S01 EP01: Surviving LA Year One: Tony, Jay, Andre, & Alex

TRANSCRIPT

S01 EP01

Surviving LA Year One: Tony, Jay, Andre, & Alex

Tony [00:00:02] Welcome to L.A. Survival Guide, a podcast posted by Los Angeles working professionals discussing L.A. culture from a millennial perspective. 

Tony [00:00:26] Welcome and thank you for joining us today. 

Tony [00:00:28] We have in the studio well, I'm going to start with myself. I'm Tony and over to my right is... 

Jay [00:00:36] Is Jay. 

Andre [00:00:37] Hi, my name is Andre. 

Alex [00:00:39] And I'm Alex. What's so funny? 

Jay [00:00:42] Andre can't help but laugh. 

Andre [00:00:45] Well I was trying not to belie the fact that I was just yawning. 

Jay [00:00:49] I thought, you're laughing at Jay.

Alex [00:00:51] Well, I couldn't hear you yawn. Don't worry. So, I'm sitting to Andre's right. And then Tony's my right again. 

Tony [00:00:57] And today we will be discussing our first year in L.A. We decided to speak on this topic because I feel that speaking with a lot of friends, everyone has to a degree experienced some sort of adversity, adjusting to life in L.A. their first year here. So, these are the stories of the four gentlemen we have just introduced. 

Jay [00:01:24] Yeah. It was a tough time for all of us in our first year. We had a tough time. 

Tony [00:01:32] So who would like to go fast and just give us the overview of the situation, situations surrounding their move to L.A.? 

Jay [00:01:41] I think you should go first. I think you have a really compelling story. 

Alex [00:01:43] Yeah. Tony So where are you originally from? 

Tony [00:01:46] So I grew up mostly in South Carolina, in the Columbia area. For those of you familiar with the state, my parents were both in the military one point. So, we kind of moved around. But yeah, I feel like I spent most of my formative years in South Carolina. 

Jay [00:02:00] That's also the hometown of Luke Cage, AKA Mike Colter, the actor. 

Tony [00:02:05] And Aziz Ansari. 

Alex [00:02:07] I did not know that. 

Tony [00:02:08] Yeah.

Jay [00:02:09] Is that? Oh, really as Aziz Ansari's from Columbia? That's awesome. 

Tony [00:02:12] Yeah.

Alex [00:02:13] So I'm from the East Coast. I was born on Long Island, but I grew up in New Jersey and spent most of my formative years there in Roxbury Township of north New Jersey. 

Andre [00:02:26] What's a township? 

Alex [00:02:28] Great question. I never really knew. I should probably look that up one day. So, my city, I guess you can call it a city. It was called Succasunna. 

Jay [00:02:40] What?

Alex [00:02:41] Yep.

Jay [00:02:42] Sucker Center? 

Alex [00:02:43] Succasunna. S-U-C-C-A-S-U-N-N-A. 

Tony [00:02:46] Is that named after a Native American tribe? 

Alex [00:02:49] Maybe another tribe. But like it's probably derived from one of those kinds of languages and it probably means something in one of those languages. But again, something I never looked up. 

Jay [00:02:59] So Alex, Alex is from Sucker Center, New Jersey. 

Alex [00:03:02] Yeah, we. You're the first person to make that joke, Jay. 

Tony [00:03:09] What about you, Andre? 

Andre [00:03:10] What.

Jay [00:03:14] Where are you from? 

Andre [00:03:15] I'm from a city two hours east of here in the Mojave Desert called Victorville. The end. No, Victorville is in a region known as high desert because there is a high and a low desert. Palm Desert and Palm Springs, Coachella Valley. All those things are at a low elevation desert. It's a very low basin. The high desert is a little bit different. It's a lot drier. It's a lot more arid. The extremes in temperature in the Mojave Desert are some of the most extreme anywhere on Earth. I've recently found out, like during the course of a single day, the temperature can vary 50 or 60 degrees. 

Jay [00:03:53] Desert people. Andre is desert people. 

Tony [00:03:55] Desert people. 

Alex [00:03:55] I love that designation. Jay, where are you from and where were you before you moved to Los Angeles? 

