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Published: September 5th 2008
Breaking The Law !
Guarding the nest.Just recently, more or less ever since the soccer scrimmage of a week and a half ago my knee has been giving me discomfort to the point where it has been beginning to get me down. As you know keeping active, be it in the form of soccer, running, gym or whatever is something essential to my existence and to have my enjoyment curtailed by the ever decreasing capabilities of my failing body parts is frustrating me to say the least.
On Wednesday evening I was sweating it out in the Belmont Athletic Club’s sauna taking my daily leafing through that days copy of the LA Times when I came across an advertisement that asked the question in bold white letters ‘Do you suffer from chronic knee pain?’. Yes I bloody well do I silently replied to
Breaking The Law !
WTF ! Free conversation booth on 2nd Street where you just feel free to sit down and chat. Weird or what ? myself and read on.
‘Has it been present for at least 6 months?’ the advert asked. Yes, it sure has,
‘Is the pain more severe in one knee than the other? Yes sir it is, and then finally
‘Are you between 35 and 75 years old’ Unfortunately I’m afraid so, yes.
It then went on to inform the reader that if you answered in the affirmative to all three questions as I most certainly had that you may just be eligible to participate in a clinical research study of an investigational product, a roundabout way of saying you could be the next logical progression up from a rat, a monkey or a mouse. Still, the thought of a possible cure for my arthiritic knee joint sounded interesting so I hastily tore the ad from the paper almost decimating the telephone number in the process and placed it with my car keys when I got home to ensure I didn’t forget it the following morning.
After lunch on Thursday I remembered the advert, retrieved it from my bag and called the number. I was put through to the sqeaky voiced receptionist of Providence Clinical Research who,
Breaking The Law !
Could this be my saviour ? Or will I grow another head ? Watch this space. after a couple of initial precursory questions said something that made me stop her in her tracks and ask her to repeat herself.
She explained that the six month study would involve eight visits to their practice in downtown LA each time receiving an injection into the poorly knee, that the injections could involve placebo’s (I had to stop her there also to explain what a Placebo was, I always thought it an odd name for a rock band !) in the form of a saline solution and that, wait for it, they would pay me four hundred dollars for my trouble. They’d pay me to cure the bane of my life. Consequently, I am booked in for my initial consultation with the doc on Saturday 13th July and from now on will be known as Matt the ‘Guinea’ Pig.
I mentioned to a couple of guys in the office about it who both raised their eyebrows in a look that said 'Have you lost your mind man ?' but I reckoned that would be the reaction to expect in this part of the world where one's health is sacred. This succeeded in instilling a modicum of uncertainty
Breaking The Law !
Textbook ! Saturday morning and the start of a long weekend. I played like a tw*t again. about my decision but after a chat with my friendly next door neighbours Deborah, a nurse and her fella Jeff, a chemist, my doubts were somewhat reduced. Deb said I should make sure I researched the company thoroughly before committing to anything which I did but then thinking about it I researched Sonic Cameras thoroughly and look what happened there. She also pointed out the ways these things work over here, four different stages of testing on new drugs and that it would certainly do no harm to attend the consultation to discover exactly what was in store.
In one of my previous blogs ‘Stranger In A Strange Land’, written after just three weeks over here I described all the things that were causing me both surprise and frustration during the first few weeks but there was one thing that at the time hadn’t become apparent and thus didn’t warrant attention. The LBPD, Long Beach Police Department, the good old boys in blue.
In a City where I'd been told shootings are not a totally uncommon occurence that ommission was probably because their ubiquity instilled a sense of safety and well being, they are the good guys after
Breaking The Law !
Greeting a neighbour on the way out, Saturday night. He loves his tyre. all but it wasn’t too much longer after posting that blog that my opinions started to change. Maybe it was to do with my receiving a ticket every time I parked the Jeep or maybe it was the fact that that the closed off street outside my pad was an open invitation for them to park up on their quad bikes outside and watch the girls go by.
On Saturday evening Phil and I were walking along Second Street en route to a little liquid refreshment when two young ladies walking the other way warned us to be careful as the cops were handing out tickets. Not tickets to the next Policeman’s Ball, the next Angels home game or the Judas Priest concert that was taking place on the other side of town I might add but exclusive tickets solely for use of jay walkers. That’s right, Jay Walkers.
Sure enough three blocks down standing at the traffic signals were four uniformed officers of the law, each equipped with semi automatic 9mm handgun and two foot wooden cosh hanging menacingly from their belts, a duplicate notebook of fixed penalty tickets and a LBPD ballpoint pen. As we waited
for the lights to change enabling us to legally to cross without penalty I asked one of the officers, a young guy in his early twenties what he was up to and he confirmed the girls comments. I expressed my amazement in as passive a way as possible to which he replied almost apologetically “I’m only doing as I’m told”. So were the SS.
