In Los Angeles, there is a terrible habit of people dragging
their unwanted furniture from their over-priced apartments and leaving the stuff
on the sidewalk for others to take, or to rot there until someone calls the
city to have it taken away.
Where does the unwanted furniture go when the city takes it
away? I haven’t a clue. Maybe Mar-a-Lago? All I know is that I wake up one day
and look out the window and see that the junk is gone.
Last week one of my neighbors dragged onto the sidewalk a
black fake leather couch. That poor couch had definitely seen better days. It
looked tired and worn and desperate for some love and attention.
I imagine it was a rather handsome fake leather couch when
it was first purchased some thirty years ago, but neglect sent into a
state of sadness and total disarray. The fake leather was frayed, and I can
only imagine how it got that way.
I imagined it broke its springs when its owner romped too hard
while having incoherent sex with the druggie girl who lived upstairs. Or maybe
it’s leather frayed from hours of its owner rubbing himself against it while
watching re-runs of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
I even imagined his pet rats fornicating with total abandon within
its crevices.
So, there it was, a once happy couch, now tossed to the curb
light a plastic bag full of dog shit.
A few days later, I looked out the window and saw a man on
the ground examining the couch carefully. At first, I thought he was a homeless
person planning on making it his temporary bed for an afternoon siesta, but
then I noticed him taking out fluorescent colored tubes… tubes which looked
like big Crayons.
He then he started creating… jabbing the frayed fake leather
with his colored tubes… and as he created, I could see the couch transform…
I went outside to meet the artist and tell him how much I
liked what he was doing but he ignored me. So I stood there and watched him
create, and at one point, I swear I saw the painted eye wink at me.
This artist transformed the frayed fake leather couch into a
piece of whimsical urban trash street art. Sure, the couch has a frown, but I
think underneath the paint, the couch is happy to be remembered…
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