At the corner of Pico and What the…?
Posted by ChiaLynnNov 8
There’s some kind of psychic whirlpool at the corner of Pico and 20th. Or possibly a black hole. It’s the only explanation for the strange collection of characters who stagger, meander and occasionally lurch through the crosswalk on the north side of the intersection, making their way from Burger King to Eddie’s Junior Market and back. There’s a bus stop there, but that can’t be the only thing drawing them. I’ve driven past a lot of bus stops in LA, but none quite so colorful as this one. Nowhere else have I heard a Cheech lookalike in a bright Hawaiian shirt exclaim, “I’m a Martian!” in a thick East LA accent. Nowhere else have I experienced the sheer density of the eccentric, the desperate, and the just plain odd. And I’ve done theatre in the Tenderloin! It’s notable, too, for the variety of its denizens — as often as I drive or walk past that corner, I rarely see the same person twice. It’s an endlessly (if sometimes morbidly) fascinating parade, and while it sometimes makes me sad, it doesn’t frighten me. I don’t understand what draws them, but I’m glad they’re there. I often try to make eye contact and smile, because if I sometimes wonder whether these people really exist, it seems like they must wonder the same.
2 comments
Comment by Mike on November 10, 2007 at 6:21 am
You are completely spot on. I used to have friends who lived a block and a half from that intersection. On one particularly memorable occasion in, say, 2001, I was stopped at the light facing south on 20th when a late model Buick or Old spun a left off Pico, the back door popped open, and I watched a guy get shoved out of the back seat. He hit the pavement, rolled practically into my wheel well, got up, fired off a couple of obscenities in the direction of the vanishing vehicle, and sauntered into the BK.
Vortex. No question.
- (Hank & Willie reader) Mike
Pingback by Art of the Odd » Blog Archive » Ring, ring. Banana phone. on November 8, 2009 at 11:08 pm
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