Wish You Were Here

Many communities within Los Angeles and vicinity bear fancy names in an attempt to hide the fact that they are just sun baked baskets, one turd away from unregulated turd overflow.

Some examples are:
Bell Gardens
Santa Fe Springs
Shadow Hills
Montclair
Baldwin Park
Fountain Valley
Garden Grove
Disneyland
Adams Square
Avocado Heights
Pepper Corner
Pico Rivera
Huntington Park
Sun Valley

Go there and you'll see.

I went to Sun Valley today in the work pick up. It's in the Valley, and they get Sun, so they're not lying, but the name seems to indicate a life of leisure under custom fitted sun glasses, drinks on the lanai and long lazy days gossiping with your bridge club. But no, this is an inferno of genetic corruption.

I would not eat here, shit here, piss here, fill my gas tanks here. The Spirit of Sun Valley would alter my DNA on contact and I'd never make it to neighboring Burbank with both of my eyes still in my head.

We needed large rolls of a specific type of cardboard immediately, so I located a cardboard and box distributor in Sun Valley. Each time I visit a vendor, I become infinitely grateful for the work-N-jerk shack that has graciously employed me for all these years. I would hate to work at THE BOX DISTRIBUTORS. I gathered that they don't make anything, they just move around pallets of all types of packaging solutions.

The pick up was relatively smooth. They loaded the truck, I signed papers. Not enough time to count the shipping and receiving guy's 7 or 9 good teeth. I then went into the wood paneled front office to speak briefly with my sales person, Ronna about possible future orders. I had to wait in the folding chair with tweed pattern cloth padding for a minute or so.

In that minute I space/time traveled. I had a flash of some Kafka-esque existence in which I awake one day at the same time as I do every day - 5:30 am. Do my same routine of writing, coffee, music appreciation, get in car, start car, listen to radio, drive on freeway alone in my car. Only this time, I don't notice that I'm driving on the 170 North to the I-5 North, exit right on Osborne Street, right Laurel Canyon, Left Branford and I pull into a spot with no name or number, just some trash that drifted in from the year before.

I'm in inside sales and apparently I've been working here for 4 years. Now Marty wants to speak with me about my outfits and my last months numbers. How come my clothes are so fitted, is it because I haven't been closing as many sales as I should?

Ronna greets me, breaks the spell and asks me if I have a minute to look at something, "you guys make art don't you, I want to show you this, you'll love this, it's modern art. My dad made it." I didn't know that Rauschenberg had a daughter in the packaging technologies industry.

She showed it to me. I faked like I looked at it. I said something like,"Is that stucco?" I couldn't describe it to you in much the same way I couldn't adequately describe seeing Sasquatch in an Oscar de la Renta Backward Suit. I got chills as I tightened my sphincter to keep from shitting my pants.

Sun Valley - one turd away.