My L.A. Times, part III (or: A Tale of Three (or four) Days)

So, finally, vacation. I arrived at LAX a bit late; not surprising because I’ve only had a handful of flights out of MDW that left on time. Being cheap, I opted to pick up my rental car the next morning, to save $5 a day – which adds up over 5 days. CL was good enough to pick me up at the airport, and we drove back to his place in Culver City, and inflated the air mattress, while catching up on lost time, and missed tube: He introduced me to some latter-day television, which I appreciated because I’m just not up on the modern boob-box offerings, for various reasons.

Thursday I woke up around the time CL did, and he was late to work, I guess, but didn’t seem too concerned. I had figured out my bus itinerary back to the airport before I left Chicago, so armed with that printout I headed toward the bus stop, pausing at the neighborhood McDonald’s for a hideously indulgent breakfast sandwich, which I enjoyed leisurely. As I approached the bus stop, a bus or two were stopped there – which, given my understanding of LA transit, I thought was strange… weren’t buses here supposed to come seldom if ever? I just missed the bus I was to take, and vociferously cursed my luck. Convinced that I was doomed to an eternity of waiting under a rather chilly LA sun (and wind), I sulked – aimlessly – with my Lonely Planet… and almost missed the next bus 3 minutes later. I am quite sure it was a case of bunching – very familiar to riders of the CTA. Still, for my only recent use of LA area transit, it was quite impressive.

So… the folks at National were swell… and I got to choose my own car… so naturally I chose a Saturn ION. It was the best rental I’ve had in years; maybe ever (I do go cheap, you know). Having no plans, I decided to drive. I felt that was appropriate for the territory. I took the Pacific Coast Highway up to Malibu, trying to relax and drive slowly to take in the scenery. On the whole, I was quite successful. LA drivers are sane and calm, apparently: The whole time I was there, on the road at all hours, people stayed in their lanes, signaled, drove just around the speed limit (which I often found maddening, because in Chicago if traffic allows you to go the speed limit, you tend to go quite a bit over to make up for lost time), and didn’t do all that crazy shoulder-shit. The drive from LAX to Malibu was by no means a relaxing Sunday drive, but it was sane and scenic. And the scenery: I was reminded of Italy, really. It’s supposed to be a Mediterranean climate, and I eventually came to think of LA as a kind of modern Naples. The comparison is flawed, I know, but picturesque and poignant for many reasons.

I turned around near Pepperdine University, after a short detour through a seemingly nameless canyon, and decided to take Sunset Boulevard all the way through Brentwood, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood and whatnot. CL called a few times to check in, and I was happy to know that I wasn’t just lost on the Pacific coast. I kept thinking about calling KG or DC, but didn’t really want to bother either of them; Thursday just seemed inappropriate. I felt a childlike thrill when DC called – really I felt like an idiot, which comes from the irrational nexus when you’re thinking about someone and that someone calls you.

So… DC and I made vague plans to meet the next day, and I meandered sightseeingly towards Hollywood, and ultimately another freeway. No one really needs to hear about the sights I saw, as they’re available anywhere on any media; I will only reiterate my favorable impression of the drivers. Very courteous, nearly – at least compared to the combative jockeys I face in Chicago… My drive up Sunset was nearly leisurely – and got more so in West Hollywood, where

My L.A. Times, part II (or: A Tale of Three Friends)

So why indeed would I want to visit LA, a city I somewhat irrationally abhorred? Well, 3 of my friends have drifted there over the past 5 years or so. One of these friends I hadn’t seen in about 8 years – we were unable to pinpoint the exact last meeting, but we’re pretty sure it was sometime around 1999.

