OUT ON THE LEFT COAST.

                                                                    

Pappy Rant # 589 and a half; I had a comfortable flight home which was a surprise as my trip out to the coast was pure torture. I don't like flying anymore. it's not the physical action of flying I object to. It's the state of commercial flight that I find annoying but I'm getting old and grumpy I guess. It used to be fun back in the day when they flew wide bodies to the coast and most of them were half full and the food was substantial and complimentary. It's more like taking the bus now The planes are smaller and they seem to be always completely full. I thought about upgrading because I had sufficient funds and had no objection to spending it on a little luxury and comfort and leg room but 1^st class was full. It wasn't too bad though. I was tired and I got some sleep.

After 6 years living in Vermont I went back to LA for a two week visit. Even though I was born elsewhere I usually identify Los Angeles as my hometown. I've lived in other cities in my life but it was LA where I lived for most of my years. I schooled there and careered, I grew there and produced what my life had to produced through my 30's, my 40's and my 50's. I don't regret one minute living there. I loved it.

People either love LA or hate it. Even though I lived there as long as I did, living in rural New England for 6 years, gave me a cultural shock. It helped that the temperature was soaring up in the 80's and 90's. After taking one of the last flights out BDL as a snowstorm was moving in and about to bare down on New England here I am standing outside my hosts house in shorts and flip flops on a cul de sac in Glendora listening to lawn sprinklers and birdies chirping. Southern California with it's suburban quality, it's neat landscaped yards with citrus trees laden with their fruit, the air filled with the scent of orange blossom before me in warm golden winter sun while oblivious of the rest of the country suffering cruel and unforgiving winter. I felt far away from where I embarked. Winters in Southern California are the best.

People either love it or hate it. It's not like San Francisco at all. San Franciscans traditionally hate Los Angeles but Angelinan's are just too busy to hate them back and besides, people in LA like a good weekend getaway. But hell! I felt like a country hick in LA. All this style and fashion, and cars and music and variety all moving 80 miles an hour down a ten lane freeway. I had to have a cigarette and I was worried about my heart because I was smoking too much and everything was moving so bloody fast, and it was so hot and dry from Santa Anna conditions that when offered cold water, cold beer, cold soda I gratefully accepted. After about 4 days a friend offered me his late brothers car. I was once roommates with this late brother and I knew something about this guy and his style. And I was not disappointed. I had a flat black torqued up 18 year old Honda civic with a 5 speed stick for the rest of my visit which made it nice for me because all the people I wanted to visit were spread out by miles and miles of megalopolis in 2 counties. It didn't take too long to get back into the So Cal mode and hull ass down the freeway, sun roof opened, sucking on a an Arrowhead water bottle and playing rock and roll on the radio. I had a neat old baseball cap from some Vermont stock car team and wearing my murder one wraparound shades..damn!..I was back!

Now LA has troubles, the traffic is not funny at all. When not going 80 you're going 15 if you're moving at all which is about half the time. And as it sits on the Pacific rim and globalizes it is being converged on by the world so they are building enormous apartment complexes to house thousands of people in one building, bringing denseness to an already densely populated situation. LA has no respect for its past and tears down it's history. Something built in 1948 and still standing is considered historical. It is a city that changes with the wind. It's rich and colorful history is getting obliterated to make way for it's global 21^st century debut. The Los Angeles of Chandler, Bukowski and Diddion is almost unrecognizable. The LA I saw when I first moved there in 1986 is fading fast too.

But LA has something going for it, it's cool. Coolest major city in the USA. It's takes the pulse of our nation and it just seems as if when you're there and looking at this poorly planned mishmash of glassy skyscrapers, suburban tree lined streets, junked up boulevards with gas stations, liquor stores, auto repair shops, Mexican restaurants, Chinese acupuncture clinics, 5 star eateries, Thai fast food, crack whore motels, luxury hotels and baseball diamonds one feels like they're at the center of everything. If I were 19 or 20 and wanting live in a big city with a lot going on in arts and music and education, I'd be there again. It offers a reasonable sticker price (for California) and a quality of life. They are in the process of building a practical transit system (they tore the old one up in the 50's and built the freeways) and in 10 years or so one will be able to travel great distances on light rail and train.

As for me? I loved it. It takes a certain character to love LA. People dismiss it as superficial and glitter with false people and yes it does have that element. But if one looks hard enough one sees through the lines and discovers that it really is a city of unexpected secrets and intellectual prosperity. And I was heartened just how many old friends wanted my time, I thought they'd forget me by now but no!  Hell they even named a surf break after me!

 But I was happy because I knew I was going back to Vermont where there are 60 people per square mile, the water is clean and delicious, the spring is hard at the door and it will soon to be green and the fishing holes will have trout and bass, where life is as simple as a summer afternoon napping under a willow tree.   I don't have to drive morning congestion from the beach to be in Washington Heights at 9 and then to Burbank for lunch at 12:30 and battle freeways to Culver City for a 3 O Clock and battle afternoon traffic home again. It sure was fun for 2 weeks though.

It's colder than Hades here in Vermont today. Every place has it's minuses I guess. But I went from flipflops and shorts to overcoats in a day, flying surprisingly comfortable on USAIR back to my uncluttered and lazy life up in my Green Mountains, you know, that place where Ben & Jerry's comes from. And I'm good with that.

Thank you patient readers.