My Blog

In search of lost lazy time part 2, end of summer

Well, we have surpassed the official dog days of summer. My photographer brain has started to notice the light shifting. And, of course, the sunsets arriving earlier and earlier here in Southern California. For the no one reading this, my aim was to reclaim my lazy time this summer. My version of “lazy” has evolved as I have gotten older. I am not sure I could manage being the type of lazy I was back in my teens and twenties. Ironically, people did not seem as lazy back then. I was known as an over-achiever with an intense work ethic. To me, I was lazy. And it seemed I had a wealth of time at my disposal…but you can read about all that in my last post.

So, was I able to reclaim my lazy summer? Somewhat, yes. Like most adults, I have to work. Being self employed, I can determine when and how that work happens. Plus, my work is seasonal, so July and August tend to be pretty dead months for me. Previously, I had laid out some steps to help reclaim some of my time. Let us see how I did…

Minimizing Obligations. This one was a challenge. Back in June, I was wrapping up weeks of work then scrambling to prepare to teach for a full week at Camp de Benneville Pines in the mountains for Camp Bravo, an intense but wonderful experience at theatre camp. Once that was over, I actually returned to de Benneville every week in July for an overnight to help photograph some of their youth camps. My family has a number of birthdays in July (including my own) so there was that, plus another trip down to our river house out in the desert–our family vacation for the summer. Once we were in August, things seemed to slow down. I found it was actually an effort to keep myself from too many obligations. I did find myself back up in the mountains once more for Lake Arrowhead Pride with some friends of mine. Plus there was a reunion of sorts back at my alma mater to celebrate the life of a professor and mentor of mine. There was plenty to do this summer.

Image description: A banner stretched between two flag poles reads “Camp Bravo.” On one flag pole is a Progress Pride flag, and on the other is a Trans Pride flag. Behind the banner is an American flag and a very tall pine trees.

Rising early. As much as I would have liked to say this worked, it never really has. I am a habitual night owl, but I will say I tend to wake up around the same time each of these days. With fewer work obligations, I found myself in the gym about three times a week, more than I ever have in the past. I am pretty happy with the results.

Tapping out. The ongoing effort. With the help and guidance of my therapist, I am highly conscious of just how much of the daily onslaught of terrible news I can manage. I think I am like many who feel a twinge of guilt if I stop looking. But if you stare at the chaos too long it will consume you. Then, you are no help to anyone. I have not tapped out completely, and as elections begin to ramp up once again, I hope my daily political and community efforts outweigh my doomscrolling.

I am unsure if I am able to give myself a satisfactory grade on this summer project, although I am pretty happy with how I did. The point was to be more present, spend time with family, and be able to appreciate more of what is around me. The last thing I wanted was to come crashing into September feeling spent, overwhelmed, and tired from the heat. I am tired from the heat, but I am not feeling spent. Also, I may need to spend a few posts recapping all the things I actually did do these last few months.

Image description: a selfie of Matt Lara with summer evening light hitting the trees behind him.

If there is an obvious downside to slowing down a bit, it would probably be that I did not feel as productive. For example, I wanted to spend more time on this blog, maybe to actually funnel some traffic on over here. Did not happen. I wanted to maybe learn canning. Did not happen. Still, I got plenty done. I built a raised garden bed and started some fall seeds for the extended heat of SoCal fall. The downside of lazy is you just will not achieve as much. The upside, you feel quite a bit more like yourself.

In search of lost lazy time

At the beginning of June, I wrote in my diary how I didn’t want this summer to be about travel, or fun, or sex, or adventure. What wanted back was time. Where has my time gone? Why were the days so long and languid back then, but now they seem to fly by in an instant? And why is it that I have to fight to get that time back? Nothing kills leisure like saying to yourself: I only have 30 minutes to relax!

I’ve been growing sunflowers this summer.

