The Return of Blue

Blue’s return corresponded with the time Red was pining for Cobalt Blue. In other words, it was a time in which no amount of perfect assertiveness by Blue would exact anything resembling a desired response, which Blue learned rather quickly, as Blue was not quite perfectly assertive.

At Pumpkin’s house party, Blue opened with what he considered a firm “Hello.” That was when Red turned to look at him, and that was when Blue’s color sort of drained. Blue’s preparation for this confrontational moment included imagining every conceivable reaction Red might have after his initial hello. From rage to excitement to needing a refresher as to who he was, Blue was ready, except, of course, for the look Red actually gave him, and that was one along the lines of, “You look very ill.”

And Blue somehow knew it was true. He had been so concentrated on his prepared remarks that depended entirely upon whether Red greeted him with love or revulsion or lack of recollection that he had stopped eating altogether for at least a day and was looking quite peaked as a result. In addition to looking pale and sickly, Blue also, though he never would admit it, may very well have been suffering through an anxiety attack at the time he opened with the allegedly firm “Hello.”

In Blue’s defense, once he realized he could not draw on any of his prepared remarks, which included “It’s good to be seen,” and, “Lighten up, so I had a little crush on you. Big deal,” he understood there was no recovery to be made. While Blue strolled away into the sunset (there was in fact a sunset commencing at the time) and into his second banishment, Blue at least did so with a brief smile of genuine amusement at the turn of events he initiated and was now suffering through.

Certainly it was no moment of triumph, for nearly every color was laughing at Blue’s latest train wreck in the pursuit of if not Red’s affection then rather her mere attention.

But in that brief moment when Blue held his smile and eyes to his brothers and sisters in the aftermath of a legendary face-plant, Blue’s looks went from peaked to pretty, somehow.

That’s how Green remembered it, and lots of colors believed her and repeated what she had to say and ended up defining the moment, again not as triumph but rather as nuclear disaster averted and replaced by only sizable natural disaster.

Blue understood the massive damage control Green had influenced by way of Pink who brought news of things and chocolate cupcakes. For the first time Blue understood the powerful alliance a Blue-Green relationship might command. Blue retreated to a mountaintop and when Pink arrived, Blue took the cupcakes and sent her home and that was the end of Blue and Pink.

This is the fourth part. Here's the fifth.

The Presence of Green

I won’t bore you with Royal Blue’s attempt at greatness that ended without a whiff of greatness, or even acceptability. I will instead introduce you to Green.

Green was born into this world while Red was administering an ass whoopin’ to Blue. Green doesn’t remember the words they used against each other as much as she understood what they were really saying. Behind her words, Red was saying to Blue something to the effect of, I’d-love-you-if-you-were-just-a-little-different. And Green translated rather easily Blue’s statements to Red to mean, I-love-you-so-much-I-could-never-possibly-admit-it.

Green saw that Pink was a product of this dysfunctional environment while Yellow appeared medicated and just fine.

Despite her birth order, Green became the older sister to Pink and Yellow. So Green and Red agreed that birth order didn’t mean much. But they disagreed in their perspective of Blue.

Green loved Blue just the way he was.

Now imagine the depth of the color that loves another which happens to be taking an ass whoopin’ at the time. Green was special, and everyone understood this. If you believe legends, or this account, Green remains the only color who ever saw its own spirit.

Then there was Blue. Blue not only noticed Green’s love while he took that ass whoopin’, but he also had the wherewithal to reflect upon what a dynamic personality he must have in order to take notice during an such an ordeal.

After the ordeal that was an ass whoopin’ but before his banishment, Blue, for strategic reasons he could not explain as well as the comfort factor that he could, elected to have a tryst with Pink.

Blue would have better served saying nothing more and attempting to visit no one else on his way out. But Blue, figuring he had acquired some sort of mojo following his mechanical tryst with Pink, shocked everyone by sweating and panting and saying, “I love you” to Red.

The roll of Red’s eyes set all the shades of red afire with giggles, and many other colors, too. The laughs and the roll of the eyes caused panic inside Blue, who searched out Green and gave her a look that said ‘I sure screwed up.’

