Autobio Con Trocitos
San Diego is obscene. Beauty scenic and surface, everything and one shines gorgeous under the most California sun. Consistently caressed, gentle breeze mid-70s ALWAYS (mostly truth). Radiant highway pulsing as you ease across its 4-to-6 lanes, sweet grey that pulls you towards frosted peaks through mountain towns made famous by their pie, or down to beaches of toned bodies and weird metal detector guys surveying sand like ultrasound, or into our CBD with office towers never quite at capacity; we have everything. Never mind pathetic fallacy, we have struggles too. And I know, I know we’re supposed to be Here in this moment, but future loses focus when you think there’s need no escape this just des/sert. Idle and idyllic. And I read in this guidebook (the kind you pick up killing time in bookstores, just to verify whether this author—a local or a visitor? proved themselves worthy of exposing your Place), “Nothing dramatic happens here…just a few tremors to remind locals of their faults.” Native or not, the double entendre speaks.
So cliche and whatever, of course I had to get out. My escape carefully plotted as soon as I understood the ideal of college. I dreamt of NYU. Big City Life inspired by the romanticism of density. Per/ro I stayed in Cali, baby (my east coast demise is another story).
Risen up via Interstate 5, blazing past smallish signs that cried CONGRESS CREATED THE DUSTBOWL and so many Loves and fields of citrus and walnuts; past prisons owned by the state or Tejon Ranch; and past all of Southern California’s precious water funneled from far&away Hetch-Hetchy in beautiful concrete aqueducts, I emerged on the other side of the Central Valley and landed in Berkeley, August 2007. Body studied topography, politics of farm-to-table; Mind on one or analyzing the spin of our collective fable; Spirit a healthy mix of Party Gras and some essence inspired by Buddha (insh’allah). The 510 (know your codes) transformed the way I understood the Motherland. This Place was like…finally not just one frizzy-haired kid feigning worldliness, nervous hands clutching battered paperback adrift in a sea of French-tips and flat-irons. No longer. Because out of something like 30,000 over-and-almost-achievers, I found my clique: windblown and curious and gorgeous and manic. My Coming of Age saga included taking up residence in a circa 1904 wood-shingled once-hotel with 149 of my soon2be nearest&dearest, journeys to desert sunrises in a cosmic schoolbus, and confusing torrid fucking up against bathroom sinks. No less. The social acceptance you and I craved our whole lives climaxed Here. Here? The nexxus of New Age progressivism and the Military Industrial Complex and we came to see that it all goes together better than we wanted to think.
Anyways.
Prodigal returns to where the M.I.C is less low-key: back in San Diego. Crewcuts perched atop thick necks and harsh-highlights more garish than I remembered; and every third car: SUPPORT OUR TROOPS emblazoned on yellow ribbon bumper sticker. My Bay Area diet, built on foundations of Kale and peanut butter, crumbled away & replaced with fresh fish fried in beer batter, wrapped in dewy golden corn tortillas, saturated with pico de gallo and shredded cabbage and Mexican crema and as many limes I could pack into those tiny plastic cups that sprout like high-rises at the salsa bar. And hot carrots for days (almost went without saying).
Despite the sensual comfort of comodidad comida, I offended at the loss of basic freedoms that Berkeley had privileged me. Like mobility. Legs Here wasted sitting in sullen cars crossing former-highway-now-boulevards and parking in asphalt oases. Compact college lifestyle seemed a brief dream as my travel network re-expanded like a heart swelling, or one of those weird orbs you probably used to play with as a kid at the Discovery Channel Store. Walking impractical, but just 15 minutes (the magic number) drive down some ventricle or artery to bridge the sprawling gap from one paradisal enclave to another.
My enclave: Clairemont.
Defined by the 52 freeway to the north, the 805 to the east, the 8 in the south, and the monolith of the 5 to the west, Clairemont was San Diego’s first mega-post-war-burb (a history). At inception a balloon-framed mecca of painstakingly planned curvilinear streets, today Clairemont is a looping maze of melting pot(s), the meeting of the east county and the beach (almost). Western hills comfortably packed with upper-middle class haciendas reserved for residents with a proclivity to believe they maaaay actually live in La Jolla, if only for their view of the water (never mind that their windows expose Mission Bay merely, or that the 5 is an expanse that not even delusion can cross). In the low plains: modest, efficient mid-century bungalows nestled on their tenderly twisted streets (as if a horizontal curve makes up for their vertical lack), and on arteries: discount gun shops next to surf shops Seedless across the street from RV parks and down the street from unused storage facilities holding goods no one needs & dry jet-skies. Weird office parks whose buildings host mass interviews attempting to convince job-starved peons to join pyramid schemes, sell knives to friends and family. Bits of Barrio grime and BayPark glamour, but ultimately defined by the void; in the words of a Wisconsin emigrant, “Oh Clairemont? Yeah, there’s nothing There.” (Bow down to or spare me Gertrude Stein).
