Languages in LA

Every job has its lingo. I spent yesterday on the set of the TV show “The Journeyman,” which airs Monday nights after “Heroes.” It’s a new show, and seems to be reminiscent of “Quantum Leap.” I was working as an extra in the background, because I like doing something fun on vacation from teaching. And I thought this would be fun.

 
Fun, however, is not necessarily how I would describe extra work, now that I’ve done it. However, I did at least learn what a martini shot is.

 
The scenes I participated in all take place at an office Christmas party in 1979. I was assigned a slinky black dress and some heavy gold jewelry, and the hairdresser transformed my short shag into a stiff, feathered do with flipped-up wings. The make-up artist went after my cheeks and lips with enough fire-engine red to set off the smoke detector. I was given a pair of shoes that immediately cut into my feet and caused a haze of pain to settle over me, clouding the entire day.

 
For the next six hours, I and 40 other extras were assigned to silently mingle and cross in front of the cameras as the actors moved among us and said their lines. We did this over and over and over and over and over. In painful shoes. For six hours. With no break and no refreshments.

 After lunch, we did it again… until 9pm. We filmed four different scenes, and by seven in the evening, we were too beat to even complain. Finally, the word came around that this was “the martini shot.” Apparently, the last scene of the day is called the martini shot, probably to cheer everyone up and remind them that once you’ve turned in your wardrobe and gotten your voucher, you can go home and have a drink. Which I did.

I saw something very disturbing outside my school not long ago. One of our middle school students, a tall African-American boy, was at a deli about a block from the school, playing a video game. It was the aim-gun-kill-person type, where you have the plastic gun with which you pop anyone who appears on the screen.

This boy was just mumbling over and over, “Nigga, where you from?” and then shooting. When I asked one of the other teachers about this later, he explained to me that this is a standard opening for gangs before they attack. “Where you from?” means what neighborhood, and if you are not in your neighborhood, you’re about to get jumped.

Setting that unhappy thought aside for a moment, I return to the National Geographic website I was haunting earlier, chuckling about their “Cultural Tips for visiting L.A.” Sure enough, there’s the genteel version of the same geographically-based tribalism:

Where do you live?: The thinly disguised screener for the start of every new relationship.

And, lo, National Geographic is right on this one. It’s the first thing people say, not “what do you do,” but where you from? The dating game operates on the same basic principle as the gang-turf wars. Are you a member of my posh little gang of Weho café-frequenters? Nigga, what’s your gym?

Well, perhaps I’m being too cynical. At the gang level, it’s all about loyalty, safety in numbers, and survival of the streets. At the more one-on-one relationship level, it’s all about how far you have to drive to get laid. Well, with traffic here, that’s a survival-of-the-streets issue in some ways…

But still, it’s strange to contemplate: love or hate, life-making decisions still boil down to location and proximity. Alas, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Little Armenia has their own web page, littlearmenia.com, a truly complete guide to Armenian restaurants, services, churches, etc in Hollywood, Los Feliz, Glendale, Burbank, and Weho. (Weho is West Hollywood, our me-too response to New York’s Soho district.)

Armenians are an interesting bunch for a mid-western white girl like myself. I peer at them often with fascination. This is a group that is in no danger whatsoever of forgetting their culture. Armenian students who cannot remember times tables can still recite every detail of the Armenian genocide. Let me tell you, they know when, where, who, how many, everything. There are Armenian rap songs about it, which they listen to and get fired up about every year around the anniversary of the event.

This in and of itself is not necessarily unique, many of my Hispanic students also show a marked preference for and loyalty to the country of their parents’ birth, and consider American culture of secondary importance. But Armenians, from what I have seen so far, are holding on to their culture without evincing hostility to American culture, which is not always the case with other nationalities.

When the protests erupted last year against pending anti-immigration laws, the latent hostility and frustration in the Hispanic population was manifest. My Mexican students were chanting Si Se Puede!! and waving Mexican flags and yelling “Viva la Raza!” (the sort of chant that only dark-skinned minorities are allowed to utter.) My Armenian students looked on with mild curiosity.

I don’t know if Armenian culture simply has no ax to grind with America, or if they feel compatible with white capitalist culture. But for whatever reason, Armenian-Americans are the benign face of multi-culturalism, where diversity means cool ethnic restaurants and traditional dances in exotic costumes. I confess, I like the Armenian vibe. It’s not threatening. I’m sure this means I’m a bourgeois pig.

Oh well.

Why is there, online, no linguistic map of Los Angeles? How can this be, with UCLA Center for World Languages right here, and all this diversity? I bet such a map would look like a crazy quilt put together by a schizophrenic… which would be way cool.

 Think about it, we have Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia, Thai town… we’ve got enclaves of Russian Jews and Koreatown… if nothing else, it should be a project for linguistics grad students to trudge all over L.A. finding out what language people speak. What a great fieldwork practice, and it’s right here, locally!

