Transportation in Los Angeles

Ok, this is a major issue to touch upon. Every traveler knows that transportation is the most important aspect of traveling and visiting a new place. And when you come to a new place to live there temporarily, transportation is especially important because you depend upon yourself more than the people you visit. And… how is it at Los Angeles?

Trips to the grocery store, local eateries, or out of the valley are always a headache! Why? Because of all the cars, cars, and cars!! I cannot believe how many cars Los Angeles has and the amount of gas that is guzzled up and spewed into the atmosphere by the residents of Los Angeles County! People here explain to me that the geography is the reason why Los Angeles is so dependent on cars – due to earthquakes and the risk of damage; many buildings are one-floored which causes the entire urban/suburban geography to be so spread out rather than condensed. The earthquakes are also the reason why public transportation is so lousy here in Los Angeles – for a long time until recently, the city was too afraid to build an extensive underground subway system like any other busy metropolis of America would. There’s an interesting story about the demise of trolley and bus system in Los Angeles, but I’ll cover that in another blog entry because it’s a worthy story to cover profoundly.

Anyway, the walk to a grocery store has enough distance that it would be a much less hassle to drive there, and the same is true for practically any aspect of life in South California. People drive everywhere for any reasons, and more often than not – popular places (such as bookstores, movie theaters, etc) are unreachable except for by car. I was lucky that my apartment was situated next to a busy street with lots of strip malls so I was right next to a business district and was able to walk to a lot of restaurants, shops, and food store. However, when I wanted to go out of my local area – I would have to walk for miles. After a while, I found that very tiresome and frustrating… Especially as I was used to DC’s public transportation and condensed city planning. To walk from my apartment to get a burger, it was roughly the distance from Gallaudet University to Dupont’s Circle – and imagine how many burgers I could get along the way in DC!! In fact, Forbes has rated Los Angeles as part of the worst commute in America, with all the traffic and cars (commute between Los Angeles and Long Beach).

However, I was blessed with a beloved mode of transportation that was extremely useful, ecology-friendly, and healthy at the same time. A friend had gotten sick of fixing up her bicycle all the time so she gave it to me (Thanks, Haley!) for free. I fixed it up and really enjoyed taking my white 1950’s-style cruiser out for riding whenever I needed to go to places. Here's a picture of my beloved!

After solely depending on my bicycle for most basic transportation, I started to really realize how people could use their bicycles more often rather than using cars – such as those trips to grocery stores. I found it convenient to bicycle to the grocery store and buy enough food to fill my basket to bicycle back to my apartment, then make another trip in few more days, rather than buying food in bulk and bringing it home in the car as most people would. If the majority of America did their food shopping this way, I’m sure that our gas emissions would reduce by so much.

If you ever think to move to Los Angeles, I’ll let you know that this statement is both sad and true at the same time – You Cannot Live Without a Car.

I was lucky to live near a very convenient business district, that I enjoyed riding my bicycle most of the time, and to have friends who would give me rides to downtown LA and beaches. But realistically speaking, it’s impossible to live in Los Angeles County or the entire South California for all that matter without a car. The public transportation is a disappointment and the landscape is usually very spread out with all the buildings that places are far to get to without a car. However, I’m proud to say that I made it without a car this summer and I still managed to have a great time in California! This shows that a little bit of positive thinking, some healthy legs, and whole lot of patience can go a long way in surviving Los Angeles… ;-)

An Evening Out on Sunset Boulevard

One evening, my friend Keith Nolan asked me if I wanted to get into downtown Los Angeles for a dinner and deaf social gathering. Why not?!? I took him up on it and went to Sunset Boulevard. We drove through the Hollywood Hills on those long winding roads, which was a pleasant and slightly dangerous experience if you’re talking while driving at the same time!