Jay [00:04:03] I'm from San Luis Obispo, California, which is the central coast of California. And if you're looking at a map, it doesn't look like the Central Coast. The Central Coast looks like San Francisco. But California's a big state and everything right around, San Francisco and north is northern California. So, I'm in central coast of California. In the various years I've lived here. There have been proposals to split California. And when you do that between southern and northern California, San Luis Obispo is the farthest north portion of Southern California. To answer your other question, I was living in Austin, Texas, before I moved to Los Angeles. 

Tony [00:04:42] Slo. That's what they call it. 

Jay [00:04:45] Yeah Slo. Living the Slo life. 

Tony [00:04:46] Slo.

Jay [00:04:46] Slocal.

Tony [00:04:47] San Luis Opispo. 

Jay [00:04:49] Obis, Obispo. 

Tony [00:04:50] Obi...

Jay [00:04:50] San Luis Obispo. 

Alex [00:04:52] Obispo.

Jay [00:04:52] It means the Bishop of Toulouse. Oh, sorry. It's San Luis Obispo De Tolosa. Is a... 

Tony [00:05:00] The official name of the city. 

Jay [00:05:02] That's the name of the mission. And the mission is the, you know, The Holy bishop Lewis of Toulouse. 

Tony [00:05:09] You learn something new every day. 

Alex [00:05:11] Got it. 

Jay [00:05:11] Toulouse is a region in France. I don't know why the Spanish cared about that guy. But you know. 

Tony [00:05:16] So you... 

Alex [00:05:18] I think it's more like [to-lose]. But I don't speak French. So. 

Jay [00:05:22] You're probably right. 

Alex [00:05:23] I've heard people who are not French people, but people who've been to France and lived there call it [to-lose]. And I thought like that can't be the right way to say it. To lose, to win. 

Jay [00:05:36] Also, fun fact. I've noticed all the Midwesterners I've met, they all say San [Lui] Obispo. That's not it. 

Tony [00:05:44] Because of St. Louis. 

Jay [00:05:45] St. Louis. St.. Saint [Lewis]. 

Andre [00:05:47] But they don't call St. [Loui]. 

Tony [00:05:48] They do. Some people. It's a nickname for St. Louis. St. [Loui]. They from the [Lew]. 

Jay [00:05:53] Yeah That's true. So, they called San [Lui] Obispo. That ain't it. It's San Luis Obispo. I know it's not San Luis Obispo. It's San Luis San Luis Obispo. 

Tony [00:06:03] In the same way that Los Angeles is not technically Los Angeles. 

Jay [00:06:11] Tony really showing his Spanish credentials here. 

Tony [00:06:13] Heyo, all that Spanish in college really paid off. 

Jay [00:06:16] So, Tony, why did you decide to move to Los Angeles? 

Alex [00:06:19] And when? 

Tony [00:06:20] So after I left college in South Carolina, I did not graduate, unfortunately. I did have plans when I moved to Nashville to finish school as I was pursuing a career in music with the band. After being a Nashville and doing that for a time, the whole music thing, or not doing it, you know. I just needed a fresh start. 

Jay [00:06:42] Sorry. What does that mean? That you weren't doing music? 

Tony [00:06:45] You know, it's like it's like people who act out here. You end up spending more time working a side job, doing your side hustle to pay for your living expenses and not as much time actually going out on auditions or booking work. So, there were times where I would sing backup for friends out at bars on Demonbreun or Broadway, which are popular like spots people perform. And I kind of gave voice lessons for a time to one of my roommates and a close friend of ours. And that was pretty much the extent I tried my hand at songwriting. I'm not a great songwriter. After being in the band that I was in when I moved there. Not everyone in the band moved. So, we kind of started doing our own projects on the side. And for me, I just had to make a decision. Am I going to keep doing this or am I going to pull my britches up, as they say? Pull my britches up? And just like count my losses and just go for a corporate job or something that I could start a family. 

Alex [00:07:54] Could I ask you what the name of the band was? 

Tony [00:07:58] The name of the band was Fonic Fusion. And I'm actually, I'm not ashamed of it. I used to be. 

Andre [00:08:04] Did you spell phonic with an F? 

Tony [00:08:06] Of course we did. 

Alex [00:08:07] Oh, yeah. 

Tony [00:08:08] Fonic Fusion. 

Jay [00:08:09] I wasn't sure if you guys spelled out the fusion with the P-H. 

