Lincoln Heights is a neighborhood not far from where I live. It’s also the subject of a mediocre new ABC Family series about a black family who moves into the neighborhood. The high school scenes on that show are actually shot at University High, on the other (rich) side of town. Rudy and I went for a walk in Lincoln Heights yesterday. It was raining lightly as we headed down Broadway. There are a lot of 99 Cent stores on that strip. There are a lot of those stores in L.A., in general. Way more than you’d think could subsist in a city. If you’re thinking of the misleading “dollar stores” prominent on the east coast, you’re thinking wrong. These 99 Cent stores are everything they claim to be. Nothing’s more than a dollar, unless they’re actually a “99 Cents and Up!” store, which some of them are.

There are gift shops with an odd assortment of imitation toys and obsolete trends, beauty salons, meat markets, generic family clothing stores and taquerías. This could be anywhere on the East Side. There are a good number of Asians here, a slightly distinct neighborhood characteristic. I like these places: Highland Park, Mount Washington, Eagle Rock, Lincoln Heights. They’re not places that are known for anything in particular. They’re L.A. at both its clearest and most indistinct, unsullied by one stigma or another. I don’t mean to say these neighborhoods don’t have history or character– of course they do– but it’s something buried and internal, covered up by nail salons and El Pollo Locos. Without serious digging, these areas are simply the east side of Los Angeles, somewhere quiet and anonymous and welcoming where you can get lost and slide past a lot of pretty surfaces and cold realities.