Zillow Fantasy Doom Scroll

You know what I'm talking about

I have reached a junction in life where more than 50% of my thoughts and conversations are consumed by where I could, should, or would live. I don’t know if this is a widely experienced phenomenon, but my gut tells me it’s common among city dwellers as we tend to love and lament our seemingly absurd living conditions.

More often than I’d like to admit, I find myself spiraling in a doom scroll, entertaining every possibility. The towns in Italy that will pay you to restore their historic homes. Architectural gems in the middle of Pennsylvania that can still be had for a relative steal—so long as you’re willing to turn your entire personality into “home restorer” in a town with nothing but a Pizza Hut and a Walmart. I’ve seen sprinter vans with more amenities than my house in LA, and mansions in the Midwest for less than the cost of the van—provided you don’t mind driving seven hours to the grocery store and contending with racist neighbors.

I let the couch swallow me as I imagine the different versions of myself. The tradeoffs. I could have an ocean view if I work myself into burnout. Or 3,500 square feet atop a mountain if I’m willing to handle power outages and weeks without hearing another human voice.

Last night’s trip around the world was interrupted by the realization that I had tickets to a show. I launched from my coma and rushed out. The air outside felt clean after the recent onslaught of rain. That’s a strange feeling—the sudden awareness that you can breathe better, having grown accustomed to the daily blanket of smog. If I had one of those sprinter vans, I could be breathing easy somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Or down in Baja.

I started my car and, in under two minutes, found myself in bumper-to-bumper traffic. No accident—just too many people. There’s probably no traffic in those Italian towns. Probably no cars either. How would I get supplies? How far is the nearest hardware store?

Twenty-five minutes later, I was in Pasadena, parked a few blocks from the former South Pasadena Elementary School—now a 500-capacity independent music venue called Sid the Cat Auditorium.

A couple of guys who’ve shaped culture in LA for over a decade decided to sink their savings into an independent venue with no outside financial backing, simply for the love of it. You feel it the minute you walk in. The bar is an old classroom. The stained glass lamps and shelves of liquor tell you it’s a bar, but otherwise you half expect arithmetic to resume on Monday morning. The auditorium still feels like a school gym, speakers mounted to the original wooden rafters, a sound engineer at the console. Without those details, you’d be waiting for a gym teacher to tell you to sit cross-legged on the floor.

All of this is a compliment. These are the marks of something independent. If anyone else were involved, the history would be erased and the soul eradicated.

This is a big deal as Pasadena is adjacent to Altadena, which had areas that were all but erased by the fires approximately a year ago. In a post-disaster landscape, it says something of the identity of the city to allow a music venue to be built in an old elementary school. It’s an indication of priorities. Back when I was living in Long Beach, New York, the town had a clean slate after Hurricane Sandy decimated it. There were still four feet of sand and debris piled in front of my apartment when the rebuild began. The first thing that was constructed? A Dunkin’ Donuts.

The other indication of priorities comes from the type of acts booked in the space. I was there to see JJerome87, the new solo project of Joe Newman of Alt-J. There was an energy in the crowd of people feeling privileged to be there, which was only echoed back by Newman once he took the stage. The show was great, and his solo music sounds like nothing I can quite compare to. After his final note rang out, while the front rows were still cheering and the back began to thin, my friend turned to me and said, “There’s only one of him,” and I’d say that accurately summed up the evening.

I headed back toward home, first driving my friend back to his apartment as he told me we’d have to avoid one of the narrow streets leading to his building because the unmanned Waymo cars keep getting stuck there and causing traffic jams. After dropping him off, I drove in silence, thinking about the show, about the old auditorium, and about this city that I’ve called home for 10 years. It’s a pain in the ass, but there’s only one.