Why I Came to California

It’s easy to slip into metaphor when talking about Los Angeles, a city that has exported the world's most popular culture. California, particularly LA, is often the first or last stop and, in many ways, the last coastal frontier for artists in America. This is increasingly so with artists we work with.

It's also tempting to treat these tragedies as a psychic firewall; we can all find fault with where people live, ecologically, economically, or otherwise, but then how do you account for school shootings and mass terror events? Nowhere is safe, if you're honest.

My family and I have been in Los Angeles for the better part of a one-year stint. Last Tuesday, we moved into a hotel room with the kids, hoping for the best. We’re reminded over and over how terrible people are by news media. Still, the kindness of strangers was evident, doing things like offering us a glass of their wine in the lobby while we sat with kids playing with Legos. A woman with three grown children came by to compliment our family at breakfast; she had just lost her home.

It can be tempting to see zip codes and think these are all privileged folks and that it will be fine, but that’s also not entirely true. In my estimation, Los Angeles is a city that survives on a freelance economy. You come here to make it and work your way up in any number of industry roles. Since I've been here, I've been in beautiful mixing sessions in tiny studio apartments, listening events in mom-and-pop stores, tucked away in familial mini-malls, it’s all connected. It is a city that works hard to create culture. Stuff is not just stuff, it’s equipment, footage, work.

The artists I know in LA also earn a living by recording voice-over work, producing or offering mixing/mastering for other artists, or making extra income from dog walking, babysitting or designing/painting, often for some of the folks who are losing homes. This is the downstream effect on the culture, one that already barely recovered after the pandemic and numerous strikes.

The line list of GoFundMes for musicians and music industry workers is already vast, but sadly, these are only a fraction of the damages. Thousands of stories will evade the media and slip through the cracks. Independent stores that employ working musicians will suffer, destabilizing these artists; the trickle-down is immense.

In less dire terms than life and health, what we lose is more subtle: a continued “beiging” of American cities, less art, more chain establishments. We’ve seen what it has done to parts of New York City and San Francisco, with the loss of characteristically local establishments and a scattering of creative people. It’s already begun, with friends leaving LA and the state for good, forced to relocate with their families. It’s the death of many individual stories.

There is no shortage of links to support; pick one, pick time or money, whatever you have more of, and apply it to a cause you hold dear, even if you don’t know the people personally. Someone will do the same for you when your turn on the wheel comes up.

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A note from Herb 16 , who lost her home.

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