The myth of the City of Angels
Los Angeles is a city with myths surrounding it like few others. I’d argue that the idea of Los Angeles excites more than the idea of any other North American city. Even more than New York. Especially more than New York.
More than New York because invariably anyone who has dreamed of going to New York has wandered up through Central Park, around the cute-as-fuck neighbourhoods that make up the Village, has loathed Midtown with the mock-spite of a local, for the last little while gotten to wander along the Highline in the late afternoon Manhattan light, or seen the Chrysler building suddenly rush into view over some unexpected break in the rooftops. They’ve done that, and stopped. And smiled. And they’ve gotten the New York they came looking for.
Conversely I wonder if anyone ever gets the LA they come looking for. Even the people who come here seeking fortune and fame and achieve it often wind up finding somewhere else to spend their time. The ones that don’t burn up in the sun anyway, embodiments of the haze that seems to stretch out from Orange County right across the city each morning. Is that really the town consumed in smog, or just another collective batch of dreams going up in smoke, as the city they imagined fails to materialise before them?
Steve Martin once satirised the pains a writer from New York City would experience when coming to town for a story. The aching emptiness they would feel about LA, the sense of absolute nothingness the city could force upon you. Steve very aptly painted a 24 hour slice of not just that one lonely writer’s experience, but the experience of anyone who comes to this town for a limited period, who comes alone.
The reason for this is the sheer scope of the city. If you haven’t been before, then there isn’t a way anyone can explain the vastness of the urban sprawl. You can drive for two hours and not be stuck in traffic yet still not make it from one side of town to the other. You don’t need all ten fingers and all ten toes to count the number of buildings that actually went up in the area that masquerades as downtown, and conversely you can only guess at the number of buildings that went out, hurled ever farther from what was once the centre of town
I’ve no doubt that there are pockets of pleasantry as espoused by the people who live here, some of whom I am lucky enough to call friends. My man Chip and his heart forever in Hermosa Beach, Heather and her ruthless East-coast spirit satiated with life in Venice; people have found a way to get by. But I think that’s also part of the trick: LA is a city where getting there isn’t half the fun. In fact it’s the least fun you could possibly have. Subsequently, given how far apart everything is, it’s also the thing you are likely to spend most of your time doing.
LA is a city that millions love, and a lot more call home. It is, for all its faults, the epicentre of our celebrity-obsessed culture and the industries that fuel it day and night. And I mean that in the best ways as much as I do the worst, for LA brings with it the best and worst in everything.
In a former life, I made video games. And each May the entire industry would trek to downtown LA and occupy the Convention Center for a few days. One year in particular I remember having the curious fortune to attract the same cab driver on every trip I made around town. Someone’s cousin, brother, uncle, you get the idea. On our final drive together, one that took me out to the airport, we talked for a long time. He told me of his life in Mexico, how he had come across the border alone, convinced his mother to join him, watched her struggle, give up, and go back.
He talked about his son who was a mechanic at a Mercedes-Benz dealership. And when he spoke of him it wasn’t a story of how he hoped for more for his family, because his son had already surpassed his old man. The American Dream was alive and well, and his son was a living testament to that. What I said about LA had been true; getting there hadn’t been any of the fun. It had been gruelling and faithless and humiliating. And he drove me down La Cienega in the cab he owned proudly testament to that.
When I got out of the car, I handed the man the contents of my wallet, a collection of US bills that weren’t worth the trouble of changing back. I wished him luck and watched him disappear into the mess of steel and smoke that becomes any car morphing into a single, heaving unit on the freeway.
And I thought about the week prior, the shows and parties, a day spent wandering around Disneyland now laden with attractions sponsored by Kodak or Energizer: effectively Corporate America brought to you by Corporate America. And I decided LA was perhaps nothing more than the sum of the expectations you brought with you when you landed. Those with nothing to run from would find nothing materialised before them when they came to a stop in this broad and ill-defined metropolis. Those with nothing to leave behind however stood a far better chance of stumbling on something better than what they came looking for.
And those of us never staying in the first place, the ones who had come for little more than a cursory glance, would take the opportunity to pick their bags up off the curb.
And breathe a sigh of relief.
And get on a flight to anywhere.
