I have to say, I’m taking a big step devoting my blogging to Los Angeles! I won’t lie that I’ve always had a little larger spot in my heart for San Francisco than for LA. After all, I grew up 25 miles from the city, and although Pleasant Hill, my home town, is small-town suburbia, I still consider the Bay Area partly my home. Upon moving to Los Angeles, well, it just didn’t offer the warm, inviting, “Come stroll-through-my-streets dear friend, anytime!” welcome. No, it came across more like the cool kid who’s better than me, warning me that to gain access into this world: you can’t be just anyone, and, you must come bearing a car. Initially, to me, the average Los Angelean seemed just a little less warm, a little more, intense, I like to say, than the average San Franciscan.
Now, before you come running angrily after me, hear me out, I don’t hate LA. In fact, I chose to study in Paris for only one semester solely because I knew I’d want to return to LA to study at UCLA. Yes, from the pristinely beautiful, awesomely historic yet surprisingly progressive, classy and chic city of Paris, to Westwood, Califrornia. And I didn’t hesitate one bit on my flight back from Charles de Gaulle to LAX (until the United airplane food came rolling along on its cart, and I remembered that, shoot, Paris did have good food. Darn.) But, although it lacks the benefit of fresh baguettes and Nutella-almond crêpes at any hour of the day, I love LA. Because, despite drowning in horrible clichés and stereotypes, in images of superficiality and commercialism, LA has an identity that is different, unique, and wonderful. It’s offered to me a cultural and artistic realm, a diversity and forward-thinking mindset, a character, and a remarkable mix of seemingly everything and everyone: something most cities couldn’t match if they tried.
Yet, the focus of so many conversations always seems to steer – attention: bad pun approaching up ahead. Shoot, there’s another one – back to the freeways. And the smog. And the cars. (Maybe we should just eliminate cars from LA, and its problems would be solved! Maybe people would notice what actually occupies the buildings lining these car-filled streets, where the freeways lead us, and if nothing else, how the smog actually makes for some stunning sunsets! (Yes, sad, but true.)Really, it’s impossible not to see that there is more to LA than plastic surgery, Hummers and gyms, freeways and malls. And that there are a heck of a lot more people than just snobs (You want to see snobs? Pick a Paris clothing boutique – that’s right, any of them. Chances are 2 in 3 that you’ll be snuffed like a candle). For the percent of LA that actually does fulfill these clichés, there’s another 99% that offers anything but. What amazing-ness have I discovered in this city? That can come in later posts, when I discover them myself! For now, I just need to express how unfair I feel poor LA is treated!
I think it’s the fault of all these LA-bashers for their skewed perception or their negative experience in LA. And a lot of the time it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy they’re creating. Take college freshmen. They fly on down to UCLA, eager to immerse themselves in the wonderfulness of campus life (I hesitate now to call every last aspect of college life wonderful, but it sure was, September of freshman year!). But immediately, so many scoff the city of LA itself, the very surroundings of their new home. So, what becomes their farthest weekend venture? Oh, Wilshire Boulevard. But no, most likely just Diddy Reese for ice cream, or Monica’s boutique on Broxton for a shopping day. For the real brave souls, a trek down to Peet’s on Lindbrook (only to study though, of course. Little do these students know that some of the most interesting people have come into my little Peet’s for a cup of Joe. If only they turned there nose up (no, not up like that), toward the other people, they’d get a glimpse of the residents of their own neighborhood!) But most of the time, it seems to me, the students don’t. Point is, few look past their immediate surroundings (no, can’t blame the smog this time!) to see, experience, and appreciate this city.
To these naysayers, who call LA snotty, I say, how snotty and closed-minded of you! My new slogan, I’ve decided, shall be “Give LA a chance!” And the newest, hottest, most progressive and never-before-seen activist group on campus? Nicola Plowman’s Fighting for LA group. Because I think it deserves a bit of help, don’t you?
Photo from yesterdayla.com
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