Isn’t There?
Stripmalls swollen with so many (prefix)-berto’s taco shops and second-best Pho (Pho King supreme, obvious); with liquor stores and wood-paneled dives frequented by laugh-lined dads and too-young mothers; with GameStops and old Trading Card shops where I caught them all; with pet supply chains and UPS stores; with insurance offices frequented by the jowls of inaugural residents, who stick proud ‘Vote Republican’ placards in their lawns of weeds come election.
Stripmalls bursting with laundromats and KFC’s, CVS and Walgreens. Glaring, unelaborate modernist signs plainly listing business establishments, as if locals need these. And Here let me note that San Diegans, I think, are a unique breed of cityzens: like all other metropolies we commute to work and school and play, but here we drive something like at least 30-50 miles a day—no where near the compact energy of The Bay or even LA, San D splays out sensually and like an eager lover we’re on those limbs. Limber and strong, we’re also known for our bones.
Stripmalls like a second home, ours called ‘The Square’ and so many nights and days spent roaming these very bones across parking lots back and forth between so many franchises, which I’d think to name but you have your own. And maybe like yours too, The Square was not quite geometric, rather a strip that became a loop and inside another maze of curving sidewalks to give a sense of continuity within “community”—the skeleton sans flesh. Unsettling but strangely comfortable. And on any given Funday, in a fit of unaware irony, the boys would buy cheap gallons of milk to see who could drink it the fastest and/or throw up first—what a cross-hair of nothingness and luxury! Oh putrid success. I think Alec notoriously won all competitions, trails of Calcium down his cleft, Iowan chin dribbling.
And still. Stripmalls dripping with the sweat of dozens of martial arts studios and the notable orange of Tan Diegans, faux bronze ubiquitous though our county boasts a supposed 300 sunny days a year (find fault). Starbucks and SuperCuts, 99-Cent stores and TJ Maxx. La Tiendita and Carmen’s and so many signs en Espanol that make me feel like I’m home but not at home (at least not yet).
Home is where the low-slung, buildings the color a mix between flesh and beach sand are populated by directionless friends with exquisite taste in Anime and Mary J, who unlock code on their ‘droids and drive Chevy Malibus high-as-fuck, ese.
ClaIREmont—IRE like IRIE, on the red green and yellow serious (real talk: Here there are rasta-hued ‘claIREmont’ car window appliques stuck up next to insipid stick figure families). Beyond convinced the vast majority smokes/sells/grows mad weed. Sordid stories behind stucco and stoner chic(k)s bump The Bay in their Dodges against a backdrop of empty public parks. Tucked amongst the curvaceous/vacuous maze of streets—these on which carloads of teeangers hotbox, smoked out of apples or whatever we got, secret nooks more coveted than makeout spot. And there was one night we hopped the fence of our elementary alma mater, where we smoked just one j at the roots of a tree no longer goliath. At the edge of good night but he says get in I just filled up and this is my memory of when we drove aimlessly and talked. Simple.
And more recently: high drives past the High Dive with windows down, sun radiant. Engine climbs hill, finds Luna and pulls up to the homies house. Friends and family enter through the side door, which opens to the concrete backyard (design feature of OG homes exclusively). This Rottweiler friendly. Converse with Nikki and Ricky bout the finer parts of the sticky, inhale bowls from the Z feels like the effervescent satisfaction of a quickie. Light gossip unfolds paper-plane existence into dramaticromanticbackstabbingsaga. On crumpled paper: life-long best friend not-so-covertly fucking recent ex-girlfriend. But the moral fortitude of my protagonists strong, the harshest slander “gRiMEy” despite heinous treason of Cassie and Matt and we all shake our heads in disgust and disappointment.*
OR.
Sometimes we light incense to fill void, create musk to form memory in a place that defies distinction. Drink Kava and breathe spliffs, talk tarot and vibrations. Talk weird dudes and sensation. Talk gender and reincarnation. Talk disassociation.
