Monday, August 28, 2006
LA
Here I am in LA again. And I’m glad to be here.
I just read the pajamacatz blog as I was waiting for “Deadwood” to come on.
I personally am reminded of, not the day I finally arrived in Michigan but, the day I left LA. It felt like the right thing to do. It’s a very long and bizarre story filled with remorse, a final good bye to a very strange bird and a stiff back, that someday I may set to music. For now let’s just say that I saw the animation biz drying up.
The thing I never considered was digging in and fighting, Alamo style. I chose flight. Flight masked in a million little excesses. I guess you never quit struggling. All I ever thought is that if you want something you have to try really hard to get it. I resigned to that type of thinking for a long time. The problem has always been that if you do that you should have a reasonable idea about what you want. Did I? No.
Do I?
Not really, but after six years of deliberating in the wilds of northern Michigan I think I have a better idea. If and when I return to the only thing I really like doing (animation for those who don’t know me) where you have to be if you want to do it (LA) I’ll be armed with a piece of mind that I wouldn’t have unless I did what I’ve done, where I did it.
The other little problem that I left out is that if you fight to get something, you have to fight to keep it. People are animals!
…A little to vague?
Sorry.
I will return with the ability to forgive myself, sort of. I won’t be afraid to make mistakes. Maybe I’ll just not be so hard on me. I will return with a little more tolerance. I’ll forgive the world for being the world. I don’t know if Michigan did that to me or that’s just a residual effect of the hair-graying process.
The truth is (…and here’s something that every single person I have ever met in my entire life will be surprised by) I miss LA.
I’ll give everyone a second to get over that.
When I first came here I had nowhere else to go and no money. All I had was a half-promise of someone who wanted to see my portfolio and a friend who was nice enough to give me a couch to sleep on and a place to put my shit. A long story short, LA was nice enough to me to provide me with a profession, a wife and a kid. But I was programmed to keep looking. Was the animation biz going to keep going? I thought I had better diversify my interest before the animation bubble broke. I call that Detroit paranoia. Whatever job you have, you will loose,that’s just the way it is.
Basically, I grabbed and ran. But to me, life in Michigan was little more than a restless retirement. I freelanced some stuff but if wasn’t blowing my skirt up. I looked into other jobs. I thought a class. I even talked to a woman about the real-estate business. But there is nothing there for me. I began to remember what drove me away from Michigan in the first place. I went east to get that real production groove back. Twice, once to Berlin and a second time to SE Asia. The money was great, but I was away from my family. Why couldn’t I do what I like and go home to my family every night? Certainly, there are people out there who do that.
The real world is a huge mystery to me. I don’t know why people do the things they do. And I’m not going to get into that because, who cares!
Pretty much everyone in LA is from somewhere else. And most of the people that I know have a dream plan to, someday move somewhere else. I don’t know anyone who says, “This is where we’ll live forever. When I come back, boy will I give them an ear full.
Did you ever notice, when people flip out and go on killing sprees they generally head west? They never get here, but this is where they are going.
That’s what I like about LA. Nuts!
Are the people flakey here? A few, I suppose. But there are a few flakes in New York. What about the he/she who wanted to park my car? I wasn’t even in a car! Are Los Angelinos under educated? Are they shallow? Are they opposite of New Yorkers? My answer to that is, Fuck New York! It’s cold and smells like piss most of the time. They are no better, cooler or smarter than the people out here. We have JPL! They build airplanes out here. Do you know how much brainpower it takes to come up with a motion control machine? We invented the squib. Did they do that in NY? No. Johnny Lydon, Eric Idle, John Cleese all live out here. Who lives in New York? Carrot top? No he lives in Vegas… OK forget that last thing. Famous people live everywhere.
Anyway, I’ll admit that LA is a pain. LA is to big for any one person to know all about it. It really should be a bunch of different cities: San Fernando, Palms, LA, and Hollywoods. And it should have elevated trains chris-crossing the city. Enough with the north / south thing. What if someone in Burbank wants to go to the ocean?
LA has its problems. But so does everywhere. There are even problems in northern Michigan. So, why not LA? We find a place with a yard and a driveway, a school and I make some money. There we live here now. ...Someday.
