Today I learned that one place I thought would always be there would be gone, Daddy-O.
Gone for good·

See, today I was at home again, in my town of origin, la Ciudad de Los Angeles. Oft maligned by those who can't be faulted for knowing no better : the Eurotrash, East Coast fucks, Canadians & Heartlanders alike. But, I knew that self-same City like the back of my hand - because it lived right in my palm. I KNOW that my city's got SOUL, & it is for that what I grieve today·

Silverlake's ONYX is next to Nix

The Silverlake coffeehouse on upper Vermont Ave. known as the Onyx will be ix-nayed this time next week. Seems the landlord has denied the café owner's application to renew or negotiate the property lease and, as of Oct. 28, has posted notice that, in thirty days, Onyx owner John & his business must vacate the premises they have occupied for some ten odd years. 

Sure, as former Onyx employee David Lovins (who has himself long since relocated to North Beach, to live in hunger & starve for art, of course - in the grand Bohemian tradition) himself pointed out, the writing had been on the wall (quite literally -in the bathroom) for some time. But I suppose that is why it comes as such a shock that it should happen now. 

Year after year, the question would come up as to whether John would tough it out amidst the pressure of encroaching gentrification. He'd relocated once before, from a tiny storefront next to the Vista Theater at Sunset & Virgil, to the Armenian ghetto north of Hollywood Bl. on Vermont Ave. - an area know unofficially as "East Hollywood" and owned, in large part, by L. Ron Hubbard's "Church of Scientology" (no joke). 

Time after time, John would ask himself, well within earshot of his miscreant patrons (of which I most certainly was one) WHY should he keep the place going? It was certainly not as though it was making anybody rich, popular as it was.

Heaven's a Hole, 
if That's what you Need

The Onyx was notorious for having the worst made coffee money could buy & infamous for the lacadaisical "fuck-off"-itude of the workers. In fact, one relayed to me an incident in which a rep for the manufacturer of the espresso/ coffee-making device paid the cafe a visit to demonstrate the proper usage of their equipment, and, unsurprisingly, was summarily dismissed by the indignified counterstaff. 

Such infractions would've been cause for "termination" (I always thought that was a shitty why to say "fired", don't you?) at a Scarfuck's (sic), but John's people & indeed himself could care fuck all about "market shares" or whatnot. This was characteristic of the types John tended to hire - they gave new meaning to the term "Soda Jerk". 

While this might've been indicative of the disposion of the "help", it invariably was reflective of or reciprocated by that of the "clientele": If you don't like it, leave, 'cuz ain't nobody got you tied to the fucken table! In fact, as far as I could tell, the only requirement John had for new hires was that they were not already a "regular". 

Like the infamously grouchy septegenarian waitresses at Canter's Deli on Fairfax Ave., and the younger, hipper model of that same surly cast you might find serving your swill at Al's Bar downtown, or mirroring your hangover as they take your order on a Sunday brunch hour at Millie's Diner (another Silverlake haunt), the waitstaff is always right. 

The fact that, unlike the minimum wage lackey's who know no better than to flip your burger with a smile at friggen McD's, these punks were not obliged to adhere to any obsequious service standard. But therein lied it's charm! THAT IS (part of) why we went there! Where else could these guys work? Who else but John would hire such undesirables? 

Perhaps more importantly, as customers, who else would want us? would just let us wander in & hang out, leaving us be?? Nobody who schlepped around the joint on John's clock was any more fucked than the rest of us. And, while the coffee was questionable, you could generally talk 'em in to playing your favorite mix tape if you got 'em in a good mood. In the immortal words of seminal punk poetess, Patti Smith:

"'ART' IS AN ANAGRAM FOR 'RAT', MADE FOR THE PLAGUE"

The Onyx was nothing if not a hideout for misanthropic ne'erdowells entertaining anarchic alchoholic poets conspiring with revolutionary visionary artists· Waning professional philosophers waxing prophetic about learning more about Humanity at a busstop than in any Ivy League Ivory Tower· Scientology student dropouts emulating street punks ditching public school, having 'been there', 'seen that', & done it all before realizing it was all just bullshit anyway· Smot-poking, acid-dropping musicians making more noise from lips-macking on pill-popping, club-hopping, wanna-be scene-fucking model types eager to groove on some Beat-reading, jive-talking writer also eager to grant them the hip-cred they desire in exchange for the fucking they so righteously deserve· Everybody sculking away & on into the black suade of night, the whole of the city having rolled up the sidewalks long since, each one Satisfied that they got what they came for. 

