A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Second Opinion / COMMENTARY FROM OTHER NEWSPAPERS : THE JEWISH JOURNAL : L.A. Is Hard, but It’s Home

I had gone to Wyoming and Montana to escape L.A. Good luck. There are scores of Angelenos everywhere--on white-water rafts and Wild West camp-outs and staring up at Old Faithful in Yellowstone. Thanks to cowboy movies like “City Slickers” and “Unforgiven,” Los Angeles this year escaped its nervous breakdown in the shadow of the majestic Grand Tetons.

In the Rockies, you can see Hollywood and America marketing and promoting each other, mutual symbiosis with a real estate contract at the end. But here’s the rub. In “City Slickers,” Billy Crystal, with his implicit Yiddishisms and urban neurosis, was joined by two ethnic (Jewish and Italian?) buddies. Two other guests at the (movie’s) ranch were African-American. Could any of these guys transplant? Wise up. There’s no welcome mat for minorities in the Rockies, as far as I could see.

It was great being away. The physical toll of being in L.A. gives new meaning to the term body politic. “But where would I go?” The question inevitably arises. There is no place to go. Much of the world is L.A., whether today or a decade hence.