SIMON'S DREAM PROJECT

 Z-GATTS' CYCLING ODYSSEY

EXPERIENCE HUMANITY

NAME THE COFFEESHOP

 STRANDED ON A DESERT ISLAND

TYING THE KNOT!

TRANSCENDING MATERIALISM

THE SUMMER FILM FESTIVAL

THE LADYTRAP MANIFESTO

VOYAGE OF THE SUPERNOVA

PEOPLE

TRAVEL

RECIPES

COMMENTARY

PHOTOGRAPHY

THE ORIGINAL LADYTRAP

THE ANIMATION PROJECT?

GASLAMP DEATH TOLL:  2

I awoke this morning at Erica's pad to the daily sound of workers scrubbing sin from the red brick sidewalks.  One can personally observe the forming of this layer of filth, every night of every week, by the drunken debauchery that is this particular neighborhood's shiny cash cow.  Money generated from tourism and the basic human desire to behave like beasts pays for these orange-clad workers to daily wipe away the pee and barf and beer and blood, so that America's Finest Sunshine can once again highlight the cobbled streets of downtown San Diego's purported jewel, the Historic Gaslamp Quarter.

Or, in our preferred nomenclature: the Tits-n-Asslamp.

But most visitors never have a chance to see the hidden Dark Side of this apparent nirvana, where Hooters and TGIFridays join forces with cigar bars and bicycle taxis to wow convention-goers and bachelorettes into a stupor, and to charm them out of their corporate credit cards and halter tops.  By the time the elusive Dark Side of the Gaslamp creeps into the streets, potential witnesses are chiefly driving drunk, getting laid, vomiting, sleeping in gutters, or fighting with their silver-shirted soon-to-be-ex-lovers.

(I must note at this point that the imagery I mention above is NOT what I call the "Dark Side" but simply the aftereffects of the Gaslamp's master-planned purpose.)

Erica’s pad (known around here as The Ladynest) hovers precariously above the intersection that has been designated the heart and soul of the Gaslamp.  Even a boozy bachelorette could identify this geographic centrum by the giant 5-meter-diameter emblem that some governing body or another has recently paid a good deal of money to have emblazoned in the center of the street.  (This also happens to be the only intersection I know of in San Diego that allows you to cross diagonally...)  From its location at (but just above) the center of the melee, the Ladynest is a fine perch from which to observe the Asslamp without actually participating in it. 

Just days after Erica relocated from Spring Valley (another town with a delicious dark side) I found myself skating down 5th Ave, en route to the Ladynest.  This is no trivial task in the land where all smooth surfaces have been replaced with bricks and where the bug-eyed tourists who clog the sidewalks move in unpredictable patterns.  I cruised by fine Italian restaurant after fine Italian restaurant, the gate of each manned (womanned?) by a blonde teenage Barbie Doll, in the age-old tradition of using young female flesh to attract American dollars.  I see the same dirty trick at trade shows, in beer ads, and in the sales departments of pharmaceutical firms.  It won't work on me, since I take great delight in my hobby of dodging marketing schemes aimed at primal tendencies.

A gaze southward along 5th will reveal a continuous line of made-up nods and smiles, but on this June afternoon, I saw a disruption in the pattern halfway up the block.  At first I assumed it was yet another condo construction project taking over the sidewalk but as I drew closer the yellow caution tape was a dead giveaway.  Forgive the pun.

The scene that ensued was straight out of a crime movie.  A shiny black car and two vans were parked on the street.  DO NOT CROSS tape neatly framed the sidewalk area around the storefront.  (Special care was given to retain access to neighboring businesses, lest the commerce machine be slowed by routine crimes.)  A cluster of coffee mugs and a bagel sat on the hood of a squad car.  Men with rubber gloves walked in and out of an oddly-placed pawn shop while uniformed bike cops kept the pedestrian traffic flowing.  Irritated-looking TV anchors craned their necks and snapped at their cameramen.  The interior of the shop was dark and obscured by the glare of the windows, but every vibe escaping through the open door said HOMICIDE, HOMICIDE.

Indeed, at some point during the previous night, the proprietor of this classic crime-scene establishment found spontaneous bullet holes in his body.  Who did it?  His angry wife, no longer tolerating his cheating?  The emotionally-unstable musician, bitter that his Les Paul was sold off before he could come up with the cash to buy it back?  His creditors, declaring that he just made his last excuse?  The Gaslamp Mafia (a.k.a. the Gaslamp Quarter Association), eager to remove the unsavory non-Disneyish den so that a glitzy money-generator could fill its void? 

