Canto CCCXLV: (How is) That Doggie in the Window?

Gentle cabrones:

Every day — every morning and every evening (and recently, every night) — I walk our rescue dogs Hook and Cosmo down our street.

Cosmo is on a leash; I put Hook in a bag because he’s never been able to walk much on account of his club foot (which my media chica and I call his puppy paw), and is walking less as he gets older. So Cosmo smells a lot, and Hook stays in his bag.

Until we reach the red house. Where I become an unwitting actor in a sitcom out of Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf in their Warner Bros. series.

Hook, even though he’s basically blind, begins to growl. Because for the longest time, waiting for us was a furry, white dog that looked like a purebred version of Benji. The dog always stood in the center of the living room window, curtain closed save for the gap where his barking head poked out.

Hook would bark back and growl; the other dog would bark even more. Cosmo would stare quizzically ahead.

Repeat. Repeat. Every day.

Sometimes, a bigger dog joined the smaller dog, depending on whether its owner (the daughter of the people who own the red house) was home from college. Sometimes, a huge white poodle from the house next door would dash around the front yard, howling and barking even more. It was a joyous cacophony that I grew to look forward to, especially when the daughter from the red house would pull away both pups in embarrassment.

The only time this pup play wouldn’t regularly happen was during Christmastime, when a tree blocked the living room window. It was such a regular occurrence that I immediately noticed when I noticed the pup hadn’t barked for a few days. I figured it finally got tired of all the drama. Dogs are creatures of habit, after all — until they’re not.

One day, while walking the boys, I talked to the father of the house. Chicano. Nice guy, not TOO much older than me. We only talk when he’s outside watering his plants, or just got home from work. And we talk random stuff, although I always ask about his work, because he works at a cool place (he’s a fan, but we never talk about my work because he’s probably too busy to keep up with my columnas).

I asked why his little dog wasn’t going to the window anymore. Maybe he went with his daughter and the bigger dog off to college?

One day, he told me, the little dog began to whimper. The following day, he began to howl in pain. He had developed a serious problem, and had to be rushed to the hospital. The dog didn’t make it. The family was inconsolable.

There was more.

Their neighbor on the other side of the house, the one who would always thank me for cleaning up after Hook and Cosmo, although not in the most chipper of ways? Died in an accident. The woman a couple of doors down, who always screamed at me if Cosmo dared step on her grass? Had suddenly died of cancer. And there was more sadness I won’t reveal here.

Mi más sentido pésame multiple times, I told him, as Cosmo tugged at his leash, wanting to walk along.

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That poor pup will always stay with me. So much life, so much passion. Hook and Cosmo’s walk was such a part of its life that the daily double barking session became a part of ours — and then, suddenly, the dog was gone forever.

Every moment might be your last, so enjoy them — carpe diem and all that. But I would add it’s not a time thing — not while you can, but as you can.

I felt bad after leaving my neighbor, not knowing that their dog had suddenly, painfully passed away. I felt bad after learning about another death of someone whom I should’ve been more on top of. I felt bad anew this week after briefly attending a memorial service for longtime Chapman history professor Bob Slayton, whom I wrote about here.

I’m not afraid of my death, the fate that awaits us all. I’m terrified of not knowing the pain that people close to me feel, and don’t feel comfortable enough to share for whatever reason.

We put up our fronts, and we mostly accept the fronts of others. But those fronts are forever fragile, and frequently a fraud. Sometimes, people are desperate for someone to just take a moment to try and see the pain inside.

Sometimes, we’re too proud to bother to see how others are doing.

For my senior prom at Anaheim High, Art and I went to the old Border’s in Brea. I no longer have the Bantam edition of Walden that I bought that night because I replaced it with a Norton Critical Edition long ago. But I remember Walden well (his tax protest against the Mexican-American War, btw, is overstated, as was the opposition of Abraham Lincoln and William Lloyd Garrison — that’s the subject of one of the three theses I had to write to get my master’s in UCLA for Latin American Studies. But that’s another canto).

