Sometimes I get high and walk around Los Angeles

In Spaulding Gray’s one-person show and film Monster in a Box, the monster is a novel manuscript and it sits next to him on the stage. A huge problem as a prop. I have often thought that 20th century storytelling is great while vaping, smoking, and nibbling on the streets of downtown Los Angeles.

My life is that of a pedestrian in a heavily auto-focused city.

Almost as much as it is about getting consumed with writing drafts, Monster in a Box is about Gray, who arrives fresh from Manhattan in Los Angeles to tell stories about local transport during his daytime appearance and at night to work on the novel. At the beginning of Gray’s LA trip, he’s out with his assistant – looking for Angelenos for an interview – when he discovers that his driver has a clearly local ailment.

“Nothing below 35 mph is registered on your retina,” he said during the UCLA gig I caught in the mid-1990s. Unless you lived in a village or city like New York or San Francisco, you didn’t think so. No matter living in New York, I hardly knew Los Angeles.

My inner city neighborhood is a lot in commercials and films. It’s a visual shortcut for the edgy part of town. A taste in the American head, like The Fast and Furious. And I’m in these streets During the pandemic, it was my thing to light one up before sunrise and watch the sun rise between murals and 100-year-old industrial buildings. Skid row and general LA shenanigans are within reach enough that my stoned ass isn’t trying to survive 35 mph POV.

I practically gave up owning bikes in 2003. I’ve owned a car since then and have had girlfriends with cars, but I haven’t invested much in them. In 2021 there will be apps when I need bikes, as well as apps that will make me drive around so I can handle emails and not have to pay for gasoline, parking and insurance.

Let me not start with the bullshit “Car is a symbol of freedom”.

Most of the time I go, which in turn makes me think. And burn enough calories to drink.

Do you know how sometimes when you get high you lose your earbuds? With inconspicuous, random sunrises like this one, I immerse myself in real urban sounds for podcasts and raps. Hearing the city wake up is just as important as seeing it, you feel me. Truck sounds work in the lower area, while birds and braking freeway fly-bys play the high side.

My building is in an eastside suburb of Greater Downtown Los Angeles, so far from the center of DTLA. It’s gentrified and exotic. But as soon as a pedestrian crosses the Alameda Delta – late one hour before dawn, into the city center – nothing but homeless voices can be heard.

“Hey, OG!” This is the call that can cut a tie from my Keith Haring one hit. “OG, do you have light?” “Let me yell at you, OG.”

Black men under 40 who I don’t know call me “OG”. I’m usually good at using the name as a nickname of respect. But on Alameda Street it is too often not cool before sunrise. Of the homeless in Los Angeles, the Alameda Delta beggars are the least together.

But the secret of living in this city, whether pedestrian or car slave, is to live in a geographic area roughly the size of Portland. Never worrying about it, Kobe Bryant lived in Newport Beach more than 40 miles away and used a helicopter to avoid the dreaded 405 heart attack. It ended up tragically killing him. Having 55 mph awareness means constantly putting yourself in mechanical danger while missing the sensation of predicted heat in fresh morning air. In the 80s, some white pop rockers made a song about how (just) nobody walks in Los Angeles. Maybe it was true, but it feels like Spaulding Gray, may he rest in peace, has warned us.

Too many Angelenos out of their cars to breathe elites in these streets today. If the Oscars don’t interrupt, we hikers board an invisible million trains at Union Station, connecting the many suburbs of LA. We’re buying less gasoline, damaging Southern California air less. And sometimes we strollers grab a train ticket to Oregon, home of the sweet, cheap grass that I can roll back to the train station with and strengthen my perspective. I am a pedestrian and live slow enough to see an entire coastline as home.

Featured image by Gina Coleman / Weedmaps

Donnell Alexander

Donnell Alexander reports on culture, economy and politics. When he’s not writing articles for outlets like The Guardian and Business Insider, Alexander is working on a book pot. He’s @DonnyShell on Twitter and Instagram. The author lives in Los Angeles.