing much had changed. Apartment buildings, sturdy row houses and trees line Harvard Street, privy to the boom of Gordon Parks’ day and the devastation of crack cocaine. My grandfather sold it for a song to the Davis family who’d stayed through the crack era, at least until 1998 when I took the last photograph of my father on the porch. It’s the house I hoped to one day buy, to restore, to glory in its ghosts.
But I couldn’t find it.
I paced back and forth in the brightness of mid-day, like a caged animal, searching for the numbers “1461.” I found “1458,” and “1463.” What lay in between sent me reeling, cursing, shaking my head in the heat.
“Root shock is the traumatic stress reaction to the destruction of all or part of one’s emotional ecosystem…Just as the body has a system to maintain its internal balance, so, too, the individual has a way to maintain external balance between himself and the world.”
In the midst of Harvard Street’s unified dark red brick, in between 1458 and 1463, lay nothing short of a monument to Beige—a love affair with a non-color, jutting out of the street like a broken bone. There was nothing left of the old house; not one brick, not one stick, not even a stone.
Extracting my head from my hands I found Miss Pat, a longtime resident. As we walked toward her bus stop, she said, “It’s sad, it is. I could have bought that house from the Davis’s. Kick my behind. Go on! But…after you fall you got to pick yourself up again. Can’t stay down there forever.”
Her bus came. I took mine to U Street and ducked into a mom and pop for some homegrown, bootlegged, old school Go-Go.
Gonna drop a bomb on the Northwest crew/ Drop the bomb! Drop the bomb!/ Yeah, Northwest crew, now what ya gonna do?/ Drop the bomb! Drop the bomb!
A lot of percussion and a little brass…goes a long way to verb a broken noun.

July 9, 2006

Normally I do not attend opening days of anything. I do not seek out mobs of people in a confined space. But I made an exception for the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery on July 1st. The new best spot in D.C. is the Portico Café to sip French 75s, listen to a quintet, and enjoy a breeze and vista. For those of us who frequented the area in the Eighties and Nineties the view now is nothing short of a miracle. The building renovation, the whole presentation from architectural masterpiece to the over 5,000 works inside, is exquisite.
The same cannot be said for the crowds, however. While most were well behaved, they were poorly dressed for even the opening of an ice cream stand. Sure, it’s humid and the temperatures unflinchingly high, but can’t American men find it in their hearts, if they don’t possess an innate sense of style, to consult with a higher authority before they descend upon the republic? Can’t they show a little respect for what Whitman called “the noblest of Washington buildings” by forgoing the pleated khaki shorts with white socks and sandals? (that applies to Germans, too). Mid-length pleated khaki shorts don’t even look good on this month’s super model. Listen up, khaki shorts: as we used to say back when the Portrait Gallery was across the street from seedy peep show joints, “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi, you ugly!”
But while pleated khaki shorts are nothing short of an affront to the senses, ratcheting down any national pride, worse perhaps is the American obsession known as Cult of the Child. On my visit it lurked in Presidential Portraits. I was minding my own business, gazing at the famous Lansdowne portrait of George Washington when a 40-something mother strolled up beside me with her three or four year old something daughter slumped on wheels.
“Look! What does George Washington have in his hand, sweetie?”
The child ignored her.
“Honey, what is the president holding in his hand? Do you know what it is?”
“Go,” said the dear thing, aglow with the thought of 18th century American history.
“What did you say?” said mother in a cloying tone.
“Go!” barked the toddler who could launch a million bars of Ivory soap if only mother had a backbone.
“This is a very famous portrait of Washington,” said mother.
And the princess with the mousy hair, captain of her stroller ship, threw her arm in front of her, ordering mommy to cross the Delaware and to just “GO!”
At which point the woman in the wide brimmed hat whose head was fixed on this sad state of affairs said, “And that is a most obnoxious American child.”
People, please: kindly remember that this is a republic and that allowing your children to rule you frightens the rest of us. So for the health and well being of this nation’s future, invest in the restoration of a national portrait by hiring a British nanny—whatever it takes—but please…resist the pleated khaki part of your parenting skills.