As we chatted the lights did a full circle and then started to flash and two men and a girl started to cross towards us. As they reached the safety of the pavement where we stood the young policeman’s mate, an older altogether more serious dare I say more threatening looking guy with a Terminator haircut who thankfully hadn’t been part of our conversation stepped into their path and held out his hand in the manner of a traffic cop stopping them dead in their tracks, tersely informed them of their crime and proceeded to scribble out a ticket.
One of the men tried to protest that the signals were flashing effectively giving them permission to cross but the policeman in his enthusiasm to bring in another eighty bucks to the City coffers was
having none of it.
“Sir, I’ve just watched you step off the kerb after the light stopped flashing”. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing and the man, realizing that it was going to be a case of his word against that of an upholder of law and order duly stood back in silence wearing a look of contempt and waited for his summons.
The following day Phil, the girls and I were returning home from an afternoon shopping trip on which I'd finally got around to buying my digital SLR camera. Unlike myself, being a long time resident Phil has one of the apartment blocks only two garages which is situated on the ground floor of the building next door just fifty yards from where the barriers closing the street are erected and as he slowly manouevered around them a single blast of a siren shattered the air and two uniformed cops on quad bikes pulled up alongside, one on either flank.
I didn’t catch what the seriously stern faced officer said to Phil but heard his reply “I’m just going to my garage around the corner”
“The road is closed sir”
“Yes I
Breaking The Law !
Black ball middle bag as fats can't bear to look. Know, but I’m just going to my garage. It’s right there on the corner” Phil replied, pointing up the street.
The policeman spoke again, this time more forcibly in a way that suggested he was rapidly losing his patience at the Englishman questioning his authority. “The road is closed”.
Phil repeated himself for a third time in an attempt to convince the bobby to see logic and I half expected him to lose his calm too but he remained admirably civil and calm. As the two of them discussed the situation I turned to the one who had pulled his quad up on my side of the vehicle and who had just asked the girls in the back how long they’d lived here before sarcastically adding when they answered him “and you don’t know the road is closed?” and in attempt to lighten the atmosphere said “he’s got a broken leg you know. You wouldn’t want to make him walk from back there would you?”
I expected the sympathy vote but wished I hadn’t bothered. “If he’s got a broken leg what’s he doing driving?”
“He’s in recovery inne” I replied half expecting us to be
Breaking The Law !
In it goes. The pig is on fire. hauled from the vehicle but fortunately as I spoke we slowly started to move off. The guy on Phil’s side who'd finally seen sense and granted his permission for us to proceed rode slowly alongside us all the way to the garage, all fifty yards, waited as Phil slowly parked his vehicle and then rode up onto the pavement, parked on the grass verge under the shade of the large tree and promptly placed his feet on the handlebars. I was enraged.
Five minutes later I’d stripped and changed ready to catch the last couple of hours on the beach and as I went out onto the stairwell couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was as though the entrance to the apartment staircase was the mouth to some sort of policeman’s nest. There were nine of them down below me chatting, relaxing and leching at the scantily clad girls on the beach opposite, four on quads, all with their feet on the bars and their hands behind their heads, three on their cycles and two stood leaning on the bonnet of their squad car which they’d parked haphazardly and diagonally across the road. It incensed me so much
Breaking The Law !
She was good..... but not good enough. that it was all I could do not to say something sarcastic on my way to the sand but thankfully good sense prevailed that there would be nothing to gain and a hell of a lot to lose. Half an hour later the four quadders were still there.
An hour or so after that the street was for once devoid of law enforcement officers when a battered old sedan driven by an equally battered and confused looking old lady rolled slowly into view. From where I was sat she looked like she might be around a hundred years old and was wearing a flimsy sun hat that drooped floppily around her ears and eyes. She was obviously lost and not just in the geographical sense of the word. Within what seemed like seconds of crawling into sight she was halted in her slow tracks by the wail of a siren and flash of red lights of a squad car that had, to all intents and purposes appeared completely out of thin air.
As the officer was getting out of his car a young girl on a scooter came putt putting around the corner at about five miles per
Breaking The Law !
Cheech Marin bites the dust. hour, slower than a cyclist, stopped adjacent to the beach steps and removed her helmet. Bad mistake. The cop couldn’t believe his luck and as he instructed the little old lady to stay where she was he crossed to tell the girl, still unruffling her hair oblivious to any offence to wait where she was.
Deborah, my next door neighbour later told me that she heard the little old lady, who by this stage was almost in tears say that she hadn’t noticed the road was closed. Hard to believe I know when she’d just driven past three large orange and white barriers but just to look at her would be enough to give anyone with the slightest hint of compassion the benefit of the doubt. As I say she was very old but her protests held no sway with the cop who slowly wrote her ticket out before repeating the act for the girl on the bike who’d humiliatingly sat waiting for ten minutes in front of a crowded and sympathetic beach.
The third and final straw was seeing on Tuesday another officer on Second Street handing out another ticket to two young lads in there mid
teens. Their crime ? Skateboarding on the sidewalk. The fine they later told me ? $300. When something has got my goat up to bubbling point which I hasten to add occurs very rarely indeed my usual course of action instead of resorting to verbal abuse or actual physical violence is to write to someone, anyone in an attempt to vent my spleen and the next day the following letter was dispatched to the LA Times, The Orange Register and every other local rag in Southern California.
