Hello from Los Angeles, CA

[sablebrush52]

Hello Ex Angelino! I have been in LA for more than twenty years (would prefer almost any serene countryside at this point to this sprawl if it weren't for the diverse cultural and artistic melting pot here). Thank you for the background on CW, and the recommend with TT on the west side. I will make the trip! How do you like Ashland?

Ashland? I love it here!

I was born in LA and spent ever 70 years there, 43 of it working in the Entertainment industry as a matte painter, concept artist, and VFX art director, then moved into Animation doing background painting, color, and art direction. I'm still active though retirement will be happening next year.

You're correct about the level of creativity in LA. That's part of what a big city can foster just through so many influences in collision. LA is a great place to be young, smart, curious and on the move. You just have to afford the increasingly insane cost of living there, as well as the swelling homelessness, filthy air, and a growing kind of "off" energy that come from packing too many monkeys in a tight maze, and increasing deterioration of the city's infrastructure. And OMG!! the TRAFFIC!

My love for LA and its quirks faded over the last decade so when the right opportunity came to jump ship l was happy to get out. Growing up in LA when I did was a time when LA still really worked, had magic, and people got the benefit of its amenities and climate, though smog was really bad in the '50's and '60's. I got to grow up in LA when it was very much worth living in.

Ashland is definitely a much different space. It's largely rural with gorgeous nature all around. It has seasons. It also had a large artist community, many of whom have quite happily fled big cities. There are a lot of California expats here, a lot of Bay area transplants, a lot of money, an amazing arts organization, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and it has clean air that doesn't stink like the air in LA now does. I can smell it when I come down to visit.

Ashland also lacks a level of diversity. There are great eateries, but not exotic ones. There are probably more restaurants on three blocks of Riverside Drive in Toluca lake than Ashland, Talent and Phoenix combined. Much better Asian food in the San Gabriel Valley than in the Rogue Valley. Better Bar-B-Que here, amazing Indian food, and all the vegan holistic navel gazing you could ask for. The pace of life here is healthier, not insane.

And, I like that I own my home. No mortgage, no debt. No sales tax. I also like that Oregon is a little weird and its population embraces that weirdness. Too many Californians in the Southern Rogue to allow the same level of weirdness, but it's still around.

 

[Marie]

Ashland? I love it here!

I was born in LA and spent ever 70 years there, 43 of it working in the Entertainment industry as a matte painter, concept artist, and VFX art director, then moved into Animation doing background painting, color, and art direction. I'm still active though retirement will be happening next year.

You're correct about the level of creativity in LA. That's part of what a big city can foster just through so many influences in collision. LA is a great place to be young, smart, curious and on the move. You just have to afford the increasingly insane cost of living there, as well as the swelling homelessness, filthy air, and a growing kind of "off" energy that come from packing too many monkeys in a tight maze, and increasing deterioration of the city's infrastructure. And OMG!! the TRAFFIC!

My love for LA and its quirks faded over the last decade so when the right opportunity came to jump ship l was happy to get out. Growing up in LA when I did was a time when LA still really worked, had magic, and people got the benefit of its amenities and climate, though smog was really bad in the '50's and '60's. I got to grow up in LA when it was very much worth living in.

Ashland is definitely a much different space. It's largely rural with gorgeous nature all around. It has seasons. It also had a large artist community, many of whom have quite happily fled big cities. There are a lot of California expats here, a lot of Bay area transplants, a lot of money, an amazing arts organization, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and it has clean air that doesn't stink like the air in LA now does. I can smell it when I come down to visit.

Ashland also lacks a level of diversity. There are great eateries, but not exotic ones. There are probably more restaurants on three blocks of Riverside Drive in Toluca lake than Ashland, Talent and Phoenix combined. Much better Asian food in the San Gabriel Valley than in the Rogue Valley. Better Bar-B-Que here, amazing Indian food, and all the vegan holistic navel gazing you could ask for. The pace of life here is healthier, not insane.

And, I like that I own my home. No mortgage, no debt. No sales tax. I also like that Oregon is a little weird and its population embraces that weirdness. Too many Californians in the Southern Rogue to allow the same level of weirdness, but it's still around.

Entertainment here too...post-side with music for film/tv. Been rolling about in the SFV, lot's of great pockets of variety in the valley food-wise. Korean BBQ has really come into the fore, and I enjoy making it at home. A couple markets in the north-west pocket of the valley. But I've had some time in and around Burbank, NoHo and Canoga Park. Crime continues to rise...but it is no different here than any of the other major metropolitan areas. LA's sprawl seems to be stemming the downward spiral a bit over the Bay Area, Chicago, New York, Maryland from what I can observe remotely. I've been hanging on as long as I can due to other circumstances that keep me tethered here. However, getting very close to being priced out if some things don't change. I anticipate the entire industry is going to increase it's acceleration rate of contraction with more and more banks falling to the wayside. Perhaps this will provide more fuel for studios to pop up elsewhere. So much more filming is being done outside of LA than in it. Your commentary on exotic food seems consistent with others in the more rural areas with transplants I have spoken to. I guess that's the tradeoff. Once a place gets to a certain density where variety is super-plentiful, nature with it's exquisite regenerative properties falls off a cliff.

