First day of the end of the strike, and I was wondering how the Downbeat Cafe would look. I've had friends tell me they won't go there any more because of all the laptops. And, yes, recently the place has been transformed. The vibe at the Downbeat for all these weeks and months has been keyed up. All of the tables taken (sometimes by friends of mine), the air crackling with tension, which is fed by the quiet. Fed by all the bodies in the room. Catering to the clientele, I assume, the staff has turned the jazz ballads and swing down way low. No blues, I noticed. It's no one's fault -- at least not anyone's here. And, person by person, it looked like a perfect world: so much health and intelligence, a wide range of ages, a wide range of ethnicity, a wide range of noses, cool clothing, square clothing, earnest faces, a sense of purpose and effort. And it added up to crackle-split in the air. Nothing bohemian about it.

So, today it's over. The strike is over. I wondered how things would look at the Downbeat but didn't know if I'd get a chance to stop and see. The first part of the day didn't go well. My driver's license is expired, and I drove out to the Santa Monica DMV because it's a good DMV, and that's the part of town I know well from years when I worked on 11th Street. These days Santa Monica is a trip out of town in literal, not just geographic, terms, and when I get to the DMV, weirdly pleased with the familiarity of the plain, wide room, I'm told the computers are down, statewide. "DMV isn't happening today, people!" a woman shouts from the reception desk. But I won't give up. I make a plan to kill one hour--if I can focus elsewhere, the computers will come back online, I can get the license, and forget about it for four more years. My hour: a visit to Craig Krull Gallery at Bergamot Station, where there is an incredible show of Masao Yamamoto's tiny romantic photographs, and then, in counterbalance, an awful trip to the Verizon shop, where I decide I don't need a new phone badly enough to stay there for another twenty minutes (despite the fact I have not been able to find my cell phone for several days now). It's more than an hour when I get back to DMV, but the computers are still down. One look at the nearly empty room tells me. So I'm back in my car, and, not soon enough (because we're creeping in traffic), I'm at the Downbeat.

And then my day gets a little better. It's 1:30. Almost all of the tables are taken. There are still plenty of laptops. But the vibe has changed. Overnight. The static is gone. Backs are a bit more slouched. There's a bit more air to breathe. The music is audible enough to enjoy. The overhead fans aren't whirring on high. At the register, I ask the owner if things have been quieter today, and he says yes...but not that much. He's the owner -- what's he going to say? Getting his vibe back is not necessarily good for business, or is it? So it's back to the dreamers...and the writers who didn't have a show, and a young lawyer in blue jeans (who took his office call outside), a couple of friends talking quietly. For the first time today I feel what I have always come to the Downbeat to feel -- that there's lots of time. Isn't that what personal cool is about? The sense, however illusory, that you have time? I plop onto the couch near the register, sip the good coffee, at home for the moment.