Dear Sirs,
As an Englishman recently re-located from the cold and damp of my homeland to the wonderful City of Long Beach I would just like to comment how thrilled and fortunate I am to be living in such a relaxed, friendly and accommodating place.
There is however one thing which tarnishes my joy. The strong arm of the law. I reside on Bayshore in Belmont Shore, a beach side street closed to traffic throughout the Summer months no doubt to generate a feeling of security and well being for the many law abiding citizens enjoying the beach and yet at any given time I choose to peer out of Breaking The Law !
Textbook. Phil gives the cue splinters. my living room window the chances are high that I will see any amount of police officers parked up with their feet on their quad bike handlebars enjoying the sun and associated sights.
In the three months I have resided here I have not been aware of one single event, not even July 4th that has warranted such police presence yet still they come. Yesterday afternoon, Labor Day, there were no less than nine officers (four on quads, three on cycles and two in a squad car) sat chatting outside my front door for a full half hour and whose only ‘action’ during that time was to ticket an elderly and obviously confused lady driver and a young girl riding a scooter who had both erroneously ventured down the street.
On Saturday evening as I strolled up Second Street I was warned by two girls to be careful as up ahead was a jay walking patrol and sure enough as I got further up the street I came across four uniformed officers issuing tickets to anyone who’d had the audacity to cross on a flashing light. I asked one of the officers if he felt this was something
Breaking The Law !
How did that miss ? that he thought he’d be doing when he signed up for the police service to which he replied “I’m just doing as I’m told”.
In England there is a joke that you can never find a police man when you want one but that could never be considered the case here. The regular shootings that I keep reading about in your pages never seem to occur in Belmont leading me to believe there may well be some confusion with the powers that be leading to a slight inconsistency in resource allocation.
When I boarded my plane three months I was so excited at my move to the ‘land of opportunity’ and ‘the land of the free’ and those feelings were fully justified, I just wish someone had warned me I was also moving to a totalitarian Police State.
Matt Roberts, Belmont Shore
I returned home from work on Thursday to find a copy of the Grunyon Gazette, Long Beach’s free paper which had been thrown with unerring accuracy onto the bottom step by a passing paper boy and opened it on the letters page. My letter was printed under the heading ‘Police Allocation’ and completely ommitted
Breaking The Law !
On our way home we came across this strange gal and her mates having a party on the patio. was the paragraph about jay walking and surprise, surprise the complete final paragraph. So much for the land of the free speech.
This past week I don’t seem to have had a minute to myself to sit down and gather my thoughts and it was only late on Wednesday night that I realized I hadn’t sat down and relaxed on my beautiful crimson sofa for a full week, the result of a hectic schedule of social activity.
Labor Day weekend, another national public holiday marking the official end of summer and the return to school for kids which happened a week after the UK’s August Bank holiday was a series of bbq’s and night outs and culminated on Monday in Phil and I being invited to our old friend Jimmy Chavez’s ocean front place for a bbq and on Tuesday, with Phil again away for the week on business I ventured down alone to Anaheim’s House of Blues to see another blast from the past, 63 year old Lemmy's Motorhead.
The House of Blues is located smack bang in the middle of Disneyland and it was a surreal sight to see the army of pierced and tattooed
Breaking The Law !
Phil lay down and inevitably fell asleep.... The ice pack was applied denim and leather clad Motor’eadbangers mingling freely with the families of the world renowned adventure park although noticeably both Mickey and Donald were conspicuous by their absence. The place was packed but I managed to excuse and squirm myself all the way to the same spot from where I'd watched Ted Nugent, perched myself on the bar with a pillar as a back rest and had a perfect view of the stage and of the furious 'moshpit' which engulfed almost half of the standing area. A young girl, Sarah, who it later transpired was 19, who was attending only her second gig and who had travelled all the way from Pasadena kept glancing up at me with cow like eyes and as she was only about five feet tall I soon realised it was because she was envious of my elevated position, her eyeline currently being on a level with most of the audience's backsides. I made a comfortable space for one into a bit more of a squeeze for two as I asked a member of the crowd to give her a bunk up and made her night.
Finally on Wednesday I was bushed and really looking forward
Breaking The Law !
That didn't work so next it was a massage. to a night of relaxation and not much else when around four o’clock my phone rang. It was Pauline, Jimmies English girlfriend to tell me they were having another bit of a get together and throwing some meat on the barby. She told me she had her friends coming who originally were from Argentina, Brazil and Australia and I maybe mistakenly sensed a bit of matchmaking going on. Being able to say no has always been one of my weaknesses and needless to say my rest would have to wait.
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Sarah is a cutie - young enough to be your daughter but a cutie nonetheless. Your blogs are getting better but I still feel that you are somehow still in 'I'm on holiday!' mode. I could be wrong. There's a first time for everything.