California
I was a true L.A. snob. Long Beach forced me to open my eyes
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Saturday, Aug. 17. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:
How Long Beach forced me to leave L.A. snobbery behind
I grew up in the smoggy shadow of Hollywood, which I always felt gave me a bit of unearned cachet.
When the world watched the Oscar afterparties unfold on TV, I just glanced up at the searchlights sweeping the sky in front of L.A.’s most overpriced restaurants and the news choppers circling above the phalanx of limos snaking down Sunset Boulevard. Movie and book backdrops that seemed so exotic to outsiders — “Shampoo,” “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” “Play It as it Lays,” “Double Indemnity,” “Less Than Zero,” “The Big Sleep” — felt like familiar tours through the old neighborhood.
When I got my first job as a reporter in The Times’ suburban Orange County office, my colleagues offered excited suggestions of things to do in my uber-hip West Hollywood neighborhood. The breakfast place where Quentin Tarantino held court. The industrial Thai eatery inhabited by Johnny Depp. The rooftop pool bar used as an “Entourage” backdrop.
I was too embarrassed to admit my Friday evening plans typically centered on Chinese takeout and a date with Hugh and Barbara on “20/20.”
But it didn’t matter. I felt a bit cooler just because I lived in close proximity to cool people.
Then I moved to the Long Beach area.
Mine was a typical Gen X Southern California migration story: Cheaper housing, shorter commute, “discovering” a place before the hipsters arrived, and in my case, being closer to work friends trying to make it on a journalist’s salary.
At first, I leaned into the Tinseltown snobbery with my L.A. friends. I’ve never seen so many Buicks and Oldsmobiles in my life. Will I ever watch another Wong Kar-wai movie again?
Learning to love Long Beach
Looking out at downtown Long Beach.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
But few of them ever ventured down the 710 Freeway to visit. And it did not take long for me to find my place here in ways I never could in West Hollywood. I fell in love with the scrappy charm of a city without airs that was never really ready for its close-up.
The wave-free beach where each view of the ocean must include a cargo ship or an oil well. The rows of vintage bungalows with the chimneys curiously cut off (thanks to the 1933 earthquake). The pickled egg as the city’s favored delicacy and a rickety ocean liner as its top landmark. How one of the most culturally diverse communities anywhere still can’t shake its boring Midwestern roots (Times columnist Jim Murray joked that the city was formed “by a slow leak in Des Moines”). The way there were always people dressed down as much as me
Long Beach is the seventh-largest city in California, and its port some years is the biggest in the country. Yet to the outside world, it never could escape second-banana status compared with the glamorous metropolis to the north. Every few years, there was the article declaring Long Beach the next big thing (“A Gleaming New Long Beach Sheds Its Cornfed Iowa Image.” “Once Moribund Long Beach Is Booming.”). But it never lasts. Long Beach remains Long Beach.
During one of its boom periods in the late 1990s, writer Alan Rifkin got the L.A.-L.B. dynamic just right: “L.A. gets the superiority, Long Beach the deaf ear.” Or put another way, he wrote, Los Angeles feels like a place where “anything can happen,” while Long Beach is a place where it probably won’t happen.
Olympics and ‘Long Beach erasure’
Max Cota and Charlie May reset their lines as the Marjorie C nears its dock in the Port of Long Beach.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
And this brings me to the roars of anger that echoed through the city and beyond Sunday afternoon during the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
France handed off the Games to Los Angeles, which will host in 2028. Cut to the beach, where Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Billie Eilish performed a mini concert. The spot was widely misidentified as being in Venice … 28 miles and about a million vibes away from the actual location … Long Beach.
Residents were not going to let this slight stand. So they took to social media, correcting the record, sending love to the city and letting loose some long-simmering grievances.
“This is Long Beach erasure,” one loyalist fumed.
An aerial view of the Port of Long Beach at dusk.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
I watched clips of the concert on my phone and felt my own civic pride. I grew up in one of the most filmed places on the planet. But this felt different. This is my chosen home. That beach is where I took my first beach ride after buying my electric bike early in the pandemic and feeling for the first time like things were going to be OK. It was not far from where I perfected my spare rib recipe during a beach barbecue for a friend’s birthday, beginning my love of grilling.
It’s where I stepped out of L.A.’s shadow and became my own person.
And it’s where I had this epiphany: There is much more to life than watching Johnny Depp sample overpriced Pad Thai or eating pancakes a few booths away from Quentin Tarantino.
The week’s biggest stories
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
The state Legislature has been busy
Arrests were made in connection to Matthew Perry’s overdose death
Monday’s earthquake was a reminder of California’s vulnerabilities
There’s interesting new polling on Californian voters
More big stories
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Column One
Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and longform journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Fast, wet and furious: How the North American monsoon floods the California desert. The North American monsoon plays an important role in the climate of the Four Corners states, bringing crucial moisture to areas that would otherwise be dry.
More great reads
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.
For your weekend
Wendy (Shelley Duvall) watches television in the Overlook Lobby in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”
(Lee Unkrich/Warner Bros. Pictures)
Going out
Staying in
How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.
(Times staff and wire photos)
At the recently wrapped Paris Olympics, the U.S. tied with which other country for the most gold medals at 40 each? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz.
Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team
Shelby Grad, deputy managing editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.
California
California news: 2 shot dead, 2 injured in Oakland after verbal duel heats up | Today News
California news: Two people were shot dead, and two others were injured on Saturday morning after a verbal altercation escalated, said the San Francisco Bay police.
