A weekend in the City of Angels

Whenever I ask any fellow Berkeley students about Los Angeles I always get the same response- a sort of convulsive twitch that lingers around the eyes, and a question along the lines of ‘Why would anyone ever go there?’ The way it’s told, L.A. is a vast smog-filled nightmare of wide roads and stifling heat, and, as one classmate put it, ‘all the people there are assholes’. 

LA from the roof of the hotel on Sunset Boulevard

But as an outsider, there’s no escape from the romance that saturates Los Angeles. It’s the central hub of American filmmaking, it has the Walk of Fame, the opulence of Beverly Hills, and the Hollywood sign set firmly into the mountains. There are books, films, and my personal poison of Musical Theatre which revolve around the smoky City of Angels: and like Manhattan, San Francisco, or any other iconic American city there’s a pull to it that makes you think yes- I could step off the plane in this place and things would begin to happen. So, given the chance to spend a couple of days down there with my Dad I jumped at the chance, and flew down the coast on a clear Friday afternoon.

Coasting over the city towards the airport, then driving down towards Santa Monica showed me straight off: LA is huge. It sprawls in every direction from the ochre mountains to the bleached coastline. Oddly enough one of the places it really evoked for me was the roads that ran into Accra, the capital of Ghana. There was something so familiar about the wide tarmac roads, the dusty air and the constant gridlock, and it’s strange to think that, no matter how many worlds apart two places are they can ultimately end up looking very much the same. The shorefront at Santa Monica was like a scene from every coast-based sitcom ever made. Everywhere there were young, tanned beautiful people, jogging, rollerblading, exuding health and an overwhelming sense of my God we’re gorgeous. A late afternoon wind whipped sand up into the air, making the pier, with its Ferris wheel and dangerously rickety-looking rollercoaster look like a Polaroid photo.

I stayed on the Sunset Strip, much further uptown, a journey we foolishly chose to make during the rush hour. A fifteen-mile drive- in a straight line- took over an hour and a half as we crawled through the solid lanes of traffic. There was a lot to see as we went through, and the sudden contrasts in environment were amazing. Coming up on your left would be the turnoffs to Beverly hills, with palm trees and velvet lawns being thoroughly doused by industrial sprinklers; two minutes down the road on the other side would be a low concrete building, with a flashing neon sign advertising ‘GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS’ in lurid colours. Sunset Boulevard itself was much the same, different walks of life thrown into sharp relief against each other. There was a railcar-turned-restaurant opposite a hotel where scenes from Oceans Eleven were shot, a wooden-shack Mexican cabana and a glorified burlesque club all within a stone’s throw of each other. The sort of placed  that, if you lived in every day, would slowly strip you of any lingering grasp on reality. We ate on the front deck of  the SaddleRanch Chophouse- a saloon-styled steak joint with terrifying waxwork cowboys grinning down at you from the walls and a bucking bronco in the middle of the bar floor. Asked for spare ribs, received half a cow, which was followed by complimentary s’mores. We grilled them on the open brick fireplace, watching packs of Hells Angels go roaring down the strip.

The Universal Studios Globe

I was further removed from sanity the following day with my tour of Universal Studios. Described as the ‘home of entertainment in LA’, the studios have produced blockbusters such as Psycho, Jaws, Forrest Gump, Jurassic Park, and, notoriously, the Shrek franchise. As well as a working film lot, it is a thriving theme park, and one of LA’s biggest tourist attractions. I spent about four hours walking round the park, experienced some bone-shaking theme park rides (with non-existent queues); and the fascinating studio tour; which was ‘hosted’ by a televised Jimmy Fallon as we trundled around outdoor-sets and sound studios in open-ended trams. The whole experience was loud, bright, and left me feeling slightly hungover, but I couldn’t have passed LA by without seeing it.

Jaws looking washed up at Universal Studios

I don’t know whether I’d ever start twitching the way people in Northern California (NorCal) do; but then again I doubt LA would ever be a place I’d choose to live in long-term. Coming from a city like London where trains and buses can get you anywhere, the idea of a sprawling metropolis where a car becomes your lifeline is completely alien in concept. And I could see how living in an environment where the world of television, film and music bleed so closely into everyday life might start to drive a person insane. So, ultimately- as far as this year goes- Berkeley remains the place to be.