Through sheer optimism and curiosity, I find myself in Los Angeles this week.
It's been 8 years since I was here last and I also find myself pondering the same thing I thought back in 2000: What am I missing?
There seems to always be some sort of secret amongst the residents here as to what the appeal is.
Is it the sunshine and constant 70 degree weather? Can't be. It barely cracked 60 today and the nights are bitterly cold.
Is it the nightlife? Granted it's Superbowl Sunday, but the pickings don't seem to be that great, and I'm in the middle of West Hollywood. (Although in all fairness, I limited myself to places within walking distance, since I like a drink and I don't like waiting for cabs.)
What I reckon it is, is that Los Angeles is for dreamers. I don't mean that as an insult, but just that this is a place where people seem to come to in order to live their fantasy, no matter what steps in reality they have to do in order to acheive it.
As I type this, I'm looking at this week's Frontier Magazine and there are a plethora of adverts for personal trainers promising great results and physique--which they may very well be able to deliver on--but the choice in photos of these trainers suggest that if you want to look like them, then you'll have to become very friendly with a syringe, perhaps even moreso than any barbell.
The magazine itself opens with lavish full-page adverts of plastic surgeons offering liposuction in countless ways and the fantasy that with 4 figures and 0% financing, you too, can be in love with your outside.
Not that New York is better, it just handled in covert, ironic way. The fantasies are promised, but I would hazard a guess that the implication is that everyone would know that you are enhanced by a person who knows how to wield a blade.
In Los Angeles, because you really have to chose to see people on a daily basis, that conceit is hidden, and therefore rendered irrelevant: who cares about the journey as long as you reach your destination?
Indeed, is it a bad thing to leave a corpse that makes mourners consider necrophilia?
1 comment:
for what it's worth, i don't understand the appeal of la either.
your comment about necrophilia reminds me of that old joke... "i used to be into sadomasochism, necrophilia and bestiality, but then one day i just realized i was beating a dead horse."
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