Samuel
Samuel was sitting at a table outside the McDonald's on Wilshire near Crescent Heights. He turned down my offer to buy him anything. Instead he aimably offered me a cigarette, and parentaly asked me if I had eaten yet.
In a Texan drawl, he laid out fond memories of being in the boy scouts, his joy and fascination with the natural world, and expounded the mythic origins of Los Angeles.
Yet his amiability could not hide his lonely resignation, even from himself.
" I can't talk too much, but I enjoy talking
to you 'cause one is a lonely number.
Would you like a cigarette? No? Ok.
What’s your star sign? I’m Capricorn.
It’s good to know. A lot of people don’t know what I’m saying when I say,
‘What’s your horoscope?’
I used to study astrology.
I like to study the stars, especially
when there ain’t too much light around. You see way out there. "
" I do want to stay in Texas. It’s not that I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be there only. I never been to California, and that’s why I came…
Say I went to Greece, and then came back to America. I didn’t want to go to Greece, and not be something in Greece. Be successful,
and put some money in the bank
in Greece, and then come back.
I can’t go back 'cause I can’t find the work,
so I roll with the punches. "
" I was wondering why I didn’t get no mail at my address in Dallas that I had,
but I just didn’t know about it.
I just kind of wandered off without
any mail or anything.
I got mail at my grandma's house that
I never opened yet.
Sometimes I didn’t want to open it yet since I didn’t know what was happening.
So I figured I come back to it,
and open it later… "
" ‘L.A.’ is for ‘Lost Atlantis.’
A lot of people don’t see what I’m saying.
I used to read about Atlantis. You see those mountains over there? That was underwater long ago. So deep to get to that.
They had to dive to deep to get
to that highland part up there.
Those palm trees, I call them shark nests, ‘cause sharks would be in there to sleep, to hide, to have babies, and hatch their young.
So I have a different point of view of
Los Angeles. "
" There might be some out there in the water still. Probably you’d have to go in the deep water. You’d have to swim so far down in the water to get to something like that. That’s why I’d rather see this right here,
and you don’t gotta swim
too far to get to the top of that.
And that’s how fascinating that is.
“Way down by the ocean. Hail to Atlantis”
I think the Beatles sang that.
I’m not so sure. "
" But if they knew that [palm] trees like that had growed from the bottom up in the water it would fascinate them.
You know, 'cause it’d be a shark nest
for one thing, but see how tall they are?
...
Atlantis is like the past and then it ain’t.
It probably was old, some underwater,
and still out there. … There’s
a buildin’ over here on Fountain that looks like it was made out of sand.
It’s a tall, old building, but they put it together a long time ago. I look at it still sometimes and say, ‘They didn’t just put that together, did they?’ "
" I like to be in Santa Monica, but I’m leery of the water out there ‘cause there’s
some big fishes in there.
Not necessarily the sharks. Octopus.
They got some real monsters out there. Dogfish. That’s a bad one. Big.
There are real monsters out there.
The whale.
Moby Dick, like the biggest of them all.
They got some real monsters out there.
The dogfish today would be gigantic. "
" Been in this area since 1983. I ain’t seen no changes really. It’s still the same.
That’s what bugs me. It’s like a stabilized situation. This right here is the same.
I walked from Los Angeles to here one day, and was rubbin’ the corn on my feet 'cause
I was tired. And it’s still the same.
And it’s still the same.
Except for that.
That used to be around the corner. "
" I don’t remember that much.
I do sometimes, but now I’m just kinda depressed and down trying to find work. Since it’s a Sunday I feel better.
Every day is a Sunday with God,
and I enjoy that thought.
Need to just get up, and doing work instead of sitting down doin' nothing.
Well, good to see you! I don’t mean to run, but I got to try to do something before it gets dark. I didn’t do too much today, but I feel better after doing something before the sun goes down. You ate you said? You’ve already eaten? All right, all right. "