Lost in OC: Parched and Gay, Welcome to the New California

by Jim Washburn

My wife and I drove to L.A. to see our friend Jonathan play at the Mint one recent weekend. Afterwards, the three of us had a late dinner in Little Ethiopia and then we drove him to his friend Andy’s house, which is in some hilly, Silverlakey part of town. Jonathan’s not so good with directions, so on the way we drove through Koreatown, Little Armenia, and numerous other ethnic enclaves, the names of which scarcely matter, since it all looks like Little Baghdad these days, what with the potholes, riot gates, and general decrepitude.

Hyperbole? Consider that in the whole month of April this year, 19 U.S. servicemen were killed in the whole of Iraq, while in L.A., just on the weekend we were driving around, there were 15 homicides. And, boy, is my gun tired, ba-dump-bump.

For all of L.A.’s crusty, grimy, riot-gated, Blade Runner-on-a-Plan 9-budget toughness, it is a disquietingly vulnerable place. We’ve got 12 million people in an area that, without massive importation of water, is little more than earthquake-prone desert that might at best support a couple of hundred thousand people. No matter how much civilization we layer atop the reality, I think we can’t help but have a subconscious anxiety that the acorns, mackerel and mountain rivulets that sustained our Native American first-settlers won’t do the job for us.   

For about $109,870,000 less than the $110 million production budget of Live Free or Die Hard, real-life terrorists or Nick Nolte on a bad-hair weekend could cut off the conduits supplying LA’s water—or flood it with salt water by blowing some Central Cal dikes—and then sit back to see how soon the white-on-white killing starts over that last latte on La Brea.

But who needs terrorists? The old dikes may blow on their own, or with a nudge from an earthquake, or there may be no fresh water to ruin anyway. The state just had its driest spring in 88 years and Governor Schwarzenegger has declared a drought, which may portend rationing, which may portend many of us being really pissed off when we’re ordered to drop our responsible bare-bones consumption by the same percentage as our runoff-giddy, driveway-hosing, pool-splashing neighbors.

As the mounting costs of essentials—water, food, fuel—further widens the gulf between the rich and everyone else, will Blackwater forces be brought in to L.A., as they were in New Orleans, to enforce a physical gulf between the rich and non-rich? The rich are already allowed their own special courts in L.A. Plans are afoot to allow them to buy their way into the carpool lanes. They might as well have their own private army. Fun days ahead in the big town.

Water crises. Energy crises. Food crises. Natural disaster crises. Housing crises. Economic crises. Crikes!

Meanwhile, Republicans in the California legislature are stalling any sort of action on the state’s fiscal crisis, holding it hostage in the hopes of forcing Democrats to jettison global warming-fighting measures that their own somewhat forward-looking governor had supported.

According to U.S. 46th District Representative Dana Rohrabacher, man-made global warming is “pseudo-science” despite the virtual scientific consensus on it. He claims it’s all a liberal smokescreen to scare people so much they’ll willingly give up their rights and acquiesce to ever-intrusive government power. No wonder he’s upset: Republicans hold the patent on scaring people so much they’ll willingly give up their rights and acquiesce to ever-intrusive government power. Just look at the unparalleled powers seized by the Federal Government’s executive branch in the past seven years.

Have you read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism? Me neither, but I’ve seen her on TV. She looks great, and I gather the book is about how conservatives and corporations have capitalized upon the fear and chaos that result from disasters and economic crises to push their radical agendas. 9-11, Katrina, the mortgage meltdown: for those who love power, it’s all opportunity.

But maybe the Shock Doctrine works both ways. I just got a press release that I never imagined I would see. “Celebrate Newly-Wedded Bliss in Newport Beach” is the word from the Newport Beach Conference & Visitors Bureau, and they continue, “Moments away from the legalization of same-sex marriage in California, Newport Beach invites all newly-weds to celebrate their official beginning into wedded bliss with a special getaway in this quintessential seaside haven.”

You know, the quintessential seaside haven that would erect a gay roadblock between it and Laguna if it could; the one that consistently elects anti-gay conservatives to public office (in the equally nutty district next door, Rohrabacher has claimed “There are no gays in my district”); the one that in its schools teaches just one method of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases, and that’s abstinence til marriage, and since marriage has hitherto meant “between a man and a woman,” by inference for gays that meant abstinence til death. That Newport Beach?

Evidently. The press release extols the town’s many restaurants, wine bars and spas and “three annual epicurean festivals,” which is the nicer way of saying “Huey Lewis and a cheeseburger.” The release goes on to boost a number of honeymoon lodging opportunities including a “Romance Package” —champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries upon arrival!—at the Balboa Bay Club & Resort, a place previously as wholly hetero as Norman Mailer’s jockstrap.

I see the Shock Doctrine at work. While there will doubtless be locals for whom the shock will be seeing Adam and Steve’s post-coital breakfast nuzzlings, I think the big shock to the city’s tourism community was the teetering economy and its resultant empty restaurant seats, hotel rooms and gondolas—all so shocking that it was finally willing to realize gay dollars spend the same as straight ones.

And nationwide, maybe the Iraq war dead and war debt, the collapse of infrastructure and government services, the woeful economy, Republican-abetted gas prices, etc. will shock citizens sufficiently that they’ll realize the conservatives’ gay-baiting for the smokescreen it is, welcome gays into the waking hell that is marriage, and move on to the real issues destroying our nation. Thanks, George Bush!