A Family Outing in the Gutter
Today, our oldest Bean-child was invited to hang out at a friend’s house, so we only had the three girls to contend with parent. So we decided it was a perfect day for a Bean family outing and packed the girls in the SUV and went to Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. For those of you unfamiliar with Los Angeles hangouts, the Third Street Promenade is a pedestrian outdoor mall with stores and restaurants and outdoor performers and milling crowds.

The outing developed its seedy theme before we even got there. Santa Monica has very lenient laws regarding bums homeless persons and beggars panhandlers, which, along with its balmy weather makes it an ideal destination for those with no housing, occupation, or personal hygiene. Just as we crossed the border into Santa Monica, our eyes were assailed by the sight of a bum homeless man with pants at half-mast. No shirt, either. Too late, I remembered our last trip to the promenade and how I promised myself I would not return until Santa Monica tightened up its policy on vagabonds miscreants hobos transients soap-and-water-challenged loiterers. Once we got there and started strolling around we were amazed by the diversity of hair styles, piercings, tattoos, and alternatives to bathing. Some of the street performers were interesting, most were profoundly creepy – all the innocence of Michael Jackson without any of the talent. There was a table where a man was selling a broad selection of peace, anti-war, anti-Bush, and various Trotskyite pins and stickers. My favorite was “Buck Fush”. Genius!
Six year-old: “Mommy, what does that mean?”
“Well, he’s kind of using a naughty word and making a pun on it because he’s trying to tell us that he hates the President.”
“Our President? Why would someone hate our President?”
“Well, some people think that a lot of things that the President is doing are wrong. But we like the President, and because it’s a free country, everyone can say whatever they think of the President, and we’re not allowed to drive our SUV into his table.”
There are plenty of nice shops and restaurants, but the bathrooms were covered with graffiti and gave our three year-old second thoughts about having to go potty. (“I meant I wanted to go potty at home.”) It is certainly the kind of scene that we enjoyed more in our college days, but now it just seems aggressively family-hostile. It could simply be that we’re looking at it through older parental eyes, but I think the street scene is much worse than when we went to college. I blame Bush and corporate greed.

From now on, we’re going to The Grove.

- served up by Doctor Bean @ 7:13 PM