Leaving Union Station in LA, southbound, the first thing one sees is the jailhouse. We are immedately reminded that things could be worse. The building also houses the arraignment courts. Just to emphasize the point, the tracks run a semicircle around the complex and we get a good look at the rusty barbed-wire fence on the back side.
This is Downtown Los Angeles, worlds away from the beautiful people, fashion and glitz of nearby Hollywood and Beverly Hills, on the fringes of grimy industrial realities — the Morlock world upon which the leisure and consumer classes rest. Can Skid Row be very far? This is, literally, Bukowski territory. He loved the gritty life of the streets and bars, and once wrote, of a trip to Oregon to speak at a college campus — to quote imprecisely — “Here I was, among the tall trees, fresh air, the forest, the mountains, the world as God intended it to be, and I felt like I was in jail.” It’s all perspective.
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