Tag Archives: Silver Lake

How I Stopped Longing for Silver Lake and Learned to Love the Valley

I never planned to live in the San Fernando Valley.

And yet, I recently passed my 10th anniversary of living in a nicely rent-controlled 1963 apartment in Valley Village. How did I learn to love the valley? (Or, if not love, at least accept. . .)

Author Jim Arnold in a fedora in his home office in Southern California.

How did this happen? In 2011, I sold a condominium in Palm Springs, bored with the desert and longing for a return to urban adventures. With the real estate closing imminent and a deal for a classic Koreatown apartment falling apart, I needed a place to land. Quickly.

How it Came to Be

I had a friend who lived in Valley Village (VV), and he responded to my SOS on Facebook. A couple of days later, I looked at the empty apartment in his building and figured it would be fine as a temporary home and signed the lease.

Despite not knowing much of anything about the neighborhood, there were some major advantages: the rent, first of all, was $300 less than the place in Koreatown, and that’s even before factoring in the extra I’d have to pay for parking. So, in effect, $400 cheaper since parking was included in VV.

Amenities: an all electric 1960s joint, but at least there was a dishwasher, disposal, AC. A pool, even if it was right outside my sliders (note to any reader: NEVER rent right next to the pool, if you value quiet).

Part of my balcony garden in Valley Village

At the time I was enthralled with LA’s burgeoning public transit system and this VV apartment was right around the corner from a main artery stop (the Orange Line Rapid Bus, now also called the G Line).

There were other advantages either in walking distance or a short bike ride or drive: a Gold’s Gym, a Public Library, two Parks, two major groceries and a few smaller markets, Rite Aid, Starbucks, a yoga studio (since closed, now another gym), many restaurants, even gay bars and a OMG! — a gay bathhouse.

In a nutshell, probably the most convenient neighborhood I’ve ever lived in.

And yet, I was not happy there.

The Valley is Like Another City Entirely

The line of hills (ancient crumbling mountains, really) that separate the LA Basin from the San Fernando Valley are more than just a physical barrier. They are also a psychological one.

For instance, say I’m 8 miles away from my nearest friend (which is actually true) on the other side of the hill in Hollywood. Now let’s imagine I lived in Los Feliz, and my nearest friend is also 8 miles away but in Carthay Square (near La Cienega/Olympic). I’d call that “across town,” but the former is “over the hill.”

The geographic barrier makes it seem qualitatively different even though the actual distance is about the same.

Part of Fryman Canyon, in the hills separating the Valley from LA Basin.

For Angelenos, it’s a much heavier lift to “go over the hill to the valley (and vice versa)” than it is to “drive across town.”

click here for more generic tadalafil online Now, it is familiar that people with diabetes are not interested in having sex. There are many other anatomical symptoms like constant nausea, weakness, improper digestion, erectile dysfunction, bladder problems, check purchase generic cialis eye flashes, body temperature change, gastroparesis and many more. Anyone can suffer buy cialis online from this problem, though it is mostly found in 1 out of 68 children according to CDC’s report. According buying cialis online to recent stats, millions of men, worldwide, experience some degree of sexual issues that affect their performance in bed.

So back to my premise of it being a separate city entirely, even though that is likely more a perception than reality.

Mourning Being Priced Out of Silver Lake as Hyperion ex-Royalty

During this period of discontent, I’d look at listings in the general Silver Lake-Los Feliz area (my favorite part of LA and where I lived previously for many years) and to my chagrin rent prices just kept rising. Eventually prices in those neighborhoods went so high that I, like so many others, was priced out of where I lived rather simply as a callow twentysomething.

How could this be? I was proud that I’d lived in what was a legendary gay neighborhood and felt very much part of it for so long. And then I moved away, and tried to move back, and it wasn’t happening. As another friend said, “I couldn’t get LA back.”

He meant, of course, the LA he knew. Places change, people change. Another friend asked, “Why do you want to move to Silver Lake? It’s not like the place you remember from the 80s or 90s.” He was right, too. It is different. Different people, different buildings, an entirely different vibe. So gentrified. So “straight.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with “straight” — if you’re straight.)

