Giving the illusion of wealth in the 1980s Los Angeles, California


When I decided to try to get my career started, this time for real, in Los Angeles, I moved to the San Fernando Valley. I had no idea what I was doing, but I wasn't about to rot for another year in a small town. So I just moved there, to look for work, like a corporate job, which is what I really wanted.

I had decided that where I wanted to be was on the edge of LA, and so I chose the western edge of the valley. If you're familiar with the area, you may be thinking of Woodland Hills, and even Calabasas and Thousand Oaks, but the closest place that I could find with rent that I could afford was Canoga Park.

If you shied like a startled mustang at the sound of the name Canoga Park, possibly turning away as if you smelled something bad, I understand. Canoga Park was in the 1980s, and still is, what I would describe as "less than fashionable". It was within a few of miles of the places that I just mentioned, but cheaper rent came with things like car alarms always going off, police sirens day and night, and either fireworks or gunshots (I really can't tell the difference).

My apartment in Canoga Park is what is called a "studio". It was a little over 500 square feet, and unlike most studio apartments, there was a little wall that at least hid the bed. I won't go into detail about the condition of the complex, but suffice to say that I never kept any food in the cupboards. I did keep some food, and beer, in the 'frig, because at least there the roaches couldn't get in. But they lived with me, they slept with me. I can still feel the time that one ran across my face in the middle of the night. I had the exterminators in as often as I could, but it really didn't help. Enough about that, because really it didn't matter. Once I left there, no one knew. I learned how to wear dress clothing, and the crease on my trousers was always immaculate.

My goal was to give the illusion of wealth, and I was successful at it. No one ever suspected, and I got a great corporate job in Woodland Hills. I groomed myself carefully, I learned where to buy clothes at a discount, I had a tiny ironing board. And I could rub shoulders with people who couldn't possibly imagine the condition that I lived in, people who spent the weekends riding their horses, or spoke of their classic cars, or their dogs.

The illusion was broken, of course, when my girlfriend visited, but she was never critical, she just tried to make herself comfortable there, and of course we spent most of our time together at her place, which was in Moorpark. A lot of the people that I worked with in Woodland Hills just never went east, they leaned in the direction of Ventura, and Santa Barbara. And I became comfortable around these people.

To this day I continue to insist on giving the illusion of wealth. I'm always clean-shaven, my clothes are clean, my hair is neatly cut. My friends who have always been wealthy, of course, don't worry about any of that stuff, and more often than not are dressed in dirty and messy clothes, and their personal hygiene is usually awful. These are the people who have never had to impress anyone, and never will. They will often make a point of showing me, for fear that I might miss it. I see it.

I never did get a high enough income to be concerned about "bracket creep", or figuring out ways to reduce my income tax. I paid some, but not a whole lot. And I don't tell stories of how poor I was (except here of course, and it's just between you and me), I try to give the illusion that I grew up upper middle class, with golf clubs, ski vacations, that sort of thing. My closest friends know that's not true, but people seeing me waving from a sports car have no idea.

I'm comfortable here, and I have been for most of my life. But I've seen poverty, and it sucks.

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