Funny, even East Long Beach has mentally ill living on every street and yet we scoff at those helping others.

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation an’ they gave me a lethal dose.
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn.
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

Well, I’m livin’ in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge, someday I’ll make it mine.
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and greed were born.
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

while it is imperative that action be taken to assist the growing problem of homelessness, i do not think combining the mentally ill in with the homeless is an answer. the distinction i’m trying to make is that while i’m in favor of helping the homeless, i think there needs to be a certainty of our safetly. i would not feel comfortable knowing that there are unstable personalities in the close vicinity of my mom. the federal governement unleashed a horrible situation when they cut programs aiding the mentally ill. dumping them into the streets and now are facing the consequences. i’d sooner see areas which are not so close to families and neighborhoods used for this purpose.

thank you for giving our voice an ear.

There’s an evenin’ haze settlin’ over town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin’ power of the proletariat’s gone down
Money’s gettin’ shallow and weak
Well, the place I love best is a sweet memory
It’s a new path that we trod
They say low wages are a reality
If we want to compete abroad

My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf
Come sit down on my knee
You are dearer to me than myself
As you yourself can see
While I’m listening to the steel rails hum
Got both eyes tight shut
Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from
Creeping it’s way into my gut

Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the frontline
Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues

Well, I’m sailin’ on back, ready for the long haul
Tossed by the winds and the seas
I’ll drag ‘em all down to hell and I’ll stand ‘em at the wall
I’ll sell ‘em to their enemies
I’m tryin’ to feed my soul with thought
Gonna sleep off the rest of the day
Sometimes no one wants what we got
Sometimes you can’t give it away

Now the place is ringed with countless foes
Some of them may be deaf and dumb
No man, no woman knows
The hour that sorrow will come
In the dark I hear the night birds call
I can feel a lover’s breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death

Well, they burned my barn, and they stole my horse
I can’t save a dime
I got to be careful, I don’t want to be forced
Into a life of continual crime
I can see for myself that the sun is sinking
How I wish you were here to see
Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking
That you have forgotten me?

Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret
They waste your nights and days
Them I will forget
But you I’ll remember always
Old memories of you to me have clung
You’ve wounded me with your words
Gonna have to straighten out your tongue
It’s all true, everything you’ve heard

In you, my friend, I find no blame
Wanna look in my eyes, please do
No one can ever claim
That I took up arms against you
All across the peaceful sacred fields
They will lay you low
They’ll break your horns and slash you with steel
I say it so it must be so

Now I’m down on my luck and I’m black and blue
Gonna give you another chance
I’m all alone and I’m expecting you
To lead me off in a cheerful dance
I got a brand new suit and a brand new wife
I can live on rice and beans
Some people never worked a day in their life
Don’t know what work even means

This is my survey.

Bob

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.

If the LBUSD can sue because of the airport, why haven’t they ever been concerned with the air they breathe?

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They’re trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She’s in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
“Have Mercy on His Soul”
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Bob

Unsafe trucks stream out of L.A.’s ports
Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times
Truckers can have tread carved into their balding tires by llanteros, or
tire men, before getting on the Harbor or Long Beach freeways. Regrooving is
legal, according to California traffic codes, provided the tires are
designed for it and their inner steel belts are not damaged in the process.
“When they cut into the steel belt, that tire becomes a bomb,” said Harvey
Brodsky, spokesman for the Tire Retread and Repair Information Bureau. “It’s
a shame and a disgrace, and an example of what’s going on in our ports.”
Pushed by thin profit margins, many drivers rely on shadowy fix-it men or
skip repairs as they elude inspectors.
By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 21, 2008
Miguel had more reason than usual to be anxious as he drove his aging big
rig out of the Port of Los Angeles’ bustling China Shipping Terminal.

By his own admission, his 24-year-old truck was dangerously overloaded. The
suspension was shot, the tires nearly bald. Over his CB radio, other drivers
barked warnings that the California Highway Patrol had set up several
checkpoints nearby.

“I’m worried,” said Miguel, a 47-year-old independent operator who requested
anonymity to avoid trouble with the law.