The Hollywood Hills are such a distinctive piece of real estate that I really do have a hard time finding some other place in the East to compare it with. DC is pretty distinctive by itself, with its crazy streets, rolling hills, beautiful old brick row houses, and full grown trees dotting the sides of walkways – but to compare it with Hollywood Hills is like comparing Jack to Simon from “The Lord of Flies” book… you can’t, because the two are on completely different planes. The hills are always visible from almost any place in the greater Los Angeles, because the landscape is so flat and the hills are always looming in the distance over you. In the San Fernando Valley (where I live), the hills are what separates me from the City of Angels, the real metropolis of South California. While I’m in Los Angeles, the landscape is still flat but the hills are high enough to prevent the smog from leaving Los Angeles and block it in to create even worse smog problems in the city. The million-dollar-plus homes are always visible on the hills and the object of much envy for those who don’t live in the Hollywood Hills, facing the sea and away from the Valley usually. Here's a good picture of the view of Los Angeles from the Hollywood Hills... you can see how the hills differ from the urban Los Angeles by its trees and hilly landscape dotted with houses.

If I was either rich or famous (or both!), I’d prefer to live in the Hollywood Hills rather than the Beverly Hills. This is because the Beverly Hills are just an overrated suburbia, where the insanely rich live near high-end stores, five star restaurants, in their McMansions among perfectly manicured landscaping. There’s a real lack of personality and charm in the Beverly Hills, where the glitz reigns while the substance counts for little. Hollywood Hills, on the other hand, has a unique charm to it. It’s situated near the woody, shady northern Santa Monica, with houses that seriously have creative architectural designs. It’s impossible to find one same house in the Hollywood Hills; they’re all so different, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful, and always unique. Even better, while Beverly Hills is usually seemingly isolated in its glamorous yet bawdy excess, the Hollywood Hills is home to many local, family-owned organic groceries, eateries, and small boutiques dotted throughout the area and have a characteristic flavor of a hip young community that is friendly and open to anyone who drops by. The roads that pass through are usually small, narrow roads that wind and snake, with sharp turns and steep inclines… which makes the driving through a memorable experience!

Keith and I parked in West Hollywood and walked few blocks to Sunset Boulevard, which gave me a chance to peruse the architectural styles of the area. It’s really quite eclectic and very interesting – I even passed a place that looked as if it was a miniature version of the Buckingham Palace!! There were also definitely a lot of Mediterranean and Art-Deco style influences, and I thought the area had really very attractive houses and buildings in general.

When we finally got on the Boulevard, it was very different from the neighboring area. Rather, it’s a very colorful strip where many “It” restaurants, bars, and clubs are located at. The Sunset Boulevard is a popular attraction for the young and hip, the up-and-coming actors and actresses, and the rich and careless. It’s not uncommon to see celebrities partying on this road, and my friend even let me know that Paris Hilton lived right behind the restaurant we were eating in! The restaurant they were having a deaf social gathering was called Saddle Ranch. It was a Wild-Wild-West themed restaurant complete with a mechanical rodeo inside and mannequins hanging on the roof dressed up as saloon barmaids. Nice, but not really my taste. We could already see a big table of deaf people chatting with each other outside the restaurant as we walked up. We joined them, and I generally spent my time getting to know the deaf people of Los Angeles.

After perusing the menu, I decided that I was in mood for hot wings. A deaf man to my right warned me that California doesn’t know how to make good hot wings “like the East does.” I was highly amused at his warning but decided to take my chances but when my food arrived… Turned out that the friendly man was correct, as I kept on thinking that the hot wings at Capitol Lounge in DC could beat Saddle Ranch’s hot wings by a thousand miles. Further chatting led me to find out that the gentleman hailed from New York and has lived in California for past few years, so he was entitled to have discrimination for quality hot wings :-)

I also got to know two men who were responsible for the World Recreation Association for the Deaf, an organization whose primary goals is to facilitate recreational-minded activities and sponsor large-scale excursions/events for the deaf people. Giving example of one of their recreational activities, I learned that I had missed a chance to bicycle with a group of roughly 60 deaf people for 15 miles from Santa Monica to Hermosa Beach and back (30 miles in total) a week earlier. That event was sponsored and facilitated by WRAD. Sounds cool, I only wish I had been able to catch one of their events in Los Angeles!

As the evening wore on, people started to leave and Keith & I decided it was time to leave for San Fernando Valley. So we walked back to the parked car the same way we had came, but Sunset Boulevard looked especially different at the night time. We had arrived around five pm so it was still light outside and the street was relatively quiet. However once it got dark outside, the street became bustling with people of Los Angeles who were barhopping. I greatly enjoyed people-watching as I checked out different outfits on both men and women (“Is that fashionable? Is that just meant to catch attention? He’s trying too hard, she’s wearing the wrong shade of red - OK, that’s classic… Now that’s very trashy!” and etc). Then we got back into his car and drove over the hill back into the valley… It was an evening well spent and I’d like to thank Keith for bringing me along!

