At the End of the Day
Everything changes.
Nature is composed of variations. The weather changes, the land changes, the ocean changes.
Dinosaurs disappear and the house dog appears. Cro-Magnon vanishes and George W. Bush appears. We shift, we grow, we alter, we evolve. Well, most of us.
Change. . . .
I was driving down Ventura Boulevard the other afternoon in the rain. I often wander when it rains. I like the way a storm casts the city in alternating patterns of light and shadow.
I was halfway through an intersection on the west side of the Valley when I suddenly realized a gas station that had been on the corner was gone. In its place was a strip mall.
I only saw it in passing, but I think it had a 7-Eleven, a pet store, a cowboy bar and a place that does nails. We are obsessed with nails in L.A. Nails and strip malls.
When did the gas station go? When did the strip mall appear? We blink and the landscape reconfigures.
Change. . . .
“If nothing changes, nothing changes,” Buddy Simon once said. I have no idea who Buddy Simon is. I heard the quote a long time ago and pinned it on a piece of paper next to my desk.
If nothing changes, nothing changes.
I thought about that the other day when they told me my column was ending in Metro.
*
It was not a pronouncement of great significance in the cosmic sense. Not at all like the evolution of the dinosaur into the house dog. Columns come and columns go. Nothing is permanent, especially in a newspaper.
Beginning sometime next month, I will reappear in the Southern California Living section. SoCal. There, twice a week, I will continue to explore the questions that have plagued society since the dawn of time. For instance, why do fish in a bowl always swim clockwise, and how many times can you drop a cat from a porch before it fails to land on its feet?
It was my mother who informed me that a cat always lands on its feet. Always. I was about 10 when I decided to find out. We had a cat named Fluffy. I dropped Fluffy from a porch 16 times, and 16 times Fluffy landed on her feet. The 17th time she did not. Poor Fluffy.
I created my fish hypothesis in adulthood. I had a bowl in my room. Sometimes, while writing, I stare off, searching for the next word in the vapor of drifting ideas. One day, I caught myself gazing at my fish, Oliver. It was an orange tetra in a bowl in the corner. At some point I began to realize it always swam in a clockwise direction. Always.
“I have an amazing discovery,” I said to my wife. “Fish always swim in a clockwise circle.”
“That’s nice, dear,” she said.
I wrote a column about it. “That’s nice, Al,” my editor said.
*
I knew change was in the air when I noticed our new rack card. It said something like, “The Los Angeles Times. A real NEWSpaper.” Uh-oh.
I’m more of a whimsy person than a NEWSperson. Most issues don’t interest me a lot. People do. Issues drift by like twigs in a tide, but humanity trudges forever forward, fighting to survive, to emerge, to persist, to grow.
“You’re one of our best writers,” an editor said to me. I waited expectantly. Editors rarely praise. When they do, it’s like pulling a pin on a hand grenade and rolling it across the floor toward the praisee.
“Nice job, Martinez,” bah-ROOOM!
It wasn’t exactly that way. He said I had the choice of moving my column to SoCal or returning to my roots and wandering in search of profiles and features. What he didn’t say is what other editors have said in the past: “You aren’t newsy, Martinez. Be newsy.” You have to be newsy in Metro.
“If they want you to be newsy, you’d better be newsy,” my wife used to say in exasperation. “Otherwise, you’ll end up covering prep sports in Pacoima.”
Change. . . .
I chose SoCal. It was never a problem. It’s what I wanted when I began this column 17 years ago. It was View then. They like whimsy in SoCal. They like good writing. So today is my last Metro column. Sometime next month, I’ll open my Shop of Little Things in SoCal.
I feel like it’s the end of a long day. Tomorrow begins another in another place. I like the idea. It’s like Buddy Simon said. “If nothing changes, nothing changes.” Ah, yes.
*
Al Martinez’s column will appear soon in Southern California Living on days to be figured out. Meanwhile, you can still reach him at al.martinez@latimes.com.