Dust and donuts of LA. Concrete and white teeth--too many lights and painted murals of film stars of long ago. Advertisements of horse races, new cars, weight loss, coffee drinks, new cars, new films, new banks, new cars. Music and creativity. Lots of noise. Things happen here. Culture moving twisting thriving crying too much plastic and beautiful bodies and things happen here.
I went to visit a friend yesterday in LA, The Actress, who has one singular passion of acting and performing. We met in college when we worked at Starbucks together for too many years, slaving away at espresso shots and stolen pastries. She graduated a year and a half ago and moved to LA immediately. I graduated in May, and as I've started to feel like I'm free-falling into ordinary not-good-enough life I thought that I would drive out and visit her and hope that her focused nature might inspire my next path.
I showed up at her place, which really shocked me in a good way. Last time I saw her she was living on a couch in an apartment complex of drug dealers and tranny hookers. Her room was shared with a messy cool girl who owned a shitting bunny and dated a guy named Iago. The Actress's new place is much more Ross-plus-antique-shops, with rustic china, lots of muted reds and purples, little metal bird picture frames, and French inspired furniture.
We briefly chatted while making dinner plans. She's dating a musician for right now and is hoping this pilot she's has a part in gets picked up. Her friend is writing the script and it's the most promising thing she's read in awhile, including the musical about Hurricane Katrina she might be playing in. I told her about being in transition in my life of careers and place. She asked about my boyfriend and if I think we're going get married. I can realistically say that there is an equal chance we'll end up together and in love and happy and solid, but there is also a chance I'll move to Oregon and he won't follow me there and will always still in the 4/20 industry. On that note, we continued on.
We took the metro which has floor tiles the color of Ronald McDonald and the ceiling is full of dark metal film reels. Everyone is on the metro, and they're all someone else. There's the waiter about to start a shift, the security guard off duty, the teenager with the puff of nesty grayish hair, the quiet Mexican man, the overweight mom, and us in Uggs boots and tennis shoes in cold plastic seats filled with scratches of graffiti.
We emerged to the surface of Hollywood. Oh, Hollywood. The billowing lights, the rotten dust, the shops filled with Marilyn Monroe plates and cups and fake Oscars, the old hotels once grand but still inspire an awe of nostalgia, and the faded lingerie on naked breasted mannequins around the corner from dark bars filled with handsome bartenders and low-life drunks.
Sensory overload
Sensory overload
Of junk and beauty.
We had dinner at a crêpes place in a shopping center that looked a lot like Vegas with water jetting out of the lit ground and large fake-stone gladiators around the area. She's a vegetarian now so we split an egg cheese crêpes and a nutella crêpes for dessert.
We walked around the city and I started spouting out career ideas trying to get some approval. Instead she was honest just like I need. If I start my online magazine what will it be about? How much money will I actually make if I freelance articles? I felt small. That's the thing about me: I'm not delusional. I know I'm not the best or brightest and there thousands of others who are doing what I want to do, only better. I'm trying to be realistic about my strategy of making it into the business by having a solid resume and a positive creative demeanor. Maybe I need to be more delusional.
There is always something to do in LA and we ended up at a $5 improv show which featured lame jokes about masturbating dogs and micromanaging wives at a paint store. Granted there were a few laughs here and there about a cave filled with gold and bats that announced themselves as they flew around, but overall it was rather painful. Not to mention cringe-worthy when one of the comediennes announced that her parents and her pastor was in the audience. That comedienne was the one who played the monkey they stun gunned to death in the zoo sketch.
We walked out when it was finished and The Actress apologized a few times about how boring the show was because she's a good host to her town, but I maintained that it was rather poetic to see an awful improve show in the heart of LA on a Wednesday night--aside from the fact that our tap water tasted like smogged up pipes
Back to the metro and plans to rent a movie with some candy. We ended up at her place where we got ready for bed a cup of tea.
We watched Bridemaids on her laptop while sharing a bag of sour gummy worms and a few handfuls of peanut butter pretzels. She fell asleep early and as always I couldn't sleep very well, startling at every noise thinking we were being broken into.
I woke up before she did and spent the morning writing about Los Angeles and the tasks I need to do and should do in the next week to improve my lost-ness. Copy writing? Freelancing? Computer classes? I couldn't help but admire the LA-ness of her place. The rotting banana peel next to the melted pumpkin candles that faced away from the drinking glass filled with pens and highlighters, with a wayward bobby pin underneath the boxes and boxes of tea. She has a calendar full of audition dates and travel dates, and there I was on her calendar of being in town.
She woke up and we made plans for breakfast/brunch.
We walked into the bagel/lunch shop and I asked her if she ever misses working at Starbucks. She said, "I don't really miss things. When I'm done, I'm done with it." In a way this is totally LA--forward forward forward, only looking back if it's retro and trendy. And in some ways I like the attitude. But I do miss things, and relationships don't last unless you remember them. I will remember you.
We walked back from breakfast past a metal scrap shop and a pile of free mulch, and a guy wearing a Michal Jackson Beat It jacket as well as some students on bikes. I guess I understand why writers and musicians take so well to this city--there is a wild life of random at every street corner where each person is trying to be someone else, and each corner feels like somewhere else. Lights like Vegas, leather hipsters like San Francisco, a few open spaces with bright colors like Arizona, the grime of New York.
There is a creativity here. A creativity of culture and what's entertainment and what's interesting. There is a hunger for saying something and doing things worth talking about here. But it is a different sort of activism, which has hollow meaning aside from self-importance.
When I go visit old friends I feel like I'm looking into crystal ball to get new insight or advice, and especially when visiting friends in new places I feel eager to learn their secrets or perspective. This time I felt like I looked into a large mirror and I'm not happy with my reflection. I feel even more lost, even more like I'm drowning. And I know that her prevailing impression of me until the next time is that I am lost and failing. I hate LA.
And so I packed my things, hugged her, and turned on my GPS for home. A interesting trip. Not quite what I was hoping for. Ready to be back in San Diego and scrub off the faded bar stamp on my wrist.
And so I went
With unwashed hair, aviator sunglasses, and black tank top.
Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory blasting through the speakers. Rolled down the window.
And got the fuck out of LA.
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