Civic Embarrassment

My other big-city friends think I'm moonlighting for the Chamber of Commerce, such is my fealty.

"You're a booster," they tease, "but your city has the worst traffic in the country."
"It may have the lengthiest average commute," I counter, "but only because a bunch of loons drive from Tehachapi to Carson, or from LaPuente to Lomita, which is like the equivalent of travel between Crystal Lake and Robbins." "Well that's nutty", the agitators admit, "who'd try to do that?"
"Exactly."

"But there isn't any nightlife," they complain. "No, it isn't in the open," I respond, "there're clubs and bars and late night restaurants, maybe not a district per se like the French Quarter, though West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip come pretty close. The difference is, plenty of entertaining goes on in the home. People aren't fleeing cramped apartments or winterly isolation, they're hosting dinner, sometimes alfresco, in large, lovely formal dining rooms, or on poolside banquettes."

"What about leadership," they'll pepper, "what in the heck is Villaraigosa doing?"
"Tree planting."
"Good, what else?"
"Stumping for more money for the 405 freeway expansion."
"Lame. Bloomberg's mandated hybrid taxis."
"Presiding over the grand opening of a downtown supermarket."
"Come on", they chant becoming more disagreeable, "the downtown thing was already in the pipeline, as was Bratton."
"Schoolboard control?"
"Control?! Some influence is more like it."
"He bedded a looker from Telemundo?" Predictably, this breaks up the exchange and only draws sorry comparisons with the better complected Gavin Newsome. As I stammer on about Los Angeles becoming less about more, and more about better, and what a sea change that is, I do start to wonder.....