It could simply be the effects of getting older. I recall summers of my youth, which were busy enough between summer school theatre productions and early cross country practices. Yet somehow I had time to sit in the park lackadaisically for what seemed like hours rambling with a few fellow misfits about absolutely nothing. Later on in my twenties, I remember a particularly warm summer afternoon lounging in a friend’s Hells Kitchen apartment drinking wine while hours dripped slowly by. Then my friend said, “Let’s go second-act the matinee of Grease…”

It’s a phenomenon I could never explain to my 24-year-old self because he would probably look at me like I was insane: Time, my friend, will speed up as you get older. Those things you want to do, do them now.

So, this summer my effort has been to slow time a bit. Like many, I see leisure as a luxury most people can’t afford. And that is probably true. I’d say I’m one of the lucky ones who has that option. It is one of the reasons why I never had kids. And yet, even being single and childless, I find my days are sucked dry by endless menial tasks. I can’t really break things down to five easy steps to getting your time back this summer. But since this blog is about notes, I’ll touch on some efforts below:

Minimizing obligations. Being seasonal, my work tends to die down in July and August. We’ll see though, I’ve yet to break into the music festival scene. So I am intentionally keeping my daily commitments to as few as possible. If and when I must leave the house, I give myself plenty of time to do what I need to do. With these long stretches of Daylight Saving Time, this is more possible.

Rise early, get ‘er done. This is my biggest struggle. I just returned from a week teaching at summer camp. An exhausting experience, but extremely fulfilling. And seeing as I am no longer 22, it has taken me a full week to recover sleep wise. My body still wants to stay up late and hang out with my staff and counselors. It also wants to return my morning routine of morning walks with the dog, working out, and clearing my inbox by mid-morning. Overall, if I can fulfill my work and fitness obligations by noon I am in decent shape to have a slower rest of the day.

Tap out, or attune? The news is bad. It’s been bad. The daily horror of daily hell. Again, being in a privileged place means I am able to tap out when I can. Some would find this unacceptable. And believe me, I’ve had several discussions about this in therapy. I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t pour from an empty cup. That self-care is not a luxury, but is in fact a necessity. And if you stare into the darkness long enough it will indeed consume you. I could pile on more adages, but you get what I mean. You can call it tapping out. I call it attuning. Deliberately stopping and remembering that our brains never adapted to consuming this much bad news. There is a lot of bad, but amidst the bad there is also good. There are things that are working. That is where I must focus.

Evenings are sacred. I will happily step outside on a summer evening. The mosquitos are elated to see me. We have passed the summer solstice, and I know the days are getting incrementally shorter. To me, time seems to pause somewhere between afternoon and evening. That is the sweet spot to me. If I somehow miss that moment, I feel like I’m missing the day. 

Call it my long lost Spanish ancestry, or call it me in search of lost lazy time, but this has been my ongoing effort this summer. I have had mixed results. I was actually quite busy throughout the month of June. And as I mentioned above my week at summer camp was anything but leisurely. 

As I write these word, ConEdison has shut the power off in my house for schedule maintenance. I have almost no cell service at home, and you actually realize how the eerily quiet the house is without the constant hum of appliances running. I’ve stood up, sat down, let the dog out. I can’t really eat because I must keep the refrigerator shut. I sat with a book. I picked up my iPad to type this out because the voices in my head wanted a place to go. 

Perhaps my mind is anti-leisure.

Also, hello again. I’ve once again neglected this blog and website that I’ve had for over 26 years now. This last year-and-a-half-or-so has been about my mental health. And while I’ve managed to stay creative during a truly devastating time in my country, cranking out blog posts and social media was not part of my recovery. Seems fitting to re-enter this online space now, even if I am actively trying to remove things from my plate. I’ve tightened my social media presence, and I have no Patreon or Substack to sell you. The few eyes I might have on this blog, welcome back to my early internet style musings.