Apologies, My Dear Readers!

There have been some reasons why I haven’t been able to update lately (even though I’ve been meaning to!)… First of all, I experienced my very first California power surge and subsequent blackout that completely wiped out my apartment’s internet connection. I was unable to connect to the internet and update anything in my last week at California. Then…

Through some unexpected circumstances, I flew back to my home in Maryland few days earlier than I expected. As soon as I was back in town, I had to go through some serious adjusting from the “California” life to my life in Maryland… there’s quite a difference! J However, I still got lots that I want to share so I’ll keep updating the blog until the prewritten entries in my head are all written and updated! I got some mail from the readers of this blog saying how much they enjoyed reading this blog and it made me want to write more for you! So I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read about my adventures in California and I always appreciate every bit of encouragement. I truly do enjoy writing and the joy of having readers only makes my blogging even more pleasant. Enjoy!

Take care,

Leah

Arts & Culture: The Getty Museum

A behemoth of a modern castle built with dazzling white fossil stones sitting majestically atop the California hills overlooking the smog-fogged city and the shining Pacific sea. What is this architectural wonder? It’s the Getty Museum, one of the best cultural landmarks of Los Angeles. You’d think that with all the fabulous and famous (did I mention free, too?) museums in Washington DC, I might have become a bit of elitist in museums. Well, I am – but Getty Museum is, by no exaggeration, simply one of the best museums I have ever visited in my entire life. And it’s in Los Angeles, too!

Built by oil tycoon (J. Paul Getty) who accumulated so much art in his lifetime that he decided to not keep them stored away, and if he was going to show his art collection off – he was going to build the grandest museum ever! The foundation is literally massive blocks of cut fossils, which is way more extravagant and unique than Italian marble… If you look close enough, you can see leaves, shells, and fishes in the milky-white stone. The architecture alone is a masterpiece in modern building, with smooth curves, fountains, and jagged drops. The landscape of the Getty Museum is so beautiful it takes your breath away, with soft and green moss covering the lands inside (instead of grass), rosebush trees with wire sculptures, extravagant water fall sculptures and labyrinth framed by gardens that feature some of the rarest and most beautiful flowers in the botanical world.

The Getty Museum is home to impressive art and photography collection. The first time I went to Getty Museum, they had an entire exhibition devoted to Jacques Louis David and Goya. If you Google David, you'll see that he painted some very famous paintings such as Napoleon’s portrait. My personal favorites are a tie between Cupid and Psyche and The Farewell of Telemachus. Getty’s paintings leans more to landscape exhibitions and pre-1800 collections, but the photography collection has always been extraordinary and unbeatable. I nearly died when I saw my favorite photographer displayed in an exhibition at the Getty: Mary Ellen Mark!







Using both modern and classical photographs in their exhibitions, I’ve seen old photographs of landscapes and rivers that date back to the 1800s, 1900s pictures of farmers and rustic life, minimalist and striking more recent photos of social outcasts, “storefront churches,” homeless children, and famous places where people have died. Also playing host and preserving fragile and ancient historical artifacts, I’ve seen gold-plated religious art at the Getty that’s over 1000 years old displayed, mythological beasts collected in dogma, rare sculpted busts, and Grecian/Roman era stone figurines. The Getty also is home to a research institute, conservation institute, a grant program, and leadership institute – though I haven’t visited any of these institutes.


All in all, if you’re ever find yourself in Los Angeles – it’s more than worth your time to pay a visit to one of the grandest museums in the world!

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Photo 1: One of the fountains inside the Getty Museum courtyards.

Photo 2: The infamous water "labyrinth" surrounded by the gardens.

Photo 3: A photograph that was on display at Getty Museum, by Mary Ellen Mark. A homeless girl dressed up for Halloween.