Tony [00:08:13] No, it was phonic with an F, fusion with an F. 

Alex [00:08:14] That's cool. Were they good? 

Tony [00:08:18] It was an R&B, soul, pop, funk band and it was a great time. I enjoy working with those guys and creating music. It just kind of fizzled out though. But yeah, like so for me Nashville kind of became very constrictive. I felt like there was only so much that I could do in Nashville. I didn't want to move back home, and I was in a place spiritually that I felt like I wasn't growing. Like everyone in Nashville is a Christian, but like, for whatever reason, I didn't necessarily feel as connected to God being there. It was a cultural Christianism kind of thing for me. 

Jay [00:09:00] So what was your plan for when you moved to Los Angeles or what else went into your decision to move to L.A.? 

Tony [00:09:05] So, you know. Honestly, I didn't. L.A. was not something I always thought about moving or doing. I had never actually even visited L.A. up to this point. So, it was around 2009 that a couple of people from L.A. moved to Nashville and were kind of in our circle of friends and were talking about it. And I was just like, oh, that's cool. It sounds great. L.A. sounds fun. Like I need to visit sometime. And I actually ended up having three or four friends moved to L.A. from Nashville, which for me felt like the perfect opportunity to just come out and visit and not have to spend an arm or a leg on a hotel or whatever. So, I visited, interestingly enough, the person I was staying with, she had swine flu and she said, oh, she had swine flu. During that whole outbreak. And she gave me the keys to her car and was just like, you know, I'm really sorry. I can't I can't just spend the day with you, but just take my car and just go out. So, I got in the car and I was like, the first thing I want to do, I want to see the Pacific Ocean. So, she lived in Los Feliz. And for those you're not familiar, it's kind of like on the eastside of L.A., East Hollywood, essentially. I know it's not East L.A., but like I take her car and I tell the G.P.S., the Garmin. 

Alex [00:10:18] Oh, I remember Gamins. I used to have a Garmin. 

Tony [00:10:23] I set the garment to avoid tolls, avoid highways so that I could see more of the actual city. And I get down to the ocean and was like, I have this like come to Jesus moment, just like, oh, this is the Pacific Ocean. I've never seen it before. This is a great big body of... It was like, this whole thing for me, but as I'm driving back to her place, I'm driving. I remember I think I was on like Wilshire in Brentwood and all these high rises and the sun is setting is this golden sunset palm trees. I was like, I feel so at home right now. I don't know what it is about it, but this feels like it could be my next step. I fly back to Nashville and end up taking some time to think about it. And I decide that I would give myself a year and I would move out to L.A. I don't know what that actually looked like. So, I took the next couple of months to really plan out this move. 

Alex [00:11:19] Got it. Really cool. Jay, what about you? Can tell us about when you decided to move to L.A. and why and what that looked like? 

Jay [00:11:29] Sure. So, I was in Texas for law school. I had moved around from Austin to Houston and I was basically coming to the end of my time in law school and I was having to make some really big decisions. This is when the job market was really not that great. And I didn't have a job lined up for when law school was over. 

Andre [00:11:46] So this was around 2008, 2009? 

Jay [00:11:49] No, it was after that. But it was it was the job market would still remain, poor man. It wasn't fully recovered like it is now. But it was still tough to find a job. And I didn't have one lined up for after law school. So, I had to make some really tough decisions, which was when I was gonna stay in Texas or move out California, which is where I'm from. And during my time in Texas, it was a really lonely time. I spent a lot of time trying to make friends and get plugged into like a community and stuff like that. And I had somewhat success. But the people I connected with or was trying to connect with just didn't really seem like they really were like that interested in me. You know, they had their own friend group that was there all from the same area. They all went to the same college. 

Andre [00:12:34] Do you think the school had something to do with it? 

Jay [00:12:36] Possibly. It's a really big school. Just like an impossibly big it's that it was at the time. I believe it was the biggest is one of the biggest schools in the country, like at 50 it was 51,000 students. So, it was just an enormous school. And I just had trouble relating with people. And I think people had trouble relating with me as kind of a nerdy guy. I like sci fi love Star Wars. I liked fantasy stuff. I didn't meet, strangely enough, it and meet too many people that, like, shared those interests in law school, maybe because there was a bunch of overachievers who were just there to do drugs and drink, alcohol and get good grades. Oh, they should tell you something, that law school is all true. And I wasn't willing to take Adderall. And I'm gonna go to my grave on that. I wasn't willing to do Adderall to get ahead. I know that there's going to be people listening who have taken Adderall to get ahead in school. And you know what? I don't know. I don't know. 

