Ok, so I am in LA: Everything is loud, big, and exciting. I have finally a room and all the accompanying bits and pieces, and life goes its way. Besides all that organizational matters I did at least not have to worry about getting to know the city. Which is an advantage. Not a very individual one, granted. We all know it. We all have been here. At least if we had a television…
The A Team, Baywatch, Beverly Hills 90210, and countless other series portray LA, even without stating that explicitly. Hollywood is not only a place, but a trademark and―to some―a way of life.
Musicians from Cypress Hill over Presidents of the USA to Sheryl Crow or System of a Down sing about the city, telling tales about the hard life in South Central or the bars in Downtown, and A Tribe Called Quest in an older song bemoaned the loss of their wallet in El Segundo.
Yes, LA is exactly as we always imagined it to be. We have all been here, we know how it looks. Other than Bielefeld it exists, it has a place in our heads. That also means, however, that everyone has an exact picture about how I live. They differ somewhat, but an astounding number of them involve pools, stars, yet also thugs and shopping carts.
My reality is somewhat different: Sure, everything is as seen in the movies, all the places do exist. There are thugs, there are stars, and there are ghettos and glamour side by side. Reality, however, is less glamorous: I go to university in South Central, El Segundo is just a 15min bike ride away, Beverly Hills and I are separated by just a few numbers in our ZIP code, and Hollywood is a dingy quarter full of tourists, hookers, and souvenir shops. I live in two cities…
Up close, the city loses much of its screen character and becomes something else: A tangle of streets and houses, of beach and highways. It is many small cities in one, all full of interesting, busy, and mostly nice people from all over the world. It is a myth that keeps re-inventing itself, an unsentimental giant with a disposition for drama. A contradiction in itself.
No, this LA is certainly not a pretty city, yet an exciting and―mostly―a friendly one.
And currently my home.