My love-ish letter to Los Angeles. Part 3 of 3
Note: I’m a few days behind. This was supposed to be my Monday post. No excuses, I just didn’t get around to it. Sorry. I’ll try to be better at it.
Monday, September 21, 2020–29 Days to 40
This is part 3 of my epic Los Angeles trilogy. If you didn’t read the previous posts, part 1 or Part 2, you should go here to read part 1 and here to read part 2 now.
From November 2004 until May 2010, I called Los Angeles home. When I think about that time in my life, I feel… a lot. Lots of things in one container all at the same time. Like a parfait of emotions. It’s heavy layers of joy, melancholy and nostalgia with a big scoop of “what if’s” and a couple dozen sprinkles of “things happen for a reason” on top.
We started with joy in our previous post, and then melancholy. And now, we’ll wrap it up with nostalgia and the toppings of “what if’s” and “things happen for a reason.”
Nostalgia
“I always find that nostalgia is sort of like memory without the pain. And that’s why it feels so good to kind of bask in that, and I think it can be deceptively comforting.” — Carrie Brownstein
I went through some tough times in Los Angeles, especially towards the end. Similar to what our nation is experiencing right now, minus the public health risks, many Americans were out of work beginning in late 2008 into 2009 and 2010. I was one of them. I learned what it feels like to get laid off from a job. Spoiler alert: It’s not great.
I had to figure out how to get by on not much money and lots of overdraft fees. I had to keep my fingers crossed that no major emergencies would pop up and set me back even further financially, for example, if something were to happen to my car.
And then on a Saturday in March, 2010, that’s exactly what happened.
I go to hit the brakes to make a routine stop at a red light and the brake pedal just keeps going, and going all the way to the floor. While my car is also still going, and going. I had to pull up the emergency brake and run my car into a curb to bring my car to a stop. Then I carefully drove into a nearby parking lot and eventually got towed home by AAA.
It was a scary moment behind the wheel, but it could’ve gone much worse. I was able to survive this moment unscathed but the aftermath would be costly. I had just enough money to get my brakes fixed. But for the rest of that week I was scraping up quarters and dimes from underneath the couch for everything else.
And that was the moment where it started to become clear that it might be time to head home. It became crystal clear a couple weeks later when my father, someone who was rooting hard for me to make it in LA, called and said, “I think it’s time to come home.”
The hardships almost never come to mind when I think about LA. As Carrie Brownstein, co-star and co-creator of one of my favorite sketch comedy shows ever Portlandia, says in the quote above, nostalgia is memory without the pain. There absolutely was pain during my time in Los Angeles, and yet it rarely comes to mind.
I much rather have the nostalgia of January days at the beach, going to concerts on the Sunset Strip, spending way too much time scouring through the aisles of Amoeba Records, eating at In N Out, than thinking about some of the more difficult moments as an Angeleno. I also never think about the traffic, or the air quality, or why I need to know a magician to get into the Magic Castle.
It’s nothing but fun and fond memories.
And it’s deceptively comforting.
What If’s
There were a few “What If” moments from my days in LA that I still ponder from time to time. These are those situations where it felt like I was on the verge of something big or medium happening that might have changed the trajectory of my life. Those situations where if things went differently, maybe I’m stuck in traffic on the 405 right now reflecting on turning 40 instead of writing about it in Connecticut. There’s a few that come to mind, but I’m going to just go with these two. Both have to do with my ambitions as a writer (yes, that’s a 2Pac reference).
Spike TV
Do you remember Spike TV? It was the dude channel. Wrestling, mixed martial arts, gaming, and CSI and Star Trek reruns! You know, the stuff dudes want to watch.
Spike TV (it’s now called the Paramount Network) also had a website that wasn’t just a portal for promoting episodes of “The Ultimate Fighter.” There was some legit content on there covering pop culture, sports and gaming. Thanks to my writing experience at LAist and another fairly popular sports blog in this era that I would rather not mention, I found myself as a finalist for a job managing the sports-related content on Spike TV’s website.
This would have been my first writing job ever. All my other writing leading up to this was either free or for just a few bucks per blog post. This was a legit job with benefits and everything.
I did not get the job.
What if I did? Maybe I would have eventually turned that job into more sports writing jobs, or maybe I would have stuck around Spike TV long enough to help Jon Taffer rescue some bars. What if?
Bill Simmons
Much of the writing I did with LAist consisted of interviews. I sort of became the interview person there. This gave me an opportunity to talk to a lot of people I admired.
Bill Simmons was one of those people.
I’ve long been an avid reader, listener and viewer of Simmons-fronted content. That all started in my college days in Boston, where Bill was (and still is) a colossal piece of the sports landscape. Along with looming large over Beantown sports, Bill was also an important figure in my life, as I started to fall back in love with the idea of being a writer of some sorts when I graduated.
In 2009, I got my chance to interview Bill while he was promoting The Book of Basketball. This was a big one for me! I was doing double-duty, writing this interview in two parts — one for LAist to promote a book signing at the Staples Center prior to a Clippers game and the other for the now-defunct sister site Bostonist to promote a Boston book signing happening a couple weeks later.
I’ve interviewed people I admire before and it doesn’t always go well. That was not the case with Bill. I was pretty thrilled with our conversation.
As I mentioned above, I was out of work in 2009. I was barely getting by. Even so, I still went to the book signing to thank Bill in person for taking time to do the interview. It didn’t cost me anything to go, I already had a copy of the book and I knew of some places nearby the Staples Center where I could park for free. I just had to walk a little bit. Ok, more than a little bit. But I was young, 28, I could walk to save some cash.
When I got to the front of the line, I introduced myself to Bill as the guy who interviewed him for LAist and Bostonist. As he was signing my book he asked, “where are you sitting?” It took me a bit to realize what he meant by that. And then after a couple seconds, I nervously said, “oh no, I don’t have a ticket to the game.” He then said, “You should stick around, get a ticket. Let me know where you’re sitting.”
I didn’t want to say, “I can’t afford a ticket,” so instead I just nodded along. I did not buy a ticket. I went home.
What if I did manage to scrape together enough cash to get a ticket and hang out with Bill at the game?
What if I impressed him so much with my ability to spot the stars of “Reno 911” and late night Cinemax films sitting in the crowd that he ended up hiring me to write at Grantland? And then a few years later I’d go over to help him start The Ringer? And then eventually I become some version of a not-nearly-as-talented Shea Serrano.
Yeah, what if?
Things Happen for a Reason
I love Los Angeles. I miss Los Angeles. And I wish I would’ve found much more success than I did while I was there.
But maybe it didn’t work out for a reason.
My father, the guy who called me in 2010 to say “I think it’s time to come home,” found out a little over a year after that conversation that he had stage four lung cancer. His battle with the disease ended shortly after, as he passed away in December of 2011.
If I didn’t come back home when I did, I wouldn’t have had the chance to spend the final year of my father’s life with him. That would have been way harder to handle than anything LA could’ve thrown at me. There was no way of knowing that when I made my decision to come back home.
Things happen for a reason, though.
Tim Hammill is a communications professional in the nonprofit sector. He’s turning 40 on October 20, 2020. He’s writing about the final stretch to this milestone age in 40 Days to 40, a collection of stories, thoughts, reflections and whatever else comes to mind each day. In addition to writing a blog, Tim has also decided to donate his birthday to This Is My Brave, an organization he very recently learned about that brings stories of mental illness and addiction out of the shadows and into the spotlight. If you’d like to support Tim’s birthday fundraiser, go here.
Additionally, there are three other organizations that are close to Tim’s heart: Save the Children, Stand Up To Cancer and the Bridgeport YMCA. Click on each to learn more and to support their work.
