Yesterday while I was covering the Santa Anita Handicap, the poutine truck was there. I talked about this truck about a year ago when what I had ordered caused me much pain. It was delicious, but feeling my arteries cry out for help was painful.
Well I go to cover Kings practice this morning and there the truck was. Was it a sign? Like yesterday I didn’t buy anything, but now I have poutine on my mind. Ugh.
The scariest thing of my two-week road trip happened in the beginning, in Baton Rouge. No, it wasn’t me getting sick. Sure I had trouble swallowing and for one night I had body aches and chills. But after overloading on zinc and vitamins, I was all right the next day although the throat still smarted in the entire week I was in Louisiana.
The scary thing in Baton Rouge was how quickly my Louisiana drawl came back. Having lived in Zachary, LA until I was eight, I had a thick accent when my mom left my dad and moved us to Los Angeles. As a third grader, I quickly ditched my accent for obvious reasons. When I am really tired or drunk, the drawl creeps its way subtlely.
But being back in Baton Rouge phrases like, “Howdy ma’am,” and “You better’n giddy up there ‘fore I turn your car into a piss bucket,” crept into my vernacular complete with the drawl. Just like that. No thought, no hesitation. It just fell out of my mouth as if that’s how I’ve been talking the last 25 years.
Soon people looked at me as just another person while my cousin was the one who talked weird. It didn’t help that he’s full Korean, so he already is an aberration.
I lied. There were two scary things. There was the accent, but there was also something else. It felt like home. Baton Rouge, a city with just over 800,000 people in its metropolitan area and around 230,000 in its city limits, felt like a place I could move to after years of living in the second largest metropolitan area in the United States.
The initial goal of going to Baton Rouge was to visit my dad’s grave. I had never seen his headstone. We buried him in 1997 less than a week from my high school graduation, and I hadn’t seen him since. He’s buried at the Second Baptist Cemetery out in Jackson, about 35 miles north of Baton Rouge and about 20 miles north of where I grew up in Zachary.
There had been changes to both Zachary and Jackson. Zachary had become more posh. It now boasts a hotel. The Winn Dixie moved across town to nearby the Cracker Barrel convenience market my mom used to manage. They now have a library, a golf course and, inexplicably, trying to build an Americana complete with a cineplex, mall and condos.
We went by my old house. There was no one home, so we didn’t go in. It was much closer to the street than I remembered. Our old flower bed and flag pole in the front yard was gone. Also gone were the marks on the street that told the deliveryman of the Baton Rouge Advocate whether or not to deliver the paper to the houses.
But I remember the spot we used to burn our dead leaves during the winter. I remember the backyard which got flooded during a hurricane. I remember all of the ant hills I used to kick around as a kid just to see the ants scurry about manically. I remember Brandon Bates’ house, my best friend and classmate. I believe he hosts a show on the Outdoor Network or something like that.
Despite the changes, everything felt familiar. It was like I belonged here, that I was meant to be here. It’s a feeling that’s hard to put to words, but anyone who has gone back to their hometown after many years absence must surely have felt this also. That is unless that town had beat out your will to live when you were a child. Then perhaps it’s a shithole to you.
When we got to the cemetery, I was amazed at how nice the graves were. There is my older sister, my uncle, my grandfather and my father. None of the family live anywhere nearby, so I was amazed at how nicely kept the headstones were. What also astonished me was that my dad and uncle had two markers each. One was the headstones we purchased, but the other was the military ones that indicated which branch they were in and what conflicts they served. I don’t remember ordering that when my dad died.
Since my dad was a veteran, someone had stuck a tiny American flag next to the grave. There were plastic flowers and a tiny praying angel figurine on my sister’s grave which would normally repulse my atheist self but oddly comforted me. I didn’t break down and cry or anything like I thought I might have. It was all very stoic.
The one time I did have tears falling was when we had moved on to New Orleans. I wanted to see one of the few beaches in Louisiana that lined the Gulf Coast, so we went the 100 miles down to Grand Isle. We got to the State Park at the end of the island and onto the beach. The emotions just came out. The water was murky thanks to an oncoming storm.
I don’t know what had me emotional, whether this was the water tarnished with the oil from the BP spill or this was the water that fueled Hurricane Katrina. But I stood there on the beach just staring out in amazement.
It was then that I realized that Louisiana is partly my home. Though all of my adolescence and adult life has been spent in Southern California, there was no doubt that Louisiana was a part of me like the Mississippi mud, the Spanish moss, the humidity.
I told my cousin, “I could live here.” He didn’t get it. He’s only lived in Southern California so Louisiana was a foreign place for him with foreign concepts and foreign people. But I knew these people. I knew these lands. Hell, I could still find my home without the aid of a map.
This concept of home was reinforced for me when we got to Norman, OK. Stephanie checked us in, a mother of three who divorced her husband a few years ago. She was from Metarie, LA when Katrina came barreling. She lost everything.
She came to Norman to wait things out for a while until Metarie was rebuilt. In 2009 she moved back to Metarie.
