I was born in Los Angeles County; and even after I moved from there, it was such a part of me that the pull of it was irresistible. And even after I moved to Orange County (a place I spent some 20 years residing in), I was always making my way back to Los Angeles to work, play, date, perform and record. And I walked it from end to end, took buses and trains to it, and all over it, for some sixty years. And I didn't stop flying in and out of it (after I became a Northern Californian) till I became too old and sickly to travel much.

Much of my career was dedicated to mocking it ? its culture, its architecture, its people. But all of the good and evil in it, and all of the greatness and pettiness of it ? it all remains woven into the fabric of who I am. At last, we can never be "over" any place or any person. We, as human beings, are many things; but more than anything, we are the sum total of our experiences, some we are the victim of, and some of which we are the author of. But, in the end, no human being exists alone as an independent agent. We all come connected to an environment. And so Los Angeles generally, and the San Fernando Valley particularly, live within me for better or for worse.

And so this work, "The Zen of Ventura Boulevard," is largely performed in the first person; but me, and you, and all the others, are inseparable. And so, make no mistake about it, when I say "I," in this work, I am also saying "you" and "them." This thing called Los Angeles, and this thing called Ventura Boulevard ? we did them, we made them, and we are them. And it won't do to say you are from somewhere else, that you never went there, because the reach of these places is global. No one, not even a hermit in the remotest desert, can blithely opt out of the experience.

Thus I claim here, perhaps more than in another work, is, in spite of all its flaws, our place. We live here together. We are already wandering its streets together, whether we know it or not. But this work is a cry, so to speak, a plea, as it were, for you to consciously walk here with me, however distasteful this place may seem.

I've already spoken and written publicly about my feelings regarding LA and The Valley so much, that it will not do to repeat all of that here. My story and my philosophy ? you already know them, or are even tired of them. But this short work is the most exact and concise sense I ever made of this experience, this uniquely Los Angelino experience. At some point, so I think, in my self-important, regionalistic way, we must all come home to Los Angeles and walk the length of Ventura Boulevard (arm in arm?). What you see, and what you feel, and what you say, will vary greatly from the words written here; but, if you are able to come here again with me, I owe you, the reader, many thanks.

Mel C. Thompson is a retired wage slave who survived by working through temp agencies and guard agencies. Unable to survive in the real world of full-time, permanent work, he migrated from building to building, going wherever his agencies sent him, doing any type of work he could feign competency in and staying as long as those fragile arrangements could last. He somehow managed to get a B.A in Philosophy from Cal-State Fullerton in spite of his learning disorders and health problems. Unable to sustain family life due to depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, lack of transportation and lack of income, he lives alone in low-income housing and wanders around California on buses and trains. He began writing at the age of 14 and continues till the current day. (He turns 64 in June of 2023). In his early years he wrote pathetic love poetry until, in his thirties, he was engulfed by cynicism and fell in with a group of largely antisocial poets who wrote about the underground life of drugs, sex, alcohol, poverty, prostitution, heresy, isolation and alienation. In his fortes he turned to prose and began to write religious fiction with an emphasis on the comedic aspect of theology and philosophy. He now writes short novels focusing on the attempt to find meaning in a economic world beset with money laundering, unethical marketing, contraband smuggling, human trafficking, patent trolling, corrupt contracting and every manner of spiritual and psychological desperation and degradation. When he is not writing, he wanders from hospital to medical clinic to surgical room attempting to sustain what little health he has left after a lifetime of complications resulting from birth defects and genetic problems. When he is able, he engages in such hobbies as reading, walking, yoga and meditation; and whenever there is any money left over from his healthcare-related quests, he goes to wine tastings and searches for foodie-related bargains. Before the pandemic, he spent many years gaming various travel-points systems and wrangled many free trips to Europe. He is divorced and has no children, no pets, no real estate, no stocks nor any other assets beyond the $550 in his savings account. His career peaked in the early 2000s when he did comedy gags for a radio station and had about 10,000 listeners per week. However, currently, he may have as few as five active readers on any given day. He no longer has the stamina to promote his work and only finds new readers through ran...