June Glee

Following my precarious graduation (2.1 GPA) from Syracuse University, I moved back home to Suffern, NY, where I could suffer small town provinciality and family dysfunction for barely 3 weeks.

At the tender age of 22, I bought a $99 one way airline ticket to Los Angeles, where I knew no one, had no money, had no place to stay and no idea what would happen with my life.

This is not at all surprising, nor impressive, as I come from sojourners. Story has it that my mother, 17, and her older sister Mary, 19, boarded a ship in Glasgow, Scotland and migrated to America, with even less. Moreover, they did it for the strangest of purposes, to be as close as possible to jazz legend Stan Kenton.

I like jazz, but in a cruel twist of fate, find his music unlistenable.

When I arrived in LA, it was sunny and hot. Which was to be expected as it was the beginning of June. I stepped off the #83 brown bus from LAX to Westwood and began searching for cheap living quarters. I knew from experience that fraternity houses often rent out rooms to nomads like myself for the summer. Unfortunately, UCLA was on the quarter system and class was still in session. Meaning all the houses were full with fraternity brothers who doing asshole fraternity stuff.

At the end of a long, frustrating day of travel, that included lugging a 75 lbs. duffel bag up and down Gayley Ave. I struck pay dirt and found a frat that would sell me shelter.

Sort of.

"We have an old mattress up on the roof. You can sleep there and shit and shower in our bathrooms. 75 bucks for the first the month. Then we'll rent you a room for 100 bucks a month."

"Sold."

When I woke up on Day 2, of what would be my lifelong California adventure, I was sopping wet. I looked up and could not see the canopy of palms and eucalyptus trees. Replaced by a thick, gray, ugly and very wet layer of June Gloom.

It's one of those phenomena that doesn't get a lot of publicity. Nor do pop singers like BJ Thomas or John Denver write songs about it.

But it is real. And it's something that Southern Californians have grumbled about ever since the first settlers arrived here, booted the Indians and Mexicans off their land, and built mile upon mile of strip malls selling the essentials of life: donuts, liquor and Fatburger.

That is until this year.

I am writing this post on a Saturday morning, June 13th, on what would have been my mother's 87th  birthday. It is warm and sunny and the sky is clear blue. In fact, it's been no different than this for the last 6 weeks. Meaning we've also haven't experienced the legendary precursor to June Gloom, May Grey.

I don't know what accounts for this.

In 2020, a year ravaged by a pandemic, racial inequality, economic collapse, social upheaval and a feckless fascist regime that threatens the future of America and indeed the world, there are no clouds, but there is this much-needed silver lining.