I stayed with CL, who moved out to continue his medical education gauntlet. He is originally from the area, and had been excited about moving back, after spending so many years in the orbit of Northwestern University. We spent a lot of time together when I moved back to Chicago in ‘03, since I lived on one side of Michigan Avenue, and he on the other – separated by about 8 blocks, give or take. My old friends in the area had either gotten very busy with their lives or stopped loving me – or moved away; I sometimes couldn’t tell. CL and I were almost inseparable for a good many months, until one of us entered a dating regime, and had little time for the other. Of course, parallel dating regimes tend to be transitory, but not necessarily coterminous, so one of us would tend to be seeking the company of the other at an inconvenient time. We stayed close, nonetheless, despite having very little in common. It is one of those uncanny friendships built more on… well, time spent together, I guess, than anything else. He’s been back to Chicago since he moved last June, and I’ve been fortunate to see him on a few occasions. I was very happy to stay with him in LA, and he was very accommodating. I did not get to spend much time with him, however, because he was busy during the week, and I was shuffling around seeing other people on the weekend, and as he put it himself, he does not play well with others. He claims I’m perhaps over-inclusive, trying too hard to bring together disparate groups, and this may be true; I guess I’m just a natural net worker. Plus, it’s easier to get a lot of people together than to have to visit them individually.

KG is an old friend from my DePaul days. He was a year ahead of me, and in many ways was what I aspired to become in my college career. He had done the year of study in Paris, which I planned to do, and was advanced in the French department. In that sophomoric way, I was flattered when he took an interest in me, and we quickly became good friends. We had very similar thinking patterns, if not identical interests, and were able to communicate uncommonly well. He wound up accepting a deal with NYU to attend classes and teach, which I envied – perhaps because our mutual mentor, the inimitable PAB, had attended that school, and everyone who ever knew PAB thought she was the height of cool. KG’s trajectory in academia rather foretold my own, though of course at the time I had no way of knowing this, and was incredulous when he told me he had quit grad school. It was inconceivable to me to get to such an enviable place and then just “drop” it all. Of course, ignorance and youth make it easy to judge, and I soon found out that I had nearly the same reaction to grad school. KG moved to Denver, where he worked a day job and got involved in acting. Again I envied him – I’ve never had the drive or the guts to get involved in theater, which is one of my main interests. This eventually led him to Los Angeles, where he wound up finding a career that stimulates him – outside of the entertainment world.

I’ve known DC for almost as long as I’ve known KG, though we never spent much time together at all. He also left Northwestern when he graduated, and drifted literally all over the world – of which I was naturally envious. I feel childish saying so, but the few hours I’ve been able to spend face to face with DC have been exhilarating for me. I’m incredibly and inexplicably attracted to him – this isn’t a physical thing, though I can’t deny I find him attractive in that way, too. I have the impression that we could talk for weeks and never run out of things to say (at least I wouldn’t). I don’t know how he feels about me, but I’ve always thought I would be very happy in a serious relationship with him; however, I’ve never been comfortable with long-distance relationships, though with age and maturity I see that they offer many benefits. At any rate, over 10 years of acquaintance DC and I haven’t done very much talking in depth, mostly because I’m terrible at keeping in touch. He has been good enough to track me down a few times, and I’m thankful for that. So I’ll admit right now that he was the main reason I wanted to go to L.A. I just really wanted to see him again. I looked back at my old emails this week, and found that I first planned to go visit him in February of 2005. Soon thereafter, I remembered that KG was in L.A., and realized that this compounded my reasons for visiting. Over the next two years, I made arrangements and canceled a few times, for a variety of reasons. DC was always good enough to suggest that I stay with him, and promised to make time for me. I ended up not staying with him, because he needs time to study (and I was afraid of committing an indiscretion(!?)). His entry into grad school severely constricted his time, though, and he accordingly warned me; but when the time came, I was able to wrest plenty of his time away. More on that later. I haven’t even gotten into all I saw and did!

My L.A. Times, part I (or: A Tale of Three Cities)

I’ve been trying to write this for days now, but intervening forces have conspired to keep me from it.