 
Boy, if I were a linguistics professor with a bunch of indentured gradslaves at my disposal, there’d be battalions of linguistics students out every year, canvassing a different part of L.A. … this city alone could make for a lifetime of linguistic publications. Hey! Let’s find out if there are any Rhodesians in the valley! Let’s find out if El Salvadorians mingle in with Hondurans, or keep themselves apart! Let’s find out what new arrivals to Koreatown think of the Korean language they encounter from those who’ve been here longer. Is Los Angeles Korean turning freaky? Where do the Latvians gather? Is there a Little Mozambique that I don’t know about, sandwiched between abandoned buildings in South Central? Where’s the New New Delhi? There’s gotta be one.

 Let’s look for little starter pidgins, doomed creatures that will never grow to be creoles: maybe there’s a street in Pasadena where Yemeni grandmothers have no one to talk to during the day but retired Peruvians, and they’ve developed some wild code that enables them to discuss soap operas and exchange recipes.

 Then let’s make a big map, multi-colored, with cross-hatching for blurring boarders, and links to pictures of Orthodox Jews scowling at the camera in front of Gelsen’s grocery in Beverly Hills. What? It’ll be fun!

Okay, do not tell anyone I told you this, but I sometimes go to façade.com and run a stichomancy request. Hey, it’s free.

Stichomancy is when some computer generates a random excerpt from a random book and tells you…

I don’t believe I’m saying this. This is California influence for sure. I’d have never fallen for such nonsense in stiff-upper-lip Michigan.

Anyway, it tells you that you should meditate (…oh please, like I’ve ever meditated in my life. The closest I come to meditation is that trance I fall into whenever Keanu is on the silver screen. I don’t believe I told you that, either. But there’s something about him. Anyway, it tells you that you should meditate) on the following passage.

So this is what my stichomancy said today, and I looked at it, and suddenly I thought, “Dang, lookee here, if this ain’t some deep shi-at.”

It’s an excerpt from John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. You remember JFK? He was a Democrat from back when Democrats were actually pro-America?

…final war.

So let us begin anew. . .remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate…

Well, heck, that’s enough to set me brooding till November. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate. That in and of itself is a headful. That could well last me the rest of my life.

I wrote a screenplay and it has a director and producer attached. We are trying to find funding. Meanwhile, a nearly-nuclear Iran has come to visit Columbia University. These two things put together are a stichomatic moment: I want to get a good deal on my script, in case some nutjob doesn’t end the world, and I am forced to deal with continued life.

Wow. That’s just too much, all put together. I think I’ll go watch Keanu. Look at that mouth. Mmm…

Take a drive with me on a gorgeous Sunday morning, through the leafy sides streets of Hollywood. Here is the perfect way to spend the hours of 8am to noon if you’re one of those who pops awake at the break of dawn on your day off because your cats are like little furry alarm clocks with claws who don’t know what “weekend” means.

 
I’ll tell you what weekend means. It means following handlettered signs that say YARD SALE up Beachwood Drive, on the hunt for groups of people standing around, peering judiciously at lamps and boxes of CDs laid out on blankets in the small, landscaped yards of the apartment buildings leading up to the HOLLYWOOD sign.

 
Drive carefully, for Beachwood is rife with tourists who want their picture taken with the sign behind them, and they will stand right smack dab in the middle of the street for that picture, oblivious to the glares of the yard-saling locals who want to get to that pile of sequined throw pillows before that old Armenian lady making her way determinedly up the sidewalk, cane in one hand, purse in the other. She’s eyeballing those pillows and some putz from Tulsa is blocking my way. One more second and that’s going to be one hell of a picture (“Here’s Heather getting run down by some bitch! OMG!”)

 
After combing Beachwood, I like to head into Weho to Duke’s Diner, a seedy little place right next to Whiskey A-GoGo on Sunset Blvd. They have awesome huevos rancheros. For dessert, I take a drive up into the bird streets, and drool over the ultra expensive movie star homes that cling to the mountainside between Sunset and Mulholland Drive.  There’s always one for sale and open houses are on Sunday. We can go in, look around, and pretend we have $4 million lying around and are pondering an investment. Hm, ceiling’s a little cracked on this one…

 
To finish my morning, I go down to the corner of Gardner and Santa Monica Blvd to my favorite carwash, and listen to Dave Matthews “Crash Into Me” nice and loud as the suds pound my car. I come out with my ears ringing and my car glittering clean. Now it’s noon. Time to grade papers. Sigh. Until next Sunday.

While cruising the L.A. Craigslist hunting for this week’s four writing gigs that will be fought over by 20,000 frustrated screenwriters, I encountered a highlife-observing newsletter/website called Pocket Change (pocketchangenyc.com). This glittering piece of frivolity is spreading herpes-like into Los Angeles via New York (oh, where else??) and features the biting commentary of a smirking fop known as Richard Nouveau.

 
Richard isn’t a real person, he’s a caricature who comments on “the finer things” in L.A., such as where to get good chutney, or a facial, or a spa where they put the chutney right on your face.

 
I should like this character, this Richard. Whoever is doing the writing manages to make every sentence count. Commenting on L.A.’s most expensive personal trainer, he writes: You know, it’s a terrible shame that high-end breeding and bear-like musculature and athleticism seldom go hand-in-hand. Those of us born with a fashion acumen draped over a consumptive frame are fortunate enough, however, to be able to hire someone to do the pushups for you.

