A New Tale of 2 Cities: Stars Versus Pin Stripes

The place: Washington, D.C. The time: 4:07 p.m., Thursday. The scene: cafeteria, General Accounting Office building; 10-minute coffee break for three staff members of GAO personnel management division. Main topic of conversation: Will Clinton’s new health package survive Republican opposition in Congress?

The place: Los Angeles. The time: 2ish, 3ish, who knows? It’s probably midweek. The scene: Caffe Luna, Melrose Avenue; 90-minute cappuccino break for two out-of-work actresses and one bass player for a fledgling rock band looking to re-create the sound of Bachman Turner Overdrive. Main topic of conversation: What time are we meeting Greg and Bobbie tonight?

If you’re looking for extremes in the cultural landscape of Western civilization, Washington and Los Angeles are logical places to start. They’re also good spots to find unusual criminal acts, unusual sexual acts and unusual second acts of American life. No towns combine lawyers and lawlessness as well as Washington and Los Angeles.

I know D.C. and L.A.--they are the only places I have lived. (In the interest of full disclosure, it should be revealed that I was in Washington for the first 33 years of my life, then moved to Los Angeles only 18 months ago. Granted, I should wait to comment on L.A. life until I’ve lived here for 33 years like I did in D.C., but, hey, I’ve got deadlines.)

One is the seat of government, the other is entertainment at your feet. One is the nation’s political capital, the other is the nation’s impolitic capital. One is inside the Beltway, the other is inside out. One is 9 to 5, the other is 90210. Neither is New York.

D.C. and L.A. do have one unmistakable thing in common: They’re both company towns in which you’re largely judged by the company you keep.

So we are here today to compare and contrast the capital of the free world and the capital of the nipple ring.

I profess no preference for either place--I believe that they are equally terrific and terrifying--so I’ll let the reader be the judge of each area’s strengths and flaws. But before we start with our clip-and-save consumer guide, I’d like to quote two credible sources regarding D.C. and L.A.:

* Nineteenth-Century journalist Horace Greeley said Washington was a city where “the rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting, the mud is deep and the morals are deplorable.” (And, to think, he hadn’t even met Marion Barry.)

* In the 1990 film “Defending Your Life,” the Rip Torn character, when asked by the Albert Brooks character if they are in Hell, answered: “Actually there is no Hell--although I hear Los Angeles is getting pretty close.” (And, to think, he hadn’t even met Madonna.)

You decide in which place you’d rather pay high taxes.

*

Malls: In D.C., you get into your car, you drive to a mall, you park your car, you go into a couple of stores and, an hour later, you drive home. In L.A., you get into your car, you drive to a mall, you look for a place to park your car for the better part of an hour and you spend another hour looking for your car before you drive home. In D.C., EEa mall is a place to shop; in L.A., a mall is a place to live. I’m waiting for the Beverly Center to open up the area’s first high school/Thai carryout. South Coast Plaza has a greater output of goods and services than South Carolina. You could get lost for weeks in some of these places; if I were on the lam, I’d hide at any of the Limited outlets in a Southland mall.

Restaurant dining: If you get really hungry in Washington and have enough time, you simply go to New York for dinner. Most D.C. restaurants can be divided into two categories: drive-through or drive-by. The food is OK, I guess, other than the fact that there are no good delis, no good bagels, no good pasta, no good steaks and no good shakes. Los Angeles--other than the fact that pizza here is regarded as some type of lab experiment/dumping ground for eclectic toppings--is the best restaurant city in America, except maybe New York. The key in L.A. is to find a restaurant that you like and patronize it as much as possible until it goes out of business within three months.

Restaurant parking: In D.C., you drive your car to your restaurant of choice and--if you are not ordering dinner through a clown’s mouth--park the car yourself and go inside. In L.A., you go to your restaurant of choice and--as you approach within 75 feet of the establishment--somebody opens your door, gives you a small ticket and takes your car away; this is called “valet parking,” French for “the scratch on your door was already there.”