Weekly: This month aka Emotional Whiplash

This month… I won’t lie, the emotional whiplash has been a lot. I can spare you the politics (not good, not good) but I, of course, cannot ignore what has happened to my beautiful LA County. As I mentioned before, the way that almost all of LA came together, overrunning donation centers with supplies, donating to fundraisers, opening their homes at a moment’s notice–that is what I am going hold onto from these last few weeks. The rest, well…I’m protecting my peace. I’m focusing on community, on what I can do in times like these. I can hardly fathom times like these…

The winds did pack up again since the Palisades and Eaton fires. All was safe in my little LA enclave, but I was crossing fingers and toes as the Santa Anas raged back up again. In 2022, there came a violent overnight windstorm that felled several large trees in my neighborhood, including two giant pines into my neighbors’ yard. Some post-storm photos below.

I wasn’t about to go anywhere near the fires, nor the destroyed homes. Props to the photographers who did rush literally into the fire to document what happened. That was not me. There is also plenty of concern about the air quality here, particularly with toxic compounds lingering in the air. I’m taking as many reasonable precautions as I can.

After what felt like the absolute longest week, I am finally crawling back to the myriad of small projects I have going as the year charges on. Work slows down quite a bit for me now, which is good for a sense of balance for this freelancer. That is, until about the end of February where I begin to question why I got myself into this career. Then, the moment March begins, the client calls being to come in and my mood vastly improves.

My work, along with a crew of very talented photographers, was featured on BizBash here. This was for the annual Candlelight Concert at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, which raised over $19 million for arts programming and education.

Currently reading:

100 Years of Solitude by the Gabriel Garcia Marquez – it’s been on my TBR shelf for years, and with the Netflix series out I figured now was as good a time as any to read the renowned classic. My copy is a Harper Perennial Edition with deckle edges. In the age of booktok and sprayed edges (aka “spredges”) this is more the aesthetics of reading I enjoy. There is not much more I can add to the discourse around this book. It is not an easy read, and thankfully this edition includes a family tree of all the main characters, but it is captivating. I’m glad to have read it before watching the series.

The Paris Review – longtime reader, ever behind at least one issue.

Miscellany:

In contrast to last year’s wet and soggy SoCal winter, this one has so far been dry and disconcertingly warm. Despite that, I plan my spring gardening right around now because it does sneak up. I receive catalogs from Baker Creek (the popular kid), John Scheepers (old and reliable), and Strictly Medicinal (a delightful and quirky catalog to peruse), and I also browse the many offerings at Renee’s Garden.

I’ve had the same 2-quart slow cooker (Crock-Pot brand) for over 10 years now. It had been sitting in my cabinets unused until sometime last fall when I pulled it out and started using it again. I’m happy to say, it is possibly one of the best kitchen gadgets for a two-person household like mine. I’ve stuck to mostly chilis, stews, and soups, as well as a pot of mulled cider for the holidays. I’ve recently purchased this cookbook, which has a number of recipes ideas that work for just me or two people. I’ll have to put some of my successful slow-cooks here as I go.

Hands in the earth

Hands in the earth.

Feeling for healing, what my homeland must be reeling from. Giving some TLC to some stressed outside and inside plants. I drove home from the desert into an ominous brown cloud of smoke from the wildfires hanging over my hometown here in SoCal. The sky looks clear. The Air Quality Index says it’s safe, but there’s no telling what else might be in the air.

All of this was so bad. I don’t think I can add more than what has already been said, seen, shown…lost. I personally know of three families who lost everything in a single night. I knew, as the Palisades fire broke out while the wind forecast looked incredibly dire, that it was going to be a long and horrible night.

That will forever be known as the day LA burned. Like so many, my heart broke as I could only watch from afar. I could only check the Watch Duty app over and over again, post and send resources on social media. Since I live in a fire-prone area, I’ve been through this so many times myself. So I did everything I could to tell friends what I know from experience. To anticipate the evacuation orders. To be ready. To help those who need the most help as much as you can. I got maybe three hours of sleep that night.

