On my way to LAX I passed a Pollo Loco that was no ordinary fried chicken extravaganza. It was a warning.

Leaving Los Angeles is confusing. Like Twitter, it holds so much promise. As soon as I land and see would-be The Hills cast members I am comforted. Surely being proximal to those whose biggest problem is running into old frienemies at Vice will rub off. I can walk their walk, talk their talk.

But, like the terrible folk-songs being inspired by Twitter, the promise of Los Angeles must be carefully directed and honed or it goes terribly off the rails.

In the window of the Westwood Pollo Loco was a bright white sign: THIS IS THE AMERICAN DREAM. Sure, visible minorities aren’t hardly even servers in restaurants here, only bussers and kitchen staff. And yeah, rent is criminally high and wages staggeringly low so many people move into cars or onto the street. I had to step over two gentlemen sprawled across the sidewalk to take this snapshot.

But all this sturm und drang is overly complex. The bigger picture: holding on to an empty promise is much more comforting when you’ve paid the rent and then some. It’s so much simpler that way. And it has worked for hundreds of years!

I’ve just made a Tweet inquiry and, thank goodness, they’ve scraped the sign out of the window. I need to make sure none of the The Hills people ever see anything like that. It would ruin Los Angeles for me.

Tags: international, Los Angeles, Twitter

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Posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 11:45 am. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.