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Wife and I were in LA for a wedding. It was childfree so we ditched the kids at my mom's house (good luck, have fun), flew in Friday morning and out Sunday afternoon. We decided to do some sightseeing Friday in case Sunday was a wash from a couple of hangovers (it was, sorry Griffith Observatory, maybe next time). I had just read a book on the massive 1986 fire at the Central Library so I wanted to see that, and if you never heard of it don't feel bad because nobody else did since three days earlier a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl decided to do a little trolling and that was hogging up all the headlines. My wife wanted to see Rodeo Drive because she likes that bit in Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts tells off the snooty saleswoman. She also likes handbags.
I hate LA for a number of reasons. I don't like the movie industry, the obsession with status and money, but most of all it's the superficial vanity of the people in a land where image is everything. It's a huge city, so obviously #NotAllAngelenos but you're still going to see it around. I mention this because I am predisposed to attribute normal behavior I wouldn't think twice about back home to the pervasive psychic corruption I imagine affects everyone within LA county who has been there for more than a week. And everyone wants to tell you about the project they're working on. In the Uber out of LAX the driver asked us what we were doing there, and after we answered he decided to tell us all about the animal rights activism he was doing. Another one told us about a screenplay he was working on. Another one told us about volunteering at an abortion clinic to keep away protesters. All unprompted. I don't like NYC either but at least the Uber drivers there have the decency not to involve you in their lives.
The library was pretty cool. LA has a tendency to tear down anything old. There's a weird absence of respect for history, replaced by the fetishization of newness. The city feels like a series of McMansions sometimes, and normal wear and tear isn't considered so much as wabi-sabi, but as a defect. We used to build wonderful public buildings in this country and I especially like that Art Deco shit from the 20s and 30s, and LA has managed to save some of its buildings from that era, like the Central Library, City Hall, and Union Station. I'm glad they didn't tear down the library after the fire, though many wanted to. I smelled some older looking books and one of them still smelled like smoke. This is a pattern for us, me dragging my wife to a cool old building with some interesting history, walking around smelling the merchandise while she hides her face from onlookers. Then we do whatever SHE wants while I try my best not to be too snarky.
Rodeo Drive was walking into the belly of the beast; it is a monument to luxury brand everything. I thought Valentino might jump out of the bushes and get me. It's garish, like a retail version of the Cheesecake Factory. We walked past the Tiffany and Co. store ("don't get any ideas, honey, haha") and through this kind of outdoor mall situation they have going on. At the end of it we saw a bunch of people taking selfies and pictures of each other. There were even these photographers kinda hanging around taking pictures of these two very instagram-model types. The ladies had a bunch shopping bags and would walk towards the photographer, then they'd all look at the pictures together for a bit, then they reset and did it again. After that, they handed their bags to one of the photographers and said "thank you".
"My God," I said to my wife, "there are so many people having their pictures taken for the 'gram these guys are doing it all professionally for tourists. Hell, they even have empty shopping bags you can hold like you actually just bought something expensive! I bet they take Venmo. Someone call Xi and tell him to nuke us and put us all out of our misery." Then the models went back with a photographer to the entrance, and the two stood there and kinda rocked back and forth, simulating walking while the photographer took more pictures. I thought, "man these girls really want to be real models don't they. Too bad ladies, you're just a couple of THOTS."
My wife is enjoying the show as well but at least had the wherewithal to google the brand on the bags. It was a fashion company for trendy young women that I'd never heard of. My wife was a bit puzzled because it's not high end. "Maybe it's a marketing thing," I said, "like the Starbucks in Harvard Square that doesn't make nearly enough money for the rent. They've got one on Haight-Ashbury too." My wife googled the nearest outlet. Well there isn't one on Rodeo Drive. There isn't even one in all of Beverly Hills. And come to think of it one of those models looks an awful lot like this one on the store page.
So it turns out while I'm talking all this shit about these instagram "models" they actually are, well, professional models, the kind who get paid to wear clothes and pose instead of the kind who get shit on by Arabs. I hate the city and vapid social media use so much that when I saw a bunch of dudes walking around with $6000 camera lenses taking pictures of a couple of hot girls I thought the girls were paying THEM, not the reverse. They were pretty hot, but there are a lot of hot women in LA so that's not going to tip you off. If this type of scene was playing out in my tier 3 midwestern city I would have correctly clocked what was going on because a midwest 9 is like an LA 6, so imagine what an LA 8 looks like here. Good enough to blow your dick clean off, that's how.
People at the wedding (which was a blasty blast) liked the story because I don't normally get egg on my face this badly and my wife really likes leaning into the dumb husband jokes when she can. I like LA more now, possibly enough to not want to nuke it.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/aaaah
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