MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

The View From Within

"So it's 3am I'm out walking again
I'm just a spot on the sidewalk in the city of Sin...
Still in Hollywood...I thought I'd be out of here by now."

-Johnette Napolitano, "Still in Hollywood" - Concrete Blonde

Last October I was on an Air France flight coming back home to Los Angeles from a long, long, but very lovely and tiring European trip. The trip was glorious but at times it felt as if we were on the Bataan Death March, moving from royal residence to royal residence (even including royal kitchens!) in England, marching from museum to museum to monument to monument in Paris, flying to Italy to bury ourselves in the ancient ruins of Rome, the Eternal City, driving north to breathe in the bright blue skies of Tuscany and revel in the Renaissance miracles of Florence.

After 14 hours of flying (one flight from Florence to Paris, a trip through the airport in Paris which must have riveled one of Dante's circles of Hell and 12 1/2 hours on Air France), I was beyond tired and just wanted to go home and suddenly home was beneath me, in all its brown, flat, unremarkable glory. Where were we? Bakersfield? The only hint our French pilot gave us as to our position was when we flew over Las Vegas – Babylon revisited in a desert landscape so barren it was like looking at a toy town that some little boy had arranged in the dirt.

We flew over a high school football field; it was in Crenshaw, a somewhat seedier and dangerous city in Los Angeles, but I was so happy to see it because it meant I was getting closer to the ground, closer to this place I call home. I turned to my mother and said, “I never thought I’d be so happy to see the word Crenshaw.” I've never even been to Crenshaw.

Our plane was full of French tourists, all of whom seemingly knew each other.
I think they were on a tour. And just a note: Americans are NOT the only loud,
obnoxious tourists in the world. These French had taken
over the entire plane as if they were having a private
party. Yelling, screaming, laughing, blocking the aisles
and basically driving me nuts the entire time. But I digress.

As we flew into Los Angeles, I stared down at the spider web of freeways (the brutal crush of almost constant rush hour traffic just beginning) and wondered what these increasingly excited Frenchmen and women thought of the concrete jungle below them. There was no lush green landscape; no English countryside, no Tuscan fields of sunflowers, no Arc d’ Triumph, no Eiffel Tower. There was Inglewood and Compton and Crenshaw. There were tall, bland glass and steel buildings, hundreds of miles of freeways and sidewalks; dirty streets and the neon glow of the ever- present fast food franchises. It was ugly. I mean really ugly. I tried to imagine what these people were thinking as they looked down at their destination. I wondered where they were going to go. Disneyland? Universal Studios? Hollywood Boulevard? Would they step into Gary Cooper’s shoes at Mann’s Chinese Theatre? Would they get their picture taken with a Star Wars storm trooper? Would they marvel at the freakish and desperate nature of Hollywood Boulevard itself? Would digital cameras click click click at the Hollywood sign, nestled comfortably in the brown mountains above, one of the few large ‘ monuments’ Los Angeles can claim as its own. A monument to fame, glory, greatness, fantasy, mystery. A monument to Tinseltown. Would they go to the Pacific Ocean, walk the pier at Santa Monica? Would they ride the Ferris wheel and stare down at the boardwalk? Would they go to Rodeo Drive and have some strange sense of déjà vu as they recalled their own streets, the Rue Montaigne, and Champs d’Elysees, that held the same high-priced stores?

For a brief moment, I felt embarrassed. I felt I had just come from a continent of historical riches, back to the colonies – worse yet – back to the wild, wild west where these culture and history- rich people were going to deplane, and suddenly become horrified that they’d ever wanted to come to this barren, desolate place with such a brief, somewhat violent history, and so few great artistic achievements.

And then…and then…I had a thought….perhaps it was nostalgia, or my intense longing to just be home. Home, this place I was born and raised and loved and hated and hated and hated. And yet how I longed to be back on the terra firma of the City of Angels. It was then I realized sadly, that these tourists would indeed probably do all of the touristy things one does in Los Angeles….just as we’d marched down the Champs d’ Elysees and the Rue Montaigne.

This city is my home, and it will always be my home. There is normalcy here, normalcy these tourists will no doubt never see. I grew up in an upper-middle class beautiful suburb that seemed as regular and normal as any city in the country. We were children who played in the streets at night with other children; in the summer, water balloon fights and running throught the sprinklers....in the autumn, football, baseball. We rode our skateboards during the '70's and roller-skated on neighbours' driveways. We did cartwheels on our lawn, and somersaults and our parents called us in at night for dinner, where we all sat together and ate and talked about the day. We went to school; sometimes we walked home from school and stopped to get a soda. We were in plays and recitals, we took piano lessons and ballet and softball. I took oil painting and tap dancing and mum was our chauffer. We ate snowcones in elementary school and went to football games in high school. We had crushes on guys that never knew we existed. We went to movies and had sleepovers and I got my license at 16. Whatever normal is, we were just like any other kids I think, in any other suburb in the country. We just lived in an infamous place called Los Angeles. People here walk their dogs, pick up their newspapers in the morning, and don't spend all day lying by a David Hockey- styled pool with a fruity drink in one hand and Variety in the other.

