- Sunshine and warm 80% of the time isn't so bad after all.
- There are a lot of people here. A lot.
- I like being in a racially/ethnically/demographically mixed neighborhood - it feels more like an authentic American experience.
- Not sure why I feared driving, because now I love it.
- The Hollywood Bowl is hands down my favorite place to see a show.
- LA is a lot more densely populated than anyone gives it credit for - and yet it is still spread out just as much as everyone complains that it is.
- The majority of people are either working in "the entertainment business" or something connected to it.
- Any time of day, in any coffee shop anywhere in the city there will always be people buying coffee - where are they coming from? Don't they have jobs?
- There's tons of great places to hike all within a short distance.
- I can afford living here, and I don't feel perpetually stressed out about my finances or rent or any of that.
- Hosting trivia two nights a week is a bit tiring but a hell of a lot of fun.
- I've made some great friends in the first year.
- Moving here is one of the best decisions I've ever made.
- It's both unsettling and kinda revealing to be surrounded by so many pretty people.
- I don't speak Spanish.
- I love showing my new home to friends - especially friends who have bad experiences of this city before coming to visit (this is true of many people, go figure).
- I've seen a few celebrities out and about, but far fewer than one would expect given that I live in Hollywood.
- The Hollywood sign is fun to look at - a great way to orient myself to where I am.
- I love my boyfriend.
- It's great having my own kitchen, especially since I love baking cookies.
- Putt putt golfing on an 85 degree day for my mid-January birthday is quite fun.
- I hate helicopters.
- I really hate smog - something I see far more often than I'd like and far less often than I expected.
- There are a lot of trees.
- Palm trees are like living fireworks, but their detritus is far more dangerous.
- People are very upbeat - perhaps it's the sunshine?
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
One year... already?
It's hard to believe, but it was just over one year ago that I moved to Los Angeles. One year in, and here are a bunch of random observations that I wanted to share with y'all:
Monday, July 4, 2011
4th of July
I just celebrated my first Fourth of July as an Angeleno, and I had a blast. We spent all afternoon and evening on my boyfriend's apartment's rooftop "deck," with many friends, some of whom I've only met in the past couple months and some I've known for years. The weather was lovely (if a bit roasty toasty at points), and the view of fireworks after sunset was pretty amazing.
I want to say a few things about the new friends I'm making in Los Angeles. Part of a place feeling like a home are those people who reflect back to you the kind of person you are in that moment. And, if my friends are a reflection of me in this moment, then I am some kind of sassy, un-PC, playful SOB. A few times today I remarked on how my boyfriend, in particular, has corrupted me. The truth is, he is helping me to let go... of needing to be right, of needing to be uber-political, of needing to always see things globally (to the detriment of dealing with shit right at home).
And now the people who I'm blessed to consider friends are just accelerating that experience. It's an experience that I am loving, to the point where I think nothing of making the food and helping set up a whole day's party for everyone's enjoyment, because I am having so much fun.
This all isn't to say that LA has the corner on cool people to hang out with. Not at all. It's more that I am just having fun in a way that I haven't really had fun before, and that opens me up to making new friends who I might not have before and doing new things that I would not have considered before. It's a place I'm very happy to be.
Not much else to say at the moment - just wanted to share a quick couple thoughts after a really enjoyable 4th of July. Happy Independence Day!
I want to say a few things about the new friends I'm making in Los Angeles. Part of a place feeling like a home are those people who reflect back to you the kind of person you are in that moment. And, if my friends are a reflection of me in this moment, then I am some kind of sassy, un-PC, playful SOB. A few times today I remarked on how my boyfriend, in particular, has corrupted me. The truth is, he is helping me to let go... of needing to be right, of needing to be uber-political, of needing to always see things globally (to the detriment of dealing with shit right at home).
And now the people who I'm blessed to consider friends are just accelerating that experience. It's an experience that I am loving, to the point where I think nothing of making the food and helping set up a whole day's party for everyone's enjoyment, because I am having so much fun.
This all isn't to say that LA has the corner on cool people to hang out with. Not at all. It's more that I am just having fun in a way that I haven't really had fun before, and that opens me up to making new friends who I might not have before and doing new things that I would not have considered before. It's a place I'm very happy to be.
Not much else to say at the moment - just wanted to share a quick couple thoughts after a really enjoyable 4th of July. Happy Independence Day!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Home, sick
Not feeling too well today, and since I have a little time to relax at home, I thought what better to do than to blog? hahaha.
It's been over a month since I said anything on these pages, and a lot has happened in that time. My job has turned up its intensity a notch, which I am really enjoying. The boyfriend and I got a couple weekends to do boyfriend-y stuff, like going on a spa date, watching movies together, and seeing Kylie Minogue at the Hollywood Bowl. We've made some new friends who we are really enjoying getting to hang out with. I'm hosting pub trivia once a week at a local watering hole. The weather has pretty much not changed - still mid-70s and sunny about 90% of the time. And, all things considered, I'm feeling pretty good. :-)
That said, the other night I just felt stressed out. I couldn't sleep, I was having nightmares when I did sleep, and I was starting to come down with something (which is keeping me home today). And I realized something that hadn't really sunk in intrinsically the way that I've understood it intellectually for some time.