“I was amazed how well New Orleans has recovered so far,” I told her.
She shook her head. “But not the outside cities,” she replied.
Stephanie only lasted in Metarie for six months until she came back to Norman. “The economy,” she told me. There were better opportunities for her to be able to feed her children in Oklahoma.
“They must be really hospitable here since you came back,” I said.
She just made that face, the squinched up face that leaves no doubt that she was not happy living here. “I miss it down there,” she added. “It’s so different here.”
Stephanie wasn’t home. To her it was just a place to live, not a place to lay down roots. Her heart was still in Louisiana.
Perhaps I’m just romanticizing my visit. But I guess part of me, too, still has roots in Louisiana no matter how much I’ve tried to run away from it in the past.
I am back at home after nearly two weeks on the road. From California to Louisiana via the I-10, my cousin Aaron and I spent three days in Baton Rouge and three days in New Orleans. From there it was a free-for-all. We ended up going to Natural Bridge Caverns outside of San Antonio, stayed in the most modular Motel 6 in San Marcos, TX, trying to go up to the I-40 to cross into the Texas panhandle but rebuffed by the blizzard. There was the Toy & Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley, OK, 26 hours of non-stop driving just to make it to the Four Corners Monument during daylight. There was sleeping for nearly an entire day in frigid Flagstaff, AZ. A drive-by of Kingman, AZ which holds familial importance with Aaron and I. There was the Hoover Dam and Vegas and now home.
It was an incredible two weeks. There were many people along the way who had tons of stories. It almost made me turn into a reporter for This American Life.
I’ll definitely have a lot more to write about as I can put my thoughts together coherently. But for now it’s time to delve back into the bitter pill of reality and get on with things.
After a little more than two days, my cousin and I have arrived in Baton Rouge. As you can see, our hotel room faces the Mississippi River which is fucking posh.
Now, arriving in a mid-sized city on a Sunday night means not a lot of things are available no matter how revitalized their downtown district is. Fortunately my nose found the hotel bar and a Macallan 12 neat which hit the spot after 1,830 miles.
Now I would have written an update last night, however the Motel 6 we stayed at in Fort Stockton, TX failed to give us the Wi-Fi key, and we were too tired to go back to the front office to pick it up. Some notable things along the way:
Oh. THE SPEED LIMIT ON THE OPEN ROAD IS 80 MPH IN TEXAS!!!!!. Talk about burying the lede.
Rain is expected here in Baton Rouge tomorrow. That will put a damper on things. But exploring will happen.
So there was more traffic than I had anticipated as we were heading out of Los Angeles last night. Being the dense person I can sometimes be, I failed to realize that this is president’s day weekend and everyone would be heading out of town also. Doh!
Nonetheless once we got past Riverside, things were okay. Of course this brought up one of my peeves of California drivers: their utter lack of care or ignorance on how to drive on a 4 lane highway. The first lane is for passing not for cruising.
This stupid cunt was driving her little Hyundai at around 65 in the passing lane. 65!! We damn near rear ended her.
Trucks trying to pass other trucks? Is that even legal?
It became very apparent that as I sat stewing in the passenger seat it was a good thing I wasn’t packing heat. Unfortunately I wasn’t carrying any drugs on me either so this anger is allowed to fester.
Regardless, things are well. We spent the night in Blythe right at the California-Arizona border. One thing that struck me as we were in the middle of nowhere were the random lights seen off in the distance. One particular row of amber lights in the distance turned out to be a state prison.
I haven’t killed my cousin Aaron, nor has he wanted to kill me. Yet. Things can change very quickly. I got a whiff of what the product of his morning sit-down session in the bathroom can be.
Dispatches from Arizona and daytime pictures coming next.
As you can tell from the photo above, I am in dire need of a haircut. That will be done today. Along with packing and tying up a couple of loose ends at the homestead. Fortunately I shopped for travel-sized toiletries and did laundry yesterday.
My cousin Aaron and I will be taking off around 6 or 7 tonight for a road trip to Louisiana. Many pictures will be taken. Many FourSquare check-ins will be made. Hell, I may resurrect my Flickr account.
And I will be documenting the trip here.
The following Senators voted against the reauthorization of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act:
Jeff Sessions (AL)
John Boozman (AR)
Marco Rubio (FL)
Jim Risch (ID)
Chuck Grassley (IA)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Mitch McConnell (KY)
Rand Paul (KY)
Roy Blunt (MO)
Mike Johanns (NE)
Tom Coburn (OK)
Jim Inhofe (OK)
Lindsey Graham (SC)
Tim Scott (SC)
John Thune (SD)
John Cornyn (TX)
Ted Cruz (TX)
Orrin Hatch (UT)
Mike Lee (UT)
Ron Johnson (WI)
John Barrasso (WY)
Mike Enzi (WY)
They have their reasons to not like the law. My suspicion is the fact their genitals protrude from their bodies was their main justification for voting no.
