Heartbreaker

It's not often that I hear about the death of a business owner and think, "Aww", but discovering the death of Lovie Yancy (above) breaks my heart. She opened the original Fatburger on Western Avenue in Los Angeles, the street where I grew up, providing me - and billions of other people - with fond memories we will never be able to replace:

Memories of good food, good music, and lots of laughter, even if you were stuck out front in the rain.

Here's a picture of the original Fatburger:

That gritty photo, along with Miss Yancy's personal story, remind me why I'll never fit in with the NewAge "movement" so many have fallen victim to:

I was raised by people with values from another time and place.

Strong black people, informed by life and death struggle, in post-World War II Los Angeles. People that produced true greatness - whether anyone noticed or not - not today's ceaseless illusions of it, promoted at fever-pitch, and worth as much as a broken mirror.

In reporting Miss Yancy's death, the L.A. Times tries to make it seem like there was a period when it was unusual for a black woman to open a business, but, growing up in South Central, I never heard of such a time. In South Central, women and men always did everything the same - opened businesses, organized communities, led households, gambled, drank, and fought in the streets. All you had to have was heart.

Very few South Central women had the kind of weaknesses that produced feminism's harpies, and they laughed at Gloria Steinem & Co. when they emerged, thinking their "issues" were as lame as the women that produced them. In South Central, both sexes were strong - "macho" even - because, together, they had to face down the pressures of alternately - and constantly - being killed, exploited, marginalized, or ignored, by everyone in the larger (white) community but the police; who, even worse, represented all those things at once. (Check out Denzel Washington's Devil In A Blue Dress, above, for proof:)

Gloria Steinem couldn't have survived there,....

But Lovie Yancy survived - and thrived - eventually providing South Central, Los Angeles with something we could always be proud of:

A true "homegrown" success story.

At the Fatburger of old (before it was franchised) you could "have it your way" long before Burger King imagined such a thing; stacking your sandwich ten layers high, with everything under the sun, just like ol' Dagwood in the comic strip Blondie. Many of us practically lived there for that.

Later, when I returned home for a visit, discovering the franchised Fatburger was a letdown - I found them as sterile as any McDonald's. But they were still a source of immense pride:

Fatburger!?!

South Central's Fatburger - that little fucking shack - had "made it", BIGTIME, and I had to have one, whether it was like "the old days" or not.

And, of course, it wasn't.

But how could it be? This Fatburger was in North Hollywood - not South Central, L.A.. There was no music, or crowds, and, now, special orders are unheard of (especially the kind where you bring your own favorite ingredient and just tell them to "throw some of that shit on there".). And, just like every other burger joint, three layers are as high as they build them.

Still, I savored that thing like I was eating Duck l'Orange, and it was a hell of lot more satisfying than that French crap will ever be.

Which makes me think of one more, final, thing:

Lovie Yancy lived to be 96, and, as the owner and founder of Fatburger, no one can claim her long life was the product of eating properly, or taking especially good care of her health. Like my first foster mother (who survived 101 years on KFC, Taco Bell, and the occasional beer) Miss Yancy lived a long life by having good genetics and a clear understanding of what life was about:

Truly caring about others.

She was trying to give other people not just what she thought they wanted but what they clearly asked for and needed. And - in the case of the original Fatburger - that was, always, good food, good music, and lots of laughter,...even if you found yourself stuck out front in the rain.

Goodbye, Miss Yancy, and thank you so very, very, much.