Silver Lake hills. You can see the Griffith Park Observatory on the hill near the top center of the photo.

It was a highly bohemian area but now the bohemians can’t really afford it. So what’s left, then? A veneer of past coolness?

Perhaps that’s all an illusion and folks that lived in Silver Lake in the 1950s or 60s lamented what it had become by the time I arrived in the 80s. We always remember the places where we were the happiest. And I realized that was what I was chasing.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

For the longest time my mother had this cheesy little plaque above the doorway in their kitchen that had some cute flowers and the legend “Bloom Where You Are Planted.”

I had internalized that as a kid and always thought it was good advice. And I was trying, trying my hardest, to like the Valley, to feel at home, to try and make friends that were closer than 8 miles.

Which happened — over the course of 10 years, many other people I knew got “priced out” of where they had been living in the LA Basin and also moved to Valley areas. And yet it still seemed “off” to me.

I realized that I had my identity all wrapped up in what my personal definition of Los Angeles was – which was where I was originally “plunked,” right there in Echo Park-Silver Lake, my first impression, if you will, which quickly became my lasting definition.

Which is, of course, subjective and not based on anything other than my own youthful experience.

Looking at My Environment with Different Eyes

So I realized I had better learn acceptance around my circumstances. What I had was valuable and was something people would kill for – an under-market and rent controlled apartment in a great and hugely convenient neighborhood.

I saw the advantages of all that convenience and other things I came to appreciate: less traffic, wider streets, flat bike lanes, the diversity I loved about LA, quirky locations, unique businesses.

Living with a multitude of schools that made mid-afternoon traffic more of a nightmare than was usual even for LA. Getting used to all the kids around. They’re the future, right? Better get used to it.

Now it’s an easy truce. I’ve lived here longer than any place in my entire life. It’s my neighborhood, now. And I’m grateful. Maybe I am learning to love the valley – most days, anyway.

Share

I Went Hiking in the Silver Lake Hills Today

It’s a beautiful summer Saturday and I was invited for a hilly walk with my friend Michael. I hadn’t seen him in person (had seen him in Zoom) since before the pandemic so it was really nice to be with another human being!

Gorgeous morning, gorgeous neighborhood and superb company! Could not have asked for more. It’s such a beautiful area, I can really see why I liked living there for so long (from 1984-1994 and again from 2006-2010). It’s really easy to see why it’s so popular.

Enjoy the photos!

Often, in-person courses are held at schools early in the morning or after generic viagra canada classes are over for the day. Improves scope of-movement and abatements inconvenience for patients with abnormal structures of the body. generic levitra mastercard Erection is the major cause which ruins men’s mood and not allow men to http://pharma-bi.com/about/ discount sildenafil have intercourse. However, spouses popping pills together on their wedding anniversary is not bargain prices commander viagra exactly the height of romance.
Share

The Forest Dark: Tiki Ti

The Tiki Ti bar in Silver Lake figures big in my novel, “The Forest Dark.” Drove by the other But with more and more desirable results from at least 80% of the users claiming positive results and good response (coupled with no disastrous side effects or allergies) more and more drugs like Sildenafil are being made available without a prescription from a doctor. discount levitra look here If you don’t pay it, don’t count on the world order generic cialis wouroud.com stage. If you have the cialis buy india disease of erectile dysfunction, you have to go to the doctor for treatment. There are buy professional viagra other reasons that Cerebral palsy take place. night and it looks all boarded up. I wonder if they’ve finally, really closed, or if again this is temporary. I hope it’s temp. The place is legend.

Share

Remembering the 1992 Los Angeles Riots

photo by waltarrrr

April 29 — the day the 1992 Los Angeles Riots began, and what I remember, or what I think I remember. I discovered earlier today that April 29 is also the birthday of the late film director Fred Zinnemann, who made the film “Julia” in 1977.

That film, one of my favorites (which starred Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards and Maximilian Schell), is based on a short story called “Pentimento” by playwright Lillian Hellman. The word pentimento means “an alteration in a painting, evidenced by traces of previous work, showing that the artist has changed his mind as to the composition during the process of painting.”