I sat for/wrote (both such quaint words to describe the experience) the Illinois bar exam on February 27 and 28. I was given Kellogg School at Northwestern’s downtown campus as my location – all who sit for the Illinois exam are forced to travel to within two blocks or so of North Michigan Avenue – and was rather happy with the Herman Miller chair I was assigned. It may have been the drugs, but I was really not bothered by the experience. For those unacquainted, the bar exam (most of the 50 states are similar) consists of two 9 hour days, give or take, which is an 8am start Tuesday, and an 8:15 start Wednesday. The actual examery boils down to about 6 hours a day; the filler is administrative, logistical, and a one hour lunch during which poor lost souls clumsily thumb their trusty BarBri guides or hand-written flashcards. I didn’t necessarily feel good about some of the essays I wrote – my right hand still throbs a bit after those six hours of frenzied writing – and I have absolutely no idea how the second day multiple choice fiesta went (six hours of filling in circles with a pencil is a bit easier on a sore hand than 10 essays) but the overall experience was humdrum. No anxiety, nor even resignation, which I find strange. I may be repeating the experience in July.

I blew my first chunk of vacation time on three days – the Monday before to mope, and the two days of pseudo hell – on the bar exam and its ancillaries, and booked a flight to LAX departing Midway at 7:45pm Wednesday, theoretically two hours and forty-five minutes after the conclusion of the exam. Due to the fascist (but understandable) restrictions on personal items in the test room I was carrying only a backpack, the same crappy Filene’s model I had lugged during my law school days, and unused since. The irony was not lost on me: an ingnominius [possible] end to an ignoble studential indenture to the law. We were released mercifully at 4:45, and I was so relieved and elated that the supposed ordeal was over [hopefully], that I headed to an old Rush Street bar I had never been to – though it was a block from my old Loyola University Chicago School of Law haunt. I entered with the intent of having a pint or two, and enjoying a couple of newly-purchased, overpriced, celebratory cigarettes. Though I’ve quit smoking perfunctorily, I really enjoy smoking while I drink. I’ll have to cut that out in a mid-year resolution, since everything else is going so well. I think I had four pints. It started to hail, or snow, or both, but I was numb before the booze hit my lips, because I was on my way to L.A., with sunshine and whatnot. I hadn’t been in 8 years, and even then didn’t see much, but I anticipated good things. After such a hell winter, I needed something to look forward to.

In the past, I’ve loudly proclaimed my distaste for Los Angeles. I find appalling the concept of an agglomeration of suburbs and small cities posing as “big city.” I find the city of Los Angeles itself aesthetically repulsive; in mentioning this I am, of course, speaking of the built environment. The physical, natural setting is another thing entirely, and on principle I hold it to be meaningless in the evaluation of a city’s relative merits. Based on this set of values, I naturally hold the city in which I live to be the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen. Let me explain: some hearty souls took some rather worthless land – entirely flat, frost-bitten at least 3 months out of the year, swampy (at the time) – and completely re-worked it into a marvel of human triumph (or somesuch). Yes, I’m discounting its location at the shores of Lake Michigan, because I’ve visited other cities on great lakes, and have seen that a great lake doesn’t a great city make. What we have today – admittedly thanks in large part to King Daley the Second – nearly lives up to its “City in a Garden” motto. If you’re foolish enough to doubt me, visit sometime. It’s stunning, even in the arctic chill of this record-setting shitwinter.

New York, another of my beloved cities, has both of my arbitrary aesthetic elements – a nifty natural formation, and awe-inspiring manipulation of the built environment. No need to get into that here, as I’m sure throngs of folk have written about home sweet archipelagolopolis before (holy shit, did I just coin a phrase?). L.A. has a mind-blowing natural setting, and a gut-wrenching built environment, on the whole. It simply didn’t develop “correctly,” as made clear in Mike Davis‘ immensely illuminating City of Quartz. Los Angeles is thoroughly “post-modern” and “deconstructivist” – as a largely 20th century phenomenon, it had no need to grow organically. Ergo, as a lover (connoisseur?) of classic cities, I’ve always abhorred it simply on principle.

So why on earth would I want to visit Los Angeles? I think I’ll take this up in a post in the near future.