What was no help at all was the barrage of misinformation coming not just from strangers online, but from people I know. One so-called friend who insisted this was the best time to rain down f-bombs and critiques of politicians at me, along with some bizarre rants and misinformation. This was echoing much of the lack of empathy people were seeing online, as if Angelenos somehow deserved this. No one deserved this.

Being from here and having lived through many fires, I can sense some of what is coming. The winds will persist, hopefully not causing any more catastrophe. The containment lines will hopefully hold. The fires will still burn, though much of LA will move on towards business as usual. It will take years for people to rebuild. We will hopefully get one good rain, but then comes the danger of landslides.

So many here need healing. But I have been seeing just how much this giant, sprawling city that’s more than one city has come together. People have opened their homes at a moment’s notice. People have opened their pantries, their hearts, their wallets to help. Donation centers are overrun with supplies. And still people want to help.

This is the real LA. The rest of the country labels us as a town of fakes and phonies, but this is who we really are. It is no shock to me just how much people have come together. There is still so much to do.

Hands in the earth. Feet on the ground.

Weekly: Into 2025

It was a marathon of work, family, and holiday obligations at the end of last year. I’ve come to expect the rush of fall into the holidays, but I’d actually never had a busier fall season. I take none of it for granted, and thankfully I was able to wrap most of it up by mid-December so I could enjoy what I knew would be somewhat truncated holiday season. I barely had time to think about making any sort of content, including updating this blog. I’m currently re-thinking how I’ll approach this website as the year continues. I want this to continue to be a space away from social media algorithms and trends. Many years ago, I consciously chose not to be the guy that simply follows trends. I chose to be as much of the originator of my work as possible. (Even though it really has all been done before.) It’s a much harder path, but long-gaming it has proven to be worth it.

Once Christmas was over I did my usual which was to head out to the desert for New Years Eve with family. The desert, our little escape by the Colorado River in Arizona, is quiet, relaxing, with wide open skies. I enjoy the slower pace out there as much as I can. 

In fact, much of January and February is typically slower for me. I’m hoping to fill that time with much-needed home projects and decluttering.

There’s not much else for me to update here at the moment. I don’t really like recapping the what just happened. I don’t like taking time to reexamine my year and what made it good, bad, or in-between. I don’t have a “best of” list. I don’t feel like I do enough of anything to have a “best of” for anything. I’m an avid reader, but I don’t have stacks of books I can sort into my top ten. I have several fantastic photo clients, but I wouldn’t dare sort them into list. If anything, I’d prefer to stay more present this year. I’ll continue to share my thoughts, photos, and exploits here, but I’d like to spend much of this year fully engaged in the here and now.

See Matt Run: Concert at Mattei’s Tavern

I try to keep this as a space for my thoughts, my ongoings, my projects. A space away from social media algorithms. I try also not to just make this a running list of what I’ve been up to that week, although I’ll admit that is often what I’m on here about. October through December becomes a mixed bag of things. This is when work picks ups steam just in time for the holidays. I actually love the holidays. I love the hustle and the to-do of it all. I love how my small Los Angeles town goes a bit nuts over Halloween and goes all out with the decorations. I usually like to photograph that, so stay tuned…

A few weeks ago, I got called to do photograph an event at The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern in Los Olivos. It is a historical hotel just north of Santa Barbara, originally built in 1886. The event ended up being a mix of things, but mainly featured a concert performed by Kate Hudson and her band. I wasn’t aware that Kate Hudson could sing or write music, but as is usually the case with these gigs, I love being able to be a part of something interesting and new.

While fun, the shoot day ended up being rather long and exhausting. I slept poorly the night before and was awakened by an earthquake. I had to hit the road very early to make the two-and-a-half hour drive, which was actually pleasant. I worked with a video team to capture several aspects of the day while an October heat wave kept up relentlessly that day. Much of the day revolved around Kate and when she’d arrive for soundcheck and then her performance.

