This is mostly a reprint of something I put on my movie's myspace page but I figured with Devin and a few other Chewers all heading over to LA around the same time it might be interesting to start a general thread on out-of-towners in the area. Anyways, here's my first impressions of the city, other Angelinos be sure to lemme know what I've gotten right, what you disagree with, what you see as naive or weird perspective on the place. A quick reminder to all readers that this is coming from someone who up until May 21st had never been further west than Pennsylvania.
-When flying in it was spectacular as the sun was setting right over the horizon and there were mountains all around, where we were flying below the ridgeline. The smog layer below us was so thick it looked more like snow than anything, you couldn't see through it at all.
-Just adjusting to the difference in terrain is tough enough, its bizarre to go from the temperate woodlands and meadows of New England to the desert scrub and tall hills of the LA area. The hills around our college's apartments is all scorched earth, there was a huge brush fire in our area just the year before that literally went up to only yards from the building.
-The worst thing about the desert landscape is the fact that wherever you look down in the neighborhoods it's perfectly sculpted green lawns that look blatantly fake, like they just took a grass carpet and unrolled it there. The landscaping industry over here must be massive, and I've heard ridiculous statistics in regards to the amount of water that is sucked into the area just to try and pretend that the grass is supposed to be there. I've never seen such immaculate and sterile looking lawns in my life, they're like the plastic surgery version of plantlife.
-Speaking of the plantlife, the palm trees here are pretty amazing and tall as fuck, and they have giant ferns here so big they look like they'd eat you. I wanna bring one back.
-Everyone always flaps their jaws about LA traffic and driving, but it's mostly just BS. Boston driving and drivers are way worse, the only bad thing here is there's virtually no turn signals, no matter how busy the intersection. The big vans used to move around movie equipment drive like madmen because of their schedules, but other than that if you got LA and Boston drivers together the Boston guys would crazy the fuck out of them.
-There's lots of weird little things out here. The gas stations all have TVs playing commercials at the gas pumps (!?!?). There are ads everywhere here, they have giant posters that cover entire skyscraper sides, billboards that make the ones back home look like postage stamps. They have Orangina in select stores! They have weird supermarket chains called Vons that aren't used for anything but parking lots by yours truly. You're expected to drive everyplace but there's nowhere to park said cars.
-Downtown LA is about the size of downtown Hartford with similar buildings, but it's hilly as fuck, I can't believe they were able to conform a skyscraper section to such an unlevel place.
-In the first few days I maintained that Boston had a higher hot girl ratio than LA but that LA's hot girls were hotter, but I'm beginning to begrudgingly modify this claim. But LA has a ton more fat/eerily plasticized women so that might bring Boston's ratio back to the fore.
-I saw more nice cars my first day here than I've seen in my entire life I think. Same goes for Jewish people. Wherever you go in Hollywood there's insanely expensive-looking cars, and a BMW is like a Honda Civic.
-This place has some great food. Went straight to the In'N'Out Burger from the airport, that place is incredible. First cheap Chinese food place I went to beat ever cheap joint in Boston put together.
-Compared to Boston the police presence here is nil, but when you do see them they're always seriously cracking down on somebody.
-Hollywood's glitzy part is like Disneyland or somethin'. All neon and tourists and stars with celebrity names in them on the sidewalk (still haven't found any footprints/handprints yet). Not really my bag, it feels fake.
-It isn't especially hot here, most of the time it is like the temperatures New England is this time of year. But it's always sunny, apparently it only rains here like once every four months or so and people don't know what to do with themselves. The shininess everywhere tends to feel fake after a while too, like a botoxed smile on a city that has lots of serious problems and lots of down and out, desperate people.
-For a very 'liberal' city LA has lots and lots of serious contradictions that make its leans feel more like lip service than anything. There's no recycling to be found anywhere, the homeless problem here is huuuuge (I heard back during the Reagan years a few local mental institutions were shut down and all the patients set free when they ran out of funding), and of course there's the innumerable gas guzzling vehicles everywhere, up to and including a fleet of Hummer Limousines prowling up and down Sunset Blvd.
-As for career stuff, I got me a great internship that I beat about a million other Emerson kids for, I know I'm gonna love it and learn a lot there. I got to meet the guy running Dark Horse Comics' movie division and that was really cool, and I interviewed for the assistant position for an exec at Miramax but that never went anywhere unfortunately (that woulda been a great way to get The Supermarket seen by important people, that's for sure), but what're ya gonna do. I've seen one big actor, Nick Chinlund, that's it.
