FEWSTER STRIKES YET AGAIN!

We've missed you, David. Welcome back to the TABLE.

THE BLUE BUS IS CALLING US by David Freaking Fewster

I used to look out of

bus windows

like I was watching a TV show

(This wasn't too hard to do,

considering some of the butt-stupid

shows they had in the '60s--

I was used to staring at nothing

for hours on end)

I grew up in the country

and everyone had cars to get around

and the only bus I took was

the school bus and I never

looked out the window then

because I was busy being

pummeled by my classmates

My first big bus ride was when I was 18,

on a Greyhound going from Rochester NY

to Los Angeles.

It was a surreal experience, like

traveling in slow-motion and at

the speed of light simultaneously.

Cramped boredom interrupted by

spells of wonderment as the shifting

terrain of a continent unfurls

over 72 hours

LA is like a continent, but more compressed

so things went by quicker.

Taking the local buses from downtown to

Hollywood to UCLA to Santa Monica--

It was on the No. 8 Blue Bus (Ocean Park)

that I first saw the Pacific.

It was a gray day, and while

I might have concurred with

Bukowski's snarky kid's assessment

("It's not pretty"), it was certainly

impressive and perhaps a little

scary in its vastness

Not looking out the window meant

I might miss some unexpected

landmark or miracle. I remember

taking the Number 4 down Santa Monica Blvd.

for a job interview as a proofreader

at Barbara's Place, and as we drove past the

Fairfax District it was Rosh Hashana

and hundreds of Hasidim flooded the sidewalks

after services and I knew

I wasn't in Kansas anymore.

(I also didn't get that job)

I did, however, get a job

as an account receivable clerk

at a mail order fraud company,

but I was young and innocent and

didn't know about such things then.

The No. 7 Blue Bus took me there,

which seemed like an insane deal

seeing as the fare was only a quarter.

All the way from Ocean Ave. to Beverly Drive!

It was the Pico-Rimpau route,

which I misread as 'Rimbaud'

because I'm a poet

And even though the Pico corridor

can hardly be listed as

quaint or historic or anything,

it was still a constant source of

fascination for me as I looked out

over the passing blocks--

palm trees and stucco apartments

near the beach, bowling alleys, guitar shops,

coffee houses, the Vons at Westwood,

the crumbling brick and mortar storefronts

of West LA, appliance stores, liquor stores,

and then suddenly the relatively new and shiny

Century City (The City of the Future!)

until I arrived at my destination in

the poor section of Beverly Hills

And every block had the potential of

human drama--maybe an old man would fall, or

a crazy lady start screaming, or some guy would

be ineptly parking his car and holding up traffic

with the honking and yelling and cursing

For eight months I stared out at both sides

of the street, and today I find myself thinking

about Ed Ruscha's

"Every Building on the Sunset Strip"

where he took pictures of just that in the '60s

and pasted them together in a huge

accordion file so you can pretend you're

walking down the street with Sharon Tate,

and of course I didn't do that

And I'm not religious, and don't really

believe there's an afterlife,

but I sometimes wonder if

our consciousness is an energy and that

even when we're dead

it has entered the fabric of the universe,

and the extra energy I gave to

Pico Blvd. in 1977 has somehow transmitted

itself to the cosmos, even if it's not

in an art book that goes for three grand online

Now everyone (young and old)

just stares at their phones

the entire bus ride.

The cosmos can learn nothing

from such people