TPPM Watts: (17) The Watts style

[Paul Nightingale]

Paragraphs 16 and 17 discuss the issue of intoxicants in Watts; and
alcohol ("a natural part of the Watts style") is juxtaposed to "LSD ...
around Hollywood" as a means to some kind of self-transformation (either
"hallucination" or "some calm, some relaxation").

This passage continues the writing of Watts as "a pocket of bitter
reality", repeated here as "a pocket of reality". It also builds on the
way the essay has established the importance of considering the
intersection of the 'I' and the 'Me'.

Three points to make here ...

1. The criminalisation of drug-taking ("narco people cruise the area
earnestly") is juxtaposed to the informal economy of camaraderie. The
law's quest for "dope fiends, dope rings, dope peddlers" is rendered
ineffectual.

2. The return of Deadwyler offers information considered important at
the inquest, but subordinates this information to the outlook of locals.
Even though "much was made of the dead man's high blood alcohol content"
(ie in mitigation), this 'fact' was omitted from the account that opens
the essay. I observed earlier that the cops' story wasn't considered
relevant, the fact that they stopped him for drunken driving was ignored
there, is only reported here, mid-way through the essay, where its power
as relevant information is undermined ("as if his being drunk made it
somehow all right for the police to shoot him" recalls the scepticism of
the opening's chorus, "to no one's surprise" etc).

3. That "white kid[s have been] conditioned to believe so much in
escape" is juxtaposed to life in Watts, from which the individual
doesn't seek escape but "some calm, some relaxation". One might think
here of various white characters in the stories, or the way Mucho, at
the beginning of CoL49 fails to make sense of his trade-in clientele
(precisely because he imposes his own way of thinking on them).