I clocked out at half past nine. I was in somewhat of a hurry as I wrapped a scarf around my neck and made my way for Hollywood Boulevard. I don't like walking past the front of the Kodak center, all the mediocre troubadors and carnival acts vying for a piece of a false sense of fame. They probably make more money then I do.
I walked down to Wilcox and made a fast right. The street suddenly became a reservoir for shadows. I looked up and saw the lights on in an apartment. I wondered about the history of that small place, the lives who've come and gone. Why I don't feel the history of this town except when it sleeps? It never sleeps.
I continued walking and the shadows increased. Ahead of me were these dark shapes of people, standing on the steps of the post office. Why are they there? What do they want? What everyone says is true, this town isn't safe. I walked by them and shook my head as they asked me for spare change. I grew up in Chicago, I am all too familiar with the homeless, but I continue to wonder why there is such a concentrated community of these shadow vagabonds in a city that cares nothing for them, or anyone else. I came out to LA with stars in my eyes, like everyone else. After 2 years those stars became twinkles as I became lost in the post-production world, working on films where my pay was screen credit, editing reels, and talking about what I wanted and living with what I had.
The sun continued to rise and set and my dreams were still ahead of me in this city of a thousand names. Five years have passed me by and in searching for my dream, I have found myself instead. There's an excitement in the air here. When the lights go out so do the hipsters, and the youth. You can see them, they all stand outside the hottest clubs until the wee hours of the morning shelling out the cover charge of trendy while trying to catch their glimpse of cool and somehow be apart of it. Whatever the dream is, it's in the wind and I see the eyes, the eyes of everyone, looking upward as they reach for it with their hearts and are pulled harshly back to earth and her laws of gravity .
LA is a history under wraps, a city of quiet desperation and defeaning loneliness. And yet, the bohemians are drawn to it, from every city and country around the world. They come in droves to see a place where the stars aren't. Hollywood, that once crown jewel, the now orphaned child.
I continued walking until I reached Sunset, the Arclight was my destination. At night, in the silence of the unwalked streets, you can feel souls and see the ghosts of a era long gone, never to return. The writers, the dreamers, the artists, all with a voice, full of hope and destination. I closed my eyes as I walked, I heard the rumbling of the Chicago river, the quiet comfort of lake Michigan, the memory and history of the midwest somersaulting in my mind. How far I am from that firm foundation. I continued to walk until my journey ended.
I had followed my heart to this strange town, I had filled notebooks with what I would do out here. Alas, here I sit, a far cry from my dream but with the knowledge of beautiful reality, all of its possibilities and how they both relate. My dream calls me homeward, to the blue shores of Lake Michigan, the community of Chicago where rich and poor ride the trains and buses and are the better for it. I take with me all of these thoughts, impressions, hopes and dreams as I walk the boulevard. I will remember this life when it has come to an end.
J.M. Prater