Traffic: It’s bad in D.C., very bad. But in L.A.--and I don’t think I’m overstating things--it’s as if every automobile built between 1965 and 1993 is on the road at this very moment, most trying to switch over three lanes in less than 25 feet to enable them to get two car lengths farther ahead of the gridlocked field. Everybody seems to be going somewhere at all times, although nobody is going anywhere. When I drive, say, from Northridge to Newport Beach, I usually bring a case of Snapple, a selection of Pop Tarts and Fi-Bars, the complete recorded works of ZZ Top and Toto, and--on the occasional Friday that I dare to travel--reservations at a Torrance-area motel to break up the trip with a brief overnight stay in a confined space other than my car.

Public transit: In D.C., it’s politically correct to say you take the subway to work, even if you drive in daily. Embassy types drive to work, park illegally and ignore the tickets. Meanwhile, most Angelenos think “mass transit” is a limousine. I don’t blame anybody here for avoiding the subway, which doesn’t go anywhere yet and is the Russian roulette of U.S. mass transit--do you want to be 75 feet underground when a 6.6 earthquake hits? Bottom line: In D.C. or L.A., everybody prefers to travel by car. (In either city, many of those without a car procure one the old-fashioned way: They take it from its current owner in a brief transaction, usually at gunpoint.)

Fashion: In D.C., you dress for success. In L.A., you undress for success. Washington’s K Street office district looks like a Kremlin reunion: conservative business suits, out-of-style neckties and dark, uncomfortable shoes (and that’s just the women). It’s a stuffy town; heck, bicycle couriers in D.C. wear cuff links. In L.A., anything goes--you can look like a captain of industry or Captain Kirk. Underwear is optional, and when it’s worn, often nothing else is. “Black tie” here means a bolo with a jeans jacket and dungarees. In L.A., sometimes dogs are groomed better than people.

Approaching women: A typical social exchange in D.C. goes like this--Him: “Could I interest you in dinner?” Her: “No thank you, and I’m going to need your home address so that I can serve you with court papers restraining you from coming within 75 feet of my place of work or residence.” A typical social exchange in L.A. goes like this--Him: “That’s a real cool choker you’ve got on.” Her: “Sure, I’ll sleep with you, but first I want to stop off for some frozen yogurt.” OK, so I’ve exaggerated to make a point--that social dynamics in the West are much more fluid and free-flowing than in the East. D.C.’s a tough town on singles, particularly those with no connection to the Kennedys. It’s much easier to talk to women in L.A., although sometimes you find out they’re men.

TV news: The local newscasts in Washington--the nation’s “murder capital”--are no more than nightly police blotters, a horrifying, blood-filled videofest of crime, drugs and mayhem. The local newscasts in Los Angeles are worse. (If all you ever watched was Channel 2’s “Action News,” you’d think that someone is taken hostage in L.A. every 12 minutes of every day of the year.)

TV weather: Weathercasters in L.A.--the broadcasting equivalent to the Maytag repairman--have 20 different ways to say “sunny and mild.” They love using such terms as “marine layer” because it makes them feel like meteorologists. Weathercasters in D.C. have absolutely no idea what it’s going to be like the next day. They love doing their segments from outside to show viewers that it’s sunny or stormy at that moment to cover themselves in case the weather changes unexpectedly in 15 minutes.

Bodies of water: Most folks in the D.C. area are an hour or two from the Atlantic, while many folks in the L.A. area are just a few minutes from the Pacific. Advantage, L.A. And, frankly, when you’re talking shining seas, the Pacific is the Taj Mahal of oceans. On the other hand, let’s talk rivers for a moment: D.C. features the confluence of the scenic Potomac and Anacostia rivers; L.A. features the Los Angeles River, reminiscent of a sewer drain in suburban Sandusky, Ohio.

Environmental concerns: In L.A., the biggest problem is air pollution, a.k.a. smog. In D.C., the biggest problem is talk pollution, a.k.a. Congress. L.A., at least, addresses its problem with strict emission standards on cars and the like. D.C., meanwhile, aggravates its problems with “The McLaughlin Group,” “Crossfire” and the like.

Sports: In D.C., the Redskins are the only team that counts. (Name a Bullets player, win valuable prizes.) In L.A., there is a professional sporting event occurring every 24 minutes--either the Lakers, Clippers, Rams, Raiders, Dodgers, Angels, Mighty Ducks, Kings, USC or UCLA--and, sometimes, people actually go to the games, or at least part of them.

Adolescent awareness: The average eighth-grader in D.C. knows who the president of the United States is. The average eighth-grader in L.A. knows who will be on “The Tonight Show” that evening.