I just spent 5 days in Los Angeles with my son (14). That was our summer vacation. We chose Los Angeles through a mutual process. He likes cities. We have friends there. I am going to tell you the most influential experiences that I had there during our trip. But the collective experience got me thinking about the influential cities in my life: New York, Barcelona, Singapore and, now, Los Angeles.
I don't know how to measure or fully explain this type of "influence." I know that I will pay attention to trends and ideas that come out of Los Angeles because of the experiences that I have had there and certain amorphous connection that I feel. There is an energy and personality to Los Angeles that just makes sense to me. I asked my friend, Guy Zimmerman, who runs Padua Playwrights, and is an independent filmmaker (and transplanted New Yorker), to put his finger on what he liked so much about it. He said that LA favors the weirdos, the offbeat, the independents. The city doesn't just tolerate them, it actually helps them thrive.
Now, I am ignoring the whole Hollywood-entertainment-business-entrenched-yet-endangered-royalty. That is just a sideshow to what really interests me - people like Guy and the rollerskating, turbaned, electric guitar-playing guy on the Venice beachfront.
Here are my twelve experiences that lock LA as another city of influence. They are in no particular order.
1. Staying at the Roosevelt Hotel at Hollywood and Highland. Now a redesigned Thompson Hotel, this place is great. I like the Thompson "family" and highly recommend them. We had a great room which always helps but it's the scene in the hotel and the one right outside that makes it a great experience. The place has got history, some quite notorius. The Hockney-designed pool has a hint of 60's design in its beautiful rectangularness. Whenever i hung out, I felt that I had dropped into a scene of "Entourage" - wonderfully spoiled twenty-somethings with some unknown pedigree clustered poolside. The lobby was in constant party mode with a Jimmy Kimmel show party one night (the show is housed up the block) and some unknown rock and roll party another. Good french fries and a staff who digs it when you stay a bunch of nights. More on what happens outside later....
2. Splurging on the Universal Studios VIP Experience. While a bit pricey, it is totally worth it. Our guide, Mark was a study in great customer relations. He was upbeat the whole time, completely conversant (meaning he was not just "delivering" his part), and really, really nice. Jumping to the front of the line felt naughty and nice. The backlot tour was wonderfully cheesy and filled with chestnut anecdotes. It didn't hurt that Don Cheadle popped out of a sound edit suite right in front of us.
3. Seeing the initial rough cut of Gary's Walk, an independent film. We stopped by the edit anti-suite in the arts district near Japan Town to see some scenes from Guy Zimmerman's work in progress film that stars John Diehl, Amy Madigan and others. Guy comes from an avante garde theater experience (he would cringe at that term but that's how most people would see his team's work). That means the film is thoughtful, provocative and ambiguous in its meaning. A breath of fresh air. Oh and did I mention that it's a wee bit dark which is right up my alley. Guy and his troupe are quietly working with some of the best talent in Hollywood completely disintermediating that giant Hollywood machine.
4. Hearing how Warner Brothers will adapt to the disintermediation. It's funny, but I haven't used the term "disintermediation" since the early 90's when I first worked with Justin who now works at Warner Brothers running one of their digital businesses. Not only did he give us a great tour of the studio and sweet lunch in the Commisary (aka executive dining room), but he shared some insights on how he and others were going beyond a title-driven business to establish a longer term relationship with people.
5. Sitting in traffic when an earthquake happens. HOW COOL IS THAT! I turned to Nick and asked him why the car was shaking. He just shrugged. When we pulled into the LaBrea Tar Pits a guy sitting in his truck with a laptop told us that we had just experienced a "5.4."
6. Riding Segways from Santa Monica to Malibu. I know that the blush is off the rose of the Segway as it tried to find it's true mass application beyond foot patrol cops in wealthy townships, but zooming up the beach was George Jetson-cool.
7. Walking through the Museum of Jurassic Technology. A non-descript building on Venice Boulevard leads into one of the most disturbing, head-scratcher experiences that leaves you with the willies and more questions than when you entered. I felt like I was in the movie Phantasm waiting for the Tall Man to pop out. I cannot begin to explain the purpose, focus or reason the museum exists. The exhibits are beautiful in a dark, turn of the century-science kind of way. We both got creeped out and slunk out past the woman at the front desk who was reading a vast tome on tarot card reading.
8. Staying at Hollywood and Highland. The stars in the sidewalk. The handprints in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Mariah Carey playing outside in the Kodak Theater mall. The Jimmy Kimmel show live outside next to our hotel - heard from loudspeakers in a yell that would wake up the most catatonic of revelers: "Ladies and gentleman, Bryan Adams. Did I mention that Bryan Adams was here tonight?...." The star tour hawkers. The short guy in the Iron Man costume. Seeing Wall-E at the trippy El Capitan theater. Standing behind Kai from Queer Eye at the Starbuck's for morning coffee. The vibe of high hopes and desperation. I had visions of The Day of the Locusts.
9. Buying T-shirts at Venice Beach. The first time I came to Venice Beach, I hitchhiked from someplace like Long Beach. A street sweeper gave me my last ride. This time, I felt like I was home. The freaks and the hustlers. A scene that just walks on by. And the best t-shirts at Anonymous.
10. Gazing at the Hollywood sign from the Mulholland Drive turnout. This was Nick's one big to-do while in town. It felt trivial at first but changed. Mulholland is legendary. Finding the hidden parking lot superb. Then we climbed a path and turned around....viola! The sign at sunset. How many stories started here, I wonder? How many people brought together by this view with its own stories.
11. Visiting the Ogilvy Public Relations offices on Wilshire. This was all about Monica and the earthquake. Monica is a soulful product of LA and is a big part of our office there. She loves rock and roll as much as I do. She speaks in LA-ese which I don't even know how to describe but I love it. And she was so cool to give Nick, a died-in-the-wool gamer, a stack of PSP games from a client. Man, she knows, she just knows.
12. Riding the tram up to "The Getty." For one reason or another I had never been to the famed museum on the hill. To me "Getty" was a one-eared heir who appeared in a Wim Wenders movie. But Getty is part of the fabric of LA. The museum offers the public a storybook location and bigger-than-life campus of modernity. We can all visit and picnic on the grass by the snaking walkway. The tram is the key. It feels modern in that 1960's kind of way as if we are all being transported to another time. Then the grandiosity of the Meier buildings emerge on the hilltop like some movie-version futuristic city.
Some of these may feel like simple tourist highlights. For me they are so much more. LA is a city of artists, filmmakers, theater people, entrepeneurs, musicians, weirdos and eccentrics. I love it.
If you liked the Museum of Jurassic Technology, then you absolutely have to read Lawrence Weschler's book Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder, all about David Hildebrand Wilson, the founder of the museum. It's particularly useful when Weschler examines some of the exhibits.
Posted by: CableTechTalk | August 05, 2008 at 10:05 AM
I grew up in LA (Hollywood and The Valley), and while I have some fond memories of the city where I had my first date, I try to stay away. The scene IS quite amazing and entertaining, but the horizontal nature of it, the pittance of open spaces and the general challenges of existing in a gigantic city wind up making me depressed. My dad used to say, "who wants to breathe something you can't even see," when talking about smog, and despite progress, it's still awful. LA is too expensive and has too much sunshine -- it's just...LA enough to bother me. Give me Chicago, Boston, New York for big big cities instead of LA; I'll live cheerfully here in Cleveland, 3 blocks from the lake, in my leafy, sylvan town 10 miles from the office.
Posted by: Sean Williams | August 26, 2008 at 01:03 PM