For actual tactical reasons, Green did not respond. Her decision to demur was based on the fact that she wasn’t particularly thrilled with Blue’s actions at the time, certainly, but she also held out from answering because hers would have predictably been without affection and she might at some point in the future be so inclined not to requite the boy’s love, though that was difficult to image at the moment.

So it wasn’t Red who banished Blue, although Red did not deny subsequent statements from random shades that she in fact banished Blue, so that’s what everyone came to believe. But Blue was the one who banished himself. Blue looked around and saw all the good will he could have created as the first-born color and all the friendships and relationships he could have nurtured and grown. But he hadn’t done those things.

Blue reflected that perhaps if he had been more assertive with Red, she would have submitted to him and everything would have been different. Everything would have been perfect. And so Blue assigned himself the banishment that would last as many days as needed so that Blue would return only when he had trained himself to be more assertive with colors he really wanted to blend with.

Here's the next part.

The Rise and Fall of Powder Blue

About the time Red banished Blue, as it was told, Powder Blue began the sort of public preening that prompted immediate speculation Blue had taken over Powder Blue’s shade and was seeking to regain his self-perceived exulted status through impersonation.

The majority of the colors seemed to like a good show, especially if it had a decent chance to end up as a train wreck, and so Powder Blue was encouraged.

The colors were correct to be entertained by Powder Blue but skeptical of his ability to achieve anything worth achieving, evidenced by Powder Blue’s assurances of how “on-the-ball” he was. The colors laughed at Powder Blue’s “performance idiocy,” as they called it, yet Powder Blue interpreted the laughs to mean love, and so Powder Blue was well constructed to function, some of the colors argued. The architect that put together Powder Blue clearly knew some tricks. Hence further speculation that the dysfunctional Blue had returned as Powder Blue.

Eventually, the colors supported Powder Blue’s ascension as the “top collah,” which Powder Blue called himself repeatedly, annoying so many of the colors that a revolt nearly occurred. Powder Blue settled his fellow colors down over drinks at Hansa Yellow's house party, however. And while the colors were all liquored up and once again supporting Powder Blue as the “top collah,” Powder Blue took the opportunity of near unanimous support (Tropical Blue was passed out) to waltz over to Red and say, “What say we get it on, hon.”

Well, the blush that came over Red as a result of the spontaneity of a certain outrageous prick was about the funniest thing the colors had seen in their short lives. Laughter rumbled through every shade in attendance of these events, and every shade of every color was in attendance, for these were the first days that the colors had been created and a pecking order was being developed, at least according to Blue.

Red, on the other hand, would have argued that a pecking order had already been firmly established, with Red at the head of all the colors. The events that ensued after Powder Blue’s offer of relations essentially confirmed the existing pecking order.

What happened was Powder Blue should have taken his lumps from Red, it was agreed later. He would have been beloved. But Powder Blue ran from Red like a scared dog, or man. At least Blue had taken his lumps from Red before surrendering unconditionally, the colors noted.

Powder Blue did not make any public appearances for quite a long time, instead choosing to imbibe considerably with Tropical Blue and other shady blues, which eliminated further speculation that Blue himself had been impersonating Powder Blue and raised hopes that Blue would return someday, which excited Pink but also caused her visible anxiety, too.

Some colors began discussing the possibility that they didn’t need a leader at all. Other than brief stints of mostly poor entertainment, each of the two alleged leaders of the blues had done nothing but demonstrate his considerable jackass tendencies, which didn’t help the popular cause among the young blues to hook up with other shades of colors.

This effort to go leaderless and promote an anarchist image for the benefit of society at large as well as to aid in the eternal cause of blending with other colors persisted until Royal Blue, at the urging of the shady blues, came along with his plan for making the blues great once again.


Here's the next part. 

The Arrival of Blue

The first color created was Blue.

Blue looked around and saw he was the only color there was, and so Blue got an attitude right away.

Blue declared himself the greatest color of all time and forever, and since no other color existed at the moment to challenge such an assertion, Blue’s declaration became the law of the land, according to Blue.

The second color created was Pink.

Blue understood that other colors would be arriving soon, and so, thinking tactically, Blue took Pink as a lover and dominated her, mostly by convincing her of the importance of birth order.

