I always hated Los Angeles, living there, especially trapped inside traffic and perpetually searching for a parking space, people lonely and separated from textured daily life by sterile malls. It was definitely the wrong place for me to move to upon my return to America from Europe. I’d been living on streets of squats in Berlin, bicycling for hours to clubs, and before that the raucous meringue blasts of Washington Heights in New York City.
It was a huge shock to be plopped into a corporate world of people who didn’t read books, didn’t appreciate art, and wrote screenplays but had no appreciation of culture. Everyone always seemed to be in a bubble with no chances for culture or joy unless they had scheduled it hours ahead. People’s social circles felt constrained when I lived there, locked into weird cliques of people who grew up all American but had never graduated beyond high school, partying at people’s houses instead of roaming a cosmopolitan melting pot.
I think if I had given Los Angeles a bit more time I would have been able to move to Los Felix or Silverlake, hang out with more poets, but I could never get used to the overly bright, ugly boulevards of strip malls and inability to walk.
I guess part of it is also I was around a lot of transplants for whom culture and place mean nothing and they had no values beyond who drove the most expensive car or had lunch and knew the most important person. I definitely did not hang out with enough native Angelenos. It was a culture clash of people who went backpacking to Europe and hung out in strip malls but did not wander the squats of Berlin or frolick in the heart of East LA. I guess it was the difference between people who love San Diego and people who love CDMX.
However, once I started staying downtown and taking the train and reserving driving only for jaunts into nature (hello ZipCar), I fell in love! There was texture and life, serendipity and culture, and walking makes you encounter people of all stations of life.
For me the Flyaway bus from the airport was great. It whisked us away from the joylessness of the airport rental car counters and straight into a beautiful urban train station, Union Station that had appeared I think in Bladerunner. There is even a guide to exploring BladeRunner set locations on the Los Angeles city guide, totally awesome guys.
