The Fires in L.A.
California will never be the same…
I’m heartsick.
Although I’m a tried-and-true Northern Californian, I’ve always loved LA.
My best friend and roommate in college (Stanford) was Richard Zanuck, son of 20th Century Fox chief Darryl Zanuck, and their house was at 546 Palisades Beach Rd., right on the beach.
We got into the habit of taking off for LA in Dick’s (studio-owned) Ford convertible when things got dull in Palo Alto, driving all night and getting into LA before sunrise.
I’ll never forget my first time in LA, as we got into Malibu at dawn, Wolfman Jack ws playing Loop de Loop Mambo by the Coasters.
Wow! Things were looser than in NorCal. Music was better (at least the kind I liked). There was also Dick “Huggy Boy” Hugg playing all those great R&B songs. This San Francisco boy was loving LA.
We’d always visit surfboard maker (and later legendary) Dale Velzy at his Malibu shop. In those days, surfboards were made of balsa wood. I remember a 15-year-old gremlin, Mickey Munoz, hanging around the shop.
The weather was warmer. The water was warmer. The girls were friendlier. Things were more relaxed, as they are the farther south you get — anywhere, for that matter — I figure Santa Cruz is about 10% LA, Santa Barbara 75% LA.
Two of my other best friends were also Angelenos: Spike Bullis in the ‘50s, and, Bob Easton in the ‘60s and ‘70s. (Bob and I combined our Northern and Southern California design sensibilities in producing the book Shelter in 1973.)
My first serious girlfriend (Sandy) was in LA. The first ride I got on a surfboard was at the Malibu colony (11-foot balsa and redwood that weighed like 60 pounds). I first heard the Black singing groups on LA radio: The Clovers, The Robins, Clyde McPhatter and The Drifters, The Flamingos, The Platters, The Contours…
My M. O. in the dozens of times I’ve visited LA since, has been to head to the Malibu colony, then go north on Malibu Road to the end, where there‘s an isolated beach. I’d typically get there at dawn and go for a swim and, when I was a competitive runner, run along the beach the 3 miles to the pier at Surfrider Beach and back. A great way to start the day in LA.
Sometimes I’d go up Corral Canyon, just north of Malibu, then to the parking lot in Solstice Canyon, and walk up the creek to a waterfall. Pretty amazing, just a few miles from the coast highway and you were in a lush, green, tropical arroyo.
LA is visual
The signs are bigger, the public art more outrageous. Once I saw a Karmann Ghia on the freeway that had been dented in in the front; instead of repairing it, the owner had painted lips around the dent, so it looked like a fish puckering — LA.
Big, Bold Signs in LA:
Some of the Things I’ll Miss:
I’m posting these few photos of the LA/Malibu as I knew it. You can see the present day fiery nightmare headlining in all the media right now. It’ll never be the same or even close to it — not in my lifetime or ever.
With all the natural disasters going on worldwide, I can’t help but think that the planet, a living, breathing, arguably conscious entity, has taken enough abuse and is striking back at the perpetrators of its ongoing destruction.
Hasta la vista, baby.
I have been thinking the same thing. Mother Earth always wins.
“The weather was warmer. The water was warmer. The girls were friendlier. Things were more relaxed, as they are the farther south you get — anywhere, for that matter — I figure Santa Cruz is about 10% LA, Santa Barbara 75% LA.” This is very solid prose, Lloyd. Very real and poetic at the same time. You could write some serious pulp better than the LA masters of the genre, and they wouldn’t mind the fact that you’re a NorCal guy, for they understand you’re an insider in California (and in Baja too). You sort of cover the Nueva and Vieja California like no one.