I've been going through a lot of change this past year.
I left the city I'd called home for ten years. I moved to a new city that, up until about a year before I'd moved, I hadn't even contemplated as a place I could find myself living. I left a job and did consulting work for some time to support myself. I started a new job that has challenged and supported me in new ways. My relationship is in a completely different (and even better) place now than when it was long-distance. I'm making new friends. I'm adjusting to a totally different way of life and interaction with my community (less political, more playful).
These are just the topline adjustments that come to mind, and underneath each of them is a series of smaller, and still impactful, changes that have weighed on me and also given me whole new insights into things.
A lot has happened in just nine months, and, frankly, I'm really happy about it. That doesn't mean that I don't feel stressed out at times or go through difficult moments. If anything, if it weren't stressful on some level then one could reasonably question whether it was really challenging me in any way.
It's been over a month since I said anything on these pages, and a lot has happened in that time. My job has turned up its intensity a notch, which I am really enjoying. The boyfriend and I got a couple weekends to do boyfriend-y stuff, like going on a spa date, watching movies together, and seeing Kylie Minogue at the Hollywood Bowl. We've made some new friends who we are really enjoying getting to hang out with. I'm hosting pub trivia once a week at a local watering hole. The weather has pretty much not changed - still mid-70s and sunny about 90% of the time. And, all things considered, I'm feeling pretty good. :-)
That said, the other night I just felt stressed out. I couldn't sleep, I was having nightmares when I did sleep, and I was starting to come down with something (which is keeping me home today). And I realized something that hadn't really sunk in intrinsically the way that I've understood it intellectually for some time.
I've been going through a lot of change this past year.
I left the city I'd called home for ten years. I moved to a new city that, up until about a year before I'd moved, I hadn't even contemplated as a place I could find myself living. I left a job and did consulting work for some time to support myself. I started a new job that has challenged and supported me in new ways. My relationship is in a completely different (and even better) place now than when it was long-distance. I'm making new friends. I'm adjusting to a totally different way of life and interaction with my community (less political, more playful).
These are just the topline adjustments that come to mind, and underneath each of them is a series of smaller, and still impactful, changes that have weighed on me and also given me whole new insights into things.
A lot has happened in just nine months, and, frankly, I'm really happy about it. That doesn't mean that I don't feel stressed out at times or go through difficult moments. If anything, if it weren't stressful on some level then one could reasonably question whether it was really challenging me in any way.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Nobody Walks in LA! (because they drive instead)
Okay okay... the title exaggerates this notion quite a bit, but there is definitely truth in it.
When I moved here last September, I was thrilled to be in a neighborhood that's walkable. And within .5 to .75 mile from my apartment I have just about everything I could want - grocery shopping, restaurants, lots of retail, a movie theater, my gym, a train station, etc. etc. So, from the technical standpoint of walkability, I'm doing quite well for the average Angeleno.
That said, the other night my boyfriend and I were having dinner with some new friends, and a couple of us concurred that, despite opportunities to walk here and there (for some more than others), it's just not that fun to walk in LA. Why? Because Los Angeles is built for cars, not pedestrians. Many of the sidewalks are narrow and located close to fast-moving traffic, things are spread out so you gotta walk farther (than in your average city), and the majority of intersections require that you push a button to get a signal to cross the street (or else risk getting a ticket for jaywalking... or risk getting run over). On the flipside, the roads are wide; the standard speed limit on most thoroughfares is 35 mph (which is pretty high considering it's an urban environment); the grid pattern makes it easy to find alternatives if one road isn't moving well; and there's generally cheap or free parking almost anywhere you go (although often you gotta know the "tricks" to finding it).
The typical "progressive" response to a city built around the car like LA is to pooh-pooh it. Like it's the devil's spawn and not worth even considering as a viable place to live. Okay, I get it. I couldn't wait to move out of car-centric Detroit when I was growing up, and now I find myself in a place that epitomizes America's obsession with four wheels. But it is what it is. I'm not responsible today for the decisions urban planners made decades ago to tear up the light rail and replace it with tar and paint.
And there's lots of people who are trying to change this. LA's current metro subway system, being what it is, is just over 20 years old, with some of the newer lines just around a decade old. Efforts to add bike lines and "sharrows" around town are moving along, but slowly. Redevelopment of neighborhoods like mine to make them more walkable and pedestrian-friendly is slowly changing the face of a city defined by the automobile.
It all takes time though... Just because you lay down a train line that can whisk people downtown past miles of backed-up traffic doesn't mean people will flock to it. A, they may not know where it starts or ends; B, it's a cultural shift they need to make to get out of their cars; and C, until land use patterns change as well, trains aren't going to just become popular on their own.
