Lifestyle Lessons from the Left Coast

Police Bust Elmo, Chucky & Mr. Incredible in L.A.

Two weeks ago I flew to Santa Monica, California and married the most wonderful woman in the world. I could use this column to tell you about how we had our first date 19 years ago and it was only through the magic of the Google Search Engine that we reconnected after all these years…but hey, that’s personal stuff.

Instead I will use my perspective as a mountain lad from North Carolina to relate to you my impressions of the Los Angeles area. It is not quite the culture shock stuff of The Beverly Hillbillies, but I did indeed find quite a different world on the Left Coast.

Pacific sea kelp or alien bloodsucker? You make the call. Photo by Jeff Eason.

First off, let me say that it I was totally impressed with the ability of several million people living in Los Angeles County to get around smoothly and get along with each other. Everyone drives or takes the bus, yet the freeways and streets flow pretty smoothly considering the heavy volume of traffic. You hear LA horror stories of road rage but what I saw was a bunch of courteous people driving nice cars at high speeds…cars that they would like to keep out of any unnecessary fender-benders.

Coming from a diversity-deprived region of the country, I was awed by the sheer number of people in Southern California who were either immigrants or first-generation Americans. I expected to see plenty of people from Latin American and Asian countries in LA, but there were also scads of people from the British Isles, the Middle East, and Eastern European countries living in SoCal. And, of course, any place that has a big population of foreigners has a wealth of great ethnic restaurants. Good food is everywhere in LA.

Visiting Southern California helped erase some of the preconceived notions I had about the place while it also reinforced some of the stereotypes I think we all have about LA-LA Land. If you think people talking on cell phones loudly and in public has become a nuisance in North Carolina, you won’t believe what goes on in Los Angeles. These folks have taken it upon themselves to elevate multi-tasking to an Olympic-level competition.

“I see you driving 85 mph while talking on the phone, eating a butterscotch scone and drinking a triple-latte. Well, I’m driving 87 mph, managing a conference call on my cell phone, eating a boysenberry muffin, drinking a quadruple-espresso, and applying my makeup in the rearview mirror. Top that!”

The official Louis Lombardi 8x10 glossy black and white headshot.

Everyone who lives in Los Angeles seems to be compelled to promote themselves with a photograph of their face. Doctors and lawyers advertise on bus stop benches not with descriptions of their specialties but with giant photos of their heads. If a plumber comes to your house to fix your toilet, he presents his estimate along with an eight-by-ten glossy photograph of his head. It’s as if everyone who lives anywhere near Hollywood is just waiting to be discovered by the entertainment industry.

“Pardon me, I’m casting the new Superman movie and I couldn’t help but notice as you bagged my groceries that you would make a perfect Jimmy Olsen. You don’t by chance have your resume and a headshot handy?”

Television shows such as Baywatch have given people on the East Coast a misguided impression of life on the beaches of Southern California. Even though millions of people live in the Los Angeles area, the coasts are relatively deserted in October, save for occasional tourists, surfers and body builders. The Pacific waters are too cold and their waves are too rough for casual swimming in October. Even the seaweed and kelp look different in the Pacific. They somehow look more menacing than their Atlantic counterparts on the friendly beaches of North Carolina.

Despite the overall affluence of Southern California, the place is littered with homeless people. That’s really not surprising in an area where even small rental units start somewhere north of a $1,000 a month and the temperature hardly ever dips below 50 degrees. Some of them manage to eke out a living by providing some sort of service to the public while others are what folks in a less politically correct era called beggars and bums. A Californian comedian I once saw stated that if the state gets any more politically correct, then they won’t be able to call them homeless anymore. They’ll have to call them “outdoorsmen.”

In Santa Monica there is a three-block strip of upscale shops and restaurants called The Promenade. That’s where many of the homeless and destitute make a living by cadging off of foreign tourists. The competition among the street scammers in LA has run so high that many of them have resorted to all manner of schemes, some requiring the commitment of a full-time job. For instance, while I was in California, LA police were cracking down on folks making a living by dressing up as animated characters, going to Hollywood Boulevard and charging tourists to have their pictures taken with them. Citing copyright infringement and public solicitation laws, police busted three such impersonators posing as Mr. Incredible, Elmo and slasher film character Chucky. The cops actually shouted, “Throw down your heads and get up against the wall!” while making the arrest.

Donn Harper, 45, the arrestee wearing the furry red Elmo costume, stated later that he made up to $400 on a good day posing for pictures with tourists. Where do I sign up?

Of course, no trip to the Los Angeles area would be complete without an actual celebrity sighting. I had exactly one while I was there, and it was the actor’s voice that drew my attention rather than his appearance. Louis Lombardi, the actor who regularly played a dirty cop on The Sopranos and now fills the role of computer technician Edgar on the Fox TV series 24 was standing next to me in the iPOD Store in Santa Monica when I heard his distinctively whiny Brooklyn lisp talking about the features of the newly released iPOD Nano. For anyone who cares about celebrity sightings, Lombardi was wearing gray sweats and is shorter and heavier than he looks on TV.

Hey, I didn’t say it was a great celebrity sighting. I just said I had one.