Eons and eons ago, when Madonna was still a virgin, my mother made good on a threat to ditch upstate New York (and my father) for the golden shores of Southern California, attracted by its total lack of snow and the fact that it was as far away from her in-laws as she could get without a work visa. For a ten-year-old, culturally-starved poindexter like myself, it wasn't exactly Paris, but it was still a major improvement over Rochester.
A Tijuana prison cell is a major improvement over Rochester.
We arrived in San Diego after a three-week cross-country trek that was straight out of "The Grapes of Wrath," only a whole lot less fun. I was brushing my teeth outside our cab-over camper in the Sea World parking when I realized people were staring...no--gawking at us. I was quite put off and sent my brother to investigate.
"They think we're the Beverly Hillbillies," my brother chirped, skipping back from introducing himself to the curious strangers, taking it for a compliment.
"Oh-Dear-God-In-Heaven," I cried, surveying the tragic scene, "We are the Beverly Hillbillies!" I barricaded myself inside the port-a-potty and sobbed inconsolably. Only hunger, darkness, and an odd, life-long fixation with Shamu succeeded in getting me out several hours later.
Still wincing from the sting of that encounter, I picked up a copy of Los Angeles magazine from a newsstand the next day, hoping to begin my metamorphosis into a "SoCal Local," and discovered what the stars already knew--the ticket to ultimate L.A. cool was a pair of really big sunglasses.
"Good heavens, child," my mother started, suppressing a laugh at my enormous, black and white, rhinestone-encrusted, Liz-Taylor-is-back-in-rehab-again shades, "where did you get those monstrosities?"
Drat! She recognized me! I threw the magazine in trash, dejected.
It was years later (14 years later, to be precise) before I could bring myself to leaf through another copy of "Los Angeles," the trauma of the sunglass faux pas but a memory. Unfortunately by then, what used to be a mildly engaging city-guide for tourists and transplants had become the self-proclaimed vox-box of the tragically hip "L.A. Scene."
If the goal of any city rag is to capture the unvarnished essence of its namesake, then "Los Angeles" succeeds--in spades. It's every bit as intolerable, vacuous, cloying, artificial, narcissistic, exhausting, and self-absorbed as a Baywatch wrap-party at Morton's without the benefit of booze, drugs, or valet parking.
Once upon a time, Los Angeles magazine aspired to be a west-coast "Vanity Fair," forgetting for the moment that no one in Los Angeles reads...Hello!! Failing this, they morphed into a really pathetic party-circuit rag, trying to attract club kids and the "underground" who, hello again, don't read either.
Finally, in desperation they transformed themselves into a pretty ok insider's guide to the best of L.A., and became deservedly famous for their annual "Restaurant Guide" issue. Alas, there are eleven other issues to fill each year, and herein lies the problem.
This magazine is so self-conscious it's damn near UN-conscious. I became physically drained after spending less than half-an-hour trying to decipher its twisted trend-speak only to uncover an intellectual and cultural black hole so huge it threatened to suck the very soul right out of me.
The cover of the latest installment, February 2000's "The Love Issue," (arghh) offers up "Ultimate Romantic Getaways," referring, apparently, not to an article but an "attitude," since no such piece exists inside the magazine... "Unholy Rollers: Death of a Kingpin," about the recent murder of Vegas casino owner Ted Binion, is (like nearly all of the editorial content--read: both articles) re-titled several times, including the breath-takingly crass entry in the table of contents "Goodbye, Mr. Chips..." "The Democrats Are Coming! How L.A. Bought the Convention" speaks for itself... and my personal fave, "Plastic Surgery: UPDATE;" anchoring the bottom right corner in bold black & blue type-face, suggesting all the gravity of a presidential pardon.
As tantalizing as these titles seem, they pale by comparison to what comes next. At this point I really ought reprint the entire contents as testimony, but alas, I have space only for a few choice highlights...
Page 22:"Love is the Drug" proclaims "Sex Addiction? Sorry, So Last Millenium. Now Romance Junkies are Hot."
Page 44: a review of "American Beauty" says it "gives lie to the myth of domestic bliss without condescending to its middle-class milieu..." (Uhh, what?)
Page 46: a review of new nightspot "Lush" insists "a good nightclub doesn't always need a gimmick to make it a happening spot..." then adds "they've dressed the stage with bean bag chairs and smiley-faced pillows and are attired from the bottom of their mile-high snakeskin platforms to the top of their Afro wigs in bad-azz fashions that would turn Superfly neon green with envy..." (nope, no gimmick here!)
Page 91: "Morning After Spots" explains "just because you got lucky last night, don't assume your new partner won't ride off into the sunrise. But with these beachy, peachy plans on hand, even the most dashing lover will stick around all day." (true love, at last!)
...I can't go on; you get the idea. This magazine is, in every way, so mind-shatteringly onerous it could rend the very fabric of space and time...it's the literary equivalent of waking up--in rehab--next to Dennis Rodman, naked and smoking a cigarette--and even a city as dreadful as Los Angeles doesn't deserve that!
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