Our Superbowl and half time show rolled into one.
The Superbowl was in San Jose. I saw the half time pageant on tv, where Gwen Stefani’s cheating ex-husband danced around on the stage decorated in rainbow pride’s finest Bollywood flowers. That was fine. Except for the part where he cheated on Gwen Stefani. There was some white, some black, some brown, covered a lot of bases. Bruno Mars is cute, he had on a leather sweat suit.
The problem of the Superbowl, it’s in San Jose. Santa Clara exactly. Not San Francisco. San Francisco’s what they’re selling, turning it upside down, kicking out the homeless in the name of, Superbowl? We just stayed away. Everything for weeks, all about the Superbowl. Don’t mind the traffic, it’s just the Superbowl.
OK. But Beyonce. So, ok, for that. How could anyone not like Mrs. Beyonce? I know how you work, though, Superbowl, don’t think we don’t get it.
When we took a walk today, we walked the railroad tracks across the westside, as far west as you can go without hurting your feet on the rocks. Didn’t find much, no comatose people this time, just three big empty brandy bottles and a shattered faux tiffany plastic chandelier.
We detoured on to the road, past the storage units where the girl we helped out a few years back got arrested in the big meth bust a few weeks back. Past where the old Latino guys park and ride, ancient guys unloading ancient bikes out of ancient trucks and ride wherever they’re on their way to. Nobody cares if you park there, by the razor wire lot where people’s rvs live. Past the gaggle of ladies and their colorful bikes and colorful goggle and helmets and all their accessories and sweat, lounging on the sidewalk by the fancy bikeshop in the gum factory. This is industry now, on the westside, a bike shop and soon a extra hip coffee shop with whatever the new barn wood will be, plastered on the wall for a really nice $5 coffee. We had to step carefully around them, lounging with all their things.
We just wanted some quiet. The train tracks is our only place now, who would want to walk along there? I guess the people who are spending the money to turn the tracks into a lovely paved walkway, and a tourist train would chug along where the cement train used to go. One hundred and twenty seven million dollars, that’s what they want to pave a path. The old train, street kids would hop it on it’s way out of town, hop it south at the intersection by Safeway and ride to wherever the cement went. I used to wave at them, huddled on the bars outside the rail cars, hunkered down with backpacks and pitbulls, ready to ride where it took them.
A few times I’ve walked the conveyer line, but it’s mountain lion country there and very private property. To make cement, the rocks came out of the quarry, a pit the size that would make your jaw drop, dug out of redwoods, a blistering hole that nobody’s supposed to see. The rocks got put on the conveyer, rode miles down the hill, ground up into toxic dust that blistered the lungs of everyone nearby. Then on the train and south it went.
Now maybe this can be a lovely pathway and a scenic train, drag more people up the coast and through the tracks where I walk the dogs. I dunno. I like it ok the way it is. It’s rocky, so most people stay off. The train’s long gone, shut down when the cement plant shut, so we never worry about being hit by the train. It’s quiet on the tracks, ghostly quiet, so we use them to go north and south.
These are things the Superbowls don’t care too much about. Every pyrotechnic explosion and digital effect and Superbowl village and private jet landing. Maybe we actually didn’t want it, didn’t need it. Just over the mountain was too close for us.