[lbo-talk] In Los Angeles, No One Cares That You're Screaming

[(Chuck Grimes)]

``... We must have been there about the same
time.  I went to LA High in 1956-7, and hung out with "Dusty" Hoffman,
who was then a mousey looking Jewish outsider like me, who just wanted
a date.  We lived in ParkLabrea, where Sally Kellerman (Hot Lips
Houlihan, later on) hung around the playground, a big horsey girl, who
also just wanted a date!...'' BobW

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Thanks to BobW and Dennis Claxton. I enjoy writing and thinking about
LA. By the time I was in high school I was going to Reseda High 58-60,
then a last year in Granada Hills. Hence all the dates were driving
back to the city. We had gone from desperate straights to upper
middle class with the new, rich stepfather. 

Anyway there was something about growing up in the city and then
moving to suburbs late that positioned me to directly feel the effects
of white flight in a way that was unexpected. I disliked the Valley.
The richer my parents got the more I disliked the kids I met at
school. 

When I was reading background on the current neo-cons, where they went
to school and so forth I recognized them as probably part of a similar
sort of high school to college set. Supposedly bright with at least
upper middle class professional families and very probably no contact
at all with the motley collection of kids and people who filled the
urban sprawl.

Reagan's nice guy facade characterized this particular scene with its
pretense of being clean and honest---while being mean to the bone and
rotten to the core---just as Nixon captured the sleazy underside. I
used to think of Nixon as one of those car sales guys that played on
local LA 50s tv.

CG