Andre [00:13:29] Screw those guys and girls. 

Jay [00:13:31] Well, I mean, I get it. Especially in law school. There's like the amount of competitive advantage that you are trying to achieve by that. It probably does make a difference because everyone's striving for the hardest. 

Alex [00:13:43] So you had a raucous time at law school. Got it. 

Jay [00:13:45] No, Alex, I know I did have a good time in law school, but it was not necessarily drug and alcohol infused. I was a little bit alcohol infused. I did let loose a little bit there. I was coming to the end of my time there. I kind of had to take stock about whether I wanted to remain in Texas. And I had realized that, you know, whenever I went back, I was really enjoying my time back home. I was really relating to people a lot better, as much more easy from me there. And I was also during at the same time, I was also developing burgeoning interest in film. And I fashioned myself a creative person and a good writer. So, I thought the natural extension of that would be for me to pursue screenwriting. So, I took an interest in screenwriting and I thought moving to L.A. would not only take me back home close to home about three hours away, but also would give me an opportunity to pursue a dream of screenwriting. 

Tony [00:14:42] Which you actually film something, right? 

Jay [00:14:46] Yeah. I, well I didn't necessarily write a script, we didn't write a script for it. We did this thing called the 24-Hour Film Festival in Austin. And it was essentially that you have 24, you're given a topic, a genre, rather, and you have to film a movie in 24 hours and produce and everything. You had to submit it within 24 hours. And it was really, it was a lot of fun.  It was exhausting. But I was an actor in it, and I learned something of myself. I am a terrible actor. I'm really bad. I thought it was great at the time. I was trying to be confident, but I had like I just, like lack like the instinct for like the facial expressions and my body expressionism. So. 

Tony [00:15:30] Very important aspects of acting. I'm glad that you figured that out because knowing is half the battle. 

Jay [00:15:35] Yeah, yeah, it really is. There's a there's definitely a benefit for self-awareness that you need to have here in L.A. if you're going to be pursuing your dreams. 

Tony [00:15:44] So when moving to L.A. for you, fresh out of law school, what type of law did you want to practice when you...? 

Jay [00:15:50] Yeah, so I. That was another thing. I was like, well, if I try and pursue entertainment law, that will give me close to the screenwriting opportunities that I want to have. 

Tony [00:15:59] Mm-Hmm.

Jay [00:16:00] Little did I know that number one, the ability to pursue entertainment law is like acting in that there's a huge demand for it. And not very well charted like paths to obtain it. It's also because there's such a demand for it. The pay is really low, surprisingly. Yeah. Also, they try and cultivate a little bit of entrepreneurialism. A lot of firms do where you actually build a client base yourself almost like you're almost like an agent. And in fact, a lot of people who go down that route actually end up becoming agents. One of my colleagues went down that route for a bit. He's doing a different thing now. He didn't become an agent, which I think is. Honestly, I don't know. I wouldn't wanna be an agent personally. But yes, I tried to pursue entertainment law when I got here. 

Tony [00:16:45] Andre, what made you decide to move to L.A. from Victorville? 

Andre [00:16:49] As a kid, I was very uninspired by the lives that I saw adults leading. There was nothing in any of the adults I saw, as kind as they all were and as nice a place it was to grow up in Victorville, which I'm recognizing more now. I wanted nothing to do with it. I was very actually like unexcited about growing up. I did not want to become an adult and I did not want to become the thing that I saw around me. I had no proof that being an adult could be something where you could be passionate and educated and achieve all these things and do all these things, because I just didn't have that example around me very much. It wasn't until I went to college and then I met professors who had doctorates, lived in other parts of the world, who had published books, encountered other kids from all over the world that I saw like a vision of what the rest of my life could be. And I found that manifested in Los Angeles because that's where those people were who were doing things with incredible educations and incredible intellects and passion and all these things. And I felt if I had a shot of creating for myself that idea of who I wanted to be in my head, I could do it in Los Angeles. 

Tony [00:17:59] Who did you want to be? 

