Adventures In Hollywood

It started in a white Nissan Sentra. Its only inhabitants, three friends who had known each other since childhood. I had always wanted to make it out to the west coast and graduating college in May finally gave me the opportunity to take the jump. Driving across the country was as poetic as it was taxing. The wooded low country of the deep south quickly gave way to the plains of the midwest which were subsequently swallowed by the mountain ranges of New Mexico; leading eventually to the awe inspiring Grand Canyon of Arizona.  We continued onward and were met with an "interesting" and expensive night in Vegas, the details of which I will not get into here. After four long days of being on the road and secretly wanting to kill each other, we finally made it to our destination; California. After 22 years of imagining what it would be like, I had finally made it to the city of angels. Dropping my friends off at LAX was the last step in separating fully from my former life. I was now alone, surrounded by a land of opportunity and broken promises. A land in which dreams are made and hope is shattered; often occurring in the same day. A place where superficiality is so prevalent that the line between necessity and need is so blurred that the want for a green yard is more important than conserving the fast declining supply of water. And here I am, a kid from suburban Atlanta who had never lived outside of Georgia for more than a few weeks at a time, and I wanted a piece of it all. 

As I was traversing the grand Regal LA Live Theater in downtown Los Angeles for the annual LA Film Festival I began to make parallels to my own journey to this strange and eclectic sprawling land. One film in particular, Atomic Heart, an Iranian film creating a lot of buzz and being described by the Los Angeles Daily News as being "out of this world", coerced me into a spiral of reminiscence. While I did not actually see the film, it was the "otherworldly" allusions used in various reviews that created the nexus between my current situation and that of the Iranian tale. I understand that Atlanta and Los Angeles are not locations in different countries but if you have visited both places then you know they might as well be. In the immortal words of Dorothy, "I was not in Kansas(Georgia) anymore".

A quick visit to the Santa Monica pier with a couple of UGA alums quickly reminded me of that aforementioned fact. Our visit was like most other days at the beach, sticking my feet in the surprisingly cold Pacific Ocean water, gawking at the beautiful Californians taking in the sun, some clothed others not so much, and battling the recurring debate of whether to over pay for some food at many of various vendors that inhabited the immediate area. The normalcy was immediately interrupted by the occurrence of one person, that person being none other than Justin Bieber. As we were walking back to our car we could not help but stare at a figure cloaked in white jamming out to a song I'll never know hurdling toward us on a sort of hover board. I later learned he was riding an oxboard. Once the figure passed and I was able to process his face, it suddenly hit me; that was Justin Bieber! Now I have seen  and met my fare share of famous people in my life and outside of a Comedy Central Roast I could care less about the Beebs, but the sheer site of body guards patrolling the Santa Monica strip was the first time I really felt like I was in California. This was followed by running into Emily Ratajkowski at the Grand Central Station a couple days later after just seeing her on the big screen in Entourage. If I have learned anything about this city in the week that I have been here its that it is one weird and fascinating place, and I hope the madness continues.