UWTL talking about fear and loathing in Los Angeles. No this is not the title of a long lost sequel and or companion to the Hunter S. Thompson text or Terry Gilliam film of a similar name, different city. What it is, is a re-appropriation of this counter culture touchstone, that applies to the current state of our over the top, unreal and occasionally out of touch city. With the onset of the cleverly named “Carmageddon” considering there’s a explosion packed, earth shattering Michael Bay movie in theaters at the moment, we as a city found ourselves fearful of the unknown complications of the closure of a crucial stretch of freeway, and loathing of what we always loath, being the oh so wonderful prospect of being caught in a clusterf%$ of LA traffic. If 12:01 tonight was truly the end, it likely ended with a bang rather than a whimper. Remember y2k? Yup, that shit didn’t happen. Remember The Rapture? Yup, didn’t happen as far as this town of Jews knows (for those good Christians who evaporated on that fateful day, I apologize that we barely noticed thy disappearance of thee).
We live in a fear based culture where decisions are influenced by it, lives are lived in it, and we miss out on a shit lot because of it. The loathing, everybody has a little of it, towards themselves to varying to degrees as well as to other people, places and things. All I know is that driving home from work at 7:30 this evening, I’ve barely seen fewer souls on the road. Mind you I had the simple commute from Culver City to Santa Monica but the good old Google map showed clear sailing just about everywhere save for a few patches of Hollywood (which, let’s be honest, can always be a little slow to go). All this worry and talk about the delays, and need to stay home, and avoiding the opposite side of town, forced people into their homes and free’d traffic up immensely. It remains to be seen how the rest of the weekend will go, but my hunch is that if you’re smart, you’ll go about business as usual (that is, unless you’re trying to get from the Westside to the Valley of course).
I personally am not gonna try to make any big bold driving moves if I don’t have to, but I will be trekking over to west Hollywood on Sunday afternoon out of semi-academic necessity (Improv class).
Save for that hopefully will get some welcome R&R and some much needed creative and viewing productivity in (writing and BREAKING BAD catch up before Season 4 kicks off Sunday). How’s your weekend lookin?
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