Lipton writes about Venice Beach.
LAWRENCE LIPTON (1959) First chapter of THE HOLY BARBARIANS - SLUM BY THE SEA
Page 421-422
Here, working couples with children find the run-down apartments and tumble - down shacks that the realtor has to offer,. To them, too, it is Land's End. After being turned away in other parts of town with "No children, no pets." they stagger finally into Ocean Park and Venice, foot-sore or with an empty gas tank, ready to rent anything with four walls and a roof, even if the walls are paper-thin and the roof leaks and the toilet is stuffed up. "Wait till you see how I'll fix it up," says the wife with a tired little smile, and Dad has visions of puttering around Sunday morning with a paint brush turning this time-rotted ruin into the American Dream Home of the magazine color pages.
The young who come here have no such dreams. The aged, living in the sealed-in loneliness of their television sets, will leave them alone. The working couples, fatigued after a night on the graveyard shift at nearby Douglas Aircraft, will nod over their beer and listen to the jukebox in the waterfront taverns. If books, painting or music, or all-night gab fest are more important to the young than the mop and dishrag, nobody will read them any lectures on neatness in a neighborhood where it is no crime to leave the beds unmade and two days' dishes in the sink. Nobody will turn to stare at beards and sandals or dirty Levi's on the beach where a stained sweat shirt or a leather jacket is practically formal dress.
Writing Los Angeles
A Literary Anthology
Edited by David L. Ulin
Library of America publisher
Copyright 2002