The third color created was Yellow, who appeared medicated and happy.

When Red arrived on the scene, Red tried to claim Pink as one of her own, as per common sense, according to Red, specifically that Pink is so obviously a shade of red. But Blue denied this, saying Pink was created before Red, so Red is no mother to her. This served to redden Red, for Red did not believe in the importance of birth order as Blue did, but rather, like all of us perhaps, she believed in her version of justice and the application of power to that end.

In the first great battle between Blue and Red over Pink and other things, nothing significant happened other than Blue surrendering quickly and Pink and Yellow retreating from the scene and meeting up with Green when she was born, and Pink and Yellow and Green quickly becoming best of friends before all the rest of the colors arrived.


Read part 2 here.

Birth of Colors

The color blue was created the very first night on earth. The full moon disappeared over the horizon before explaining to Mother Nature that he would reappear soon enough. All Mother Nature had to do was shift to the other side of her garden to see the moon in the sky, but she believed then as she believes now that the best way to find a lost stray friend is to stay put. And so she stayed put, watching the sky.

When the moon reappeared the next night, slightly less full, Mother Nature was so excited. She figured the moon lost a sliver of itself escaping death in order to find her again, and she blushed for the first time. The color pink was born.

All night, the moon and Mother Nature were together. Mother Nature was so happy to wake in the morning with the moon still in her arms and the sun shining on her face. The color yellow was born.

The moon might have noticed he was causing serious emotions in Mother Nature. But he did not notice, or pretended not to. He went on swinging across the sky, singing love lullabies, shining bright as can be.

In fact, the moon was so caught up in his own preening that he forgot to tell Mother Nature that for one night that very first month he would disappear altogether. And so Mother Nature waited and waited, and she even shifted to the other side of her garden, but the moon wasn’t in the sky there either.

Just as she was becoming so upset that the moon had left without saying goodbye, a sliver of moon appeared over the horizon. In that moment, her anger melted (mostly) into passion, and the color red was created.

Believe it or not, Mother Nature had had enough of the drama between herself and the moon. Sure, the colors were beautiful, but they needed to come more easily. Mother Nature stretched out her arms and wrapped them around her garden.

Inside herself, Mother Nature discovered her very own color when she loves herself and is at peace with herself. Green was born.

The moon now saw that Mother Nature could be happy all by herself, and this stirred a jealously inside that the moon didn’t quite like. The moon wanted to be happy for Mother Nature’s joy. And since every true thought is rewarded, the moon was indeed happy for Mother Nature in that moment.

The color white was born.

The moon understood that he had a special relationship with Mother Nature, and this excited him. But it also frightened him.

The void of black was created.

Mother Nature stayed put and kept herself occupied while the moon groped through the blackness. And when the moon emerged from his darkness and shone his new light on Mother Nature’s shifting season, perfect with every shade of green in that very moment of transition, all the rest of the colors were born.


This is the prelude to The Colors. Here's Part 1.  

My friend Suzi at moondreamin' put art to the piece, which is so cool.

Reflection Remarks

Here's the beginning of this series following the city's effort to criminalize feeding the homeless in Skid Row.


Yesterday, the young hippie couple moved out after spending their first year of marriage here. They planned it that way, that their first and formative year of marriage would be spent at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker.

They met at an agricultural community in Georgia. They couldn’t afford rings so they got tattoos on their ring fingers.

Sybilla was an amazing cook. Kurt was a brewmaster.

They were much more likely to say they loved each other in the kitchen than they were to call each other assholes. And if one did call the other an asshole, they could be found hugging and kissing in the front room soon enough.

Sybilla was a social organizer, leading everyone for a Boba Tea after a day working at the soup kitchen. Kurt was always lending a hand, like taking the Catholic Worker video of the breakfast line dispute with the police.

Sarah from Canada left last week, so three people have left within the week. It is the way of community life, of life itself: Goodbyes.

What’s called the summer program begins this weekend, however, with several prospective volunteers filling the Victorian as a sort of come-and-see.

Hellos are a part of life here, too.

The house transitions. It is a natural time of reflection.

