“Don’t Shoot Los Angeles” by Ogden Nash

Is it true what they say about Los Angeles, that Los Angeles is erratic,

That in the sweet national symphony of common sense Los Angeles is static?

Yes, it is true, Los Angeles is not only erratic, not only erotic,

Los Angeles is crotchety, centrifugal, vertiginous, esoteric, and exotic.

Many people blame the movies and the movie makers for Los Angeles’s emotional rumpus,

But they are mistaken, it is the compass.

Certainly Los Angeles is a cloudburst of nonsequiturs, and of logic a drouth,

But what can you expect of a city that is laid out in the east and west instead of north and south?

Mother Nature knows best,

And it was Mother Nature who decreed that all sensible things run north and south, not east and west.

North is uphill and south is downhill, which is why where a river springs forth,

That’s north,

And where’s its mouth,

That’s south,

Which is why the Los Angeles mind does not function in the normal true and tried ways,

Because their city runs east and west instead of north and south so they approach every decision sideways.

The only solution is for Los Angeles to pivot,

And I imagine the Chamber of Commerce will replace the divot.

-Kim