At Close Sight

The other day I was out and about in the area of Burbank, which is a place I once only knew about because it was mentioned in the opening to the Tonight Show, but which I now regularly go to as it's right down the road. For a long time I've gone over there on Magnolia Boulevard, passing by a particular Chinese restaurant which I've never patronized. There are others closer and somehow it's never the place to hit on the way to Burbank or back.

Outside the Chinese restaurant I've never been to is something else I've never been in, a phone booth. There are not too many pay phones of any kind, let alone phone booths. This being the case, it was my thinking that maybe it wasn't a real phone booth, by which I mean that it might not have been a functioning one. I found that I was not the only one to think this. The phone booth just looks a lot like a decorative thing, as it's bright red.

I Walk, My Skin Crawls

The other day, I found myself going to an audition in Beverly Hills. I've been to auditions in neighborhoods dodgy enough that I wondered whether I had the right address, but this was obviously in the other direction. I knew I was going to the right place, but still somehow I wondered, because there seemed to be little reason why a casting office need be in such a ritzy locale. There's a middle area.

From where the bus let me off, I had to walk for around fifteen or so minutes to get where I was going. Along the way, I saw what there was to see in an outdoor mall while seeking a restroom to use. All in all, I got my fill of the area. As I think I've made plain, such upscale districts are not for me. There is some kind of insecurity that I have about that sort of thing. I get the idea that I'll be sniffed out as insufficiently well-to-do or classy and asked to leave.

A Trip Up

As I think I mentioned the other day, I had cause to be in Sylmar, which Wikipedia reports is a district of Los Angeles located within the San Fernando Valley. It is not too far from where I am, and yet it is worlds away. This is a very common thing in Los Angeles, where things change wildly over distances as short as a block or two. The area where I live is regarded as a vibrant haven of artists, for example. The area just south is populated by major celebrities. The area that far north is the source of regular gang violence.

It's interesting to see how things change over the course of an hour-long bus ride north. You start off in my neighborhood, and things get gritty fast from there. In a matter of minutes, it's one dusty block of run-down industrial enterprises after another, and each seems less promising commercially than the last. An awareness that these are the streets from which gunshots I heard when I lived nearer to them does not fade from my mind.

Hurt By Those We Love

I've been in Los Angeles for something in the neighborhood of five years. It's actually probably four and a half, as I came here in the spring of 2007. I long ago started to feel at home here, and I recall that the first time it seemed so was when I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard to reach a job interview and found myself infuriated by the tourists clogging the sidewalk. That's something that has only become more pronounced with time.

Not only have I come to feel happier and more at home here, I have managed to shed many of my associations with my home town and state. Being that I'm from Phoenix, Arizona, you will probably see that it was not difficult, but it's not all bad stuff being left behind. Attending around two hundred Dodgers games in three years led me to lose my deep affection for the Diamondbacks, which is hopefully understandable.

Where, Oh Where?

I grew up in and around Phoenix, Arizona. Perhaps that's not something I ought to be trumpeting, and indeed I make very little of it these days. It was not the place for me to be, and initially I only thought not because of the work I hoped to do. It's evident now that where I am suits me somewhat better. Many people that I know dislike LA or even hate it, and live here only because they have to. I like it here. Even if the entertainment business wasn't my thing, I'd like it here anyway.

I wonder though how I might fare in other places. As long as I can remember, I've been interested in experiencing New York City. I wonder how I would like that, and whether it might foster in me productivity or happiness any better than LA. A city that loves public transportation does sound up my alley, and in my romantic imagination, I see myself strolling its streets both upscale and downtrodden. At the very least I'd like to spend a little time there. I have roots too deep here.

Curious Sight

I felt like a local here in Los Angeles the first time I passed by the Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame while on my way to someplace pressing. It was a job interview, in fact. The tourists clogging the sidewalks earned my ire in spades, and I felt like a local for the first time in that way. At such times, I am short-tempered and impatient, but I have had subsequent experiences along that stretch that are somewhat more pleasant.

The other day there was such a time. During the summer, or around mid-day most of the year, that area of Hollywood Boulevard is heavily congested with foot traffic. When you are there at another time, it's something of a different story. On this particular day, I was passing by there before eight o'clock in the morning, and in less than optimal weather. It was largely clear of people, and I imagine that the bulk of them were at that time taking advantage of their hotel's continental breakfast.

A Day

Lately I have had reason to spend a lot of time in downtown LA. That neighborhood, like most in the metro area, is a mixed bag. As it happens, I have found myself in one of the nicer sections of it, and I have relished the opportunity to avail myself of its eateries and cultural highlights (although I have missed more than I have managed to get to). On the whole I have become more acquainted with the erstwhile city center in a positive way.

The timing of my gravitation towards the area coincides with that phenomenon common to a number of the nation's most prominent cities, 'Occupy Wall Street'. I think they must tailor the name to the actual place of the protests in question, or else the title is a misnomer in more cases than it is an apt name. In any case, I have had occasion to see things that I would otherwise not have made the trip downtown to see. It's been quite an experience.