Ashland sounds gorgeous, and that's great it has been working out for you so well. I wouldn't mind spending some time back up in northern CA along the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I've tipped beyond the race against time for a career to savoring what's working. Probably why pipe smoking has become so attractive to me.

 

[anotherbob]

I lament the lack of pipe tobacco shops here in LA! Mostly vape, hookah cigars..and weed, like sushi restaurants on every corner...yet the desert emerges for one seeking pipe tobacco selections.

that's ain't just there. I feel lucky we have a cigar shop with a decent enough selection to hold a pipe smoker over. Though honestly I'd take having to order my tobacco (which I do anyways) to have more decent sushi restaurants.

 

[anotherbob]

Perhaps this will provide more fuel for studios to pop up elsewhere.

I feel like that's certainly slowly happening already. Less and less reason otherwise then talent for the industry to be so centralized. Like a lot of things all it takes is the right splash and sizeable return on investment. Plus the biggest thing the major players have now are connections and marketing, but it's a lot easier to make something on the sly these days.

 

[Marie]

that's ain't just there. I feel lucky we have a cigar shop with a decent enough selection to hold a pipe smoker over. Though honestly I'd take having to order my tobacco (which I do anyways) to have more decent sushi restaurants.

I am not complaining about having sushi restaurants on every corner. Between that and Korean BBQ, I'm good! lol The challenge I perceive with B&M is the overhead to run shop. It costs so much $$ to run a B&M in most areas of LA anymore. Right there with you!

 

[Marie]

I feel like that's certainly slowly happening already. Less and less reason otherwise then talent for the industry to be so centralized. Like a lot of things all it takes is the right splash and sizeable return on investment. Plus the biggest thing the major players have now are connections and marketing, but it's a lot easier to make something on the sly these days.

This has the potential to be a big rabbit hole of a discussion from my lens. AI is also getting more and more into the mix as well. As much as I love watching movies and tv shows when I have time, an equal if not more of that time goes to individual user-generated content on youtube and rumble. The way I view creative content continues to change with so many choices out there now.

 

[anotherbob]

This has the potential to be a big rabbit hole of a discussion from my lens. AI is also getting more and more into the mix as well. As much as I love watching movies and tv shows when I have time, an equal if not more of that time goes to individual user-generated content on youtube and rumble. The way I view creative content continues to change with so many choices out there now.

It would be hard to say something more true.
Oh and I didn't think you were complaining about sushi. We have only one great place here and a few decent.

 

[sablebrush52]

Entertainment here too...post-side with music for film/tv. Been rolling about in the SFV, lot's of great pockets of variety in the valley food-wise. Korean BBQ has really come into the fore, and I enjoy making it at home. A couple markets in the north-west pocket of the valley. But I've had some time in and around Burbank, NoHo and Canoga Park. Crime continues to rise...but it is no different here than any of the other major metropolitan areas. LA's sprawl seems to be stemming the downward spiral a bit over the Bay Area, Chicago, New York, Maryland from what I can observe remotely. I've been hanging on as long as I can due to other circumstances that keep me tethered here. However, getting very close to being priced out if some things don't change. I anticipate the entire industry is going to increase it's acceleration rate of contraction with more and more banks falling to the wayside. Perhaps this will provide more fuel for studios to pop up elsewhere. So much more filming is being done outside of LA than in it. Your commentary on exotic food seems consistent with others in the more rural areas with transplants I have spoken to. I guess that's the tradeoff. Once a place gets to a certain density where variety is super-plentiful, nature with it's exquisite regenerative properties falls off a cliff.

Ashland sounds gorgeous, and that's great it has been working out for you so well. I wouldn't mind spending some time back up in northern CA along the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I've tipped beyond the race against time for a career to savoring what's working. Probably why pipe smoking has become so attractive to me.

The entertainment business has long balanced on the knife edge of collapse. In some respects it's like California itself, existing under the threat of "The Big One", droughts, floods, garden variety earthquakes, housing shortages created by both major Parties using different ideological excuses to get to the same result.

Californians live with all that uncertainty and push forward anyway. After all, California is a land of dreamers, and it's always been that way. Never let the realities get in the way of your dreams.

The entertainment business in California is facing a number of threats, including substantial tax breaks from other states that will pull production away, AI and its discontents, and the aforementioned high living costs.