Think about the great train cities... London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, New York, Chicago... perhaps the most important factor in all of those cities is the age of their train systems. For many of them, they built their train lines at the same time that their cities were growing out to where the trains went. Secondly, and almost as importantly, their trains go directly to major places where people want to be. In London there's dozens of places, but certainly Picadilly Circus, Westminster, and Heathrow Airport come to mind; in New York there's Times Square and Wall Street; in Chicago it's the Loop and O'Hare Airport. If a train system doesn't take people to a major hub of activity, it's gonna struggle.
And in LA, in a city that grew up around the very notion that people can drive from wherever to wherever on their own, in which there's little concentration of jobs or housing in any particular location (not even, really, in downtown), it's very near impossible to develop a train system that'll get people anywhere they want to be consistently and for multiple purposes. Sure, when my boyfriend and I want to go downtown for an evening event, we'll take the subway, but when I'm going to work, I have little choice but to drive. If my work was located downtown, then I'd take the train. But it isn't, and it's nowhere near a train station, which is true for most Angelenos' jobs and/or housing. The very fact that I live within a half-mile of an LA Metro station actually puts me in the minority of Angelenos.
Changing this takes time. In my neighborhood, the Hollywood/Vine subway station is located in a great spot, and there's some good new development that has sprung up around it - but it isn't enough to make that particular station very successful. Instead of several blocks around the station being filled with housing/retail/etc, there are a few blocks with some development and some blocks with surface parking lots. And I guarantee you that if someone can park relatively cheaply at a location rather than navigate the train system, they'll drive 99 times out of 100 rather than take the subway.
So can this ever change? Certainly. But unlike the kind of outcomes we see in New York, London, Paris, etc., Los Angeles has a tougher road to take, so to speak. The city is built out already, land is expensive, and ingrained cultural norms trend strongly toward driving over alternative transportation methods. If LA ever were to become the walkable/transit "nirvana" of places like the aforementioned cities, it would probably take ten times more effort to get it done here than it ever did in any of those other places. Not that it didn't take lots of effort elsewhere, but the barriers here are so overwhelming that it seems near impossible that it would ever change.
I wish LA was more walkable. What with gorgeous weather 95% of the time, fairly flat topography, and so many interesting neighborhoods and cultural institutions, it has all the ingredients to be more walkable right now. I'm just not sure that that's something I'm going to see in my lifetime, or if it's even possible to do.
What do you think?
When I moved here last September, I was thrilled to be in a neighborhood that's walkable. And within .5 to .75 mile from my apartment I have just about everything I could want - grocery shopping, restaurants, lots of retail, a movie theater, my gym, a train station, etc. etc. So, from the technical standpoint of walkability, I'm doing quite well for the average Angeleno.
That said, the other night my boyfriend and I were having dinner with some new friends, and a couple of us concurred that, despite opportunities to walk here and there (for some more than others), it's just not that fun to walk in LA. Why? Because Los Angeles is built for cars, not pedestrians. Many of the sidewalks are narrow and located close to fast-moving traffic, things are spread out so you gotta walk farther (than in your average city), and the majority of intersections require that you push a button to get a signal to cross the street (or else risk getting a ticket for jaywalking... or risk getting run over). On the flipside, the roads are wide; the standard speed limit on most thoroughfares is 35 mph (which is pretty high considering it's an urban environment); the grid pattern makes it easy to find alternatives if one road isn't moving well; and there's generally cheap or free parking almost anywhere you go (although often you gotta know the "tricks" to finding it).
The typical "progressive" response to a city built around the car like LA is to pooh-pooh it. Like it's the devil's spawn and not worth even considering as a viable place to live. Okay, I get it. I couldn't wait to move out of car-centric Detroit when I was growing up, and now I find myself in a place that epitomizes America's obsession with four wheels. But it is what it is. I'm not responsible today for the decisions urban planners made decades ago to tear up the light rail and replace it with tar and paint.
And there's lots of people who are trying to change this. LA's current metro subway system, being what it is, is just over 20 years old, with some of the newer lines just around a decade old. Efforts to add bike lines and "sharrows" around town are moving along, but slowly. Redevelopment of neighborhoods like mine to make them more walkable and pedestrian-friendly is slowly changing the face of a city defined by the automobile.
It all takes time though... Just because you lay down a train line that can whisk people downtown past miles of backed-up traffic doesn't mean people will flock to it. A, they may not know where it starts or ends; B, it's a cultural shift they need to make to get out of their cars; and C, until land use patterns change as well, trains aren't going to just become popular on their own.
Think about the great train cities... London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, New York, Chicago... perhaps the most important factor in all of those cities is the age of their train systems. For many of them, they built their train lines at the same time that their cities were growing out to where the trains went. Secondly, and almost as importantly, their trains go directly to major places where people want to be. In London there's dozens of places, but certainly Picadilly Circus, Westminster, and Heathrow Airport come to mind; in New York there's Times Square and Wall Street; in Chicago it's the Loop and O'Hare Airport. If a train system doesn't take people to a major hub of activity, it's gonna struggle.