For the sake of my tale it doesn't matter who did it; the significant point to pay attention to is that, as glamorous and theme-parky as the Gaslamp is, it still has its roots in crime and sin.  For a hundred years, the Gaslamp district has been a hotbed of drugs, prostitution, gambling, and general mayhem.  Things haven't changed much:  Men still stroll the streets in search of scantily-clad women to plunder, but now it's called "nightlife".  Crowds still find escape in a drug-induced haze, but now FDA-approved alcohol takes the place of opium.  And apparently the forces of evil still bust their way into pawn shops to ventilate people's heads.

As shocking as it was, I was able to pass that June event off as an anomaly in an otherwise police-controlled grid.  But this morning's incident has changed my point of view.

So, today at 8am I climbed out of the loft in Erica's studio and took a peek out the window, expecting to find the $50 awning-scrubbers at work on the soap store below.  No, the sound of water jets was indeed the standard team of street scrubbers, and for a few moments I watched in amazement as the browns, blacks, and grays of sin gave way to the shiny red of commerce as they slid off into the gutters. 

The Gaslamp is very quiet at this time, and the only people on the streets are underpaid members of various underrepresented minorities, assigned the typical menial tasks of any society's disadvantaged.  They do their job well, and by 8:30 everything is clean, new, and ready for another 18 hours of action.  The few cars remaining along 5th sport bright yellow parking tickets, which I suspect generate the money that goes into such projects as fake gas lamps, ornate signage, and large seals of approval in the street.  (No worries, it's probably best that the owners of said cars didn't attempt to drive anywhere the previous night!)  The only sound, now that the white-noise whoosh of the water jets has moved on to the next block, is the occasional near-empty bus, roaring toward the center of town, ready for a day of taking people who can't afford cars to their far-from-home jobs at a fare far pricier than the fuel they would use if they could afford cars. 

But my opinions about San Diego's public transit were not on my mind this morning, as my own internal combustion steed waited in a prized non-metered spot around the corner (I'm not revealing where).  As I fumbled around the apartment for my car keys while brushing my teeth, a police siren split the already-warm morning air and I watched as two, three, four cars pulled up in front of a building a few doors down.  Up went the yellow tape (I noted that it very nicely brought out the more subdued yellows of the parking tickets), on went the rubber gloves, out came the coffee mugs and the bagel, and before you could say "Terror in the Heartland" they had the entire block sealed in as a full-blown police scene. 

Within the perilous but now-sanitary depths of this golden seal lay the Timkin Building, on a windowsill within which sat I, within the mouth of whom my toothbrush worked the hard spots, including my sore molar and the area behind the antenna in my head.  Frothy white drool succumbed to the temptation of gravity and made a pattern on the awning below that would make Jackson Pollock jealous, or at least have him grabbing for another drink.  Call it a complimentary head-start para los awning-scrubbers. 

At this point you are certainly craving details of the crime and wonder why I dawdle instead on the progress of my morning hygiene.  Here's why:  I don't know the details.  As the irritated officer below tried to keep curious passers-by and nervous shop-owners at bay on Market Street (I was secretly hoping she'd confine them to the mysterious Great Seal in the center of the intersection), I heard scattered blips from her radio:  "...homicide ... under investigation ... onion, no cream cheese ... blond white male ..."

That very same officer of the good law questioned me as I left the building, my suspicious brown bag of tupperware and wet towel under one arm, a skateboard slung under the other.  I tried to charm the details out of her with some light humor, but apparently death is a serious issue for some people so all I could get was that, yes, it was a homicide, and no, I couldn't leave until I showed some identification.  (Thank heavens my ID didn't say "murderer" or I might have been detained for further questioning!)

From ground zero I could see that the area of concern surrounded a hotel down the street, the sign for which was obscured by a much shinier "DIVAS ON FIFTH" declaration.  Divas on Fifth is a stylish women's boutique, catering to a different set of customers than the guests who end up at "...OTEL", which is suspiciously NOT listed in the  Gaslamp Quarter Association's comprehensive list of lodging in the area. 

So, once again on my skateboard, I clattered over shiny bricks and realised that there is more to this town than one might imagine.  Peel back the gilded dollar-driven crust of San Diego and you may find something far more interesting than Seaport Village, Mission Beach, and a baseball park.

I, of course, would love to be romping around the earth, playing the jet-setting journalist.  But while I am currently tied to the summery lifestyle of my shiny hometown, I can do a little bit of geographic reporting from right here at home.  This will be the first in a series of reports on the Gaslamp and other corners of San Diego, seen through the eyes of some other entity than the tourism board's travel brochures, the Union-Tribune, or the Lonely Planet.

(a local newspaper report on this morning's incident can be found here)