Thursday, May 04, 2006

I'm a lite sleeper.

I really am a lite sleeper. If a spider farts on the other side of the apartment, I'm gonna wake up. And so, as much as I love this new apartment I'm in, as much as I can appreciate the southern and western exposure that makes it sunny all day long, as much as I appreciate the balcony overlooking the Hollywood Hills and the Griffith Park Observatory, as much as I appreciate the central location - it is noisy.

I am an early riser. Maybe it's a habit from working production jobs for so many years, where 4 am and 5 am calls are common, but I just can't sleep late. The problem is that I love to stay up late too, so no matter what time I go to bed, I get up early. But getting up early on your own, or being awakened by something outside are two different things.

So here are some of my noisy tales of woe. What about you? Do you live in a noisy neighborhood? Feel free to share your tales here and I'll post some of your comments.

My building:
Thankfully my building is really quiet. There is a musician living right downstairs, but music is not a problem. I actually like hearing music in the building. Other than that, I barely hear or see my neighbors. Even the kids are quiet.
There is a common washer/dryer area in the hallway, just on the other side of our living room. While I can hear it, so far no one has been doing laundry at 3 AM, so it's not so bad. The advantage however is I just open the door and do my laundry. It's almost like it's in the apartment.

Car alarms:
As usual, in any urban neighborhood, people have car alarms, and this one is no different. The thing about car alarms, is that when one goes off, the only person who DOESN'T hear it is the owner of the car. I also think some people like to hear their car alarms, like it's music to their ears. "Hell, I paid for it, I'm gonna enjoy it". Beep - Bop - Beep!!! Yeah, we all like it as much as you, especially after the 20th time.

Ice Cream Trucks:
At 4:30 pm every afternoon an ice cream truck playing Pop Goes The Weasel comes by and sits on my street for about 15 minutes. The mechanical strains of a digital rendition of this royalty free tune being pumped out of a crackly old speaker soon get me all nostalgic for an Orange Dreamsicle and a sledgehammer with which to destroy the offending speaker. Luckily I don't have one.

The thing about incessant noise is how quiet and lovely it seems when it finally ends. Unfortunately, the silence doesn't last long, because at about 5 pm, just 15 minutes later, another ice cream truck stops on the street in front of my building and it stays there for about 15 minutes also. I don't know the name of the song it plays, but I call it The Really Annoying Song on Ice Cream Truck Number Two.

Garbage Trucks:
Thursday is garbage truck day on our block. Have you ever noticed that garbage trucks always seen to pick up at about 7am? How do they do that? Do they only work from 6 to 7 am and then knock off? How come I have never lived in a neighborhood where they pick up at say, three in the afternoon? It's really odd. My Dad used to joke that garbage collectors had a great job - thirty bucks and hour and all they can eat. And they only work an hour a day!

Lawn Work:
There are no alleys in my neighborhood. The backs of the buildings face each other. Not right up against each other, as there is usually parking behind each building. On Wednesdays, the building just behind ours, which faces our balcony, gets their yard work done. There is no grass, there are only patches of dirt, but at 7am (again at 7 am!!!) a man with a gas engine blower on his back comes to clean the side walks and walk ways of the apartment building. He starts on the second floor. The front doors of the apartments are on an exterior walkway. And he blows all the dirt from the common areas of the building from one side to the other, and then over the porch to the ground below. Then he does the same thing on the first floor, and then he does the side walk beneath the porch that leads to the back of the building where the garbage cans are.
He doesn't sweep, he doesn't pick up anything up, he just blows it around. What a system? And he does it right outside the door of all these apartments. If I am still in bed at seven, which happens once in a while, it sounds like he is in my closet blowing my clothes around, that's how loud the machine is. Maybe once in a while they can come at three in the afternoon and have tea with the garbage men?

