The City That Stays Asleep
Ever since I first arrived in Los Angeles, everyone had warned me not to eat the pizza. “Nobody in LA knows how to make pizza,” they said. Surely, I thought, this must be a broad stereotype. I knew that LA had never grown its own style of pizza, like New York or Chicago or St. Louis had, but surely they could replicate those styles to a satisfactory degree?
Armed with this foolish optimism, last Friday night - one day after the 9/11 anniversary - I ventured into a pizzeria on the corner of Hollywood and Ivar. The sign outside said “Authentic New York Pizza” with a picture of the Statue of Liberty. Like my Russian immigrant ancestors who saw the real Statue, and dreamed of the gold-paved streets beyond, I entered this promised land with high expectations, tired, poor, and huddled, yearning to taste excellent pizza for practically free.
The tables were dirty. The pictures on the wall depicted moments in New York’s history. The ovens were right behind the cashier. A sign said, “Cash Only.” So far, so good.
I ordered a slice of pepperoni and a root beer. The root beer tasted like 40% Dr. Pepper, 60% sewer water. This should have been my first clue.
Then my slice was ready. I swear to God I’ve microwaved better pie from Chuck E. Cheese leftovers. The bitter sauce was made with angry tomatoes that died without knowing nature’s love. The cheese was distributed like a fungus, in clumpy, insecure patterns that resembled Pangaea. The pepperoni couldn’t be torn by my jaw alone. I had to fold each circle with my tongue and swallow it whole. Like the dupe I am, I had paid for wholly inauthentic pizza that tasted like drunk vomit, and somewhere Lady Liberty was laughing her crown off.
I looked at a TV screen in the corner. In a commercial break, CNN advertised a commemorative Franklyn Mint $20 bill with an image of the Twin Towers, in anniversary of the day the world stood still. They advertised it like a Civil War chess set, forgetting the crucial difference that nobody alive today lived through the Civil War. I sat there, gape-mouthed, as the announcer explained how the left corners of the bill read “9” while the right corners read “11,” adding up to 20, as in $20 bill. Cute. And it’s perfectly legal tender, just like a real $20 bill, except it can’t be folded up into a picture of the Towers exploding by those who confuse coincidence for conspiracy. Clearly, someone was taking revenge on me for accepting a city of lesser pizza.
I stumbled outside, half-believing this was all a bad dream inspired by Keith Olbermann’s comments on the RNC. When I stared across the street, I three-quarters believed it.
For there was the enormous Church Of Scientology building, the organization that turns sexy actors into the worst kind of braying lunatics (the litigious kind). The Church of Scientology, if probable conjecture is to be believed, forced Isaac Hayes to claim he was quitting South Park due to his beliefs, when in fact he had suffered a debilitating stroke. The man who, nearly forty years ago, ignited the streets of New York and kick-started an entire cinematic genre with his luscious theme from “Shaft,” found himself paying handsomely for the privilege of being denied medical assistance for two long painful years, before he finally croaked on a treadmill.
As I walked back to my car, stepping on Hollywood Walk of Fame names, a woman with fake tits ran past me. The woman ran. Her tits stood perfectly still.
Fake tits. Fake pizza. Fake names on the sidewalk. Fake religion offering Fake health to Fake actors with Fake dreams.
I don’t know how long I’ll have to live in LA before I make enough money to move away, but I know it’ll feel about ten times as long.
Armed with this foolish optimism, last Friday night - one day after the 9/11 anniversary - I ventured into a pizzeria on the corner of Hollywood and Ivar. The sign outside said “Authentic New York Pizza” with a picture of the Statue of Liberty. Like my Russian immigrant ancestors who saw the real Statue, and dreamed of the gold-paved streets beyond, I entered this promised land with high expectations, tired, poor, and huddled, yearning to taste excellent pizza for practically free.
The tables were dirty. The pictures on the wall depicted moments in New York’s history. The ovens were right behind the cashier. A sign said, “Cash Only.” So far, so good.
I ordered a slice of pepperoni and a root beer. The root beer tasted like 40% Dr. Pepper, 60% sewer water. This should have been my first clue.
Then my slice was ready. I swear to God I’ve microwaved better pie from Chuck E. Cheese leftovers. The bitter sauce was made with angry tomatoes that died without knowing nature’s love. The cheese was distributed like a fungus, in clumpy, insecure patterns that resembled Pangaea. The pepperoni couldn’t be torn by my jaw alone. I had to fold each circle with my tongue and swallow it whole. Like the dupe I am, I had paid for wholly inauthentic pizza that tasted like drunk vomit, and somewhere Lady Liberty was laughing her crown off.
I looked at a TV screen in the corner. In a commercial break, CNN advertised a commemorative Franklyn Mint $20 bill with an image of the Twin Towers, in anniversary of the day the world stood still. They advertised it like a Civil War chess set, forgetting the crucial difference that nobody alive today lived through the Civil War. I sat there, gape-mouthed, as the announcer explained how the left corners of the bill read “9” while the right corners read “11,” adding up to 20, as in $20 bill. Cute. And it’s perfectly legal tender, just like a real $20 bill, except it can’t be folded up into a picture of the Towers exploding by those who confuse coincidence for conspiracy. Clearly, someone was taking revenge on me for accepting a city of lesser pizza.
I stumbled outside, half-believing this was all a bad dream inspired by Keith Olbermann’s comments on the RNC. When I stared across the street, I three-quarters believed it.
For there was the enormous Church Of Scientology building, the organization that turns sexy actors into the worst kind of braying lunatics (the litigious kind). The Church of Scientology, if probable conjecture is to be believed, forced Isaac Hayes to claim he was quitting South Park due to his beliefs, when in fact he had suffered a debilitating stroke. The man who, nearly forty years ago, ignited the streets of New York and kick-started an entire cinematic genre with his luscious theme from “Shaft,” found himself paying handsomely for the privilege of being denied medical assistance for two long painful years, before he finally croaked on a treadmill.
As I walked back to my car, stepping on Hollywood Walk of Fame names, a woman with fake tits ran past me. The woman ran. Her tits stood perfectly still.
Fake tits. Fake pizza. Fake names on the sidewalk. Fake religion offering Fake health to Fake actors with Fake dreams.
I don’t know how long I’ll have to live in LA before I make enough money to move away, but I know it’ll feel about ten times as long.