According to a statement by the Oakland Police Department, officers were called to the 1600 block of 83rd Ave. in a residential part of East Oakland just after 9 am. Four victims were found with gunshot wounds, further said the statement.
The police further mentioned that while two of the victims died on-site, the other two were taken to a hospital.
Several people were engaged in a verbal altercation that became deadly when one of the individuals pulled out a firearm and fired multiple rounds before fleeing the scene in a vehicle, police said.
Police are withholding thenames of the victims until next of kin are notified.
Oakland is a city of 400,000 that has struggled with crime and public safety.
Oakland mayoral election in November
Such a situation comes at a crucial point, when Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao is set for a recall election in November, along with the county’s district attorney, Pamela Price.
The home Thao shares with her partner and son was raided by the FBI in June as part of an investigation that included searches of other houses owned by a politically connected family that owns a recycling company.
According to a report by the AP, Thao, however, has said she has done nothing wrong.
States throughout the country have strange laws you may have never heard of before.
In California, you’ll want to maintain appropriate language on the mini-golf course to remain a law-abiding citizen.
Take a look at a handful of California laws that may seem a bit bizarre.
If you’re playing a game of mini-golf in Long Beach, keep your language appropriate for children. A law in the city prohibits swearing. (iStock)
AMERICA’S ODDEST LAWS INCLUDE BANS AGAINST DRESSING AS NUNS, EATING FROGS AND FEEDING ALLIGATORS
- No swearing on the mini-golf course
- No kite flying over 10 feet
- No moth hunting
- Peacocks have the right of way
1. No swearing on the mini-golf course
If you’re in Long Beach, avoid the mini-golf course if cursing gets the best of you.
In Long Beach, city law prohibits cursing on the mini-golf course.
So, if you get frustrated on the course, keep things family-friendly and come up with some other terms to mutter instead.
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2. No kite flying over 10 feet
If you are spending a nice day outdoors with a kite in Walnut, California, make sure to avoid letting the string stretch too far.
Kites are typically flown at heights far higher than 10 feet.
In Walnut, Calif., kites must be flown under 10 feet in the air. (iStock)
The highest altitude for a single kite flown was a whopping 16,009 feet, according to Guinness World Records. This record was achieved by Robert Moore in Australia Sept. 23, 2014.
6 WEIRD BEACH LAWS AROUND UNITED STATES THAT MAY SURPRISE YOU
The reason for this interesting low kite flying law isn’t exactly clear, but it could be for safety reasons, or to keep the town’s aesthetic maintained, according to One Legal.
3. No moth hunting
If you’re in Los Angeles, leave the moths alone.
50 BIZARRE LAWS THAT HAVE EXISTED OR STILL EXIST IN AMERICA
Moths are attracted to light and heat, leaving them most often found gathering around outdoor light sources, such as streetlamps.
In the city, hunting moths gathered under streetlamps is against the law.
4. Peacocks have the right of way
You’ve surely heard of pedestrians having the right away, but what about peacocks?
Peacocks have the right of way in Arcadia, California.
Stop for peacocks in Arcadia because they have the right of way. (iStock)
Peacocks are common in the city, so make sure to stop for the vibrant birds when they are making their way across the road.
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If you see a peacock in Arcadia, don’t offer it any food because that’s strictly prohibited in the city and comes with a hefty $1,000 fine, according to Arcadia.gov.
Click here for updates on this story
TUOLUMNE COUNTY, California (KOVR) — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed when they find the bear that attacked the 24-year-old man in Tuolumne County it will be euthanized.
Captain Patrick Foy with CDFW said they were able to confirm it was a bear attack from samples taken at the scene and from the victim and get a DNA profile of the bear.
“This particular bear, we have no record of it being aggressive or ever even being around people. It just came out of nowhere and attacked this young man,” Foy said.
The 24-year-old man was on a run when he came across a cub on the road. Moments later, the mother bear came out of the trees and chased the runner, officials said.
The man tried to hide behind a tree, but the mother bear found him and attacked him.
“It’s particularly unusual because the bear aggressively attacked this person and we have no reason to believe that the bear was habituated to humans or human sources of food,” Foy said.
Foy said CDFW currently has traps laid out and once the bear is caught and its DNA is matched, it will be euthanized.
He said this is a policy if a bear, coyote or mountain lion injures a human.
“Her life is valuable, the cub’s life is valuable,” Ann Bryant, Director of the Bear League, said.
Bryant said she would like to see more research go into why the bear acted the way she did.
“Now to orphan a cub and kill a mother bear if she was just simply doing what she should have been doing which is protecting her cub which she perceived to be dangerous. Why should we take her life for her doing what she should be doing?” Bryant said.
The 24-year-old who was attacked has injuries to his back, side and legs but is expected to be okay.
Foy said if the cub is found, there are no plans to euthanize it. He said they will assess if it’s old enough to live on its own and if it’s not, it will be sent to a rehab-type facility.
“Any bear attack that I’ve ever been involved with bears that are habituated to human presence and human sources of food so they’re comfortable around people, and they can get really aggressive,” Foy said.
Bryant said she thinks this situation should be looked at more closely because if bears are changing their behaviors, everyone needs to be aware and be on board.
“I think we can really learn from it. Even if they still kill her, I think we have to get more information and figure out why did she behaved this way. It’s really bizarre for a mother bear to behave that violently,” Bryant said.
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