LA Book Fest

Made it back to the book festival on UCLA campus this year. A ton of great authors again. Very well organized affair. Karla and I stood in line for about 15 minutes to see Frank McCourt interview Mitch Albom (I thought it was going to be the other way around). Very entertaining, light-on-its-feet affair. Albom is unassuming and winsome, a great stoyteller in person, led an interesting life before becoming a writer, McCourt is Irish and witty. During the Q and A time, Albom mentioned something that struck me, about staying in Detroit now that he's a millionaire, famous author, etc. A member of the audience posed the question, "why does he stay there?" He mentioned giving back to the community that gave him his first break, loyalty, etc. He added in passing "New York has enough writers, and LA is too nice. The Midwest keeps me grounded." McCourt asked him why all his books tackle the bigger issue of death. Say what you want about Albom's simplicity, his aw-shucks sentimentality, etc, but he confronts the issue of death in his work. He admitted his second two "novels" were outgrowths of the first "Tuesdays with Morrie," and wrestle with death as a result of that first one. On the way home Karla and I passed through Beverly Hills and down into the Sunset Strip, inching along for a few miles - a truck had rammed into a traffic light next to the Rite Aid on the edge of the strip. In some sense, this is the heart of LA, or where the tourists think it is anyway. The Whisky - one thinks of Guns and Roses, The House of Blues - Ice Cube and Nas were on the Marquee, The Standard - one thinks of the blonde bombshell in underwear behind the glass at the famous nightclub - so postmodern???, The Chateau Marmont and Lindsay Lohan's latest foibles or whatever. This is all within a few blocks radius. And the patrons were out early, some bands from the Midwest walking around, taking it in, college kids excited about being the legal drinking age, aspiring actors from West Hollywood feeling like insiders for a little while. Overhead, the sun shines down, the billboards loom largest. Captain Jack Sparrow from the latest upcoming Summer Blockbuster, Hillary Duff wearing diamonds for whoever, two young boyish models with no shirt on, lying back one expressionless, the other smiling faintly, a very Brokeback moment. This was, of course, the Abercrombie billboard - no clothes of any kind on the ad, mind you. A sexy blonde model falls backwards in the Skyy Vodka billboard, all demanding attention, all sprawled out across the sky, larger than life. Captain Jack himself must have taken up eight stories easily, establishing their importance in this city, where entertainment is God. I thought about Albom's comments - LA is too nice, he wouldn't be grounded here. His work confronts death. The contrast is so stark. LA is about the moment, there is a frenetic energy to the place, a promise of success, and it feels within reach. People are here to get things done, here to be rich or famous or both, or to get rich or famous or both, or else to project an image of success. LA is obsessed with right now. There are great things about this city, to be sure, but it has no memory, except in the realm of entertainment, and there it is only kept alive to turn a few more tricks off of it. The year is not measured out in the usual seasons - Spring Summer Fall Winter; it's Award Season, followed by Festival Season (it's Coachella this weekend), followed by Summer Blockbuster season, followed by the Fall Oscar movie season followed by Christmas movie season, followed by...Awards season again. Along the way, we have a few drinks, make a few appointments, go to Blockbuster to catch up on all the movies we didn't get a chance to see for each season, feeling left out if we didn't, or maybe we just rent Entourage to laugh about it all. And we're all somehow complicit in the relentless pursuit of the trivial. The reality of death? Have fun with that back in Detroit or Wyoming or wherever you said you were from. I'm busy trying to move from the East Side to the West Side, and hopefully someday before I die, I'll have a Jaguar and an apartment in Santa Monica with my own parking garage and a doorman to say "good morning Mister Shaw, good evening Mister Shaw, how do you like your coffee, sir?" And some years, during the Fall Oscar contender season, I'll confront death vicariously a few times, and make sure to make out my check to the child I sponsor in Malawi or Myanmar or Maine or some other third world country. Somewhere between La Cienega and La Brea, Karla said, "let's get out of this town and all the damn billboards."
The city has its own Spirit, its own consciousness. On the West Side, people feel healthy, happy, beautiful, insiders, young, or at least powerful. If Peter Pan moved back from Never Never land, he'd settle on the West Side. Meanwhile, in areas like Echo Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, intelligent hipsters create underground art, congratulating each other that they're not as shallow as the West Siders, so sincere in flannel and horn rimmed glasses, worshipping Saint Elliott Smith and praying to Conor Oberst, rocking the Casbah in moments of weakness. Do-gooder college kids come in from Biola and Asuza Pacific to travel in packs and wear the same clothes and look very out of place and bewildered, even at Starbucks, with all the pretty hipsters in Chucks and angel headed scenesters in white knee high boots advertising sex and beat ragamuffin gentrified neighborhoods wanting for nothing. And the city breathes in and suppresses its shadow side, its awareness of death and decay and ugliness to South of the 10 freeway, with the trodden upon masses of minorities, and all the white trash finds its way to the Valley, just like Germany ships off all their old cars to Poland, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria. The West can tell you what's what with its billboards, its beauty, its sense of illusory history.