The Seductive Charm of Los Angeles

72 hours in the city highlights its colorful, electric appeal

Mile for mile, there is no place quite like Los Angeles. A city that has both fascinated and repelled me the better part of my life, its endless corridors revealing infinite possibilities and opportunities every time I pass through town.

To set the stage, I’ve had three tours of duty in LA. The first were my formative years up until age 12. I was raised in a comfortable home in the West Valley and grew up a fan of the Dodgers and the Lakers and terrified of the Night Stalker. My family relocated to the Seattle area in time for me to start eighth grade, and after college in Arizona I returned to the LA area where I lived in Brentwood while trying to pursue a career as an actor, which lasted all of six months. After a sojourn in Seattle and a two-month backpacking trip in Europe I returned to LA for a job in television production, and bounced around West Hollywood, Sherman Oaks and Westwood until I met my now-wife, and we bought our first house together in Pasadena.

We left Pasadena in 2003, and have since made our home back in the Seattle area — a place beautiful in many ways but lacking the romance, zeal for life and electricity of LA.

It’s been almost 20 years since I lived in LA but I think of her often. She usually shows up in a dream, where I’m being pulled back and forth between two different worlds at the same time. In the dream, which I’ve had often, I find myself in…