Languages in LA

While driving down Sunset Blvd today, I encountered a massive ad on the side of a building. It was a huge, shiny black SUV (don’t ask me what kind, cars all look alike to me) and the slogan above it was Bye Bye Black Sheep.

 
Now, obviously this is Baa Baa Black Sheep and Bye Bye Blackbird put together. But I’m wondering if the average American recognizes either phrase anymore. I mean, I know them because I was raised by my grandparents. My cultural influences span the entire 20^th century. My Grandpa used to actually shuffle around the house singing negro spirituals to himself, despite the fact that he was white, and racist as Archie Bunker. Whenever Grandma called him to dinner. He’d sing, “I’m coming… my head is bending low….” I think that was a rather sarcastic commentary on Grandma being the obvious power source of the house, but nevertheless. My grandmother sang Bye Bye Blackbird to me, and Mom recited the nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep.

But I tend to assume that what is true for me is probably not true for most people. Heck, even the neighbors thought we were weird. How can something that is so familiar to my dirt-road Michigan upbringing crop up on the side of a skyscraper in Hollywood?

Are these things really part of the American collective unconscious? Does anyone under 50 besides me recognize these references? Or is this a very expensive car, probably being marketed for wealthy 50 year olds, and it wouldn’t matter if every 20 year old in LA glanced up and thought, “Whoa, is that a racial remark?”

I wish I knew what drives ad executives.

One can’t live in Hollywood and ignore the writers’ strike. When I was working as an extra, the shuttle bus carried me every morning from the massive parking garage off the Avenue of the Stars deep into the land of Fox Studios, and past pockets of picketing penmen. (Sorry, couldn’t resist the urge to try to wring one more word out of that alliteration opportunity.)

They are wearing red, mostly, and carrying signs. A crew member on the set of The Journeyman commented that some of those writers are earning up to $12,000 per weekly episode, and it seemed to him that with a little judicious budgeting, one could live on that pretty well even in Beverly Hills. But many people, such as Michael Cieply of The New York Times, sympathize with the writers,  noting that the bulk of the money tends to go to top actors, directors, and producers.

“It all begins with a script,” is the phrase I’ve heard often here in Hollywood as I, too, try to get doors to open. Such phrases are lip service, however. Jokes are more revealing. One common joke is that of a starlet telling her friend that she’s sure to land the lead in such-n-such film because “I’m sleeping with the writer!” (Insert guffaw here, because when the process actually begins, the writer is apparently only one notch above the girl who makes the coffee.)

 
It’s hard for me to pick a side. I am a writer myself. But I’ve seen what passes for writing on some of these TV shows and I have to say, $12,000 seems a little steep for exchanges that require a laughtrack.

My welcome to the city letter arrived today, sternly letting me know that here in West Hollywood, we do not set unwanted bulky items on the curb. Being that I’m moving in, not out, I have done no such thing, but I think everyone got this letter as it is addressed Dear Resident.

 
According to Municipal Codes 9.04.050 and 15.35.060, one can be fined $250 for having any mess in front of their house that could be described as “offensive, unsightly, unsafe, or hazardous.” (Time to call the Department of Redundancy Department). Nevertheless, I am glad I got the memo, letting everyone know that if they decide to jettison a chair, they can just put it in the neighbor’s yard and let them pay the $250. 

But wait, we don’t have to do that either, because — the letter goes on to inform us — if we need something picked up, just call Athens Services. Here is where it gets a little linguistically amusing. Athens is Greek, yes? Well, they enclosed a little refrigerator magnet shaped like a sofa and printed with some information and phone numbers. Like everything in California, it was in English and in one other language. But no, not Spanish. Russian.

 
So I’m looking at Athens, the Greek-named Russian-speaking trash service, and wondering why Russian? Is West Hollywood teaming with Russians? I haven’t met any of them yet, although there is an Armenian gentleman on the other side of the Cuban lady next to me. But if I were to suggest that Armenians are “close enough” to Russians for my purposes, he’d undoubtedly bristle like a Canadian who’s just been mistaken for an American. Hm. I’ll just have to keep a sharp eye out. Obviously, the Russians are coming!

As everyone knows, there are a great many Hispanic speakers in Los Angeles. What I didn’t really understand till I moved here, however, is that they essentially comprise a fixed-stratum servant-class. It makes me uneasy to even say that. But there you have it: busboys, gardeners, construction workers, furniture movers, and valets here are by and large Mexican.

