Randy Newman

BOOMERANGST: California Dreaming

By Roy Trakin

As a native New Yorker, I came to L.A. in 1985, kicking and screaming the whole way, a believer, like Woody Allen, the only cultural advantage to Hollywood was being able to turn right on a red light. In many ways, I still feel like an East Coast exile, pining away for real Chinese and Italian food, Wise potato chips, Nathan’s hot dogs, authentic bagels, the Mets, Jets, Knicks… Back when I first moved here, the Internet had yet to explode, and while I still can’t get great ethnic food, I can now access the N.Y. Post as well as home broadcasts and telecasts of my favorite sports teams.

It’s funny because as much as I consider myself a New Yorker, I have gradually grown to, if not love, at least grow very fond of my new home. With a split-level manse and a backyard swimming pool, I’ve come to regard the West Valley as a hamishe version of Long Island, except with better weather. For someone who virtually never drove a car when he lived in Manhattan, I’ve come to appreciate the freedom of tooling 20-30 minutes to anywhere, except, of course, at rush hour, when I curse the traffic. And while that old saw about New Yorkers saying “fuck you” when they mean “hello,” and Los Angelenos uttering hello when they really mean “fuck you,” is often true, I’ve even come to come to terms with that kind of phoniness. I used to be in awe of coming into Manhattan and viewing that awesome skyline; now I feel the same about driving the 405 down into the Valley, looking at the great expanse of twinkling lights like a blanket as far as the eye can see.

Two current cable TV series, Entourage and Californication, crystallize my growing feeling that L.A. has its own kind of soul and identity. The opening credit sequences to each show, with their montage of Hollywood landmarks, never fails to give me a warm, fuzzy feeling. The moral decadence and backstabbing is not exactly endemic to either coast, but the ability to invent, and then re-invent yourself, without the baggage of where you went to college or family connections, is refreshing. And it helps that both programs feature characters that are originally from the East Coast, but are now stuck in their new environment, forced to acclimate or flame out.

The ability to live however and wherever you want, whether it’s in the hills, by the ocean, in a suburb, in a cardboard box or even in a N.Y.-style high rise, is one of L.A.’s real attractions. Life’s a lot more casual here, and while New York City is a great place to be when you’re young and struggling, L.A. is the place to come to start a family and chill. Until, of course, it falls into the Pacific after the Big One. Until then, to paraphrase Randy Newman, I like L.A. a lot. But I still haven’t fallen for the Lakers or Dodgers. Some things never change.