Scooters & Sleepers

About 2 weeks in, I was told that my parking would change: instead of in the building and leaving it with the valet, I would park one whole block east, on Vine St.  Beyond the dejection, I accepted my new glamorous life: parking, taking a service elevator up, ignoring the strong garbage smell, walking past stores and leading myself down a long, narrow hallway, passing a yoga studio, and out into this urban hellhole.  There, filling the sidewalks, they sit littered like animal carcasses.

Am I talking about scooters?  Or sleepers?

Both really.  If you'd have told me that there was a concert about to go on sale for the Palladium, I'd have believed you.  But now, they're just asleep.  One after another.  Next to them, every kind of scooter available.  The same kind meant for the streets yet run about the sidewalks at 25 mph, dodging children by the narrowest of margins.

I walked out the door one morning as I stepped onto Vine, and a homeless woman walked up to me and said "Shut the FUCK up!"  Have a nice day, won't you, Trip?  Others in the office told me to laugh it off, but it's tough not being disturbed...in the same way I was when I saw a man come out from the fountain in front of Chase bank, fully wet, having...what, bathed?  Hard to say.

It could just be my timing: one night as I walked to the gates of wonky world with a fellow co-worker (from Minnesota, no less) we saw one wino throwing a trash can to another on a balcony.  A crowd surrounded them not to help - all had their phones out, recording the scene.  After a few moments, enough of us created a crowd to break through.   Once I hit Burbank, I felt like I fell into Pleasantville.

Despite all of this, I have attempted to be determined.  Determined to find the swank that was there some 15 years ago, maybe longer, when I lived near here and walked the streets.  Back then, nights on the sidewalks were often alone.  Many places boarded up, and the swank sure surrounded me.  Nearly all of that has been torn down...nearly all except (at least, what I've been able to find) one place.

It has many names on its sign: The Spirit Shoppe.  Liquor Deli Mart.  (Advertising Free Delivery - a liquor store perk way before food delivery became a thing)  Back when, this place likely blended right in.  Now, it's a blink-and-you-miss-it place, but on the street level, I had to investigate it.

I walked up the ramp and immediately saw the deli was long gone...yet a cooler with pre-made sandwiches (gas station approved) remained.  An old guy behind the counter, flask-sized bottles behind him.  Lotto machine at the ready.  Further down, beyond drinks alcoholic and otherwise, were sundries of the most random definition.  In my brief tour I looked to find older packaging...had I found it, regardless of item, it would be a sale.  The old salt behind the register wouldn't bat an eye.

Back home I mentioned this for future lottery playing.  I was asked "Did it have the sign that it was a lucky retailer?"  No, I said, there's been no good luck in this store.  Ever.  Well...except 1 piece of good luck, I guess.  It survives somehow.  Tom LaBonge, in his reign of terror, bulldozed the rest, but somehow forgot this one.  And thank goodness for that, because in today's "Entertainment District" the connection to the past and the present must exist.