Andre [00:18:01] I wanted to be someone who was intelligent and who was passionate and got to participate in the thing that they cared about. Whatever that was. And I saw a lot of that in people in Los Angeles, you know. Yeah, a lot of them were in the film industry or music industry, but a lot were just really accomplished people who were here to sort of build the lives that they wanted for themselves. And that's always what I saw wonderful about Los Angeles. I don't know how unique it is among big cities, but people come here with an idea in their head of the kind of people they want to be and the kind of life they want to live. And they sort of constructed it out of thin air. 

Alex [00:18:42] I can definitely relate to how you were feeling in Victorville and why you wanted something more out of the environment than you were living in. The place that my parents are still in New Jersey, where I was living after I finished my undergrad, was very much a suburb and I was getting very tired of the suburbs. The main reason I came out here was to be a composer for films and video games. And the general consensus that I got from professors and mentors that I talked to was that I should move out to L.A. if I want to pursue this as a career or do this more often, because I was doing that a little bit on the East Coast, but not very much. And the people that I worked with, they often had full time jobs. They didn't have time to make a career out of this. And so, like the 24-hour film project, we had our 48-hour film projects that we would do and there may have been Adderall involved, not me. But the directors and producers would be... Well, you'd be up for inordinate amounts of time. So those kinds of projects gave me a taste for what I wanted to do. My choice to move out here was invariably very career related. And I found out, well, if you want to do multimedia composition as a career, this is the best place to get that jump started. And then I did get into a grad school program at USC. They have a master's in screen scoring and that gave me even more reason to go. 

Jay [00:20:18] So let's actually get into our actual experience here. So, I said we all had a tough time here, but let's get into Tony's time. I know, I know. He had a really tough time. So, what do you share a little bit about that, Tony? 

Tony [00:20:32] It's tough for me to share the story. Now that I'm thinking about it. For me after that visit to L.A. for the first time and kind of just being starry eyed about L.A., I really started to reflect more on my time in Nashville as I was preparing to move to L.A. And up to this point, I had never really struggled. I'd been on my own. I was raised to be very independent and self-sufficient. I was also raised in the church. So, I remember praying in this, I don't want myself to get in the way of growing spiritually. I wanted to know what it meant to rely on the Lord wholeheartedly instead of that culture of saying that, you know, the Lord going through all the motions, whatnot. So, for me, this move, as I began to prepare for it, I set a goal of saving 5K for the move to pay for rent, which seemed very reasonable and doable because I had two jobs at the time. So, I moved to L.A. January 4th, 2011. A lot of the plans that I'd set forth for myself kind of fell through. There's some pretty crazy stories that we can, I'm sure, get into in greater detail on a different episode. But essentially, I move here, and I end up with three hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket, which is for anyone who knows L.A. is not a sum of money that you want to like have to rely on for... 

Alex [00:22:02] Any extended period of time. 

Tony [00:22:03] Right.

Jay [00:22:05] That doesn't even cover a month's rent. 

