After taking a well-needed hiatus last week (gathering gossip and observations is exhausting for an old surfer), Buzz returned to hear the real low-down: SMDP’s got a new editor... “Mikey T,” as they call him in the newsroom. Usually at least the third to know, Buzz missed out on that news. Out with the old in with the new. Guess the Santa Monica Daily “Press-ure” can get to anyone. But thank God that we all have issues, otherwise the SMDP wouldn’t have anything to fill its growing pages.
Apparently, the day laborers on 11th Street have issues of their own. After years of complaints from the neighbors, the powers that be at City Hall threw some porta potties on the street so no more human excrement would land in the alleys or in people’s back doors. Great idea. Now the whole street smells like a urinal. To keep it as clean as humanly possible, locks were put on the bathroom doors and are opened by the Bourget Bros. staff every morning and closed every night. But Buzz has learned that the brothers at Bourget found a surprise recently when a group of job-seeking Latinos put their own lock on the porta pottie to keep out the riffraff hovering down the street. Buzz guesses they just wanted some privacy, as we all do when doing our business...... Buzz is well aware that Santa Monica is the epitome of healthy Southern California living but there’s always the detractors... like the burn-out homeless guy who was seen sitting in a UCLA Santa Monica Hospital courtyard hooked up to an IV, a respirator and who knows what else, taking drags of a cigarette as his hospital gown flowed freely from the back. Buzz took a double take when he looked out the window, saw the patient hunched over, staring at the ground and sucking on ultimately what is most likely killing him. Doctor’s advice? Buzz hopes not...... While chowing down on some late night grub, Buzz remembered why he loves Santa Monica so much... its characters provide a constant source of entertainment. The wee hours of the day usually provide the best visuals and one recent Friday night was no exception. Sitting al fresco at Swingers, Buzz gazed out onto Broadway where he saw a lady in her mid-40s, dressed in a black scarf halter top, a skirt short enough to show off her cottage cheese thighs, tie-up platforms, stunner shades, a sun visor with headphones and a CD player. She was walking backwards in the middle of Broadway, through the intersection at Lincoln and continued west into the night. Is there really anything else to say?...... Perhaps this woman walking the street was just trying to attract a suitor. After all, it’s tough being single in Santa Monica.
Buzz found this out last week while dining on sushi at Yangtze on the Promenade. It was around 10 p.m. on a Thursday night and Buzz was starving, having just sat through a grueling, three-hour session of the Recreation and Parks Commission where women with bad plastic surgery moaned about a children’s playground in Palisades Park.
At Yangtze, a Dodgers’ game was being broadcast on a flat screen just above the close confines of the sushi bar, and aside from the obnoxious banter of two drunk and tattooed twenty-somethings, the atmosphere was very pleasant. That is until a blonde, middle-aged man with Coke bottle glasses began to mumble to the tall, mild-mannered sushi chef.
At first, Buzz couldn’t quite make out what the obviously inebriated sake-lover was saying. Then he heard something that piqued his interest.
“I find you absolutely intriguing,” the man said, his speech labored from alcohol consumption. “Do you want to come home with me?”
Being polite, the chef continued making California rolls and pieces of spicy tuna.
“I love lanky Asian men,” the man said, his head rolling around on his neck.“Are you gay?”
“What?” the chef said smiling. “I do not speak English very well.”
“Are you gay?” the man asked again. The chef turned to Buzz and asked for a translation.
“He wants to know if your gay?”Buzz said loudly.
“What is gay?” the chef asked. “He wants to know if you like men,” Buzz replied.
And then the smile turned to a frown and the chef went off, his forehead wrinkled with anger as he told his customer that he was married and that he only liked “pretty girls.”
Feeling the tension in the air, Buzz paid his bill, thanked the chef and went on his way. Buzz was thankful that he has already found his love, the ocean.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 25, 2006. Read the original PDF.