We're on our way to Los Angeles and, looking to roll into the City of Angels in style (well, truthfully, just so as not to have to sit on each other's lap, or strap my mom to the roof in a rocking chair, like the Clampetts), we've forsaken the close quarters and sometimes unsettlingly unidentifiable upholstery-bound odors of our unsexy Ford Taurus with the unmistakable Wisconsin plates for a fairly nice-looking Chevy Tahoe rental.
We're crossing the Mojave Desert in search of the Pacific Ocean. I am, anyway; it's far more interesting - alluring, even - than L.A. itself. Come on, it's the Pacific Ocean, the planet's largest body of water. Its vastness isn't readily comprehensible by looking at a map. I remember seeing the Atlantic for the first time as a child, feeling a little overwhelmed by its size and - in what was perhaps an attempt to wrap my head around that vastness - believing I could picture what was on the other side - just past the horizon, 'just' out of sight.
I'm eagerly anticipating the same sensation today, hopefully standing on the Santa Monica pier. Only instead of Europe or Africa or Scandinavia, I'll be imagining Japan, Korea, Vietnam, the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, and of course (and this is what's really being anticipated), a far greater (as in mind-blowing) expanse separating me from all of it. The numbers really are pretty breathtaking. At its widest point, the Pacific Ocean is nearly three times wider than the United States. To put that in perspective, imagine the time and effort it would take to walk from New York City to L.A., then triple that distance in your mind. That's the Pacific, and it is but a hair's width of a hair's width of the distance separating us (wherever we may find ourselves) from all the other points on our globe, and from our moon, and other planets in the solar system, and other systems, and other galaxies.
It is unnerving to me, sometimes, to think how small and insignificant I really am. It's downright overwhelming to imagine how insignificant our species is.
We've stopped for gas at a small truck stop off Highway 40. We've only been on the road for an hour, but there are already the first hints of the ocean, something damp and saline about the air...or so I enjoy telling myself. I probably don't know what I'm talking about. The San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains lie before us to the west, and offer formidable resistance to any presence of sea. That's why this is a desert, after all. These ranges, along with the Sierra Nevada, create a rain shadow that results in less than 13 inches annually. And in fact, we are just south of what's roundly considered the hottest and driest spot in North America in the summer: Death Valley.
There's no sign of that now, though. It's dark gray, cool and breezy this January morning. That might be what's making it seem 'wet'. The clouds suggest it's about to rain, but it never comes. Peeks at the sun cause bands of washed-out light to rake across the hardscrabble landscape in a swift west-to-east glide, but they are occasional at best. The day looks determined to stay cloaked in an insurmountable, and still mounting, gloom.
As do I. Not sure what my problem is, exactly, but I woke up in a bitchy mood, and it's only gotten worse.
Maybe I'm having a nicotine fit. I'm trying to quit smoking (again)...er, quit the nicotine gum, actually. I haven't smoked a cigarette in several months, and the gum has done its job pretty well. But I've been on it far too long, so just prior to this trip I made the decision to wean myself off it, because replacing one dependency with another, well, that's just asinine. I brought the few remaining pieces I had along with me. They ran out back in Oklahoma, but it's been going okay since then. I've been drinking lots of water, taking deep breaths and chewing tons of regular gum, wads at a time in fact, switching them out every twenty minutes or so, and have managed not to rip anyone's head off.But now, sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair held together by duct tape in this far-flung outpost, I'm starting to think trying to quit might not have been the smartest decision.
I'm starting to feel a little held together by duct tape.
Maybe it's not a nicotine craving, though, but something else. Maybe it's saddling up for another long drive, which, excited though I am, seems at this point as much an odious chore as a new adventure. After 1,800 miles in just two days, it's been nice to chill out a little, motionlessly, in and about Laughlin. Now it's back to the grind of pressing on - endless sitting spells watching empty miles peel away, making time and distance at an unholy pace like Chevy Chase and crew in National Lampoon's Vacation, having to relinquish control of the radio. The first hour seemed interminable, and we've still got a solid three and a half of drive time left, followed by another five hours home late tonight.
