Los Angeles

So I've been chekcing out LA this fall. It's the first time I've ever spent more than a few weeks here. And I gotta say--the weather IS really nice. At least until yesterday. Now, I can look out from the highways to see the hills on the horizon covered in smoke from the brush fires plaguing southern cal. It's terrible.

But fires aside, I've always wanted to know what LA had to offer business wise and quality of life wise. For those of you who wanna know, read on.

Pros: The weather--yeah it's always sunny. I've seen one overcast day and it only lasted til midafternoon. This helps when you happen to be in a bad mood, are tired, stressed out, happen to not sleep well...you wake up to a sunny day everyday. And it's warm for the most part--i brought some sweaters and a few jackets and haven't really needed them much. Even at night its only dipped into the upper 50's.

Space--LA is more spreadout than NY. So yes there are a LOT of people here, but you're not running into all of them all the time. You can see the sky, the surf, the sand. You can jog, hike up in the hills, or around the many varying neighborhoods without having to dodge foot traffic or hop on public transportation.

It's clean--enough said.

Wildlife--I don't know how so many plants and flowers thrive here with so little rain, but you can pretty much take time to smell the roses, in so many places. The roses are my favorite, there are rosebushes all over and they're gorgeous. Trees, grass, ...so nice!

Pace of life--its probably just as fast as NY, but because its not all packed into a small space, the sun is shining, and you've just spent minimum 20min chillin' in your car to get somewhere, it doesn't feel that way. The people seem to absorb some of the sunshine...it really makes for more relaxed, fun people and conversation.

Neighborhoods--take your pick. Ton of variety. If you want urban, head downtown. Beach? Manhattan, Venice, Hermosa, Santa Monica, etc; Family time? Brentwood, Bev. Hills, Noho, Burbank... There are just so many with such variety.

Business opportunities: There seem to be like 20plus TV shows in production by each of the studios (WB, Universal, Paramount, Disney...etc;) that each network (CBS, ABC, FOX, etc;) has ordered. With each of those shows offering a multitude of roles to be cast, the numbers for TV alone are appealing. Then add commercials, voice overs, film, etc; and it seems like a great place to be for auditioning actors looking for the best odds to get lucky.*

Cons:

Traffic--it sucks. Avoid the highways at all costs and you're usually better off. I'm oldschool with maps instead of GPS and it's fun! But it's ridiculous that it can take an hour to go 8 miles. It seems unreal that LA hasn't created a better system of roads for dealing with it, but they haven't. So you gotta deal.

Slice of Life--its all about the entertainment business in this town. I'm sure that'll get dry and annoying, but for now, it hasn't bothered me. Great people are great people no matter what they do for a living (sort of) and sucky people suck no matter what they do for a living (sort of).

*Warning: don't come to LA as an actor without an agent or agent prospects. There are so many actors here, around 2500 elec. submissions are received for each role being cast...you need someone on the phones pushing to you an appointment to pushing to follow up on the appointments you get. This town is all about the hustle. Whether that's a pro or a con is up to you.