History-icity

They say that Los Angeles is the city of dreams, a place where ugly is made beautiful and skinny is made fat. From knowing exactly how many hairs on britney's twat to the presidency of Mitt Romney, the influence of Hollywood's morals on society at large is immeasurable. But, in my experience, it's the small things that define a larger truth. (That rule also applies to my sex life.) Here, it is the wishful thinking of the signs on the highways that crisscross the valleys like a Peter North face-painting. The most obvious are those that declare a certain, (inevitably bland and depressed) area, as "historic." LA County has, according to my scientific analysis, added that moniker to "Filipinotown", "Arroyo Seco", and "JewTown." (The latter being historic since they have all moved to Brentwood.)

If you have to put the term "historic" in front of anything, then it most definitely is not historic. In fact, it is probably relatively new and largely ignored, except by politicians who want the votes of the people in the area. And what does "Historic" really mean? It seems to imply that the area used to be described as "full of filipinos", but is now full of EZ-Lubes, massage parlors and car dealerships, with the aforementioned filipinos lost to the sands of history, like the dodo bird and a rational foreign policy.

How about this for a sign: "Historic Lake View Terrace." It is famous for nothing other than being the town where Rodney King got the mother of all beatdowns circa A.D. 1992. Of course, this is not that great of a history. But, and some of my best friends are filipino, but I'm sorry, a lot of them living in one area, then moving away when they could afford something better, is not great history, either.

Having the government officially designate places as "historic" leads to a slippery slope of false-naming; We could have signs such as, "Silicon-Free Chatsworth," "Class/Color blind Malibu," "Safe & Clean Compton," and even "Pedophile-free Disneyland."

At least only the tourists would believe that last one.