Love and Hate in Los Angeles

Sometimes it's easy to hate Los Angeles.

There are too many idiots driving SUVs with off-road capability. This is all well and good except that these people consider driving next to a bus on Wilshire Blvd a major car maneuvering event.

When it rains everyone decides to crash into everybody else. I mean, the last rainstorm, we had about 280 car crashes in TWELVE hours. As I listen to rain falling outside on this stormy night, I know that somebody is crazily tail-gaiting some slow but safe driver. And then crazy'll rear-end the safe driver and send both their insurance rates through the roof.

Traffic and cars. So cliche, right? Well here's another one for you: We're the porn capital of the world.

If you find yourself wondering why Blu-ray won over HD-DVD, well wonder no more! The porn industry decided a year ago that they were only doing Blu-ray, the same way they chose VHS over higher-quality BETA years ago. Mmm hmm.

And you thought VHS got chosen because it had less letters than BETA. Sorry to disillusion you.

It goes without saying that we have bad schools. Of course, if you live in any city in this country, chances are the public schools aren't that great. But did you know that the Los Angeles Unified School District spent millions for a new payroll system that's SO messed up that in October my son's teacher got a paycheck in the amount of...drum roll please...$10 whole dollars!

Our mayor? Well, last fall it came out that Mr. Villaraigosa cheated on his wife with a Telemundo reporter. Needless to say, the wife left him and people aren't so sure he should run for governor anymore. Now he's not even with the reporter, leaving yours truly to wonder if a few nights of hot sex were worth it?

Ugh. Let's just list it out, a few other dreaded LA things:

-Gangs.
-Homeless Capital of America.
-Annoying Westsiders slumming on the Eastside, which isn't really all that far east but they're too scared of Latinos to head into Boyle Heights or East LA.
-Housing prices through the roof.
-Overpriced valet parking.
-Slimy Hollywood types that firmly believe in the casting couch.
-Breast implants, extreme tooth whitening and orangish tans.
-Celebrities terrorizing the streets of Hollywood, WeHo, the Sunset Strip, general Beverly Hills area...basically all the places TMZ puts live webcams.

Yes, if I think about all that too much, I'm not too fond of this city.

But today, I'm not thinking about that. In fact, after today, I find myself more in love with Los Angeles than ever.

Why? Well, we had a break in our torrential downpours this afternoon so I went for a long walk through the hills around my house. I walked for at least an hour. Maybe two. I don't know since I don't wear a watch on these expeditions.

The time flies because I love my neighborhood. And I love to walk in my neighborhood.

This isn't a neighborhood thrown up overnight, Las Vegas style. Nope, there's no urban subdivision cookie cutter tract housing over here.

Instead, every house, every building is unique. A Spanish style apartment building next to a a Craftsman home, next to a very modern glass and concrete structure.

And it all works. It works because as developed as this city is, every once in awhile there's a section that looks like a wilderness. Who would have thought that nature would even begin to reclaim the cars left parked too long?

I live in a very hilly section of Los Angeles, so hilly that many of the streets in my neighborhood have 15% grades, which are challenging to walk up.

As butt blasting as climbing these hills can be, if I go a bit east to Echo Park, I can try to walk up the steepest street in all of California, Fargo Street with it's 33% grade. I haven't tried climbing Fargo Street yet, but one day soon I will.

But I don't walk just for the exercise.

I walk because it's beautiful and I want to drink that beauty in. I want to create a lifetime of memories, visions that will forever resonate in my head and my heart in case, by some strange twist of fate, I go blind in the future.

I can go outside any day of the year and see bushes blooming with flowers, hummingbirds sucking nectar from vibrant blossoms.

I see flowers like these every day, but so rarely do I stop and pick some. Today though, I just couldn't resist.

To any observer I must have looked bizarre, holding a bunch of flowers, leaning against a light pole, watching the world. But I was captivated by a thin river of rainwater running down the hill. It was the sort of thing I would have noticed as a small child, the sort of thing I've forgotten to "see" as an adult.

Hours later, I'm still thinking about where the flowing water was coming from since it was no longer raining.

I walked a bit more and saw an old man sitting out on a plant-covered balcony of a Spanish style duplex. A young woman was cutting his completely white hair. The distant traffic noises faded away as I listened to him complaining that she was cutting it too short. She only smiled affectionately down at his head and answered, "Yes, Papa."

I walked some more and eventually went to my neighborhood park. As I sat and read my copy of LA Weekly, I listened to one mother scold her children in French. Another in Spanish.

I looked around me and I thought about the racial diversity in this city. More Persians than any other place except Iran. More Koreans than anywhere outside Korea. More Armenians than any place besides Armenia. The most Thai people outside of Thailand.

And believe me, I don't think this diversity's a good thing only because of all the deliciously amazing food that those culture bring to the table.

No, it gets me excited because if we can achieve racial unity in this city, what a model we'd be for the rest of this crazy world.

Pull back the veil and there's a humanity to Los Angeles. That humanity has nothing to do with Hollywood or the vain imaginings the entertainment industry throws our way.

Yes, these are the things that make me fall in love with Los Angeles all over again. What about you? What makes you love or hate the city you call home?