I just read the pajamacatz blog as I was waiting for “Deadwood” to come on.I personally am reminded of, not the day I finally arrived in Michigan but, the day I left LA. It felt like the right thing to do. It’s a very long and bizarre story filled with remorse, a final good bye to a very strange bird and a stiff back, that someday I may set to music. For now let’s just say that I saw the animation biz drying up.
The thing I never considered was digging in and fighting, Alamo style. I chose flight. Flight masked in a million little excesses. I guess you never quit struggling. All I ever thought is that if you want something you have to try really hard to get it. I resigned to that type of thinking for a long time. The problem has always been that if you do that you should have a reasonable idea about what you want. Did I? No.
Do I?
Not really, but after six years of deliberating in the wilds of northern Michigan I think I have a better idea. If and when I return to the only thing I really like doing (animation for those who don’t know me) where you have to be if you want to do it (LA) I’ll be armed with a piece of mind that I wouldn’t have unless I did what I’ve done, where I did it.
The other little problem that I left out is that if you fight to get something, you have to fight to keep it. People are animals!
…A little to vague?
Sorry.
I will return with the ability to forgive myself, sort of. I won’t be afraid to make mistakes. Maybe I’ll just not be so hard on me. I will return with a little more tolerance. I’ll forgive the world for being the world. I don’t know if Michigan did that to me or that’s just a residual effect of the hair-graying process.
The truth is (…and here’s something that every single person I have ever met in my entire life will be surprised by) I miss LA.
I’ll give everyone a second to get over that.
When I first came here I had nowhere else to go and no money. All I had was a half-promise of someone who wanted to see my portfolio and a friend who was nice enough to give me a couch to sleep on and a place to put my shit. A long story short, LA was nice enough to me to provide me with a profession, a wife and a kid. But I was programmed to keep looking. Was the animation biz going to keep going? I thought I had better diversify my interest before the animation bubble broke. I call that Detroit paranoia. Whatever job you have, you will loose,that’s just the way it is.
Basically, I grabbed and ran. But to me, life in Michigan was little more than a restless retirement. I freelanced some stuff but if wasn’t blowing my skirt up. I looked into other jobs. I thought a class. I even talked to a woman about the real-estate business. But there is nothing there for me. I began to remember what drove me away from Michigan in the first place. I went east to get that real production groove back. Twice, once to Berlin and a second time to SE Asia. The money was great, but I was away from my family. Why couldn’t I do what I like and go home to my family every night? Certainly, there are people out there who do that.
The real world is a huge mystery to me. I don’t know why people do the things they do. And I’m not going to get into that because, who cares!
Pretty much everyone in LA is from somewhere else. And most of the people that I know have a dream plan to, someday move somewhere else. I don’t know anyone who says, “This is where we’ll live forever. When I come back, boy will I give them an ear full.
Did you ever notice, when people flip out and go on killing sprees they generally head west? They never get here, but this is where they are going.
That’s what I like about LA. Nuts!
Are the people flakey here? A few, I suppose. But there are a few flakes in New York. What about the he/she who wanted to park my car? I wasn’t even in a car! Are Los Angelinos under educated? Are they shallow? Are they opposite of New Yorkers? My answer to that is, Fuck New York! It’s cold and smells like piss most of the time. They are no better, cooler or smarter than the people out here. We have JPL! They build airplanes out here. Do you know how much brainpower it takes to come up with a motion control machine? We invented the squib. Did they do that in NY? No. Johnny Lydon, Eric Idle, John Cleese all live out here. Who lives in New York? Carrot top? No he lives in Vegas… OK forget that last thing. Famous people live everywhere.
Anyway, I’ll admit that LA is a pain. LA is to big for any one person to know all about it. It really should be a bunch of different cities: San Fernando, Palms, LA, and Hollywoods. And it should have elevated trains chris-crossing the city. Enough with the north / south thing. What if someone in Burbank wants to go to the ocean?
LA has its problems. But so does everywhere. There are even problems in northern Michigan. So, why not LA? We find a place with a yard and a driveway, a school and I make some money. There we live here now. ...Someday.
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