Same Old

It's Saturday morning in Stiletto and there's plenty of coffee. Mummy P. got three cigarettes in while sitting at the kitchen table while Plottie cowered in the back bedroom with the door closed. "Plottie? Don't you want any breakfast?" she kept calling.

It's possible she doesn't remember she's not supposed to smoke inside. But, more likely, she says to herself "Hey, screw them. It's my house."

Plotnik has to admit he would say that too, if he were in her shoes. Speaking of her shoes, the ones she's going to wear to tonight's big party, Mummy P. and Gloria are already fighting about them. This means the pre-party has started.

Smoke aside, it's great to be here. We'll have fun tonight.

---

After some thought, Plotnik has decided this -- speaking of yesterday's comments about homeless people at Venice Beach.

The homeless at Venice are vagabonds and ruin the beach for other people, but they do it because they can. Why shouldn't they? The city chooses to do nothing.

The homeless in the Tenderloin in St. Plotniko are drug addicts who ruin the streets for other people, and they also do it because they can. Why shouldn't they? The city chooses to do nothing.

Plotnik is not overly sensitive to the needs of people who ruin things for other people just because they can. It's like your downstairs neighbor playing really loud music at all hours of the day or night. You can deal with him, one way or the other, because you know where he lives.

You don't know, and you don't want to know, anything about homeless people. Not talking about poor moms with their babies living in shelters, but about drunks and crack-heads and meth-heads lying on the sidewalk in their own piss. Maybe you're not sick of it. Maybe you're sympathetic to it. Maybe you live in the suburbs.

Plotnik doesn't have an answer either, but he knows that Santa Monica and Venice are gorgeous beach towns that are under seige and have been for at least a generation. It's not good. It really isn't.