Steven Deeble Loves Long Beach

Storyteller Q/A by Art from Ashes Magazine, Bloom Where You Are Issue May 2024

There have been Deebles in Long Beach for more than a century. Steve’s family moved to Long Beach in 1910, and though he may have traveled far and wide over the course of his creative career, he has always found his way back to this town, which he calls home.

“I feel a strong history here in general,” Steve said. “Growing up, somebody would find out my last name, and they would always say, so which Deeble are you? And so you know how they talk about it takes a village — that was my village. I could not, if I had wanted to, gotten away with anything because there were so many people who knew who I was related to, and that mattered. That mattered, which was actually really cool.”

A graduate of Millikan High School and a former assistant photo editor on the Viking newspaper at Long Beach City College, Steve is a photographer, an artist, and a storyteller — to name just a few of the creative titles he holds.

What’s your favorite thing about Long Beach?

I love the history of it as, for one thing, an industrial center in terms of both building ships and building airplanes. The city of Long Beach was key in both of these endeavors.

My parents, when I was a kid, they took my brother and sister and I down to the shipyard in the harbor to watch a destroyer being launched, and I gotta tell you, when you see a ship moving down a rail into the water like that for the first time, it sort of changes the way you see the world. That was really amazing.

What do you love about Long Beach Today?

I’m gonna say right out, its creative scene, its art scene, the writing, we’ve got amazing poets, and this is an interesting community in terms of both its makeup and its scale — there is nothing like it in Southern California, and I’m really fortunate to be a part of this environment. The writing and the art and everything in between, I’m really loving being able to watch people work and create and grow things. It’s amazing.

I’m really proud to be a part of this, and I’ve been a part of it before and left and come back, and I’m really proud of the fact that I didn’t feel like I had been away, I just stepped right back.

I really feel a strong connection to Long Beach … I keep rotating back through — it has a strong gravity.

I think it’s really important that we support each other, and one of the things I love about the arts community, and the storytelling community is — they’re fucking communities. (Did I? I’m sorry, that was French!)

It’s community, and what I’ve discovered is community is really important to me, like as important as anything else. So it feeds my creative soul. I’m meeting some really amazing people, people who give a shit about something. I love people in general, but I really love hanging out with people who give a shit about something.

What are the things you give a shit about?

I call them my three pillars. The first pillar is education of children. The second pillar is helping those who are less advantaged, in whatever that may mean. And the third pillar is protection of the environment. Those three are the broad brush strokes of what I believe is important that I do, and I try and practice that.

What other communities do you belong to here in LB? (in addition to the storytelling and art communities)

I will honestly say, my neighborhood. I feel like I’m part of a community here in my neighborhood. I’ve met neighbors at different events, and everybody here tends to aggregate and hang out, and that’s pretty fun. I know lots of people up and down the block, and they all put out buckets of fruit, which when I’m walking in the morning I definitely avail myself of. 

How else do you stay busy?

I’ve been making a lot of art. 

This is how I’m avoiding writing right now. I’m making all kinds of crazy stuff. 

— he went on to describe a fantastic sculpture made of black foil. The piece, called Aperture, was auctioned off as part of a fundraiser to support a local community member who was injured in a bicycle accident. Deeble donated the art piece for the auction and shared a story for this event in April. This is one of many opportunities that Deeble has taken to lend his storytelling and creativity gifts to support community members who need support. 

What’s your story about?

My personal feeling is that it should be about trying to do the most you can. As you get older, as I have managed to do, without any effort on my part whatsoever, it really starts to really ring home.

Like, you know how when you’re logging into some website, and it’s saying what year were you born, and you start rolling that dial, and it goes around once … twice … three times, and you’re going gosh, when is it getting to my year? That’s when you feel old. When that dial spins around like more than a couple of times, that’s when you feel it. But I feel good, I feel really young.

What is the mark that you want to leave on Long Beach?

I’m really proud of this place. It’s had its problems, and it continues to have its problems, but there are a lot of really good people who are getting together and trying to figure out what we need to do. I’ve been trying to associate myself with a number of these different groups because I feel personally vested in this place.