It's not something I think about at all, at least not until late this afternoon. My sister's love of cooking and food rubbed off on me only in that I read a lot of food-related books, but not necessarily cookbooks. For example, I'm currently reading Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo's Most Unlikely Noodle Joint by Ivan Orkin, which is part cookbook in the way of ramen, but only part. However, my sister's interest in restrooms anywhere, everywhere, doesn't burrow that deep into me. It made me think today, though, when we went to Sunset Park, across from McCarran International, in Las Vegas, for the food truck festival they were having.
On the way to the grounds of the park where it was happening, I stopped in the men's restroom on the way because of all the water I had had earlier in the day. Even after a year here, I'm still learning about proper hydration in the desert. Not that I don't drink enough water, but when you're in your apartment most of the week, like I am, in my family's apartment, still searching for work and waiting to see what happens with various possibilities, you don't feel the need for so much water, since you're inside. But today, with all the roads driven and the next possible apartment complex looked at in an older stretch of Henderson, near the historic Water Street--more activity, essentially--I needed more.
While standing at the urinal, doing the expected urinal thing, I started thinking about the restrooms I had been to, inside such casinos as The Cosmopolitan, the MGM Grand, the Mirage, the M Resort in Henderson, Ravella at Lake Las Vegas back when it was Ravella at Lake Las Vegas, and the Hacienda near Boulder City, as well as the restroom at Tire Works, once or twice at Fry's Electronics, and so many others. There are stories in all those places. Not necessarily the restrooms, but I mean the places themselves, the moments before and after that relief, the discoveries you make even when you're just going to the restroom for nature's grand purpose for us in there.
In short, I was reminded of the Saddle Ranch Chop House in Universal City, California, pretty much next to the entrance to Universal Studios Hollywood. We went there in 2009, and I remember the fresh fruit kettle they had available, which looked like a little cauldron, and contained the freshest fruit I had ever had in Southern California. No piece of fruit after that experience ever matched it. I think I had their "Create Your Own Omelette" as well, part of their All Day Ranch Brunch section of their menu.
Now, I have been in restaurants, such as Buffalo Wild Wings, where there are small TVs behind plastic, above the urinals. I think at a Hooters or two, there were sports sections taped up above the urinals. It may have been there, or it may have also been at Buffalo Wild Wings, depending on the location, either here in Henderson or the Buffalo Wild Wings in Palmdale, California. I'm not sure. But I'll never forget what I saw above the urinal at Saddle Ranch Chop House, surprising because of being in Southern California, where books and reading don't always feel like major priorities, if at all.
Above the urinal I was at, there was a small poster for a book called Down at the Docks by Rory Nugent, which intrigued me immediately because the author and I have the same first name. In fact, seeing Nugent's name there inspired me to read all the books by those with my first name. I've yet to make a great dent in that desire, but I will.
Never mind that the book's about New Bedford, Massachusetts, a fishing port in dire straits, not at all wealthy as it used to be. Any subject, written interestingly enough, can capture me all the way through. Plus a Rory wrote it, and therefore I wanted to read it.
I checked it out of the Valencia Library in Santa Clarita, back when I had a library card there, before they cut off connections with the other libraries in Los Angeles County as part of that system, and privatized the three library branches in the valley, forming their own library system. In protest, I refused to get a library card in the new system, but in hindsight, maybe I should have, as it would have made those final years in Santa Clarita easier to bear. It's just like the annual pass to Six Flags Magic Mountain I was thinking of getting year after year, but was told that I shouldn't because we would be moving. But then we didn't. And I thought again of getting the annual pass, but was told the same thing. And then we didn't again. And in hindsight, maybe I should have anyway. Now a year and two months removed from the Santa Clarita Valley, I'm relieved to be out of there, but perhaps I wouldn't have been so scarred by that too-long existence there if I had had the library card and the annual pass.
Anyway, I started Down at the Docks then, but didn't read it all the way through. Not that it wasn't interesting, but other books got in the way. Then after we moved to Las Vegas last year, to the Valley Vista All-Ages Mobile Home Park near Sam's Town, I checked it out of the Whitney Library. Same thing. Other books again.
We've been living in Henderson, in an apartment complex along North Green Valley Parkway, for two months now. And neither of the three major branches of the Henderson District Public Libraries has a copy of Down at the Docks. And I didn't feel like getting it from any of the Las Vegas-Clark County branches because I'm not near any of those libraries anymore and I don't want to ever go back to the rundown Whitney Library, which, in the year I used it, was only a refueling stop for me. I didn't use it for anything else because I never felt comfortable there, what with not only the two security guards on duty at different times walking around often, but also the cops occasionally. It was not in a good neighborhood, but it was the closest to our mobile home park, and therefore the one I went to every Sunday.
So this time, I ordered a copy from abebooks.com at the end of October, cheap enough for $3.95 since I'm still looking for a job, and I fortunately don't buy as many books anymore, since the Green Valley Library is within walking distance, on the same side of the street as my apartment complex. I call it my annex, where I keep my other books.
The copy I ordered was the original hardcover edition, since paperback was a tad pricier, and I always liked the hardcover design more. It came from Blue Cloud Books in Phoenix, Arizona, although when I received it, the return address was somewhere in Oregon. Go figure. But I got it, and that was the important thing, and I had no need to return it anyway. However, when I turned the book over, I had the biggest laugh in quite a while.