Tony [00:22:06] Not even close. Not even half at the time. So, I was staying on this friend's couch and we kind of agreed that I would only be there for a month. And it was really difficult to try to find a place, the job that I had made plans to transfer out here. There were two locations that I'd be kind of coordinating. And at first it was told to me that I would have five days of work a week. And then I realized that one of the places was in Malibu. The other one was in Marina del Rey. I was living in Los Feliz. Those places are not close. I didn't have a car at the time. The car had broken down before I moved here. So I'm seriously trying to figure out how to get to Malibu and Marina del Rey and then I get a phone call from my boss and he's like, so the contracts didn't come through and you're not going to actually be able to work at the Marina del Rey location. You'll just be in Malibu. And I was like, I mean, okay, great. I'm trying to make the most out of this. Like, Malibu is a gorgeous city. It's like, really ocean. Like, how do I get there? I realize that I'm just gonna have to suck it up and take the bus from Los Feliz to Malibu. Then I'm like, he calls me again. He's like, you're not going to have five days of work a week. You're only going to work two, maybe three, depending on if we have other people. It ends up being two days a week. Again, not making enough money to survive and put down a deposit. But I do end up finding a spot through some friends of friends in the arts district, which is further away from Malibu than Los Feliz was. And it was also a seasonal job. So, it added to the difficulty of being able to support myself here. And long story short about July of 2011. I ended up on the street. I was homeless because there was nothing like, again, you guys have mentioned the economy being bad. No one was hiring. It was difficult. I didn't finish college. I started to feel that because I didn't finish college like that had a bearing on why people would not hire me. I was not a viable candidate for a lot of the jobs that I was applying for, but I also was applying like restaurant jobs and they weren't hiring. And I had tons of restaurant serving experience in different areas and restaurants or whatnot. But yeah, I ended up being homeless for about a month. And it honestly was. As tough as it is to kind of think about this period, it honestly for me was exactly what I'd prayed for in the knowing what it is to rely on the Lord. And I can tell this story and it might not make sense to a lot of people, but for me it still is a very big aha moment in my faith. I remember being out on the street like there was nothing that I could do. I was trying to call friends, and no one had a couch for me to sleep on. So, in this moment, I just started feeling super anxious and super like depressed depression to a degree that I'd never experienced. And the only thing I could think to do was sing songs that I had learned in church that really spoke to the truths of who God was and really like hone in on those truths. Like, he's not gonna leave. He's not going to forsake me. He's with me in this moment. And for me, like that was where I really felt that, yes, the situation on paper looks super, super bad. Not having a place, not having a car and not being able to get around. How am I going to get myself out of this? But again, like realizing and resting on the fact that the Lord has me really got me through that month and through a series of like events that are just be on me trying to understand how they worked out. Like after a month and a half, I ended up with a job. I ended up living at a place with some friends and they insisted that I not pay rent for an extended period of time just so I could get back on my feet and ask them for that. It just happened. A call out of the blue. So that was the majority of the struggle for the first 8, 9 months. When I first got to L.A. 

Jay [00:26:28] I think a lot of us probably don't even have a frame of reference for having to be in a place where you're living on the streets. What were the circumstances that led you to get to that point? 

Tony [00:26:39] I feel that I was one of those people that never really understood how someone could end up on the street. When all you have to do is go find a job, when you've got friends that can take you in and help you out. But that stuff that didn't happen there wasn't there for me. Like I had work and the work dried up. It just stopped. It was out of my control. So, yeah. Not having money. I was on unemployment, which was about $70 a week. And it basically covered the bus pass for me to get around the city to continue to look for work. And thankfully, I was a little resourceful in that I was able to take a shower and shave at a gym that I probably should not have had access to, but I'm not gonna question it. I was very fortunate. And it was also enough to just get like a little bit of food here and there. I was involved in a group at church where we would meet and have Bible studies and that was where I would get a meal. That particular day and would have enough for peanuts and M&Ms and raisins to make some trail mix and live off of and something to drink. But yeah, it was definitely not where I saw myself at 27, 28 years old, being homeless. I understood how I got there, but I was just shocked that I was there and also did not tell anyone really. There were probably only two people at the time who really knew where I was and how I was actually doing. I tried to put on a front and just like continue as if, you know, like we're just getting through this. The Lord's got me. We're good. 

Jay [00:28:22] Were you ashamed? 

Tony [00:28:24] Yeah, I would say there was definitely some shame involved there. I did not necessarily have the benefit of hindsight to see all the ways that I was being kept at the time. Now, I mean there's still a little bit of shame in it. But like, no, this is a part of my story. This is a part of me being in L.A. It's not easy for everyone. 

Jay [00:28:49] Yes, certainly I can relate with that. When I moved here, I was fresh out of school. I was taking the bar exam. So, the bar exam, if it does, if you don't know, is the test. You need to take to become a lawyer in a certain state. And it is if law school is the [beep] sundae, the bar exam is the cherry on top. It is the absolute worst way to conclude a horrible season of your life. From waking to sleeping you are studying. You're not doing much else. You have no quality of life. 

Andre [00:29:24] Is it the studying for the bar exam or the bar exam itself? It's horrible. 

Jay [00:29:29] Both. But the studying lasts much longer. The bar exam is three days. It was three days when I took it. 

Andre [00:29:35] But it's the least it's over in three days. 

Jay [00:29:36] But it's over in three days. 

Alex [00:29:37] How long do you have to take to prepare for it? Generally. 

Jay [00:29:40] Well generally people take three months to prepare for form, if not longer. So, three months generally from the end of your school semester to the first test in July. 

