today's pictures

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it's taking me longer to fall into the long zen of driving...switching from npr to bob marley is helping with that

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most of the casino billboards seem to feature women -- always at least one blonde -- with very large mouths. why the large mouths? does that convey "fun" to us monkeys? just seems odd to me.

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I'm going to type notes, ideas..lots of typos...and then edit & post 'em later. it some ways I'm wishing I had a voice recorder, but I doubt I'd ever transcribe 'em. text is my thing.

I saw people walking in LA,
policemen and flashing lights by El Capitan
as traffic, crawling, reminded me that my errand had failed,
but I didn't care, for I saw hope
up ahead, a left turn on La Brea
leading inexorably towards the Hollywood Fleeway
which became the Ventura Fleeway
and I forked away to the fleedom of the 405, the 5
climbing up out of the smog
free of lost angeles once more.

The sky begins to brighten behind the clouds, and as I stand here waiting for the bus I wonder what was here before the freeway cut my neighborhood in half. My apartment is on one side, with a nice view of 580...the bus stop is on the other side, on another one-way street going the other direction, with a cruddy view of the wall that hides whatever's underneath 580. Are old Oakland houses still there in some form? Would I even be here if it weren't for 580 cutting cleanly through?

The bus runs up Broadway, meandering towards the Macarthur BART station, and slowly, as it has done for hundreds of years, Oakland awakens.