Blue Cloud Books. Phoenix, Arizona, Arizona being next door to Nevada, close enough that you can enter Arizona past Hoover Dam and go an hour ahead in their time zone, turn around, drive back across the Nevada border, and you're an hour behind again. You can cross time zones that fast in that part. So yes, I would expect that some books from Nevada would end up with Blue Cloud books. But I didn't expect that it would be a discarded library copy in fine condition, nor that above the barcode on the back, it says "Las Vegas-Clark County Library District." I laughed aloud for a while because this book found its way back to Nevada! It could have gone to Tampa, Florida, or Austin, Texas, or Montpelier, Vermont, but no, it arrived here, back where it had started from.
I don't think I'll get anything quite as funny from my brief stop in the Sunset Park restroom, but it got me thinking about those different moments, thought processes while doing your business. Perhaps not as detailed, but there are those instances such as this one. They don't happen often, but I pay close attention when they do. And I think back to other such pit stops, and there's nothing I can think of that's like this, but there are stories to be mined, possibly short stories. I think part of this interest may also stem from Sam Shepard, one of my heroes. I didn't think of it until just now, just this sentence, but I went to my main bookcase and pulled out Day Out of Days, his latest short story collection from 2010. In it, starting on page 67, is a 2 and a 1/4-page story called "Cracker Barrel Men's Room (Highway 90 West)", a story heard about a man mistakenly locked in the men's room at Cracker Barrel for the night, with Shania Twain songs playing on a loop, driving the man crazy. To me, Shepard is one of the few writers who gets the American West, who can find depth in different parts of the deserts, even when there seems to be nothing there. It's an incredible gift, particularly when you're trying to make sense of it, wanting to know it, wanting to understand it, like I do, and you need a guide. Shepard is my guide.
So maybe Shepard inspired this line of thought. The subconscious brings up things that you don't expect until you're in whatever you're in in a different approach. But I still think it's my sister. Just like she also looks at the back of products to find out where they're from, like I always do, I believe I thought about this closely because of her interest in restrooms. I don't think I would have looked so closely at the opulent detail in the men's room at the Cosmopolitan had it not been for her influence. And you know what? It is pretty interesting. I wonder what I can do with it. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Saturday, April 7, 2012
The Endearing Harold Robbins
Sin City isn't by Harold Robbins, since he died in 1997, but by a writer who was chosen to hew closely to Robbins' writing style. The writer for this one was apparently Junius Podrug, according to Fantastic Fiction.
Nevertheless, Sin City makes me want to read the novels written by Robbins himself not only because Las Vegas is evoked so well here that I feel like I'm home already, but because of a line in Chapter 3. It encapsulates what I've come to realize about Los Angeles, after years of trying to extract some meaning from it, starting from 2003 when I was a new student at College of the Canyons and read every book that I could find about Los Angeles, including literary anthologies. But here it is, the meaning that shows that there isn't any meaning; there never was meant to be a meaning:
"She didn't like L.A. It didn't seem like a real town, just endless streets and rows of houses."
It sure felt like that yesterday when we drove back to Santa Clarita from the area where The Landmark was. Dad knew that Mom didn't want to go back by way of the 405, so he took local streets, which weaved us past houses high up on mountains, houses nestled in those mountains close to the street, houses on stilts, houses that cost more than I'll probably make in my entire life. It took so long to get past those houses, though there was a nice large yellow one I liked with a fountain in the front driveway. Endless streets and rows of houses is correct. In fact, a year and a half ago, I bought from The Library of America Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology for the sale price of $9.95, a perpetual sale price since it's still listed in the section of that website. I saw it at College of the Canyons, skimmed through it, but at that point, I wanted to read it to see if there was anything revealing about Los Angeles that could make me understand it. That one line in Sin City has made me seriously think about putting Writing Los Angeles in the Goodwill box. It's never been my city, it never will be my city, and I've found that meaning. Some like Los Angeles and perhaps to them it feels like a real town, but not to me. It never has.
The first paragraph of Chapter 10 in Sin City also has a perfect description in one of its sentences:
"To me, Vegas was like Hollywood, bigger than life, but even better because Betty told me that there really wasn't any place called Hollywood, that it was just a cheap and dirty street in Los Angeles and "Hollywood" was really movie studios and thousands of people scattered all over the L.A. basin."
Exactly. And now I can go home to Henderson and Las Vegas with this chapter of my life shut tight. I've nothing else to seek about Los Angeles. It's all right here.
Nevertheless, Sin City makes me want to read the novels written by Robbins himself not only because Las Vegas is evoked so well here that I feel like I'm home already, but because of a line in Chapter 3. It encapsulates what I've come to realize about Los Angeles, after years of trying to extract some meaning from it, starting from 2003 when I was a new student at College of the Canyons and read every book that I could find about Los Angeles, including literary anthologies. But here it is, the meaning that shows that there isn't any meaning; there never was meant to be a meaning:
"She didn't like L.A. It didn't seem like a real town, just endless streets and rows of houses."
