June 24, 1984. 41 years ago. Baltimore-Washington Airport. I said my last goodbyes to J Daniel Johnson, a friend I’ve known since 1972, after he drove me up from D.C. During the ride, all we could talk about was how far I had come and how far I had fallen, and that flying out to California wasn’t about running away but about starting over. I smile now as I recall when he hugged me before I disappeared into the terminal, telling me he hoped he’d never see me again. At least, not until I got my act together. “You’ve been down in hell too long. Now, it’s time to come on up into the sunshine.” J was always wise like that. 

With Baltimore and D.C. fading behind me and Los Angeles calling, I found it tiring to admit that I had become a snitch. A betrayer of friends, someone who chose the easy route—self-preservation over some unwritten loyalty—knowing full well that when faced with federal law enforcement, they would probably have done the same. Ain’t no one willing to go to prison if they can find a better way to stay free. 

I leaned back in my economy window seat, trying to make sense of it all as I stepped cautiously over the broken glass of my chaotic life—the shattered shards of lies, violence, broken dreams, and the people I’d hurt. Rushing toward the West Coast, I was escaping the physical and emotional realities of the past five years in Sodom and Gomorrah—Washington, D.C. I am not okay as I gaze out the window at the lights on the horizon, belonging to the city I promised never to leave. There are no tears, not even sadness. Instead, I feel relief amid the pain. 

On June 25, 1984, at 12:01 a.m., after what seemed like a forever trip from Washington, D.C., I landed at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to begin my 41 years of life to date in Southern California, and man, it’s been one helluva life.

The long lines of street and car lights from thousands of feet above the earth are the most enduring images I recall as my plane descended into LAX. Below me lay the promise of a fresh start in what I had come to call La La Land. It was an East Coast myth reinforced by years of watching movies and television shows, along with the visions I wanted to see.

I could swear I saw a vision around you… a California sandy beach and the blue water hugging it, caressing it, kissing it with a tall palm tree spreading its fronds over it, providing shade from the Sun’s warming heat one might find in L.A. where the beautiful people spread their wings and made love to the California Dream full of movie stars and rock stars and everyone who wants to be a star in the La La Land of their imagination. 

Oh, I bought it. Streets of palm trees and weather to die for where cool people just la la la through life, and all one has to do is just be because the dream is before you, and all you have to do is reach out to grab it. Everyone can be a star.

Then, one day, traveling up the 405 to my Westwood apartment four months or so into my residency, I saw the welcome sign. A huge spray-painted graffiti message: Mexicans, Go Home! Thank goodness I’m not Mexican (sorry, my Mexican friends). Still, I realized the person(s) who took the time on a major freeway running through the west side of Los Angeles probably didn’t care or could tell the difference between someone of Mexican descent and someone born in New York to Puerto Rican and Dominican parents. I mean, how smart do you have to be to tell people of Latinx descent that they should leave a city whose name is literally in the Spanish language or the fact that this state was once a part of Mexico?

Wait, I thought this was La La Land, where everybody was cool and dripping with love for one another? How naive could I be? Wait, I thought this was La La Land, where everybody was cool and dripping with love for one another? How naive could I be? If it weren’t for the woman that would become my life partner, her family, and friends, I would think that I had landed in F*ck You Land instead.

L.A. and southern California, I soon discovered, are not unlike many other places I’ve lived on the East Coast. There are cool people, and there are uncool people. Some people care about handling business, while others care about taking you out for business. The difference is that we have better weather year-round; we also experience more earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, floods, insurrections/riots, and far too much crazy driving on too many freeways that seem to go in circles, leaving me feeling trapped in the middle of them.

My first three years in non-La La Land were spent learning how to get around disguised as a motorcycle courier (I had never ridden a motorcycle before I arrived) and an airport shuttle driver (oh, the stories I could share). Then, there was the effort to expand my friend network by becoming a bartender. Have I ever been one? No, but I sure as hell had spent plenty of years in one as a customer. How hard could it be? So, off to Bartending school, and voila, next thing I know, I’m a bartender serving up beers, schnapps, and the devil’s brew, Jägermeister, at an Alpine-themed restaurant. Now, that deserves a book and a half of my time.

I’m from New York and have lived in Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Connecticut. I’ve experienced a lot in life, so nothing I encountered during those initial years shocked or surprised me. People are the same everywhere. Once I accepted that fact, I could embrace a life where I was determined to pursue my dreams and create a meaningful livelihood. 

I got lucky. I met a guy who knew a guy. In 1987, my rocket ship to the stars took off, and for the next twenty-one years, I sailed around Hollywood and live television, traveling across this country and the world, living a fantastic life. It wasn’t all La La Land, but that’s okay. I wouldn’t trade it for all the promises of something better because what I was living was self-made and didn’t depend on empty promises but on my hard work and the support of family and friends.

The better life began in 2011 when I went sober cold turkey. It wasn’t the stars of Hollywood, but rather the beauty of a clear sky, the fresh air that comes with freedom from being crazy, and the hope that sobriety brings. I set out to give back for every opportunity I’d been offered during the previous sixty-three years of my life through community service and, most importantly, by becoming a better partner and father (still a work in progress). 

As if I had something more to prove, I sought to check off the number one wish on my bucket list: return to college after fifty years and finally graduate from college. In 2024 and at the age of seventy-five, I checked off that wish and graduated Summa Cum Laude. How great can my life be as I celebrate forty-one years in Southern California?

I don’t need some mystical La La Land to make me happy. I’ve lived life to my fullest (sometimes a little too full) and have come out the other end wiser, calmer, and La La Happy.