I recently saw an article naming the 10 most "impossibly unaffordable" cities in the world. LA is listed as number 5, above San Francisco. NYC didn't make the cut. Something's going to give and it won't be pretty.

But, the LA I knew, a city of affordable neighborhoods, plentiful jobs, citrus orchards, a bit of a small town feel despite its size, sun, beaches, car culture, is long extinct.

To be sure this more idyllic LA was also suffused with racism, criminality, violence and corruption, which remain behind in different and more subtle forms.

As for cuisines, I love Koren barbecue. I miss dim sum and Persian food. And good luck finding Islamic Chinese food, which is amazing. Also there aren't any delis around here. LA still has Langers, so not all is lost.

But what is available here is generally very well executed.

And people here are friendlier in a way that existed in the LA of 50 years ago. They also brake for pedestrians, rather than trying to run them down.

 

[tobakenist]

Hi and welcome from Northamptonshire, England.

 

[MattRVA]

Welcome from Virginia.

 

[autumnfog]

Welcome from Sweden!

 

[ThomasS]

 

[Marie]

The entertainment business has long balanced on the knife edge of collapse. In some respects it's like California itself, existing under the threat of "The Big One", droughts, floods, garden variety earthquakes, housing shortages created by both major Parties using different ideological excuses to get to the same result.

Californians live with all that uncertainty and push forward anyway. After all, California is a land of dreamers, and it's always been that way. Never let the realities get in the way of your dreams.

The entertainment business in California is facing a number of threats, including substantial tax breaks from other states that will pull production away, AI and its discontents, and the aforementioned high living costs.

I recently saw an article naming the 10 most "impossibly unaffordable" cities in the world. LA is listed as number 5, above San Francisco. NYC didn't make the cut. Something's going to give and it won't be pretty.

But, the LA I knew, a city of affordable neighborhoods, plentiful jobs, citrus orchards, a bit of a small town feel despite its size, sun, beaches, car culture, is long extinct.

To be sure this more idyllic LA was also suffused with racism, criminality, violence and corruption, which remain behind in different and more subtle forms.

As for cuisines, I love Koren barbecue. I miss dim sum and Persian food. And good luck finding Islamic Chinese food, which is amazing. Also there aren't any delis around here. LA still has Langers, so not all is lost.

But what is available here is generally very well executed.

And people here are friendlier in a way that existed in the LA of 50 years ago. They also brake for pedestrians, rather than trying to run them down.

LOL...we still have the stunt drivers here en masse! Wonderful you find yourself around friendlier folk. Hear hear to that! Especially in these times.

You have surely experienced a more welcoming Los Angeles than I! I arrived in the late 90s, and like most had learned quickly how truly closed the circles of creativity actually were/are. How much luck and maintaining a constant awareness at the front of influential minds was a driver of success more than talent. A thick skin doesn't begin to describe the invisible shield one must carry. I admire anyone who has the tenacity to navigate and maintain a working presence in this industry. The turnover and churning-out of discouraged dreamers is great indeed!

What I still enjoy most about LA are those that have traveled from other countries over the years and have found a way to flourish with their communities here and integrate into greater Los Angeles in their own way. The urban sprawl seems to just make room for everyone (even with the traffic having returned back to full congestion). It makes me think about major hubs for international shipping and trade and their timeless everywhere in the world no matter the civilization. Locate the major ports of trade, and the people follow.

I do enjoy Persian food, Thai, Japanese, Mexican, Chinese as well. Have not yet tried Islamic Chinese food..this sounds very intriguing! The delis are still here. However in general with inflation, there is more going-out-of-business creeping in. More and more brick and mortar establishments remain empty. Then there seems to be an increasing tension in the air and an edginess to drivers on the roads. Something well beyond the usual one would experience prior to the pandemic. I find myself ever more the observer of nature and the people in it for any signs of things potentially taking a left turn.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I took two classes in college for my language requirement and can't read this without a translator How did you get interested in it and how long have you been studying?

Well, that's one reason we ask no foreign languages be used here!
Hic, hoc, absurdum.

 

[AroEnglish]

Well, that's one reason we ask no foreign languages be used here!
Hic, hoc, absurdum.

Cogito ergo I smoke a pipe.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Welcome from the Central Coast of California!

 

[dottlejockey]

Welcome from the pacific nw. The wet, often overcast, alternative to sunny LA.

 

[bpinkstaff]

Welcome From Rockton Illinois!

 

[Doctor Chopper]

 

[Kirklands]

Mostly I am attracted to the craftsmanship of pipes

Welcome from Kanas City! I do some pipe restoration as a hobby, and I really enjoy briar--it's variety of grain, it's ability to recover from neglect, and it's potential for silky smoothness and deep shine.