Amoeba records12/29/2023 Homesick, lonely and most of all, terrified of growing up, Amoeba was the first place that gave off any real heat in this strange desert. The first time I felt found in LA it was at Amoeba Records. When I drive through this city during sunset I remember that I’m the thing I’ve been looking for. Still I think: If I could just get on the right freeway, the right backroad, I’d find the sun before it set I’d be early, for once. Nothing does here-that’s the whole point. That the actual roads-dirty, tar-and-rubber, potholed-never lived up to their hallowed status should not be surprising. Outside of Hollywood, California’s mythic, golden history is tied to its streets. They were lyrics to me first, paved through my brain long before I set foot on their actual asphalt, back before I knew for sure any of this was real. In college, as a transplanted teenager, wandering the streets my idols made famous (“ move west down / Ventura Boulevard”) always made me feel like I was born too late. I wanted somewhere loud and red like a city is supposed to feel, a living, breathing organism of strangers united by a lost dream.Īt 18, I was just old enough to think I’d already seen the worst, and just young enough to hope for the best, anyway. All I felt was a deep, sad understanding, like being hit for the first time by someone who said they loved me. Most people flock to these studio tours, find them exciting. Do you remember the first time you saw an empty film set? Witnessed the false front of a beloved movie scene? They make me shudder they look so full of longing when the lights go out, worlds vanishing in shadows. Hollywood invariably manages to feel like a knockoff of itself, and if that hasn’t always been the case it’s been true ever since I got here. Late for the sky, Jackson Browne called it. The dream of Los Angeles is myth unfulfilled, a sunset with only pink left against the black.
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