taking you down, down, down, into the fire
I’m not going to talk about the insane, sustained heat we’ve been enduring here in Los Angeles. Over at Blogging.la it seems that’s all they have the heart to discuss, and truly, it has been quite a trial. Wunderground.com suggests that the worse may be behind us, but anyway, I’m much more alarmed by friends and acquaintances in the UK and Ireland who indicate that the heat spell there is not going away, and seems to me to be frighteningly indicative of climatic shifts, global warming, whatever. A friend of a friend showed me a photo depicting all the wildfires currently burning all across the world — it’s horrendous. Could these be causing warming shifts in the temperature?
Anyway, I said I wasn’t going to talk about the heat and I just did. Frak. Let’s move on.
What’s worse than standing in line at the post office at 6 o’clock in the evening for over twenty minutes?
Standing in line at the post office at 6 o’clock in the evening for over twenty minutes when the friggin’ air-conditioning is broken. I have never seen so many unhappy people. Is this what comes of them raising all their rates, again? Man, sometimes I hate the US Postal Service enough that it endangers my health.
Later, after enduring the sweltering postal inferno, I found myself driving past the Santa Anita racetrack, a kind of strange, monstrous fixture that always struck me as somewhat awkwardly out of time, like a vestige of a less-populated, more wide-horizon era that somehow has managed to keep alive. It seems to do quite well for itself, but its grand and sweeping acreage always makes me think how nice it must have been here (and elsewhere) sixty years ago, before suburban sprawl, before choked freeways, before population booms and cheap ricky-ticky housing and afternoon rush hour.
Some years ago, I read a Frank Capra biography, and to my surprise discovered that the Pasadena area figured prominently in his life. Although Capra was raised in Lincoln Heights (across the street from a tomato sauce canning factory — I kid you not), which at the turn of the century housed a large Italian American population, he managed to find his way to the exceedingly wealthy Throop Academy (later to become Caltech) in Pasadena. His father, Salvatore, was a steward overseeing Japanese American farmers on a ranch up in the hills of Sierra Madre, which mostly grew fruit trees.
Before becoming involved in the film business, Capra worked as live-in tutor for the son of Lucky Baldwin, a somewhat eccentric coot who had made fortunes time and time again as an entrepreneur, and whose original racetrack and grounds would evolve into the present day Santa Anita racetrack, and the Los Angeles County Arboretum. In the late 19th century Baldwin’s estate stretched for thousands of acres, which he then subdivided and sold.
Although the racetrack which exists now bears no resemblance to the one Baldwin built, I invariably find myself imagining what it might have looked like around the track when he lived here with his 5,000 acres, his revolving door of mistresses, and his imported Indian peacocks (who now run wild in some neighborhoods of Arcadia), all those years ago. Before suburbs. Before the Santa Anita Fashion Park. Before the horseless carriage even.
I’ll bet it was magnificent.
As I looped round the track and started back toward home, I noticed the same tiny, dingy little shop with the closed blinds that I always notice, and the little sign on the door that I always notice:
ANALIST TURF
I chuckled, just as I always do. Analist? Is that someone who just really knows their stuff when it comes to anuses? Do analists have better turf than non-analists? Hey, what kind of turf is this anyway? Are we talking rectal turf here? Be sure to consult your family analist for all your turf needs.
Tags: Santa Anita, Los Angeles
Photo by Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons