FROM TUX TO MUCK AND BACK AGAIN

Kevyn Bashore
May 23, 2020
6 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

A rat, brazen, fat, unafraid, nibbles on a treat in a patch of gnarled grass. It’s a children’s playground quarantined behind iron bars at the intersection of 6th and Gladys Street. But the bars don’t hold back much of anything. It’s the bowels of Skid Row, Los Angeles.

It’s hard not to feel the weight of dirt here. Stench so thick it coats the lungs. Stench of rancid urine. City grime. Pot. Sickness. Poverty. Mental illness. Madness. All wafting from every direction. Sometimes it lifts. Mostly it overpowers. Always oppressive.

A young, rail-thin woman limps with a twisted leg along the sidewalk. A tall, hefty man without shoes, his blue socks snagging on the cracked street, pushes a shopping cart across the intersection, forces cars to stop and watch his slow journey across the pavement. In his cart, a brown-and-white Bloodhound sitting upright like a king, watching the world pass by without a care in the world.

Nearly everyone passing by carries their entire world with them: ten layers of soiled undergarments, clothes, coats, blankets, robes, with plastic bags hanging from shopping carts brimming with hoarded possessions with no rhyme or reason to their value or purpose. Many manage to retain a dog on a leash, guardians, sole companions, barking, yapping as their owners mutter to no one in particular. A cigarette in every mouth — or snuffed behind every ear.

I notice one man who lingers near me. Always nearer. Always lighting a cigarette or a stub. Always with eyes drifting sideways. Braided hair. Clothes stained and blackened by body fluids and soiled air. Tangible grit. The first thing he says to me: “I’m not drunk.” His eyes float to the side, again, to the universe somewhere beyond his mind. “What movie are you shootin’?” He appears disconnected from this world, yet exhibits lucid thoughts. Fleeting moments. As does another man dressed in a crisp white dress shirt, cleanly shaven, handsome, who stops beside me to expel undeserved verbal lashings of expletives and madness.

Another kind soul, dressed to the nines, attempts to convince me, in a non-stop cascade of intellectual musings, as to why he's a talented actor. But when pressed, he must admit that he’s never acted a day in his life. He’s only dreamed of being a great actor. He is the epitome of an artistic soul cut off from actually doing the work he was born for and consequently banished to the hell of only living out his destiny in his dreams. He’s compelled to convince all those around him that he is the great star, the wisp of smoke in his mind, not what everyone actually sees in front of them: a man who dresses well, but his yellow, crooked teeth and crooked thinking belie his claims of sanity. He's imprisoned in Skid Row. He'll never escape beyond these invisible bars holding him here emotionally, physically, spiritually, without a force greater than himself rescuing him.

I’m on a film set. It's 6:00 am. A New York City producer and director gathered us here for two days. Sparse crew. Appears to be a low budget Indie production centered on a prison scene shot in Indiana. We’re in the exterior dream sequence. NYC. Indiana. L.A.: all somehow seamlessly woven together as one. Only possible in the entertainment world. Just seven hours ago, at 11:00 p.m., I left another production, just blocks away at the Opheum Theater, surrounded by architectural opulence, beauty, an orchestra and glamorous opera singers in a sea of tuxes and gowns. The scene: 1990 San Francisco Opera House for a TV series produced by the acclaimed king of Hollywood, Ryan Murphy, with the utmost creme-de-la-creme production staff, crew, and cast.

The irony of spending all day yesterday in a tux on an extravagant TV set and now standing on an Indie set in Skid Row does not escape me. From the opera to the gutter. From glamor to poverty. From perfume to stench. From tux to muck.

Whiplash.

In body. Soul. And spirit.

But a perfect setup to observe the realities of life. To reconsider my priorities. To be forced to face my outlook. My empathy and compassion. Or lack thereof.

Most of the cast don’t know what to do here. They laugh at their “misfortune” in working in a production in such a “gross” setting. A setting to be avoided at all cost. A few laugh in disdain, scoffing at the misfortune of others. Glad not to be "one of those disgusting creatures.” Afraid to touch anything. To sit or breathe for fear of being infected by whatever made "those people that way." Forgetting that "those creatures" are real human beings. They are someone's child. Brother. Sister. Mother. Father. Grandmother. Grandfather. Friend. Lover. Their suffering is real. Their pain, real. Their hardship, inescapably real. The scoffers step into a place above and beyond empathy or compassion to a place of judgment. Observing it as material for a good story to tell friends over a beer later tonight, disconnected from the stench and pride in their own hearts.

And such is what I face. I, too, more than once, have fallen prey to this human trap. A trap that will turn us all into devils if we give it just an inch. Pride turns an opportunity for compassion into a romp of a good story to tell others, forgetting the humanity around us. The tragedy of loss. Of human life. Human potential. The lost potential to bring a unique and special gift to this earth. Loss of destiny to participate in human history to make this world just a little bit better. To squelch the spread of Hell. Of darkness. Of isolation. Madness. To bring forth light, wholeness, and sanity.

To bring Heaven to Earth.

Many cast and crew members cover their faces today, attempting to filter out the acrid odor permeating the air. It doesn’t work. Skid Row is now inside of us. My lungs are infected. I have a dull headache. Crusted eyes.

After the shoot I walk several blocks to The Artisan House, a classy restaurant, cafe, wine store, bakery, shop. I walk through it -- just to breathe in beautiful architectural and the aromas of gourmet food. I feel the “crud” still stuck in my lungs from Skid Row.

On the way out of the city, I am forced to stop at an intersection by a sickly, homeless old man standing in my way. He comes to my car window pleading for money. I am so heartsick after just a day of standing amidst this poverty and sickness -- I give him everything in my wallet. But he’s too numb, like a walking dead man, to notice that I placed something into his cracked, crusty, deformed hands. Hands I am -- even now -- still loathe to touch. And suddenly, as if awakened from a nightmare, the old man gazes at what I placed into his hand. He mutters something I can only assume is a thank you, and meanders to the next car held hostage at the intersection.

Later, in North Hollywood, I care for a friend's garden. Prune rose bushes. Water flowers and bushes and trees. Stand in silence. Soak in the sunlight. Feel alive again. Grateful to be anywhere but there -- in that place of darkness and death.

And then it’s down to Sherman Oaks to house-sit for a friend in a wealthy, suburban neighborhood. I stop at Lemonade Cafe to pick up a gourmet dinner, drink a glass of Sauvignon Blanc at the bar counter in Granville, intentionally sitting in the bright, open architecture to breathe out the city crud. To be cleansed from the oppression of my visit to hell.

Hell: to be separated from God.

That’s what Skid Row feels like.

I am fortunate. I could leave. Many cannot. And many who live there may be so infected by the madness -- they will never be sane without a miracle. But this is what I hold to this day: when light appears, darkness leaves. It’s a rule of the universe as we know it. Save for Black Holes, which appear to suck all light into their vortex of darkness, which could be another definition of hell. And so it is with us. Wherever we go -- we fill the space with either light or darkness. Heaven or Hell.

This is my potential at every moment.

It’s like standing in a gutter and handing out tuxedos and gowns -- which never grow soiled with stench or madness or death. It’s like inviting others to the place of their greatest potential. Their greatest nobility. To their ultimate stature as favored Sons and Daughters of God. To a seat at the Table. To the never ending Party. An opportunity to not just dream — but to be fully alive.

That is our authority. And power. And great honor.

To bring the Kingdom of Heaven to this Earth.

Into the darkest places.

Into the blackest hole.

“Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit…”

I carry God’s Spirit.

We carry God’s Spirit.

If we don't, who will?

May we do so this day. And always.

To the world around us. And beyond.

REVISED FROM THE ORIGINAL POST - KEVYN BASHORE - APRIL 22, 2017

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