It's strange really, all I want to do is be in California, and yet
it's looking more and more like Road Trip to East New York -
after a half hour on the Rockaway Boulevard elevated platform
for a Howard Beach shuttle that isn't coming, finding myself
checking time obsessively -- I wonder, will I be missing the
flight or not. Of course, in two days, I'll be buying day old copies
of the Post, at that little newsstand on Hollywood Boulevard,
searching for news from home.

It's intrigued me near forever that everything written on the topic
of life in Los Angeles is almost invariably critical - at the very
least, snide, when written by the outsider. Travel writers from
big city newspapers like to make little digs at the shallow nature
of Southern Californians, and yet they cannot help themselves
but gush over which starlet of the moment they ran into at
Sky Bar. Publications like the Los Angeles Times seem to be
apologizing to the world at large for the city in which they live,
on a daily basis almost - 14 million people living here, and
not a one actually enjoys it? You'd think, if you listened to
the media.

One can settle for the Los Angeles of celebrity - the Sunset
Strip, movie premieres, Spago and the Malibu Country Mart,
or one can embrace the other Los Angeles, the real Los Angeles
-- mountaintop vistas, unsung state beaches, rich ethnic flavors,
the color and grit of Hollywood Boulevard. For what purpose do
these 14,000,000 Southern Californians live, if not only to comprise
one of this country's largest and most dynamic cities? To be sure,
there are aspects of Southern California that absolutely have my
stomach in knots - but as with every city, there will always be
points of irritation, even to the most bullish advocate.

So I return to the Los Angeles I fell in love with over the winter,
back to the dowdy Hollywood motel in a neighborhood I'd live
in - a three minute drive to the little country store in the canyon
(valet parking? no thanks) where one can buy Nat Shermans
cheaper than at home, what with cigarette prices these days.
These are simple things, but then again, as life wears on, the
simpler the better, I say.

Once you've seen the Rockies, wandered the Mojave and strolled
the sands of Zuma Beach at sunset, it's hard to be impressed by
anything natural east of the Mississippi. Not that we don't have
stunning natural beauty - but on what scale? Coney Island has it's
charm, and while I absolutely celebrate a July road trip through the
Illinois prairie, guzzling Mountain Dew, smoking cheap cigarettes
and blasting my favorite '80's metal record, it's an entirely different
experience than say, a brisk hike through Hollywood's Runyon
Canyon before that first shot of mango juice (w/x-tra echinacea, plz).

Be serious, Prospect Park may be idyllic, but when was the last
time a trip to the Sheep Meadow made your spine tingle?

As a result, I find myself pledging allegiance to both sides of this
great country for two entirely different reasons - and while neither
have exclusive holds on their charms, I rejoice at the natural wonders
of the west, and in the east, what man hath wrought. It seems
sensible, but those coast-to-coast flights tend to get time-consuming.
Oh, for a magic carpet.

Red rock and blue water are flung as far as the eye can see, desert
badlands seem romantic from above. We are now a mere hour from
our destination -- below is what looks a lot like the Grand Canyon -
I've still to make it there, and from the looks of it, I should probably
do so soon.

----

Right away, things are different - it's the same Los Angeles, but
somehow, my perception has changed. I knew it -- I was crazy to
love this place, where the streets have romantic sounding names
like La Cienega, La Tijera, La Brea, names that you repeat internally,
over and over again, like some catchy little pop jingle – but what was
it that made me think I was smarter than the rest? A layer of smog
hangs over the city, the weather, a pleasant 60, seems to teeter
on some cliff lying somewhere between spring and summer, some
non-existent season.

I ponder all this in traffic, -- not terribly heavy at 6:00pm -- traffic in
this town seems no better or worse than Chicago. At least, the view
here is inspiring, when you can see through the pollution. The view -- 
one thing that always saves the most angst-filled morning in traffic
from being unbearable - perhaps this is a passing infatuation, but
here in the West, everything is so visual - you are in Burbank, and
can see the north, south and western mountains above the San
Fernando Valley, and get a feel for distances. The landscape
continually aids me in my travels - heading south on the 5
from Bakersfield, I can see the mountains rising up from the
valley floor, and know how far I am from my destination.

How can I not love a place so bizarre, where you can live your
life as if on a movie set, where every day, strange happenings
and horrible violence take place all around you – it all has very
little to do with you, as you pad around your garden watering the
shrubbery -- your own piece of the dream, right in the middle of
the madness, so beautifully weird.