Canto CDVII: A Tree Falls on a Truck

Gentle cabrones:

About four or five times a day, I walk Cosmo down the block then back up. He keeps getting slower and slower, and the summer months have him panting, but he always finishes his walks because that’s the type of Frosted Face legendary Cosumo is.

More people seem to be walking dogs in the neighborhood this year, at dawn and dusk — not sure what to make of it except the sidewalks can actually get busy at certain times, which is a good thing. The people with bigger dogs will walk onto our residential street while Cosmo and I amble on the sidewalk so that there won’t be any unfortunate interactions (most dogs want to fight Cosmo because he’s a small, kind guy [Canto CCVXLV]). Our street has a bunch of huge trees — pepper trees and ficuses and I THINK oaks — and if I’m walking Cosmo midday, I like to walk in the middle of the street because it’s completely shaded.

But I’m glad I didn’t do that a few weeks ago, and that no one else had to walk around Cosmo when we were out. While Cosmo was sniffing the grass and I was trying to catch up on my back issues of the London Review of Books — I’m finally up to January of this year! — I heard a sickening creak. I turned around and saw a gigantic tree limb cleanly snap and fall on a car two houses up from where we live and two houses down from where Cosmo and I were.

The bough was at least 20 feet long and a good four feet in diameter where it sprung from the oak’s trunk. Gnarled, grey-brown. Sickly looking, now that I think about it. But the maybe oak had been there as long as my honey and I have had our house, it was trimmed earlier this year, so I would’ve never imagined the fate of one of its mega-branches.

I was so fixated at the sight of what had happened — the bough was so huge that it smashed a big Ford truck flat like some experiment on Top Gear — I didn’t even register how loud it was for the rest of the neighborhood. Everyone ran out to see what had happened within five seconds. I was the only witness, so everyone began asking me WTF.

One of those people was the owner of the truck. If he was angry, he didn’t show it. Why, he actually laughed.

No one was in the truck when the bough came down and no one was hurt thank God. No one knew what to do, either. We just stared and nervously chattered, so I called my honey, who knows how to do everything.

She was in the house but was busy watching The Gilded Age or some other show because she hadn’t heard the crash. But my media chica immediately came out and did what she does best: take charge. Someone said if they should call the police, and my honey pointed out no one was hurt, no crime was committed, so calling the cops would be a waste of everyone’s time. Instead, she called up public works. Within an hour, workers were chainsawing the bough into smaller piece, then feeding it into a woodchipper.

A few days later, they returned to slowly chop down the whole tree — its canopy was easily 60 feet around. All that they left was a trunk that was hollow and looked rotted from the inside. A few days after that, the workers came out again to take out the trunk with a bulldozer and an anchor chain – but because an old tree is an old tree, hibiscus shoots are already starting to emerge from where some of its roots apparently still remain.

LYFE.

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Life is one frightening thing, ain’t it? One day, you’re thoughtlessly walking past a huge tree that provided shade and home; a week later, it’s gone and only the parrots who roosted in it seem sad.

One day, you’re totally cool with someone you’ve been totally cool with for decades; one month later, you realize the other person has beef with you over something only they know about and don’t seem to want to tell you.

One day, you keep your passport so well hidden that you sometimes forget where it is. Suddenly, you carry it with you anywhere and everywhere.

Life used to terrify me — it still does in a big way. But life ain’t going nowhere — so what are you going to do about it while you’re around?

I do miss that gnarled tree, as much as I didn’t care for it. Our street is suddenly sunnier, which means it’s going to make the temperature rise. Its death makes me look warily at all large trees now — because how do you really know one won’t come crashing down on you even if it looks healthy and has stood strong for decades? I wonder about whether the city’s public works even keeps track of the health of its trees.

Life is one frightening thing, So I’m planting more trees.

The owners of Bosh (Canto CCXXIII) gifted us a fig tree. I want to find a wax apple and longan tree — the former because I want to try and grow it, the latter because I forget how much I love longan juice. Our lychee finally gave a bumper crop after years of doing nothing. And there’s a papaya tree out there that I hope to be writing about next year, insha’Allah.

Do we have any space at Puppy Strong Farms? Of course not. But I’ll figure out a way. One day, you get a beat-up house with a bunch of lawn; 13 years later, you and your beloved have created a subtropical paradise.

