Scenes from the west coast. LA

Can't get the west coast out of my mind.

I've always considered myself a midwestern man that tilted to the east coast.  Rainy Octobers and brownstones were always more dear to me than the hot beaches and warm holidays of the west coast.

And while I still tilt to the east coast, the west I learned is a lot better than I thought. My perception of LA was a combination of nice cars, popular douche bags, paparazzi, The Viper Room, and of course South Central LA.

What I found in the 24 hours I was there was an interestingly erie starkness of rich and poor---and in the middle were starving artists serving you your lunch, informing you of their upcoming show/gig, all the while giving you a healthy dose of name dropping. The rich areas of the city felt like a David Lynch movie, where the safer and cleaner the street was, the more odd it felt. There's something about rows freshly cut lawns and knowing just a few miles away, you can find tent cities and hard core porn in production. 

The city has it's fair share of douche bags (thanks TMZ). But it's also full of driven people who moved from wherever to LA  to make it big.  This move probably took a lot of balls. So LA is filled with dreamers, risk takers, writers, actors, who, talented or not, have huge balls.

And up on Mulholland Drive sits the talented ones, the fortunate ones, the chosen ones. The ones who didn't have to move back home (yet).

It's as if the whole city is a game of Chutes and Ladders, both physically and psychologically, where success and security do not go hand in hand.