It's summer right now and the heat is being pretty mean.

"Africa Hot" as Neil Simon put it.

I've had worse.

I grew up in Riverside, which is 60 miles east of Los Angeles... lived many a day in the kind of heat that would make the biggest complainer in the valley shut up and go put on a fur coat.

When I came out here the first place I lived at was in the valley as a matter or fact - Studio City.

I remember my first year in the valley. Gelsons, frozen yogurt, Ventura Boulevard, Persians... my divorced neighbor and father of two who moved out there to further the acting career of his kids. His kids were a little strange, as all child actors are I'm sure.

Back then I could handle the heat; but then I went and made a mistake that will surely endanger my future and make me one of the first of many statistics (at least according to Al Gore) .

I moved to the beach.

My 2 1/2 years living in El Segundo was the downfall of my internal thermometer.

There were days when I lived there where I would wake up and turn on the news and the anchor-people were complaining about the blazing heat plaguing the city.

Then I would look out the window...

... and see fog. Fog!

Living there was like living in a Morrissey song. Picket fences, industrial factories, pretty gardens, days shrouded in mist.

Senior citizen's in Van Nuys were kicking the bucket just walking to the corner market and here I was wearing turtlenecks in June.

I turned into a wuss when it came to heat. Whenever I visited Riverside, I brought a black umbrella to walk around under like some dainty Asian lady.

I even sported Blu-Blockers.

Eventually I left that all behind and moved to West Hollywood. I was told that the heat was bearable here.

Liars!

Regardless, summer always seems to make me think of the film "Chinatown", where Los Angeles is described as just miles of desert and scrub brush were it not for the irrigation water supplied so generously to this part of the state.

As my nephew and I were leaving church on Sunday morning, he noticed a tiny yellow patch on a grass strip in the parking lot.

"Yeah," I said, noticing the tiny patch as well.

"This place is falling apart."

copyright,  © 2007 Paul Silva 

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