“We Are All in Some Way or Another Going to Reseda”: Screenwriter’s Blues by Soul Coughing

I was working on some admin stuff for Praxis Magazine in a coffee shop Friday night. As I was waiting for a couple of files to upload, I looked out the window and saw snow falling. Snow in May is nothing new in Minneapolis. However, after not having any snow in March (the first time since 1876) and April, it was a little jarring and disappointing. I’m not ashamed to admit it; I kept thinking “I should have moved to LA when I had a chance.”

I’ve never publically admitted this until now; it almost happened.  Much like the Lakers and the Vikings (oh, it will happen), I was an angel’s breath away from lifting anchor in the City of Lakes and heading west. While D was living in the OC, there was a major upheaval at Brown, and a vital member of our team was laid off. I was angry and ready to quit. While ranting to D over the phone, she said “Whatever you want to do, I’m behind you.” It was her way of telling me that she was willing to stay in SoCal and I could move in with her, as opposed to her relocating to MSP (which had been a long brewing plan). 

I decided to stick it out after my boss (who had correctly guessed that I was about to bolt) called me into her office and talked me off the ledge. She talked about how I was part of the future of the school and I had unfinished business with the on-line radio station. Then 18 months later, I was laid off.

Oddly enough, no song makes me think about that decision more than Soul Coughing’s “Screenwriter’s Blues” from their debut CD Ruby Vroom. Mike Doughty’s beat poet like vocals backed with a jazz progression outline a cynical tale of a shallow society built on self aggrandizing and aesthetics. Even though these are attitudes that I hate, the song makes me long to be a screenwriter, sitting at a Starbucks with 17 other screenwriters, choking on smog.

Los Angeles beckons
the teenagers
to come to her
on buses;
Los Angeles loves
love

LA is the prime example of style over substance. The city, much like the majority of its inhabitants, are beautiful, yet soulless. As Dennis Miller once put it, “it’s a town where 'let’s do lunch' actually means ‘you’re dead to me’.” The unemployment rate in SoCal is near 13%, and has no shortage of writers and celebrity wannabes (which is really all I’m qualified to do). There is a possibility that Radio Radio wouldn’t have been finished if I moved there. I wouldn’t have met some great people, and I wouldn’t have accomplished all that I did at the VBC.

So why would I even regret not moving there?

Because it doesn’t snow in May.

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