But we're headed to L.A. for God's sake! Los Angeles. And the Pacific! Two entities that deserve to be italicized in one day! What on Earth do I have to be in a pissy mood about?
It could be the toothache I've been enduring since Christmas. When I get home from this road trip, I'm going to have to take care of that and it's going to be painful and costly.
And painful.
And costly.
And painful.
It may very well just be the prospect of going home, of having to, a knee-jerk defiance, now that I've broken my tether for a little while. We've reached the halfway point of this trip; it slipped by unnoticed while I was plugging quarters into a slot machine at the Colorado Belle in Laughlin. In just two days we load up and head east again, back to Wisconsin, back to the proverbial 'reality' (my reality) of runny nose and cold toes. We plan to drive through the Rockies on the way back; that leg of the road trip will likely have its own psychological merit. Like Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, the Rockies, too, deserve built-in italics for emphasis. And maybe a slight-whispered obscenity, come to think of it.
* The fucking Rockies...! *
But it will still mean we're headed home.
Or maybe, just maybe, my foul mood is due to the fact that everything is more expensive at this windswept oasis. The gas, the food, the drink, everything, marked up from what it would cost anywhere else. Petrified, shelf-stored sandwiches fit for the microwave are going for $6.99 in these parts, bags of chips, normally 99 cents back 'where I come from' (where anybody comes from), sell at this lone outpost for upwards of four dollars to hapless motorists (like ourselves) who didn't have the foresight to gas or food up before setting out across this wasteland. And it truly is a wasteland...there's nothing between here and Barstow, California, where we hop onto 15 south. A mostly ghost town called Ludlow, but that's it. If you need gas, if you are hungry, if you have to pee, this outpost would seem to be it.
Just be prepared to pay. (Well, the bathrooms are free...but you know what I mean...)
There's a sign on the wall that addresses this, a disclaimer of sorts, exculpating the owners and staff from any responsibility for their higher prices by explaining in a tone that is just this side of pious, that they have a business to run, that it's difficult to make ends meet, and their prices are necessary for them to stay afloat. The sign would seem to speak in not so many words to the many travelers who have come through here and complained, to the never-ending charges of price gouging they've doubtless had to endure over the years.
"At least it's honest," my brother shrugs.
He's right; logically, I know this. The straightforwardness is strangely refreshing, and speaks to the bottom line truth, which is I don't have to spend a dime here if I don't want to. I don't have to stop here if I don't want to.
Thing is, last chance oases like these usually cater to - and ultimately own - travelers who have to.
I seem to be the only one who gives a shit though. Everyone else bites the bullet and buys something to eat, availing themselves of some form of post-industrial confection that I suspect may have been sitting on these shelves since Bill Clinton was president, simply because they're hungry and because it's still a long way to L.A. I've abstained, and for reasons I can't quite explain, the situation has started fraying at my nerves. I'm gripped by a sense of indignation that is not normally part of my character.
It's not about the money. This is hardly the only highway travel center charging higher than normal prices, and I don't pinch pennies. I made a very conscious decision years ago NOT to live my life quibbling over small change. I don't care if I get stuck paying the few extra cents on a split bill, or if I pay the whole bill, for that matter (if I'm at all able to). I'm not the type of person who wastes time resenting things like ATM service fees. While I admit it's easy to argue that banks screw us over in myriad ways, come on, really? Two or three dollars for the convenience of being able to withdraw money at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning from anywhere in the country? Why the hell not? Before ATM's, you had to do your banking on Friday before 5 p.m. or you were SOL until Monday morning at 9. And when you traveled, you had to lug along cash or (if you had any brains) traveler's checks. Now all you need is your ATM card. Slips nicely into your wallet, good (just about) anywhere, and totally secure if you lose it, provided you haven't written your PIN number on the back (that too is an 'any brains' issue). Life is too complex, even in the best of times. I'm perfectly happy, eager even (for the most part), to pay a bit extra (what constitutes an acceptable level of 'bit extra' is perhaps a whole other blog post...) if it gets me hoofing down the path of least resistance.