It sure felt like that yesterday when we drove back to Santa Clarita from the area where The Landmark was. Dad knew that Mom didn't want to go back by way of the 405, so he took local streets, which weaved us past houses high up on mountains, houses nestled in those mountains close to the street, houses on stilts, houses that cost more than I'll probably make in my entire life. It took so long to get past those houses, though there was a nice large yellow one I liked with a fountain in the front driveway. Endless streets and rows of houses is correct. In fact, a year and a half ago, I bought from The Library of America Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology for the sale price of $9.95, a perpetual sale price since it's still listed in the section of that website. I saw it at College of the Canyons, skimmed through it, but at that point, I wanted to read it to see if there was anything revealing about Los Angeles that could make me understand it. That one line in Sin City has made me seriously think about putting Writing Los Angeles in the Goodwill box. It's never been my city, it never will be my city, and I've found that meaning. Some like Los Angeles and perhaps to them it feels like a real town, but not to me. It never has.
The first paragraph of Chapter 10 in Sin City also has a perfect description in one of its sentences:
"To me, Vegas was like Hollywood, bigger than life, but even better because Betty told me that there really wasn't any place called Hollywood, that it was just a cheap and dirty street in Los Angeles and "Hollywood" was really movie studios and thousands of people scattered all over the L.A. basin."
Exactly. And now I can go home to Henderson and Las Vegas with this chapter of my life shut tight. I've nothing else to seek about Los Angeles. It's all right here.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
The Differences Between a Little Over Eight Years Ago and Now
When FX aired The New Movie Show with Chris Gore in 2000, I knew of Chris Gore as the founder of the magazine and then website Film Threat, and that I wanted to be on his show, even though I was merely a stripling in movie reviewing, only a year into my time with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Teentime pages. I e-mailed Chris Gore about getting on his show and he said I had to be in Los Angeles to audition.
The evening I had gotten that e-mail, Dad and I went out to pick up Chinese food and in the restaurant while waiting for our order (I remember that the TVs inside were showing Rush Hour on TBS) and walking back to the car, I thought to myself, "Los Angeles? Isn't that on the other side of the universe?" I loved movies, but didn't have that hushed reverence that heartier movie buffs than I undoubtedly have, such as Leonard Maltin, and Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies, names I aspired to be like back then, but no longer. I knew Hollywood to be the center of moviemaking, but figured that with as many movies as Hollywood made during a given year, there's no way that the glamour we see on the screen could ever be matched in real life. Surely it was just a matter of putting up sets on soundstages, filming the scenes, then tearing them down again, or filming on studio backlots. I'd read that the work is usually long, arduous, and frustrating at times. No one likely swans around Hollywood in pearls all day.
When my family and I flew to Los Angeles from Fort Lauderdale in April 2003, I didn't know anything about where we were going. I knew we were going to land at LAX, one of the world's largest airports, and I was interested, as an aviation enthusiast, but not threatening to burst out of my skin from excitement. What could I expect from Southern California? Was there anything I could connect to? Why Southern California for job interviews? What makes Dad want so badly to try to find work there?
During those 10 days, we went to places it took us years to get back to. Dad had no trouble driving from L.A. to San Diego for a job interview at the school district offices there, yet it was years later that we finally went to Sea World. We took one of those tours of Hollywood aboard a nice-looking air-conditioned van, but have never done anything like that since. When we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain for the day, I had no idea that there was an entire working valley in front of it. When I went on Viper, I saw some collections of houses on the way up the track, but didn't pay much attention because this was the first rollercoaster I was on since the wooden Hurricane at Boomers in Dania Beach, and it was bitter cold that day, with drizzling rain lashing about like bullets at high speeds.
When Mom and Dad went back to Southern California for another 10 days in mid-July, they went to what I learned was called the Santa Clarita Valley, that entire working valley in front of Magic Mountain. Dad had a few job interviews there and by the end, one principal wanted him, the one from La Mesa Junior High. Dad took the job. Mom described to us over the phone the apartment she and Dad had found in an area called Valencia. From what she described, it seemed like a closely-connected community, wrapping around a pool area and a clubhouse with a gym. And hearing about a train system called Metrolink, I thought I could take the train to Los Angeles, to one of the major public libraries there, return books, check out new ones, and head back home. It sounded easy and I thought I could do it every weekend. I thought Los Angeles was so close together as to have everything accessible. I was naive.
I learned that the apartment complex could not be more disconnected, at least among residents, but at least it was comfortable. Los Angeles was so spread out that not only could I not reach any library via Metrolink on a Saturday or Sunday, but the freeway system made getting anywhere seem like an extensive strategy session was required before you did anything. During my first weeks at College of the Canyons, once I knew where my classes were, I spent time in the big library building, looking for every book there was about Los Angeles, trying to understand this city. It should have been a clue that I was trying to learn about Los Angeles and not Santa Clarita. It became more and more apparent to me as one year became two, and two became five, and five became eight, that in order to do anything interesting in Santa Clarita, you have to leave.
I pulled down Los Angeles anthologies, books of essays, histories, anything that could show me something about what this city had been and what it currently was all about. What set me at a disadvantage is that there was no time to learn anything before or after we had visited Los Angeles as a family. Dad was going to lose his job as a computer and business education teacher in the Broward County school system because then-governor Jeb Bush decided that the FCAT exam was more important than electives and that the funding for electives would better serve the FCAT exam. Or something like that. It's the only twisted logic I can think of.
