An LA state of mind

Near the beginning of "Easy Rider," a man at a gas station in the rural American west asks Peter Fonda, on his motorcycle, where he was from.

"LA," Fonda says. "El Lay?" says the man. "Los Angeles," Fonda explains.
Who in this era would not know what LA is? The question is, what it means.
If you look around mall-America, what do you see? LA Fitness. Hollywood Tans. West Coast Video (now defunct, I think.)

All reflect the common perception that the place is all about, essentially, superficiality. Perfect bodies. Winter tans. Video uber alles, over print, traditionally New York's bailiwick (publishing, magazines, newspapers. All threatened with extinction in the brave new Internet age.)

The question right now is whether Southern California remains the last frontier, America's America, where you can go and make a whole new existence and identity for yourself. To be someone else, not dictated by family, home, education, town, state or country.

I have been fascinated by the place ever since I read my uncle's collection of magazine articles on it in the late 60s and early 70s compiled in a book called "Eureka!" the California state motto. It means, "I have found it."

Found what? That remains unanswered. But there is no question that the place gives one an intoxicating sense of freedom. Just get a car, somehow, some way.

Southern California seems, from the east and midwest, not just a different state, but a different country. The land looks different, the light looks different, as are the trees and vegetation, more like the Mediterranean than the US. Even the smog gives it an otherworldly character, like being on Venus.

The city itself, though sprawling, is only a small part of it. You can go to the beach, go to the mountains, go to the desert, all in a single day if you want. Close-by destinations abound: Vegas, Palm Springs, Tijuana and Baja California. Up the spectacular coast to San Fran.

The British love the place, especially Santa Monica, chock full of English pubs. Totally different than what they're used to (probably the same reason they flock to the Costa Del Sol in Spain).

Then there is the dark side, so thoroughly examined by noir writers (are you reading, Rambler?). Would-be starlets jumping off the Hollywood sign (you can't actually get to it now). Teen girls exploited and thrown out for the next piece of ass on the porn-flick assembly line. Aging rockers, former film and TV stars and other has-beens pathetically trying to hold on to some semblance of fame, glamor, and youth beautiful youth. The plastic-surgery capital for plastic people.

The whole place is fake. Sustained only by stealing water from the entire American west. Ready to fall into the sea when "The Big One" comes along. Multi-million dollar castles built on land that burns in one season and slides away in another. A mass-manufactured Garden of Eden whose inhabitants have long since eaten the forbidden fruit. Tinseltown, Land of the Lotus eaters, Hell-A.

But the stereotypes of LA represent only a small part of it. Usually the wealthy and celebrity-laden Westside and Malibu, or, conversely, the theatric violence of gangs in South Central and East LA.

Last time I checked, Southern California contained the largest number of manufacturers in the US. It also faces the growth area of the world; China and the Pacific Rim. Metropolitan LA's population is growing ever closer to that of metro New York, and there's lots of empty desert left to subdivide and conquer.

There is now, of course, a tarnish on the Golden State, with 10 percent unemployment. The frontier has washed backwards toward the mountain states: Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and sometimes Utah. Housing is cheaper (Cal. has the highest home prices in the US). The air is cleaner, the traffic less hectic, fewer social problems, less hassle. Americans always want to go somewhere newer and somehow better. We are like children who play with a toy for a certain period, then leave it a mess and abandon it for something, anything else. Greener pastures in a rain-starved place.

All that freedom can certainly be liberating, but it can be atomizing too. The absence of social restraints can lead to a kind of ridiculous narcissism personified in Hollywood excess and deified by the rest of the population. California is home to the religion of you. Be your own God.

This can be healthy and self-fulfilling, or it can be empty, lonely and leave one with a distinct feeling of foolishness. Much of California remains vacant. Some of the population can be cartoonized as the same. Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" bit, where he asks Californians (and tourists)about current events and they display a snicker-inducing ignorance of anything in the public realm besides celebrity hanky-panky underlines this stereotype in bold letters.

But the fact that Southern California is artificial is part of its attraction. What do people in a free country do when given maximum freedom? Is it inspiring or dispiriting? The fact that a kind of fake civilization collides with a real environment that is breathtaking but often hostile to it (mudslides, wildfires, earthquakes) adds to the place's strange allure. Anyone with a remote interest in sociology, politics, journalism or anthropology has got to be attracted to it.
Obviously I am, but I leave it to the Rambler to channel it for the rest of us for now.