Silver Screen Odes: Venice Beach and "American History X"

No more controversial and startling ode has ever been paid to Venice Beach than the 1997 movie “American History X.” The story revolves around a former Neo-Nazi in the 1990s who has seen the wrongs of his ways and attempts to discourage his younger brother from following in his footsteps. I’ve heard of it for a long time but somehow never managed to catch the movie until late one night in California. Being Jewish myself, I was struck and disturbed by the intensity of the scenes and acting (extremely good acting by Edward Norton and Edward Furlong, plus the entire supporting cast) but what stood out to me the most was the background of Venice Beach, California.

Over the time, many major movie studios have settled in and around Burbank of Los Angeles County. Hollywood is a historical home to the studios, hunks, and starlets but ever since the 1960s, most studios have been situated outside the omnipresent Hollywood. Because of the studios’ presence, so many movies and television pilots have been made in or around Los Angeles that it is literally impossible to count them all to an exact number. However, this movie is both visually and artistically set in Venice, California – meaning that the setting has been directly written into the script. All through the movie, the flavor of Venice and Los Angeles is constantly photographed and visually commented upon. The beach, boardwalk, affluent suburbs, schools and official administrative buildings (such as Los Angeles Police Department), and poverty-stricken area are all included in the cinematic photography and they are all real locations in Venice. The cinematography is so visual and loving of Venice that you’d almost think that the city is a written character.

I remembered one time when I was walking down the Venice Beach boardwalk with a friend and he pointed at a basketball court. He commented to me that the movie “American History X” was filmed right there. I hadn’t watched the movie at that time, but my curiosity was piqued at how they could use such a public and well-known place in a movie… especially a movie with fictional story. After viewing the movie, I wondered how much of the movie’s story has basis in reality and how much of it is great screenwriting. The movie’s controversial topics don’t stop at the presence of Neo-Nazis in recent times – racial tensions, affirmative action, illegal immigrants, crime and poverty, gang violence, and prison treatment are all directly faced.

Well, I did a little research and here’s what I found out: the colorful and eclectic beach community is best known for its boardwalk and its counter-culture friendliness. It was founded as a resort city in 1905 by an entrepreneuring tobacco millionaire who had hoped to build a resort town on two miles stretch of beachfront property, modeled after Italy’s Venice. Canals, boardwalks, and piers were built. A popular tourist attraction from the very beginning, the population of Venice quickly expanded to the point where it joined the greater Los Angeles County in 1925. The following is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on Venice:

“The city of Los Angeles had neglected Venice so long that it had become the "Slum by the Sea" by the 1950s. With the exception of new police and fire stations in 1930, the city spent little on improvements since annexation. The city did not pave Trolleyway (Pacific Avenue) until 1954 when county and state funds became available. Cheap rents for run-down bungalow housing attracted predominantly European immigrants (including a substantial number of Jewish refugees from Hitler's death camps), and young counter-cultural artists, poets and writers. The Beat Generation hung out at the Gas House on Ocean Front Walk and at Venice West Cafe on Dudley where they held poetry readings and smoked marijuana. Police raids were frequent as they tried to rid the community of "undesirables."”

Later on, as the area became more poverty-stricken and the divide between the wealthy and the poor became more apparent in Los Angeles County, Venice and Oakwood neighborhood (in local Venice) gave rise to gangs. Venice became such a breeding ground for gangs and gangsters. According to Wikipedia, to this day Culver City Boyz, Latino Venice 13, and Venice Shoreline Crips gangs are still active in Venice.

“It’s kind of sad in a way,” says Luis J. Rodriguez, author of the autobiographical Always Running: LA Vida Loca – Gang Days in L.A. “Chicanos have contributed a lot to these neighborhoods. For the most part, white people with money, they love their history, and they make sure everyone knows about it. But Chicanos don’t have the same resources to put that history down.” – Dennis Romero, “Gangster’s Paradise”

Racial tensions have always been high in Los Angeles County, the sometimes-explosive melting pot of different cultures and ethnicies. It would come as no surprise that a mention is made, but not much is known of a Venice gang called Venice White Boys – this could be an all-white gang that probably held racist views against other gangs of minorities, knowing that gangs tended to stay culturally and ethnically separate. A racist white gang on Venice? Maybe “American History X’s” Neo-Nazis on the Venice boardwalk does have some part in reality. The boardwalk is also known for its acceptance of counter-culture and social deviants, so Neo-Nazis might be comfortable there with their skinhead, heavy-metal, tattooed appearance. A lot of the most emotionally charged moments in the movie are actually reactions/commentary upon real-life events of Los Angeles in 1990s, such as the Rodney King incident. So, “American History X” is a fictional story but a lot of it does have actual basis in reality during the 1990s.

