Beyond Bagels: A Bi-Coastal Debate on Life, Politics and Culture in NY and LA

I like NY

2006-01-05T16:10:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a week in New York City. I like the place. I have no problem admitting it. There's stuff I don't like, and as I've said before, comparing it to LA is like comparing Beethoven to Gershwin, but it's a wonderful city. Especially after being in LA for like five years -- which, I suppose, is the point. One appreciates certain qualities after being deprived of them, just as one appreciates new qualities when arriving in a new place. Unless you're a die-hard New Yorker, in which case nothing ever measures up and you're never really happy in your own city anyway. But man do I miss walking already.

Not a Defense, a Celebration

2005-12-23T13:37:00.000-08:00

I've been accused of defining LA based on what it is not. So here goes...

LA is a gas grill set up on a quiet street corner at midnight, where a cheerful Guatemalan sells tacos al pastor for less than a dollar under a lonely lamp light.

LA is a boardwalk where punk rock teenagers, muscle-bound weightlifters, sunbathing girls, unwashed street musicians, bedazzled tourists, stoned surfers and graffiti artists mingle, search for cheap sunglasses, empanadas and used books, and people-watch.

LA is a saloon, minutes from a freeway, where middle-aged mamas in Stetson hats and big brass belt buckles dance honky-tonk on a shiny wood floor at the foot of the stage.

LA is a dream. LA is an invention. LA is exactly the sum of its parts. And you could live here for a thousand years and never know half of its parts.

LA is a desert. At least it used to be, until some crazy sonofabitch came looking for gold.

LA is a work in progress.

LA is where people come to forget their pasts and create their futures. Or at least get a tattoo before packing up and heading back to the farm.

LA's beaches are usually empty. But it's nice to know they're there when you need them.

Everyone who was born here secretly, or un-secretly, wants to be in the movies. And everyone who comes here un-secretly wants to be in the movies. Why? Because they know it'd be way more fun than politics.

People here loathe cigarettes because they smell bad, stain your teeth and kill you. But everyone respects pot, because it makes you happy.

Try getting Thai food this good anywhere else this side of the Pacific.

Even the coffeehouses here have killer mole sauce on their enchiladas.

LA is where people come when they're not ready to give up. And most of them stay even after they have because it barely ever rains.

LA is postmodern and doesn't even know it.

I take the bus to work every day.

In LA, you can get a big one-bedroom apartment with hardwood floors and Spanish ceilings on a peaceful, pretty street for $600 a month.

No one in LA has a job. And if they do, they don't admit it.

LA is a shared utopia. It's a crazy person's kibbutz.

LA laughs at itself all the time.

The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gram Parsons, Weezer, X, Guns N Roses, Stone Temple Pilots, the Beach Boys...

LA is the fog on Mulholland Drive at night.

LA is even weirder than it seems in the movies.

LA is where Led Zeppelin came to party.

A friend of mine once said that the constant sun in LA tricks the brain into believing that anything is possible. Ask most people and they'll tell you sincerely...It is.

Descartes Your Ideas Outta Here

2005-12-23T12:16:00.000-08:00

Congratulations on totally misreading my statements. I'm not arguing for some kind of useless relativism. Of course LA can and should be judged qualitatively, and in comparison to other cities. But to view it solely in comparison to NY -- or under the guidelines of some urban ideal that is subconsciously or overtly based on NY -- is a waste of time. As for the "ignorance is bliss" notion, I am saying nothing of the sort. And I am all for having opinions (though not opinions rooted in a fundamental, unquestioned sense of superiority and elitism...like the kind that says NY is "the best" city -- I thought competitions over "the best" anything ended in grade school).

Anyway, I see that what you're really seeking is a defense of LA. And I'll be the first to admit I haven't made one here. I've merely tried to point out the flaws in your judgment process, to cleanse your doors of perception, if you will. My point thus far can be summed up as follows: if you judged every composer by comparing them with Beethoven, you'd end up tossing Gershwin out the window. And that would be just plain wrong.

But you want a defense of LA. You want a reason why LA LA Land is worth the price of admission. Well that's a topic for another post. Stay tuned.

I think, therefore I am a city

2005-12-23T11:56:00.000-08:00

I’m glad to see that you have taken the Bush Administration strategy of taking your greatest weaknesses and using them as your primary defense. Let’s deconstruct this for a moment.

You seem to be making two points. The first is that everything is relative, so there’s no point in comparing cities. Every city is different, a unique and individual snowflake which cannot be held up to qualitative comparison. You’re right than LA is not New York. And that’s too bad for Angelinos. But is that the best defense of your city you can offer?

The second argument seems to be that ‘ignorance is bliss’ (an argument I’ve spent many nights espousing and many mornings regretting). Having already rejected your relativist argument, I will boldly, definitively, OBJECTIVELY say that New York is the best, or at least better than LA, in almost every way. Most New Yorkers agree; some don’t. Yet you seem to attack New Yorkers for having opinions about their city. What you call ‘unimaginative’ is in fact reflective self-awareness. Your argument says it all- LA is defined solely in terms of what it is NOT. Reading your piece I began to wonder, as I did driving along its freeways, whether LA actually exists. You make no claims at all about what this place IS. Angelinos (and that name will be the topic of another diatribe) have no self-awareness. LA simply exists. It has no identity. No expectations. No reflection. That sounds more like autism than bliss.