July 2006

I promise—unlike Jerry Bruckheimer—I’ll keep this brief. If Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest was swashbuckler megabusting at its best, this latest in the naughty nauticals is more Pirates of the Caribbean: Another Day, Another Overblown Budget .

The fairest thing I can muster is that Number Three clocked in about one hour over time and that Keith Richards is both the best and the most disappointing thing in it. But despite this third, regrettable voyage, Johnny Depp’s Captain Sparrow is utterly delicious. Sparrow is so beautifully modeled in part on Keith Richards’ guitar-wielding swagger that it was sheer genius to cast Richards as his father. But on screen the Rolling Stone as actor is neither swagger nor…Keith Richards. Instead of letting Richards be Richards—rock star of legendary excess who’s worn a skull ring on his finger since the 1970s—they made him menacing, ominous; less like Richards than Depp’s assured variation on a theme. Sure, they stuck a string instrument in his hand, teasing those of us who fleetingly hoped he’d strum a few chords of “You Got The Silver,” but ultimately it was a missed opportunity to capture in the real, well-worn flesh what Depp so assiduously applied to his character.
And for the love of Neptune, how is it that despite shrinking leisure time, summer blockbusters have the audacity to fill in three mediocre hours what would have made two solid ones? While the 180 minutes passed like a gallstone in a maelstrom, I re-wrote many lines while mumbling quietly to myself. Here is one example:
BILL “BOOTSTRAP” TURNER: What was my promise to you, son?
WILL TURNER (my new line): That you wouldn’t make Number Four?

June 7, 2006

Remember when everyone—the media, your teacher, your neighbor the plastics executive—reminded you of The Next Big Thing and How You Should Be Part of the Information Revolution? Well, for the 14 Luddites sitting in a well appointed library in the English and Appalachian countrysides…here’s final proof: my nephew is walking to his car on Sunet and LaBrea and a homeless woman asks him for money.
“Don’t have any,” he tells her. “Well, do you have any free minutes left on a cyber card so I can check my email?” she asks, motioning to the internet cafe next door.

June 1, 2006

I’ve been getting serious about my foot lately—the foot on which I am forbidden to dance, says my Korean acupuncturist. He failed to negate the command, however, and what came out a few weeks ago was, “You have a choice. You have a choice!” So the intern, sensing that the crazy, illogical wheels in my head were wishfully creaking, quickly pointed out, “He means, You have no choice. You can’t dance.” Hope—once again dashed in TinselTown. When they lit a candle, switched on the New Age sea sounds, and closed the door, I could feel the qi (chi) moving. The mass of stagnation that I’ve been post-hurricane was finally flowing a little, with some encouragement from thin silvery pokers. It flowed right up to my eyes and a few salty drops fell down my cheeks. I couldn’t wipe them away; you’re not supposed to move with needles stuck in your meridiens.
The Chinese herbs are another matter entirely. They taste like dirt trampled by farm animals. I take them on an empty stomach, making big, dramatic farm animal noises with each swallow. But that’s not the extent of my semi-nausea. I’m almost getting used to the taste of the herbs. It’s the date that’s been getting to me lately—since December.
There’s been a daily low level stress in my bones—and everyone else who calls New Orleans or the Gulf Coast home knows it well—a mounting pressure rising imperceptibly with each day, as we move closer to the Day, to Hurricane Season. Some of us missed Christmas, Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest…but no one can escape this one. If I were at home, I’d probably attend the same voodoo ceremony I went to a few years ago—to stave off the birthday “presents.” And I’d probably go to church to do the same—to pray in a hallowed place that the misfires of the Army Corps of Engineers don’t fall victim to their incompetence. I’d probably take long walks in the heat—a veritable sauna—to sweat out the impurities, to pray that the sinking feeling and by now mid-level stress isn’t commensurate with the onslaught of climactic “gifts.” NO PRESENTS, I’d say. PLEASE, NO PRESENTS. JUST BRING YOURSELF.
Today is the birthday of Hurricane Season. It is a long, diva season, longer than any other woman’s I know. And today there’s a brass band playing to mark C. Ray’s mayoral triumph and, really, there’s no other choice but to move on and ahead, upward and onward, one unified people and city. And like a good Aries whose birthday season is passed, I say move on and unify, let bygones be bygones…there is no time. No time for quibbling. No time for pettiness or beefs. Light the candles, bang the drum, and someone—I mean this—shake the mayor’s hand for me. I’m far away for a while. But I’m celebrating. I’ve got my own candles. One for my foot and one that there isn’t a hurricane junta. And one for my mother. She would have been 62 today.