Having grown up around the TV and film industries, I’ve met famous people and have been able to work with a few. From my experience, you never know what to actually expect. Celebrities are regular people with a lot of pressure on them, so it can be a mixed bag. I had been told that Kate was actually great, easygoing, and really fun to work with. I kept an open mind. When she did arrive and perform later that night, the process was easy and fun. I was able to get some really nice shots…in fact, a few of these shots were featured in this Harpers Bazaar article the next day.

By the way, Kate Hudson happens to be quite a great singer/songwriter. Her band was fantastic. I particularly liked her song “Glorious.”

After a very long day in the heat, I had to scramble to get the above shots to her for approval. This wasn’t exactly ideal, since I like to take time for such things. But again, Kate was really awesome to work with and made the extra effort worth it. I’m not someone who makes it a point to fawn over celebrities, but when someone exudes actual star qualities it makes you feel uplifted, like you want to keep doing better work. I hope to have some of those qualities myself.

A start to my busy season

Life has been pretty busy, in both good and bad ways, since I last posted.

Fire season continues to wreak havoc on the landscape here. Thankfully, our home has been spared from any imminent wildfire threat. Unfortunately, the Line Fire has begun to advance once again toward my childhood summer camp. Camp de Benneville Pines is incredible special to me. All I can do is keep watching the updated maps on the Watch Duty app. The fire is climbing up steep mountain terrain, which makes it near impossible to fight. I can only hope for the best.

On the lighter side of things, both photography and music have kept me busy over the last several weeks. I took part in a reunion concert for the high school theatre department in my hometown of Claremont. This was originally a small reunion concert for the class of ’74, but turned into a full-blown fundraiser for the current students of the theatre department at Claremont High School. This was also a memorial for Dr. Don Freuchte, who was a huge figure in creating the theatre department and had just recently passed.

I was really lucky back in high school. I had always had an interest in the arts, but I was all over the place as a kid. I had was too much excess energy, a need to fit in even though I was the quintessential outsider, and I was just an overall weird kid. It was in the theatre department where I found not only my voice, but I found a place to channel all that energy. And thanks to my teacher, Krista Carson-Elhai (Dr. Fruechte’s successor), I was given many chances to succeed. You couldn’t get me out of that building.

I’m dead center, dressed in a gold sailor suit, for the 42nd Street ballet. June, 1999.

It was a great time meeting and connecting to older CHS Theatre Alumni. I got to reunite with two of “co-stars” from way back when, Craig and Amanda. We three lead the cast of 42nd Street, a giant production with massive scenery, costumes, and we painstakingly learned the original Broadway tap choreography. It was a fun experience reliving that, and truly refreshing to slip back into a chemistry with my fellow performers as if no time had ever passed since we were last onstage together. The one downside is that these one-off concerts like this are over so soon.

Me, Carolina Garcia, Jefferey Deards, Amanda Coclough, Craig Coclough. My fellow theatre alumni, all grown up!

The very next weekend, I was able to perform once again with The Singers of Soul, a gospel, pop, and soul choir I’ve been a part of since 2019. Being able to sing with them is an incredible treat for me. Back in 2019, my friend Carolina (shown above) was creating a solo cabaret and had asked me to sing a duet with her. I was thrilled to say yes, and then she asked me to join a group number to close the show featuring a choir which ended up being The Singers of Soul. In that moment I was nothing short of blown away but the talent in one group, and I’ve been lucky to sing with them several times since.

In between singing, I’ve been jumping straight into my busy season as an event photographer, staring off with a marathon of clients including NBSO LA, and Segerstrom Center for the Arts. I have more in the pipeline. At the moment, I’m hoping the current heatwave in LA calms down along with these wildfires.

This Fire Season

I must have been sensing something because not long after my last post the Bridge Fire began burning in the hills directly near my home. I’m no stranger to fire season, though I don’t remember them being this bad when I was a kid. I’ve watched the hillsides near me burn, then renew, then burn again a few times over the years. I was even evacuated once in the middle of the night with three very confused dogs. I was genuinely optimistic about this fire as it started since it was in relative close proximity to the two fire stations nearby. Much has changed in SoCal fire defense of the last few decades, so I thought they would nip it pretty quickly.

