California Dreamin’
I’ve just returned from a wonderful week in LA. I was lucky. The winter disappeared while I was there. Instead of cold and rain I had brilliant blue skies and temperatures in the sixties and seventies. Wherever I went I ran into people I knew and loved. That always seems to happen to me whenever I’m in LA.
I made progress in getting producers interested in my novel THE SILENT STEPS OF GRACE. One day it will be a powerful and uplifting and inspiring movie that will help people in their lives. One very successful producer of several big movie hits called the book “tremendous”. He also said that he found one of the story lines disturbing. That most certainly was the hidden history of the United States. The real history of this country is certainly not what we were all force fed in school.
He also asked me why I wanted to get involved in the movie business. “If you have a happy life and are o.k. financially why would you want to make your book into a movie?” he asked me.
“To see it come alive on the screen,” I replied. “Money and notoriety are a distant second.”
“You’ll pay a price for that,” he sighed. “You’ll be dealing with the worst people in the world. My advice is don’t do it.”
He may well be right. Only time will tell what the price of success is.
L.A. is an acquired taste. At first, it’s overwhelming. Huge, too many people and far too many cars. It takes time to get grounded and get your bearings. A friend of mine, who is a Ph. D. and runs a multi-discipline program at USC, calls LA a cesspool. It certainly is that. But if you take your time and separate the wheat from the chaff, you will find wonderful and extraordinary people. I know tons of them and am honored to call them my friends.
Getting around the city is a nightmare. It’s rush hour traffic all day long. One friend said if he has an appointment in Beverly Hills he’ll leave three hours early so he won’t be caught in heavy traffic. He’ll work in a coffee shop in Beverly Hills until it’s time for his meeting. That’s how bad the traffic is. Another friend of mine said it took him 90 minutes to go less than 2 miles. Several people said the traffic made LA almost unlivable.
LA has several advantages and disadvantages.
The advantages are:
- great climate
- very open and creative culture
- great food choices, particularly in Santa Monica and Venice
- Santa Monica and Venice are ground zero for healthy conscious eating
- Lots of organic restaurants
- Great health food stores, particularly Co-Opportunity in Santa Monica which may be the best health food store in the country
- Great beaches
- Great people
- Home of the movie and TV industries
- Lots of people striving to grow and become more conscious
The disadvantages are:
- High cost of living. Real estate is incredibly expensive. Rents are high.
- High taxes.
- Traffic and gridlock
- Lots of toxic people
- LA and Southern California are in the direct path of radioactive winds coming from the crippled reactors in Fukushima
- A monster quake that will level virtually every structure in SoCal could happen at any time.
For me, the cost and risk of living in LA outweigh the benefits of returning there to live. That’s why I left after living there for 16 years and will not return. My solution is to travel there frequently, see my friends and work to make my novel into a movie.
If you haven’t yet read THE SILENT STEPS OF GRACE you should. It’s a great story. It will move you, inspire you and educate you. In short, it’s a game changer. You will find more information about it on my website www.alanmesher.com or on amazon.com. It is available in both print and digital formats.