May 13, 2006

Today’s topic: morons. I was having a perfectly nice Saturday morning. I’d already received an early AM missive about the latest fire in my New Orleans neighborhood, and paid a visit to my foot specialist who inserted a long needle into my flexor hallucis brevis, when the front page of The Los Angeles Times landed in my palms. (Thanks to staff writers David Kelly and Gary Cohn for encouraging morning cheeriness).
The theme: Stupidity.
The story was about members of a secretive polygamist sect living in a rural enclave on the Utah-Arizona border. More specifically, it was about those particular members who have left it, but not without suffering the wrath of having been stupid enough to join (and subject innocent children to) this cult community headed by a pedophile, in the first place. You feel sorry for the woman on the front page of the paper—all frumpy, stupid, tattered-coated 38 years of her. She decided to leave the cult because she was afraid that the sect leader would marry her 13 year old daughter.
I wonder why it didn’t occur to her earlier that it also might not be a brilliant idea to allow her 12 year old son to be removed from school so that he could pursue a thrilling, liberal arts education in construction. There’s nothing wrong with construction. My uncle did it, and I thank God for people who can do it. But they weren’t forcibly removed from the 6th grade to do it. One questions this mother’s logic. Was the imminent rape (call it what it would be) the final straw? If so, then good—at least it was an impetus scary enough to shake her from her stewed density and move the hell on (with her brood of eight and twenty dollars in her pocket).
Let’s first take a look at the group and its leadership. All of this stupidity has got to have a tenet on which to grasp its tiny little collective mind. The group, an obscenely patriarchal, racist sect, is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FDLS. And as hard as this is for the average American voter to believe, about 10,000 of these amazing Mensa candidates live in an enclave in a remote place in the desert, led by…a pedophile.
Here’s a little run down of the sect’s beliefs. Incidentally, absolute adherence to these beliefs is what gets you in to heaven. Remember that:
1. Man belongs to the prophet [and apparently the prophet changes according to death and the next megalomaniac quick enough on the draw to take his place]. In this case, since 2002 when his daddy died, Warren Jeffs is the prophet.
2. A woman, says self-described prophet, should concentrate solely on her husband, praying each morning, “I want to do your will, Father, through obeying my husband or my father or my prophet.”
3. Women are encouraged to give birth once a year [this is, of course, great for body, mind, and population control].
4. You cannot reach the highest levels of heaven without having at least three wives [this is insanity, but, hey Brigham Young said it].
5. No one marries without the prophet’s permission, and you are subject to his whims.
6. There is no television or movie viewing, and no listening to music.
You get the idea. A man with a huge ego, a very small heart, and carte blanche to further sweep his brainwashed community into the folds of his unsavory manipulation. We’ve seen it all before.
But what struck me first was just how upset I was with the women, the mothers who allowed their minds to deflate, to subject children to the perversities of one tall, acne-riddled, pallid, scrawny little male—a scrawny little man accused of repeatedly raping his 5 year old nephew. Subject themselves to the fancies of a scrawny litte man who would say in a 1995 lecture that the only way for womanly happiness is by allowing “her husband, a faithful man, rule over her.” A pathetic and ignorant little man who proclaimed that “through the Negro race, the devil has kept evil alive.” A little nothing of a man who talks big invective…and travels with an entourage larger than Busta Rhymes’s, surrounds his compound with surveillance, and must pay a dear retainer fee for his lawyer to issue statements such as, “Warren is charismatic. He is an intellectual. He is not crazy…he is trying to meet the expectations of God.”
And then I wondered about what kind of man would allow this scrawny pedophile to forcibly remove his own family from him—and give them away to another man? What kind of man allows that?
Not a man.
Just another moron.
And all the while this travesty of human rights was in full swing, the travesty of justice was commensurate in their scrawny little towns.
So the next time someone ribs me about Louisiana crime and corruption, I will laugh the requisite laugh. Then I’ll tell them, Hey, have you heard about Colorado City, Arizona and Salt Lake City, Utah? They’ve harbored police who would rather throw “rebellious” FLDS women into mental institutions than enforce the law. They would tip off their pedophile leader (now on the Top Ten Most Wanted list) to save him from facing the law. To save them from facing him and—gasp!—risking not getting into heaven with their interchangeable families. How about that for insidiousness? I think I’ll take my corruption in the open, thank you.
Some of these children will escape their torment; others will be subjected to it until they awake from their own stupor—which may never come. It is painful to see repeated the same old habits attributed to brainwashing and abuse. I think that more of these women are capable of using their minds, hearts and, yes, their animal instinct, to tell them what they’re doing is wrong for their children and for themselves.
So, Happy Mother’s Day. I wasn’t going to allude to it because I’ve been pretty tough on these mothers. But, even though I never much cared for the Hallmark-stamped holiday, my mother did—and since she’s not here anymore, I owe her a nod. Besides, Mother’s Day was created in the early 20th century to pay homage to someone’s dead mother.
Thank your mother for everything she’s done for you—especially the part about not raising you in a cultish sect.
And don’t forget her the rest of the year either.

