Unfinished Sympathy

“It’s full of creative types who don’t have day jobs sitting at the café. You’d probably like it.” Random hot brunette answering my question about the Hollywood Hills.

I had my cinematic L.A. experience this afternoon. I spent most of the day traveling from a nice apartment in a crap neighborhood (fourth floor 2 bedroom/2bath, $1250 per month in Palms, but view of the roofs of shabby two-story apartments and an auto shop), to a crap apartment in a nice neighborhood (1 bedroom/1 bath, $1250 per month smack dab in a residential zone of Beverly Hills -- this is where I met Random Hot Brunette, she was waiting to see the unit as well -- but the floor plan of a eighty-year-old dorm with less charm). The last unit I viewed was up in the Hollywood Hills. Christ, it was as if Norman Rockwell got hooked on Prozac, told New England to shove it, and relocated to where it was perpetually sunny and temperate. There were actual houses with lawns and trees giving shade in the neighborhood, and nary a burglar bar on the window in sight. The unit was located in a big ass complex, and it was a ground unit to boot, but it was the best I’d seen that day. Luckily, a tenant in an upper unit gave her notice today.

Anyway, enough with the prologue and on to the artsy fartsy cinematic L.A. experience. I decided to forgo the huge bass ackward West to East to South then Back to West 101 South, 110 South, 10 West route most people take to go from Hollywood to West L.A., and decide to travel the streets. So I drove south on Minton. I had the latest Craig Armstrong CD playing (cue strings, piano, Middle Eastern influences, choral music). Just seven or eight blocks south was Little Armenia, and suddenly the burglar bars were back. Gang tags appeared with more frequency. Crossing Wilshire, I realized I was in Koreatown – hey look, gang tags in Korean! Two blocks further, I was back driving through Hispanic slums. I took a right onto Pico. I could see the Century City skyline over the horizon, and half abandoned store fronts with Spanish signs all along the street. I didn’t see a Starbucks for over twenty blocks.