“If I get inspected, I could get put out of business,” he said, easing into
traffic while scanning for the CHP. “Something real bad could happen at any
moment on the road. I’m doing the best I can. It’s a vicious cycle.”

It’s also a way of life for many of the about 16,000 truckers who serve the
Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, the nation’s busiest port complex. The
truckers reflect the extraordinary rise in port traffic in the last decade
and are key to what government officials and businesses hope will be
continued growth in the future.

But keeping many of those trucks on the road is a shadowy economy of
risk-taking drivers and discount mechanics, body workers, welders and
junkyards — legal and otherwise — amid the refineries, murky channels and
harbor terminals between Long Beach and San Pedro.

Profit margins for the independent operators who serve the Long Beach and
Los Angeles ports are thin — so some, like Miguel, cut corners whenever
possible.

For example, because a gauge showed that the weight of his load exceeded
regulations — and because he views his truck’s brakes as untrustworthy —
Miguel used the trailer’s brakes to stop the entire rig. The CHP considers
that maneuver particularly dangerous — and illegal.

Like many other independent haulers, he contracts with licensed motor
carriers, or a trucking broker, linked to shipping companies and cargo
owners, such as big-box retailers. Each morning, Miguel shows up at the
broker’s dispatch window to solicit jobs.

Like other drivers serving the ports, he’s a “short-haul trucker,” ferrying
containers to distribution centers across Southern California.

He gets paid by the load — the equivalent of about $8.90 an hour — and
works 65 hours a week.

It costs him about $500 to fill the tank with diesel fuel and roughly $2,000
a year for truck insurance.

Repairs have to wait

On the morning Miguel warily watched for the CHP, he had contracted to haul
a 40-foot trailer to Rancho Cucamonga. The 80-mile haul, one of two such
trips he planned to make that day, would gross him $320.

But the emergency repairs needed on the truck — it has 3 million miles on
it, the equivalent of about six round trips to the moon — would have to
wait.

Miguel couldn’t even afford to visit a lot just outside the gates of the
China Shipping Terminal where truckers can get tread carved into their
balding tires by llanteros, or “tire men,” before getting on the 110 or 710
freeways.

Tools of that trade include hand-held electric “hot knives” connected to
pickup truck batteries. Regrooving, which is usually done by machine, is
legal, according to California traffic codes, provided the tires are
designed for it and their inner steel belts are not damaged in the process.

“When they cut into the steel belt, that tire becomes a bomb,” said Harvey
Brodsky, spokesman for the Tire Retread and Repair Information Bureau, a
nonprofit industry association. “It’s a shame and a disgrace, and an example
of what’s going on in our ports.”

But outside of China Shipping, the llanteros didn’t seem to mind when their
blades occasionally sliced into the belts of their customers’ tires.
Scraping out a fresh groove, a llantero simply said, “I groove tires for
guys who can’t afford to buy new tires. I charge $10 to $12 per tire. Takes
about 20 minutes.”

The tire man was alarmed, however, when he noticed a fist-size bulge
protruding from the sidewall of one of the tires he had regrooved.

“Hey, you better take a look at this,” he told a driver. The driver smiled
sheepishly and replied, “I know. I just need it for another month or two.”

“It’s dangerous and irresponsible,” the driver said, shaking his head.

“But I don’t have money for new tires. I’m behind on my bills. As long as
the CHP doesn’t stop me, I’ll keep doing it.”

Collaring illegal truckers remains something of “a cat-and-mouse game,” said
CHP Officer Patrick O’Donnell, who specializes in inspecting commercial
vehicles. “We do the best to inspect as many of these trucks as we can on a
daily basis; unfortunately, we can’t get to all 16,000 of them.

“But they’re really rolling the dice,” he said. “They may get away from us
on a given day, but eventually they’ll get stopped.”

In the meantime, low-income truckers in need of repairs gravitate toward a
part of eastern Wilmington traversed by dirt roads and lined with repair
shops — though “shops” implies that these businesses all operate out of
buildings. In some cases, the repairmen work in open lots hidden behind
corrugated metal sheets.