What of Venice today, though? The area has been undergoing extensive gentrification and clean-up, mainly due to the higher values of the property. Wealthier people have been coming in previously dilapidated neighborhoods of Venice and buying property. Many gangs, including Venice White Boys have either shrunk or completely disappeared. Today, due to increased police activity and the pushing of homies into inner city because of affordable housing, Venice Beach retains its eclectic multiculturalism and counter-culture friendliness but is now overrun by yuppies rather than gangsters.

“(Ruiz) points at a large, gleaming property across the street: ‘That used to be a black church. Now they made it into a white house.’” – Dennis Romero, “Gangster’s Paradise”

We’re left with the oddly picturesque beauty of Venice beach in the saturated sunset, its palm trees swaying to the breeze from the open ocean and the vibrant people of Venice populating the boardwalk. To best illustrate the optimistic stand of Venice’s melting pot tensions and history, I’ve chosen to close out this entry with the final lines of “American History X.”

“So I guess this is where I tell you what I learned - my conclusion, right? Well, my conclusion is: Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time. It's just not worth it. Derek says it's always good to end a paper with a quote. He says someone else has already said it best. So if you can't top it, steal from them and go out strong. So I picked a guy I thought you'd like. 'We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.'” – Last lines of “American History X”

Citations:

Basic Venice information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice_Beach

Dennis Romero’s article: http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=362&IssueNum=22

“American History X” Quotes: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120586/quotes

Los Angeles in Prose & Literature: Francesca Lia Block

When I came to California in spring 2005, seriously thinking about moving here for school, the place horrified me yet looked vaguely familiar. The reason for my initial disgust was because I had grew up in Connecticut, where I was surrounded by buildings that existed when the Revolutionary War came about. Then I went to school in a historic part of Maryland, and Civil War history was everywhere along with ancient buildings. There’s no question that history and old buildings makes a place look beautiful and enhance the charm. And… I was looking at the wide highways of Los Angeles, four-lane suburban streets, flat houses spread out, strip malls, neon signs, sun-beat and cracked concrete, and strategically placed trees. I could barely see a building that was older than 50 years or a thick patch of nature that wasn’t intensely landscaped. I felt so out of place, like I didn’t belong here, and I had a hard time seeing the beauty of Los Angeles – especially in the San Fernando Valley. It was as far away from comforts of what I had known all my life in a location as I could get – yet, why did it seem so strikingly familiar at the same time?

The answer was the books I had read and tucked away in the back of my mind, echoing yet never prominent.

Being a voracious bookworm, I was introduced to Francesca Lia Block when I was around the age 11 and fell in love with her succulent, heavily detailed and romantic description of Los Angeles and the magic emulating from characters that were glamorous and glitzy, sometimes tacky, yet always beautiful and charming. I would consume every book of hers until late high school (when I started reading more and more Marlowe, Ibsen, Orwell, and Atwood… it was simply natural that Block slowly faded away). I think every single one of her books have been a LA Times bestseller. Most dazzlingly, Block is best known for her ability to accurately capture South California. She was born and lived in LA her entire life, and she has professed her love for the "jasmine-scented, jacaranda-purple, neon sparked city" (Wikipedia) many times over in her writing. Here’s an excerpt of Francesca Lia Block’s writing – you can’t deny the Los Angeles flavor nor the unusual beauty of her effortless postmodernist prose geared for young readers:

