I took my first trip to Los Angeles as an adult in the middle of January. I was living in Chicago at the time, where a “mild” winter meant that the average high was seven degrees. I honestly could have spent the entire time at a strip mall in Encino and still would have been instantly pining to leave Chicago for the West.
While the weather in LA is what got me at first, it was the untamed urban chaos here that really sealed the deal. A year into living in Chicago, I had grown bored with the city’s identity and pride, which is thick as deep-dish pizza. Los Angeles, on the other hand, feels less established, with its untamed jungle of freeways, palm trees, and urban-renewal projects ripe for making it whatever its residents want.
So I packed up and moved a few months after that fateful visit to find more than enough challenges to keep me busy. First up was landing a place to live. I had just three parameters for a neighborhood:
(1) A mile or less from a Trader Joe’s or a Whole Foods
(2) Two blocks or less from a decent coffee shop. Starbucks and “The Bean” would not be considered under any circumstances
(3) Rent for less than $1,000/month, utilities included
Anyone who has ever spent more than a few days in LA knows that this is an absurdly tall order for a city in which a location 30 minutes away by car is considered “close.” Most places in my friends’ neighborhoods of Silver Lake, Echo Park, and Highland Park failed to meet these ridiculous requirements. I eventually settled on a studio in Hollywood, and not in some outskirt south of Sunset or up in the hills. I was at Hollywood and fucking Vine, with stars on the sidewalk and Capitol Records across the street.
I quickly learned the very real source of their disgust. Yes, there is a Trader Joe’s just five minutes by foot down Vine, but those two blocks might as well be through a tunnel of oppression. Who wants to see a transvestite snort a line of coke off a bus-stop bench at 3:00 in the afternoon?
The backlash from my friends was immediate: “You don’t want to live there,” “You don’t understand; it’s so disgusting!” I might as well have announced my decision to tattoo my entire face with the word “YOLO” in size 30-point font and have breast implants put in my kneecaps. But I quickly learned the very real source of their disgust. Yes, there is a Trader Joe’s just five minutes by foot down Vine, but those two blocks might as well be through a tunnel of oppression. Who wants to see a transvestite snort a line of coke off a bus-stop bench at 3:00 in the afternoon? Who wants to be asked on a daily basis, “Which way is the Hollywood sign?” as if it is just around the corner and not located remotely on top of a hill? Who wants to have wristbands and flyers shoved in their face for clubs with charming names like “Beso,” “Project LA,” and “The Colony”?
Yes, there are cafes here too, and a few arguably have some of the best coffee in all of LA. But the “industry” people ruin my iced mocha every time. It’s painful enough to overhear things like “I’m really feeling this script” or “Well, I work at the Apple Store in the Grove, but my passion is comedy.” The other patrons assume I’m not there for some caffeine and free Wi-Fi but instead want to partake in their cultish networking. “I overheard you talking about booking a show at a club,” I was told by a complete stranger as an unwanted business card was placed in front of me. “You know, I’m a musician, and we really need a manager.” Why, yes, thanks for coming up! So your sound is a mix between Daft Punk and Jason Mraz? It’s pop, but also has hints of R&B, country, and hip-hop? If I’m cringing, it’s because the barista put too much cream in my $8 iced mocha.
But what I despise more than anything are those stupid stars on the sidewalk. Tourists, who have about as much capacity for multitasking as a herd of cattle, never fail to interrupt my commute on foot. They constantly stop, point, and even get on the filthy ground to pose for photos. The same ground where, the night before, I saw a valley girl vomit, her girlfriend standing beside her clutching her stilettos in support like a valiant solider beside his wounded comrade. And no, screaming at Shakria’s star, “Mira, ayeee Shakira!” will not make the Latin pop princess miraculously appear, as her star is not one of those transportation devices from Star Trek.
Tourists constantly stop, point, and even get on the filthy ground to pose for photos. The same ground where, the night before, I saw a valley girl vomit, her girlfriend standing beside her clutching her stilettos in support like a valiant solider beside his wounded comrade.
I think the idiot who decided that a sidewalk should also be a monument to the stars could be a strong contender for the Darwin Awards. Or perhaps he or she never thought that people would actually ever walk in Hollywood. Sidewalks are for getting places, and statues are for observing – typically in an area with space for lines, concessions, bathrooms, and photo ops. Why do we need to combine the two? If that logic made any sense, the Eiffel Tower would double as an oil rig; or the Statue of Liberty would also be a waste incinerator, and the flame in Lady Liberty’s hand would be burning bright with the remains of New York City’s garbage.
And yet, a little over a year later, I’m still here in Hollyhell. Am I some sort of masochist? Not entirely. I can try to convince myself that I’ve stayed for the same reasons I chose this neighborhood in the first place – convenience and affordability. But I’d be lying. Even with all its insufferable qualities, Hollywood has grown on me.
Outsiders often criticize LA for lacking history, but my neighborhood is the whole reason why I moved to LA – the entertainment industry. Joe Gillis was “living in an apartment above Franklin and Ivar” on my street in the classic film Sunset Boulevard. The same building, I’m told by a neighbor, once housed the Black Dahlia before her gruesome murder. The apartment has no plaque to mark its significance and is as unkempt as the other 1920s Spanish-style apartments that line my block.
Being from New Orleans, I’ve always found solace in old burial grounds, having grown up behind one dating back to the Civil War. Hollywood Forever is one of the finest cemeteries I’ve experienced, with its grandiose tombs with varying architectural references, free-roaming peacocks, and impressive lake.
Then there’s the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. For most Angelinos, our neighborhood Farmers’ Markets are extensions of our identities, with those of Silverlake and DTLA being the longstanding kings of the scene. Hollywood’s is unquestionably the most haggard, from the obese Rasta man who calls out exclusively to women shoppers, “Try my lotions!” to the burnt-out fruit guy who insists, “Get into apples, man – it’s gonna be raaddd.” But these characters add comedic relief to the otherwise pretentious experience of shopping for grass fed Bison. It’s here that I have time to interact with others stuck in this purgatory of a neighborhood – the others who, like me, have made a housing choice that few in LA would admit to.
LA is often charged with lacking green space, another area Hollywood manages to succeed in against all odds. And I’m not referring to the exhaustingly scene-y Runyon Canyon, swarming with French Bulldogs and yogis. Being from New Orleans, I’ve always found solace in old burial grounds, having grown up behind one dating back to the Civil War. Hollywood Forever is one of the finest cemeteries I’ve experienced, with its grandiose tombs with varying architectural references, free-roaming peacocks, and impressive lake. Walking among those whose careers have literally hit the dust is a surreal moment of David Lynchian proportions. And it doesn’t hurt that the park boasts Cinespia either.
It may not be pretty on the outside, and it’s certainly not going to be my home in LA forever. But for now, Hollywood is a good place to be when “things are tough at the moment,” as Gillis put it in Sunset Boulevard. He later went on to a mansion in the Hollywood Hills; I’ll settle for a bungalow in Los Feliz. There’s also something to be said for being surrounded by the extremes of success. It keeps one grounded, quite literally in the sense of the Walk of Fame. One assumes a star is awarded by some prestigious organization based on merit. The reality? The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce sells them at $30,000 a pop.
So here we have it, the American Dream, Hollywood-style – unrated and uncut. Viewer discretion is advised. This is what has drawn people to LA for so many years, myself included.
Why is The Bold Italic writing about LA? More here.