For your consideration: is it a wonder the dank is the main component of collective identity? But if it isn’t weed it is weeds; Here lawns grow like them because they are. Soccer fields, bobbysox and BayPark aside: astroturf or patchy and course at best, we do not play in grass. Indigenous vegetation meager scrub and chaparral, thus front-yards choked sod or repopulated with arid-friendly immigrants; talk to the hand, porque our native palms can be deceiving. Behind gardens of transplants and fading broken fence live 1st and 2nd and 3rd and 4th generation San Diegans and they’re all the same, sun-worshipping sycophants. Neighborhoods populated by baby boomed WASPs, vatos in mid-calf socks, small Filipino women in aging SUVs, red-nosed contractors and their inebriated offspring.
We get around.
Azn cobalt-blue street racers with rims of evergreen pulling out of Chevrons and AM/PMs and 76s and every major cross street is a freeway onrampofframp and I worry like a mother for the few, the brave, homeboys and homegirls on cruisers and thin men compact on road bikes, navigating enemy territory with no headlights (Thursday morning one mangled in early morning commute, unidentified as authorities run fingerprints, all that remains. Footage of bike bent like paper clip—feel rage, read this). But for all the mobile, many pale and timid choose to live indoors.
Come out of the cracks! Between the afternoon hours of 2 and 3, by Toyota, Jetta, bus and Bro-Dozer alike come High School kleptomaniacs & skaters & Christian crusaders & faders & punks & intellectuals & guitar players crowdingcrowdingcrowding everyestablishment con Cali burritos (read: every establishment). Ours Roberto’s. Set atop the rim of Tecolote Canyon (less dramatic than you think), just a mile south of sweet CHS, where you could catch shimmering views of the bay if you ran your PE mile on soccer field, terraced. Roberto’s serving rolled tacos and guacamole and carne asada to a student body consistently body rocked by sex scandals—to name a f.e.w (and many more more undercover), a school where it wasn’t even that weird to freak dance with your substitute teacher in the dingy lights of Tijuana night clubs (true story). Where my friends tripped Triple C or started surf gangs, all Young And Restless. Hallways buzzed with Femme fatale in Uggs and denim minis exchanging advances with rarely CIF-worthy jocks or the sinless Christians or Social Mexicans (donning ever recognizable uniforms of Armani Exchange and bit-swollen-lips). At lunch I constructed my college apps, Type A, panic.
Or.
Sometimes I stared at the grey teeth of the kid in the bee suit who was allergic to the sun.
Anyways. Our litany of alum? Including, but not limited to: the mother of Kim Kardashian, Girls Next Door like Kendra Wilkinson, and perhaps most prophetic and a point of pride: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (no, really). All that a$$ and doe-eyed guilty pleasure. Confident, but(t) I’m worried that I’ll never live up to their legends. Our cream of crop wear crop tops, live Here forever insulated from the outside: crockpots.
Since you are what you eat and I was what I ate: put that Cali Burrit(o) on my plate. And when I wasn’t sedate off the almost-food of my might-as-well-be ancestors, refuel on refined carbohydrates from my grandparent’s commissary runs or I’d hit the aisles of the closest thing to a food revolution: the middle-class hippies and healthnuts answer to Whole Foods, Henry’s was where two of my sisters paid dues bagging groceries and herding carts. Smart & Final for ambiance and staples (and because my mom irrationally hates Vons). Aisles stacked fat with huge, discounted cans of Hominy and check-out girls with names like Celeste have strawberries and cherries tattooed on fingers and wrists and I feel easy comfortable in this company. Something fiercely unpretentious. But too (be honest), I romanticize the life of working-class working-poverty—because that thin line of credit keeps us all afloat (or more like a cyclical debt, fingers forever tightening and loosening at throat), if I were Obama I’d call it HOPE (but just try to erase your decades of false-gained decadence).
And when I go to those stripmall bars with wood-paneled walls and $4 G&Tonics (New Orleans prices!), jukebox blaring Toby Keith and Papa Roach unironics, it is so easy to distance myself from Here. A Place where the most earnest blue-eyes really want to believe in Ron Paul and everyday eyes deepwarmbrown cross the border to come Here para school. Where pregnant women in black and white striped tank-tops waddle past that Buddha yellow house on Clairemont Drive to get to the bus stop while dented hatchbacks and ostentatious 4x4s grumble across pot-holed pavement, going someWhere. We’re all going someWhere else. I like to think that you all believe home like this, pitiful and stunning.
But still. Every time I go jogging I beeline to the one street with a slight hill, to remind my legs and lungs of incline, find solace in understanding it’s not all plateau.
And 15 minutes on some pulsing highway is the best Acai and your friends are shaking in the vegan forrest to local jam and just 10 minutes, 7 best, sandbetweentoes stare into that salty churning expanse and take a breath. Are you getting this?
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*Names def not changed.
