"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
Matthew 7:3 KJV
Minimalist cabins in remote areas of the woods are incredible places to sip bourbon and reconnect with the beautiful, natural world around you. However, that is certainly not where I was.
I was in a dive bar called the woods, decorated to resemble a cabin. I wasn't in the remote part of the woods, but rather in a shitty area of Hollywood off La Brea in an even shittier strip mall. But, I did have bourbon, so I had that going for me.
The last drops were especially warm going down and tempted me to have another. I thought about it, but it was getting late, which meant the place was starting to become crowded. It's a small place, so it gets very crowded, very quickly. This means that drunk people would be talking obnoxiously loud in my ear and I was certainly in no mood for that.
I walked out and lit up a cigarette, catching an evil, bloodshot eye from the bouncer. I headed out to the street and began to turn toward Sunset, but instead turned north and began walking while enjoying my cigarette. It had been a while since I had been on Hollywood, an area I typically avoid due to its proximity in bombastic obscenity to Times Square.
I walked east on Hollywood Boulevard. It's hard to believe that one of the glitziest events of the year, the world over takes place right here. I suppose it's because of that and other lies furthered by the media, that people unfamiliar with the neighborhood consider it glamorous when the truth is it is anything but. Far from it.
Smart phone toting tourists clamor off of sight buses and traipse the neon glowing streets, eyes enamored at the brilliance of sparkling lights and some over-sized white letters on a hillside. Superficial stars cementing some dreamer's ego into the sidewalk. So focused their eyes are on the spectacular facade of it all that they fail to see the reality that lies right in front of them. In hopes of glimpsing a celebrity, they don't see the desperation, the suffering the absolute need and the absence of love permeating from their fellow brothers and sisters.
They'll walk past the homeless man on the sidewalk with his hand outstretched asking for spare change on their way into Hard Rock Cafe to pay fifty dollars for a disgusting hamburger and a t-shirt they can show their friends back home in order to prove to them that they were THERE.
They'll take photographs with spider-man and laugh and high five one another not giving a thought to the person under the mask. That it's a real person, that once had a dream and a vision so bright with greatness that it once shined all up and down this boulevard, until the light began to dim, more and more each year until the darkness of a costume mask extinguished its final flicker.
Young girls flutter and flock about, giggling and taking selfies just ten feet down the sidewalk from a scantily clad little daydream starlet who never stood a chance at getting to laugh so innocently.
They weave in and out of stores and shops, buying worthless trinkets and memorabilia from immigrants who risked life and limb to to escape injustice and brutality, all for the sake of coming to a nation that does not want them, in the hopes that their children can have running water and watch Marvel movies in large air conditioned rooms.
They're too focused on those bright, blinding lights showing in from up above that they don't notice the needles underneath their feet.
As I walked home, I knew in my gut that they don't see us...us transient wanders dwelling down here in the gutters. Wally says I am to take a moment when negative thoughts such as these begin to trickle in. I try. I literally stopped on Hollywood Boulevard and look around me, trying to spin something positive into my mindset. The only thought that came to my mind was:
I. Am. No. Better.
None of us are. I'm down here, with you. Among you. One of you. Yet, here I stand. Here, I walk...through the gutter, separated.
In this situation, these tourists and other temporaries are not a problem. They're just people. They come from somewhere. They have a home and jobs and friends and families. They have ups and downs, problems and situations. They have tragedies and heartaches. They're just simply here, trying to escape it all for a few days by taking in a spectacle of something brand new that they've only ever heard about and seen on television. They have sympathies and loves, they're just not tuned in this general direction.
I can see the reality of these sidewalks because I am here. I am apart of them, but that doesn't mean I would be able to step into their shoes and walk their sidewalks. I wouldn't know the world from their perspective, their love, their loss, their empathy, their humanity. Besides, what good is all this vision without action. When was the last time I ever did anything to help my brothers and sisters down in these gutters? How often do I lend a hand, my time, my love, my compassion? What did I do yesterday? What happiness did I contribute to the neighborhood? Who am I to look down upon these people in judgement? Who am I to deem the sidewalks as gutters and the people who inhabit them as sullen? Who am I to walk in anger, in sadness, in wonder? Who am I to have anything to say at all? Who am I? Who am I...
I kept walking east with my head down until the shimmering lights faded into the still night sky behind. I kept walking east with my head down, battling between guilt and shame. I kept walking east, fighting the urge to pop into a bar stool and forget all of these feelings of guilt and shame. I kept walking east, with my head down, trying relentlessly to remove the enormous beam from my own eye. I kept walking east, pulling on it, struggling with it, hitting it, clawing it, spitting on it. Man...it's wedged in there tight.
I kept walking east...