 
Clearly, this is Saki’s Reginald reincarnated. In an earlier paragraph he even simperingly mentions hemophilia and asthma… what clearer references to English noble blood can there be?

 
Yes, I should like him. But I already don’t, and I know why.

 
I can be a wee bit snippy but this fellow fairly oozes snark. I imagine him gliding along Melrose Avenue, perilously close to the Pacific Design Center, smirking at Urth Café and the incense-wafting bookstore nearby. He seems downright cruel, and I don’t like the current notion that wit equals sadism. There’s a difference. Witty people have cats. Sadistic people do too, but they refuse to have them spayed because distressed cats in heat amuse them. That’s how this Pocket Change Richard comes across to me. Oh, he’s funny. But I don’t like him.

In keeping with an earlier entry about oddities in my students’ categorizing tendencies, I have noticed another peculiarity among Hispanic youth in Los Angeles. I suspect it’s larger than just here in the city, but this is where I came across it first. When reading a story in the ESL textbook about a Jewish family, I stopped to check for comprehension and found none. Most of them had little idea what Judaism was. A couple had a vague recollection of hearing the word associated with the Bible, and a few with the Holocaust.

I stopped to explain a little and, wishing to begin at a familiar starting point, I asked, “How many of you are from families who consider themselves Christian?”

Only about half raised their hands. Now I was stumped. I’m pretty sure we do not have a thriving Hispanic-Muslim or Hispanic-Buddhist community here in the Los Feliz/Echo Park area. I chose one who had not raised his hand.

“What religion are you?” I asked bluntly, puzzled.

“Catholic,” he said.

“Oh, okay. So you’re Christian.”

There was a chorus of “No!” from those who had not raised their hand. It took some questioning until I finally understood, and found myself staring at them in consternation. They did not consider Catholics to be Christian. And they had never heard the word Protestant as far as they remembered.

I suppose it’s no big deal, but it was one of those many culture-shock moments that has left me staggered since I relocated. Within the public school system, those on high have been concerned about American ignorance of the Middle East, thus the students do rather extensive studies of Islam, and make little picturebook-research reports to show their awareness of the various aspects of that religion. But no one questions how well they understand the religion they actually practice.

One thing I’ll say for Los Angelenos, when they hear sirens, boy, they pull over. When an emergency vehicle comes racing down Sunset, sirens wailing, the traffic parts like the Red Sea and everyone docilely comes to a halt till the ambulance, cop car, firetruck or whatever has gone by.

 
These are the only vehicles that get the slightest consideration from others. The rest of the time it’s dog-eat-dog on the mean streets of LA. Just the other day I was watching a blue hybrid (don’t even get me started on all these hybrids all over the place) waiting impatiently for an opportunity to turn left on Argyle.

 
I contempleted holding back and letting him turn in front of me since traffic had come to a halt on Vine, a block ahead. But I have been trapped before by such a kindness because those in the lane to my right did not feel the same charitable impulse and the turning car was then trapped in front of me, ensuring that I and everybody behind me went nowhere till the intersection-dweller had completed his turn.

 
The only time it’s safe to yield the intersection is if both lanes are so constipated that no one is going anywhere anyway. So I proceeded through the intersection and the blue hybrid made an attempt to bully the person behind me into yielding. I heard a crunch and looked into my rear view mirror to see the hybrid, its front passenger side bumper crumpled, skidding to a halt in the intersection, steam billowing out of it.

 
An accident, even a minor one, always jars one out of the complacent fog of routine. But if there’s one thing we could count on, it’s that the ambulance and police would have no trouble at all getting to the scene. Just blare those sirens and voila, the lanes clear up like a happy sinus, and order is restored.

I have a habit of talking with strangers on the internet. I tend toward politics, movies,  philosophy… all the usual topics. Sooner or later, the conversations turn to more personal subjects, and then, eventually, comes the inevitable question: do you chat?

 
They mean that MSN stuff, I guess. No, I don’t chat. I’ve done it a few times and find it about as enjoyable as leafing through old People magazines in the dentist’s waiting room. People are often puzzled as to why someone who will post all over forum groups and email endlessly hates chatting, and I don’t really know what to tell them. I just hate it.

 
It’s like talking on the phone: I feel trapped. I have to concentrate on hearing the other person, and I don’t have my hands free. I guess I could get one of those headset things but I just… don’t…. want to. Chatting online or via phone is just too immediate, requires just too much focus and commitment. There’s too much pressure to respond right away.

 
And chatting, because it’s so quick, so back & forth, tends to devolve from well-thought-out responses to quick one-liners. Correspondingly, the subject matter deteriorates too. A discussion that began with the surge in Iraq winds down to “u like jazz?”

 
I’m not opposed to small talk, but if I’m going to chat about nothing in such a desultory manner, I want a face in front of me, and a waitress bringing me coffee and pie. I also want a window so I can watch traffic.

 
The nice thing about today’s technology, however, is that there is a method of communication for everyone’s needs. From moderated forums that operate with message-in-a-bottle languor to chaotic chat rooms, now is a great time to be some level of ADD. All you need is the internet. Life is good.