I'm tired of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is a great place, for a lot of reasons. It’s an easy place to make a living. It was an easy place to raise children, I’ll say that. The schools are nice and handy; no weather, so it was easy to get around; kids play outside all year, which is good for them and keeps them out of your hair too. My children are grown, though, and I just got tired of L.A.
People in L.A. can be a little hard to take. Everyone is prosperous, but no one is satisfied. Everyone wants a nicer car, a bigger house, a lot of wanting going on. A lot of competition too, see what kind of car the other guy has. And everyone thinks that they’re cool, when did everybody get cool all of a sudden? Used to be you had to work for that, not just buy a BMW and a pair of sunglasses.
The movie and art communities are way beyond pretentious, way out into some new circle of hell somewhere. And most of them are just borderline-barbarians from Kansas. It’s all about money. If you can pay, you play; and if you can play, you get paid. Art has nothing to do with it.
The L.A. Hispanics, god bless them, I love them, but they’re into some weird Aztlan shit these days, as in “this place is ours.” Like Mexicans would have anyplace worth living if it weren’t for California, the United State of California. Wherever I walk I get a supremely cold shoulder from any Hispanics that are walking by. I like to smile at kids on the street, nothing creepy, just a little smile, now Hispanics turn their kids away from me like I was poison, and the faces of the adults harden and stare off in another direction very self-consciously, like I stole their birthright. I’m sorry, I’m not comfortable with that. I don’t like to be lumped into being “white,” that’s the kind of thing that gets innocent people hung from lamp-posts. And nobody stole anything that wasn’t up for grabs, so get over it.
The food is good, but most of the good stuff is too heavy for an old man to eat anyway. So the best of it is Thai food and I get that in spades, for a fraction of the cost.
So I’m done, for now anyway. See you all again, maybe.
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2 comments:
Don't be down on LA. LA is just the world city, 20 minutes into the future. It is what every city in the US has become, or is in the process of becoming, and what other 2 and 3rd world cities aspire to be.
30 years ago the kid that was me thought LA was the place to be. So did you. Problem is, it is not a good place for the old, like NY was...it's no country for old men all right. And Fred my friend, that's what we've become. Men without countries.
-Philip Nolan
Thirty years ago it was ok. Industry people were always a pain in the ass, condescending and pretentious. But wherever you went, you could park right outside. There were good rock and roll clubs and lots of re-run movie houses, good drugs. All in all, I think it worked out ok.
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