Month: September 2019

Hollywood becomes part of you when you live in LA as long as I did. Never mind my fringe industry life (“back to one!”) but the normality of celebrities everywhere: Tom Cruise in the dilation lounge at the eye doctor, Keanu crossing Pico, Brad Pitt in Jerry’s Deli, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst in Fred Segal. The list goes on.

Today, at the movie theater, I passed a big poster for AdAstra and said, “Hello, Brad Pitt,” like seeing an old friend.

I now live in a place where, for most people, Hollywood still glitters. They’ve never seen that glitter swept up at the end of a long day where you got bumps for overtime, smoke, and specialty makeup.

Bittersweet.

Art: Lisa Swerling, Glass Cathedrals

I live in ag country. Nothing but crops and livestock as far as the eye can see. “In season” the help wanted signs are up continuously. The workers are Hispanic from field to barn. There is a plentiful supply of white people in need of work in the area, yet they do not apply for these jobs. They prefer assistance to field work. Several local churches offer free meals one night a week. I’ve volunteered at these and the diners are always predominantly white.

The “immigrant as freeloader” story is a myth. Bringing in the harvest is hard work. Our local orchard supplies apples across the northeast. Whatever produce or meat you’re buying, anywhere, was likely touched first by a brown hand.

Gratitude works for me. Do we have to go through a worker famine to get it, that even the poorest white people don’t want to pick?