Originally Juneteenth was the celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, the first one was in 1865 in Texas, then called “Jubilee Day”. 

It is shameful that there needed to be such a proclamation. White American bluster for freeing enslaved people after four hundred years of knowing it was wrong.

And freedom? Another hundred and fifty years of Jim Crow drinking fountains, white only bathrooms, bus seats, and lynching parties would continue until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The South felt so strongly about preserving a slave owning society, and economy that they sent 250,000 of their boys (the number is much larger when you include Union troops, and civilians) to die for the cause in four years of bloody civil war. The south was decimated, but that didn’t change anyone’s mind about slavery.

They even killed a great visionary President who signed the audacious document that denied them the god given right to enslave black people.

That’s how much they wanted it.

Many Americans still want it. Many Americans would be excited to run off and fight another bloody civil war that could not possibly be won.

Even today, the Stars and Bars fly on trucks, and front yards down in Dixieland. Statues of Confederate traitors still stand as mute reminders that the racism was never vanquished. And to keep the notion of the “lost cause” alive, and the glory that those were the “good ole days”.

Freedom nowadays is a relative term as it exists today. There’s been some civil rights progress in 160 years. What rights that have been achieved by people of color has been through hard fought legislation, not by magnanimous hearts, suddenly enlightened by Godly kindness, but by laws, and education, and sometimes the National Guard.

White Americans helped some. Mostly it was courageous African Americans who worked, died, got beaten, and threatened, got pelted with eggs and rocks, and fire hoses. Still, they marched and lobbied, and got the job done.

The progress was long, hard work, from blood, sweat, and tears, to quote Churchill, but in this case literally, and violent.

They even killed the brilliant black leader, a man that comes once in a lifetime who preached peace, and equality, and justice for all people.

The racists were not going to give up their ugly white power, easily.

That’s how much they wanted it.

One day my friend called me about work.

They were looking for a piano player. Playing piano for a melodrama theater.

I was on the skids, I needed cash, but the pay was pitifully little.

I told her I couldn’t work for that.

But my friend said to re consider. Yes the pay is meager, but instead of being insulted, take a chance.

Sometimes saying yes to small things leads to bigger things. She was right of course.

So I went and auditioned, and just barely made an impression, and I was hired. One day a week was offered, and that quickly turned into several days a week, and many raises.

While there, I met many wonderful friends, and over years led to other work.

While there, in a funky theater, playing six shows a day, I learned many things about myself, and my abilities. I learned about theater. I learned about quality. I learned about enjoying the process of living.

I learned about art. It was an education, and it was fun. I felt like the kid who joined the circus, and every one I worked with was just like me.

Most important, I met my future wife, who I am still desperately in love with, so many years later.

Yes, as it turns out, is the most useful word in the language.

I think about this often, as the years flow by.

And I think about that sour day, years ago

When I almost said no.

We are the proletarian. We are the people.

We are the engine that powers industry, by labor, by participation, and by imagination. 

We make the products. We create the value. We drive the trucks. We open the stores in the morning, work twelve hours and close it down at night.

We serve the public. We are the face to face point of contact for products and services. We are the product.

We are the soul of the country. We write the songs. We sing the songs. We build the instruments, and concert halls. We keep the music going.

We write and remember our history. We make history. We are the hum of a big city.

We decide what we need as a society. We walk in the parks. We sit on the beaches.. We plant flowers, and trees, and find a cool, quiet place in the shade to dream.

We write and listen to the poetry. We paint, and sculpt. We go to concerts and the theater, and we applaud, laugh, and cry. We see ourselves in the art, we walk home thinking differently about our lives afterwards.

We read the news, and have feelings about other people and their lives. We help others when we can, and we ask for help when we need it. We hold a lover’s hand and we chat to our neighbor across the street on Saturday mornings.

We understand that everyone is trying to live a life, the best they know how, trying to survive, find love, and meaning, just trying to figure it all out.

We live with our feet on the ground, at eye level. We know what it’s like with nothing, and what it’s like having everything. We’re rich even when we’re broke. We’re experts at seeing through the bullshit.

We are real. We are organic. We are naked. We are the sum total. We are God’s expression. Every day we get up, and see to our business. We are the nation’s commerce. Our product is a healthy society and a universal pursuit of happiness. Our currency is love.

We don’t know why it’s closing, or what the intended use for the space will be, but this fullerton landmark with the great Italian food, and unique ambiance will soon be a memory.

