On jury duty in Los Angeles

I'm sitting in a jury assembly room in downtown Los Angeles. It could be a jury assembly room in any city in this country, except for the American Cinematographer magazine sitting on the magazine rack.

I love being here. I love doing my civic duty (geeky, I know). But even more than that, I love the chance to be in a room with a random cross-section of the Los Angeles population. When I lived in San Francisco, I usually got around town on public transportation. Being on the bus can be a great equalizer in a city. But until the Red Line opened, I hadn't been on Los Angeles public transportation since 1983.

(In case you didn't know, everyone drives everywhere in Los Angeles.)

I used to think that one of the main reasons Angelenos don't have a public life is that they don't ride the buses.

Riding the bus leads to being around The Other, which leads to taking away fear of The Other, which leads to wanting to be around The Other. Ipso facto!

More recently, I've become convinced that our lack of public life is more a function of the transient nature of the population here; apparently, the longer you live somewhere the more likely you are to get to know your neighbors. Whodaguessed?

But blaming it all on not taking the bus has a certain populist romance for me, so what the hell: everyone in Los Angeles should be required to take the bus somewhere at least once a month.