Four Shades of Heaven

Four Shades of Heaven

I

There is something about the Los Angeles freeway this time of day when the sun sets, something Zen, some kind of other consciousness. The various colors zooming past you, the red Celica that has its high beams on and a spoiler, the sea of headlights glaring in your eyes, you seeing the red taillights of 50,000 of your closest friends, achieving a state of mind such that you lose the cognizance that a 6 inch mistake in either direction could cause your demise. You know this, but choose to disregard it, because you can feel that everything will end up going down the right path anyway. You don’t see the cars. You don’t hear your engine.
It is hard for people that are not from Los Angeles to appreciate the pleasure of not being stuck in traffic. When conditions are like they are today, you can start from your Santa Monica home, go onto the 405 freeway and be in the valley before half an hour has expired. You notice the other people on the road, don’t know where they are going or why, and don’t care. You all just drive together with a common goal of reaching point B. You all look down at Sepulveda Boulevard and wonder why one would drive in a 35 mile-per-hour zone when they could easily go 70 on the freeway.
Angelinos frequently complain that on this road there is no scenery and nothing beautiful and only sunscorched hills and smog shrouded mountains and cloudy horizons. This is not wholly incorrect, as a fire did ravage these hillsides a few years ago, but all it did was turn the unsightly weeds into carbon anyways. Nothing is really very inviting, but it is the end of the journey that everyone keeps their eye on. Despite all these people, I think that the camouflage radio tower and the fake tree that is a satellite relay device provide for a nice change of scenery.
A person can turn on the radio to KCRW, listen to the city beats of Metropolis, and presently get lost in it. Coming out of this zone, you may find yourself being lifted out of 310 and promptly dropped into 818. Exiting onto Ventura, left blinker flashing, the car goes in the designated direction. This BMW zooms by. A policeman turns on the siren. You don’t pull over anyway.

II

I am supposed to meet my friend Andy today for lunch in Beverly Hills, at a restaurant near his office. It is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside, acceptable walking weather. There is maintenance work on the street, so I can only get to Wilshire Boulevard and not to Charleville, where I am supposed to meet Andy. I take the opportunity to look around. I see a blonde girl walking by me. We lock eyes, fall in love, and continue on our way.
As glamorous as people make it sound, Beverly Hills is quite a curious place upon further examination. The clothes in the windows will all be different tomorrow, the men in their skinny fit suits and the women in their frilly Marc Jacobs dresses will have shifted to black trench coats and gray business casual blouses . The way the “in” ladies walk and talk, their high heels, and the dogs in their purses will all be different in a couple of weeks. The colors of the signs, as well as the stores that they are above, will all be cast off to the will of the fashion Goddess next season.
The neighborhood is composed of people who struck it huge fast, able to live out their Los Angeles dreams. These are actors and producers and singers and athletes and stock brokers and lottery winners, the cream of the crop. To live like this is to spend fast and live faster, or be left in the dust. Play hard or go home. The Hills or bust.
I look for a coffee shop that I once knew and loved on Beverly, but it seems to be missing in action. A Pinkberry yogurt shop is across the street, so I decide to investigate. There is a certain atmosphere that is created here, interesting but at the same time hopelessly fake and naïve, something about the neon green walls, hot pink lights, and fluorescent orange chairs accompanied by the skinny white boy with an earring and his visor pointed sideways and upwards. I choose not to buy one, considering I could probably use a diet. This is a town where diet books and liposuctions are researched more than terminal illnesses, because anyone with a waist size above 26 might as well be dead anyways.
My decision was a good one, as I very quickly reach the restaurant whose name I had scribbled down on a realtor’s face yesterday. I look for my friend. Andy is sitting outside. He looks nice in his skinny fit brown pinstripe suit.

III

Los Angeles is quite the con artist. It has somehow tricked an entire planet into thinking that it is some marvelous place where everyone can achieve their dreams and live life to the fullest. All of the sights and sounds and weather and food and ocean air may be the best salesman to ever hit the streets. It is a town of Barbie dolls. This place is a story of the people who live half-lives.
I once met a man on the Venice Beach boardwalk who, put politely, was down on his luck. I first noticed him eating a funnel cake with a strawberry topping, getting powdered sugar all over his sandy face and hands. He was a scraggly old guy, with an opened, grease stained, button down shirt, no shoes, and a guitar. “This,” I thought, “is a real Los Angeles man.”
He told me his story. A brilliant musician, he moved to Los Angeles a runaway at 17 to try and “make it big.” He told me about “experimenting,” almost “cutting it,” deciding that lifestyle “wasn’t for him,” and “settling down” with a wonderful woman named Grace who promptly left him “once the booze started taking its toll,” and, unable to afford his own home and the money he had to send her, ended up a “vagabond.” He wouldn’t have it any other way.
This was the type of man who shot for the moon and cosmically came crashing down, missed the stars and other planets altogether, fell out of the Milky Way, and ended up getting sucked into some black hole in another nebulae, perpetually losing his size and getting more and more pressure forced upon him for simply being. This was the type of man that we should model our lives after, the type of man that gives Los Angeles its charm, its persona, its culture. If there were no people like this, would living “The Life” suddenly lose its meaning? Yet we sweep these people under the carpet, banishing them to Skid Row or in a cardboard box in front of some Santa Monica agency employing a secretary that has some fake part that daddy paid for.
That night, I went out to see a movie and had dinner with my girlfriend. We saw a feel good movie, and then went to eat at Johnnie’s on the Third Street Promenade. Over a “NY White Pie” I told her about the conversation that I had with the man. She laughed. “Next time you see him, tell him to get a real job”, she said.

IV

Real success can’t be measured by a monetary value, by how large your house is, or by how many Italian sports cars you own. It cannot be bought, won, or cheated. There is something deeply personal about success. It is a state that only you know how to achieve.
A young boy is born in Arkansas where he can only see his life as a farmer, like his father, and his father before him. His family business is raising corn on the same plot of land year after dirty year. The boy passes his time by playing his grandfather’s antique guitar that has an authentic Indian pattern around the resonance chamber, and falls in love with it. The boy becomes a man and moves to Los Angeles to chase his dream.
He trudges through the years of long hours, the years of that smoke filled filthy club with the yellow carpet and small stage, the years of his Thai town Melrose apartment with the paper thin crumbling beige walls. He lives an interesting life, one of struggle. On some particularly clear nights, he converts his struggles into soul wrenching pieces, songs that speak to everyone. The people love it.
His songs go Platinum, and he retires comfortably at 45. He moves to Big Sur to that log house that he has always wanted. He sees some of his old friends and makes new ones. He plays guitar by day and sips red wine by night. He listens to Janis Joplin and the Doors on an old-style phonograph.
This is why LA exists.
This is happy.