Burton,
yeah it was a bad neighborhood, but I never had to take a shotgun to pay the light bill!
That one killed me! LOL!
All my life I wanted to live in LA, as a kid, it was because I wanted to be a Bodybuilder, train at Golds and Worlds and hang out a muscle beach. As a teenager and adult, it was to train as much as possible at the Inosanto Academy etc..
My wife lived in California for six years, and we were going to move there about six years ago, but she refused, she said the reason I like it is because I never lived there. She talked about things like "brown grass"lOL!
And with some stories from you and others, I think I will just visit...
-Rick