Hellfire and Brimstone:

The Hard Truth

For all of those whose lives were damaged by this horrible fire,

Although I know this is not what you want to hear.

“For those who occupy themselves with violence and wickedness and brutal deeds, Kronos' son, wide-seeing Zeus, marks out retribution. Often a whole community together suffers in consequence of a bad man who does wrong and contrives evil. From heaven, Kronos' son (Zeus) brings disaster upon them, famine and with it plague, and the people waste away. The womenfolk do not give birth, and households decline, by Olympian Zeus' design. At other times again he either destroys those men's broad army or city wall, or punishes their ships at sea.”

– Hesiod, “Parable of the Hawk and the Nightingale”

“And the Lord said, "Since the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has become great, and since their sin has become very grave,

I will descend now and see, whether according to her cry, which has come to Me, they have done; [I will wreak] destruction [upon them]; and if not, I will know."

And the men turned from there and went to Sodom, and Abraham was still standing before the Lord.”

– Genesis 18:20-22

Last night, I had a horrible dream. I dreamed that G-d came to me and asked me to defend the merits of Los Angeles, and, for the first time in my life, no words came to me.

As I scraped the bottom of the barrel of my mind, I came up empty-handed.

Because I fled Los Angeles not three days before.

Like Lot in the night, I left — no goodbyes, no celebrations — I just left.

On the surface of things, I am only going on a trip for a few months, but I have always known the truth – Los Angeles has become unlivable.

It is a city which sacrifices its children to the idols of its ideology.

It is the seat of our cultural destruction.

And, I say this, knowing that there is no one who loved Los Angeles more than I.

But that city has become a desolation.

It is hard to say when I first heard the death knell.

It may have been when someone stole the In-N-Out Burger right out of my car, it may have been when I stepped off the bus into the middle of a crack deal, or it may have been when UCLA let students set up checkpoints for Jews – I don’t know.

But this has been a long time coming, and it is hard for me to see this great conflagration as anything other than divine rebuke.

As Hesiod said, “Often a whole community together suffers in consequence of a bad man who does wrong and contrives evil.”

I had finished teaching a class on the lessons of Hesiod and Sodom not three hours before the fires started.

I called my parents after class, I could hear the wind howling in the background, but I had no idea what was in store.

And yet, I did.

The last time I fled Los Angeles, just before I went to Princeton, there was another great fire. Not nearly as bad as this one, but bad nonetheless.

And I watched it burn from the comfort of someone’s jacuzzi, sipping champagne and smoking a big cigar.

It remains the only time that I have ever felt like Nero.

And I kind of liked it.

But that was nearly 10 years ago, and I have changed tremendously in that time.

Los Angeles has not.

In ten years, we have not learned our lesson about fires.

And, in those same ten years, we have not learned our lesson about idol worship.

The sin of idolatry is ultimately the sin of hubris – it is the idea that I can somehow manufacture and worship a deity of my own creation.

Our idol is vanity.

Vanity and violence.

The rabbis teach us that it is normal for young people to be immoral and for old people to be cruel – the reason Sodom had to be destroyed is because the young had become cruel and the old had become immoral.

The mob that came to rape Lot’s guests was filled with young and old alike.

It is normal in the course of human events for young people to push the boundaries of what is socially acceptable, and it is normal for old people to push back against them with state violence.

Take the 60s.

There were young hippies pushing the boundaries of what was socially acceptable, and there were old hardliners who turned the water hoses against them.

But now we have old hippies who smoke weed everyday and rave about the medicinal effects of psychedelics and young radicals who wear masks and use violence to enforce their dogma wherever they go.

Every single Los Angeles college campus has been overrun with violence, and the state has done nothing to stop it.

(Headline from the Times of Israel June 14, 2024)

What’s worse is that so many of the Latte Liberals of Los Angeles cheered on this behavior.

And those who did not cheer it on stayed silent.

How many UCLA alumni live in Los Angeles? How many of them complained about the millions of dollars of property these masked bandits destroyed?

After all, each of those messes had to be cleaned up with taxpayer money.

My money.

Your money.

How many fire hydrants in LA did we discover were dry yesterday?

How many could have been repaired with the money we spent cleaning up the rape-enablers mess?

How many Jewish girls had to walk past protestors last year chanting the same things the Sodomites of Hamas chanted as they raped their cousins in Israel?

And how many of LA’s great #metoo warriors stayed silent?

How many thousands of young Angelinos would spit at the mention of Harvey Weinstein but cheer at the mention of Hamas?

Personally, I know more than I could count.

At least two of my ex-girlfriends.

One of whom raised $1200 for UNRWA.

The only other organizations she supports are organizations that help women recover from sexual assault.

But despite all of this iniquity, it is worth asking, are there no more righteous people left in Los Angeles?

Because there are – I know many of them personally,

But trying to be righteous in Los Angeles is like trying to get from Pasadena to the Palisades by bus – it can be done, but only with great difficulty and ridicule from your neighbors.

Even entertainment, our once great civic product, has been gutted.

The films that have come out in the past ten years have been garbage.

In 25 years, we went from the masterpiece that was Gladiator to the mediocrity that was Gladiator II.

In the brilliant words of my brother, the two emperors in the new film did not add up to one half of Joaquin Phoenix in the first.

And that is true across the board.

It is sad to say, but I see no redemption left for Los Angeles, so I have fled.

Like my ancestors before me, I have been tossed, tempest-torn and terribly lost, but not without hope.

Hope that out of the ashes may arise something far greater than what was there before.

Something beautiful.

G-d knows I did not want to write this piece – but I had too.

As a poet, it is my obligation to put words to feelings, as hard and as painful as that might be.

And as I wrote this piece, I was reminded of another, much older.

One of the first poems I ever remember writing, and one of the last poems I wrote before I left Los Angeles the first time.

So I will leave off with that.

I do not know how else to finish this. I am no prophet; I know not what is to be. I am only a man with feelings, feelings I transcribe to poetry.

Call your friends, call your loved ones, make sure that they’re OK.

Homes can be rebuilt, things can be replaced.

I hope relief comes soon, and that the city mends its ways.

~

Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai

~

Los Angeles Take 1

I come from a city where the poverty abounds,
Where all my friends live,
but no one is around.
And these fake Hollywood faces, 
haunt my favorite Hollywood places 
like ghosts in the ether - 
Eternally bound.  

The rich live by the ocean,
but I live in the valley,
trapped between two mountains tall
like retreating troops,
willing, but unable
to rally.

I once met John Wooden in a café,
He said study, work hard,
and then afterwards you play.
That’s all well and good
said me and I to him,
but I prefer to sleep long nights,
and begin my mornings with some gin.

I come from a city where the 
rich and poor both drive,
where they wear emotions on their sleeve,
and Gucci on their thighs.
A city known for the make-believe -
From there is whence I hail,
A city of the lens 
and the glories of the silver screen.
A city of frauds,
A city of phonies,
A city of actors 
living sans-cronies.
A city of pain
A city of pleasure 
With that old refrain,
One more for good measure. 
I have known it all,
I have learned from within,
LA please break my heart,
you goddamn city of sin. 

Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai