The Zen of Ventura Boulevard

I was born in Los Angeles County; and even after I moved from there, it was such a part of me that the pull of it was irresistible. And even after I moved to Orange County (a place I spent some 20 years residing in), I was always making my way back to Los Angeles to work, play, date, perform and record. And I walked it from end to end, took buses and trains to it, and all over it, for some sixty years. And I didn't stop flying in and out of it (after I became a Northern Californian) till I became too old and sickly to travel much.

Much of my career was dedicated to mocking it — its culture, its architecture, its people. But all of the good and evil in it, and all of the greatness and pettiness of it — it all remains woven into the fabric of who I am. At last, we can never be "over" any place or any person. We, as human beings, are many things; but more than anything, we are the sum total of our experiences, some we are the victim of, and some of which we are the author of. But, in the end, no human being exists alone as an independent agent. We all come connected to an environment. And so Los Angeles generally, and the San Fernando Valley particularly, live within me for better or for worse.

And so this work, "The Zen of Ventura Boulevard," is largely performed in the first person; but me, and you, and all the others, are inseparable. And so, make no mistake about it, when I say "I," in this work, I am also saying "you" and "them." This thing called Los Angeles, and this thing called Ventura Boulevard — we did them, we made them, and we are them. And it won't do to say you are from somewhere else, that you never went there, because the reach of these places is global. No one, not even a hermit in the remotest desert, can blithely opt out of the experience.

Thus I claim here, perhaps more than in another work, is, in spite of all its flaws, our place. We live here together. We are already wandering its streets together, whether we know it or not. But this work is a cry, so to speak, a plea, as it were, for you to consciously walk here with me, however distasteful this place may seem.

I've already spoken and written publicly about my feelings regarding LA and The Valley so much, that it will not do to repeat all of that here. My story and my philosophy — you already know them, or are even tired of them. But this short work is the most exact and concise sense I ever made of this experience, this uniquely Los Angelino experience. At some point, so I think, in my self-important, regionalistic way, we must all come home to Los Angeles and walk the length of Ventura Boulevard (arm in arm?). What you see, and what you feel, and what you say, will vary greatly from the words written here; but, if you are able to come here again with me, I owe you, the reader, many thanks.