Forget It Jake, It's Not Really Chinatown

2005-12-23T09:59:00.000-08:00

I'm glad the issue of Chinatown's authenticity/worth has been raised, as it perfectly embodies the tragically distorted world view of so many New Yorkers. Before I put Chinatown in context, let me say something bold. Schocking, even. This is gonna be hard for NYers to take, but I'm just gonna put it out there:

LA is not NY.

Omaha is not NY. Lima is not NY. Mexico City is not NY. Florence is not NY. Paris is about as close to NY as another city can get, or I suppose London (I've never been). But no city is NY. The entire problem with New Yorkers is that they view every destination in relative terms to their own city. So when some aspect of another place does not measure up, or differs in a way they don't like, they condemn it. It's silly. It's tunnel vision (the Lincoln Tunnel?). It's sad.

But the real issue here is the argument that because LA lacks so many of the fundamentals that define NY, and many other major international cities, it is not a "real" city. This is the crux of every outsider's complaint with this place (where, by the way, it's a temperate 62 degrees right now in the middle of December). And this is where disapproving outsiders miss the point.

LA is not like most, or any, other cities. Maybe it's not actually a "city." Maybe it's just a sprawling collection of little neighborhoods with no real core, or identity -- except that if you walk into a bar on a Thursday night, odds are the girl next to you is from Iowa. But LA doesn't care. LA doesn't want to be NY. LA doesn't aspire to reach the elevated state of city-dom that would earn the approval of New Yorkers and international snobs alike. LA doesn't really know the rules of urban greatness, and if it does, it's too busy trying to make it in the movies to care. It's one-of-a-kind, and if it operates on any rules or ideals, they're not the same ones that govern places like NY or Paris or even San Francisco. To sum up, LA is unashamedly itself.

You don't have to like it. But to judge it in comparison to NY, or some "ideal" of urban perfection, is to view the world in some one-sided, boring paradigm that essentially cuts off the endless possibilities of seeing and enaging the world in new ways. It's typical New York -- tragically unimaginative.

Chinafrown: A Shameless Pun for a Shameful ‘City’

2005-12-22T16:08:00.000-08:00

LA’s Chinatown is not really a town at all. There are no fireworks stores, drool-covered children or live animals for sale. Instead, there are Chinese restaurants, warehouses and broad, empty streets. 1.5 billion Chinese people, and not one of them lives in their own town. This is typical of LA, which has no urban center- and thus could not possibly support an authentic chinatown, which thrives on intense crowds, smells and noise- yet nonetheless claims to be a city. Just one of the many veils that LA wraps around itself, one of the misnomers, the little lies, that collectively conceal this uncultured exurb behind a façade of civility. (Think of the beautiful sunsets caused by smog, the surgically enhanced breasts.) A culture of lies oragincally arises from these geographic distortions, and soon I begin to wonder whether my putatively Chinese waiter is in fact a struggling Korean actor.

You Don't Miss Your Water...Til Your Bagels Are Dry

2005-12-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

There's a popular theory amongst bagel-seekers in L.A. that the problem is the water in this town. That somehow the magical process of bagel-making, which depends on water in some way (don't ask me how), is inhibited by the quality of our water. And so NY bagels come out with a better taste and texture because of NY's water. The same theory has been posited to explain the tragically poor quality of that other staple of NYC cuisine that I miss so desperately here in L.A.: pizza.

Do I buy the water theory? I don't know. As you spend more time in L.A., you stop scrutinizing the world for truths and just accept the way things are. It's what I call the "traffic mentality." Sooner or later, after spending so much time stalled in congestion on the freeway, you're either gonna learn to be at peace with your situation or buy a gun and start killing at random. Most of us opt to chill the fuck out -- or ride public transportation (just kidding!). But my point is that it doesn't really matter whether it's the water that ruins the bagels here or the incompetence of the bagel-makers or some sort of yin-yang principle that governs our lives -- you know, you get to live in a city with a near-perfect climate but you have to endure crappy dough-related food products. What matters is that when I go back to NY, it's now a lot more fun because I get to delight in the rare treat of nice warm bagels and delicious slices of pizza.

The Fall of the Bagel

2005-12-09T10:58:00.000-08:00

Odd that you haven’t had a decent bagel in LA. There are thousands of Jews in the ‘city’, so there’s surely no lack of expertise. Rather, something must have happen to the Jewish bagelers during their westward migration. Ethiopian Jews, detached from their roots, forsook the Talmud and lost the falafel. Removed from their Lower East Side shtetls, Los Angeles’ Jews slowly begin to meld into mass Americana. The craving for gefilte fish is replaced by Arby’s, Christmas trees suddenly become acceptable, and before long, foreskin regenerates.

Bagels...I can't get no satisfaction

2005-05-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

New York may be dominated by a culture of intellectual pomposity and unwarranted self-importance; its natives may be crude and unhappy; its weather may be miserable nine months out of the year; and its densely packed subway cars, bars and streets may inspire contempt for humanity, but I'll say this...I left New York for Southern California eight years ago and I haven't had a proper fucking bagel with cream cheese since.
--LAJ

Is this thing on?

2005-05-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Oh boy.