The additional issue that cropped up after I had learned some things about Los Angeles is that I felt like I couldn't connect to anything. The city and the Santa Clarita Valley felt so desolate. People were rushing here, rushing there, looking to make their mark with this, with that, and never seeming to slow down. It feels like the past doesn't exist in either place, that it just takes up room that could be used for the future, and so they chuck out the past and pave over it so that the future has an easy time of getting in.
I don't know what made us think of Las Vegas in 2007. Perhaps Dad heard rumblings about his job being threatened again as it had been in Florida. The economy was beginning to trip over many cracks in the sidewalk, so there might have been an internal sense of unease within the district Dad works for. But what I do remember is that when I was in 11th grade at Hollywood Hills High in Hollywood, Florida, when my mom worked in the library there as an assistant, I learned that an acquaintance was moving to Las Vegas and my first thought was, "Las Vegas? Isn't that a desolate gambling outpost?" That was all I knew of Las Vegas: Gambling inside a huge desert.
Dad was going there to get his Nevada teaching license, to meet with someone from the Clark County School District, to scope out the area. Where would we want to be if we were going to move there? Could we make a life there?
Yes, we could. But now it's taken five years to get to our greatest chance of moving there with this forthcoming trip this coming week. We had bad luck not long after our first trip there because the district enacted a hiring freeze. And then the economy crapped out. Now it feels like recovery may happen, slowly but surely, and we've got a foothold we couldn't find before because of those circumstances.
Since 2007, we've been to Las Vegas a few more times, giving me the opportunity to learn more about the city, which I didn't have that first time in L.A. and Santa Clarita. I've seen sights that I'd be happy to see for years to come. I've been to the Pinball Hall of Fame three times, which I know will have my quarters many, many times a year. I feel comfortable in Henderson. Making a good, satisfying life for myself will happen there. Because of how many times we moved throughout Florida, and then the move to Valencia, and then the move to Saugus a year later, I've never felt like I had roots anywhere. I love Florida for all the imagination it instilled in me, but I never felt like I truly belonged in any of those cities we lived in. In Henderson, it's different. I feel like I can finally establish roots, that this can be the home base from which I can do everything else I want to do in my life, that after trips to, say, Missouri to the Truman Library, and Arkansas to the Clinton Library in the years to come, I can come home to Henderson and know that I am home.
Even if I had time to get to know Los Angeles and the Santa Clarita Valley, I don't think I would have felt as secure as I do with Henderson. For one, it feels so buttoned-up here in Santa Clarita. Everyone lives an image, but can never just let loose to be who they actually might be. There is always something they have to maneuver for, and with Santa Clarita being where many actors live, as others who work in Hollywood, it's always apparent.
There is image-making in Las Vegas, admittedly, but it's all in the pursuit of pleasure. What do you want? What would make you happy? Chances are they have it. For me, there's the happiness of having two library cards, one with Henderson Libraries and one with the Clark County Library system, used bookstores throughout the Las Vegas Valley, the Pinball Hall of Fame, easily accessible history of Las Vegas and Henderson through different avenues, casinos to explore, and so much else I probably haven't even unearthed yet. There is always something to see, always something to do. I've heard it said that it takes years to eat at all the restaurants and buffets Las Vegas offers. I believe it. But it's not only all that which attracts me to Las Vegas. It's also that everything feels so relaxed there. Driving slows down there. I've never driven in Southern California because I won't face those freeways. They're all M.C. Escher staircases. The only time I ever drove one was during driving lessons I took courtesy of AAA. That was it.
In Las Vegas, not only can you easily find where you're going while you're driving, there's an easygoing rhythm to the roads. You'll get there, and even traffic isn't so bad because there's always something interesting to look at. Plus, the roads are very well-maintained, so your car's not going to get shaken up a lot.
I think some of this will change after I've spent a few years as a resident, but for the good. I'll not always notice what I gawked at in my first year as a resident, but it blends in to become deep appreciation for where I am, what I do, where I go, how I live. I've felt comfortable every time we've visited, and I know that feeling will only grow larger after I've become a resident. That's all I've ever wanted in a place to live.
The evening I had gotten that e-mail, Dad and I went out to pick up Chinese food and in the restaurant while waiting for our order (I remember that the TVs inside were showing Rush Hour on TBS) and walking back to the car, I thought to myself, "Los Angeles? Isn't that on the other side of the universe?" I loved movies, but didn't have that hushed reverence that heartier movie buffs than I undoubtedly have, such as Leonard Maltin, and Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies, names I aspired to be like back then, but no longer. I knew Hollywood to be the center of moviemaking, but figured that with as many movies as Hollywood made during a given year, there's no way that the glamour we see on the screen could ever be matched in real life. Surely it was just a matter of putting up sets on soundstages, filming the scenes, then tearing them down again, or filming on studio backlots. I'd read that the work is usually long, arduous, and frustrating at times. No one likely swans around Hollywood in pearls all day.