The shops are thrifty alternatives to dealerships. At JNJ Truck Repairs, for
example, an engine overhaul goes for about $1,800. “A dealer will charge
about $4,000 for an overhaul,” boasted JNJ’s owner, Juan Enriquez, 42.

In August, Enriquez’s hands were badly burned in an accident at his shop. “I
was working on an engine when some gasoline spilled and caught fire,” he
said. “I didn’t go to the hospital. I cured myself at home with aloe vera
juice.”

A block away, Mexican ranchera music issued from a boom box in a cluttered
yard where truck driver Augusto Arroche, 32, of Long Beach waited for body
shop workers to finish repairing a large crack in the hood of his 8-year-old
rig. “A dealer would charge about $3,000 for this job, and take two weeks to
do it,” Arroche said, as a husky brown guard dog named Mambo roamed nearby.
“Here, they’re charging $700 — and they agreed to let me pay $400 today and
the rest later. At 3 p.m., I’ll be back on the road.”

Peter Brown, a spokesman for the California Trucking Assn., which represents
trucking organizations and promotes safe driving, said he worried about
“rogue truckers cutting costs at the expense of public safety. I compare it
with someone diagnosed with hepatitis continuing to work at a fast-food
restaurant and putting everyone else at risk.”

But torn between state traffic codes and intense competition, many
independent truckers said they had no choice but to resort to such measures
as lashing bumpers to chassis with bungee cords and smearing mud over
cracked parts to hide the problems from CHP officers.

The cost-cutting serves the interests of shippers and merchants, argued
Rafael Pizarro, an environmental activist and political consultant who has
worked extensively on issues concerning port trucks. “The moment you try to
regulate the system or raise wages for truckers, they scream it’s a tactic
to unionize drivers and will ultimately increase prices for consumers.”

Todd Spencer, of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn., also sided
with drivers who, he said, “currently work beneath the toilet.”

“They are taken advantage of by everyone they come in contact with,
including the companies they work for, and it’s all in the quest of lowering
costs and increasing profits,” said Spencer, an executive vice president
with the national trade group. “If you want good, clean and safe equipment,
the costs for it have to be reflected in the rates that truckers receive for
moving the products.”

Port authorities are under growing pressure to upgrade the fleet, which
contributes to accidents and produces a stew of toxic substances —
including diesel emissions — that have been linked to asthma, cancer and
premature death.

In recent years, the 18-mile-long Long Beach Freeway connecting the ports
with rail yards east of downtown Los Angeles has averaged 2,000 accidents
annually, more than 600 of them involving trucks, according to a statewide
database. Included in those accidents are hundreds caused by road debris,
often shed by trucks.

As part of an effort to improve air quality and the movement of freight, the
ports recently approved an ambitious $1.6-billion program to help the
independent truckers replace old and dirty trucks with newer, cleaner
machines. The program would subsidize new vehicles for the truckers serving
the ports, though it still needs to be determined whether it would pay all
or part of the costs.

‘In crisis mode’

In any event, the changes cannot happen fast enough for Los Angeles City
Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes the Port of Los Angeles.

“Trucking — the backbone of our freight industry — is in crisis mode,”
Hahn said. “We got into this horrible situation by only paying attention to
things like volume of trade and efficiency of movement. But there is also a
human element, real people who don’t have enough money to fix their trucks
and comply with basic safety regulations, let alone put food on the table.”

She could have been talking about Miguel, the driver on the lookout for CHP
officers.

“There’s an inspection going just up ahead of us,” he said, nodding toward a
roadside CHP team eyeballing everything on wheels near an Interstate 110
onramp. “I can wait around until they leave, which will cost me time and
money, or take my chances and hope they’ll just wave me through.”

He decided to kill some time. Miguel made a hard left turn and began
maneuvering his massive rig along a circular route that took him over the
Vincent Thomas Bridge, through neighborhoods and industrial parks. It took
about 30 minutes to get back to the freeway onramp.

“They’re gone — fabuloso!” he said. “Today’s my day.”

Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones.
Take a deep breath, feel like you’re chokin’,
Everything is broken.

Cough, cough.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.

Fork over 20%, Mr. Jones, and thanks Gerry for understanding what’s happening here.

Bob