Re: arleta, ca? L.A. looping scene

["Stephen Goodman" <sgoodman@earthlight.net>]

A test of my capability to post follows, as well as a real posting!

Happy New Year/etc. all!  My targeting is still spot-on, and having just
gotten engaged to a nice British lady in Kensington-London, can see myself
in the UK in as little as 10 months!  Thus my feedback on the LA
Looping/Ambient scene might be a bit different than in the past... :)

1.  The LA Ambient scene is more often than not SO ambient as to be
invisible, despite the dependence upon it for mood music by the TV and Film
industries (at least!).  One might get the impression, unless one 
subscribes
to lists like this, that a majority of us spend most of our time looking 
for
a place to play where we don't have to pay ... (LA is after all, to most
"industry insiders" still a Hollywood suburb, and, alas, Hollywood is STILL
Hollywood).

2.  LA/Hollywood is still the best place in the known universe to buy used
music equipment.  Hint - Go for the ones WITHOUT the Anvil cases, as 
they've
not been all over the known universe... :)

3.  Guitar Center is still populated by sharks.

4.  The air isn't as clean is it looks on TV.  There are days that some of
us refer to as "shooting days" because they're so clear it's unusual.  
(This
is done in NYC as well, of course, but only its residents know about the
smog there, as it's pretty much a local secret, and not as visible as 
LA's.)
Skin problems here are more the fault of the air than the sun, and you have
to wash the Sky Residue off your car at least once a week.

5.  Having lived here for 15 years, I've often thought that California is
[a] pretty much run by the police, and [b] would be a fun place to live if
children weren't allowed.  Since [b] will never happen, I have to say that
it's not, to quote Frank Zappa, "a real nice place to raise your kids up."
Someone coming from the Midwest, though, should be armed already with a
stable concept of Family, hopefully enough to hold things together in the
onslaught of Other-Than-Normal-Stuff that flies around here disguised as
Normal Stuff.  But enough of that.

Obviously I've built up the kind of little discontents about LA that I did
about NYC, before leaving THAT part of the world in 1984 - and I don't mean
to be overly cynical either.  Hopefully 2000 will be a year where most of 
us
look back on the previous Century as one that can teach us all things we
haven't imagined as yet.

Cheers!

Stephen Goodman       * It's the free Loop Of The Week!
EarthLight Productions * http://www.earthlight.net/Studios.html