When my family and I flew to Los Angeles from Fort Lauderdale in April 2003, I didn't know anything about where we were going. I knew we were going to land at LAX, one of the world's largest airports, and I was interested, as an aviation enthusiast, but not threatening to burst out of my skin from excitement. What could I expect from Southern California? Was there anything I could connect to? Why Southern California for job interviews? What makes Dad want so badly to try to find work there?
During those 10 days, we went to places it took us years to get back to. Dad had no trouble driving from L.A. to San Diego for a job interview at the school district offices there, yet it was years later that we finally went to Sea World. We took one of those tours of Hollywood aboard a nice-looking air-conditioned van, but have never done anything like that since. When we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain for the day, I had no idea that there was an entire working valley in front of it. When I went on Viper, I saw some collections of houses on the way up the track, but didn't pay much attention because this was the first rollercoaster I was on since the wooden Hurricane at Boomers in Dania Beach, and it was bitter cold that day, with drizzling rain lashing about like bullets at high speeds.
When Mom and Dad went back to Southern California for another 10 days in mid-July, they went to what I learned was called the Santa Clarita Valley, that entire working valley in front of Magic Mountain. Dad had a few job interviews there and by the end, one principal wanted him, the one from La Mesa Junior High. Dad took the job. Mom described to us over the phone the apartment she and Dad had found in an area called Valencia. From what she described, it seemed like a closely-connected community, wrapping around a pool area and a clubhouse with a gym. And hearing about a train system called Metrolink, I thought I could take the train to Los Angeles, to one of the major public libraries there, return books, check out new ones, and head back home. It sounded easy and I thought I could do it every weekend. I thought Los Angeles was so close together as to have everything accessible. I was naive.
I learned that the apartment complex could not be more disconnected, at least among residents, but at least it was comfortable. Los Angeles was so spread out that not only could I not reach any library via Metrolink on a Saturday or Sunday, but the freeway system made getting anywhere seem like an extensive strategy session was required before you did anything. During my first weeks at College of the Canyons, once I knew where my classes were, I spent time in the big library building, looking for every book there was about Los Angeles, trying to understand this city. It should have been a clue that I was trying to learn about Los Angeles and not Santa Clarita. It became more and more apparent to me as one year became two, and two became five, and five became eight, that in order to do anything interesting in Santa Clarita, you have to leave.
I pulled down Los Angeles anthologies, books of essays, histories, anything that could show me something about what this city had been and what it currently was all about. What set me at a disadvantage is that there was no time to learn anything before or after we had visited Los Angeles as a family. Dad was going to lose his job as a computer and business education teacher in the Broward County school system because then-governor Jeb Bush decided that the FCAT exam was more important than electives and that the funding for electives would better serve the FCAT exam. Or something like that. It's the only twisted logic I can think of.
The additional issue that cropped up after I had learned some things about Los Angeles is that I felt like I couldn't connect to anything. The city and the Santa Clarita Valley felt so desolate. People were rushing here, rushing there, looking to make their mark with this, with that, and never seeming to slow down. It feels like the past doesn't exist in either place, that it just takes up room that could be used for the future, and so they chuck out the past and pave over it so that the future has an easy time of getting in.
I don't know what made us think of Las Vegas in 2007. Perhaps Dad heard rumblings about his job being threatened again as it had been in Florida. The economy was beginning to trip over many cracks in the sidewalk, so there might have been an internal sense of unease within the district Dad works for. But what I do remember is that when I was in 11th grade at Hollywood Hills High in Hollywood, Florida, when my mom worked in the library there as an assistant, I learned that an acquaintance was moving to Las Vegas and my first thought was, "Las Vegas? Isn't that a desolate gambling outpost?" That was all I knew of Las Vegas: Gambling inside a huge desert.
Dad was going there to get his Nevada teaching license, to meet with someone from the Clark County School District, to scope out the area. Where would we want to be if we were going to move there? Could we make a life there?
Yes, we could. But now it's taken five years to get to our greatest chance of moving there with this forthcoming trip this coming week. We had bad luck not long after our first trip there because the district enacted a hiring freeze. And then the economy crapped out. Now it feels like recovery may happen, slowly but surely, and we've got a foothold we couldn't find before because of those circumstances.
Since 2007, we've been to Las Vegas a few more times, giving me the opportunity to learn more about the city, which I didn't have that first time in L.A. and Santa Clarita. I've seen sights that I'd be happy to see for years to come. I've been to the Pinball Hall of Fame three times, which I know will have my quarters many, many times a year. I feel comfortable in Henderson. Making a good, satisfying life for myself will happen there. Because of how many times we moved throughout Florida, and then the move to Valencia, and then the move to Saugus a year later, I've never felt like I had roots anywhere. I love Florida for all the imagination it instilled in me, but I never felt like I truly belonged in any of those cities we lived in. In Henderson, it's different. I feel like I can finally establish roots, that this can be the home base from which I can do everything else I want to do in my life, that after trips to, say, Missouri to the Truman Library, and Arkansas to the Clinton Library in the years to come, I can come home to Henderson and know that I am home.
