Happy anniversary to us, K-Town! (Please stop fucking up my shit)

A couple of weeks ago, someone asked me how long it had been since I moved to Koreatown. I had to think about that.

Turns out that it hasn't been the eternity spent on the island in Lost that I always envision whenever anyone usually asks me that question, but rather, a mere 14 months.
And I'm just starting to appreciate the place. Either that or some slightly mutated version of Stockholm Syndrome has finally set in and I am K-Town's willing hostage.

Either way, at least I'm not actively miserable anymore. As a matter of fact, this strange place has started to become Home.

My conscious decision to move to K-Town (done in a halfway sober mindset) was based on the following reasons:
1.) Moving back to The Valley would invoke unwanted, all too recent memories (dead/dying parentals and whatnot). Kind of a drag.
2.) Moving back to The Valley would lead me to a slow, painful death of boredom. At least with K-Town, I could die an exciting, drug/alcohol fueled death....maybe become a news story.
3.) Moving back to The Valley after living eleven blocks away from the beach? Not an option. Moving somewhere sort of halfway in between? Slightly less depressing option.
4.) I had a very romantic love affair with Downtown L.A. and surrounding areas (i.e. K-Town). I have memories of going on long walks with my father, with him imploring me to "Look up! Look up! These beautiful old monsters (the buildings) might not be with us for much longer..."
5.) Because of it's history and architecture (see #4) and because no one in my family lived here. I could maybe make it my own and create some very romantic, L.A. noir lifestyle for myself here and be a hard-lived, starving writer in my very own 100 year old building...sitting out on my fire escape, ruminating sagely....yada yada; all other cliches applicable here.

I did in fact, move in to a 100 year old building. It's a piece of shit, but I did do that. We have the elevator-of-death where you take your life into your own hands every time you use it; we have cockroaches; we have mice and possibly rats; we have an ever changing of hands in the management and ownership of the building; we have 3 washers, 3 dryers and only one of these machines may work at any time; we have crack addicts; we have a homeless person who sleeps on the roof (little surprise I encountered one Saturday on my way to sunbathe); we have hoarders...of animals and of stuff; we have mutually abusive husbands and wives; we have the constant, now near-comforting smell of weed throughout the entire building and we have a rumored prostitute who used to entertain her, um, customers in her home. I knew this, because she lived across from me for a time and would sometimes gift me randomly with free clothing. I didn't ask any questions.

We also have amazing, hard-working families who look after each other and occasionally me. There's an old man, a patriarch of one of said families who walks around with a cane and greets me with a flirtatious wink and wry comments. I'll never forget the time that I was walking home, nearing my building and feeling followed, turned around and discovered that I was by some strange younger guy. The old man, sitting outside of my building and watching this young man the entire time, scared him off with a sneer and a deep-throated growl, giving me a stiff nod of acknowledgment of his own effectiveness as I walked in safely.

There's the fortune teller down the block (ask for the mother, not the daughter) who has been here since Koreatown was a haven for wayward, would-be starlets in the 1930's and 1940's who came here to work for the Hollywood studio system, and who has literally spent hours regaling me with stories of reading the fortunes of Marilyn Monroe, Howard Hughes and Frank Sinatra. And dear god, I hope those stories are true.

There's the comically obese man and his three tiny chihuahuas who is constantly trying to con me into taking the youngest, most rambunctious one of the litter. He teaches me new Spanish every time I see him.

There's the El Salvadorian hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the corner with an old lady who must live there, who makes the best pupusas you could ever want to eat.
Across the street is a late night street-meat station where most or all of my neighbors congregate, small children in tow and I swear, you could pick no safer spot on planet earth at two o'clock in the morning.
There are the competing 99cent stores, kitty corner to each other and both couldn't be more entertaining if you're feeling the least bit bored and/or anxious.
Nearby is the 24 hour laundromat that has everything: industrial sized machines; televisions; food/drink and Spanish soap operas and porn to rent for your at-home viewing pleasure.
And the taco truck....I could luxuriate in words for days over the taco truck.

Yes, in the last year, I've also had crimes committed against me; one of the most egregious being having my car stolen.
It's for this and other reasons that friends and family are in a constant state of intervention/near kidnapping of me, imploring me to move to a safer neighborhood or city. I understand this. I would do the same. And I reply politely, often times in logical agreement.

I could write 50 plus blog posts about everything that's happened to me here in the last fourteen months; horrible and hilarious...and I probably will, but for now, I just want to admit myself a willing captive.

I inherited my father's love of dirty neighborhoods, history and misfits. Plus I got the fire escape and I love it.