As a life-long Angelena, I've never felt anything but love for this city. Even the six years I spent away from it was for the sake of someone else, and I came back when I realized my home is here. This is a wonderful city; people who don't realize that are simply hide-bound by the idiotic image of it that has been plastered across screens worldwide by Hollywood.

But the movie industry is far from all there is to L.A., and it makes me sad that most people don't realize it. Los Angeles is a city just like any other, filled with people and businesses and things to do. We've got all kinds of cultures, all kinds of food, all kinds of languages being spoken. It's a place full of things to fascinate. The problem is, of course, that it takes a little effort to get past the "La-la-land" stereotype people carry around in their heads, and see just what the place actually is.

I can tell you what it isn't. It's not New York, or Chicago, or St. Louis, or Miami, or Minneapolis, even. But all of those cities are unique, too. Why is it that Los Angeles is excoriated for its style of uniqueness, but all those other places are lauded for it?

Los Angeles is my home. I'm happy here, and the only thing I miss about Northern California is the natural environment - the forests and the easily accessible beaches. Those I really, really miss. But as far as everything else, I'm happy as a clam in mud, and feel no hesitation in proclaiming myself a contented resident.

Judged solely on its own merits, Los Angeles is a lovely city. I prefer my East Coast metropolis, but I've quite enjoyed my handful of visits out there.

I'll admit I've grown rather resentful of it, though, based on the way the entertainment media hypes it as the world's "ideal". Interesting that Keillor's essay begins by talking about self-deprecating Angelenos, because I keep seeing quite the opposite. According to movies and TV, we all want to live there and experience the "California Dream" for ourselves. I find myself thrilled to see a movie or series shot on location elsewhere, instead of the set designers attempting to make LA look like, say, Philadelphia. And my kneejerk reaction to the California boosterism in the media has been to grumble, "C'mon, there are other wonderful cities in America, or have you forgotten?" Yes, I know it's irrational, and much of the LA-centrism in entertainment is based on production economics. I'm just weary of being (unintentionally?) told that Los Angeles is the center of the universe.

I actually saw Randy Newman not a week ago in Los Angeles, and this piece brought tears to my eyes.

I'm sick of having to defend my city to others. It's usually to NY and bay area enthusiasts who have fooled themselves into thinking there is no culture, no hipness to this city. I tell them they have no right to such claims unless they've made it to the other side of the 10. Finding a niche in LA can be difficult for folks. For one, there's the transportation issue (get a bike already). But for those earnest enough to seek their niche, there's an honesty to life here. We acknowledge the race lines are clear cut here. The line between rich and poor is so obvious it's hard to ignore it. We make no pretense to being superior, more arty, or more environmentally or socially just (unlike a certain community that boasts being a nuclear free zone while simultaneously being home to a nuclear weapons facility). Nonetheless, there is activism, and artistry, intelligence, and loads of culture if you're willing to put forth the effort to find it rather than move elsewhere and join a ready-made scene. There is beauty to our arid concrete basin of an LA river, and far more to the city than industry wonks would have you think.

Maybe post-modern snobs would rather live in a climate that fuels their cynicism. That's fine by me.

Keillor does a great disservice to those of us who were actually born here: he says something nice and inevitably encourages even more immigration. We don't need any more residents. We don't want any more mid-westerners (or southerners or new yorkers or ...) packing up the Buick and heading this way. They've been packing up and heading this way for the last 100 or so years and now we've got all we need. Turn around. Go home. Keep despising and saying bad things about LA. Encourage your neighbors and their kids to do the same.

as a native, it sucks to hear that people despise my hometown.

but frankly, we don't need another soul discovering how much they love it here. until we get mass transit figured out, let me just say that all the terrible things you've heard about the city are 100% true. mr. keillor, with all due respect, was attempting to put lipstick on a pig.

it's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live here.

Anonymous posted:

We don't need any more residents. We don't want any more mid-westerners (or southerners or new yorkers or ...) packing up the Buick and heading this way. They've been packing up and heading this way for the last 100 or so years and now we've got all we need. Turn around. Go home.

Yep, you've convinced me. Think I'll run into the open and welcoming arms of the buttes and tetons.

As someone who grew up in not so fancy Hollywood in the 1970s, attended Le Conte Junior High School and Hollywood High School (no glamor there I assure you), moved away, moved back, married in LA, had children in LA and finally escaped, I can vouch for the pure unadulterated awfulness that is Los Angeles.

Yes, LA is wonderful for its ethnic diversity. I do miss that in the Pacific Northwest. That's about it. The sheer human density and traffic are awful beyond belief. The divisions of wealth and poverty are exacerbated to a painful level. The air is disgusting. The movie and media industries infect everything, with their deep superficiality... and if you are not a part of that joyous superficiality... angling or climbing within the biz... you quickly discover that relative to the soul of that city you are a nobody and a nothing. (This is particularly true of "West LA" ... elsewhere, I can't say.)

Do places have souls? I once read a learned treatise that explained that Las Vegas is a completely ordinary American city in every measurable social scientific and political sense. It was a remarkably convincing proof, and if you believe that study you'll believe anything. I believe that the soul of Las Vegas is exactly what you think it is ... one long drunken thieving gambling glut of superficiality and depression, surrounded by failed dreams and service industry jobs. I don't care how many Tibetan mystics and salt of the earth folks you say live their day to day lives in that hell hole.

So also, Los Angeles. It's a fine thing that G. Keillor now travels in circles where he meets the many academic and media stars that call LA home, and that he enjoyed a cruise around its wealthier streets. Of course there are folks who like their lives there. You'll find such folks in every place. But you have to look deeper, explore the dark places, ask about the balance between darkness and light, ask about the poor and dispossessed upon whose backs the high and the mighty build their glorious lives, explore the relationships between all these players on this stage.

You have to ask "where does this place get its water from, and who did it steal that water from"?

You have to ask "what is this place's relationship to the planet earth and to the local environment?"

You have to wonder is this the future, or what the world looks like a moment before the oil runs out and oil based civilization draws to its sudden close?

I miss the ethnic diversity, but LA is, other than that, simply and plainly hell on earth, or at least one of its several portals.