Kurt and Sybilla left on a Greyhound to spend their one-year anniversary on the Appalachian Trail. Then they are moving to Indiana, Sybilla’s home, where they have secured a room in an Indianapolis townhome for $200 a month. That’s living simply, and having faith you will be taken care of.

If the world was in the hands of people like Kurt and Sybilla, we could confidently pass it on to the next generations, but that’s not how it is.

At Kurt and Sybilla’s farewell party, shortly after Kurt toasted everybody in the beautifully cramped third-floor community room, Jeff Dietrich, who has spent his entire adult life here, was sitting outside on the third-floor balcony. He shared his hopes that the community house, officially called a house of hospitality, as well as the work of feeding the poor in Skid Row would continue for another couple decades, but there are no guarantees.

Inside, his wife, Catherine Morris, was answering a question about how exactly the Catholic Church released her from her vows as a nun when she decided to marry Jeff in 1974 and join up with this band of radicals. But join up she did. And for the last 40 years she has been the leader of hundreds, if not thousands who have revolved in and out of this place over the decades.

These days, Catherine Morris’s laugh and warmth and bite is the same as ever, but she moves slowly. Her knee has no cartilage left.

It’s easy to wonder about the future of this community watching her climb the stairs in the old Victorian.

It’s easy to wonder about the future of the coffee and oatmeal line, too. 

There is some hope the police will leave the oatmeal and coffee line alone, largely because they have left it alone for more than a month now. Members of Food Not Bombs have also been encouraged to shut down their free food giveaway, and so have members of the Dream Center. But all three groups continue to serve food.

Another reason to think the police might leave the breakfast line alone is that the city hasn’t re-filed the paperwork on Dietrich’s arrest last month.

Then again, if the Orlando police arrest people for feeding the poor, why not the LAPD?

All will be told. 

Day Drill

In 1955, a woman named Dorothy Day and a handful of friends were living with poor people in a house in Manhattan and feeding homeless people on the street, everything run on donations. They were radicals. Feeding the poor was only part of their fun.

In the spring, they read in the newspaper that the city was going to conduct a massive civil defense drill. When New Yorkers heard the air raid sirens, they were supposed to take shelter underground or underneath a school desk in a classroom.

This drill was supposed to help the New York City population survive a nuclear war. Well, Day and her pacifist friend Ammon Hennacy doubted it and called a few other friends. They all met in the park in front of City Hall on the day of the drill.

Newspaper reporters, photographers and a television camera gathered along with police. As the sirens blew, the police told the folks sitting on a couple of park benches to take shelter. They declined, were arrested and loaded into the paddy wagons waiting a block away.

They went to jail, women and men. The judge called them “murderers.”

After Day and the others refused to pay the bail, another judge sent them home after 24 hours in jail. The next year, the city repeated the drill and the protestors repeated their crime of not moving from park benches. The judge ordered them to pay a fine or serve five days in jail. David Caplan, who worked as a physicist, attempted to explain to the judge how such civil defense drills were a fraud because human beings would have to be far under ground, much deeper than a subway tunnel. Some paid the fine, others went to jail. Day wouldn’t pay any fines because the poor couldn’t pay fines.

The next year everybody was jailed again when they refused to take cover. More press than ever turned out to watch the silly pacifists loaded into the paddy wagons.  In 1958, Day and seven others were arrested for a fourth time. This time, the judge suspended the sentences. In 1959, while the sirens wailed, the police ignored a mother and her two children picnicking in the grass and hauled away fourteen people, including Day, before the cameras.

Day credited her friend’s picnic with her two little ones for inspiring hundreds of young mothers to eat sack lunches in the park the following year, 1960.

Those mothers with the infants and young students made for hundreds of people in the park. The park was so packed, Day wrote, it would have been hard to clear out without pushing people out of the way, so the majority stayed. The police ignored Day and arrested 25 others.

The next year, two thousand people stood outside City Hall refusing to take shelter. All across New York people were openly ignoring the screaming sirens. The newspapers finally agreed with the silly protesters that the civil defense drills didn’t make much sense except to scare people. That was the last year of the civil defense drills.

A letter to the editor in the New York Times supporting the protesters said, "There is no possible defense against an atomic attack other than peace."

Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement, which the community I am living in is a part of.