 One comes to expect it, eventually, and it brings its own quality of unease to daily living. There is always the specter of going to a social function, hearing someone speak Spanish, and assuming they are there to take your drink order, only to find out that they are a guest and you have just been branded an ignorant racist. But it’s hard to avoid sinking into such expectations. Every valet I meet is Hispanic. If I stay here much longer, I will eventually be trained to hand my car keys over to any Mexican who asks for them.

 Likewise, being home during the day and watching the gardeners and lawnboys come and go here in Weho, hearing male voices speaking Spanish outside my window has become quite normal. I didn’t realize how normal it was until yesterday, when I nearly lept off my couch in alarm at hearing a male voice speaking English outside my window.

 It took a moment to realize that the voice was discussing the possibility of moving a gate so the gas company employees who read the meters would be able to get to them with less difficulty. But it was so strange, to hear English in the province normally dominated by Spanish. Stranger still was my instinctive reaction. Already I am adjusted to the existence of this social stratum. I feel like a colonist. It’s very odd.

Not us! 

Happily for those of us living in Los Angeles, we are not, repeat, not, the most dangerous city in the United States. Nor even the second or third. My parents, who reside in a cozy cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, were horrified when I decided to come to Los Angeles, land of inner city youth and gang violence. Well, look, ma !

Two of the top three most dangerous cities are in Michigan!

 
Of course, I have only been here for three and a half years, but so far my only brushes with crime have been a single slashed tire, and the sight of the ubiquitous grafitti that is as much part of the landscape of LA as the palm trees. Well, certain parts of it. Not Weho. Weho teenagers have different agendas. A sixteen year old with a Lexus and a coke habit is too busy to spraypaint.

 
It’s funny, the things people don’t talk about here. We don’t talk about the weather, because there isn’t any, and we don’t talk about crime, because unless you’re a gang member involved in an active turf war, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of that either.

 
I suppose there is always the lurking fear that a gang of maurading gays will break into one’s house and redecorate. But over all, this place is Shangri-La as far as I can tell.

 
Granted, I don’t watch the news. But when I walk around my beautiful new neighborhood, all I see are clean, shiny cars, and well-dressed, liposuctioned ladies walking their little dogs. Even the dogs are dressed better than I am, and I am beginning to suspect that the most frightening, undesirable element in Weho is me!

Rent control has made Los Angeles a patchwork quilt of prices. I don’t know if it was enacted in a bid for stability, or a blow against landlords on behalf of “the little guy,” but like every government mandate, it’s a tangled vine from which blooms weird flowers.

 
The law is, apparently, that once you sign a lease, your rent can only be raised about 3-7% a year, depending on where you live. But of course, new leases can be set at market value, which seems to go up about 10-15% a year. Landlords owning large buildings jack up rent on empty apartments to compensate for the loss they are forced to swallow by rent control, driving the market value up further.

 The result, of course, is buildings in which one unit is being rented for $800 because the renter took it in 1989 and can’t afford to leave now. The unit next door, which is identical, is being advertised for $1450.

 The weird result is that in L.A., people who would never dream of asking you how much your salary is will not hesitate to ask you what you pay for rent. It’s a burning curiosity, a desire that overrides all other considerations, rather like the sexual urge that will compel you to sleep with someone but not ask them about their ex-girlfriend because that would be too personal.

 
And there is nothing so galling as finding out that the unit you are paying $1450 for was only $1125 for the previous renter and $650 for the guy downstairs, that barefoot git with the banjo. All you can do is hope for the day when they’ve all died off and you are still there, bragging to newcomers that you only pay $1850 and they’re paying $4,000.

When I was young, we used to exlaim in chagrin that the local stores began erecting their Christmas displays the day after Thanksgiving. We declaimed bitterly the increasing commercialization of Christmas. I think we’ve outgrown the shock. Indeed, now I fully expect to see Christmas lights the day after Halloween and feel a bit cheated if I don’t.

 Los Angeles being basically a shopping town, I have not been disappointed since I moved here three and a half years ago. Sunset Plaza is particularly prompt, and already sparkly blue reindeer are gracefully poised at the intersection by Chin-Chin’s and Café Med.

 Bristol Farms on Doheny has a dazzling display that makes me feel, when I walk in the door, that the world is a blur of red and gold, and smells like cinnamon. All the pumpkins have been moved outside with the firewood and I drift past the orange and into the red as if moving through a rainbow. Somewhere on Melrose I saw a slender, armless mannequin in a store window with a Santa had on. She looked like Venus de Claus.