All in all, LA's a very interesting place and so far it's felt like I've been on vacation here. Living here for more than a vacation though, might get old quick, but I'd get past it. It'll never, ever feel like home though, and that's something I'm happy to report.
-When flying in it was spectacular as the sun was setting right over the horizon and there were mountains all around, where we were flying below the ridgeline. The smog layer below us was so thick it looked more like snow than anything, you couldn't see through it at all.
-Just adjusting to the difference in terrain is tough enough, its bizarre to go from the temperate woodlands and meadows of New England to the desert scrub and tall hills of the LA area. The hills around our college's apartments is all scorched earth, there was a huge brush fire in our area just the year before that literally went up to only yards from the building.
-The worst thing about the desert landscape is the fact that wherever you look down in the neighborhoods it's perfectly sculpted green lawns that look blatantly fake, like they just took a grass carpet and unrolled it there. The landscaping industry over here must be massive, and I've heard ridiculous statistics in regards to the amount of water that is sucked into the area just to try and pretend that the grass is supposed to be there. I've never seen such immaculate and sterile looking lawns in my life, they're like the plastic surgery version of plantlife.
-Speaking of the plantlife, the palm trees here are pretty amazing and tall as fuck, and they have giant ferns here so big they look like they'd eat you. I wanna bring one back.
-Everyone always flaps their jaws about LA traffic and driving, but it's mostly just BS. Boston driving and drivers are way worse, the only bad thing here is there's virtually no turn signals, no matter how busy the intersection. The big vans used to move around movie equipment drive like madmen because of their schedules, but other than that if you got LA and Boston drivers together the Boston guys would crazy the fuck out of them.
-There's lots of weird little things out here. The gas stations all have TVs playing commercials at the gas pumps (!?!?). There are ads everywhere here, they have giant posters that cover entire skyscraper sides, billboards that make the ones back home look like postage stamps. They have Orangina in select stores! They have weird supermarket chains called Vons that aren't used for anything but parking lots by yours truly. You're expected to drive everyplace but there's nowhere to park said cars.
-Downtown LA is about the size of downtown Hartford with similar buildings, but it's hilly as fuck, I can't believe they were able to conform a skyscraper section to such an unlevel place.
-In the first few days I maintained that Boston had a higher hot girl ratio than LA but that LA's hot girls were hotter, but I'm beginning to begrudgingly modify this claim. But LA has a ton more fat/eerily plasticized women so that might bring Boston's ratio back to the fore.
-I saw more nice cars my first day here than I've seen in my entire life I think. Same goes for Jewish people. Wherever you go in Hollywood there's insanely expensive-looking cars, and a BMW is like a Honda Civic.
-This place has some great food. Went straight to the In'N'Out Burger from the airport, that place is incredible. First cheap Chinese food place I went to beat ever cheap joint in Boston put together.
-Compared to Boston the police presence here is nil, but when you do see them they're always seriously cracking down on somebody.
-Hollywood's glitzy part is like Disneyland or somethin'. All neon and tourists and stars with celebrity names in them on the sidewalk (still haven't found any footprints/handprints yet). Not really my bag, it feels fake.
-It isn't especially hot here, most of the time it is like the temperatures New England is this time of year. But it's always sunny, apparently it only rains here like once every four months or so and people don't know what to do with themselves. The shininess everywhere tends to feel fake after a while too, like a botoxed smile on a city that has lots of serious problems and lots of down and out, desperate people.
-For a very 'liberal' city LA has lots and lots of serious contradictions that make its leans feel more like lip service than anything. There's no recycling to be found anywhere, the homeless problem here is huuuuge (I heard back during the Reagan years a few local mental institutions were shut down and all the patients set free when they ran out of funding), and of course there's the innumerable gas guzzling vehicles everywhere, up to and including a fleet of Hummer Limousines prowling up and down Sunset Blvd.
-As for career stuff, I got me a great internship that I beat about a million other Emerson kids for, I know I'm gonna love it and learn a lot there. I got to meet the guy running Dark Horse Comics' movie division and that was really cool, and I interviewed for the assistant position for an exec at Miramax but that never went anywhere unfortunately (that woulda been a great way to get The Supermarket seen by important people, that's for sure), but what're ya gonna do. I've seen one big actor, Nick Chinlund, that's it.
All in all, LA's a very interesting place and so far it's felt like I've been on vacation here. Living here for more than a vacation though, might get old quick, but I'd get past it. It'll never, ever feel like home though, and that's something I'm happy to report.