April 27, 2006

Saturday night we had dinner at a remarkably authentic French restaurant at the pseudo-Paris casino. And maybe it was the French-born, New York Times photographer (responsible for many of the post-hurricane disaster photos that broke our hearts last year) who said to me, “What? You really think your absentee vote was counted?!” Maybe it was the lingering effects of that statement—at which the entire table cracked up, including me, ever so nervously. Whatever the cause, I was up at 5:00 Sunday morning.
At the time my eyes startled awake, the little red light on my Blackberry was flashing with non-mayoral election information from my neighbor friend. I answered and she texted back, “Damn girl, don’t you sleep? I have an excuse…kids : ). Go to bed so we can have an intelligent conversation later.” And I heeded her advice—with difficulty. Great difficulty. The mind races, nay, relays, baton in hand. I’m every racer, super fast. Flying, dervish minded.
Just before noon we had that intelligent conversation. Then, against my better judgment—I came to Vegas to take my mind off the fact that I was missing Wynton Marsalis & Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra’s music début and second line—I called my good friend, Bob. I knew where he was; where I wanted to be, at Congo Square, at the concert. I wanted to hear a comforting voice. He answered immediately.
“Hey! Can ya hear it? It’s Wynton. Best damn thing I’ve heard in years.”

Bob’s a bandleader; he doesn’t dole out compliments like that very often.
“Yes, yes! Keep the phone on, please—it’s beautiful.” I was referring to what I could make from the melody and percussion; it certainly wasn’t the sound quality I was talking about, courtesy cellular.

Bob continued to hold that phone up and I, lying prone, alone in a darkened Las Vegas hotel room, listened. And dreamed. Closed my eyes and danced in my head, in the bed no less, felt the temperature and warmth of the park; saw the people, was one of the crowd. Broken footed, shattered bones. No pain, no progress, no elevation. No spirit, no light, now with no hesitation I danced. For nine minutes and eighteen seconds everything—the absentee ballot and the absence, the unquiet mind and quiet tears —the unrelenting desert depression, vanished, like a mirage up close.

“I’ll call you later, baby.”

And personal.

