Love & Fire

The air in greater Los Angeles has been heavy with smoke for more than a week now, thick with the sorrow of flames that seem as relentless as time itself. These fires, roaring across various sections of our beloved basin, are more than just a tragedy—they are the heartbreak of a community, the loss of history, of lives, of places we thought would remain with us forever. The hills we climb, the homes we’ve built, the memories we’ve woven into the fabric of this city—all of it, consumed by a cruel and raging fire. As the wind carries the smoke across the horizon, we are reminded, in the most brutal way, of how fragile everything is. How quickly it can all be turned to ash.

There is devastation in the ashes—people lost, families displaced, lives interrupted, futures uncertain. But, amid this charred landscape, there are also embers of hope. Thousands of strangers, neighbors, and strangers who become neighbors have opened their hearts, their homes, their wallets. They have given time and money, food and blankets, supplies and shelter; done anything and everything they can to help those caught in the flames. There are people walking into the chaos, arms wide, ready to offer what little they can because they know this is what community is—showing up when showing up is the hardest thing to do. When your own home might be the next to burn, yet you still stand, shoulders back, offering comfort where you can.

It is, in those moments, that I feel the deepest gratitude for what we are capable of. For the deep well of compassion that still runs through the heart of this city, even when it feels like the world is burning. This generosity is the thread that will stitch us back together. It is the kindness that will hold us through the worst of the storm, and though it cannot erase the pain, it is the balm that soothes the rawest of wounds. It is the only way forward.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t speak the truth about what weighs heavily on my heart. Amidst the suffering, there are voices—many of them voices I know—that refuse to see the fire for what it is: a tragedy that demands our collective grief and our shared responsibility to help heal and rebuild. These voices, these people, are spreading lies, placing the blame squarely on the heads of public officials, politicizing the horror of this disaster. They point fingers in every direction but the one that matters—at the lives that have been torn apart and the community that needs healing.

It is as if they are so determined to be right that they cannot allow themselves to simply be human. They cannot stop long enough to see the faces of those displaced, the homes that have been lost, the families broken. It is as if their need to score political points and virtue signal to some sort of ideology is more urgent than the very real and tangible needs of those suffering. And to them, I say this: Your cynicism and your anger, your misdirection and misinformation, are only fueling the fire. They do nothing but widen the gap between us, pulling us farther from the truth and further from the compassion we so desperately need. If you can’t help, please consider shutting the fuck up. I mean this from the bottom of my broken heart.

What we need now is kindness, not division. We need hands reaching out, not pointing fingers. We need hearts open to grief, not hardened by a relentless pursuit of blame. We need compassion, not politics. The fire burns regardless of who you voted for; the people who are affected by all this horror care that we show up, that we stand together in the face of something far bigger than any of us can control. They don’t care which bumper sticker is on your car while you do it.

Somehow, some way, we will get through this. Community is the thread that holds us together when the world seems determined to tear us apart. It is the small acts of kindness, the quiet donations, the helping hand that, piece by piece, rebuilds the fabric of what is lost. But we cannot do this if we allow ourselves to be swallowed by the flames of bitterness and division. The fire is already raging outside; we cannot afford to let it rage in our hearts as well.

To those still clinging to the belief that cruelty is justified, that division is a cure, I ask this: Let go. Let go of the anger that binds you to the ashes. Let go of the need to be right. Let go of the cynicism that has taken root in your soul and see what is needed now. What is needed is the same thing that has always saved us—the love of each other, the tenderness we show when we stand in the ashes and say, “We are still here. We grieve with you. We’re not going anywhere.”

If we can do this—if we can be kind, if we can come together, not in our differences but in our shared humanity—then we will rebuild. We will heal. We will rise from the ashes not because we are perfect, but because we choose, again and again, to love and care for one another.

And in the end, that’s what will save us. The love we give freely to each other, the love we offer in the dark places, the love that rises from the ashes like a phoenix, bright and unyielding. It’s bigger than any fire could ever be.