Neighbors & Music:
Again, our building is really quiet, but the building in front of ours, and the buildings behind ours, (we're in the back apartment, so those affect us the most) are rather boisterous.
Late night parties where people gather to YELL REALLY LOUDLY are a common occurrence. The music, of course really loud so they can YELL OVER IT, would not be my first choice.
Weekends, there is someone in the adjacent building who feels it is his duty to share his mariachi music with the neighborhood, a sort of community sharing event. But hey, who doesn't like a good mariachi tune to get the day started?
I wish I spoke Spanish, and of course I know I should, but I wish I did so I could understand the lyrics to these songs. I imagine it is, like most pop music I can understand, really deep and touching on the emotions of the human condition.

Dogs:
Dog lovers - skip this section, you won't like it. I myself am not a "dog lover". I don't dislike dogs or domesticated animals, I just don't feel the need or the desire to keep one. I never had a dog growing up, which may be one reason, and the cats that lived in my house - I can't say they were mine - they weren't - never made me a cat person. I appreciate animals, I love the souls that they are, but I don't want to "own" one.

I don't go crazy when I see a puppy or a dog and feel the need to pet the beast. I don't think that "small fit in a purse" dogs are cute. And I wish that all the people who mistreat dogs and other animals -well I wish them a karmic payback some day.

So here is the thing, there is a dog in one of the adjacent building behind mine, that must be let out for only 15 minutes a day, and always at - you guessed it, around 6:30 to 7am. And since the dog doesn't get out much, it feels the need to sing, or bark, loudly and constantly the entire time. There is nothing quite like waking up to a dog barking at 6:30 in the morning, unless of course its a dog barking at a garbage truck, a leaf blower, and a car alarm.

Helicopters:
We live near the 101 Freeway, the 5, and the CA2. Car chases are a fact of life in southern California, and the media helicopters are always nearby to catch it live and can break into the regularly scheduled programming.
It's usually worse during rush hours, but evening helicopters are quite frequent. Yesterday I was watching the news and saw a story about a boy who was burned in a fire in the valley and was being rushed to a medical center in LA by helicopter. Then I left my apartment and drove a few miles to the Goodwill store on Hollywood Blvd, and saw that same helicopter landing on the roof heliport of the children's hospital. That was weird.

Birds:
And last but not least, the birds. The people in the second floor apartment whose balcony is just across from ours have four birds which they keep in two, I'm sorry to say, small cages. The blue and orange birds, (I'm not sure what species they are, but they are bigger than parakeets) are put out on the porch from morning to night, unless it is raining. Birds sing, they talk, they communicate, and sometimes they sing mariachi songs too. Oh, well, what can you say about birds? I wouldn't choose to keep birds in a cage, but of all the noises and sounds around my apartment, it is the most pleasant.

Children:
There are a lot of children in the building around me. That's cool. I like kids. I like hearing them playing and screaming and laughing and fighting. No complaints there.

Well, that's my posting today about my noisy neighborhood. I'm glad it was quiet for an hour so I could write this in peace.

Shhhh.

Peace.

© 2006 Noel Olken

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

America - I'm proud of you.


Oh, America, you finally did it, you finally got off your ass and did something. Of course, it took the Mexicans, the Central Americans, the Asians, the dispossessed, the illegals, the immigrants, the " un-Americans", to get it started, but at least SOMETHING has started. May Day 2006 will go down in history. Across this country, millions and millions of people took the time, took the day off work, took the chance, to do something. A real force has been unleashed. The media was there to record it. The people were there to make it happen. And I was there too.

As you know, I lived in France for a while when I was younger. I was an illegal immigrant. I was undocumented for a time. I had no papers. I worked under the table. I did odd jobs. I worried about being stopped by the police. The advantage I had, of course, was that when I was stopped, (which happened quite frequently - especially during the terrorist bombings in Paris in 1988) I had an American passport to show. That pretty much ended the problem right there. But I haven't forgotten my time as an illegal alien. It will be with me always.

One thing I always appreciated about France, and still do, is that they will strike at the drop of a hat. Some labor trouble somewhere - strike for a day. Some bus driver was fired for running someone over - wild cat strike for a day. The price of tomatoes too low - drop a few tons of tomatoes on the Champs-Elysees. It's a pain in the ass, it messes things up, but hell, you get the day off work and you make a statement.

