Mission Bay

Posted on October 17, 2004 in Travels - So Cal

You can smell what the city has eaten when you round or swim in the waters of San Diego’s Mission Bay. They present it as a triumph of Nature, but everywhere you see concrete, imported grass, and the tracks of earth-moving equipment. Near the waterside, white pieces of clam mix with the mud to form striated mosaics fixed in a grout of the leavings of human bowels. Tumbleweeds grow on the knotted dunes. On Fiesta Island, you can follow the tracks of dogs for miles through the alien thistles. By day, people sit in bleachers to watch unconscious supporters of Osama Bin Laden waste gasoline in jet ski and motorboat races. By night, they gather driftwood and burn bonfires until 10 pm when the park closes.

San Diego’s poor and homeless approach the estuary like black specks approach the wick in the wax of a burning candle. They go through the garbage; they cast their lines for halibut, kingfish, or shark; or use the waterless porta-potties. Many have white hair flowing down their necks, off their chins, and out of their bared chests.When no one is looking and the moon is new, they strip off their clothes and bathe in the water, adding their filth to the purge of the city.

San Diego was and continues to be a Republican city where the Chamber of Commerce says Pretty-pretty over its garbage and its sewage. No where can you better see and smell our future if we continue our current politics of denial.