Restaurants (and other businesses) close every year, without anyone taking much notice, in the last few years more than usual because of Covid. It’s hard to turn a profit and keep things going under the best of times, and the gut punched economy was the breaking point for so many stores.

 I recently walked up and down Harbor boulevard and was shocked at the number of now vacant spaces. Many that were thriving just a few years ago.

We’ve grown used to seeing stores go under, but Angelo’s and Vinci’s closing, to me, was a shocker. People had their wedding parties, and quinceaneras there, in the banquet rooms upstairs. I proposed to my girlfriend, now wife of twenty years at a table on the second floor. 

Steven Peck, actor, dancer, choreographer, started the business in 1992 in a vacant space next to his dance studio, so the story goes,  as a place to feed his growing number of dance students, and soon blossomed  into the wondrous place we have all come to love.

I often wondered how Peck chose his design ideas. I mean where do you start? Was there a plan? Did he bring in a Hollywood set designer to create such a flamboyant space according to his vision? Did he start with a few mannequins, and some artwork he had laying around, and then just didn’t stop? It’s color, and chaos, silly Sicilian mayhem, but somehow it’s perfect. It’s a Tuscan paradise squeezed into a few thousand square feet of restaurant space. It’s Sunday, Carnival and Christmas all at once. But it’s even more than that, it’s magical.

I am not really not a fan of “schtick” or theme restaurants, with their manufactured kitsch, but Angelo’s and Vinci’s is none of that. It’s mad, it’s garish, it’s psychedelic, and it all works beautifully. 

Everywhere you look, there are stories being told in the architecture. The  acrobats in flight, a couple having a romantic supper on a balcony. What are they talking about? Who are they?  The picture of the man dishing up a huge plate of pasta. Mona Lisa. A hundred colored lights, cheeses, wine casks embedded in the walls. Photos of old Italians relatives. The  wood walls washed in green, white, and red lights, nooks and crannies that seem to go on forever.

Walt Disney could spend all the money in the world and not produce the dreamy wonder, and all around you as you dine. 

And the food. It’s always been about the food. The fresh bread,  pizza,  pasta, lasagna, the cream sauce, the marinara, always the best, always. 

But now that’s going away.

I don’t know what plans are in store for the space, but it won’t be the same. A new owner won’t likely have, or understand the spirit of what went on here.

I’m sad, not just because this slice of Fullerton history is disappearing, but because something else is disappearing. Something important.

It’s a pattern that is happening more these days..it happens like this…someone has a great little idea for a product or service, that takes off, because there was something about it that people want, need, like, love. And the thing grows to be huge, because people see, and understand the magic. No one can tell you what the magic is, only that it’s there.

Then, the originators of the little idea retire, or cash out, and sell to the highest bidding corporation. Then everything’s different. No more magic. Because magic isn’t in the business plan.

 Joni Mitchell warned..”You don’t don’t know what you got till it’s gone”

More is going than you think.

You’d be hard pressed to find a restaurant, fast food, otherwise, that isn’t a franchise. The food is just good enough, the decor is clean, colorful, and boring. The teenage workers seem to wish they were doing something else. Corporate franchise restaurants are designed for getting customers in and out fast. Speed, is money, and that is more important than customer experience. 

They can say they care about customer satisfaction (at least on paper) to the extent that they want return business, but that’s all. Hard plastic seats and boring decor, isn’t supposed to make you happy, or comfortable, it’s supposed to make you buy food, eat fast, and leave. And every year the food gets greasier, sweeter, spicier, saltier, and in smaller portions. Quality isn’t in the business plan, either.

And if one of the 100 nationwide franchises don’t make the profit that the LLC thinks they should in a given market, it’s closed down. No time for slackers. 

Our culture is being defined, less by sociologists, and artists, and more and more by corporate designers, business models, with a five year plan of maximizing profit. 

 Clothing stores, book stores, movie theaters, etc., are carefully calculated to make customer happiness less important than their bottom line. You can’t blame them them. That’s just what they’re supposed to do. Fair enough. But that leaves us with the question of where do we go for consumer happiness? To get the magic? We live in a society that is abundant, convenient, and in pretty, carefully chosen manipulative colors, and shapes, but cater to our basic needs as humans less and less.

Don’t you find yourself wishing there were more places that offered comfort, and you knew you would be treated like a patron, instead of a customer? Where the product has high quality, and value? Where you go to have, not just a meal, but an experience? Where there’s magic?

Do you miss Angelo’s and Vinci’s already?

I do.