Even if I had time to get to know Los Angeles and the Santa Clarita Valley, I don't think I would have felt as secure as I do with Henderson. For one, it feels so buttoned-up here in Santa Clarita. Everyone lives an image, but can never just let loose to be who they actually might be. There is always something they have to maneuver for, and with Santa Clarita being where many actors live, as others who work in Hollywood, it's always apparent.
There is image-making in Las Vegas, admittedly, but it's all in the pursuit of pleasure. What do you want? What would make you happy? Chances are they have it. For me, there's the happiness of having two library cards, one with Henderson Libraries and one with the Clark County Library system, used bookstores throughout the Las Vegas Valley, the Pinball Hall of Fame, easily accessible history of Las Vegas and Henderson through different avenues, casinos to explore, and so much else I probably haven't even unearthed yet. There is always something to see, always something to do. I've heard it said that it takes years to eat at all the restaurants and buffets Las Vegas offers. I believe it. But it's not only all that which attracts me to Las Vegas. It's also that everything feels so relaxed there. Driving slows down there. I've never driven in Southern California because I won't face those freeways. They're all M.C. Escher staircases. The only time I ever drove one was during driving lessons I took courtesy of AAA. That was it.
In Las Vegas, not only can you easily find where you're going while you're driving, there's an easygoing rhythm to the roads. You'll get there, and even traffic isn't so bad because there's always something interesting to look at. Plus, the roads are very well-maintained, so your car's not going to get shaken up a lot.
I think some of this will change after I've spent a few years as a resident, but for the good. I'll not always notice what I gawked at in my first year as a resident, but it blends in to become deep appreciation for where I am, what I do, where I go, how I live. I've felt comfortable every time we've visited, and I know that feeling will only grow larger after I've become a resident. That's all I've ever wanted in a place to live.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Private Spaces in Public Places
For the past two days, I've been reading State of the Arts: California Artists Talk About Their Work by Barbara Isenberg, who interviewed such figures as Joan Didion, Clint Eastwood, Peter Sellars (opera director and one of my heroes), David Hockney, Matt Groening, Norman Lear, and others about what California means to them as artists, and formed those interviews into essays.
In his chapter, David Hockney makes an interesting point: "I've always understood that in California the private spaces are better than the public spaces."
Hockney has it right, though it depends on the private space, because some public spaces can seem private. Parks and movie theaters aren't private at all, but last night waiting for Dad and Meridith at Big Lots comes to mind. People were walking in and out of the store, and I didn't feel like I was in public. I was listening to the music coming out of the speakers in the ceiling overhead, watching the traffic across the street, looking at the hillside with house lights on it and cars driving down those roads. I was on my own in my head, noticing no one.
Then there was that day back in June when Meridith and I were home while Mom and Dad were in Las Vegas, and we went to Valencia Ice Station to watch the ice skaters and the hockey players, and to play a few games in the arcade: Galaga for me, air hockey for me and Meridith (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/06/run-of-house-day-5.html). Meridith and I were the only two in that arcade, but while playing Galaga, that was my private space. I was completely focused on the game.
I think I'm moving far away from what Hockney meant, but certainly these instances are spaces in California. Another private space would be Hearst Castle, which has public tours, and is only accessible by small bus up a mountain. At night, with no one there, that's as private as it gets.
And on that same trip back in January 2006, Dad and I stayed at La Quinta Inn in Sacramento. On a third floor balcony, outside those sets of rooms, I looked out at downtown Sacramento and felt total silence. Sacramento is the kind of city that is busy during the day, but once the evening hits, there is nothing that requires any more attention. Whatever needs to be done can be done the next day. It feels like Sacramento relaxes and is more loose about things, though not that loose, since it is the seat of the state government after all.
In a way, despite the operation involved in running Ninja at Six Flags Magic Mountain, I could consider those moments inside my car while riding in it my private space. I don't scream like others do; I sit and think. It's a meditation space for me, crazy as it seems, though with those sharp, immensely pleasureable turns, it's easy to understand.
For completely private spaces, I get what Hockney is saying, especially in thinking back to the apartment in Valencia, when I'd read in my room on Saturday afternoons, sunlight filtering through the dusty blinds behind me as I sat on my bed, discovering the works of Charles Bukowski, and finding kind of a kindred soul in him with that raw, very funny honesty.
The private spaces are better because you can fit them to whatever you want, and make your own California out of them. That's the only way I've survived these eight years since I never much liked the public spaces of Southern California. And what I did like, such as the Valencia library, was only a means to something. It was never just being there for the place itself.
There was one instance in which I was there for the place itself. When I was a nocturnal creature to the extent of going to bed at 5 a.m. and waking up at 2 p.m. years ago, I'd walk our patio, looking out at the ripples in the community pool right behind our wall (One of the major selling points when it comes time to finally sell this place) and the darkened mountain with a few lights on, street lights, but everyone asleep or at least in bed gripping the sheets in terror at the swiftness of life and why the hell haven't they done half of what they had planned to do in their lives?
That's what I figure, anyway. I loved the silence in those hours, much as I do at 12:01 a.m. right now (I started this entry a few hours ago, before Sunday changed to Monday, but it wasn't because of writer's block that I haven't finished it yet. I've been searching for books and ordering a few at the same time. As usual). It's interesting outside because this valley settles down faster than parts of Los Angeles. It is so quiet that the whistle of a train reverberates loudly throughout the valley, which is essentially dead by 10 p.m. anyway.
