CRYSTALS, ALIENS and THE EXODUS OUT OF L.A.

The Los Angeles basin's geological substrate includes sedimentary rock and a metamorphic and igneous crystalline basement below. The valley, where I live, is a vast alluvial deposit with a crystalline rock base. Geology has always interested me, and often I study what is beneath, just to understand. We live amongst the rocks, and we are ourselves part rock – in that we have similar chemical elements. Just organized differently.

There are many places in the world with crystalline substrates, and the geological phenomenon varies accordingly with these rock manifestations. In the central Idaho deserts, there are crystalline structures the size of skyscrapers beneath the earth. In my younger years, I developed an interest in spelunking (cave exploring) and spent some time in the underground of central and southern Idaho.

One cave promised a crystal wonder-site at the other end of a ten to twelve-foot ‘tube’. The crystal cropping in the ‘room’ at the other end of the ‘tube’ was something the New Age dreams of, a conglomerate of stalactite dreamscape and a powerful pay-off to the breath-defying ‘tube’ which was a rock birth canal that required us to blow out all our air, move a quarter to half inch, then breath some more and inch further along. I don’t know why I wasn’t afraid. I’m hyperventilating as I write about it now. But I can understand the treasure of the unknown, and I continue to have a deep sense of wonder when it comes to the Earth.

I often question whether or not there are places where we are meant to be, even for a particular season of our lives. Should we know ourselves in different spaces and places? And gather from the land, knowledge and culture of a place? It’s an interesting question for storytellers… For nearly a century, there was the notion that to work in the entertainment industry, one had to live in either Los Angeles or New York (and perhaps other major cities for theater and such). But that notion has decentralized, and many have exited, back to a homeland, closer to family, beyond the country’s borders, or to new lands.

I think of filmmakers as our nation’s storytellers. Writers, filmmakers, artists, and thought leaders are narrative designers, those who weave the story of the broader culture and perhaps the future. There is an inherent responsibility in this also…. And an interesting cultural dynamic in terms of how Hollywood works: the business of ‘IP’

The way that ‘IP’ or intellectual property navigates in the entertainment industry is a transactional and commercial exploit – often looking like an article or book or story that one has to tell. The halls and floors of the entertainment business are looking for stories to tell, hunting for stories at times, bidding on IP like a trade war over the truth. Quite often, the proud winner of the ‘story’ has never known the lands, time, or truth of the intellectual pursuit. At that point, the work of the winner is to either find a carrier of the story, or carry it themselves. The writer, director, producer becomes the anthropologist who is telling the story.

There is an entire body of storytellers who have never known the lands of the world – they are writing for the world, telling the stories of the world, but anchoring into the better sides of what we know as La La Land, Los Angeles. Once I was meeting with a high-level television executive who addressed this reality, stating, “95% of television is written by a group of people who live within a five-mile radius of each other: Brentwood. Their kids all go to the same schools, they shop at the same grocery stores, go to the same gyms, parties, and eat at the same restaurants.”

This has changed to some degree; there are more broadly represented writers and creators in television, but the anthropology still begs a larger question of where one exists, and how they relate to the world. And the pandemic gave permission to many to change their locale and travel somewhere else, whether it be where they came from, where family existed, or where they wanted to be. It has provided some kind of freedom.

So the question is: Does a person need to be in Los Angeles, or New York for that matter, in order to create film and television content? And from an ontological perspective, where do you need to be for your soul? Would being on a different set of rocks inform your journey differently? Change the way you see or are experiencing the world? My inclination is that people who work in the entertainment industry, and carry the responsibility of storytelling and content creation, have the right and responsibility to ask a much larger question of themselves and each other: Who am I in relation to this land and culture I am a part of? Where do I stand? What is calling me?

The alien part of the title: off the coast of Southern California, there have been multiple accounts of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) going into the sea. The theory is that there are underwater bases along the coastline where extraterritorial activity has been noted for decades. The activity is increasing, which I find curious. And if you believe you are the only thing that exists in the Universe, you should definitely just stay in Brentwood.