Richard W. Frank

Los Angeles

   Since leaving California people have asked me what it was like to grow up in Los Angeles. Despite having been asked this question hundreds of times and knowing that I will be asked this question hundreds more times I am still at a loss as to how to answer them. How to adequately sum up…

   The land of my birth. The city of dreams. The city of broken dreams. The sun. The traffic. The mountains. The Santa Monica Pier. The decadence. The poverty. Pinks. The Sherman Oaks Galleria. UCLA. Sunset Boulevard. O.J. Zuma beach. Stony Point. San Gorgonio. 

   While it is likely that I will never again live in Los Angeles, I still find myself coming to its defense when people who have spent several hours to several weeks there critique it for all the wrong reasons. I really think that only people who have had LA in their blood really know how dysfunctional, superficial, impossibly complex, utterly maddening and utterly home this town is.

   Now, I find myself the visitor, the observer, the outsider. I am not sure that the LA I knew still exists or whether the boy/man that I was in LA still exists. Still, I am grateful for the time I spent in Los Angeles because it played a large part in making me the man I am. For that, I will always have a soft spot for Los Angeles...no matter what these New Yorkers say.

© Richard Frank 2007-2008. All rights reserved.

Trying to stay off the ground in Topanga Canyon