the LA river.

I once saw the LA river awaken. By chance there was a pressure system of some strength coming inland. There was thunder, magnificent desert thunder that cracked and snarled all the way deep into the Mojave, deep into Arizona. I know this because I saw pictures in my friend’s Instagram feed. there is something about thunderheads crawling over saguaro have such an empowering feeling. 

I was on the train heading inland to go visit my parents. They live in a city unimaginatively called Upland, because it is literally “Up-land” on the side of Mt. Baldy. Mt. Baldy, or more accurately Mount San Antonio is the ultra-prominent peak in the background of the L.A. skyline. It is a majestic and dangerous mountain. Its peaks snarl defiantly into crisp blue skies like a jawline of jagged teeth that are ready to snap shut on some unsuspecting hiker. Like all mountains of the Sierra Nevada she is willing and able to end the lives of the carless.

In the Chinese tradition the spirits of rivers are represented as dragons. And if this is true then then the soul of Los Angeles’ river is a mean one. As I traveled to the mountains on some Friday afternoon the traffic patterns indicated a dark reality: the volume of accidents in a flash flood. The Dragon of the L.A. river had amassed his power in the blood offering of Friday traffic. Forty-Eight accidents. The networks of numbers representing freeways were all deep red, that same crimson that represents gridlock like deep lacerations over the map of the city, miring the façade of her touched-up plastic-surgery face.

There was something like nine accidents involving Fatalities in some cases multiple fatalities, some of them were families with children. I know because the internet told me. I know because I could see helicopters circling in the air over the freeways like mechanical angels welcoming their souls to the underworld. Honestly, the L.A. river is a complete geographical lie. As a feature Ninety-nine percent of the time the L.A. river is a concrete chasm on the east side of downtown. It used to be filled with stupendous graffiti, like colorful urban coral that had taken root on its concrete banks. They buffed it all but I have a hopeful feeling that it will all grow back. It looked so awesome when seen from the bridge of the Metrolink train lines. These bridges extend over the concrete chasm in concrete arcs like rainbows, with the exception that they are ugly and grey and nothing like rainbows. They are the concrete clasps that hold the dragon in place. Under the weight of its own self-importance the city sits atop the back of this dragon carelessly forgetting that it is there.

In the thunderous bass I loose myself at another rave. I Become the sound and the soul for which I inhabit. And my body, it writhes under the circumstance that it didn’t come with an instruction manual and I control it entirely. I feel human with these other people. These Strangers, completely unknown to me and yet part of my village. I feel connected to them like an owl in the woods. Oftentimes I want solitude from their inane chatter and yet I would never like to see my forest burn, and I would do anything to prevent that reality from taking place. And yet the reality is that forests burn. People die, and the landscape succumbs to the encroaching concrete of the modern world. And I think of how clever I am for posting a well-articulated concept of this to social media. #environmentalism

The train was delayed for some time. When I crossed over the concrete chasm, hopefully looking for fresh graffiti, I saw for the first time a much different entity: the angry dark blueish-brownish visage of the LA river. Smashing against the sides of is container lashing and splashing like a coiled up angry serpent being released from years of confinement. This angry dragon lashing out at everything that ever tried to contain it. A powerful barbaric masculine energy embracing the sophisticated feminine metropolis. And she held her monster well as he rose up into the clouds and down onto unsuspecting motorists. Thunder Growled in the distance and lightning cracked against the sky, bearing this monster down on everything that ever trespassed on this desert. In the distance sirens wailed- harbingers of death. Helicopters rushed to scenes of horror while people sat in their cars calling their loved ones. And the fucking dragon dropped from the sky again and again destroying man and machine alike, effortlessly. As if they looked like they had done it themselves. Because that’s what the insurance companies were going to say on Monday: “Mr. So-and-so lost traction headed northbound in the Number 1 lane at 85 Miles per hour on the 110. His vehicle began to roll when the right front axle buckled and resulted in him being flung from his vehicle into the center divider.” But the truth is that I saw that dragon rip that motherfucker right out of his SUV and tear him apart on the freeway like a monitor lizard feeding on some oblivious mouse. And I felt a tense of surprise and terror though he was a stranger to me. Completely unknown to me.   All the while the city gracefully gestured in the dance of a storm-caller cracking the whip of lightning, beckoning this monster into masochistic action. She moved to a rhythm that was not unlike the warehouses in downtown, the clubs in Hollywood, the clustered angry halls of LBC Hip-hop, or the beats from car subwoofers. And the city of angels danced in the chaos, because she knew these scenes well.    

The train rolled through the heart of the storm, on the 10 freeway as I remember watching this man dissolve into the rain, but the train hammered on unencumbered. Unbothered by the scene violent rain rattled against the windows as our train left the man and his twisted machine behind us. I arrived in the foothills just slightly before the onset of the front. Wide-eyed I explained to my über chauffeur that it was about to hit us hard but he dismissed me as if I were exaggerating.

It rained through the night, the wail of sirens gurgled in the rain in the attempts to reach accidents. I stayed up through the night making love to the thunder. The sound shook the loft and the lightning gave the sensation of paparazzi outside intermittently snapping photos and banging on the walls. In the foothills, the rain was soaked up by a yearning and thirsty earth that was appreciative of every bit of moisture it could get. The hills drank in the rain deeply and snow frosted the Summit of Baldy. The city slowed down just a bit the following day, if only for an instant, they were humbled with reverence for the environment that they took for granted every day, driving by it in their cars and sitting in it with others, separate but isolated. In the power of the storm, it made them feel connected to each other, if only for an instant. Because connectedness between strangers can exist, even if they are completely unknown to one another. In this instance, they were similar to each other in how small they were. How easily their lives could be sheared from them in two inches of water on the way home from their nine-to-five office jobs.

On a dancefloor the following night, the bass throbbed to the perspiration of human forms, not unlike the ones that had been lost the previous evening. They were strangers to me pulsing to a kind of unstoppable thunder.  They are completely unknown to me, these beautiful creatures of many wild and beautiful places that can never be conquered. Because L.A. is nothing if not a wild and beautiful place that cannot be conquered.