I Only Have Eyes For You

"I Only Have Eyes For You” by The Flamingos is a spectral love letter, a frozen kiss from the past that still burns like the ghost of romance itself. You play it once, and it’s like stepping into a time machine, only instead of traveling through time, you’re unraveling it, dissolving into a world where love wasn’t just a word—it was an overwhelming force, as inevitable as gravity. The whole thing drips with the kind of lush, intoxicating melancholy that leaves you dizzy, longing for a romance that feels as unreachable as it does inevitable. It’s the sound of a love lost to time, captured in the purest, most haunting echo. The Flamingos weren’t just singing—they were channeling a time and a place that no longer exists, a time when romance wasn’t an algorithm or a transaction, but a spell that you fell under whether you wanted to or not. It was real.

The song opens with that crooning falsetto, and right then, it’s as if the world around you falls away, and you’re left with only the voice, the faint chordal plinking of the piano, and the fog that swirls between the two. “I only have eyes for you,” they sing, but it’s not a boast. It’s a confession—a quiet, tragic surrender to a love that is at once all-consuming and strangely ethereal. That line, repeated like a prayer, hints at a deep, fatalistic longing—a love that has to be, because that's all he can see. 

In an age where every sentiment is dissected and monetized, I Only Have Eyes For You holds up a mirror to our emptiness, whispering of a time when love was both a treasure and a tragedy, not something to be swiped left on in a second. It makes you wonder: did we ever really have that kind of love, or was it always just a dream? 

But the haunting beauty of the song doesn’t end there. There’s something ineffable about the way those lush harmonies sweep in and out of your consciousness like a lover’s touch that you can’t quite remember. The song speaks to an existential longing—like standing in a room full of people but only being interested in the object of your desire. Are they close or are they far away? Is it a real, tangible thing or is it that ethereal sense of a romance that lives on only in the mind, only in the faint traces of memory?

The lyric “The moon may be high, but I can’t see a thing in the sky” doesn’t just refer to the lack of stars—it speaks to the blindness that comes with all-consuming love, a blindness that makes the rest of the world seem irrelevant, even laughable. And yet, as the song unfurls, there’s something almost tragic in that blindness, too. It’s a deep, impossible yearning for the thing that was, the thing that should have been, but is lost forever in the fog of time. Or is it? The song becomes a meditation on what it means to love so completely that the world itself fades into the periphery. This is a love that feels pure, timeless, and hints at something entirely tragic at the same time.

And that’s the brilliance of listening to “I Only Have Eyes For You” 65 years later —it doesn't just feel like just a love song anymore,  it feels like an elegy about the death of romance, the unraveling of an ideal that no longer exists in the real world, and yet we still hunger for it, still wish for it like an old ghost that keeps coming back to haunt us. It’s the raw, aching wound of nostalgia that burns and throbs in your chest, a wound you want to pick at even though it can never heal. You can’t help but wish that romance was as simple as it was in that moment, when love wasn’t something to dissect or control, but something to lose yourself in, like a fever dream. It’s a moment that will never return—where love was both the question and the answer, the fire and the ashes. In a world where love is as manufactured as a brand, where “I love you” is reduced to a swipe right, The Flamingos remind us of a time when love wasn’t something you consumed, it was something you felt, even if it was a feeling so painful it could break your heart.

And in that ache, in that spectral longing, comes the song’s timeless power. There’s something about it that transcends its era, its genre, its place in musical history. It’s as if, in those few minutes, The Flamingos captured something that existed before time, something that will echo on long after we’re all dust. 

