[The Life of Shaun #592] Relationship status: it's complicated

I have a complicated relationship with El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula.  Growing up in Las Vegas, it was the only big city I really knew.  We went there for most of our family holidays (Disneyland, Magic Mountain) and almost every school band/choir event that was bigger in scope than Clark County.  For me, it was the city.

My Uncle Daryl was a truck driver for a while, and when I was around 12 or 13, he left me a Thomas Guide to Los Angeles, which covered all of Los Angeles and Orange counties, and some of Riverside, San Bernadino and Ventura counties, which altogether make up the astounding 5,910 square kilometres of urban agglomeration that is greater LA.  It was about 4cm thick and intensely detailed.  It had all the normal map things - roads, highways, waterways, etc. - but it also delineated each of LA's many suburbs.  For some reason, I was captivated by it.  I would study it in detail, fascinated by the zigzagging boundaries that made one side of a street LA, the other a different city, or unincorporated Los Angeles County.  This was all unknown to me.  Las Vegas technically had two suburbs (North Las Vegas and Henderson), but it was all just 'Vegas'.  LA, however, seemed almost like a whole different world unto itself, the vastness of the city and its suburbs suggested opportunity and a bigger world than I knew.  It kicked off a lifelong love affair with all things urban, and put LA in an almost mythical place in my mind.

A blurry picture of the map key showing the county seats in white (LA for Los Angeles County, Santa Ana for Orange), unincorporated areas in yellow, and the kaleidoscope of "seventy-two suburbs in search of a city" stretching inland from the Pacific.

A detail page, with a corner of LA proper in the top left, various suburbs on the sides, and unincorporated areas in between.

I received the atlas right around the time I was figuring out I was gay and realising there was a bigger world beyond Sunrise Mountain.  Though I didn't know why, I sensed that LA offered opportunities and freedoms that were impossible in Vegas, and I was determined that I would live there.  As I progressed through high school and had exposure to other cities, moving to LA morphed into moving to a bigger city in general.  New York came onto my radar with Parting Glances and Longtime Companion, and Seattle became my target city after an orchestra visit there in my Junior year.  I was actually en route to moving to Seattle in 1994 when, as the short version of the story goes, I stopped for a weekend in San Francisco and never left.

A year or so after moving to San Francisco, my friend Darlene and I drove down to LA for a long weekend and I was really excited to go again - until we were there.  I hadn't realised the different lifestyle in San Francisco - the compactness, the walkability, the vibrancy - until I was out of it and back in a car-centric city, driving miles on wide roads and freeways from strip mall to strip mall to do anything.  But it was confusing - not liking a city I thought I loved.

I don't know why it was so unpleasant - I had grown up with the exact same lifestyle in Las Vegas, and I had a car in San Francisco - not having a car was still unthinkable to me then - but having to get into the car and drive and park for everything was just...ugh.  I preferred a more pedestrian-friendly lifestyle, and this has only grown over the past 25 years of living in New York and London.  Driving has become more painful the longer I’ve lived without it, and, now that I see what cities and life are like when they aren't centred around motor vehicles, I can see how cars have ruined most American cities. 

But there's still something about LA that excites and intrigues me.  It just feels big and limitless in a way that no other city does.  Somehow you can sense its immensity while driving its iconic freeways.  I always have a giddy sense of expectation as I approach LA - and then it is routinely crushed by the transport.

This last time was no exception, only magnified: I stayed in LA for a week without a car, testing my own limits of patience with public transport.  There are journeys that you can do easily on the metro or bus, but you could not live in LA in any meaningful way without a car or a hefty Uber budget.  Fortunately, I had my own private chauffeur in Argie, so our couple's activities were smooth and quick.  But some of my solo jaunts on transit, going distances that would've been a doddle in a car, were hours-long, maddening affairs.  You do not want to know the heartache of seeing your connecting bus just pulling away from the shadeless, barren bus stop, where you know you'll be spending at least the next 15 minutes of your life waiting for the next one, after your slow crawl across Pico Boulevard in afternoon traffic.  The one good thing I can say about LA transit is that it's cheap: $1.75 for any trip, even if you have to combine trains and busses; at least those who are using the system (ie, the poor and Europeans) are not being gouged to do so.

All that being said, I did have a great visit to the Southland.  Argie has lived in LA for ten years now, and she knows both the city and me very well, so she knew where to take me; I saw more depth to LA than I had in the past, when my field of vision didn't extend much past Santa Monica and West Hollywood.  LA, for all its struggles, is an eclectic world city, and you can see that when you get off the freeway and into its neighbourhoods.  I could feel that vibe that's only generated when a mix of ambitious people from around the world come together in the same place - only more chilled and spread out than in New York or London.

So, LA, the city I love to hate, and hate to love; I think it will always be a little bit under my skin.  But next time?  I'm renting a car.

Cheerio,

Shaun

Watts is burning.

Who are you, and what have you done with the real 405?

$1.75 heartbreak

Argie's dog, Pip, giving me the good love.

Sherman Oaks is the new Williamsburg.

Take me to the Valley - the 405 over the Santa Monica Mountains.

