In 1978 I arrived at LAX on a plane from Denver, the last leg of my journey that began with leaving behind my hometown of Ann Arbor and seemingly all the values and community that encompassed my youth and went with that special college town. I had had a number of compelling adventures in my life so far, most notably eleven weeks of backpacking on my own through Europe, but none more profound than this half-baked plunge as a very little fish into the very huge pond of Los Angeles.

I had been warned! I had seen Andy Warhol’s movie “Heat” laying out in every grotesque detail the worst case scenario of being a nobody wannabe with delusions of grandeur in the City of the Angels. I had heard my fellow Michigander, Bob Seeger’s song “Hollywood Nights” and the Door’s “LA Woman”, and knew that there might be no there there in “tinsel town”. Continue reading →