The beauty of “I Only Have Eyes For You” is that it never stops being relevant, never stops resonating with those who hear it. Because love, in its purest form, doesn’t obey the rules of time or place. It isn’t bound by the present moment or the latest trend. It’s eternal, it’s aching, it’s impossible—and it’s all contained in that gorgeous, haunting melody. That’s why it still lingers, why it still haunts us. This song, this love, is a ghost that will never fade. It’s the kind of thing you can’t fully comprehend, but you feel it deep in your bones, just like the faintest traces of an old lover’s perfume. It’s there, always, and it will never leave.

Gloria

From the very first chord, Patti Smith grabs you by the collar and throws you headfirst into the fire. She doesn’t ask for permission; she demands your attention. When she yells “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine”, she’s not just singing a line—she’s detonating the whole concept of what’s holy and pure, flipping it on its head with the sort of reckless freedom that only she could summon. This isn’t just a rejection of the institution of religion; it’s a rallying cry for the untamed, the misunderstood, and the people who refuse to fit into the neat little boxes that the world wants to stuff them into. She’s here to tell you that she is the authority now, she is the one in charge of her own fate, and she’s not going to apologize for it. “Gloria” is like Patti sticking her middle finger up at a society that wanted her to be silent, to be small, to be tame. Instead, she stands tall, loud, unapologetic, breathing fire;  daring you to try to catch the spark. 

But what makes this song so potent is how it morphs into something far bigger than a punk anthem. It’s not just a statement of defiance—it’s a primal scream, a battle cry from the depths of her soul. As Patti dives into that second part of the song, when she begins to channel the full-throttle electric chaos, it’s clear: she’s not just reclaiming Gloria; she’s becoming Gloria. This isn’t about some man’s possession of a name or some woman in a state of passive desire—this is a full-throttle, balls-to-the-wall rebirth of a concept. “Gloria” is given her own voice, and with it, she’s giving a voice to every woman, every outsider, every freak, and every renegade who’s ever felt boxed in. Patti Smith’s beautiful androgyny was at the heart of this transformation—she could slip between the lines of rock god and goddess, effortlessly blurring the boundaries between masculine swagger and a fiercely primal feminine energy. It was her ability to be both raw and untamed, yet undeniably woman, that gave this song its electric charge. She didn’t fit neatly into the binaries of the world; she broke them wide open, redefining what it means to be and be seen in the world. It’s the ultimate subversion: she takes the most conventional thing and turns it into a visceral, powerful, and unapologetically primal declaration. Her Gloria doesn’t just bend to the will of others—she takes the world on her own terms, and that’s what makes this song not just a classic, but a goddamn revolution.

And let’s talk about Patti herself—let’s talk about the goddess who made this possible. Patti Smith wasn’t just a musician—she was (and still is) a raw, unfiltered force of nature that could tear down the walls of art, literature, and rock ‘n roll all at once. The beauty of Patti wasn’t just in her voice, her words, or her lyrics—it was in her embodiment of the truth. She was fearless in a way that no one else was at the time. You couldn’t cage her. You couldn’t tame her. She wasn’t just a muse; she was a creator, a shaman, a prophet of the ugly, beautiful, messy truth of being alive. And Gloria? That song wasn’t a trend or a gimmick; it was a raw, unvarnished testament to everything Patti was about. She wasn’t just singing the words—she was becoming the fire. Her voice wasn’t some polished instrument of perfection; it was a razor blade dipped in moonlight, sharp and dangerous and full of unbridled passion. Patti wasn’t just a voice in the crowd; she was the one who made the crowd wake up.

So yeah, “Gloria” is a punk anthem, a rock 'n roll explosion, and a literary triumph all wrapped into one. But most importantly, it’s Patti Smith doing what she does best: dragging the world kicking and screaming into the chaos of real freedom, real rebellion, and real truth. The song is a testament to what it means to be alive, to be unapologetic, and to own every inch of yourself, no matter who tries to stop you. You feel it in your bones. You breathe it in your lungs. Gloria is not just a name—it’s a revolution, and Patti Smith is the one leading it, headfirst into the fire. 

The question is --- Are you courageous enough to dance in the flames?