But I digress.
A seven dollar microwaved sandwich is annoying, yes, but it's not the high prices themselves.
It's that sign. It's the attempt to explain away the higher prices, the wording of it - part affirmation, part sob story and part 'get over it'. I'd really rather it not be there.
This travel center is a family affair, a husband, wife and children operation. I have no doubt they really do struggle to make ends meet, to stay in business. And I'll be the first to acknowledge that there's nothing to not like about them on a personal level. They are friendly and helpful, take time out of their daily routine to give us detailed directions. We are considering a side trip to Palm Springs before going on to L.A. (a whimsical notion of following in the footsteps of some golden age entertainers...largely a side-sojourn for my parents), and these folks tell us how to get there, even going so far as to break out a map and help us plot the most efficient route. They are the antithesis of what is usually angering and annoying about the help in a convenience store: the dull-eyed, slack-jawed teenager behind the register who has never heard of Palm Springs, who could not give less of a crap if you ever get there, who sighs and glares at you when you walk in, merely for disturbing his texting.
In the end, we determine that Palm Springs is not really do-able; there is way too much of a time crunch at hand. (A thought to check out a bit of San Diego must be scrapped for the same reason.) But everyone listens contentedly, munching on their outrageously priced fare, as these salt-of-the-Earthers lay it all out on the table for us. I'm sitting with everyone, but I'm sulking, slinking down in my chair, tossing my feet out with angry defiance, being kind of an asshole. I want a cigarette, and my tooth is throbbing a little. And what's worse, by this time the aromas, such as they are, of everyone's plastic-wrapped lunch have come wafting up to me in maddeningly tantalizing plumes - the savory cheese of a slightly over-nuked double stack burger; the tangy gelatinous filling of someone's 'turnover' dripping down a chin onto the table with an indigestible rubbery splat; the crackle and fizz of a pop can being popped open; the tantalizing crinkle of a foil potato chip bag, salt and vinegar staining someone's fingers deliciously. Man, I'm hungry, and I'm starting to regret my decision, starting to think I want that seven dollar sandwich after all, maybe a 2 dollar Twinkie, and a 4 dollar bottle of water to wash it down with.
But I've abstained; I've made my point (I guess...). I can't go back now.
I know I'm being stupid, but my anger builds. I'm not aware of how angry I look until we leave, then it is made perfectly clear. As I'm sauntering toward the door the lady, the matriarch, sensing something about me, attempts to assuage my anger by handing me a religious pamphlet off a shelf near the exit, and saying, "God can help."
This throws me into a tizzy. Price gouging, smug rationalization, and now proselytizing! I refuse the pamphlet and push the doors open like a teenage brat, stand outside, shriek an obscenity, kick dirt at a fence post at the end of the parking lot. I am electrocuted by my own brightly lit rage. She's aware of how I'm acting, everyone is, and I feel ashamed.
The end result is my being shrunk down in my seat for the rest of the way to L.A., watching hungrily as the Mojave Desert flies by deliciously, everyone's digestion playing out in a maddening cacophony of quiet burps.
I've pitched similar shit fits periodically throughout my life. I don't know why. I don't know why. But as we get back on the highway, I realize I would like to. And for the first time in my life, it occurs to me that I probably should, for my own good, find out where that anger comes from.
I have no reason to have an anger problem. All things considered, I've led a charmed life. Not an easy life, always, but a charmed one.
We head west across the Mojave. Morning becomes afternoon. The sun disappears for good behind a slate gray sky, so there is little natural indication of the passage of time. The landscape becomes more mountainous as the San Gabriels come into view. In Barstow, we take Highway 15 South, approach the Cajon Pass, which separates the San Gabriel from the San Bernardino mountains.
