LA Stories

“Isn’t it nice that the kind of people that prefer Los Angeles live there?”

                                             ~ Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle

True San Franciscans—old San Franciscans—are supposed to have nothing but disdain for all things Angeleno. I don’t, I like Los Angeles, I enjoy myself whenever I’m there. Okay, so do I have some reservations about LA, but I channel all that bad karma toward the Dodgers. Them, I hate. Dodger-hating is wonderfully cathartic.

My first visit to LA began the day they discovered Marilyn’s body. Our family of seven managed to have a great time, once we got past the shock of Miss Monroe’s suicide. I swam at Santa Monica, visited Graumann’s Chinese Theater, went to Marineland in Palos Verdes, hit all the rides in Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm.

Then we visited the Movieland Wax Museum. Apparently, their wax figure of Marilyn Monroe had just arrived. In a macabre attempt to capitalize on her headline-grabbing demise, they had torn the front off her packing crate and dressed her in a strapless sequined cocktail dress with a white fur stole—still standing in her coffin-like crate. It was a chilling visage, especially for a seven year-old. It was years before I returned to LaLa Land.

In college and my early twenties, I made many new friends from Southern California. One particular friend, Bob, lived in Marina Del Rey near LAX. He wanted to get to know San Francisco better, and I had to admit I needed to get beyond the SoCal amusement parks. We discovered easy-to-get standby flights between LAX and SFO costing less than $20 each way. I became a minor league jet-setter.

Bob and I developed a system: on alternate months, I would spend one weekend with Bob in LA, then he would come to San Francisco the next month for my famous tours. Bob showed me Griffith Park, Venice, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport and Pasadena. We attended football games at the LA Coliseum and made an appearance at dreaded Dodger Stadium.  I discovered art at the Getty Villa and LACMA, fossils at the LaBrea Tar Pits, even Magic Mountain. (We cannot recall all the details of parties in Westwood, Venice and the Hollywood Hills).

“I think I’m beginning to really like LA,” I told a friend over drinks at one San Francisco watering hole. “I’ve got lots of friends down there now, and there’s always something new and trendy…”

“Merely pleasant islands floating in a sea of shit, drowning all the star-struck Wanna-Be’s,” he said. Okay, the air was uniformly brown and the freeways painful to travel, but I thought that might be overstating it a bit. Though I had to admit most of my friends did aspire to careers in 'the (Motion Picture) Industry.' Some were even gainfully employed in entertainment.  

Years later, my oldest son matriculated at UCLA and we moved to Bakersfield, only 90 minutes to the north of campus. After one football game at the Rose Bowl (and many hours in LA gridlock fighting our way back and forth between Pasadena and Westwood) my wife and I found ourselves with a free Saturday evening in LA.  We headed to the nearby Getty Center, the arts complex perched on a hilltop overlooking the LA Basin.

We emerged from their tram at the top of hill and were amazed at the beauty of the Getty’s dramatic setting. The tasteful architecture, plazas, fountains, sculptures and gardens were exquisite, surely—but then there was the view. 

The night before it had rained, and the air was washed clean and clear. Now, as afternoon slipped into rosy twilight, Los Angeles shone like a crystalline vision of what it could be.

I inhaled the fresh-scrubbed air and drank in the incredible Technicolor vistas. From the snow-dusted Mount Baldy to the northeast to the wooded promontory of Palos Verdes to the south of me, Los Angeles spread like a star-studded quilt that stretched from sharp-edged mountains to the boundless sea. For the first time, I saw the promise of Tinseltown bedecked in its finest raiment; at that moment, I felt what the pioneers, the dreamers and the schemers all must have believed: Los Angeles could be a city of angels.