- 14 jul 2004 -

Went on a photo safari to the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market.  Downtown LA at 3:30 am.  Sounds dangerous, but here the main threat is death by forklift.  It's a well-lit beehive.  Went with neighbor Dave who works in the ag biz.  Got pictures and free pineapples. 

Went to the Greek Theater to see A Prairie Home Companion live.  Again, with neighbor Dave.  Hope he doesn't think we're dating now.  For a dude with a purdy mouth he sure is a lousy kisser. 

My work, okay, I'll say it, in Oxnard, CA is going along apace.  A temporary gang injunction there has divided the populace.  Again, it's the old story of money and power vs. just plain folks and civil rights.  Gang control is the device by which municipalities win the hearts of its middle class in the name of the flag, mom and apple pan dulce.  By instilling fear and showing force a city can cause an ethnic micro-economy to fail and thereby drive out its residents and its "urban terrorists" to other communities.  With much of the farm worker population already living in labor camps under deplorable conditions, or in the city-owned public housing, the city will eventually be clear for the invocation of eminent domain as it pertains the the oldest part of town, La Colonia, and to accept the big bucks of gentrifying developers who are the initiators and co-conspirators of injunctions like this one.  In this day of the Patriot Act, civilians in government and its police have access to all kinds of resources.  In response on the minority side, there's a lot of whispering and passing of notes.  And lawsuits.  One resident of Oxnard sued the city for violation of the Brown Act, a rule that says public business must be conducted in the open and not behind closed doors.  This was in view of the fact that the injunction and various land-use proposals were formulated secretly, without community input.  He won.

I've established for myself a sort of staging area for the photo project in Oxnard.  A cybercafe/art gallery/leftist lair.  I wandered into it after having spotted the words "Art Gallery" painted on the windows as I drove by.  I went in and found a bunch of Chicanos dicussing the decision on the injuction which had come down about ten minutes earlier.  My big skull organ sensed that this might be the place to spend some time.

Tonight there will be a candlelight vigil/march through La Colonia.  Major photo op.  It ends at the cafe where a town hall meeting will take place.  Major photo op también.

In the midst of all this I'm on a serious black and white printing campaign in the darkroom.  Deadlines, travel and psychological self-testing lie throbbing in my immediate future.  All this plus the smell of burning rubber indicates I must be thinking real hard.

Happy Bastille Day everybody.

_______________________

"Chove Chuva" -- Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66 -- THE VERY BEST OF SERGIO MENDES AND BRASIL 66

today's wisdom:

"You can cage the singer but not the song."

- Harry Belafonte