Sunset over Century City

Hipster is as hipster does in Highland Park.

The coolest building in LA.

Argie and me at Paradise Cove, Malibu.

The last time I was in downtown LA (hiply-refashioned as DTLA, I was told) was 2003, when it was pretty much Skid Row and the new, shiny Disney Hall, which kicked off the current renaissance Bilbao-style.  It's got a lot more going on nowadays.

Mark Taper Forum in DTLA.

Am I art, sweetie?

Capturing the Broad, LA's newest showpiece museum:  "It doesn't really feel like a traditional museum.  There's no sense of authority.  When you step off the street, no one tells you where to go.  There's no information desk, there's no admissions desk.  You don't pay, it's free.  It feels extremely welcoming."

Shaun H. Coley ~ Holloway ~ Islington ~ London N7 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #591] Well, that was better

When it's come up, people have often been surprised that I'd never been to Mexico, having grown up relatively close to the border.  I explain to them that in 1980s/1990s Las Vegas, going to Mexico wasn't really considered aspirational, and I tell them an anecdote that demonstrates my ignorance - and possibly the general level of ignorance amongst my peers at the time - when I was a teenager:

In my Freshman year of high school, I was put into Spanish, like most students.  But I wanted to take German, so I went to my guidance counsellor and asked to switch; I explained to her 'I want to learn a European language'.  I don't recall her rolling her eyes, but perhaps she did.  It didn't occur to me that Spanish was a European language because it was solely associated with Mexico in my mind.  When I was in the Spanish class, before I was transferred, halfway through the textbook I remember seeing a map of Spain and thinking, slightly surprised, 'Oh yeah, I guess they do speak Spanish over there too.'

Fortunately adult Shaun is more aware of and open to the world than teenage Shaun was, so, undeterred by our South American adventure, Sushil and I went to Mexico for a birthday/pre-nursing-start holiday.  And, despite an expensive comedy of errors at the start, delayed flights and missed connections, it was a much more successful visit to Latin America.

We started off in Mexico City.  Unfortunately, I had about a day and a half less there than planned, so I really only felt like we skimmed the surface, but I liked what I saw.  Mexico City has a lot more going on and a lot more character than I had supposed.  We stayed in Zona Rosa but checked out several other inner neighbourhoods, and each was distinct and interesting - a lot more than the developing world urban sprawl I had expected from my upbringing in American media.  The city certainly does sprawl, but it felt like more of a collection of neighbourhoods than neverending, indistinct urbania.  I particularly liked Roma Norte, just to our South, which buzzed with streetlife, tacos and mezcal; it felt distinctly Mexican, but familiar in a European, human-scale way at the same time.

Having our first drinks - and overeating - together after the much-delayed start to the holiday.  The food throughout Mexico was fantastic, especially at the cheap local places.  We tried some high-end stuff as well, but it didn't compare with the local haunts.

CDMX - la ciudad that loves you back.

On the canals of Xochimilco, which remain from what was an extensive pre-colonial lake and canal system that connected most of the settlements of the Valley of Mexico.

Zócalo, Mexico City's main square (and former ceremonial centre in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan), with the Metropolitan Cathedral behind.

From above, you can see how the city stretches across the valley (there are mountains in the distance - they are just a bit...diluted).

But at ground level, much of it has a much more human scale.

Sushil enjoying a refreshment with the Torre Latinoamericana in the distance.

Leaving the city you can see some of the poorer neighbourhoods that extend up, over and everywhere in-between the surrounding hills.  I expect that the lived experience of the city is much more difficult here than our cosseted days in the central boroughs.  However, from the bus, I saw a teleférico under construction, which, if La Paz is any indication, will make a huge improvement in the lives of locals.

From Mexico City we went to San Miguel de Allende to see smaller-scale Mexico.  The city has a large, mostly American, expat community, so it might not be the most authentic experience of a Mexican town, but it's certainly an enjoyable one.  The expatriate migration began when foreign artists 'discovered' the town and set up art and cultural institutes, and the town has a notable artsy and hippie bent with a relaxed foodie culture.  While it's too small (and too American retiree) for me, I can see its appeal, and I imagine it must be a bit like Santa Fe was 20 or 30 years ago.

The colourful streets of SMA.

Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, the city's most famous landmark.

Last up was a long weekend by the sea, in Puerto Vallarta, the 'San Francisco of Mexico'.  I knew about the town as a gay travel hotspot, but I didn't realise just how very gay it was.  It felt like a gay cruise on a beach - almost everyone on the streets was gay, and all the businesses catered to the gay population.  I was shocked to learn there were 53 gay bars in the Zona Romantica - far more than London - and that, while the sidewalks were mostly thronged with tourists, there is a sizeable permanent gay community as well.  We were fortunate enough to have Argie connect us with a friend who lives there, so we got to see it a bit more from a local's perspective, which was great - it'd be easy to lose sight of the city behind the drag queens, massage boys and margaritas if someone weren't taking you away from the bars and showing you where to look.

Slightly different approaches to the beach.

Beachtown - beauty or banality?