 The years are neatly divided now into holidays and seasons by the merchant class. There is no dead time. As soon as the Christmas lights are put away, the valentines will appear, to be replaced by shamrocks, then easter eggs, then bikinis, then American flags, then the back-to-school atmosphere will fill that dangerous period from late July to early September with pencils and apples, till it’s time for the pumpkins to return. My year is served up with a fresh new glaze, again and again and again. The store windows of Los Angeles are my calender.

I am convinced that Pavilions on Santa Monica Blvd and Bristol Farms on Beverly are in a competition to see who can cultivate the most aggressively friendly employees. They pounce on you the minute you walk in the store.

 “Good afternoon! Happy Holidays! Do you need any help? Anything at all? Need a hug?” (only a slight exaggeration.)

 
At Pavilions, if you use a credit card, they see your name and say “Good bye, Miss Morrissey!” in a ringing voice so that everyone within ten feet now knows your name too.

 When you leave they can’t bear to see you go, and volunteer to carry your one tiny bag of cat food and protein bars out to the car with you, waving goodbye till you pull into traffic. Pulling into traffic takes time, too, because the nicer people are compelled to be to your face, the more psychotic they are behind the wheel of a car, suggesting that there is no more dangerous place to be than the parking lot of Pavilions at closing time.

 
Even the security guards will kill you with kindness, although at Bristol Farms, the true nature of the beast is evident in the jagged metal spikes that await the tires of any car trying to exit through the entrance. Nevertheless, it’s both pleasant and unnerving to go to pick up a bottle of wine and have the cashier so delighted to see you again that you feel guilty for not offering him a drink.

 
It’s almost a relief to go occasionally to Ralph’s across the street from Bristol Farms. where the cashier rings you up with the silent resentment of someone who blames you for her broken fingernail. But sometimes you just want to go where no one knows your name.

There’s only one thing you can’t really say or do in Hollywood without facing dire repercussions. Most things you can do. You can curse vilely on live award shows, you can come out of the closet, you can call family members dreadful names, and hit paparazzi with your car (not that they don’t deserve it.)

 You can flash your naked, waxed bottom while shopping. You can drive drunk. You can hurl phones at underlings. You can leave the scene of a hit and run accident.

 You can use drugs. You can shoplift.  You can deride the war, the President, capitalism, corporations, and the free market. In fact, you rather have to do those last things if you expect to be invited to any good parties.

You cannot, however, be a Republican. Better to be a Communist. Better to be a terrorist! Better to be a rapist, frankly. 

Proof here.

I have a script that has been optioned, and my producer takes a peculiar delight in introducing me to his friends as a Republican. I suspect I’m the only one he’s ever seen up close, and I think he’s fighting the urge to look down the collar of my shirt to see if my back is covered with fur.

 Unsurprisingly, we have not yet found funding for my film, which is not in the least political, but rather a dark comedy involving corpses and blow-up dolls. Corpses and blow-up dolls usually play quite well in Hollywood.  But I must convince my producer to stop introducing as a Republican and merely tell them I’m shoplifting drug-addict who waxes her bottom.

Driving in LA can reshape your perceptions. When I lived in Hollywood, I would speak of coming over to Weho as if it were 20 miles away. In fact, it was four miles, but four miles on Sunset Blvd between 7:30am and midnight takes a half hour. If you reroute over to Fountain, which runs parallel, you’ll save six minutes, but there’s nothing to look at and you meet all the same stoplights. So I moved to Weho.

 
But Sunset Blvd in the wee hours of the morning is a shock to the senses. I recently drove from Bronson to Doheny in 11 minutes flat. To understand the significance of this, you have to imagine how a student pilot feels the first time his wheels leave the ground. I realized, suddenly, how small was the area to which my world had shrunk.

 
Last night, I saw another symptom of driver mentality. My friend, now six blocks away, came up to see my new apartment. She parked her car in my neighborhood — for which she needed a parking permit; this is how controlled it is – and we walked over to Dan Tana’s restaurant. Dan Tana’s is famous for its Italian food, mafia connections, and celebrity visits. George Clooney was there looking dapper with his young girlfriend and two other couples.

 
My friend sighed in contentment. “If I lived here, I’d go broke because I’d be over at Dan Tana’s every night.”

 
If she lived here? SHE DOES live here! She’s six blocks away! But there’s the car thing. If you drive here, you have to have a permit or pay the valet a ridiculous sum to park it. You then have to worry about driving home after a few drinks, and the cops patrol this area as if the Queen were visiting. Six blocks becomes a vast distance.

 
Well, you could walk it, I suppose, but not in the kind of shoes you want to be wearing when George Clooney strolls by.