What You Can See With Eyes Open I ran into my friend Uli about six months ago while jogging to the top of Griffith Park. He introduced me to some german woman and we chatted a bit before I continued on my path up the mountain. I remember he commented to his friend that only in America do the artists jog on their days off. Only in America... maybe only in L.A. Today I went on a six mile run that takes me down famous Melrose Avenue to the outskirts of Silver Lake, home of Beck and a number of equally talented, yet uncommercialized bands. I'm not too superstitious, but I'm beginning a big trip and so I'm keeping my eye out for omens. I'm only a few minutes into it when I pass a really amazing looking albino kid with freckles and a pure white goatee. I suppose if I were a bit better read I might know what that symbolizes. but I'm not so I just continue on. My neighborhood in Los Angeles is pretty run down. I live in an area with a lot of poverty and crime, gangs and squalor. I pass a lumberyard crowded with dayworkers looking for uninsured, menial labor. At the end of Melrose I cross over to Sunset and begin running up towards Los Feliz and Griffith park. There's a seedy motor lodge on the north side of Sunset. As I pass by it I notice a pair of officers and and undercover agent searching a car abandoned by the side of the motel. I peer into the open trunk of the Honda. It's full of envelopes, bags of white powder and other paraphernalia. Now I know what goes on during the days here. It's mid-day and hotter than hell. All I've had to eat so far today is a pot of coffee and I feel like I want to throw up. When's jogging supposed to get fun? Where's the runner's high I've heard so much about. I zip down Western, just blocks from the supermarket Brad and Gwynneth shop at. There's some more police activity a quarter mile later, a prostitute's being arrested. The pimp got away. There's lots of prostitutes on my block. Most of the variety preferred by a certain celebrity who made the news recently. There's a lot of strip clubs and porn shops. But that's L.A. for you - enclaves of fancy homes surrounded by the unseemly and downtrodden. A lot of the women I see driving around this neighborhood look like strippers, blonde hair and boob jobs. They're just cleaner and drive fancier cars. I pass a building that was devastated in the Northridge earthquake. It's decaying slowly. There's police tape around it and the door's boarded up. "Danger, Asbestos" the sign reads. The last stretch of my run takes my through a strip where mexican church halls neighbor markets, dark bars and check cashing stores. There's always loud music blaring from the churchs. A band pounds away at deafening levels while someone screams in spanish through an archaic amplification system. I peer in one of the nameless facades along the way. The door's open, a metal screen shut tight. Inside the room a group of asian and mexican women sit at sewing stations their backs bent over textiles. It must be very hot in there. It looks like an ancient slave galley. This is the first day of my trip. I had the idea a while back and now it's beginning to take shape. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm just anxious to see. - Craig