My private space is right here, sitting in front of this computer while the rest of the household is asleep. The location isn't ideal, and it's pretty obvious where I'd rather be, but it's fine for now because there's only me and State of the Arts in front of me, and whatever else comes to this night before I decide that it's finally time to nod off a little before or a little after 2. It's a solid private space.
In his chapter, David Hockney makes an interesting point: "I've always understood that in California the private spaces are better than the public spaces."
Hockney has it right, though it depends on the private space, because some public spaces can seem private. Parks and movie theaters aren't private at all, but last night waiting for Dad and Meridith at Big Lots comes to mind. People were walking in and out of the store, and I didn't feel like I was in public. I was listening to the music coming out of the speakers in the ceiling overhead, watching the traffic across the street, looking at the hillside with house lights on it and cars driving down those roads. I was on my own in my head, noticing no one.
Then there was that day back in June when Meridith and I were home while Mom and Dad were in Las Vegas, and we went to Valencia Ice Station to watch the ice skaters and the hockey players, and to play a few games in the arcade: Galaga for me, air hockey for me and Meridith (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/06/run-of-house-day-5.html). Meridith and I were the only two in that arcade, but while playing Galaga, that was my private space. I was completely focused on the game.
I think I'm moving far away from what Hockney meant, but certainly these instances are spaces in California. Another private space would be Hearst Castle, which has public tours, and is only accessible by small bus up a mountain. At night, with no one there, that's as private as it gets.
And on that same trip back in January 2006, Dad and I stayed at La Quinta Inn in Sacramento. On a third floor balcony, outside those sets of rooms, I looked out at downtown Sacramento and felt total silence. Sacramento is the kind of city that is busy during the day, but once the evening hits, there is nothing that requires any more attention. Whatever needs to be done can be done the next day. It feels like Sacramento relaxes and is more loose about things, though not that loose, since it is the seat of the state government after all.
In a way, despite the operation involved in running Ninja at Six Flags Magic Mountain, I could consider those moments inside my car while riding in it my private space. I don't scream like others do; I sit and think. It's a meditation space for me, crazy as it seems, though with those sharp, immensely pleasureable turns, it's easy to understand.
For completely private spaces, I get what Hockney is saying, especially in thinking back to the apartment in Valencia, when I'd read in my room on Saturday afternoons, sunlight filtering through the dusty blinds behind me as I sat on my bed, discovering the works of Charles Bukowski, and finding kind of a kindred soul in him with that raw, very funny honesty.
The private spaces are better because you can fit them to whatever you want, and make your own California out of them. That's the only way I've survived these eight years since I never much liked the public spaces of Southern California. And what I did like, such as the Valencia library, was only a means to something. It was never just being there for the place itself.
There was one instance in which I was there for the place itself. When I was a nocturnal creature to the extent of going to bed at 5 a.m. and waking up at 2 p.m. years ago, I'd walk our patio, looking out at the ripples in the community pool right behind our wall (One of the major selling points when it comes time to finally sell this place) and the darkened mountain with a few lights on, street lights, but everyone asleep or at least in bed gripping the sheets in terror at the swiftness of life and why the hell haven't they done half of what they had planned to do in their lives?
That's what I figure, anyway. I loved the silence in those hours, much as I do at 12:01 a.m. right now (I started this entry a few hours ago, before Sunday changed to Monday, but it wasn't because of writer's block that I haven't finished it yet. I've been searching for books and ordering a few at the same time. As usual). It's interesting outside because this valley settles down faster than parts of Los Angeles. It is so quiet that the whistle of a train reverberates loudly throughout the valley, which is essentially dead by 10 p.m. anyway.
My private space is right here, sitting in front of this computer while the rest of the household is asleep. The location isn't ideal, and it's pretty obvious where I'd rather be, but it's fine for now because there's only me and State of the Arts in front of me, and whatever else comes to this night before I decide that it's finally time to nod off a little before or a little after 2. It's a solid private space.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Nothing's Ever THAT Easy in L.A.
As soon as the $170,000 imported Bentley stopped next to a Toyota dealership in Universal City after a three-hour low-speed chase with police that ended where it had begun, there were live shots from ABC 7 of many people running toward the scene. News media, sure, along with one of ABC 7's reporters also on the scene. But also paparazzi, believing by that point that there may have been someone famous in the car. Considering the details let forth by news outlets while the chase was going on, such as the police going after the man for an assault on his girlfriend with a deadly weapon and the fact that the Grammys had concluded the night before (though why would any music star stay in L.A. longer than necessary unless there was business to conduct there and even then, why would they hang out in Universal City towards 8 p.m. anyway?), there was the most obvious person to think of and it was the name the news stations were not bandying about because no lawsuit is ever welcome.
I thought it was Chris Brown too, considering what he had done to Rihanna, based on what's supposedly been known so far. And as the features of this Bentley were described, though mentioned to have Illinois license plates, who wouldn't believe at that moment that it was him, what with his music career now threatened to end?
