On LA

This was pretty how I felt before I moved here, except substitute hot chicks for gay dudes. Compliments to Andrew Sullivan.

I had another wonderful couple of days in Los Angeles. My official view is that I hate it here. But whenever I spend time, I find myself loving it. One of my dearest friends, Robert, lives here (he made and makes this website possible), and he always takes care to show me the atypical L.A. Last time, we spent a few hours in the new cathedral downtown - an astonishingly beautiful and contemporary expression of Latino Catholicism. This time, my trip was a real mix of things. Friday: Robert and I made our usual pilgrimage to Venice Beach. The hipsters, hobos, stoners, and steroid-boys always cheer me up. Friday night: major after-hours season-closing party for "Real Time." Don't remember much. Saturday: er, I slept a lot. Saturday night, I dropped by a party thrown by some "Simpsons" writers, and bumped into old Harvard pals. On to a quick gay fix at the Abbey where I got hit on by a beefy anti-Chomsky homo. Most flattering. Crashed. Sunday morning went to church, i.e. the Apple store in the Grove, and then took in a gorgeous John Adams piece and some over-the-top Shostakovich in Frank Gehry's Philharmonic crumple. Quick afternoon look at MOCA, and a trip through the Ed Ruscha retrospective. Can you get more East Coasty? It was made even better by staying right next to the CBS studios in Fairfax, across the street from Farmer's Market. You can walk everywhere for food, movies, coffee, books, or just people-watching. I usually feel at a loss in L.A. because I don't know how to drive a car. But not this time. I even bumped into a Ptown acquaintance on the street. I guess it goes to show that stereotypes have a limited usefulness. Classical music, peerless architecture, old friends and walk, walk, walk. All in L.A. And it rained too. Heavenly.