and the palm trees, they burned.
the fires (i)
hop the concessions stand.
(written the day the Santa Ana winds came)
here’s when i realized this shit was serious.
standing in a movie theater,
just after a showing.
the place was packed.
Burbank, California has some of the softest people you’ll ever meet in your life in it.
that goes for all of Los Angeles County too.
the Santa Ana winds had arrived over the mountains that day.
i knew it would be bad,
and—
in an instant,
DARK.
completely dark out of nowhere.
the wind must have taken out a generator or something…
i don’t know,
i just know that concession prices are too high.
here’s what i saw.
at least,
a hundred people,
frozen.
the power must have been out for twenty seconds.
a few gasps,
scattered murmurs,
but no movement.
the thing about LA is that it can feel…
utopian.
i guess,
with enough digits in the checking account,
anywhere is utopian.
anyway,
frozen.
the lot of us,
my cowardly, flat ass too.
zero fight or flight response whatsoever.
in twenty seconds,
if real danger would have been born out of the dark,
would we all have stayed frozen?
letting it take us,
dying in the dark,
our bodies laying there,
on the soda,
and the melted, butter-soaked-patterned carpet?
i hope,
someone could take charge,
not me,
no,
not me,
for i assuredly would be hopped over the concessions counter,
lining my pockets with Dots, Milk Duds, Goobers, and Buncha Crunch boxes,
fighting the good fight,
rebelling against my corporate masters.
bring down the concession prices.
amen.
the fires (ii)
carried by the winds.
it has been a week and nearly twenty-five thousand acres.
i spent,
this last week,
with my home city on fire,
at my parent’s house in The Valley.
we,
they,
as of the time of writing this,
are safe from flames.
there seems,
too much to say,
and all my words,
seem to be carried with the Santa Ana winds,
along with the ash,
and the smoke,
to a place lost from us all.
the fires (iii)
misc.
the things that can burn
LA was burning while i was thinking about the following…
at Ma and Dad’s,
next to the bed i sleep in,
are the only two trophies of my athletic career.
one from fifteen years ago,
the other,
from twelve years ago.
both,
from the same sport,
both,
for the same thing…
“MOST IMPROVED.”
do you know how bad you have to be at basketball,
to get Most Improved,
in the same sport,
for the same team,
three whole years apart?
in all my parent’s shit,
i hope,
most of all,
those trophies would burn the hottest.
the fires (iii)
misc.
it’s something in the soul
something might’ve broken in my soul,
or the hammer and the sickle,
might truly burn in my being.
i should not have read the Communist Manifesto,
at such an impressionable age.
i feel nothing…
or at least some semblance of nothing,
for the homes of the rich and the powerful that burn in the Pacific Palisades as i pen this.
i know,
there’s an evil in my soul,
for feeling this way.
i should feel some tinge of sorrow,
for the possessions,
mementos of memories,
heirlooms,
and history,
that burn to the ground as these words fall to page.
i know the homes of the Palisades,
don’t belong to just the evil rich and powerful,
just certainly the rich.
i know i should feel all those sorry feelings,
but i don’t,
or at least i’m finding it hard to.
a fire,
another brush fire,
started in Granada Hills,
much closer to homes i know to belong to the blue-collar working class.
the stiffs.
the monkey tribe that i was born into.
my selfish,
immature,
and unreasonably cold heart,
aches for them.
and i wonder,
with complicated feelings,
why it doesn’t ache for them all…
us all…
maybe my heart’s been aching long enough for far too much.
and maybe i know deep down inside that insurance favors the rich.
Gotta Serve Somebody by Bob Dylan played as I penned this.
the fires (iii)
misc.
for posterity.
for posterity,
here are some of the things i read online while wondering if my parents would be forced to evacuate.
every bit of this,
i think,
was written by real,
human,
souls,
it takes all kinds,
after all…
“The good people of Los Angeles have the JEWS to blame for the fires.”
and…
“President Biden’s government is using direct energy weapons to light the fires in LA!!!”
and…
“The evil, elite HOLLYWOOD CABAL started the fires to hide the tunnels they are smuggling the
children they rape in!!!”
and…
“Los Angeles must kneel to the power of Allah, who started these fires, in order to be saved.”
also…
“If President Trump were in office, these fires never would have started.”
and finally…
“I hope that the people who are currently sifting through the ashes of their homes remember this
feeling while they vote in the next election.”
