Street roots., June 12, 2009, Page 10, Image 10

CEZJEBRATUfG A B B C A B s t f
10
street ro o is lIB
Education * Dialogue ♦ Independence
A duet, for
musician
and writer
When newspaper columnist Steve
Lopez stopped to hear a homeless m an
play a violin, the music he heard
changed both o f their lives
BY ROSETTE ROYALE
STREET N EW SSERVICE
ou never know what you’ll find when
you walk down the street And there '
was Steve Lopez, in 2005, doing just
that, making his way through L.A. when he
heard it: music. Nearby stood a man -
homeless, playing for what seemed to be
beauty’s sake - drawing his bow over the
strings of a beat-up violin. Lopez stopped
and listened. He introduced himself to the
violinist. And from that moment on, both
men’s lives became interwoven.
That violinist was named Nathaniel Ayers
and Lopez, a columnist for the L.A. Times,
wrote about their encounter. Soon after
that, he wrote another column. Then
another and another. As he continued, over
the months, to chronicle their relationship,
a complex portrait of Ayers unfolded: a
childhood in Cleveland; a scholarship to
Juilliard, the premier New York arts
academy; the onset, in his early 20s, of “'
paranoid schizophrenia; homelessness;
nights on Skid Row.
and looked and here’s a guy living out of a
Readers loved the columns and, buoyed
shopping cart and he was playing a violin
by support from a newspaper editor, Lopez,
that
was missing two strings. And he looked
already an author of books, wrote another
very determined. So it just begged the
one: “The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an
question: Who is he?
Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive
So all of that made me very curious and I
Power of Music” (Putnam, 2008), which
went
over and introduced myself and that
detailed their at times chaotic yet inspiring
was how it started. He was very wary of me
relationship. From that, a recent hit movie
and he looked a little frightened, but he
was born. All of which has kept Lopez busy
.calmed down a little b it I said, “Why do you
and humanized Ayers.
play right here?” And hez points across the
We tried to set up a time to talk. But ;
scheduling those minutes to chat took Some street and he says, “There’s the Beethoven
statue and I play here for inspiration.”
work. So, while in a cab en route to the
I realized — because he had some clear
airport, Lopez revealed, via cell phone, how
mental
issues — that it was going to take a
his life has been affected by a man who lives
while. So this just began a series of
on the street, a man for whom Beethoven
provides salvation, and praised the gifts that meetings over the course of several weeks,
and every time I met with him he was a
can arise just from stopping to hear the
little more comfortable and a little more
music.
forthcoming. I wrote my first\column with
no idea that there’d be a second one, or a
Rosette Royal: I heard you came across
third one, or a 20th one. Or a book Or a
Nathaniel Ayers when you were out looking fo r
movie. It all happened organically.
material fo r a column.
And when I wrote the first column,
readers responded in a huge way. They sent
Steve Lopez: Yeah. I was in downtown
e-mails in the hundreds, and letters, and
Los Angeles and I heard music. So I turned
■
,
—
7----- , *
; With Alejandro Queral, Joanne Zuhl
Unda Olson-Osterlund and Patrik Angstrom
;
Tune in to
We The People
on
KBOO, 90.7 fm
6-7 p.m.
the fourth
Thursday of
every month
P H O T O B Y GILLES
’ M IN G A S S O N
R. R.: H ad you had any interactions with
people on Skid Row before?
S. L.: When I moved to L.A. to write a
column for the LA. Times, I was certainly
aware of it. And the word on it was: It was
Skid Row, it had always been Skid Row, it
See DUET page 11
, .... ....... -
When it comes to your civil liberties
you should hear what you're missin
<
they wanted to buy the missing strings. My
desk at the L.A. Times was surrounded by
boxes of instruments that people had sent,
and when I took them to him, I realized that
I had just complicated his life — I was afraid
he would get mugged for those instruments,
and I thought he could even get beaten to
death on Skid Row where he lived.
I felt it Was my duty to try to getsome
help for him and keep him out of harm’s
way. That’s when I started this dialogue
with a mental health agency called Lamp
Community and it took me into this world
that I knew virtually nothing about: mental
illness and homelessness and public policy
regarding those issues.
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