Dear Los Angeles,
I think everybody who comes to Los Angeles has a dream.
We can go back in time and see that famous picture of James Dean in the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
If you think about Los Angeles, it's got this sexy energy. Yet it's one of the most unsexy cities ever.
Think about the way Los Angeles is built. You look at the architecture and you think to yourself, there's a Spanish home next to this 70s apartment building that looks like it's about to fall down.
No neighborhood looks like it's ever been planned out. It's just like a clusterfuck of mess, no matter where you go.
There are these beautiful Spanish homes that were built, but no historic districts, so they get taken down and mansions are put in their place.
A $1 million home is a 1960s shack in Mar Vista that's all run down and you have to put another $1M into.
Los Angeles is a city where people come to find themselves. It's like lost souls and lost energy seem to come here because the weather is so great.
If you ask anybody in L.A. what they like about the city, they only tell you they really like the weather.
No one ever says, "I love the culture in Los Angeles."
Nobody ever says, "I love all the people I get to meet on a regular basis." Because people really don't talk to one another here.
Nobody ever says they love the roads here because they're so open and expansive. If you want to look at the newest car sitting next to you, that's about the only thing you can ever see on the roads.
Nobody ever says they love Los Angeles because they like to swim in the ocean here, because the ocean is full of bacteria.
Nobody ever says they live in Los Angeles because it's affordable, because it's not.
So why the hell do five million new people seem to come here every single year?
Because the entire country, the United States of America, is lost. The people that aren't lost - the ones who are determined, and want to connect with people, and want to live and breathe and experience culture - go to New York City. That's where they can battle one another for success. You go to New York and you are going to make it.
You see, New York is this place you go to become the most powerful version of yourself because that's how everybody wants to relate to each other.
They have relationships in New York.
They have sex in New York.
They go and do things in the summer that are fun - the Hamptons, Fire Island.
Memorial Day means something in New York.
In Los Angeles? It's just another day to go and become more self-involved.
What are people doing in Los Angeles on Memorial Day weekend? They find something to do that's going to make them more self-involved.
When you discuss something with someone in Los Angeles, nobody talks about the personal development growth they're going through. For some reason or another, everybody that comes here is lost and they're trying to find themselves. But the problem is, they never seem to find each other.
A relationship in Los Angeles happens by total accident.
One day, you go somewhere, you stumble across somebody who knew somebody who slights somebody, who decided to go meet somebody, and the next thing you know, you're in this relationship because you didn't drive each other crazy and you are geographically desirable. She lives east of Lincoln and so do you.
So you didn't have to deal with any of the traffic.
Los Angeles is a place where people come to discover who they are. They come because they're lost. It's the land of trying to discover and find yourself.
When you ask somebody how long they've lived in Los Angeles, they always say something like 10 years, six months and 24 days. They seem to know exactly how long, 10 and a half years, nine and three quarter years.
It's like talking to a toddler.
My daughter, who is five, will tell you she's five and a half. But she's really almost five and three quarters. People in L.A. measure years like toddlers do.
Nobody seems to really love it, everybody seems to tolerate it, or everybody seems to like it. But people don't seem to love L.A. because they always seem to leave on retreats outside the city, away from it all.
They go on their yoga retreats, discovery retreats, wilderness retreats, or cleansing retreats. People are leaving Los Angeles every day to go find out why the hell they're living in Los Angeles.
And there's zero sexual energy in Los Angeles. None, zero. People see each other and they don't even admire one another. In New York, you look at somebody and go, that is a nice ass, I want to get to know that ass.
That's a good looking man, I want to get to know him. In L.A., we look at one another like we're aliens from another planet. Oh my god, do I need to look away from my do-not-disturb iPhone and look up and talk to you? Absolutely not because you may be geographically undesirable, and you may be even more lost than I am.
We all come here to find ourselves. It's an interesting city, and it's a tough city because the majority of people that come here fail miserably.
Because everybody comes here with some type of creative edge, everybody comes here to either be an actor, an actress, a reality star or a life coach.
Los Angeles is full of just as many yoga instructors and life coaches as out-of-work actors and out-of-work actresses who've got out-of-work life coaches and out-of-work some sort of instructor.
It's a tough place because most of the time, you're sitting home in your little box in Los Angeles. Sitting there, wondering why am I not connecting? So you get on your little box, which is another phone, and you look at Tinder and Bumble and you think maybe I can swipe my way to love tonight and find a connection, and you do. You have a text conversation that lasts throughout the entire night and you feel a little bit better sitting home in your box.
L.A., tough place, why do we all stay here?
You know the answer to that?
The weather.
The weather is so amazing.
It's May and it's still not too warm in Los Angeles. It feels good, you can still wear a jacket 10 months out of year, yet you don't have to wear a parka.
You can't swim in the oceans because they're so cold and if you do go in those oceans, it's disgusting anyways and there are big-ass sharks that swim the shores because they're basically there to eat the tourists who are going to go in the water.
We're all here because of the weather. You ask anybody why they stay, and they say, "Because I like the weather. Florida is too damn hot and Los Angeles always has the perfect temperature." But then again, have you been in the valley in the summertime? It's not exactly perfect.
But no place is. So Los Angeles chews you up, eats you up, and swallows you, but you'll always go find someone who inspires you because everybody here is trying to find themselves. The problem is we need to stop being by ourselves and we need to start finding each other because the only way you're ever going to find yourself is to connect with somebody else.
Self-awareness is only great when it's shared. That way, the two of you can inspire one another to grow. Otherwise, you're just going to be this person who lives in Los Angeles for 10 to 15 years and hasn't had a relationship in 10 years, but you know what? That's not the way life's supposed to be.
So all of you that live in Los Angeles, this is a message: Connect with somebody, you'll grow a lot more.
Snuggling alone is not how we're meant to be. Snuggling together is how we should be. Los Angeles' weather will be a lot better if we can weather it together.