LA Will Do

Ah, the scenic LA River. Beautiful, ain’t it? My apartment is literally across the street from this strange abomination of concrete and nature. It runs 52 miles through the Valley to Long Beach, cutting off roads and forcing drivers to take alternate routes. It’s just one of the many weird things that make LA LA.

I get asked a lot what LA is like compared to Philly. Which is funny, because when I hear people say they’re from Peoria or Billings or whatever, no one is dying to hear about what life is like there. But there seems to be a genuine curiosity about Philadelphia as a city that I can’t quite explain. People want to know about it.

“Philadelphia, huh? What’s that like?”

To which I usually say, people aren’t as nice as they are in LA (strangers here will actually smile at you and do polite things, which drives me crazy), the beaches aren’t as well kept as they are here, and the summer humidity compared to LA is unbearable. Education seems much more highly valued in California, though you’re more likely to actually use your degree for career-related purposes in Philly I think. Philadelphians are more cynical by half, and the winters become less and less enjoyable with each passing year.

People usually look at me with some sort of smug expression, as if I confirmed their suspicions. That’s when I’m often reminded of something a good friend tells me often: “Los Angeles is high school with money.” People in LA are so concerned with being hip and cool, they just wanted to make sure another metropolitan area like Philadelphia wasn’t gaining ground on their status as the pretty rich bitch that New York wants to make out with. They don’t have to worry about Peoria, of course, because it’s Peoria. But Philly presents just enough of a threat.

And then that gets me thinking about LA. I love it here because the weather is beautiful, there’s plenty to do and there’s no shortage of creative people in any medium you can think of. But those nice people I mentioned above, the polite ones who smile at you, often times they’ll turn on you the moment they discover you can’t help out their career like they had hoped. LA traffic is not nearly as bad as advertised, at least in my experience, but you still have to drive to get just about anywhere. The scenery is beautiful, but the infrastructure is as poorly planned as any city in America. If you want to break into the entertainment industry–and let’s face it, 95 percent of people here do–you’ve got an uphill battle ahead of you because there are only so many jobs and thousands of people want them.

So all that to say, I miss Philly. The people, the cynicism, how effed City Hall is, even the smell (and Philly does have a “unique” smell… you don’t notice it until you haven’t lived there for a while and come back to visit). But LA is growing on me. If only people were meaner here, I’d never want to leave.