The San Fernando Valley : Armpit of California, Porn capital of the U.S.

Eighty Hispanics surround twenty white men.
The horns of the mariachis overwhelm, their eyes penetrate.
Two miles ahead lie high priced upper-middle class homes, a starbucks, two blocks down another starbucks.
I feel claustrophobic in my mother’s Sun Valley home.
I am in the heart of an industrial heaven. Grey surrounds my peripheral and the smokey wastes of progress saturate the air.
I want to leave the house, but its like moving in molasses.

It is hot as hell and there is no air conditioning.
My only escape is to jump in the jeep, fill up the 12-disk cd player, and take a drive down Rinaldi Drive on the outskirts of this great valley.
This was the best thing I could have done.

I drive as far away as I can without going outside the lines. I make my way past homogeneous communities of newly built homes and reach the end of the road. I stare to my right in the direction of pure wilderness and I finally feel some peace. I wish I could stay here all day and watch the birds soaring over the mountains stretching out in front of me, but I was parked right in front of a ‘no parking’ sign and there were loud construction workers banging away behind me.