Ventura

Songs of 70’s rock stars are fading with old albums, vinyl records in colorful album covers stacked on top of each other, thirty, forty at a time. Roller rinks are closed down, their wooden floors scratched by skate wheels, molding and mildewing. The ceiling leaks, water drips down into a puddle. A family of rats scramble over in the early morning hours to drink from it, to gather around like Kumbaya; home made fire on the beach, a circle of friends from all walks of life. One via Greyhound and one who drove a car he sold when he arrived - for a hundred dollars and a pack of American Spirits so he could room in a Co-Abode with a single hippie mom who’s curly headed 2 year old runs naked through the halls drawing stupid pictures. And she trails him, scrubbing with bleach, crying to the other roommate. An Irish girl with grey skin and dark eyes, saying ‘you don’t exist if no one loves you’,

‘you don’t exist…

if…no…one…

loves you.’

So they drink and scamper off as the thunder of the lightning storm rumbles the plywood nailed over windows.

This is Ventura.

A soggy Flashdance of tomboys with cigarette packs rolled up in their sleeves on yellow buses, skipping school, leaving school for punk rock boys and sugar daddy’s; an upper class freshman.

And those art boys pushed into bathrooms with soap thrown at them by paranoid jocks. A snap of the towel. Into the showers.

A snap of the towel. The rain pours down along the street the gutter fallen from decrepit wood. A tin building next door, like pebbles thrown by school kids. They ball them up in their hands with a sly grin.

This is Ventura.

Vacant and ill with an ocean breeze…A homeless man builds rock sculptures along the beaches as the surfers wait atop their boards, pausing for the next wave high enough to ride.

Pushed out of L.A. after the fall of glory – the cocaine and rehab as the skin begins to wrinkle and grieve. They bring in the next line of younger fresh produce. The supermarket changing hands, the supervisor losing interest in his kids, hates the soccer games and T.V. dramas, his wife is fat now, she thinks they’ll be together forever.

Until that motel fling.

Ashtrays, to relive youth, the soft flesh, before his sons beautiful red head crowned her vagina. Before they mutilated his penis. That hot 22 year-old with demure bangs. He forgot he hated his old ass mid life for 4 o 5 hours – and it cost him – the house, the car, half the savings account, the kids, and his respect. 4 or 5 goddamn hours. So he half ass his job and the negative Yelp reviews pile up along with sloppy restocking and its gradually replaced with a strip mall catering to preteen girls, surfers, and espresso lovers.

This is Ventura.

Aging, wiser, hanging onto threads like old poets. The elder hippie couples sit side-by-side, touch knees, and hold hands while downing espresso drinks. They remember a time, as we all remember times, when we were hopeful, yet to fuck everything. 2^nd chances. Surfboards stacked side by side near picnic tables for MacBooks. The coffeehouse on 101, like a dream I heard once years ago, ‘follow the 101’. (Down the train rails, construction and freeway.)

Azure skies pour into the background like flash mob, like critical mass, thousands of bikes whirring and clicking through streets. An epidemic like the hospitalization of sexually abused young girls labeled schizophrenic, bi-polar, and clinically insane. It’s what you get when the pain stops – a clinical lie…a label to follow all throughout adult life. Background checks for employment. A scar. Will she ever be suitable for motherhood? Another scar. 

So they run off to Hollywood or New York, exploit themselves and cry during drunk sex. As that’s the underground of theater and orgy after parties and the elite in Limousines sizing you up. Like a specimen, hidden score cards in their pockets, pinky out champagne toast - a cock of the head, 

whisper then wave of the hand. The car pulls over to remove you. They drive on, up the boulevard. And you stand alone again, walk the night street to a 24 hour diner, order coffee, crumble sugar packets in your palm as young couples sit shoulder to shoulder eating scrambled eggs. 2 a.m. Neon signs. 2 a.m. You should’ve settled by now. Why could you never get it right – the soul mate, the perfect job, raising a family, buying a Winnebago? And now look what’s left – divorcees, single parents, 45-year-old punk rockers, dead beats, and you.

This is Ventura.

In rural regions and suburbs, your Jewish grannie lives to 90 and 95, so you figure you’re only halfway there – live a little. So you hit on the waitress, whistle a tune, and pick up the old doll perched on the swivel stool at the coffee bar.

Close your eyes.

This is Ventura.