Welcome to Los Angeles
Something Different
Fake candles, fake leather, and fake people… This is Los Angeles.
Jeans torn, lovers torn, and abandoned dreams. This is the city I live in.
A sun that always shines on the wrong side of the street. The right people always in the wrong part of town. Money is more important than anything that ever was or ever will be. This is the city in which I write.
Home of the hopeful and the hopeless, home of the forsaken and forlorn, home of the heartbroken. Home of the homeless. Welcome home…
China-dolls made of plastic, a lot of the people are too. Smiles that are plastered on like make-up, like the cream that fills the holes in the walls. The people are full of holes too.
Jackrabbit turnover, in and out, but never at the same time. Statues that are built just well enough to be destroyed. Nothing is forever, but sometimes the city forgets that. I’ll burn an effigy for it when it’s gone. This is Los Angeles, the city of fire.
The grass is curated by a laborer’s hands. Hands that can’t afford the grass themselves. Houses cleaned by people who couldn’t afford to dream of a house like that. Children being babysat by mothers who couldn’t afford to hire a babysitter, so their kids sit at home alone. This is Los Angeles, a city of millions, a lonely city.
Big money spent on the smallest things. The only real gains go to the pockets of the landlords. The rest suffer what they must.
Proper is what you’re told is proper. Vile is what the face on the magazine said was vile. This and that is cool because big money said so. And cool? Don’t get me started on cool. Everybody’s just trying to be cool or they’re trying to sell you on something and the two often go hand in hand. It’s a magazine city in which no one buys magazines.
The roads are nice but only over there where the houses are nice, and the schools are nice and the jobs are nice, and the cars are nice. It’s all taxpayer money. Money from that guy who was curating grass and those other people who were cleaning houses and babysitting bourgeoisie entitled children. It’s their money paying for it all. Even though they don’t have any money. And their kids don’t have access to those same luxuries. Yes! This is Los Angeles in all of her raging glory. Nepotism rules the land and every day it gets harder to go from bad to good and easier to be bad but born good.
This is Los Angeles! Either fortune is on your side or it’s not. Either you were born lucky, or you get lucky. Los Angeles doesn’t give a damn how good you are at anything. An accident of birth rules your world. You can’t muscle your way anywhere. You can’t sweat your way anywhere but to an early grave. No! This is Los Angeles. You could be the one. Why not? Welcome and good luck. You’re going to need it. After all, this is Los Angeles.