April 25, 2006

The first—and last—time I visited Las Vegas I stayed at a four-star resort outside of town, pleasantly surreal, a getaway for the Zen Set. And while I couldn’t say that I loved Vegas—I thought it was an unnervingly ersatz experience disguised uncleverly—I never said I’d never return…it just wasn’t especially high on my list. I appreciated it for what it was, in the way one appreciates cotton candy. So that when I was invited again it had been five years since that initial foray and, really, there was no reason to say no.
And I assumed, given the nature of the invitation, that we would stay in the kind of hotel in whose lobby I do not fear for the safety of my luggage. A hotel throughout which permeates a wholly unnatural sense of high end conspicuous consumer calm. A hotel for the Veblen Set. A hotel where I am not instantly put off by the sheer quantity of ill-behaved children and their cursing, smoking, illiterate parentage. A hotel, in fact, where grown men do not roam the lobby in wifebeaters and white socks, drinking cheap Mexican beer.
I do not recall the last time I slept on sheets containing polyester much less comprising 50% of them.
Perhaps there was a mix-up, some terrible mistake, a cruel joke. Because this is not how I envisioned spending three days of my Birthday Week, in a hotel whose ancient, squared name actually mirrors the three-ring chaos of its modern-day lobby. I’m sure Circus Circus was a hell of a swingin’ time in ‘72 but now it is an ungentle reminder that in its shameless appeal to attract families to its tent of iniquity it has fallen to the depths of seediness. In every way it is outdated, outmoded, underdone and plain dirty. Sure, the rest of the Strip is horrifying in its nouveau riche-ness—and I swear there’s a good reason to use the phrase ‘in cahoots with’ when referring to the shocking lack of easily attainable internet access anywhere here—but Circus Circus is just scary.
I sit in abject horror amid the badly dressed, hardly attired and vocabulary challenged. Call me old fashioned but I still get dressed—evacuations aside—for travel. In effect, when in plain view of other people. I think it is the only respectful way to be. I have repeatedly been told, since those first years in that last rung of hell called junior high school, that I was born too late. Much too late. And it only seems to be getting worse in America. In the spirit of British writer Lynn Trusse, I correlate this dreadful public attire with the Decline of Decent Manners. And here, once more, this claim is warranted.
Exiting the Circus Circus lobby bathroom, I laughed uncontrollably. At my sad, sorry, but ultimately kind of funny predicament. That a woman who most definitely dislikes snobbery but likes very much the finer things in life was doomed to spend a weekend…here. But because this is my birthday month, and to honor the traditions of Spring, I will land on a bright and positive note; I’ll wrap a premature ribbon around the May Pole: at least this Circus will prove fodder for days, if not seasons!, I try to reason.
But after one day of “Cold Beer and Dirty Girls,” (at the seedy end of the Strip) and the unabating parade of Middle American freaks (all over), I’ve had enough. And, not least depressing for those struggling with the delicate art of living by their creative wits, the news from my 27 year old stripper pal is that she has paid off her student loans in their entirety and imperturbably drops $700 on “little Dior purses.”
All of which does little to strengthen my resolve to face editor rejection, more insurance bureacracy, and Scientology Stress tests on every corner when I return to Hollywood Monday.
I am, however, very ready for my 380 count Egyptian cotton linens. And no one can take those and my education and this chair and…and…my incredible urge to not get breast augmentation away from me.

