Is Los Angeles the Capital City of Comedy?
Probably.
As I may have mentioned now and then over the years, I’m not a huge fan of John Podhoretz, Hereditary Editor of Commentary. But, he’s usually a more perceptive pop culture critic than this:
Evidently, the Grammy Awards broadcast decided upon a theme of a tribute to Los Angeles in the wake of the fires of January 7th that devastated a couple of upscale suburbs, Pacific Palisades and Altadena.
I haven’t paid much attention to the Grammy Awards since the mid-1970s, but evidently the show opened with Randy Newman’s satiric “I Love L.A.” and also included the Mamas and Papas exquisite “California Dreamin’,” about which I always imagined when I was a kid that the line “on such a winter’s day” was about a bluebird day in January when the snow on the Southern California skyline is crystalline.
That’s actually not what “California Dreamin’” is about, but I was wrong to think that.
But of course Los Angelenos have always felt their city was the funniest city ever.
L.A. is the capital city of comedy.
It might be the capital city of comedy media production as a side effect of being the capital city of media production, top comedians and hopefuls have long come here because of this, but New York City is the capital city of comedy. The density, pedestrian orientation, and mix of people creates far more hilarious situations per unit time than any other city in the US. LA can't compete. How many setups and straight lines per mile are there in LA traffic?
I moved to LA five years ago, and maybe it's my age or the pandemic, but I've found the people here to be the least humorous of any of the many cities I've lived in, except perhaps Pittsburgh. I've met one or two funny people and two who, once they know you, make a sincere effort. I also find people here are less willing to laugh. It's like even the civilians are trying to do the jaded comedian 'that's funny' instead of laughing. Or maybe I'm losing it. I swear I used to crack people up...wait, I still do so at work (remote) so yes, I blame LA.
So it's like "Born in the USA?"