Hi. My name is Ben Christopher. This is my first post. So if you’re a subscriber, you’re reading this from the future. Let me tell you a little bit about the past:
It’s another perfect September night in Southern California. The year is 2024. Tonight I cooked a meal for my family so horrific that my wife actually had to cook a second meal just so we could eat without gagging. As a weird form of self-flagellation, I went upstairs and changed into my ugliest t-shirt— a garish, bright red African safari shirt with big rubbery zebras and a huge giraffe patch sewn into it. My wife hates it. But my two year old is the perfect age for it. Though to be honest, it’s a little much even for him. After dinner, I put him to bed and sat down at my desk to put pen to paper and tell you a little bit about myself.
I’m a writer. Fiction, screenplays, music, code. I’ve lived in Los Angeles for close to 15 years, but my time here is soon coming to an end. I want simple things. A house with no shared walls, where it doesn’t feel like irritated neighbors are just inches away at any given moment. A yard for my cats and my dog. A slightly bigger car for my family. In LA, I can have those things, but it will cost a million dollars. And I don’t mean that in a hyperbolic way. I mean it will actually cost at least one million dollars. Unless I want to live in Reseda. Which I do not.
The benefit of living in LA is being close to culture. Close to the entertainment industry. Close to restaurants and venues and bars and excitement. But LA, like New York City, has become far more expensive than it has the right to be. I love this place. I really do. But it’s not worth the price. If you have money to burn, sure. It makes sense. Or maybe you got in on the ground floor, bought a house in Highland Park for $400,000. Good for you. But for anyone with a family making less than three times the national average? It’s almost impossible to get ahead.
Even if I had a million dollars—which at this particular moment in time, I do not—why would I spend it all just to afford the basic staples of a middle class life? There’s a whole big world out there. A world with trees and streams and shade and seasons. A world where spending one million dollars can get you a hell of a lot more than a Subaru and a two car garage.
I was churning up Mulholland Drive in my Toyota Corolla the other day, trying to get my son to fall asleep in the back seat (it didn’t work), when I came upon an overlook. And down below, in one of the hidden valleys of Bel Air, was a beautiful little private lake. I was fascinated.
I went home and googled the lake. I looked at pictures for hours. Bel Air has become my latest LA obsession. It’s an extremely affluent, gated community just minutes away from UCLA. The gates are open; you can drive through it, if you don’t mind sharing the road with those “Maps of the Stars” tour buses. I’ve never done it myself. Maybe I will before I leave. Rupert Murdoch has a vineyard in Bel Air. A vineyard right in the city, tucked away in the hills! Why does that fascinate me so much? I wondered. And then it hit me-
It’s the same reason I love Franklin Canyon and parts of Griffith Park. My favorite places in LA are the places that don’t feel like LA. Those little pockets of peace where it feels like you’re in another city, or not in a city at all. And now, after a decade and a half here, it occurs to me that maybe that’s a red flag. It would be like dating a woman and your favorite thing about her is that sometimes she acts out of character.
Incidentally, I was once deeply in limerence with a girl and my mother asked me if I was in love. I told her yes. And she asked, “What’s your favorite thing about her?” My mind went blank for a minute before I answered, “I guess my favorite thing about her is how much she loves me.” That relationship obviously did not work. And before you go feeling sorry for her— twist!— she didn’t actually love me. She was pedestalizing me. But even as that admission tumbled out of my mouth, I knew it was a red flag, if not a full blown wakeup call.
And so it was with my a-ha moment about LA. A big, loud wakeup call. And Los Angeles doesn’t even have the courtesy to put me on a pedestal or stroke my ego. This city couldn’t care less about me or my family. It’s a town that chews people up and spits them out without a second thought. That’s part of its charm, frankly. And I’ve always prided myself on the fact that I stuck it out. That I stayed here when so many of my friends and acquaintances came and went. But then I had a family. And my foolish pride wasn’t voluminous enough to keep me blinded from the truth- I don’t think I really want to be here anymore. So come this time next year, I won’t be.
I’ll be back, of course. For meetings, for visits, maybe even vacations. It’s a nice city. But there are a lot of nice cities out there. Some more hospitable than others.
Well, none of this is what I was actually planning to write about. I was planning to tell you that I’m going to publish serialized fiction and essays here on this Substack. I’m going to post once every week. And if I miss a week, I’m either dead or I should be.
So until we meet again, sometime in the future— yours or mine— take care of yourself. And thanks for subscribing.