There goes the neighborhood: not a good example of an environmentally sensitive remodel. (Photo by Michael Good)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nI was still pondering these big questions a few days later, when I went with a friend to a party in Wonder Valley. On paper, Wonder Valley looks like a 1940s housing development, with well-ordered streets crisscrossing the valley floor. In person, it looks like \u2014 a desert. A desert with a smattering of abandoned houses, a lot of sagebrush, and one rather spectacular, snow-capped mountain in the distance. Our host, a former musician in a Seattle grunge band, gave me the history of the place as he brought out a large platter of hamburger patties.<\/p>\n
In the 1940s, the government opened the area to homesteaders. If you built a small structure on a 5-acre plot and inhabited it for five years, the land was yours. Hundreds of Angelinos took the government up on its offer, built little cinderblock houses and a few rambling ranch homes, then lost interest and disappeared in the wind like so many tumbleweeds.<\/p>\n
Now a younger and hipper generation of people are buying the former homesteads, fixing them up and staying there on weekends. This was the highly educated, creative class you\u2019ve heard about. The IT people, the photographers, filmmakers, programmers and producers. They had discovered a new five-year plan: Rent the place out during the week on Airbnb, cover your mortgage payment and own your 5 acres outright in five years. Thus a new generation of desert dreamers have been born.<\/p>\n
As my host lit the Weber barbecue, threw a few patties on the grill and wandered off in search of another drink, these millennial homesteaders began to arrive, all dressed in varying shades of black.<\/p>\n
The code of the desert is that there is no code, other than Don\u2019t Chop Down the Joshua Trees. Which is how I ended up cooking 20 burgers the size of Frisbees for a bunch of people I didn\u2019t know. At some point, a middle-aged woman stepped in to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like you know your way around a smoking piece of meat,\u201d I said. I find it\u2019s usually helpful when you don\u2019t know anyone to throw compliments around.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually I do,\u201d she said. \u201cI used to be the personal chef for \u2026\u201d (She named a famous actor, who I won\u2019t mention by name, because then his wife, who apparently is quite a piece of work, would probably sue me.)<\/p>\n
By now, the surface of the grill had reached about one degree below spontaneous combustion. The plastic spatula had turned floppy. Flipping burgers was like trying to turn over a tortoise with a wet noodle. The hamburgers, the quinoa burgers, the corn \u2014 everything was melding together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess we need to tell the owners of the veggie burgers that they\u2019re no longer veggie,\u201d I told my fellow chef.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually those are mine,\u201d she said. \u201cNot that I\u2019m a vegetarian. We\u2019re just trying not to eat meat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh.\u201d I again didn\u2019t know what to say.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just got back from an African safari,\u201d her husband chimed in, by way of an explanation. In Hollywood, this makes perfect sense. They were eating quinoa to save the Oryx.<\/p>\n
Later, around the campfire, I heard about the latest obsessions of a certain class of Angelino. There is a new type of massage that I can\u2019t describe in a family newspaper. There is some sort of rejuvenation procedure that involves steam and a body part I also can\u2019t mention. Gwyneth Paltrow is a fan, apparently. I also learned a few things about Jennifer Garner, who had recently delivered an inspirational talk that one of the women attended. I couldn\u2019t think of a thing to say.<\/p>\n
But it really was a lovely night. The stars were out. There was hardly a breath of wind. My hosts had done a remarkable job of resurrecting their once-forlorn 1950s ranch house in the middle of the desert. I actually wouldn\u2019t have minded going to bed, but there were still people everywhere, talking. A couple of children were running around barefoot, oblivious to the cactus.<\/p>\n
Earlier I had been thinking we were a nation in denial. Denying who we are, what we do, what we want. A cup of coffee. A beer. A slab of hamburger. A spot of color. Is that really so bad? We seemed filled with doubts, even about our most private parts \u2014 parts that rarely see the light of day, even for Gwyneth. But now, looking up at the stars, hearing the children squeal, I thought,\u00a0nah.<\/em><\/p>\nAll this self-doubt often gets blamed on Hollywood. But Hollywood is an equal opportunity offender; it encourages us to save the whales in one movie and kill our human enemies with extreme prejudice in another. Hollywood doesn\u2019t really care, as long as we keep buying movie tickets, and watching television, and allowing the marketing people who run the internet to pitch us on whatever it is they are trying to sell us \u2014 more gray T-shirts, for example.<\/p>\n
I wouldn\u2019t be too bothered by all this if it weren\u2019t for the fact that the whims of popular culture are beginning to mess with my neighborhood. In the desert, I didn\u2019t cut down any Joshua trees; I didn\u2019t turn over any tortoises. But the marketing machines that masquerade as informative television shows are beginning to chop down the icons of my part of the world \u2014 the neighborhood bungalows. Instead of being respected, these venerable houses are being gutted and relegated to the dust heap to make way for \u201cgreen\u201d buildings with open floor plans, energy-efficient windows and new floors, ceilings, walls and insulation that have to be manufactured, shipped and installed. The greenest building is the one that\u2019s already standing. Rehabbing an abandoned 1940s ranch house in Wonder Valley? Probably good for the environment. Tearing down a North Park bungalow to build an \u201cenergy- efficient\u201d modern home with an open floor plan? Probably not.<\/p>\n
Why do house flippers insist on snapping up and gutting the few houses left with their original floor plans and built-ins? Why buy something unique and then destroy what\u2019s unique about it? Why cut down a Joshua tree and put it in your living room for Christmas?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like working in a liquor store, and not drinking beer. It\u2019s like working in a coffee shop and not drinking coffee. It\u2019s like going to a barbecue and not eating meat. It\u2019s like living in a world full of color and only wearing gray. It\u2019s like running around in the sand with your shoes on. Actually, it\u2019s not like any of those things. They\u2019re minor infractions in a world of sensation. This is a crime against history, an offense to your community.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to imagine the open floor plan has had its day,\u00a0based on how many people tell me they want it. \u201cOpening things up\u201d may have reached the tipping point, like shag carpet, popcorn ceilings and aluminum jalousie windows. That\u2019s the way of the trend. Tearing down the walls may go the way of the vertical blind, the color mauve, and that white loopy carpet with the little grey flecks in it. Or it could go on forever, until the only kitchen left with a swinging caf\u00e9 door and four walls will be mine \u2014 and maybe yours, too. Either way, I\u2019ll still have a refrigerator full of beer. And from time to time I\u2019ll still go out for coffee. They can\u2019t take that away from me.<\/p>\n
\u2014Comun\u00edquese con Michael Good en housecallssdun@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Michael Good |\u00a0House Calls Steve at the Qwik Stop \u2014 always ready with a savvy recommendation for a new microbrew \u2014 is a changed man. He told me the other day as I was \u2014 uncharacteristically \u2014 buying water and trash-can liners that he\u2019d quit drinking. He seemed as baffled as I was. \u201cYou […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1306,"featured_media":250109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Coffee, beer and crimes against history","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1306"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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