France is a Socialist country where every one has the right to health care and social benefits that put America to shame. And they will still risk it all to protest. We, however, who are not afforded these basic rights, do not have access to descent health care for all, can't be bothered. So, do you really think not making waves will get you what you want? Or only by making waves will we effect real change?

Here in America? The "free-est" country in the world, with a bill of rights to protect us, and no one has time to participate. Your government bombs a small country? What's on TV tonight? We go to war for no reason, or made up fantasy reasons? Oh, some starlet just had liposuction. The presidential election is stolen right out from under our noses, twice? Ho-hum, where are the comics? We stand by as millions of people are slaughtered in a genocide you can watch on TV? Hey, it's not our problem.

Americans are afraid to stand up and protest, to make their voices heard, get involved, work together and bring about change. No, who's got time? Who wants to get involved? Who wants to make waves?

Around the world, people do it all the time. They stand up for their rights, even when they don't have any. They stand in front of tanks. They get shot down by their own military. They raise their voices and make themselves heard.

And in America? A country built on protest and revolt? Please, except for a few hundred thousand hippies, lefties, communists, agitators, concerned students, Hollywood stars, and young people who don't know any better, Americans would rather stay at home watching TV and protect the status quo. Just keep pretending that the world is okay, that we aren't destroying the environment, that corporations really will take care of you, that we aren't hated around the world for the crimes of our government/military/industrial complex. Moo. Moo. Baa. Baa.

Not since the sixties, when the civil rights movement and anti-war protests shook things up, has something so interesting happened.

WTO rallies and marches? Who cares. Stop the war? Too marginal. Make 12 million *** illegal aliens felons? What? Hey, now wait a minute, that's just going too far. (*** 12 million is the number the media is using, who really knows.)

We really should thank Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI) for proposing the extreme house bill that would have made illegal aliens felons. That was the spark that ignited this movement back in April. These people, and their supporters, both legal and non, American and non, have stood up and raised their voices.

It doesn't answer the question of illegal immigration. That is still a problem that is not going away. And a 700 miles fence will not stop someone from getting here if they really want to.

But I don't see Americans standing up and saying I want to pick lettuce, I want to wash dishes, I want to cook in a hot kitchen, I want to carve up cows in an abattoir, I want to bus tables at your summer resort - no, I don't see Americans flocking to fill those jobs. Would you let your sons and daughters bust their ass in a hot kitchen for $4.85 an hour? That's not a living wage. But if wages went up, wouldn't prices go up? "Inflation" cry the chicken little economists. Would you really stop eating in a restaurant if it cost on average a dollar more, knowing your food was being prepared by people making a decent wage in safe conditions? I wouldn't.

The other side of that coin, is, that more people are making more money, paying more taxes, spending more money. More money in the economy for the services we all depend on.

If there were no jobs, people would still come to The United States. America is as much a myth and a dream as it is a reality. And as long as we keep exporting that myth, and as long as we help create hostile conditions in other countries, people will come to America.

The illegal immigrant, who risks his or her life to get to America, who then has to live in fear of being caught, in fear of being sent back, will always come. They come here to work, to make a better live for themselves and their families. But because they are illegal, they have few of the protections afforded legal workers, basic rights like workers comp, fair wages, insurance, safe working conditions, protection from exploitation, and actually being paid for the work they do. They are being exploited every step of the way. Why? So we can pay a penny a pound less for lettuce and tomatoes? So you can get a .49 cent hamburger at a fast food joint? BTW, who is that person serving you?

Critics say (of course) that these marches and protests are bad for the cause, that there will be a back lash against the movement and no sympathy for the people. Forget it, that ain't gonna happen. More people will see the possibilities and be excited by the prospect for change.

America is waking up! Things are changing. And I am so damn happy.

So I went down to the march with my video camera, I wanted to document it and see what it was like. It really is amazing to see so many people in one place. Not a sporting event, not a rock concert, but a real movement for change. It was peaceful, it was fun, it was musical, it was like a family picnic with 500,000 of your closest friends. So many children, so many families. Something to remember.

I'll bet next year May Day becomes a real holiday, a real celebration of the workers of the world, like in other civilized countries. If so, I hope I can be there again.

Peace.

© Noel Olken 2006