As soon as the broadcast of ABC 7 was over on TV, I immediately went to the live feed on the their website, which lasted until 12:45 a.m. There was one point when a cameraman from the station got a close-enough shot of the man inside the car, as close as can be with tinted windows. A beard, a gun to his head at one point, and sunglasses. No, this couldn't be him. Much as the people from TMZ and other paparazzi agencies (call TMZ a gossip website all you want, but they chase the story as much as those other photographers do) would have liked it to be someone famous, even him, that wasn't the case, as evidenced by the news from the L.A. Times this morning that the standoff ended when the Pakistani businessman shot himself and later died at a nearby hospital.
And now there's even more information, that this man, Mustafa "Moe" Mustafa, was a former luxury car dealer:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/02/bentley-driver.html
So nothing in L.A. is ever that easy to figure out, and nothing in L.A. is ever that easy, period. Most celebrities try to stay away from those public streets anyway, unless they've decided to give it all up for some crazy reason. And that hasn't happened, not like that, at least not in our time. But then, I don't pay much attention to celebrity news anyway, only in passing on my way to reading other stories not dealing with them.
UPDATE at 4:14: An L.A.-centric website called LAist has a far better recap of the car chase than I could ever manage: http://laist.com/2009/02/09/chris_brown_car_chase_lapd_says_no.php
I know car chases happen in L.A. often, but I was really struck still by this one. Mainly because all the others I've seen on TV simply stop abruptly, police jump out of their vehicles and either have their guns out at the car, demanding out loud that the suspect get out of the car, or chase after the suspect on foot after he's decided to do the same. There's no name to the person, just that person small from the vantage point of a helicopter.
But this one, with all the speculation, with how long that man stayed in the car, I was just floored because here I was, working on the Freelance Daily newsletter, and here was this guy in Universal City, and who knows what was going through his head? Me and him, two entirely disparate people, and still I wondered. Still I was curious, just like I am when I stand near two tables at a concrete section with railings, across from the handicapped spaces nearest the entrance in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart on Kelly Johnson Parkway, in Santa Clarita, looking out over a good portion of the valley, Six Flags Magic Mountain obstructed by trees a few feet away from me, thinking about what must be going on in the valley at the same time I'm looking out at that part of it. What are people doing? What's happening on the roads? Who's working in some of those office buildings right now even though it's the weekend? All those stories in this valley and in Los Angeles as well. I don't think I've ever thought as much about people as I have living here. Not even in the 19 years I spent in my native Florida. Being near L.A., and living in what is basically the backwoods of L.A., you think about a lot when it comes to people.
I thought it was Chris Brown too, considering what he had done to Rihanna, based on what's supposedly been known so far. And as the features of this Bentley were described, though mentioned to have Illinois license plates, who wouldn't believe at that moment that it was him, what with his music career now threatened to end?
As soon as the broadcast of ABC 7 was over on TV, I immediately went to the live feed on the their website, which lasted until 12:45 a.m. There was one point when a cameraman from the station got a close-enough shot of the man inside the car, as close as can be with tinted windows. A beard, a gun to his head at one point, and sunglasses. No, this couldn't be him. Much as the people from TMZ and other paparazzi agencies (call TMZ a gossip website all you want, but they chase the story as much as those other photographers do) would have liked it to be someone famous, even him, that wasn't the case, as evidenced by the news from the L.A. Times this morning that the standoff ended when the Pakistani businessman shot himself and later died at a nearby hospital.
And now there's even more information, that this man, Mustafa "Moe" Mustafa, was a former luxury car dealer:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/02/bentley-driver.html
So nothing in L.A. is ever that easy to figure out, and nothing in L.A. is ever that easy, period. Most celebrities try to stay away from those public streets anyway, unless they've decided to give it all up for some crazy reason. And that hasn't happened, not like that, at least not in our time. But then, I don't pay much attention to celebrity news anyway, only in passing on my way to reading other stories not dealing with them.
UPDATE at 4:14: An L.A.-centric website called LAist has a far better recap of the car chase than I could ever manage: http://laist.com/2009/02/09/chris_brown_car_chase_lapd_says_no.php
I know car chases happen in L.A. often, but I was really struck still by this one. Mainly because all the others I've seen on TV simply stop abruptly, police jump out of their vehicles and either have their guns out at the car, demanding out loud that the suspect get out of the car, or chase after the suspect on foot after he's decided to do the same. There's no name to the person, just that person small from the vantage point of a helicopter.
But this one, with all the speculation, with how long that man stayed in the car, I was just floored because here I was, working on the Freelance Daily newsletter, and here was this guy in Universal City, and who knows what was going through his head? Me and him, two entirely disparate people, and still I wondered. Still I was curious, just like I am when I stand near two tables at a concrete section with railings, across from the handicapped spaces nearest the entrance in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart on Kelly Johnson Parkway, in Santa Clarita, looking out over a good portion of the valley, Six Flags Magic Mountain obstructed by trees a few feet away from me, thinking about what must be going on in the valley at the same time I'm looking out at that part of it. What are people doing? What's happening on the roads? Who's working in some of those office buildings right now even though it's the weekend? All those stories in this valley and in Los Angeles as well. I don't think I've ever thought as much about people as I have living here. Not even in the 19 years I spent in my native Florida. Being near L.A., and living in what is basically the backwoods of L.A., you think about a lot when it comes to people.
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