Los Angeles. The City of Angels. A funny name that for a place that can so often feel like Hell on earth. As I wondered about those who’d never been here, I wondered what they saw. I would never be able to see this city with new eyes. I will never be able to see this place as others who've never been here do. For some reason that bothers me. I want to see it like a stranger. I've never be a stranger here, and yet still feel like I am, in so many inexplicable ways. The dichotomy of my love-hate relationship with the city began in college, when I was released from the confines of the beautiful suburb I’d grown up in. I was free then, to explore every street, every city, and every seedy and beautiful spot that caught my eye. And I did. I met Los Angeles in all its glory and all its nastiness and I fell in love - or perhaps I became addicted to it; the angels caught me, cursed me, showing me Heaven and Hell in one place, a place I would love and hate with the intensity of a mad, crazy love affair. My friends and I scoured every nook and cranny of the cities around us - Malibu, Santa Monica, Brentwood, Westwood, Beverly Hills, Venice, Marina del Rey, downtown Los Angeles.

The French tourists would probably not find much beauty here. Flying over the city I’d have to agree Los Angeles is really not beautiful; at least not from 10,000 feet. The highly talented and lauded film director Michael Mann Miami Vice, Heat, Collateral) has managed to make this city look like a glowing, radiant gem in his movies, especially Heat, and when I watch them, I marvel at the magic of cinematography. How beautiful the black velvet night looks in downtown Los Angeles. How gorgeous the twinkling lights of the valley. Is it really there? Or is it just an illusion?

Michael Mann and cinematography notwithstanding, I have sped over the 405 past midnight, cresting over the hill from the Westside to the valley, and I’ve seen the glittering lights in front of me, spread out like a million stars fallen to earth. It is no movie, no film, and no illusion. The sparkling desert lies before me, the sky the blackest blue and starless; the city itself giving off too much light to reveal any celestial objects above. It’s fine though, because it truly does look like Heaven and it seems to go on forever, even though in reality, they are just cities, one after another, Burbank, Studio City, Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks, Encino, Chatsworth, Granada Hills, Northridge, Reseda; valley cities that are mostly ugly, some rich, some middle class and some wretchedly poor, and most looking more like the other side of Hell at high noon rather than Heaven at midnight.

The beauty of Los Angeles is often found while driving; this is a city that could not exist without cars; car culture rules here, we live in our cars, for our cars and they are the vehicles that often reveal the hidden loveliness of this seemingly desolate place. The best drives here are also the most dangerous: Pacific Coast Highway. Sunset Boulevard from Hollywood straight down to the ocean. Topanga Canyon. Malibu Canyon.

I have driven down Wilshire Boulevard, leaving the drug-filled nightmare of MacArthur Park downtown, heading straight to the end of the line where the cliffs take me down to the Pacific Ocean and Pacific Coast Highway, where the ocean air is clean and cold and the water even icier. I have run the beaches of Malibu at night; I have lain on cold sand and stared at cobalt skies, half-drunk with youth, liquor, laughter. I rushed into the black, cold waters, laughing, screaming, one of the handful of times I was high on miss maryjane. I have looked up at the full moon; I have walked the empty streets of Santa Monica at 3am, the shops full of shadows and the sidewalks full of ghosts. I have walked Melrose Avenue more times than I can remember, shopping, people watching, young and dumb and convinced that velvet jacket from Retail Slut was the One, the one thing that would make me look oh so incredibly cool.

I’ve driven the asphalt maze that is downtown Los Angeles; if there is a ‘city’ anywhere in this place, this would be it, although I am convinced, after living here 39 years, that the buildings and street signs switch themselves around at night for I have never gone downtown without getting lost. Never! I used to go to the symphony almost weekly with my friend Dawn many yers ago to see my favourite conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and hear my favourite classical music, and hell if we didn't get lost every. single. time. We even lost our car in the parking structure of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (this was years before the Philharmonic moved to the hideous Gehry-styled tin can of the Walt Disney Hall). God we laughed that night. I don't know why it was so funny. I thought we'd grow old in that structure until some kind man with one of those little carts came around and drove us at high speeds around every level of the garage until we found Dawn's car. Naturally, the minute we exited the parking lot, we turned the wrong way and started going towards some really, really scary areas of downtown.