The boughs of life can fall at any moment. Get busy planting, or get busy dying.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: Bad photo of a great OLD SKOOL cocktail I had never had before until Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo Beans fame told me about it: a B & B. Brandy and Benedictine — FUUUUUUUCK. Sweet and strong. At Knife Pleat at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mexico.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Be joyful, brothers and sisters. Keep your faith and do the little things that you have seen and heard from me” — St. David of Wales

LISTENING: “Move Bitch,” Ludacris. Is it misogynistic? It’s in the title. Homophobic? A bit. Vulgar AF? Beyond. Nevertheless, this is not just a catchy AF song, it’s a certified classic that anti-migra activists remixed at protests this summer so its legendary chorus now demanded that ICE get out of the way. And every time I play it to a millennial, they immediately laugh AND start singing along. Weirdest thing? I know Ludacris more as an actor than singer, and I had never heard “Move” until earlier this year. Hence included in Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly Radiola of Randomness YouTube songlist, where I’ve included every song I’ve ever featured in a canto — give it a spin!

READING: “How a Jewish mother from Flatbush became America’s most recognizable Italian on TV”: Jewish-Italian-New York-American ethnic-advertising-food history written damn well — this one better be a Beard finalist next year!

BUY MY NEW CO-BOOK! People’s Guide to Orange County tells an alternative history of OC through the scholarship and reporting of myself, Elaine Lewinnek, and Thuy Vo Dang. There’ll be signings all year — in meanwhile, buy your copy TODAY. And, yes: I’ll autograph it!

Gustavo Events  

Sept. 4, 7 p.m.: I’ll be speaking to the Democrats of North Orange County at Sizzler’s, 1401 N. Harbor Blvd., Fullerton. It’s probably members only, but show up and give them a donation and I’m sure they’ll let you in!

Gustavo in the News

“The art of the deal”: Alissa Walker, perhaps L.A.’s most trenchant public transportation observer, shouts out a columna of mine.

“Kiano Moju creates summer 2025’s hit pop-up serving her ‘AfriCali’ cuisine in Culver City”: A Los Angeles Times newsletter you should subscribe to plugs a columna of mine.

“LA Times columnist begs Los Angeles to pull out of hosting the 2028 Olympics because of Trump's involvement”: Fox News whines over a columna of mine…

“LA Times Columnist Urges City to Ditch 2028 Olympics, Warns Trump Will ‘Humiliate Blue L.A.’“: …as does Breitbart.

“Olympic price tag not only about money”: A columna of mine gets a shoutout.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“No warrant, no sweeps: Federal court backs limits of ICE raids in SoCal”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about la migra.

“Ask a Californian: West Coast vs. Upper West Side”: My latest Alta Journal co-columna tackles snide New Yorkers and other snots. KEY QUOTE: ““California Girls” makes Dion’s “The Wanderer” seem as chaste as Paul Anka’s “Puppy Love.””

“The cookies that unite California’s politicians, no matter their party”: My latest L.A. Times Essential California newsletter talks about the goodies baked by L.A.-area broadcaster Elex Michaelson. KEY QUOTE: “Elex recently gave me a box when I appeared on “The Issue Is” just after U.S. Border Patrol sector chief Gregory Bovino, who took time off from bloviating about the border to accept the goodies because even la migra gets sweets, I guess.”

“Appreciation: Tex-Mex titan Flaco Jiménez knew how to best beat la migra: humor”: My latest L.A. Times columna talks about the Tex-Mex titan and his magisterial “Un Mojado sin Licencia.” KEY QUOTE: “What was most thrilling about Jiménez’s performance, however, was how he refused to lose himself to the pathos of illegal immigration, something too many people understandably do.”

“L.A. never needed the Olympics. With Trump wanting in, it’s time to pull out”: My latest L.A. Times columna talks about the embarrassment that is Trump signing an executive order so he could be in charge of the security task force for the 2028 Summer Olympics. KEY QUOTE: “Angelenos: Do ustedes really want to give Trump and his goon squad more chances to make life miserable for y’all?”

“Mark Potts is GOD,”: My latest L.A. Times video sums up the columna above…in video form!

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