Perhaps, on this particular December day, we can be forgiven for not sharing the sentiments expressed in the following wistful opening lyrics to California Dreamin’:
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
On a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm
If I was in L.A
California Dreamin'
On such a winter's day
You’d not be so much ‘safe and warm’ in L.A. as ‘dead and cold’ had you encountered the gunman shown in the videos below, standing with a pistol at the Sunset and Vine intersection in L.A. shooting at anyone who drove by. Although the second of the videos is only a few seconds in length, it demonstrates the cool, calculated and deliberate nature of the violence. What motivated this man to seek to kill ordinary people completely unknown to him? This is something that appears to baffle the news reporters in the first video, but the clue is provided at 2 minutes 42 seconds in, where a witness states that the killer was yelling “Allahu Akbar!” as he went about his nefarious work. Might there not be a hint in these two increasingly tiresomely familiar words? What kind of god takes a delight in killing? Evidently the one that this man chose to follow.
Strangely, the hippies of the Mamas and Papas omitted to display the 'enrichment' and 'diversity' of contemporary L.A. in the promotional video to their 1965 hit California Dreamin' (although there was a nod to this by including an obese group member alongside the attractive one in the stripy top). It may have been somewhere worth visiting in the 1960s, but these days I'm quite happy for Los Angeles to be many thousands of miles away. Just a quick question: are the people of California still dreaming, or have they woken up to the reality of the bad acid trip that is L.A. today?