And in LA, in a city that grew up around the very notion that people can drive from wherever to wherever on their own, in which there's little concentration of jobs or housing in any particular location (not even, really, in downtown), it's very near impossible to develop a train system that'll get people anywhere they want to be consistently and for multiple purposes. Sure, when my boyfriend and I want to go downtown for an evening event, we'll take the subway, but when I'm going to work, I have little choice but to drive. If my work was located downtown, then I'd take the train. But it isn't, and it's nowhere near a train station, which is true for most Angelenos' jobs and/or housing. The very fact that I live within a half-mile of an LA Metro station actually puts me in the minority of Angelenos.
Changing this takes time. In my neighborhood, the Hollywood/Vine subway station is located in a great spot, and there's some good new development that has sprung up around it - but it isn't enough to make that particular station very successful. Instead of several blocks around the station being filled with housing/retail/etc, there are a few blocks with some development and some blocks with surface parking lots. And I guarantee you that if someone can park relatively cheaply at a location rather than navigate the train system, they'll drive 99 times out of 100 rather than take the subway.
So can this ever change? Certainly. But unlike the kind of outcomes we see in New York, London, Paris, etc., Los Angeles has a tougher road to take, so to speak. The city is built out already, land is expensive, and ingrained cultural norms trend strongly toward driving over alternative transportation methods. If LA ever were to become the walkable/transit "nirvana" of places like the aforementioned cities, it would probably take ten times more effort to get it done here than it ever did in any of those other places. Not that it didn't take lots of effort elsewhere, but the barriers here are so overwhelming that it seems near impossible that it would ever change.
I wish LA was more walkable. What with gorgeous weather 95% of the time, fairly flat topography, and so many interesting neighborhoods and cultural institutions, it has all the ingredients to be more walkable right now. I'm just not sure that that's something I'm going to see in my lifetime, or if it's even possible to do.
What do you think?
Saturday, April 16, 2011
75 degrees Fahrenheit: The perfect human temperature?
I read somewhere in a book years ago that the temperature in heaven is always 75 degrees Fahrenheit. I won't reveal the book in which that information appeared cuz it's kinda embarrassing. Suffice to say that this particular "factoid" is about the only thing I remember from the entire book - and that's probably a good thing.
But I guess it means I got to experience a little slice of heaven today, as I strolled up Vine Street to grab a bite to eat. It was 77 degrees outside, with a light breeze blowing, after a day in which the mercury climbed up to almost 90 degrees. I had on my flip flops and shorts and a light t-shirt and felt content. Had it not been for my desire to get back home with my meal, I would have liked to spend more time outside (note to self: next time go to Waffle and eat outside). It was not so hot that I felt sweaty or uncomfortable, and not too cool to the point where I'd want to switch to pants or a heavier t-shirt.
The other day, my friend Corey commented to me that 75 is the "perfect human temperature," and after today I'm reminded that I agree with her. Sure, I love snow, and I also like hot days where you can sit on the beach all day, but somehow 75 just feels "perfect." Is that wrong of me to like it so d*mn much?
Oh, and for all my non-LA friends who may be wondering, yes I'm officially a weather "wimp." When the mercury dips below 60, I now shiver, like somehow I'm cold. Really Luke? Cold at 60? Maybe. That will probably have to go down as one of those unanswerable questions. What I do know is that the range of temperatures in LA (usually between 55 and 70 in the winter and usually between 60 and 85 in the summer) suits me just fine.
But I do miss thunderstorms.
But I guess it means I got to experience a little slice of heaven today, as I strolled up Vine Street to grab a bite to eat. It was 77 degrees outside, with a light breeze blowing, after a day in which the mercury climbed up to almost 90 degrees. I had on my flip flops and shorts and a light t-shirt and felt content. Had it not been for my desire to get back home with my meal, I would have liked to spend more time outside (note to self: next time go to Waffle and eat outside). It was not so hot that I felt sweaty or uncomfortable, and not too cool to the point where I'd want to switch to pants or a heavier t-shirt.
The other day, my friend Corey commented to me that 75 is the "perfect human temperature," and after today I'm reminded that I agree with her. Sure, I love snow, and I also like hot days where you can sit on the beach all day, but somehow 75 just feels "perfect." Is that wrong of me to like it so d*mn much?
Oh, and for all my non-LA friends who may be wondering, yes I'm officially a weather "wimp." When the mercury dips below 60, I now shiver, like somehow I'm cold. Really Luke? Cold at 60? Maybe. That will probably have to go down as one of those unanswerable questions. What I do know is that the range of temperatures in LA (usually between 55 and 70 in the winter and usually between 60 and 85 in the summer) suits me just fine.
But I do miss thunderstorms.
Why I moved to LA, Part 3: Change
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Dodger fans: The worst fans ever
Last night was gonna be fun: a night out at the Dodgers-Giants game on fireworks Friday, my first time going to a Dodgers game and my first time seeing the Giants in action since they captivated my former hometown and much of the country with their unbelievable run to win the World Series. My office had organized a group to go, and I was super excited about going, and bringing my boyfriend too. I even bought my first-ever fitted baseball cap - a black number with the orange "SF" logo - so I could feel like I was supporting my team.
