The mad shopping wave is over and my mind is quieting — I’ve found pretty much everything I was going to find. It’s hard to get to that nice holiday feeling of quiet here. Coming to L.A. in the biggest shopping season of the year is quite a switch from my life elsewhere…. there are two kinds of shopping here. There’s your MALL shopping which involves huge crowds of bourgeoisie-to-poor folks all stampeding to get an X-box or an obligatory glittery sweater, or there’s your upscale blonde-or-Jewish-folks-boutique-shopping on Melrose or other trendy Hollywood areas, mixed in with the Italian and French design houses and extreme cuisine equipment and antique Ming dynasty (This used to be in Clark Gable’s house!) stuff. I have a figure for the former, but taste for the latter, with a pocketbook for neither — but I managed to hunt down some very interesting stuff anyway. I have managed to keep my head together and maintain my reality.
When I first moved here, I told everyone my evaluation of L.A.: For women: It’s a town about shoes and handbags. The style here is very bling-y, way more than I’m used to. My San Francisco theater dragqueens would be right at home, but my Seattlite friends would NOT understand the walls and walls of silver stilletto heels and Von Dutch caps, pants that sling the word “JUICY” across your posterior, and various other Aguilera-wear. I fear for parents of fourteen-year-old girls.
For guys: It’s a town about wildly expensive cars. Bentleys, Rolls, custom Lamborghinis and Astin Martins are commonplace, and you see the funniest things sometimes…. Like today I saw not one, but TWO identically matching BRIGHT white, super-rivet-decorated Hummers having a game of speedchase down Robertson…. Maybe they were cars for Him and Him, since it was close to Melrose….
Second runner up category to describe this place — I can describe it in three shops: Salons for the stripey-highlighted blondes, nail shops, and sushi shops. It’s a wasteland of those three things. With Paramount Studios and some downtown thrown in. And some stars imbedded in a cracking sidewalk.
The weather is plasticly perfect as well — a pleasant sunny 75 degrees. Windows down, shorts if you wanted. The poinsettias are thriving while the Christmas tree lots dry out.
At Christmastime I feel like I must be out of here !!NOW!!. I need to go where there’s direct Arctic freezing gales, huddling midnight singing, stamping of feet, coats and shovels and soggy mittens and icesludge in the slushy road and stupid looking knit caps all wet from snowball fights, soup and cocoa, wet boots, frost on the dashboard and windshield, and trees that smell good. This sunny golfer’s nirvana is so not me.
So what’s left of Christmas (besides the religious part, if you are) ? Spiritual Materialism, as Spaulding Grey once said.
What’s left is thinking of others, even materially: You wonder about them, puzzle over them (what gift they would adore?), but at least you think of them. Hopefully you don’t just buy the latest TV trend. Hopefully it’s an artistic IQ test: Does this object look like your friend? You fund and pinpoint the idea of THEM in your gift purchases. You get them happiness in cloth and metal and electricity. You find something that matches their coloring, goes with their other purchased items and suits their “look”. You remember what they pointed out and previously drooled over. You spend too much on them for flattery’s sake just to see their stunned OMIGOD!!! look. You take out the wallet because you do in fact, think of them. Or at very least, want them to think of you.
You get your conscience bothering you fast if you have no love for others; you soon find yourself marching around aimlessly in the pestering piped-in carols, with no idea what that person is about, what they like, who they are, and you wonder why you’re buying anything for them. Who is this person and why do I have to buy them something? Do I even like them? Is this obligation? Would they like this? Do I care? Should I just throw money at it and walk away? Fuck it, here’s a gift card, go get something. I have no friggin idea who you are. I have no more time to spend on you. And really I just want to get out of this damn mall. Who wants to live in that mindset? See, you’ve made your own material hell. It’s a fitting revenge for not having any substantial feelings for the ones on your list.
But I like best the gifts of TIME, that come from those who have nothing in their wallets to spend on me. I like the paint on the page; the box wrapped in comics and magic marker; the nickels spent at the Musee Mechanique; watching an afternoon of otters bathing; the berries that were picked by hand for me; the ridiculous cartoon e-mailed to me; the hour spent with me on the phone sharing a pool game vicariously; the movie we froze all the way through; the walk with the dog to nowhere talking about nothing; the long drive while the sun was setting, listening to old disco and laughing; sitting nearly asleep at dim sum in a steamy greasy room drinking tea in a haze of sound. Those are my best gifts.
People, I announce herein that I want TIME of yours for Christmas. That’s all I want. If I can’t go to Minneapolis, time will do fine. A bunch of words, a room, and you. That’s plenty. I don’t need all the cheese here in this town. And I will know you mean it when I sit there and say nothing and smile.
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