Here Comes a Regular·

On any given day & long into night, you could hang out for hours for not even the price of a cuppa. But the Onyx survived because those who patronized it gave it MEANING - and it returned the favor by providing the hipsters with a natural habitat for curious looki-loo's to visit upon, walk through, and break their teeth on True Grit, like this ridiculous 'Open Studio' bullshit. Maybe it would slough off & add some of it's sparkle & color to their dull existance. I know it did for me. Or was it the other way around? 

Like a groovy clubhouse with no cover charge, it was the people who definitely made the place what it was. The indigenous livery -that'd be we- was the Onyx' stock in trade, consumed by well-heeled culture vultures. 'Hip' for the price of a "hippie roll" & latte. Somebody(else) was spending money in there, and surely the scene was a bigger draw than the coffee.

Waltz through the door into the Onyx proper or, later, the adjacent Onyx Gallery & discover one of the few venues which would showcase unknown local artists like Marcel Dujour, Stacy Lande, Anthony Ausgang..et al. Perhaps you'd sneak out the backdoor & share a joint with Beck (fucker won three Grammy's öso weird!), Dust Bro. Mike Simpson, & some Jah Rastafarians. 

Hang out in the Gallery & it wouldn't be long before someone sat down at the old piano, to be joined shortly by someone who happened to blow a mean tenor sax or 12-string guitar or balalaika or some shit. Get into a heated discussion about anything: society, labor, politics, astrophysics, or kick back & hear obscure German artists & French Symbolist poets discussed in depth by didacts & autodidacts alike over a three-hour game of rummy or chess over tables covered with munchies, roaches, papers, cigarettes & coffee, brown-bags of beer sequestered between the ankles. 

Just like at home, 'cept w/ everyone getting along, united by their differences. History, herstory, ranting commentaries (such as this) on the American Culture of Indifference vs. it's many seething subcultures. 

So it's good-bye to another den of the thieves. I'm sure some are glad to see it go (refer to opening statement, Bastard!). Over after many crazy years hosting slam after slam, networking "Rats with Keys", L.A.'s Cacophony Society, "Poetry + Art = Party" & loads of other fun stuff. Onyx go bye-bye is like death to the goose that laid those golden eggs.

What a travesty to shut an open door for poor, tired, genius' where creative juice was on tap, & on the house. B'bye to all the freakin' weirdos & grumbling pariahs who never knew they could like fitting in anywhere until they got there. 

But who am I to gripe? I've long since expatriated to SF. What does all my snivelling frikken count for?? It's MY fucken FAULT! Goddamnit to shit, I KILLED IT!! AARRGGHH!!!!

THE END OF AN ERA

As of the day after Thanksgiving, the den of iniquity which was my home away from home for so many years will be dead as a fucken red-headed step-child. Dead for too many bits of data, of Dada and occassionally, of Doo-Doo, which transpired & often conspired within it's nefarious, unknown, unhallowed, art-covered walls (I'll "graffiti" YOU!). 

Seems the powers that be that would profit off the genrification of an area which became "hip" around this nucleaic enclave have seen fit to slit their own motherfucking throats by killing off the root of it's "cool". Such is the way of the encroaching urbanites who seem to know the price of everything & the value of NOTHING!!!

Such too are the parasites these pernicious, breeding vermin host, who may ö or may not- know that while culture, being intangible, may not be bought, it can most definitely be outbid, it's treasures sacked for auction. Those who hold stock in Urban(e) Outfitters & Starschmux think credibility can be purchased for the price of a marketing sceme· Scum. MBA's in fucking Beret's! 

Cease & Desist spells Cease to Exist!

Of course, this trend is not particular to Silverlake, or Los Angeles for that matter. The soul-sapping, spawning aphids & the vampiric pyrhana their acrid schmaltz attract slither through this burg, too. You can see their effects throughout the Lower East Side of NYC, and elsewhere, the irreparable damage they leave in their wake along Melrose & Haight & St. Mark's Place; areas once so depressed they were the ONLY places such quasi & bona fide literati & art junkies could afford amidst the suburbanization of the strip-mauling(sic) "developers". "Developers" - what a misnomer· 

As John, an English émigré & owner of the bohemien chatterbox-jabberjaw-jitterhole for some 14 eons succinctly put it, despite his obvious great personal grief, 

"Don't worry, Starbucks will save us·" 

We exchanged glances, mutually contemptuous of the notion·

I guess that is the insult, really. If the Onyx was to shut down, I would have preferred that it be John's doing, rather than yet another impersonal, dispassionate, money-hungry realtor with no scruples. That really crushes me. I'm too sensitive for such injustices. 

(O-tay, I done. Feel better now? Yes, thank you.)

"What does not fade into obscurity, lives forever in it's ubiquity." 

Good ol' Eve was an Onyx "Regular"

(& one awesome babe!)

"·won't you help to sing?
These songs of Freedom
Cuz all I Ever had·.
Redemption songs·.
redemption songs."