Compound of Privilege

I happened to visit a rather singular apartment complex recently. I'm inclined to say I didn't care for the place, or at least that I don't imagine that I personally would care to live there. I certainly can see the appeal in it for others. Reasonable people can disagree on such things. For me there are just a number of points (apart from the presumably much higher rent) which would turn me off. I will try to be fair and rational in outlining them.

The place was awfully big. It covered a pretty sizable stretch of land. We drove into one entrance and found it was not the one to go into. We guessed that there would maybe be another, and sure enough there was one. We came to it after driving a few moments further down the road. At that road's maximum speed limit, we might have circumnavigated a shopping mall. Once inside, we found ourselves walking for several minutes to reach anything. It was too large for me.

Whither Heart

I see strange things when I'm out and about. This is different from the strange things I see when confined to the home for a long stretch, as those are the product of isolation-prompted hysteria, but let me remain on the first kind. My own neighborhood is rich with odd occurrences, and while their high volume renders them largely unremarkable by definition, a few rise up to surpass the bar. In such cases, it would be criminal to keep them to myself and allow them to fade from the annals of history along with my memory.

Just one just incident transpired the other day, and while it may seem mundane enough, I find it peculiar indeed. I had just left an improv class and was standing outside with three fellow participants trying to tell a story about the Arizona state fair with little success. Not helping matters was the jeep which pulled up. Its occupants, which seemed to be a pair of young women, initially questioned us on whether we had been at the Starbuck's.

Crossroads

Quite some time ago, I posted a brief piece about an intersection in the area of South Pasadena which is notable for being a point at which three incorporated cities converge. A fourth lies maybe a mile to the north. This remains no more than an amusing 'factoid' if one does not actually have to pass through that intersection. Be it because of the competing political jurisdictions or other reasons, it's a very unpleasant intersection to pass through. Actually it's more like three intersections crammed into a tiny area with an island in the middle. The island has a pizza place. The LA area is rife with complicated and downright dangerous intersections like this.

My hometown of Phoenix really did not get built up in advance of the automobile, and perhaps because of that the streets are laid out in a sensible way (excepting where roads must go around mountains). Chicago, where I went to school, was a bustling city before the car but was basically wiped clean in the big fire, so maybe that accounts for why I don't recall it being so bad either. It might have been a hair worse. So much for those idyllic feats of city planning. In my present neighborhood, I come into regular contact with one monster of a confluence. It's a six way intersection- can you beat that? If you don't by the grace of God get the green light as you approach, you can put the car in park and finish your coffee leisurely, because you're going to be there for a few minutes.

Los Angeles 101

Moving to this town can be a challenge in a number of ways. Maybe it's not so different from any other in that respect, but I can't answer for many others very well. Some three years ago when I came to LA, I knew hardly a soul, and had to figure out a lot on my own. Coming from Phoenix, there are some things that are about the same. I was not surprised, for example, to learn that here a street may seem to run clear across town but is in fact interrupted by dead ends at countless points in spite of bearing the same name throughout. Other things were less immediately apparent, and there was no one really to tell me- at least there was no one I could trust. I try therefore to be as helpful as I can when faced by a newcomer. The common attitude in teaching people about LA is interesting.

I remember a story from Jackie Chan's autobiography about his first day in Chinese opera school (which is something like an intensive performing arts school). At first, a student there was treated like a king, but upon being fully enrolled, a rude awakening marked by a beating showed him the true nature of things. Far from feeling saddened on his behalf, fellow students relished viewing the rude awakening which had already been doled out to them. Misery loves company, as they say.  In covering things that are bad or baffling, there is a perverse kind of pleasure taken in breaking the news to a doe-eyed young lady from Cleveland. We act sometimes as if we like the horrendous driving conditions or the deplorable fact of homeless people on the streets. I guess it's what you have to do in order to cope with it when it's exposed for what it is by the observation of an outsider.

Downtown

In past days, I've had reason to spend some time in downtown Los Angeles. Most people seldom do so outside of perhaps having Lakers tickets or a court date. I can't say that I entirely blame them for largely staying away, because it doesn't as yet match up to more heavily trafficked and populated city centers elsewhere. It once was more than it is now. Consider LA's Broadway. It's lined with grand old theaters where the film industry once held its premiers. Today those theaters are either shuttered or have been converted for down market jewelers and other unjust purposes. Much of downtown is like that, the area around City Hall and Bunker Hill aside. Though much of downtown is presently in circumstances reduced from that height, it is already ascendant and well past its nadir. Even were it to never amount to more, I believe I would love it even in spite of its clear faults. There are rough patches and rather affluent districts, and so long as one keeps that straight, the area is quite enjoyable.

The thing I think I notice the most is the architecture. Los Angeles does not receive the credit for this that places like Chicago or New York do, and that's a shame. There are a number of sparkling new buildings and developments in LA's downtown, the Ritz-Carlton and the LA Live complex being among them, but that's only a small part of it to me. Every time I go down there, I am awestruck by the classic, historic structures that lie on every street and in every corner of the neighborhood. There are so many buildings of a kind they don't make anymore that harken back to older days- it's the businesses they once housed in a bygone economy as well as the style in which they're designed. They're styles one finds in coffee table books, and modern construction doesn't seem to bother with that effort. Also since dispensed with is the apparently solid construction that seems to be all brick and steel, with none of the cheaper, less sturdy materials that are now the rule.