Farewell My Lovely--Rain

It was one of those rare downpours we get once in a blue moon here in paradise. The Big Guy upstairs was plenty mad and to show who’s boss, he’d opened the sky and let loose with about nine zillion gallons of hard-beating rain. Here ya go, wise guys. Take that.

I was working in my office, hacking out another brilliant column when suddenly it started. Clouds covered the sky like make-up foundation on a showgirl’s face. Rain pelted the roof like buckshot. The air turned as cold as a broken romance. And I started writing in Raymond Chandler-esque metaphors.

It happens every time it rains. It’s just something about me, the rain and Los Angeles.

This latest rainfall was a replay of what occurs just about every year in the City of Angels, give or take a drought or two. It’s always the same. In no time, Valley streets start to look like rivers. Heck, even the L.A. River starts to took like a river. Swimming pools, those cement holes in the ground built to worship the California sun god, spill over and flood the Wimbledon-sized tennis courts of Brentwood, Holmby Hills and Bel Air. Mud flows down canyon walls and settles into the living rooms of hidden homes nestled below. Cars spin and skate all over the freeways. Roofs of buildings cave in. Seaside cliffs erode.

It ain’t a pretty sight. We don’t get a lot of the wet stuff, but when we do, oh, brother, we get it but good.

Most places can take an occasional rainstorm in stride. Not L.A. This town takes to rain like a chocoholic takes to celery sticks. Nobody likes it, nobody wants it. So the entire Southland goes into denial. No one uses an umbrella. No one wears a hat or a raincoat. No one puts on her galoshes. And absolutely no one adjusts his driving speed. It just isn’t done.

I suppose the Easterners came out to L.A. to get away from the weather. So whenever atmospheric conditions produce something other than a nice, lovely, sunshiny day, people reject it. But I was born here and I welcome the diversion. A good rain makes me feel kind of warm, cozy, like a beautiful woman’s kiss. It invites me to make a fire in the fireplace, watch old movies on television, and have a drink or two. It lulls me into a nap, or is that the drinks?

Rain gets a bum rap out here, and that’s too bad. Think of the good it does. It fills our reservoirs and waters the crops. It washes the filth out of the sky and back into the street where it belongs. It gives our local news people something to talk about other than car chases and actor awards.

Since I’m one of the few men in town who actually owns a trench coat and fedora, I welcome the chance that the cold, rainy weather gives me to air out my wardrobe, even though it means people will stare at me as if I were dressed in a chicken suit. So what if I get wisecracks like, “‘Oh, look, here comes Humphrey Bogart.” There are worse things than looking like Bogie in “Casablanca.”

Unfortunately, an L.A. rain is as unpredictable and fleeting as the money and power of this town’s celebrities. Long ago, I learned to enjoy it while it was here because there’s no telling when it will return. Maybe next week, maybe not for a couple of years. Even now, as I sit here pounding on the computer keyboard, the rhythmic water ballet on the roof has stopped. Sunlight is breaking through those beautiful dark clouds. There’s just no stopping that Southern California sun.

Looks like another perfect day in paradise. But I’ll keep my trench coat and fedora nearby, just in case.