Our local fire department acted quickly and communicated constantly for the first few days, even posting a video to social media illustrating how they kept the fire from reaching our homes and structures. Our home was spared, but the fire then began to act aggressively and spread fast to mountain communities to the north and east. Thanks to technology and ongoing communication, I didn’t panic too much as large smoke columns filled the sky.

As I write this, the fire has grown past 50,000 acres and is minimally contained with the area closest to us being classified as contained. Several mountain communities have been devastated and my heart hurts for them. I’m also currently currently worried about another wildfire, the Line Fire which has spread dangerously close to my childhood summer camp. Just four years ago, the El Dorado Fire had actually entered the same camp and was saved by firefighters already there.

It’s in situations like these where, not too long ago, I would’ve thought “grab a camera and go document.” And certainly I could go document from certain vantage points. But honestly it’s not always a great idea. The air quality is bad, and the last thing firefighters and emergencies workers need are more cars clogging up roadsides near the blaze, most of which are closed to begin with. There are photographers who specialize in these situations, even photographers who seek out storms, tornadoes, and fires on purpose. As of yet, I’m not one of those photographers.

End of summer, hot fall

Like most Southern Californians, I’ve spend the last week dealing with oppressive heat. We somehow always forget that as the light begins to tilt slightly and the days shorten, suddenly it becomes unbearably hot around here. And it can stay hot into October or November. A few years ago, I planted pretty pink hyacinth in the backyard hoping for a spring bloom. They now regularly begin to emerge in November, long before the spring and sit there awkwardly as the colder months approach. A few of the plants I started way back in June are in a sort of delayed adulthood. My sunflowers live in containers and are just now starting to bloom while also being endlessly thirsty.

A few of my potted sunflowers struggling to open in this heat.

A few watering hacks for fellow gardeners with thirsty plants:

Keep a bucket of water in the sink for when you rinse produce or your hands. The excess water is perfectly fine for watering plants outside. Plus, you pay for that water so you might as well get the most out of it.

I’ve used a product called SoilMoist for a few years now. It’s a polymer that expands when watered to provide an extra supply of water when needed. Although, in this heat I’m sure it’s much needed. It says it’s safe for vegetables, but I only used it for non-edibles.

Another hack I used are terracotta watering spikes. Terracotta is porous clay and once these spikes are inserted in the soil, you can invert a glass bottle filled with water (gently, please) and the water will slowly seep through the terracotta into the thirsty soil.

I’ve written on this before, but the book I recommend for all California green thumbs is 52 Weeks in the California Garden. This book changed how I approached all of my outdoor projects with the main planting season starting in September. Fall is our spring here and the most advantageous for good results year round. I should post more updates on my gardening projects in the future.

I get a little wistful writing about the end of summer, even with the extended blazing heat. For Labor Day, I drove once again to the desert house out on the Colorado River to spend time with my aunts, uncles, and baby cousins. Talk about heat. It was about 111 degrees on regular days, most of which we spent splashing around in the water and always with a cooler full of beer and soda water nearby.

I hardly had time to take pictures or anything like that because I was mostly on guncle duty to seven-year-old twins. Besides the aforementioned time playing in the water, activities included: word searches, activity book mazes, putting together a 500 -piece jigsaw puzzle (didn’t finish), and I got to introduce them to Mad Libs. Alas, that was the last family occasion of the summer, though I may be able to squeeze a few more trips in during the warm months. That’s the good thing about the desert house being so close…

…and by close, I mean about a four-hour drive from where I live. Tell that to any Angeleno and they’d probably fly into a tizzy. Palm Springs is about as far away as most LA people can stand. While the four-hour drive doesn’t really bother me, I do fill the time with either podcasts or audiobooks. My selections this time around:

”I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Janette McCurdy – listened to on the Libby app (free library books, y’all). The title is outrageous, but earned in this memoir on the author’s life as a child actor and Nickelodeon star, her fraught relationship with her mother, and dealing with eating disorders and alcohol abuse. I was already aged out Nickelodeon during the iCarly era, but like many I so wanted to be a teen TV star like her. Many years later, so many millennials are starting to come to terms with what this meant for the child stars themselves.