I remember my father taking me with him to work in downtown one day when I was a child; oh all those years ago, for a little girl, the buildings were like great, magical monsters leering down at me. It was a claustrophobic jungle of concrete and glass and for all I knew it was a real city – New York, Chicago, San Francisco. It was beautiful. I was small; it was huge and lovely, busy and manic and the energy inspired me, even then. It’s not New York by far, or even San Francisco, but it’s the downtown the angels gave us. It has skyscrapers and hotels and condos and artist's lofts and banks and history and businessmen and women bustling about; it has a symphony and restaurants and art museums and shops and jewelry marts where gold glitters for blocks on end. It has a fashion district and Skid Row and drunks and homeless people – more homeless people than you’d ever want to see. It has old, abandoned theatres, because truly, we are a city that does not value history, and how that breaks my heart. We tear down Hollywood’s Golden years for a parking lot or a Jack in the Box. We don’t look back; commerce and the almighty dollar rules this land. I can’t stop looking back. It has a train station that has not been abandoned; one of the few places in Los Angeles where history remains. Union Station is a magnificent piece of architecture that has been in so many movies, most notably for me, my favourite film of all time, Blade Runner.

Outside our metal cages that speed along the highways, the beauty of the city is soft, and sweet and reveals itself in small, seemingly inconsequential ways.

I used to walk the still, quiet sidewalks of Brentwood at dusk in the summer, breathing in the sweet jasmine, the warm air cooling quickly as I passed houses and apartments, glowing with golden interiors. The warm summer day dying, lights flickering on, cats sitting in windowsills to catch the dying of the day. The occasional aroma of dinner would float past me as I caught myself staring into these houses and apartments. I gazed at living rooms, and paintings and people walking from room to room and I wondered, God I wondered. Who are they? What are they thinking? What do they do? What do they wish for, in their deepest heart of hearts? What are they longing for? Are they living lives of quiet desperation? Are they content in their warm little golden palaces? The breeze shifted the leaves in the trees and the sun disappeared into a soft glowing pink and orange…until finally gunmetal grey skies took over and the day was done.

I’ve run down Hollywood Boulevard at one a.m, 20 years old and full of the grandest of all illusions; screaming with laughter, the street so beautiful as I raced past neon lights and bars and closed souvenir shops, stars literally under my feet as my youth fled over history and into a glorious, unknown future. Everything was beautiful, when I didn’t know what lay before me.

Los Angeles is dotted with palm trees swaying in lonely colonnades, night falling fast at the Hollywood Bowl as fireworks explode forever above us, 80 degrees in December, the Hollywood Christmas Parade on the Sunday after Thanksgiving…Santa Claus always appearing, no matter the odd heat wave. Winter is ours on television; we hang icicle lights in lieu of snow- the illusion of a season that will never be bestowed upon this landscape. It does not matter. We live in the land of make-believe and we do so with grandeur and glory.

Ah yes, there is great beauty here, in quiet moments on Ocean Avenue as the burnt sienna sun slides silently into the sea, in silent nights on empty streets… and even though you know those palm trees are full of rats you can’t help but marvel at their beauty; no they do not possess the grace of the Ionic column, or the elegance of a lithe Corinthian, but they are ours, they are our landmarks, they line the streets with dignity and pride and they seem magical as they sway gently back and forth.

There is no Arc d’ Triumph, but there is the Happiest Place on Earth, a few miles outside the boundaries of Los Angeles. There is no Eiffel Tower, but there is the desert and the sea and the mountains all in one place. The flora and fauna that call this place home…most are not native to this city, yet there were brought here and they flourished, they grew, they learned to put roots down in a wild and hard place, like so many of this city's residents. They are strong and fierce and like the settlers who built this place, they have made it home.

There is no Tuscan sun, but there is the Sunset Boulevard drive, long and winding through Hollywood and Beverly Hills, through Bel Air down to the Pacific where the waves crash ceaselessly against the sand. There are grand hotels, and grander homes, there is the beauty of the azure sea and the sparkling white caps that carry sailboats across a pointillist landscape.

There are memories that are not yours and yet you have them; there are lives that were lived, not yours, but you feel them, there are streets you have never been on but you know them as if you lived on them forever. This is a fantasyland, a magical mystery tour of Heaven and Hell and once you’ve lived under the city’s spell you will never be the same again.

I am defeated in the knowledge that no stranger to this place will ever feel what I feel; that they will never see this place as I do. At 10,000 feet, I stare at an ugly landscape. I once described Los Angeles as death disguised as geography. But at ground zero, I am home, and the beauty reveals itself to me in bits and pieces, here and there, perhaps only beauty I can see. But my God, it is so beautiful, this view from within.

Photo: The City of Angels