Then the news came in about an attack the night before in which a Giants fan was beaten in the Dodgers parking lot by two men, resulting in a father of two ending up in the hospital in critical condition all for the sheer "crime" of wearing his team's colors. Remind me where we are again? In what place does someone get attacked for wearing his team's colors?
Oh, and this attack was on a night that the Dodgers won the game.
So I had on my "SF" cap, and that was it. Otherwise, my attire was pretty bland, but still I wasn't part of the sea of Dodger blue. Frankly, I thought the blue was pretty cool to look at, and I appreciated seeing such dedicated fans - particularly after feeling for years in SF that it was a city that lacked the appreciation or interest in sports worthy of a big city.
For the first couple innings I was having fun. We were in a section where they provided unlimited Dodger dogs, nachos, and popcorn. The drinks, obviously, weren't also unlimited, but there was an energy in the group that I was enjoying, the sheer volume of booing notwithstanding. And that was the first thing I noticed that started to irk me -- sure, I'll boo from time to time, but the Dodgers fans booed nearly every time anything was said about the Giants, and the booing had almost nothing to do with the calls on the field or plays made by either team.
And then, it got personal. One fan in a Giants jersey made the mistake of walking up the stairs to his seat, and people were booing him so loudly that you couldn't hear the announcer; some folks started throwing popcorn and peanuts at him. A half inning later, another guy in a Giants jersey was walking down the aisle and this time the peanuts were raining down on him, from both sides. It would be one thing to be irritated to see an orange jersey in the blue sea and scoff at it; it's entirely another to shout at him and throw things at him.
It only got worse when the guy sitting next to me - who was part of our group - stated that he agreed with me that people were being overly rude and then, swear to god, turned away and in the same breath started booing a Giants fan at the top of his lungs. This man's children were sitting right next to him and, as children tend to do, started imitating their father and booed the Giants fan five rows down. Uh, hey kids, why bother with the fan down there when you've got one right here you could boo in his face?
It was about the time when a Giants fan a dozen rows down from us stood up and a whole section of people stood up near here and started pointing and screaming in unison "kick her out! kick her out!" that I started shaking. You know that feeling after you've just either witnessed a horrible tragedy or been in an accident, when the adrenaline starts pumping and your ability to process and respond is all based on instinct? That began to happen to me. I knew the record - one night, one man beaten - and I did not want to become the next person in the hospital, for the crime of wearing a Giants hat at the Dodgers-Giants game at Dodger Stadium. I had to get out - even though I wanted to watch some good baseball - because I started fearing that I would be next. That I would be the next person to be targeted with the booing, the food tossing, the chanting and pointing, and who knows what next? Mix a little alcohol (or a lot of alcohol) into something like this, and things can get scary.
So, we left well before the game ended, before we'd see the fireworks, in part because I was scared out of my mind. As we walked to the car in the dark parking lot, one man turned to me and said under his breath, "yeah, leave now that your team is losing" in a way that indicated he thought I was chickening out, as if the Giants' performance on the field and my desire to leave at the moment that I did was a combination reflecting on my strength or ability. Have I mentioned that at this point I hadn't even been wearing my hat for the past 15 minutes? Yeah, I had it folded up in my hand. I just walked faster.
I didn't stop shaking until I was halfway home, and I never want to go back to that awful place. And unless and until I go back and have a different experience, I will forever remember Dodger Stadium as a horrible place. The fans as a group were awful, and rather than watch the game and appreciate the athletes assembled on the field for them, they made it personal and went after the dozen or so Giants fans scattered among the thousands of Dodger blue.
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For the record, this does not reflect my experience with LA fans so far. I have already been to several volleyball matches at USC and UCLA, and a couple Kings games at the Staples Center. So, I've been to a few sporting events in Los Angeles, and I would say that overall my experiences have been positive. At the most recent Kings game (where I got to cheer on my Detroit Red Wings), the purple-clad Angelenos would make cracks at the red-clad Detroiters (and vice versa), but it didn't escalate to the level of personal attacks and outright vitriol that I experienced last night at Dodger stadium. Instead, the fans focused on the game, and it was quite a game to watch (Wings won 7-4 in a wild one).
All of this is too bad, because the Dodgers are a good team with an amazing legacy. They have a beautiful stadium too, which is a throwback to an era of stadiums that seems long-forgotten in the mad rush of the past couple decades for teams to outdo one another in their bigger and better stadiums. The sea of blue was very exciting and could be such a boost for the home team, and the enthusiasm of many of the fans was infectious (I found myself clapping for a few incredible Dodger plays early on...). But that was all undone for me by the personalization and objectification of fellow (Giants) fans, on a scale and the likes of which I've never seen before last night.
Which is why Dodgers fans as the worst fans ever.
Don't demean the sport, elevate it. Don't tear down your opponents' supporters in the stands, cheer on your team on the field. Don't lose yourself and your sense of humanity in the moment, accept it and recognize it in everyone else around you.
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By the way, the Dodgers ended up winning the game 4-3. I might have been happy for them, but I honestly could give a flying rat's a$$ about it at this point. I just hope that the handful of Giants fans who braved the game made it home safely.
