Review: Skid Row

The first time I ended up in the Skid Row area, it wasn't on purpose. I didn't even realize I was there. I was driving to a concert at the smell, an odd venue with the entrance in an alleyway on the edge of skid row. I was in the general area, but couldn't see any addresses or signs and was having problems finding parking. I kept on driving, searching, looking for the destination. Eventually I realized there weren't many cars around, but there were tons of people in tents all over the sidewalks, people wandering in the streets, yelling at me.
At another point someone ran across the street with a gun in their hand. After spending most of my time in California in Claremont, I was somewhat terrified, but I had to give someone at the concert a ride home. I tried calling the radio station I volunteered at to find out more info about the venue, but no one knew anything and no one answered the phone at the venue. I made it to the concert alive that night, eventually. The following concert were all fitting for the night (the artist said the smell was their favorite venue to play because of the atmosphere!) but I've had various, less terrifying, but more intentional experience with Skid Row since then.

This past week I came across a documentary called Skid Row, "starring" Pras Michel of the Fugees. Essentially Michel lives on Skid Row for 9 days with a body guard under cover, $9 and a tent, discretely filming a documentary of life on skid row. Michel has to deal with still trying to maintain his normal self in the atmosphere and realizes that in some ways, the living situation changes your person. They seemed to have picked one of the few rainy periods each year in the Los Angeles area, bringing more drama into the documentary including rats running around due to their homes being flooded. Although the footage is a bit jumpy at times, the film accurately shows what I've observed while walking around Los Angeles. The random seeming altercations, people clearly under the influence of hard drugs, the debris, the tents and rats and gatherings. They don't really interview or show any individuals clearly suffering from major mental disorders. It's worth watching if you are at all interested. It can't bring the smell and chaos or make you feel the same way as walking past many people living in this situation does, but it does prepare you for the experience to some degree.

One reason I bring this up is that living in a more car-free manner in Los Angeles and means dealing with more homeless individuals. Just this afternoon while on a bike ride I saw a guy urinating in the Universal City Metro parking lot with a limo parked nearby. A little further up the street in front of an apartment building, a guy smelling strongly of alcohol was laying in the bushes. Many people in cars just put up their window and keep looking straight ahead. I've been on the train when someone gets on, smelling strongly of urine, sweat and whatever other things collect on clothing and the rest of the people on the car gather down on the other end, but you can't help but to notice the homeless individuals' shuffle and that they must be suffering in some physical way. I've seen the same woman rant loudly about Jesus and her husband and Satan on the trains and staying at bus stop after bus stop in my neighborhood, talking to no one in particular. I've seen children innocently getting into conversations with some homeless individuals only for the child to be completely confused once the homeless individual starts talking about something unrelated or something that isn't there. As the Gold Line leaves Union Station, there are various sites visible on both sides of the tracks that are common gathering places where I've seeing rats running around and trash piling up. A couple of weeks ago I saw a woman standing in the LA river near downtown with a t shirt on, washing her pants in the river. One thing I found to be so difficult is seeing so many extremely poor and extremely wealthy people living so closely in a city. I've heard people covered in all sorts of sores with densely tangles hair talking eagerly to one another about where they would go to get drugs once they got off the Red Line at Pershing Square. While some people are going through things in life that live them few other options, some people make decisions that someone leave them in this situation. It's hard to keep your eyes closed and ignore it when it's in front of you though once you start moving throughout the city without a car. That's why I was torn when I saw the guy taking the recyclables out of the recycle bin last week.