After a couple of mezcals, when I get sentimental about this city, I tell people what I really, really, really love about it. “LA is a city where nobody laughs at your dreams,” I say, for it is true. California secured statehood in 1850, off the back of the 1848 Gold Rush that lured 300,000 hopers, dreamers, prospectors and prostitutes to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Boomtowns of clapboard saloons and miners cottages were hastily erected, fast fortunes were made, and California’s character, as a hallowed land of unfettered optimism and opportunity, was carved into the hillsides.
A century later, the hope and hunger migrated south to the movie studios of Hollywood. They even carved it on the hillside. And today, Los Angeles is still the destination for…