In January, these short strings of mountains are the quintessential 'mountains in the distance', snow-capped and pristine looking. The snow on top is rippled, like water, white veins adding texture to the monoliths. By now, the Pacific Ocean is in the air. It's quite obviously damper and feels warmer, if still gloomy, than it had in the desert. The highway widens to three lanes, then four, the traffic thickens in both directions. We descend down and around an enormous circular stretch of highway like the minute hand on a giant clock. The sky darkens, but it gets warmer as our elevation drops.
L.A. is out there, like a woman from a dream.
Los Angeles
For decades, it's worn two faces - one of glitz and glamor, the other of violent crime and congestion - and worn them both convincingly. It's impossible not to consider these two blatant extremes driving into L.A. (especially for the first time), as the traffic snarls, the freeways become multi-level, palm trees become as regular a sight as gang graffiti.
When you think about it, Los Angeles and its metro area, more than any other American city, is the epicenter of nearly everything that informs the modern American state of mind, for better or worse. And for this, just as it's said that you're never more than 10 feet away from a spider at any given time in your life, it's strange to think about the slew of entertainers and power players that are, or could be, in my midst, within fifty miles of me in any direction this afternoon. I'm not a celebrity whore, but I'm not a snob either, certainly not 'above' appreciating that this is really where the vast majority of that stuff happens, and has happened, and will in the future. New York and Chicago have their own hustle and bustle, wield their own influence, but neither is quite as visible in what it contributes to the Zeitgeist of any given age, and both are rooted more in tradition. Los Angeles, in true 'California' style, seems to have no tradition, per se. It has only the pulse of the moment, in the rhythm of which one finds the presence of something that is just as wide and mysterious, awesome and fearsome as the Pacific Ocean, in whose embrace it lives out its days. 'Anything' can happen here, and everything has; we've all seen it somewhere.
That might be a painfully cliche thing for an outsider to think, but I stand by it as a perfectly understandable train of thought. For ordinary Americans, having grown up and grown old watching television, or watching movies, or listening to music, southern California is nothing less than the birthplace of (nearly) all of it.
DOWNTOWN L.A. - TOP: On an (ever) gloomy January afternoon, the beautiful and iconic city hall building is visible to the right. BELOW: Catching sight of this multi-deck freeway interchange leaves little question as to where we are. (It too is fairly iconic to the City of Angels.)
At the same time, sharing space with this very big vibe is an equally unavoidable (and influential, for better or worse) tableau of American life. Within ten miles of the 'beautiful people' we all want to believe really exist live the hopeless and hapless, the gangs and ghettos, the downtrodden and despondent, alienated and disenfranchised, an array of broken everything, from dreams, to homes to spirit. L.A. is both the paradigm of America's finest aspirations to live the good life, and a totem of its most frightening nightmares; a beautiful but hardened example of both the heights a free society can reach, and the mush it can dissolve into if left to its own devices.
By most accounts, the city has cleaned up its act, is not as dangerous as it was in, say, 1990. And it's surely true that every community on Earth, of any size, has its problems, its assortment of haves and have-nots. But Los Angeles is a city that brandishes how bright it can sparkle as its very calling card, and so the disparity is especially shocking. Case in point: we are on our way to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Highway 10 joins the famed Route 101, which, if we were to stay on it, would take us north right up the coast to Washington State (a drive I will take one day...I must take). We spot the Hollywood sign in the distance and all hoist up our phones and cameras, chatter excitedly as it comes into view, indulge in an impromptu (and thoroughly ridiculous, looking back...and pretty annoying, come to think of it) rendition of Hooray for Hollywood, just as we pass an exit sign for Normandie Avenue, at the intersection of Flourence and which the L.A. riots ignited nearly two decades ago. The riots were a catharsis for this city, to say the very least, but also for race relations in the country as a whole, and sometimes it's hard to know if things have gotten better between black and white since then, here or elsewhere.
