A Paleface in San Bernardino

Ontario was a good place to start the work week, since there wasn't much else to do there. In the morning I checked out of the Ontario Grand and hiked through another district of wide boulevards, sculpted hedges, and office buildings on my way to Starbucks. The sun was beating down fiercely.

Every once in a while a car passed by me on the street, but other than that, there was little sign that the buildings around me were probably teeming with people at work in cubicles. It was as if the zombie apocalypse had already hit, leaving the perfect suburbs devoid of people.

Fortunately the Starbucks was nearby, in swanky Rancho Cucamonga, which is about as "nice" as it gets in the Inland Empire. It felt like an oasis of moneyed folks and businesses that cater to them, amidst an otherwise low-income area of California.  All it all, it was like a giant modern lifestyle center. But for my work, that's pretty much the best thing. I spent much of the middle of the day there at my laptop in air conditioned splendor.

When I left, I decided I needed a new sun hat. As it happened, there was an REI nearby, up on old Route 66 as it passes through town. I think it's the only REI in the county. That should probably tell you what you need to know about Rancho Cucamonga.

I much prefer the old sign and name of the Wigwam Motel, which has been replaced by inferior versions of both

From there, I caught two different buses until I found myself on the edge of the city of San Bernardino proper. My destination was a classic Route 66 lodging---the Wigwam Motel (built in 1946 and originally called the Cozy Cone, judging by the above photo).

As the bus progressed down the road, the surroundings got progressively poorer and more decrepit---the houses and trailers looked like decaying hovels, and the businesses were more often liquor stores. It made Fresno look like Beverly Hills.

This wasn't just the "crappy" California I was used to. Even in Fresno, Blackstone Avenue looks normal and prosperous in the daylight from a car sometimes. You don't notice how bad it has gotten until you walk along the sidewalk and find yourself the only non-homeless person. But San Bernardino was a downright semi-rural slum.

The old motels along the road there looked as if they should be demolished. No way would I have stayed in any of them. Fortunately I knew the Wigwam would be better, given the reviews on Booking.com. And thankfully it was. The little cottage that served as the office was a Route 66 museum and gift shop all its own.  The Indian-American proprietor (as in the Indian subcontinent) handed me an old-style registration form, in both Spanish and English, with the Spanish printed in larger bold type than the English.

I got teepee number 17 for the night. It was clean and comfortable. Both the air conditioning and the wi-fi worked well. So did the television, although I was startled to find that they offered a free hard core porn chanel, in the line-up right next to the regular network stations. That's only happened to me a couple times in the last few years (in Yonkers, N.Y., the porn came on the t.v. right as I turned it on).

Every time I flipped by that channel, it seemed the actors were in the same position, performing the same repetitive motions. The only different was that the skin color and hair color of the actors kept changing. I couldn't help feel like a visitor from another planet: here are the mating behaviors of humans.  I don't think they bother much with narrative anymore.

Aside for that, the place wasn't bad. Of course when I got hungry that evening I had to walk half mile down the road, past two liquor stores, a seedy dive bar, and a huge county health services facility, until I found a burger joint--one of the many Baker's in the area.

It was a quaint experience, staying in the Wigwam Motel. I was glad I made the effort to get there using the local bus system. Somehow going to places like San Bernardino, and seeing this aspect of California, lets me give myself permission to enjoy the nicer parts of the state. But one night there was about all I could take. The weight of sheer hopelessness seems to press down upon everything there, right down to the grimy floors of the donut shop next to the motel. Ironically it felt in no small way like being on an Indian reservation. I felt immensely privileged that I was merely passing through.

Sadly it's probable that within a few years the Wigwam Motel will be razed on the grounds that it is culturally offensive and appropriates the design of Native America lodging. As we speak, somewhere in the wealthier suburbs of L.A. or Orange County, is an angry junior high school student with a Tumblr blog and a hacktivist Twitter account who, a few years from now when he/she/xe is attending CSUSB, will lead the hashtag protest that will shut down the last functioning motel along this stretch of the highway. At last the local PoC of this area will be spared the disgusting sight of this nostalgic abomination.

But being the hyper-privileged oppressive shitlord that I am, that's exactly what one would expect I'd say.