(the above could’ve been talking from the perspective of ANY political party, i think).
truly,
it takes all kinds.
it is all of those things, surely.
not the near hurricane level wind speed,
the dry conditions,
and the months without rain.
surely,
it is the government, the Jews, and the raping Cabal.
surely.
the fires (iii)
misc.
empathy is more complicated than i ever imagined.
back in the days just as complicated as these,
better writers than i would have to build elaborate,
beautiful,
shocking,
stunning,
awe-inducing,
oil-painting-like, Rembrandtesque masterpieces to describe a tragedy like the Los Angeles fires of January ’25.
the American public,
relied on illustrations and finely crafted sentences,
to learn of the happenings,
the highs and lows of society’s goings-on,
for a vast majority of its existence.
these days,
you can hear about news from Toledo to Miami,
Danbury to Santa Fe,
from your handheld hell screen,
while you squeeze one out and pinch one off after your morning coffee.
anyway,
here i am,
painting porcelain while i write this,
just having finished watching all LA go up in the smoke of its own making through videos taken by idiots just like me and worse.
a few friends of mine have houses in the Palisades and the adjacent Topanga Canyon,
i feel for them,
their losses,
their incoming months of struggle,
i worry for their futures,
knowing full well,
i will not lose one second of sleep,
over some of their neighbors down the road.
growing up,
the Palisades was the living, pulsing, shining embodiment,
of the city on the hill.
it was the place you’d—
i’d…
dream about.
lust and envy,
rooting in me at a young age,
and boiling my blood for years to come.
i dreamed to live there,
just as rich,
just as powerful,
as those who walked the great halls of those shining mansions and castles,
and walk them still.
my ma,
when she was a nurse,
she’d drive from The Valley,
where most of the working class stiffs live,
right near the edge of the Palisades,
to work,
where she’d care for the rich,
and sometimes clean their sheets and bedpans too.
i wanted for the Palisades,
that place,
that golden city on the hill,
and me,
the green eyed monster,
who wanted my mom to have a shorter commute…
years have passed,
since those youthful feelings of envy occupied my heart,
and still my ma lives in The Valley,
and my Palisades,
is named “Buckhead.”
i worry for those with homes in ash,
and at risk of being turned into ash.
i worry for them,
like i worry for my ma and pops,
and our little house in The Valley.
i worry for the working class stiffs in the LAFD,
who work two jobs quite often,
and run towards,
not away,
from infernos.
i worry for them,
and realize…
empathy is more complicated than i ever imagined.
the fires (IV)
VISIONS OF FREEDOM
I wrote the following on December 29, 2024. The fires in Los Angeles, California, began on January 7, 2025.
oops.
Take it in for a second, take it all in. Costco in The Valley. The suburbs of Los Angeles. Here, we say we live in The Valley. “I used to live in The Valley,” not, “I used to live in LA.” Those who know, know, and all that. Old folks, immigrants, illegal or otherwise all mill about to the left and to the right of me. Hard workers, one way or the other. It’s hard work to make it here. It’s hard work to make it anywhere, but it’s especially hard work to make it here. The bill… For six fuckin’ items… Is a hundred and ten dollars. this shit is criminal, and no one here has anyone to blame but themselves for it being this way. They have themselves to blame for not lighting it all on fire, letting it burn down, sweeping up the ashes, and starting anew.
When I was a teenager, I learned about utopias, attempts at them, and how they almost always fail. I wondered then why they didn’t burn them down and start again. I guess, in different ways, they have been burning them down and starting over. I’m wondering the same things now. I wonder why we don’t do that now. Burn it all, and use the receipt paper, the bills, the jury summons, the medical bills, car insurance policies, W9s, W2s, and every single other piece of fuckin’ paperwork as the tinder that sparks the flame.
Ah, well.
That’s all a lot of hard work, and it’s enough hard work to pay for the milk, the eggs, the Coca-Cola, and the hot dogs… At least the hot dogs are still a dollar fifty.
the fires (V)
push on.
here’s a short lesson on pushing on, okay?
my pops is well into retirement age.
he refuses,
it seems,
to retire.
some months ago,
he tried,
start of the fall,
he went back to the Philippines with my ma,
and settled into,
what i believe,
was a deep discomfort with his own freedom.
it’s a shame.
nearly fifty years of working one’s tail off,
with the promise of a long and fruitful retirement at the end of the road…
you get there,
finally,
body broken in some spots,
tired all over,
and you realize,
“shit,
i don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”
so,
there my dad was,
lacing up his work boots,
one day after these LA fires started.
i asked him…
“you going into all that?”
i gestured to the TV,
morning news playing the coverage of the raging firestorm…
“i guess so,”
he replied.
some people just outside the evacuation zone,
he had heard last night,
really needed their heater fixed.
he finished lacing up his right boot.
onto the left.
he looked up at the TV.
“oh shit,”
he said.
“what?!”
i exclaimed,
looking at the TV.
the whole block,
of the house he was to go service,
was gone,
ash,
rubble,
ruin.
was all that remained.
i looked back at him.
“well,”
he said…
as he started to unlace his boots…
“i’m not going out there, shit. what should i do today?”
just like that.
LA kept burning,
the world kept turning.
Pop was off to work the next day,
on some other HVAC call,
away from the fires.
if you read this,
and you’re there,
home gone,
or at risk of going away,
to a place unknown to us,
push.
push,
push,
push on.
it’s all on fire
one way or the other,
TCB