“If Los Angeles is a woman reclining billboard model with collagen-puffed lips and silicone-inflated breasts, a woman in a magenta convertible with heart-shaped sunglasses and cotton candy hair; if Los Angeles is this woman, then the San Fernando Valley is her teenybopper sister. The teenybopper sister snaps big stretchy pink bubbles over her tongue and checks her lip gloss in the rearview mirror, causing Sis to scream. Teeny plays the radio too loud and bites her nails, wondering if the glitter polish will poison her. She puts her bare feet up on the dash to admire her tan legs and the blond hair that is so pale and soft she doesn’t have to shave. She wears a Val Surf T-shirt and boys’ boxer shorts and she has a boy’s phone number scrawled on her hand. Part of her wants to spit on it and rub it off, and part of her wishes it was written in huge numbers across her belly, his name in gang letters, like a tattoo. The citrus fruits bouncing off the sidewalk remind her of boys; the burning oil and chlorine, the gold light smoldering on the windy leaves. Boys are shooting baskets on the tarry playground and she thinks she can smell them on the air.” – Francesca Lia Block, “I Was a Teenage Fairy”

I’ve read over 10 of her books but my favorite would be “Violet & Claire” – a silver screen-spun tale about two girls’ friendship and dreams, set in Hollywood where stars are made or crushed. “Weetzie Bat,” her groundbreaking first novel is a classic about adolescents growing up in – where else? Los Angeles. Another good novel is “The Rose and the Beast,” which is basically a collection of fairy tales restyled and told with a postmodern Los Angeles touch and of course, Block's flair. I’ll close out this entry with yet another Block excerpt, this time from “Violet & Claire.”

“FADE IN:The helicopter circles whirring in a sky the color of laundered-to-the-perfect-fade jeans. Clouds like the wigs of starlets-fluffy platinum spun floss. Below, the hills are covered with houses from every place and time-English Tudor manors, Swiss chalets, Spanish villas, California Craftsman. Flowers threaten to grow over their doors and windows like what happened to Sleeping Beauty's castle. Pools flash like jewels in backyards where Sleeping Beauties in sunglasses float topless, waking to sip from goblets of exotica decorated with pineapples, cherries and hibiscus blossoms. On the roads that run between the hills are shiny cars, hard-candy-colored and filled with music.
This is how my movie begins. The credits floating in the pools, written on the license plates, on billboards, lighting up in neon over the bars..." – Francesca Lia Block, “Violet & Claire”

How very evocative of Los Angeles, indeed. :-)

Breakfast in Los Angeles

So, I'm typing this from one of those breakfast places that's so ubiquitous in Los Angeles county. You can see examples of the so-called breakfast places in Quentin Tarantino's movies - especially “Pulp Fiction” (the diner robbery scene!) and “Reservoir Dogs” (the first scene of the entire team eating breakfast before their diamond robbery). There's something about Los Angeles that invites such homely, unimpressive yet distinctive diners and corner delis and breakfast places to pop up in massive numbers all over the county. Whether if you're in San Fernando Valley or Burbank, there always shall be good breakfasts. That’s one thing Los Angeles won't fail you, ever.

Anyway, enough about breakfast places. I've been quite enjoying my summer. I originally planned to enroll in summer classes to speed up finishing off my general requirements. When I realized that I wasn't so hot on the prospect of spending nearly all of my time in District of Columbia (however as much as it's beloved to me), I decided to hightail it out of there and take transferable classes at a different university, for the sheer fun and experience of it. Also, what a great excuse to get out of the home city and be productive! I found an apartment near California State University Northridge through very strange circumstances and paid for 2 months worth of rent and boom, I'm a temporary resident of South California. How do I like my summer experience? It’s absolutely great! I love it! There’s so much that I've seen, ruminated upon, and want to share.

I've always loved to travel. Ever since my parents would let me in high school, I'd be off on road trips and such. I think that traveling is one of the most important gifts you can give yourself in your own lifetime - the chance to see new places, food, culture, and sights. However, one thing that kept on frustrating me was that every time I traveled – it never seemed enough. I wanted to truly live there, really acknowledge the culture of that land. Each different place is a complete character; a total personality just waiting for you to get to know it in its entirety. The perfect solution came to me in the form of summer school. If I could get accepted into universities of my choice and take transferable classes, then I had a golden opportunity to live in a very different place for at least two months. That’s ample time to enjoy the flavor of wherever I chose, and it also seemed like a pretty good idea that I'd get to taste a different university life (albeit in the summer). Hence - here I am. Sitting in a distinctive Los Angeles breakfast place, eating waffles and bacon along with coffee, and eager to share with you my experiences.

And so this blog shall serve the purpose of sharing with you my experiences, thoughts, and preserving my memories.