rise of the fall.

red lights light in a domino cascade as cars before me gradually slow to a creeping pace along the 405 i once knew so well, and bailing immediately with the next exit onto sepulveda, i discover plan b isn’t much better. in the midst of exhaust fumes, occasional beeps and honks, and body-thumping bass-beats from a car lurking out of view, the only things that help me grasp some kind of sanity are the jazzy tunes steaming from the car radio and a djarum splash sending wisps through my fingers. i’ve quit, i tell myself, i’ve quit, yet the pulse of los angeles, it’s traffic mainly, seems to slow the health-wise bandwagon down just enough for anyone to jump off. it’s this city i’ve quit.

snaking my way past houses and business that were unfortunate enough to find themselves located on such a main thoroughfare, i wonder how any of these residents and customers can pull into and out of storefronts and driveways. passing under the 10, i decide to try my luck with the freeway once more, opting to use santa monica’s onramp by the wine house, which too, i once knew so well but mainly for their stock. in true los angeles fashion, the ramp is closed of course, replaced instead by a number of earth-movers, fences, and a towering pile of dirt. in a damnit-exasperation i am forced around by way of sawtelle, and crawl powerlessly along one of the worst stretches of the boulevard – between santa monica and ohio – where there are no practical exits once i enter until i reach the end and turn left or right at the T.

how i could have lived in a city like this racked my brain. five years of my life were spent here, though i was luckily enough to only drive for two. a feeling of home here has long since pass, and i am a stranger in these lands, which i no longer know so well. i can remember the old hangouts, the late-night eateries, the bars, and the beaches, but they are now foreign places, changed places, where my friends tell me, “we can no longer go to that place because it isn’t what it used to be.” in an instant i feel aged, not seasoned, not experienced, nor learned, but just old. places seem to be changing quicker than myself, and new buildings, roadways and open spaces threaten to turn the familiar landscape into a new world at an ever-increasing pace.

looking ahead at the undulating mass of cars before me, through the blurry view created by puttering pollution, i wonder how long society will keep up with its own self-destruction. somewhere, the environment has failed and is failing, somewhere, people have been and are more concerned with political bravado, somewhere, people have died and are dying in vain, and somewhere, little kids have received and are receiving tiny toy hummer vehicles in their happy meals, while i and all those around me stagnate motionless, apathetic, in clouds of poison.

the english country gentleman galloping after a fox
- the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
: wilde.