City of angels

I first set foot in LA some twenty-seven years ago, arriving at LAX with my bicycle; I unpacked and set out up Lincoln Boulevard to the PCH, en route to Santa Barbara, where I was set to begin graduate school. To this day, the sight of palm trees is a happy occasion, a homecoming.

(“A Beautiful Palm Drive, California,” an image of LA courtesy of the Northern California chapter of the Palm Society.)

Now, my favorite way to arrive is through Ladera Heights/Baldwin Hills, via La Tijera to La Cienega. (The Heights are barren and populated with nodding donkeys, a motorized pump for the small oil wells that mark the hills above central LA’s broad valley.) Late at night on May 18th, I crested over Ladera’s sodium-lit oil pumps to see the city of angels revealed to Neil Young’s “Vampire Blues” (from On the Beach), the windows of the rented white LeSabre rolled down, drinking in the damp, cool air,

(Photo courtesy of the
Los Angeles architectural photo gallery.)

I’m a vampire, babe, suckin’ blood from the earth.
I’m a vampire, baby, suckin’ blood from the earth.
Well, I’m a vampire, babe, sell you twenty barrels worth.

I’m a black bat, babe, bangin’ on your window pane.
I’m a black bat, baby, bangin’ on your window pane.
Well, I’m a black bat, babe, I need my high octane.

Good times are comin’, I hear it everywhere I go.
Good times are comin’, I hear it everywhere I go.
Good times are comin’, but they sure comin’ slow.

Welcome back, y’all: I turned up the volume and pressed “repeat.”

Postscript: I had forgotten to mention that the climactic scene in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential—the shootout at the Victory Motel—is filmed on a set constructed in Baldwin Hills: the nodding donkeys are visible as the protagonists approach and leave the complex. [cws::07 June]