The podcast Weird Medieval Guys did a four-parter on the Hundred Years War. I’m not sure how I got started listening to this podcast, but I appreciated the deep dive into this. Like anything historical, it just makes you want to dive in even deeper, especially into the enigmatic life of Joan of Arc.

Onward to a very hot fall, and what is shaping to be a busy work season for me.

Part of the cityscape

I’m spending the week housesitting in LA. After many years in the burbs, being back in the mix feels a bit like whiplash. It’s not like I’m never here. I grew up in SoCal, grew up in an around the TV industry. When I was 12, I took my first solo train ride on the Metrolink to Union Station in Downtown LA (I was meeting my stepdad, and parents allowed their kids to do stuff like that back then). And I lived in West Hollywood for several years. I’m always working events in and around this vast urban sprawl. And yet…LA feels rougher now. While driving in LA has always been an exercise in chaos, drivers now seem to be at least 20 percent worse. Running a few basic errands means navigating a maze of reckless or absent-minded drivers, parking in an overcrowded lot, then having to flag down store employees to retrieve basic items encased behind plexiglass. City-dwellers seemed to have never recovered a sense of spacial awareness. And there’s definitely a new crop of showbiz hopefuls, younger and having come of age during pandemic lockdowns. All while the entertainment industry is still reeling from two major strikes.

And we’re hosting the Olympics soon…

My Photos app brought up a collage of different cityscapes I’ve shot of LA over the years. From Griffith Observatory, Runyon Canyon, the Hollywood Hills. Some are smoggy and sun-soaked. Some are a glittery nighttime urban landscape. They all remind me of the millions of dreamers dreaming hard in those cramped streets and apartments. I’ve dreamed just as hard as all of them, and some of my dreams definitely needed more time to cook. And spend any amount of time here and you’ll see just how many broken dreams there are. Disappointments, rejections, many horror stories of people who now find they have nowhere else to go, much less dream of. There is a lot of a magic here, but there is also a lot of need.

I had another blog post I was going to publish. A despite knowing that very few people actually read these, I decided it was maybe a bit too cynical. Who knows, maybe I’ll post it eventually. But the gist of it was about the many people come here and eventually leave with those broken dreams. They return to wherever they left from, and offer one maxim to anyone who asks: “LA is garbage.”

Okay, sure. LA is garbage. It’s garbage to people who came here expecting everyone who was already here to make their dreams of fame, stardom, and wealth come true. LA is garbage if you only associates with fellow social climbers, star f***ers, and sleazebags trying to take advantage of you. LA is garbage if you never seeks to learn about the culture, climate, and history that was here long before you arrived. Not many people ask, but if someone were to ask me how they should go about moving to LA, my advice is often simply: Don’t move here. Seek out a medium-sized city where you can gain experience, training, social media followers before you even consider moving here. I’m one of the lucky ones in that my family and my entire support system is already here. But if you come here with nothing but a suitcase and dream, you’re just another car on the 405. And is that how you want to spend your youth?

Fine, it’s frustrating here. As my brother likes to put it, it’s the best place to live and the worst place to live. It seems always to be the best of times and the worst of times. Billionaires and the unhoused with literal TVs playing inside their roadside tents. Hellish heat and biblical level rain storms. “Free”ways that are no longer free. It sometimes takes some squinting to see what makes Los Angeles so great. Again, I’m one of the lucky ones who gets to see it when LA really gets it right. I saw my late stepdad work harder than anyone else in the television industry and be able to rise to about as far as one could go. I’m becoming a lot more like him, knowing these freeways and off-ramps like a map on my hand. Enmeshing myself across this town, and becoming part of the landscape like he did. Part of the cityscape.