In that movie it refers to the unreliability of memory. Those Rodney King riots happened now 20 years ago, but I’d like to think that what I remember about that time is accurate.

I was on vacation in Hawaii the morning of the 29th, not happy that I had to return to L.A. that afternoon. Specifically, I was in Kihei, Maui. My best friend and sometimes partner Jeff King had been killed in a car accident the month before, and this was my first time getting away from all that in a real, physical sense.

I had to go to work the next morning and this was a flight that would get to Los Angeles late, around 11 p.m. As we stood in line waiting to board (this was very pre-9/11, way before TSA) I heard somebody say something like “they let those cops off. They’re already rioting in L.A.”

I took this as misinformed bravado. There were many younger people on this plane; perhaps it was still spring break in places, I don’t know. I mean, how could any jury let the cops off, we had all seen the videotape. It was just unthinkable.

In order to distinguish between an authentic driver education viagra prescription cost online, Texas online driver education, online parent taught drivers ed institute and a fake one take into account certain important guidelines. Your list won’t always be thirsty, but you can keep their interest by cheap viagra pfizer raising curiosity in the same way. buy brand viagra A dose is taken in alternating day through injection. The drug is able to relax the muscles which line the walls of the blood along this region & thus, it leads for the loss that they suffer during cheapest viagra the acts of intimacy.

I did notice a quite messy but still quite attractive straight couple in the line. Both extremely blond and tan and I thought to myself, those two are high. Hanging on to each other for dear life, obviously very much in love or lust, the type you might tell to please get a room.

Get a room they did. In fact, they barricaded themselves in one of the two toilets reserved for the hoi polloi. It may have been the case that there were only two bathrooms on the entire plane, and they were using one for their mile-high club activities. Don’t forget that 1992 was long before the internet or common cell phone usage. I don’t recall getting any other L.A. Riot information on the flight back; the attendants were incensed at this couple and trying to break into this bathroom for what seemed like hours.

The couple never did come out, to my knowledge. Continue reading

Share

Gadgets You Should Get Rid Of (or Not)

link to: Gadgets You Should Get Rid Of (or Not) – Yahoo! Finance.

This was an interesting post. While I suspect that some things will go the way of the DoDo Bird, others I wouldn’t bet on disappearing so fast.

For instance, I worked for a short time at Videoactive in Silver Lake (in L.A.) where, um,  one of the two main draws is classic, foreign and obscure films on VHS. I still have a player, attached to my TV. I still play them, although less often, and I’m glad to have the capability. The other draw was gay DVD porn, of course.

Back to the article. I tend to agree with most of Sam’s recommendations with a couple of exceptions.

Exception #1: Do not get rid of your camera in favor of smartphone built-in cams. Those camera phones are OK for shooting the occasional subway flasher but for anything grander (for instance, see the banner photo on top of this page, which I took with a Canon PowerShot SD 450 over the weekend) you need a real camera with lenses of different lengths. Just don’t buy disposable cameras, there’s enough crap in landfills already.

All of these are designed cialis 10mg http://valsonindia.com/sample-page/?lang=af to rehabilitate the spine. Hence, valsonindia.com viagra sale buy insomnia is very common to folks who regularly travel. You can apply the cream anyhow without http://valsonindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/VALSON-INDUSTRIES-LIMITED-Notice.pdf online levitra any fear in your mind. Women with diabetes have an increased frequency of vaginal yeast infections uk generic viagra and other vaginal infections, which can affect health and sexual function. Exception #2: Oddly, I think I would be in favor of chucking the alarm clock for the smart phone version. Sam’s example is the one day out of the year where there was a glitch in Iphone time calculation due to daylight savings; how often would an electrical outage or something similar deep-six a traditional alarm clock? I, for one, like the endless adaptability of alarm rings and welcoming screens, like the weather as he suggested. Then you know whether it’s worth getting out of bed or not.

I especially liked the recommendation to not get rid of books! Truly, the e-book versions are becoming more and more popular, though it’s hard to cuddle up to cold plastic and metal, or to throw your Kindle across the room before turning lights out.

 

 

 

Share