The law passed easily 78-22 and will face an uphill battle as it goes to the Republican-led House.
Here’s is the text of the most recent reauthorization in 2005, and here’s a summary of the act courtesy Wikipedia.
I’m waiting to hear a convincing argument against this law. I’m waiting…
Here are some final thoughts about this saga.
1. There is some stupid shit being said out there. “Where’s due process? He was never found guilty.” He shot at cops. He shot at cops using a silencer. What did you really think was going to happen?
Try this. You go out there and start shooting at cops. What do you expect the result to be? If it’s anything other than you on the ground resembling a slice of bloody Swiss cheese, get your fucking head checked.
2. Why is there so many questions about who started the fire? KCAL9/CBS2 reporter Carter Evans who notably was caught in the final gun battle was right there on the scene. He described the officers throwing canisters of what he believed to be tear gas, then the flames immediately started.
I was following events on different channels while scouring Twitter and trying feebly to listen to any police scanners in the area, so maybe the events didn’t come as a shock to me. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department had talked about wanting to burn him out. So they did it.
In my mind it was an intentional blaze set by the sheriff’s department. So what’s unclear about that?
All I know is that it looked an awful like Waco there. Just without the women and children and God and Janet Reno.
3. What the hell happened in this last week? After burning his truck last Thursday, Dorner hid out in a cabin by a golf course. That cabin happened to be about 100 yards away from where the sheriff’s department set up a command post and where they held press conferences.
The story goes that after last weekend a mom and daughter team entered that cabin to do their housekeeping. Dorner tied them up and kept them hostage. For some reason he decided that yesterday was the day to make a run for it stealing their purple Nissan. As he was driving the mountain, he lost control of the vehicle.
Dorner then jacked a white pick up truck. Soon a Department of Fish and Wildlife ranger drove past him, recognized him and got into the first shootout. It was a mini shootout, no one was injured and he fled. The sheriff’s department set up a road block on Highway 38 at Glass Road, about 20 miles away from where Dorner initially holed himself.
It sounds like a pursuit then happened. Dorner came upon the road block, and that’s when that final shootout occurred. Two sheriff’s deputies were shot, one died on the way to the hospital. He hid in that cabin, they burned it to the ground, his body was eventually recovered and his California drivers license was found.
How did the cops not know he was hiding out 100 yards away? It was either a great job by Dorner or a incompetent job by the sheriff’s department. I don’t quite know which one it is yet.
4. What’s the LAPD going to do? So Dorner is dead. The poor cops can now breathe a sigh of relief. But that doesn’t mean the issues Dorner raised which came to life as both the LAPD and the Torrance PD reverted to their shoot-first primal instincts have gone away. It’s still there front and center.
What’s probably more difficult for the LAPD this time around is their indiscriminate shooting has caused mistrust across a broader spectrum of people. It’s not only the black community, the Latin community. This antipathy transcends race and gender.
Mr. Delicious Tacos put it best in his post “The Girls Cried When They Shot Dillinger”,
Cops: learn this lesson. The way you felt about Chris Dorner is the way we feel about you. A heavily armed human nightmare who could pop out of nowhere at any time with a gun in your face and fuck you on some technicality. Sure, Teresa Evans kicked some crazy guy in the head while he was cuffed. So fucking what. It’s against the Code of Conduct, but everything you do every day is technically against the Code of Conduct. Yeah, my brake light is out. So it’s against the law, what isn’t. Yeah, I have a gram of coke on me, so fucking what. It makes me feel happy for once. But suddenly someone can come grab you by the scruff of the neck over some shit we all do and stomp your face into the sidewalk and take away your money and your dreams and your freedom and maybe your life. Quis custodiet ipses custodies.
That just about sums it up, right?
LAPD had a news conference at 8 p.m. PT, and it turns out no one has stepped foot in the burning cabin since it was too hot. That means no body. No Dorner.
So let the conspiracy theories rain down. Let the cheering sections root on. Let the previous rumors run amok.
The rumors: Dorner escaped in a sheriff’s vehicle right after the shootout; Dorner shot himself in the head; Dorner is burned/suffocated to death in the cabin; Dorner fled to a nearby horse corral; Dorner jacked another car to escape; Dorner fled on foot.
Stupid CBS News and John Miller.
I was wrong. Dorner apparently was still up in the Big Bear area. No one knows where he was since last Thursday.
But one thing is clear. He jacked someone’s car and tried to get the hell out of the mountains. The po’ blocked the road. A gun fight ensued that caught a reporter in the middle. Two San Bernardino sheriffs deputies were shot, one dying on the way to the hospital. Dorner ran into a cabin to hide out. A standoff ensued.
After the po’ realized he wasn’t holding anyone hostage, they tossed in tear gas or incendiary grenades into the cabin which set the cabin on fire. There are reports that a single shot was fired. At around 6:40 CBS News John Miller reported his sources said that Dorner’s dead body was dragged out of the burnt cabin.
And there it is. Laissez les bon temp rouler indeed.