Tony [00:29:50] So just to bring the listeners into the circle of friends here and how we kind of know each other. Jay moved into the apartment. We had an opening in our apartment and Jay found us and moved in with us in this time where he was studying for the bar. So, I can't imagine that the stress of studying for the bar and trying to get accustomed to like your new living arrangements and environments, you're in a new city. I can't imagine that that would be easy for anyone. 

Jay [00:30:19] Absolutely not. And let me tell you something. When I first moved here, I was accustomed to living in decent places. And when I got off, I saw I took the 10 all the way from Texas, all the way through San Antonio, Johnson City, where President Johnson grew up. Lyndon Johnson. 

Tony [00:30:37] Lyndon B. Johnson. 

Alex [00:30:37] Johnson City, where President Johnson grew up. And taking it all the way out to Los Angeles, where it concludes that the Santa Monica Pier. Getting off at our street where we lived on and driving up to where we lived. I could not be more horrified. I lived in very suburban, very small city places, very white, very middle class, not, definitely not like a poor or anything like that. But I was like when I moved here, I was like, what is this place? What did I sign up for?

Tony [00:31:12] We did not live in Beverly Hills. We were not in Los Feliz. We were in Mid-City Mid City. It's definitely a part of the city that if you're not from here or have been here for an extended period of time, there's really no need for you to be in this part of the city. People generally pass by it on the 10. Yeah, on the way to the beach or downtown. 

Jay [00:31:34] There's no real landmarks nearby. Like the nearest landmark was not close, but it would be LACMA, probably. I remember my dad unloading our truck, and we're both just kind of quiet about our plight. We're just kind of quiet. Also, we parked on the I was a Thursday. I definitely remember that. And it's the street cleaning day and there's no cars on one side of the street. And I was observant enough to notice that was there was something off about that. There's like there's all these cars, bumper to bumper cars parked on one side of the street and none of the other. Nevertheless, we parked on the empty side of the street.

Andre [00:32:16] Oh gosh it's like you noticed and you still did it. 

Alex [00:32:18] Was it an afternoon. 

Jay [00:32:20] It was actually we had missed the street cleaning. We actually got to where we didn't get a ticket. I, we didn't get a street cleaning ticket even though we unloaded everything. 

Jay [00:32:27] How soon did you get your first parking ticket? 

Jay [00:32:29] Actually, I made it an entire year. 

Andre [00:32:32] Wow.

Jay [00:32:33] In Los Angeles without getting a parking ticket. 

Alex [00:32:35] Good for you. 

Andre [00:32:36] I think for me, it was about a month. 

Jay [00:32:38] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's. I was very risk averse when it came to parking tickets. So, like I was always very mindful, all that to say, when I first moved here, I was not ready for the experience. And it was an awful time where I didn't get out much. I literally I position my desk in my room in such a way so that the sun would hit my skin. So, I actually got some vitamin D in my life. 

Alex [00:33:03] So you felt alive. 

Jay [00:33:08] So I felt alive and it was miserable. And then it didn't get better after I took the bar exam. After I took the bar exam, I had a job at a nonprofit organization. It was a legal services agency for foster youth. Great organization. I would have actually loved to work with them more, but for the money situation. The money I was receiving was really poor. I was not making enough ends to meet and eventually they couldn't even pay me anymore. So, they actually that's when my job stopped is because they literally just couldn't pay me anymore. A great organization. Really excellent work that they do. But they weren't in a spot to bring somebody on full time like I needed. And so, I worked there for a bit and just not making enough money to really sustain yourself. I came here with some money, my bank account from student loans and from my own personal savings. But month after month. You know, you just watch that drain up. 

Tony [00:34:04] Man, I remember all of this playing a factor in, hey, do you want to come out to eat with us? Do you want to come hang out with us? Do you want to do this, that, and the other with us? No, man, I've gotta study. I've set this block of time and I've gotta get it done and not having enough money like it was. I remember that struggle very vividly for you. 

Jay [00:34:24] Yeah, it was quite a struggle, and Tony was a great friend through it all. And Tony was actually one of my groomsmen in my wedding a couple of years ago and it's because he's been a great friend. 

Tony [00:34:34] Thanks, man. 

