4 posts tagged “los angeles”

it was only today - Day #4 of the San Diego fires - did my friends on the East Coast start calling me to make sure I was not on fire and that my house was not burning down.   This map demonstrates how truly catastrophic this 1 fire  (of  8 other large fires) is- not because it shows how big this 1 fire is is, but because it shows how it compares to the city of Manhattan.  Oh my NYC-Centric friends - the world doesn't make sense unless it is put into the context of your world? (I am not being 100% sarcastic, I am one of those NYC-centric people)

The stupid media has only been focusing on LA's celebrities up until today - and then they realized - wow the Malibu fire is sooo miniscule compared to the fact that the ENTIRE COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO IS BURNING DOWN!

Even my friend Roger in Sweden knew about San Diego's fires before my friends on the East Coast. That's horrible!  He said the video he watched of the SD fires on  Day #2, Monday - reported that the SD fires were worse than the LA fires.  This is SWEDEN!!!!!!  Can you believe that?

What's worse - I and many other bloggers in SD have been posting about what we are going through - so it's not like we've been silent.  This clearly shows a need for more sophisticated and different levels of information reporting - if I and many others have been flickring and voxing about this for days and the large media conglomerates failed to pick up on the seriousness of this - it is clear something is wrong with how certain news is highlighted while some are ignored - and this also shows that we need a different outlet that focuses on first-hand accounts from bloggers and etc.   
This happens all the time around the world - bloggers were posting about the recent Myamar/Burma killings of civilians - but it took a while for "official" news outlets to pick on it.  This happens all the time in Africa and China.   Just because people are writing about it online does not mean their information will get picked up. We need a new kind of media outlet that will be good at doing just that - specializing in first-hand online accounts.  There is nothing democratic about the internet. hmm this sounds like just the kind of service Kenyatta has been talking about creating!

You can read my other thoughts about the distortion of wildfires here, emphasis of LA over SD here, and what a Sociologist would do during a fire here.

this was photo overlay was created by tim

now I know why no one from the east coast or even in Northern California called me to make sure I wasn't burning up in the fires - because the National and local news outside of SD are really only focusing on the Malibu fires of Los Angeles!  Even my friend in Los Angeles says they are barely mentioning what's going on in San Diego!  Well world, although Kelsey Grammar has been evacuated and this is serious national news - I also want to let my faithful friends know that I am FINE and I am not burning up or in the line of fire at all.  I am at least 15 miles away from the fires and there are also a few canyons in between me and the fires.  See the map below - I am in where all the yellow freeways come together  - so in San Diego proper.  It's very hard to breath - we are all coughing and sneezing - burning nasal passages - the air is dusty.

It's not just the luxury homes of celebrities that are burning up - it's also luxury homes of the non-famous in San Diego.  And in San Diego- Chula Vista and towns near the Mexican-US border are being evacuated also - so even more proof this is just affecting more than the super rich and famous.  But even so, I feel so sorry for the rich non-celebrities of SD, they can only go to Four Seaons and book massages - but how sad they don't have papparazzi on them all the time.

You can read my other thoughts about the racial class politics of San Diego fires here, National news coverage of SD fires here,  distortion of wildfires here, emphasis of LA over SD here, and what a Sociologist would do during a fire here.    this was photo overlay was created by tim

"If New York can be a hostile but ultimately rewarding environment for an artist, Los Angeles is often the opposite: easy and glittering until you suspect that it all may be a cruel illusion."

This quote really resonated with me.  although it refers to artists, I think it refer to any profession. I think you have to be equally steadfast about making sure your soul continues to blossom in both cities - but they key is to to not impose your success from one city on the other.  The same humility and drive that you brought to NYC, must be practiced in LA (or vice versa)   - or else you will become frustrated.  I see this again and again with friends who move  from NYC to LA - and the one who don't get eaten alive are those who continue to innovate and continue to work with their new york skin while maintaining an extreme sense of humility and humor.  (i.e. go go jetset steve and zadi!)

I read this quote in Conspiracy of Two in New York Magazine, an article about the double suicides of two NYC based bohemian artists who moved to LA and back to NYC.  the next paragraph refers to Nathanael West's movie The Day of the Locus, which is about the glittery deceptiveness of LA.  In the movie,  "nothing happens.  they don't know what to do with their time...The boredom becomes more and more terrible.  they realize that they have been tricked and burn with resentment."