April 1, 2014

Can’t Judge A Book By Its District

Like any other village in this city, the Arts District has had to overcome problems.

For example, about ten years ago, the cubic volume of the fly-grabbing, nose-clogging, shoe-spoiling landmines that proliferated among the dog-loving, rabble-rousing, brave, colonizing visionaries was beyond livable.

Community meetings didn’t help, and neither did announcements on bulletin boards, nor message cartoons in mailrooms of every pet-friendly building. In fact, things got rebelliously worse.

Then laminated signs in Caltrans orange popped up all over the ‘hood:

NOTICE TO DOG OWNERS

Under Municipal Code Section 357.4.16(d) it is a misdemeanor
to leave dog waste on city streets and sidewalks, punishable by a
$1,000 fine and up to 90 days in jail.

Scoop the poop. It’s the law.

In an act of desperation, one loftdweller had made up these bogus signs, and considered it a tribute to her cleverness and ingenuity that each and every one had been stolen within twenty-four hours.

Probably coincidentally, things cleared up soon thereafter.

Now everything old is new again.

Lately, the wave of hipper, more affluent, less neighborly and less creative souls who have migrated to the District are once again leaving warm, steaming pet piles in unexpected places. Like on the sidewalk between your front door and your parked car. You get the idea.

The Old Guard, as we have come to be called, are once again irritated. At a recent gathering of OGs at the Coffee Café (formerly the Coffee Warehouse) someone who was there at the beginning, someone who’s been on the front lines for decades, someone who’s a really, really good artist – one of those bright, aware, out-of-the-box thinkers we love so much – said to our table of six:

“Remember those notices that were everywhere about it being a crime to not pick up after your dog?”

Surprised and pleased at the enduring imprint the sign-maker had left, she laughed. Modestly, she said. “Why, yes. Yes, I do.”

The brilliant artist turned to her and said, “Who do we call at City Hall to get more of those signs?”

The sign-maker and two others laughed.

That means half the people at the table did not get the joke. Now, or then.

Is it possible that wildly creative, imaginative souls can also be so totally literal?

Or so miss the point?

Or be more law-abiding than appearances would indicate?

WTF is that?

Tags: All that glitters is not bright, the joke’s on me, crime and banishment, peanut butter cups, a stool and his money are soon parted, on the road, stool pigeon, there’s no stool like an old stool