Sources used: Jim Forest's Love is the Measure; Jerry Elmer's Felon for Peace; Day’s writings; The Catholic Worker newspaper, July-August, 1956, June 1960, July-August 1955

This is Part 11 of the city's effort to criminalize feeding the homeless. Here's Part 12.

Home Hunting

The free breakfast line for the homeless the city of Los Angeles wants shut down is located near artsy lofts. 

In the late 90s, the city pumped public money into private loft developments on the edge of Skid Row, and people with money started moving in. 

Forget about the moral question of using public money to drive out a population of people because they are poor, since that sort of thing plays no part of public policy. Neither does race. The city would rather have pretty privileged people of whatever color living downtown than people of whatever shade pushing shopping carts.

For the record, the people who have moved into the expensive lofts on the edges of Skid Row are of all colors, though mostly white. The mentally ill homeless people being driven out of the neighborhood with all the free services are all colors, though mostly black.

The police want the free oatmeal and coffee line shut down and say they have received a complaint from nearby residents about the line. So over the past month I have been speaking with people who live in the nearby lofts, some while on their way to work, some while they are walking their dogs to the new dog park across the street, which Officer Jack Richter was instrumental in creating, according to the dog owners. Richter is the officer leading the shut-down of the free food giveaways in Skid Row, including Catholic Workers’ oatmeal and coffee line near the dog park.

I’ve talked with seven people altogether. Four supported the Catholic Workers' breakfast giveaway, which lasts for 40 minutes twice a week, saying it was a good thing and very orderly. Two didn’t have an opinion. One didn’t like it. His name is Greg. I spoke with him a couple weeks ago, and then last week after Greg complained to the authorities across the street about the breakfast line, I spoke with him again.

Greg said the homeless wouldn’t congregate near his building if we didn’t give out food. He said he appreciates the effort we put in to pick up trash, but he doesn’t like having to step around homeless people on his way to work. Sometimes after breakfast is served and we leave, Greg has seen a homeless man urinate.

“What you guys are doing is good,” Greg said. “But nobody wants to see someone urinate outside their home.”

Yes, who can accurately call Skid Row home? Does it belong to the poor and homeless who have resided in Skid Row for more than a hundred years? Or is it home for those who have money and began moving in in the late 90s?

It would be nice if it were both of their homes, which it is.



This is Part 10 of the city's effort to criminalize feeding the homeless in Skid Row. Here's Part 11.

Training Time

It’s not unusual to live in this house and in this community and not ever perform a particular chore. Take me, for example. 

Welding all my stays since 2006 together, I have lived here nearly two years, and yet I have never prepared the oatmeal that is served at the Fourth Street Bridge twice a week. It is this oatmeal, as well as the coffee, that the authorities say is illegal to give to the homeless and must be discontinued.

So Sarah, who has lived here for about a year, and who is leaving to return home to Canada in a week, told me to meet her in the house kitchen at 6:15 a.m. for my training. At 6:15, Sarah was nowhere to be found. I put the time to decent use with a cup of coffee and a cursory look over the sports section of the newspaper.

When Sarah finally wandered downstairs at 6:30, I had learned my most valuable lesson: I don’t need to get up at 6:15 to do this job. I can sleep an extra fifteen minutes.

After employing three people to search and locate the proper scoop, Sarah dumped six heaping scoops of rolled oats in a 15-gallon pot already filled with boiling water (an earlier riser turned on the burner). Then she instructed me to toss in two large handfuls of raisons before she threw in large dashes of cinnamon as well as margarine and a smaller dash of salt.

When she put the salt in, another hippie in the kitchen said he never made the oatmeal with salt, and so a little discussion ensued about which way is better, with or without salt. Sarah appeared to have won the discussion by saying that salt is one of those ingredients that tingles the body and makes it feel good.

Since the vast majority of homeless folks in downtown L.A. are single men, they are referred to as “the guys.” So when I tell you that the guys downtown raved about the oatmeal, as they often do, you understand what I mean.

And now that I have been trained in how to make a vat of oatmeal, you understand there may be an expectation I make the meal sometime in the near future.



This is Part 9 of the city's effort to criminalize feeding the homeless in Skid Row. Here's Part 10.