A video from CBS.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6633405n&tag=api
Oh, how I hate them. How I hate cell phones! Just shut up and watch the game! I am really quite quite shocked that nobody kicked his ass before the ball came along and schmooshed his nose!
October 2007
June 2010 – Day in and Day out!
Now
What do they “plan” on doing in this amazing city of Hollywood? I’ll tell ya! a whole lot of nothing. The amazing city of Jollywood is really the happiest place on Earth. I will tell you why. Because in the United States of America we are blessed with a unique assembly of liberties and this is ground zero where the clash between liberties and personal freedoms occurs on a daily basis. For ten years I’ve watched it play out between skateboarders and city park staff. Between city employees who are really just trying to do their underpaid jobs, while at the same time, help these same kids develop some kind of personal growth with the backdrop of rampant, unbridled capitalism to misguide these under-parented children whose parents are simply struggling to put food in their mouths [period]. Sometimes I feel honored to be a witness to all this melodrama, while at other times I just feel like a victim!
Well the joke is on me. Neither the parents nor the kids give a hoot. In fact, most Americans don’t realize that this wee patch of land called Hollywood (zip code 90028) is a big microcosm; or is it a tiny macrocosm of America’s culture clash? Here is where races, genders, belief systems, morals and the kitchen sink, collide, bounce against one another and spew new perspectives, and ideas. The energy and the tension are palpable. Here is where rent controlled properties are being quietly squeezed out by new luxury condos and apartment complexes.
Versus
Social Services? Whu? Police Protection? Huh?
The woman who is the subject of the two videos is a neighborhood fixture. It’s sad because she needs help. Serious help. And so does our neighborhood. In my make-believe world, one would call the police and report that a women is in severe distress and needs psychiatric and social services support. The police would come, and put her in restraints with the help of some kind of Emergency Medical Transport. From there she would be brought in front of a judge. Clearly the woman is incompetent and unable to make rational decisions on her own behalf. The judge would send her to the Los Angeles County Hospital. There she would be admitted for observation and treatment. After about two weeks of psychopharmacological intervention, as well as two or three interviews a week, she would be reassessed and sent to a half-way house transitional care to prepare her for life as productive member of society, or released to her family, in a worst case scenario- hospitalized for a longer period of time and put in the care of the State of California.
The Old County Hospital
Dream on!
Here is what really happens:
- I call the cops four times on June 25, 2010 (give or take a day).
- They can’t find the tree she is living under, despite detailed instructions, descriptions and the fact that I am not the only person who has called the police on her.
- After the second call, I am asked to meet the police in front of my building in order to show them where she is.
- For one thing, you can hear her from the front of our building.
- When I hobble down there with my cane, they’ve already left.
- I call a third time. The dispatcher keeps telling me “Hold on, hold on, hold on” in some weird mantra-like fashion.
- I ask him, “Why do you keep telling me to “hold on?”
- Angrily, he replies, “Well, then hang up if you want to.”
- I want to hang up and I do so.
- After waiting another 15 to 20 minutes to see if the police are going to respond to my complaint, I conclude that they will not, so I call them again.
- Again I am asked to meet them in front of my building.
- This time they are actually in front of the building!
- I pulled my So-Happy-To-See-You face out of my pocket and insert it in front of my I-Really-Am-Sick-Of-This face.
- I am then subjected to the kind of creepy and humiliating treatment that borders on the Bad Lieutenant behavior.
- The passenger says my name three times, “Are you blah blah blah?”
- I affirm that I am blah blah blah.
- He responds, “My partner is gonna love this.”
- They are intrigued that I know her name. I tell them that we’ve both lived here for over ten years.
- I try to bolster my reputation and standing in the community when I tell them that I operate a blog – ta dah! thehollyblog!
- While the passenger laughs and repeats the name like it’s a stupid joke. The driver says, “I don’t know what a blog is.”
- I just laugh and respond, “She’s around the corner, underneath the big tree on your left. Just follow her screaming.”
- They pull off. I watch from my window as they simply run her off of the property.
After I go to bed, my sleep is interrupted by her screaming and usual carrying on. To quote Shakespeare’s As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage.” Or even more glum, Macbeth’s soliloquy when he states,
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
THE HOLLYBLOG 