It's always interesting to hear people's impressions of any city, from a resident's perspective, and a visitor's as well. Just like life, everyone brings something different to the table...so if someone has brought a big bag of suck with them, the city will seem like a lame place. They'll leave at the end of their time completely unchanged, and go home to their pathetic whiny existence. If someone has half a brain and a little perspective, it will be everything they make it, and the city will toss back a few surprises too. I'll be the first to admit that Toronto has its extremely uptight snot-nosed wannabe uber-kool side...but I find it easy to ignore that shit and I have a reality seeking device that keeps me focused. If the cunty princesses and ignorant assholes get a little overwhelming, then it's time for a road trip to somewhere with one stop light...dinner with the local yokels, maybe some tammy wynette karaoke...making friends is easy if you just let people in.
I fantasize all the time about palm trees. Maybe it's because of my Canuckian heritage, but there is something so captivatingly magical about streets lined with palm trees, it takes my breath away.
Great post. Only been to LA once -- the first time in '88 when I stayed with a punk rock musician who's kinda literally crazy, the last time in '01 I was in a motel with tiles on the floor. Neither time could I figure the place out 'cause it's so damn sprawling and weirdly laid out.
You every read John Fante? I like what he has to say about LA...
Great little music list, btw -- very concise, cool, and anyone who goes from NWW to N Drake is okay by me...
ha ha, ok man. i likw when steve martin talks to the digital road sign.
you are right i do look oddly decapitated in that photo...i am really fascinated by beheadings and wish i could see my own without dying. i guess now i have (eek!).
in regards to your previous entry: ugh, no fair man, i wanna go too!
I'm a small town boy from the Pacific Northwest. Born and raised hours away from cities and I was subject to the slow torture of watching the area become engulfed with progress.
I watch what used to be beautiful country turned into another strip mall infested hell in the name of said "progress".
I like cities and I like the country. I wish people would leave the latter alone. I miss being able to lay down outside my parents house and watch the stars.
I miss the quiet nights in my no stop light, two horse town. I bemoan the lack of things to do there, but I also enjoyed the solitude it gave me.
No one could tamper with me there, but now it is being quartered off and sold. I miss the desert night because the city lights have stolen it away from me.
LA Story rules..although its slightly nauseating
I actually thought SJParker was attractive in that movie
She's DEFINITELY not my type. Thats all Ferris'
Oneida, yes they are pretty awesome. I actually saw them a few days after Sept. 11 2001 in Brooklyn -- I'd gone out to NY to visit friends having lived there for 8 years at one time, and also I was out there for work, for the CMJ music convention which of course got cancelled. But there were still all these shows scheduled for the weekend right afterwards, and a handful of them did happen (after much debate.) I saw my favorite band, The Clean from New Zealand, whose song about there being "too much violence" certainly felt apt; then I headed out to this cool club in a friend's apt. called something robot, not giant robot and it's not save the robots.
Anyway, Oneida played in these people's big sweaty loft and the first song was "sheets of easter" which i'd never heard before its on their last record -- basically they chant the same word over and over again on top of these repeating riffs for like 8 minutes before there finally is a chord change, and it's really loud. I coulda sworn they were singing "Life life life life!" and after what had just happened, it was just the most amazing, cathartic thing, I fucking was like laughing and crying at the same time I think, so yeah before that I just thought they were like Can meets Deep Purple or whatever I had no idea how great they could be and of course that situation was extraordinary...
