Los Angeles, December 2003 |
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© 2003 Doug Plummer |
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Driving around Los Angeles, I pass signs I recognize. We all know the
names: Rodeo Drive. Bel-Air. Sunset Boulevard. These places actually exist, but there is
an ordinariness to the sensation to seeing them live. The intervention of media is absent.
They are just place names. For a city so obsessively dedicated to the automobile, it is surprisingly hard to find a place to park. The main boulevards where the restaurants and services are never have a free space. Turn onto a side street and signs at 50 foot intevals in bright red lettering deter parking at intervals that take considerable effort to decipher—is it prohibited between midnight to noon on alternate Tuesdays, unless you have a 2C permit, in which case you’re good for 8pm to dawn, daylight savings time? I thought I was safe because it wasn't the Friday night prohibition specified in the largest sign on the pole. Surely it would be fine to walk from here 3 blocks back to that nice looking restaurant on Melrose, and it’s 9 am on a Sunday. Apparently the fine print on the small green sign adds, "And All Other Times Too," as I return to a white envelope on the windshield and a $39 fine. The weather is pleasantly cool and cloudy, with a soft drizzle in the mornings. I felt so comfortable on arrival that I could have shed a skin to luxuriate in it, which must be why I left my pile jacket on the plane. I have not missed it. When I mention to people here how nice it is however, their eyes widen in incredulity, their jaws slacken, and they are struck mute. "But, this is terrible weather!" they reply, recovering. "It's cloudy! And it's freezing!" they say, in the same tone that we might refer to, say, a foot deep snowfall or a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. To me the drizzle feels tropical, with that caressing quality of the intermittent showers at mid elevation on the Big Island, or deep within the Monteverde cloud forest. Exotic and comforting at the same time. The sky has a subtle rendering of lights and darks, and I only occasionally need to wear my sunglasses to be comfortable outdoors. For this, people seem to think I am from another planet. I am not inclined to disagree with them. Now I am in a neighborhood, on Sunset Boulevard, where apparently people need to be vetted for the appropriate designer clothes and hair styling to be seated outdoors at the restaurants. Perhaps they hold auditions. Designer shops abound. Women's shoes are magnificently displayed. I feel seriously underdressed. Nothing I am wearing did I buy in the current decade. I settle for the inconspicuousness of the counter at Mels Drive-In, albeit here a drive-in has valet parking. The staff seems to have come from Central Casting. The Spanish speaking cooks behind the grill are cheerful and attractive, and the waitresses are all pretty. They are saucy and efficient in the manner of the movie diner stereotype, though one of the waitresses has artifically red hair and tattoos on every inch of visible skin below the shoulders. When she bends over there are roses on her breasts, and vines peeking out of her midriff. |
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