DISPARITY - Cruising westbound on 101, almost simultaneously we spot the Hollywood sign off to our right (the little white blip in the distant hills) and pass under an exit for Normandie Avenue, at the corner of Florence and which the '92 riots began.
But we are here as visitors, and so do not dwell on the unpleasant for too long. We have a singular plan, really: catch a glimpse of the Hollwyood sign, then take my mom to lunch on Rodeo Drive, then whatever sightseeing we can get done within our time constraints (including, hopefully, the Santa Monica pier). To that end, we take advantage of my brother's (relative) familiarity with L.A. for a cruise down Hollywood and Sunset boulevards.
Sunset Strip and Hollywood Boulevard
Talk about a birthplace. Mad pop culture history abounds on Sunset Boulevard. Mere sighting of venues like the Rainbow Bar and Grill and Whiskey A-Go-Go automatically evoke a dossier of celebs-turned-legends who once called these places home in the late night hours of the 1960s and 70s. The Whiskey has hosted every major rock movement since its opening: acid rock in the 60s, punk movement in the 70s, hair metal of the 80s, grunge in the 90s. And The Rainbow was a famed hangout in each of these eras. Take any tavern or club you've hung out in, any Cheers-esque watering hole where you feel everybody knows your name...now sprinkle it with celebs, imagine they are the ones milling about, in and out of the bathrooms, off and on the dance floor, in and out the front doors, drinking too much, starting fights, puking on the floors, being shown to the door, the way you, your friends, or people you know might elsewhere.
Hollywood Boulevard is similarly interesting. In just a few short blocks, we catch a glimpse of the Pantages Theater, opened in 1930 and once owned by Howard Hughes, the Capital Records building just north of (the equally famed) Hollywood and Vine intersection, and of course Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Hollywood Boulevard seems to be the more touristy of the two - from this tourist's point of view, anyway. It seems to be capitalizing on its fame more heartily, and there is a much more visible corporate brand presence - billboards and stores you'd see anywhere - a clear-cut sign that a lot of visitors come here and do exactly what we are doing. The minute a place achieves any kind of recognition, it becomes the dreaded tourist trap.
FERTILE GROUND - L.A.’s parallel-running Hollywood
and Sunset boulevards (specifically West Hollywood’s
Sunset Strip) have over the decades served as the
veritable nexus from which nearly all of what informs
American life has come. Clubs like The Laugh Factory,
Whiskey a Go Go, Viper Room and Rainbow Bar and Grill have
launched a slew of major careers and/or hosted countless
celeb-filled nights.
But so what? It's pretty dazzling nevertheless; gets me feeling restless to be in the midst of it. Were my parents not with us, mobility not a consideration, my brother and I certainly would have parked somewhere and strolled along on foot, hung out somewhere. I'd have loved to do that, actually. By necessity, this is a quick nickel tour. But still an undeniably impactive visit.
WESTBOUND ON HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD - Glimpses of the Capitol Records building, just north of Hollywood and Vine, and the famous Pantages Theater, opened in 1930, the 2nd floor of which once housed the offices of Howard Hughes.
Rodeo Drive
So too along Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive, you get a sense of it being the 'real deal' in terms of how the other half lives. The affluent shopping district most Americans hear tell of stretches just a few blocks, but it is where rich people go..the super rich. No knock-offs here. Palm trees and willowy, stunningly beautiful women (as opposed to merely attractive, or 'hot', which can be found anywhere) seem to walk hand in hand, and brighten the streets on this dark January afternoon. BMWs, Audis, Mercedes and Aston Martins are what glide up and down the streets. Once in a while some mass-produced American sedan or truck lumbers past, but those are the telling exception. It would seem easier to distinguish between tourist and local here than anywhere else on Earth. We're feeling strange and a little out of place in our Chevy Tahoe...man, the salt-crusted Ford Taurus really would have been Clampett Hour.