Then the news came in about an attack the night before in which a Giants fan was beaten in the Dodgers parking lot by two men, resulting in a father of two ending up in the hospital in critical condition all for the sheer "crime" of wearing his team's colors. Remind me where we are again? In what place does someone get attacked for wearing his team's colors?
Oh, and this attack was on a night that the Dodgers won the game.
So I had on my "SF" cap, and that was it. Otherwise, my attire was pretty bland, but still I wasn't part of the sea of Dodger blue. Frankly, I thought the blue was pretty cool to look at, and I appreciated seeing such dedicated fans - particularly after feeling for years in SF that it was a city that lacked the appreciation or interest in sports worthy of a big city.
For the first couple innings I was having fun. We were in a section where they provided unlimited Dodger dogs, nachos, and popcorn. The drinks, obviously, weren't also unlimited, but there was an energy in the group that I was enjoying, the sheer volume of booing notwithstanding. And that was the first thing I noticed that started to irk me -- sure, I'll boo from time to time, but the Dodgers fans booed nearly every time anything was said about the Giants, and the booing had almost nothing to do with the calls on the field or plays made by either team.
And then, it got personal. One fan in a Giants jersey made the mistake of walking up the stairs to his seat, and people were booing him so loudly that you couldn't hear the announcer; some folks started throwing popcorn and peanuts at him. A half inning later, another guy in a Giants jersey was walking down the aisle and this time the peanuts were raining down on him, from both sides. It would be one thing to be irritated to see an orange jersey in the blue sea and scoff at it; it's entirely another to shout at him and throw things at him.
It only got worse when the guy sitting next to me - who was part of our group - stated that he agreed with me that people were being overly rude and then, swear to god, turned away and in the same breath started booing a Giants fan at the top of his lungs. This man's children were sitting right next to him and, as children tend to do, started imitating their father and booed the Giants fan five rows down. Uh, hey kids, why bother with the fan down there when you've got one right here you could boo in his face?
It was about the time when a Giants fan a dozen rows down from us stood up and a whole section of people stood up near here and started pointing and screaming in unison "kick her out! kick her out!" that I started shaking. You know that feeling after you've just either witnessed a horrible tragedy or been in an accident, when the adrenaline starts pumping and your ability to process and respond is all based on instinct? That began to happen to me. I knew the record - one night, one man beaten - and I did not want to become the next person in the hospital, for the crime of wearing a Giants hat at the Dodgers-Giants game at Dodger Stadium. I had to get out - even though I wanted to watch some good baseball - because I started fearing that I would be next. That I would be the next person to be targeted with the booing, the food tossing, the chanting and pointing, and who knows what next? Mix a little alcohol (or a lot of alcohol) into something like this, and things can get scary.
So, we left well before the game ended, before we'd see the fireworks, in part because I was scared out of my mind. As we walked to the car in the dark parking lot, one man turned to me and said under his breath, "yeah, leave now that your team is losing" in a way that indicated he thought I was chickening out, as if the Giants' performance on the field and my desire to leave at the moment that I did was a combination reflecting on my strength or ability. Have I mentioned that at this point I hadn't even been wearing my hat for the past 15 minutes? Yeah, I had it folded up in my hand. I just walked faster.
I didn't stop shaking until I was halfway home, and I never want to go back to that awful place. And unless and until I go back and have a different experience, I will forever remember Dodger Stadium as a horrible place. The fans as a group were awful, and rather than watch the game and appreciate the athletes assembled on the field for them, they made it personal and went after the dozen or so Giants fans scattered among the thousands of Dodger blue.
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For the record, this does not reflect my experience with LA fans so far. I have already been to several volleyball matches at USC and UCLA, and a couple Kings games at the Staples Center. So, I've been to a few sporting events in Los Angeles, and I would say that overall my experiences have been positive. At the most recent Kings game (where I got to cheer on my Detroit Red Wings), the purple-clad Angelenos would make cracks at the red-clad Detroiters (and vice versa), but it didn't escalate to the level of personal attacks and outright vitriol that I experienced last night at Dodger stadium. Instead, the fans focused on the game, and it was quite a game to watch (Wings won 7-4 in a wild one).
All of this is too bad, because the Dodgers are a good team with an amazing legacy. They have a beautiful stadium too, which is a throwback to an era of stadiums that seems long-forgotten in the mad rush of the past couple decades for teams to outdo one another in their bigger and better stadiums. The sea of blue was very exciting and could be such a boost for the home team, and the enthusiasm of many of the fans was infectious (I found myself clapping for a few incredible Dodger plays early on...). But that was all undone for me by the personalization and objectification of fellow (Giants) fans, on a scale and the likes of which I've never seen before last night.
Which is why Dodgers fans as the worst fans ever.
Don't demean the sport, elevate it. Don't tear down your opponents' supporters in the stands, cheer on your team on the field. Don't lose yourself and your sense of humanity in the moment, accept it and recognize it in everyone else around you.
