{"id":156,"date":"2004-12-19T22:49:15","date_gmt":"2004-12-19T22:49:15","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2006-04-08T12:52:46","modified_gmt":"2006-04-08T18:52:46","slug":"leaving-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/?p=156","title":{"rendered":"Leaving L.A."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb_share_1\" style=\"clear:left; float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-top:10px;;width: 55px;\" name=\"fb_share\"><div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#appId=125029517579627&amp;xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/?p=156\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"55\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p><font size=\"3\"><span style=\"font-family: times new roman\" \/>It&#8217;s been a little over six years since I<br \/>\nmoved from Southern California to Texas to be with my wife and to start<br \/>\nour life together. I had been in LA since 1985; as big of a transition<br \/>\nas it was from the east coast (and how hard it was for me to make<br \/>\nfriends in the first 7 years), it still became home. I began based off<br \/>\nmy Aunt and Uncle&#8217;s world on the west side and then spent 7 years in<br \/>\nHollywood before moving into the Santa Monica mountains for the last<br \/>\nfive years. LA is such a fabrication, a play of light for others to<br \/>\nmake money off the rubes of the universe, a place for the pretty and<br \/>\nthe naieve to become used up and jaded. It still became home.<br \/>\nI was just as seduced as anyone when I first arrived<br \/>\nwith adult eyes, palm trees and pretty girls groomed for leering made<br \/>\nit easy to pack my two soft bags and turn my back on the cold elements<br \/>\nof Boston. I never got the carrot that was originally swung in front of<br \/>\nme but I didn&#8217;t care. I wandered into the entertainment business,<br \/>\noriginally doing studio cartage for local musicans, delivering their<br \/>\nequipment, setting it up and returning it back to the warehouse after<br \/>\nthe recording sessions were over.<br \/>\nIt was a small company, the owner and I working<br \/>\ntogether 70 to 90 hours a week, driving the streets of LA County<br \/>\nsometimes as much as 300 miles a day without crossing into Ventura or<br \/>\nOrange. Whether it was one song for Madonna that had us waiting for<br \/>\nhours on a friday night to go home or the clockwork 4 hour session of a<br \/>\nTV scoring date, we drove around the studios finding alternate routes<br \/>\nin order to make up lost time. It was a great way to learn the<br \/>\nneighborhoods.<br \/>\nA year later I was asked by an aquaintance if I<br \/>\nwould be interested in working for a jazz guitar player who was going<br \/>\non the road. I wanted to tour and said yes. I was off to Japan for the<br \/>\nfirst time and I&#8217;ve never really looked back. This summer will be the<br \/>\n20th one I&#8217;ve spent on the road. I&#8217;ve had the chance to see a lot of<br \/>\nplaces around the world. I now return to Texas but I became aware this<br \/>\nweekend that LA really became a home for me.<br \/>\nFor work it&#8217;s an obvious choice; there are few<br \/>\nplaces where an out of work roadie can find pick up jobs that will not<br \/>\nscar your employment record. New York is good but a bit closed, really<br \/>\nexpensive and a nicer place to visit than to live. Nashville is&#8230;,<br \/>\nwell, Nashville. I&#8217;m probably just not tied in enough there to have a<br \/>\ntrue sense of what&#8217;s available.<br \/>\nLA was home; there is family, friends and history<br \/>\nthere; and, to be quite honest even with all the drawbacks of living<br \/>\nthere I like it! The main thing I noticed while I was there was the<br \/>\nconnected feeling I had to other people. I&#8217;m sure if I was back the<br \/>\nnovelty of my presence would wear off quick but it is nice to know that<br \/>\nthere are people who care nearby.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\"><font size=\"3\">Bitterman bite:<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\">    LAX airport is a drag for its security<br \/>\ncheckpoint layout. The single-terminal-<br \/>\nentrance-cattle-shoot-please-someone-shoot-a-bolt-through-my-head set<br \/>\nup just doesn&#8217;t work for me. I prefer the DFW multiple port per<br \/>\nterminal, smaller lines approach. I know there&#8217;s nothing that can be<br \/>\ndone because of the design of the building but come on.<br \/>\nI just experienced the GE skirt lifter air puff trap<br \/>\nat the San Diego airport&#8230; very &#8217;70&#8217;s movie vibe&#8230;I&#8217;m gonna research<br \/>\nwhat that one is all about as it&#8217;s a new one on me&#8230;<\/font><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\"><font size=\"3\">Podcasting<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\">    As I&#8217;ve mentioned before, this re-entry into<br \/>\nwriting for me has been since my discovery of podcasting. I&#8217;m<br \/>\nformulating a format to work with and have some strong ideas as where I<br \/>\nwant it to go. I know some characters that can talk a blue streak and<br \/>\noften work with them at odd hours of the day. Much more detail may lead<br \/>\nto theft of my goofy idea, not that I care as it&#8217;s not a money idea.<br \/>\n<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a little over six years since I moved from Southern California to Texas to be with my wife and to start our life together. I had been in LA since 1985; as big of a transition as it was from the east coast (and how hard it was for me to make friends [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[20,19,13],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peNcU-2w","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bittermancircle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}