April 17, 2006

My friend, Ms. J., is sassy, beautiful and, thankfully, a little less stringent these days about the Things Men Must Be In Order To Date Them. For one, she is still a pretty ardent Christian and…she’s in love with a Jewish guy. I like that she’s relaxed her style but hasn’t compromised her principles.
For Easter this year I found myself 1,900 miles away from St. Augustine in New Orleans, so after people watching at the Farmer’s Market—enduring the Impossibly Bad Japanese Singer and marveling at the Jamaican conga player teaching rhythm to a toddler nation—Ms. J. and I headed to the Hollywood Bowl. Rather an odd choice for church, I thought. The Hollywood Bowl? Isn’t that where you tote wine bottles and picnics while Esa-Pekka Salonen, The World’s Only Ubiquitous Finn, conducts your dreams under the stars?
Apparently, Essa-Pekka doesn’t actually own the Bowl. This year Ms. J.’s Bel Air Presbyterian Church snagged the coveted Easter slot there, and that’s precisely where we were going—with 6,500 other people—to celebrate. Nestled at the base of the Hollywood Hills, the Bowl is a white, domed, Modern amphitheatre the Greeks would have been proud of (the only one of its kind here where packing bottles of your fave vintage is encouraged—at evening performances, not necessarily Easter morning). And it’s true—there ain’t a bad seat in the house.
The program was an expensively designed four-color glossy, easy to follow—like one you’d find at the Ahmonson Theatre. I liked the chorus and I liked Pastor Brewer’s easy, grounded humor (He said his people are not terribly emotional creatures; that great excitement might elicit an “Indeed”). Not a “Yes, indeed! Amen!” Just a sober, simple, (Presbyterian) “indeed.”
Sounded suspiciously Episcopalian to me. However, unlike Episcopalians, I was thrilled to witness that most, if not all 6,500 people, clapped in unison.
The pop songs were so catchy it felt like they were auditioning for one of Jeff Berg’s people but, truly, I could’ve done without four guitars (I yearned for a lone trumpeter), keyboard and the contemporary uptempo music. It was good for what it was but it wasn’t, well…soulful. For me, appropriating the pop-py tastes of the mainstream for church doesn’t cut it—and certainly doesn’t bring my heart closer to God. Ms. J. says I might prefer the early service—the traditional hymns—the one that puts her right back to sleep.
Apparently, judging from Pastor Brewer’s gentle mantra and the program’s declaration, they are on a mission to “make Los Angeles the greatest city for Christ.” Hmmmm. That’s odd. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a church that openly announced its competitive spirit for Jesus. I’ve attended tiny southwestern Mississippi services, grand and hallowed halls in New York City, London, and Rome, and none ever openly competed with the rest of the Christian world to be The city for Christ. Though I understood Pastor Brewer’s sentiment later on (“Wouldn’t it be amazing to watch people let other people in on the freeway and wake up to find that some kind person waxed your car in the middle of the night?”)—that what they’re striving for is a kinder, gentler, model city—at first I kept thinking, Christianity’s Greatest Star Just Bought a Spanish Colonial in the Beverly Hills and Drives A Beamer To Work! Maybe it’s the syntax that makes it read hyperbolically. Maybe the program should read, instead: “Making Los Angeles a Great City For Christ.” Often superlatives just get in the way of good intentions and pure meaning.
Apart from Pastor Brewer’s sense of humor and shared depth of experience, the most beautiful part of the service was the setting. Outside, banked against variegated green hills and squat, desert trees, the sky drifted from slightly overcast to bright sunshine. It was as different from St. Aug as night and day. There were a lot of visitors; I suspect that no one’s family had belonged anywhere in Los Angeles for over 150 years.
God, or the universal spirit, can be anywhere, not necessarily inside a church, and my eyes and heart drifted toward the sky, to those stunted, parch-leafed trees so different from the ones on Governor Nicholls Street, alien cousins to the two century-old live oaks in 19th century city parks. It was like the time when they buried my father’s ashes in the ground and I couldn’t stand the thought of his ashes trapped (it’s anathema to the idea behind cremation); it was the trees that beckoned my eyes upward so as not to look down in the ground, so as not to believe that my father would be stuck in that place. It wasn’t surprising that it was the trees swaying that grabbed my attention: my father was the kind of man who might overlook a rose garden but marveled at the sight of a tall, sturdy city tree.
I liked being a visitor but, unsurprisingly, I didn’t connect with Bel Air Pres. Ms. J. said she’s more than willing to church hop with me. As we left the Bowl, en route to the pedestrian underpass and skirting through parked cars, she asked what it was that I loved so much about St. Aug.
In a word, spirit.
Next week: Us. Coming To A Church Near You.