How to Get There

It is my theory that the most thought-about subjects in Los Angeles are sex, food, money and how to get there from here, in reverse order of importance.

I noticed this at a wedding reception a few days ago. In past years, sex was always the main topic of conversation at such affairs, accompanied by a good deal of tittering.

Today, not only is tittering a lost art, but since most newlyweds have been sleeping together for several months, talking about sex is no longer all that compelling either. Even doing it has lost some of its appeal.

The primary topic of conversation at the wedding reception was how to get there. I heard one woman say she had lived in L.A. for 30 years and had never driven on a freeway.

When asked how she managed, she went into detail about getting to the San Fernando Valley from West L.A. using the most circuitous route I have ever heard. To arrive for dinner on a Saturday, she would have to leave by Thursday.

By chance on the weekend of the reception I met David Rizzo who, as KABC radio’s Dr. Roadmap, offers alternative routes around freeway calamities. He is to circuitousness what a cardiologist is to a coronary bypass.

I was on a panel at the Biltmore Hotel, the subject of which was how to write good. Rizzo was in attendance. I thought he was there to hear me expound, but later he proposed marriage to another panel member, Holly Remy, who writes a column called “The Commuter” for the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

It is my understanding they will honeymoon somewhere on a little side road off the 405 during a traffic delay.

*

Rizzo, who is also a podiatrist, gave me a copy of his book “Freeway Alternates.” I was already in possession of a similar book called “L.A. Shortcuts” by Brian Roberts and Richard Schwadel.

My interest in the subject is personal. There are 511 miles of freeways in Los Angeles County and most of them are at a complete stop from A Problem Up Ahead at the very time I am trying to get somewhere in a hurry.

I am a man of very little patience, not dissimilar from the character played by Michael Douglas in “Falling Down.” He got caught in a freeway jam and went on a rampage. The only difference is I am more inclined to shout and curse than to shoot and smash. Size and a fear of reprisal keeps me nonviolent.

Rizzo’s book intrigued me. It took him two years and 60,000 miles to write it because he personally tried every route. He simultaneously made house calls as a foot doctor.

Driving was his life. Treating feet was something he did when he got there. He even communicates in ZIP codes. “I would be happy to come to 90053 and talk to you,” he wrote. Since I am mostly at 90290, we talked on the phone, from 310 to 310.

I tried a shortcut in “Shortcuts” once and got lost. I got home two hours late. My wife Cinelli said suspiciously, “What’ve you been up to?”

I knew she would never believe the truth, so I said, “I’ve been with six naked Playboy centerfolds who got me drunk and then showered me sober.”

She said, “I thought so.”

*

I tried a route out of Rizzo’s book. Cinelli went with me. We were downtown. Our assumption was that the northbound Hollywood Freeway was tied up, which it probably was anyhow. We wanted to get to 91344, I mean Granada Hills, so we went:

Broadway to Sunset Boulevard to Elysian Park to Stadium Way to Academy Road to Stadium Way again to Riverside Drive to Glendale Boulevard to Brunswick Avenue to Goodwin Avenue to San Fernando Road to Pacific Avenue to Milford Street to San Fernando Road again to . . . well, you get the idea.

Left here, right there and away we went.

“Well,” I said finally to Cinelli, “here we are.”

She said, “Where in God’s name have you taken us?”

Somehow we had ended up on a dead-end street in Eagle Rock, which is roughly 20 miles southeast of Granada Hills. A group of young men in undershirts sat on a nearby front porch drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

I said, “That’s funny. I must have turned right instead of left on Milford, which got us on Lexington which got us on Verdugo which got us. . . .”

“Get us out of here,” Cinelli said tightly.

The young men were staring at us in a hostile manner.

“Now I know what I did,” I said. “I fouled up on Sonora which took us to Kenneth and then to Central and then to. . . .”

“Go!”

Well, I got us out of 90041 and back to 90053, to hell with 91344. I suggested that when we got home we could watch “90210” just to round out the day, but she didn’t answer.

Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving. I guess she was grateful to be heading back to 90290.