RODEO DRIVE, BABY - The upscale shopping district of Rodeo Drive is barely three blocks in length, but what it lacks in length, it makes up for affluence.
We have dinner at an Italian restaurant called Il Fornaio. I find it with the help of Yelp!, on my phone (thank you very much). It's perfect for us: not super exclusive nor too pricey, casual-elegant dress code, serious enough about its cuisine to propagate nuance but not intimidate potential clientele. It's something for the tourists, playing a bit to what the always-beyond brilliant Onion once described as the woman who 'will eat anything with the word Tuscan in it'. But the food is authentically good, and the staff authentically friendly.
But it doesn't really matter. It's the interaction of my family in that late afternoon hour that steals the show. We settle in and laugh and exclaim, solve the world's problems, discuss politics, trade memories of the past, make plans for the future, and not take any of it, or ourselves, too seriously. We are loud and raucous and opinionated but ultimately harmless, and it is clear we've remained so, through long stretches of time and the changing fortunes found therein. In that moment, time seems to stand still, and we are the same as we all were as far back as I can remenber - in 1995, or 1990, or 1980. In that moment, I feel lucky to have the family I've had.
This I can say in good faith, in spite of the fact that it wasn't all sunshine and roses between us that day. We are like any family, full of as much bickering and bullshit as peace and love, given to sibling rivalries, short tempers, quick indignations, long eye rolls and lingering snark in adverse conditions, beholden to competitions we're not even aware of until they've dashed out of the shadows and grabbed one of us around the neck. And there was plenty of that in and out of L.A.
But not at dinner. For that short period of time on Rodeo Drive, we were the stars of our own reality television show. At the risk of sounding maudlin, there are those who don't know familial connection on that level. There are those for whom dinner is a function of life, not a pastime. And it begs the question:
What the hell do I have to get angry about, to the level that I (sometimes) do?
We never get to see the Santa Monica Pier. There just isn't enough time. It might be California, but it's still January, and gets dark early. (This, on a day that never really sports much daylight.) After lunch, in the last of the twilight, we drive through Beverly Hills, snap some pictures of the other half living in and about their raised, gated homes. The ocean is in the air; it's a dark and lovely and very saline 67 degrees in Beverly Hills this evening. A rich blue tint falls from the darkening sky, settles across verdant lawns.
Exactly the type of women you'd expect to see in Beverly Hills are out walking exactly the type of dogs you'd expect them to be.
I imprint as much of it as I can in my mind, with a sense I might not be back this way, then we and the sun part ways. The sun makes its exit over the Pacific. We head east toward Nevada. We cruise one last time down Sunset Strip, and Hollywood Boulevard, then find ourselves ensnared in what's likely the most definitive L.A. story: the traffic jam. It takes us an hour and a half to inch our way back past downtown along Highway 10, and I do mean inch.
BLUE EVENING - A soft 67 degrees at a Beverly Hills intersection, as the sun disappears over the Pacific.
By the time we are again winding our way up through the Cajon Pass, it's well after 9 p.m. We don't arrive back in Laughlin until one in the morning. I take the wheel for the journey back. We glide through the dark desert night, stars above and stars below me, as I ascend over more basin and range mountains. Lights in the distance shift position through the darkness, first to the side, then below and then above.
Sometime late, I pass that same truck stop we stopped at early in the morning, and feel a little twinge of annoyance, which tells me, or reminds me, it wasn't really their higher prices, or their sign, or their proselytizing.
It was just me.
Something is nipping at me, always trying to draw out the blood of rage. I really need to figure it out. With any luck I've got another forty years of this mortal coil left, and I don't want to live any part of it angry. There's absolutely no good reason for it, and it's not as easy to be philosophical about it as it once was, for me or anyone exposed to it.
