OC or LA?

FROM day one in our class I feel like I became the "LA-Hater" of the group. Now that I reflect back on my comments in that first meeting I would not say that I change how I feel, but that perhaps I came on a bit too strong. Part of my reaction came from the various students who hailed from Orange County like myself. I was surprised to hear that so many of them sang LA's praises while slamming OC to the curb. I felt it was my duty as a proud citizen to defend the OC in class seeing as no one else was going to. But this has only unearthed so many different sentiments of mine about Orange County in comparison to Los Angeles.

The funny thing about Orange County is that not one person began referring to it as "the OC" until the TV show came out. I was in eighth grade and the phenomenon seemed to happen overnight. Suddenly there were t-shirts that read "I Love OC", mimicking the classic "I Love NY" design. While the show skyrocketed into popularity for teenagers and young adults, it still left many OC citizens with a bad taste in their mouth. The show created so many stereotypes and misconceptions about how we lived (plus, none of it was even filmed in Orange County, all of it was in LA... as if we didn't have enough reason to dislike them enough already!). Going to school in Santa Ana, a diverse location of OC, I recall my friends saying that it should be called "White People in LA", because that's all it was. When "The Jersey Shore" came out I simply laughed at the furious citizens of New Jersey. It was the same thing that happened to Orange County years prior that no one seemed to care about (but hey, at least OUR show was scripted! Mischa Barton was fed embarrassing lines while Snooki didn't need any help).

Later, I remember being at Freshman Orientation. People laughed at me when I told them how coming to Los Angeles for college would be a huge transition. They didn't think Orange County would be too much of a stretch from the city. But when I tried to convince them differently they were more concerned with where "The Real Housewives" lived. To this day, I still am on a crusade of sorts to educate people about the real side of OC. What people fail to acknowledge is the diversity, community and many unique areas of my county. People are so quick to assume that life in Orange County was full of glamour and privilege. But this is not always the case. For instance, at my high school in Anaheim we had multiple lockdown drills a year and even heard the gunshots occur while out at lunch. I've also worked at many a soup kitchen or homeless shelter in Orange County. Not everything is the idealized or glamorized version of OC that people see on TV. And sure, Orange County probably owes a lot of its success to Los Angeles, but I still think we have established ourselves enough to be considered as two separate places by this point. Like I said, so many of my criticisms of Los Angeles have probably come as a result of defending my own city in Orange County.

-- Reilly Wilson

"We Tell Stories" -- Joan Didion

PUBLISHED IN 1970, Joan Didion's, The White Album, is a scrapbook of the political/pop culture landscape of California of the late 60s and 70s. California, and Los Angeles in particular, was lucky to have such an eye turned on the length of its expanse. Deeply reported and even more deeply felt, Didion is able to convey not just political climate, social disarray and personal upheaval but the very texture of the era's tensions, fears, confusion and sense of possibility. As a journalist and essayist, Didion set not just a tone but presented a different template. She was a model for many aspiring reporters and writers who wanted to dig deeper and peer behind perception. Her stories had more than resonance they left an afterimage.

As we turn the corner and begin to contemplate your final pieces -- writing the Los Angeles you see into being, we'll be looking at different writers -- journalists, essayists -- who have left indelible impressions about their Los Angeles. As you think about putting together your reported observations, think about creative ways to weave the facts with observations. Details, very simply set down, are often key in writing prose that draws you in with its careful rhythms.

Here is a sample from The White Album in which Didion recollects the night that the Manson Family murders were set in motion:

"We put 'Lay Lady Lay' on the record player, and 'Suzanne.' We went down to Melrose Avenue to see the Flying Burritos. There was a jasmine vine grown over the verandah of the big house on Franklin Avenue, and in the evenings the smell of jasmine came in through all the open doors and windows. I made bouillabaisse for people who did not eat meat. I imagined that my own life was simple and sweet, and sometimes it was, but there were odd things going around town. There were rumors. There were stories. Everything was unmentionable but nothing was unimaginable. This mystical flirtation with the idea of 'sin' -- this sense that it was possible to go 'too far,' and that many people were doing it -- was very much with us in Los Angeles in 1968 and 1969. A demented and seductive vortical tension was building in the community. The jitters were setting in. I recall a time when the dogs barked every night and the moon was always full. On August 9, 1969, I was sitting in the shallow end of my sister-in-law's swimming pool in Beverly Hills when she received a telephone call from a friend who had just heard about the murders at Sharon Tate Polanski's house on Cielo Drive. The phone rang many times during the next hour. These early reports were garbled and contradictory. One caller would say hoods, the next would say chains. There were twenty dead, no twelve, ten, eighteen. Black masses were imagined, band bad trips blamed. I remember all of the day's misinformation very clearly, and I also remember this, and wish I did not: I remember that no one was surprised."

-- L.G.

photo credit: academy of achievement

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