I've been drawing a lot in the streets of L.A., mainly in Venice, SM and Downtown. I have noticed some things and I felt the need to write them down:

-People don't mingle enough.
They rarely do. Everyone is going about their business and the only people that approach others and talk to them are either homeless people trying to get some coins, people advertising services/businesses or men in nice clothes approaching good looking women. Curiously enough there can be 50-100 people in one street and, at any given minute (if my observation is quaint enough), perhaps only one will approach another and it will be for either of the aforementioned reasons. I don't like this at all. I wish people would just step out of their comfort zone and make some eye contact and experience a different L.A.
The one I see is to me utterly polite and monotonous and is characterized by people sidestepping each other with uneasiness, suspicion and (sometimes) condescension. Where's the warmth in this social fabric? I guess this is just what happens in a big city...


-Class Distinction/Segregation exists and it dominates the social scene.
Not only do people of the same class not mingle or acknowledge each other, but in places where a lot of different people of different social standings come together, there is a very marked segregation in the way people navigate the social pool.
Segregation may be a strong word but it is quite literally what I see happening. No one talks to the guy changing the trash bags in the Santa Monica trash cans, and neither does he talk to anyone else unless he/she is a fellow worker. Picture these scenarios and see whether they are odd or out of place: imagine a guy in a suit having a laugh with a street sweeper, or a lady holding her latte having a small conversation with a flower vendor. These are rare sightings, I have found. I see this sort of thing in the movies, but in the real L.A. they are usually sorely missing (maybe more in contrast to the movie/tv projection of L.A.)Where is the candor? Why isn't there more of it? There are millions of strangers out there and they continue to be that way to each other, and perhaps they can't help it...
But need one decide that just because one isn't likely to see another again it isn't worth it to talk to him/her or at least give them a bit longer an attention span?


-Some people are literally out to get noticed.
We all want some sort of attention, and do this in some way or another (it is one of our human needs), but some do it more, and more blatantly than others. Whether it's a group of shirtless dudes skating back and forth by where girls are sitting, or businessmen in coffee shops ready to give any potential new members of their pyramid scheme their business card...
Some L.A. people are out only to get noticed by others. I've seen a few variations of the above examples. One of the more notable specimens I've seen in Venice is the prototype dude/chick in good shape running in the Venice shops sidewalk(dodging people most of their running time). One could infer these fitness stars love running in the cool atmosphere of venice, but they could/should just as easily use the running pavement by the beach, designated for them anyway. But no, they run in the midst of crowds of people in their perfectly matching nike running gear. I think the term is Attention Whore.

-Homeless People are invisible.
They are there but, if glances and interactions are a guide, they do not exist. They sit in benches, or by trees, their gaze sometimes lost in thought. It's sometimes hard to look at them. Upon doing so one may wonder when the last time was that they showered, or what they ate earlier. Where they slept. "Give em some coins and they leave you alone" is what a man once (jokingly?) told to me after I'd given a man some quarters and we were about to cross the street at a nearby intersection. Maybe that's the mentality around here? I've certainly experienced walking by a homeless man and looking away in order to avoid him asking me for coins. It's much harder to look at someone in the eye and say "no, I can't today" than it is to keep walking with the gaze up. There are a lot of homeless people in L.A. and there seems to be a rule in the air they they are not to be approached by us car and shelter folk. Some of them are veterans and some have a college education. We call them homeless, as if their condition is one that implies solely that they can't afford housing. But it implies much more: their lack of security, their severely diminished ability to survive, their lack of privacy and comfort, their lack of proper health care...They are every single bit as human as we are but they are struggling much more to keep it that way day to day...
But what struggle to witness if we just make them invisible?


I hope that wasn't too contrived or unclear. I just had to get this out in writing and I'm not super organized with my thougths sometimes.
Thanks for reading, if you did. Give me your thoughts and comments if you feel like it



-J