I enjoyed Walden as an existential high schooler, although little of it stuck with me to this day save the famous lines — experiments and different drummers but especially the idea that most of us live lives of “quiet desperation.”

It’s true, of course. But a lot of that desperation grows from people who supposedly care not checking in. Just look at what happened when Elmo asked on Twitter how folks were doing! We don’t ask that as deeply as we should.

I should’ve known about the poor pup earlier. But the cosmos have forgiven me.

Every morning and every evening (and recently, every night), I walk our rescue dogs Hook and Cosmo down our street.

And nearly every morning and every evening, the bigger dog who hung out with the smaller dog waits near the end of our block.

Everyone barks like old times. Another chance to care, another chance to value.

I can always do better. So can you.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: My recent gets at Page Against the Machine, a bookstore in Strong Beach that focuses on activist tomes. Speaking of literary Iowa-By-The-Sea, a correction to last week’s photo. I said the event I spoke at was held by Friends of the Long Beach Public Library. WRONG. It was sponsored by The Giving Branch, one of the philanthropic societies of the Long Beach Public Library Foundation. Join them, join both, go to all three!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Rich fellas come up an' they die, an' their kids ain't no good an' they die out. But we keep a'comin'. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out; they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, 'cause we're the people.” — Ma Joad (good chance I’ve shared this before, but whatever)

LISTENING: “Corrido de Mazatlán,” José Alfredo Jiménez con Banda el Recodo. Was there any other choice this week upon news that hotels in la perla del Pácifico want to ban bandas on the beach? The Whitman of ranchera teaming up with the greatest sinaloense group of them all at a time when all they played was música de viento — I THINK I have this album on vinyl. Great city song (though doesn’t rank among the best) with one of my favorite-sounding Spanish words — fuereño. Look it up!

READING: “The War on the Woke Trumps the Truth for Many Heterodox Thinkers”: Radley Balko has long tracked police brutality from a libertarian perspective, but in this essay he takes on the Bill Mahers and Andrew Sullivans of the world who call themselves free thinkers but really ain’t (who the fuck sponsors a debate about the border in Texas and doesn’t invite a single Latino? Bari Weiss, that’s all you — BARF)

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  

April 17, 6 p.m.: I’m going to be in conversation with Profe Natalia Molina, Macarthur genius and author of the splendid A Place at the Nayarit, which is now in paperback. We’ll be at the Whittier Public Library, 7344 Washington Ave. It’s a ticketed event, so call 562-567-9900 to find out how to get them, and how much will it cost!

April 21: I’m going to be at the L.A. Times Festival of Books at USC— for sure in conversation with author Hector Tobar, but probably more events as well. Attendance is FREE, but you gotta make reservations for at least Hector — details next week!

Gustavo in the News

“MLB hoped we’d be talking about Shohei Ohtani this 2024 season — but not like this”: The boricua compa Julio Ricardo Varela quotes me about THE scandal of sports right now.

“10 Years at The Frida Cinema”: My honey shouts me out in this retrospective on OC’s indie theater.

“Shards of glass: Inside media's 12 splintering realities”: Axios shouts me out as an important media voice, for some reason.

Gustavo Stories 

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

“Orange County Line”: My latest KCRW OC commentary was about San Clemente’s fight with OCTA over riprap, but it’s not up yet — hmm…

"Ask a Californian: The All-Music Edition”: My latest Alta Journal co-columna sorta defends the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and uses car commercials to determine what should be California’s official song — read up! KEY QUOTE: “When I realized I was hearing a weak-salsa old-timey song, I vowed to go with a Range Rover if I ever needed an off-road vehicle.”

“How the saga of Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter unfolded — and why it’s not over”: I contributed reporting to this Los Angeles Times story.

“Corruption “feels like a betrayal.” What motivates U.S. Attorney E. Martin Estrada”: My latest L.A. Times columna profiles the head of the most populous judicial district in the U.S., one that stretches from San Luis to San Bernardino to Orange counties. KEY QUOTE: “To hear him so effortlessly code-switch — deliver the same message differently depending on audience — struck me as bold yet smart. What kind of fed was hip enough to do that?”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!