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By the way, the Dodgers ended up winning the game 4-3. I might have been happy for them, but I honestly could give a flying rat's a$$ about it at this point. I just hope that the handful of Giants fans who braved the game made it home safely.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Why I Moved to LA, Part 2: Burnout
I've debated sharing the following thoughts in this public forum, but I'm going to plow ahead, doubts be d@mned. I ask you to read it with an open heart.
I wanted to run for office. Yes, I even did run for office. For years I dreamed about what I could accomplish, all the increased investment in high-quality transportation, transit-oriented development, and social infrastructure improvements that I could achieve as a leader in San Francisco. I was convinced that those dreams would be most achievable in SF - and I was wrong.
I wanted to run for office. Yes, I even did run for office. For years I dreamed about what I could accomplish, all the increased investment in high-quality transportation, transit-oriented development, and social infrastructure improvements that I could achieve as a leader in San Francisco. I was convinced that those dreams would be most achievable in SF - and I was wrong.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Why I moved to LA, Part 1: Long distance sucks
The story below is one that I've often shared in bits and pieces. It's time that I shared it in greater totality, particularly for those of you who may not entirely understand my decision to leave all that I knew and loved in San Francisco to come to such a different place as Los Angeles. For my boyfriend's professional and personal privacy, I will not refer to him by name.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Settling in
It's been a while since I wrote, and I want to change that. 'Course, I said that before and look how far it's gotten me. :-P Here's an update on all things Los Angeles ...
As of one week from today, it will officially be five months in my new home. In that time, I've:
I wanted to comment on a few things specifically, and how my sense of them is changing in the time I've been here....
Traffic
This is probably one of the least-appealing things about Los Angeles. As y'all know, I had a lot of difficulty early on in my new job, navigating traffic for the first time ever on my work commute (I always took the train in San Francisco and this is my first time actually being a car owner). While the commute end of things has improved a LOT since I started working earlier hours (now it's 50 minutes round trip, as opposed to 90), I still get frenetic and upset whenever I find myself in a sea of brake lights, as sometimes happens. My preference would be to take the train or bike for work, but that's just not a feasible or safe option, and for things like grocery shopping or other more day-to-day tasks, I walk as much as I can, but still I end up needing to get behind the wheel from time to time.
I do not like the fact that my carbon footprint has increased so dramatically, and the daily stress of driving takes its toll. On the other hand, I have been able to make and receive more phone calls than I used to (try making calls in a subway system and you'll know what I mean by that), and I do feel an increased sense of freedom or access to different places (tempered with the knowledge that the most desirable destinations are likely the most challenging for driving to them).
Smog
Without a doubt, it gets smoggy in LA. There have been days that I've been near tears over the color of the air and feeling like it's so dirty. Combine that with my being in my car and knowing that I'm adding some small part in that, and it does bother me quite a bit. That said, there have been many more clear days where the air is fresh and clean than smoggy days, and the bad rap that LA gets for its air quality, while deserved, is overstated. I've been to many large cities, and LA's air may be bad at times, but it's not much different than places like Chicago, New York, and Houston. Even more than that, were it not for typical weather patterns interacting with mountains to literally pin the air in place over the city day in and day out, people might actually laud LA for its efforts to improve its air quality and hold it up as an example of what other cities could do.
Open Space
I love the sense of space that I have here, particularly compared to other urban environments. In a matter of a ten minute drive, I can be at the base of Bronson Canyon, where I have already hiked up a couple times for over an hour round-trip to the Hollywood Sign (or at least as close as you can get to it without crossing onto private property). I've gone on a hike with a group that checks out a different hiking location every Saturday, and, with that and other hikes, I've been to a few different parks, all within 10-30 minutes' drive, where you can literally feel like you're no longer in the city and instead surrounded by hills and nature. While my immediate neighborhood lacks open space (something that local leaders are attempting to change), the accessibility to tremendous open space and hiking opportunities in this city is some of the best I've ever seen.
Sunshine
Y'all know that I wasn't too keen on living in a city where it's pretty much sunny and 70 every day in perpetuity. And I have had my struggles with it, especially this month of January where we had literally four straight weeks of sunshine and 75-80 degree weather. By this past weekend, I was feeling like a wrinkled, dried-up sponge pining for moisture. Thankfully we got a little over the weekend. Still, I'm finding that it's not so difficult to adjust to perpetually nice weather. Try as I might, I can't complain too much about weather that more often lends itself to shorts and flip flops than it does to sweaters and scarves. As I've watched the rest of the country dig itself out from snowstorm after snowstorm, I've found it hard to complain that I'm "socked" with sunshine and shorts weather practically every day.
