I was a true L.A. snob. Long Beach forced me to open my eyes (2024)

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:

• The Olympics closing ceremony insulted Long Beach. But it’s a perfect city.
• California’s Legislature has been busy
• These are the best $5 value meals in L.A., ranked
• And here’s today’s e-newspaper

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

The state Legislature has been busy

• After campus protests, lawmakers will consider bills on genocide education, protest restrictions and DEI training.
• Lawmakers also rejected a bill to make kindergarten mandatory... again.
• Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a legislative crime package addressing organized retail theft.

Arrests were made in connection to Matthew Perry’s overdose death

• A dealer known as ‘Ketamine Queen’ and 2 doctors were among the 5 charged in death of Matthew Perry.
• Go inside Matthew Perry’s shocking last month on ketamine: ‘I wonder how much this moron will pay.’
• The arrests in Matthew Perry’s death expose a system built to prey on addicts, Mary McNamara wrote.
• Here’s what we know about the people charged in his death.

Monday’s earthquake was a reminder of California’s vulnerabilities

• Los Angeles’ building earthquake retrofit data have been outdated for years, a Times investigation uncovered.
• If you live or work in Beverly Hills and your building was constructed before 1978, it may be in need of a seismic retrofit.
• Monday’s earthquake was centered on a notorious L.A. fault system that rivals the San Andreas.
• The biggest SoCal quake in three years struck last week. A 5.2 near Bakersfield.

There’s interesting new polling on Californian voters

• Most California voters want to see tougher punishments for theft and fentanyl crimes.
• Los Angeles County voters are lukewarm on a tax hike for homeless services.
• Adam B. Schiff expanded his already sizable lead over Steve Garvey.
• Harris and Walz have built a huge lead among likely California voters.

More big stories

• The massive data breach that includes Social Security numbers may be even worse than suspected
• This Orange County city has the hottest housing market in the country.
• The power keeps going out at the Port of Los Angeles, raising worries about its green future.

Get unlimited access to the Los Angeles Times. Subscribe here.

Column One

Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and longform journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:

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

• Making period dramas can be uncomfortable. For Carrie Coon, ‘Gilded Age’ is the exception.
• The hidden role of public pensions in raising rents in California.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your weekend

Going out

• 🎬 The week’s best movies in L.A.: Shelley Duvall, ‘La Bamba’ in 4K and more.
• 🤾 Here’s how to purchase tickets for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
• 🐍 4 life-saving tips for when you spot a rattlesnake on the trail.

Staying in

• 🔈 ‘The Crow’ original soundtrack sketched a musical alternative in time.
• 📺 Eugene and Dan Levy will host the 2024 Emmy Awards.
• 📺 The 5 best moments in the ‘Alien’ franchise.
• 📖 Moon Unit Zappa on the ‘emotional trauma’ of her childhood: ‘Is genius worth the collateral damage?’
• 🧑‍🍳 Here’s a recipe for Barbecue Pork Ribs
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, Sudoku, word search and arcade games.

How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.

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

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