Friendliness
For the most part, I've found Angelenos to be far more friendly than advertised. I was amused just the other day to see an article in the LA Times about how LA was ranked by some travel magazine as being the most rude city in America, besting long-time "titleholder" New York City. Honestly, I can't begin to understand where that sentiment came from, other than people who don't like to drive not wanting to get in a car when they go to visit someplace (which I can totally understand). Otherwise, short of the sheer self-absorption of a handful of aspiring models and actors, I've found Angelenos to be anything but rude. Perhaps it's the perpetually good weather or access to the outdoors or who knows what, but nearly everyone I've met so far, through my work, volunteer activities, hiking, and friends of friends have been super friendly to me and fun to be with. Frankly, I see that as more of a human trait than anything particular to my new home, but so long as random surveys will ascribe rudeness to Los Angeles, I'll just point out that such a survey may be seriously lacking.
Those are just some thoughts on a Monday afternoon between getting done with work and going to the gym. Feel free to comment however you wish, and thanks for reading!
As of one week from today, it will officially be five months in my new home. In that time, I've:
- Put 4,000 miles on my car
- Started a new job
- Visited San Francisco 3 times
- Won a prize on a tv game show
- Had a handful of celeb sightings
- Averaged 4 workouts a week
- Celebrated my birthday over putt putt golf and board games in 80 degree sunshine (while struggling with a cold...)
I wanted to comment on a few things specifically, and how my sense of them is changing in the time I've been here....
Traffic
This is probably one of the least-appealing things about Los Angeles. As y'all know, I had a lot of difficulty early on in my new job, navigating traffic for the first time ever on my work commute (I always took the train in San Francisco and this is my first time actually being a car owner). While the commute end of things has improved a LOT since I started working earlier hours (now it's 50 minutes round trip, as opposed to 90), I still get frenetic and upset whenever I find myself in a sea of brake lights, as sometimes happens. My preference would be to take the train or bike for work, but that's just not a feasible or safe option, and for things like grocery shopping or other more day-to-day tasks, I walk as much as I can, but still I end up needing to get behind the wheel from time to time.
I do not like the fact that my carbon footprint has increased so dramatically, and the daily stress of driving takes its toll. On the other hand, I have been able to make and receive more phone calls than I used to (try making calls in a subway system and you'll know what I mean by that), and I do feel an increased sense of freedom or access to different places (tempered with the knowledge that the most desirable destinations are likely the most challenging for driving to them).
Smog
Without a doubt, it gets smoggy in LA. There have been days that I've been near tears over the color of the air and feeling like it's so dirty. Combine that with my being in my car and knowing that I'm adding some small part in that, and it does bother me quite a bit. That said, there have been many more clear days where the air is fresh and clean than smoggy days, and the bad rap that LA gets for its air quality, while deserved, is overstated. I've been to many large cities, and LA's air may be bad at times, but it's not much different than places like Chicago, New York, and Houston. Even more than that, were it not for typical weather patterns interacting with mountains to literally pin the air in place over the city day in and day out, people might actually laud LA for its efforts to improve its air quality and hold it up as an example of what other cities could do.
Open Space
I love the sense of space that I have here, particularly compared to other urban environments. In a matter of a ten minute drive, I can be at the base of Bronson Canyon, where I have already hiked up a couple times for over an hour round-trip to the Hollywood Sign (or at least as close as you can get to it without crossing onto private property). I've gone on a hike with a group that checks out a different hiking location every Saturday, and, with that and other hikes, I've been to a few different parks, all within 10-30 minutes' drive, where you can literally feel like you're no longer in the city and instead surrounded by hills and nature. While my immediate neighborhood lacks open space (something that local leaders are attempting to change), the accessibility to tremendous open space and hiking opportunities in this city is some of the best I've ever seen.
Sunshine
Y'all know that I wasn't too keen on living in a city where it's pretty much sunny and 70 every day in perpetuity. And I have had my struggles with it, especially this month of January where we had literally four straight weeks of sunshine and 75-80 degree weather. By this past weekend, I was feeling like a wrinkled, dried-up sponge pining for moisture. Thankfully we got a little over the weekend. Still, I'm finding that it's not so difficult to adjust to perpetually nice weather. Try as I might, I can't complain too much about weather that more often lends itself to shorts and flip flops than it does to sweaters and scarves. As I've watched the rest of the country dig itself out from snowstorm after snowstorm, I've found it hard to complain that I'm "socked" with sunshine and shorts weather practically every day.
Friendliness
For the most part, I've found Angelenos to be far more friendly than advertised. I was amused just the other day to see an article in the LA Times about how LA was ranked by some travel magazine as being the most rude city in America, besting long-time "titleholder" New York City. Honestly, I can't begin to understand where that sentiment came from, other than people who don't like to drive not wanting to get in a car when they go to visit someplace (which I can totally understand). Otherwise, short of the sheer self-absorption of a handful of aspiring models and actors, I've found Angelenos to be anything but rude. Perhaps it's the perpetually good weather or access to the outdoors or who knows what, but nearly everyone I've met so far, through my work, volunteer activities, hiking, and friends of friends have been super friendly to me and fun to be with. Frankly, I see that as more of a human trait than anything particular to my new home, but so long as random surveys will ascribe rudeness to Los Angeles, I'll just point out that such a survey may be seriously lacking.
Those are just some thoughts on a Monday afternoon between getting done with work and going to the gym. Feel free to comment however you wish, and thanks for reading!
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