Jay [00:34:36] But I'm sure for those of us who have been in a similar situation, just watching your bank account slowly, slowly dry up. 

Andre [00:34:44] I was just thinking about that, actually. I had a similar experience as far as watching your bank account dwindle to zero. 

Alex [00:34:52] In L.A? 

Andre [00:34:53] In L.A., when I first got out here, I was hired at a social media marketing company and it was a great company. I think the first challenge was the living situation. I had never signed a lease I had never rented, I'd only ever been home or lived at school. So, I looked around. Like, where does one find an apartment? And I don't even know. And I finally arranged to live in what I thought was like the room of this house. And it turns out that it wasn't. It was like the dining room. It was like the formal dining room of this old house here in Mid-City. And the woman all she had done was, you know, close the doors of this formal dining room. She was like, look, it's a bedroom. 

Tony [00:35:35] And the partitioning of the dining room, a very common feature of apartments and houses here in L.A. 

Andre [00:35:43] And she was like, "oh, has a dresser. You can put your stuff." And I was like okay. The dresser, first of all, when I got the room, there was a dresser and then she's like, oh, a few days later, you know, she'd gone in my room when no one was there which I didn't like. And she's like, oh, I put a dress in. Okay. It wasn't. It was just a rack. It was just like a metal bar. 

Tony [00:36:00] Minimalist. The minimalist decor of the partition living room/bedroom. 

Andre [00:36:06] And then it just got worse from there. I was only there for maybe three months and change. 

Tony [00:36:11] How did you eventually find this place? Was it a Craigslist? 

Jay [00:36:14] I think it was a Craigslist ad. 

Alex [00:36:16] That was your first mistake. 

Tony [00:36:17] I mean, there are some great places on Craigslist. 

Andre [00:36:19] I found my second place on Craigslist and it was fantastic. 

Alex [00:36:22] Right. There are some legit listings. 

Tony [00:36:23] But it is. It is. 

Andre [00:36:24] It is hit or miss. 

Alex [00:36:25] You're taking a risk. 

Andre [00:36:27] Also if you don't know what to look for, you're going to get gotten, as they say. 

Alex [00:36:32] You'll be had. 

Andre [00:36:33] You'll be had. That was certainly the case for me. I found out pretty quickly that this woman did not handle stress very well. 

Jay [00:36:40] Oh, no. 

Andre [00:36:43] She was an incredibly heavy drinker, but like heavy like heavy with a hard liquor. And she would just come home at like all hours of the night completely wasted. And she had like a professional deejay, booth and speakers in her room on the floor above me and would play really, really loud house music at like 1:00 in the morning. 

Tony [00:37:05] You were not about that life. You were not that. This is the opposite of your life. 

Andre [00:37:11] No. And this will be like on a Thursday night or something. When I had work in the morning. 

Tony [00:37:14] College night. 

Jay [00:37:16] Thursday night is college night? 

Tony [00:37:17] Thursday night is college night. 

Andre [00:37:19] This woman was like in her mid-forties. 

Alex [00:37:22] So not in college anymore. Well, you could be. 

Andre [00:37:24] She party like a college kid and she would bring home all kinds of random people, do all kinds of random stuff. I certainly walked in on my fair share of things.

Jay [00:37:34] Yikes.

Andre [00:37:36] I remember one night, opening the front door and seeing things I don't care to recall just happening like on the floor in the living room, and just not even walking in. Just opening the door and then shutting it. And I was just like, I'm clearly not staying in this house tonight. So, I just took off and I stayed with my friend in Pasadena for the weekend. 

Alex [00:38:00] The place that you had a good experience finding on Craigslist was at the place that you moved into afterwards? 

Andre [00:38:05] Yeah. So afterwards, I found a house owned by a psychiatrist in this it was still here in Mid City. 

Tony [00:38:15] But it's one of those like gated historical landmark neighborhoods. 

Andre [00:38:18] Right? It was a gated community called Lafayette Square. And I later did research on it. And I found out that, you know, redlining is? 

Jay [00:38:28] Yeah.

Andre [00:38:28] So redlining is a city planning term. Thankfully, not done any more. But at the time, you know, I want to say up until the middle of the 20th century sometime, there were laws in the county of Los Angeles that said that white people could only own property here and people of color, so anybody not white could only own property in other areas. And these areas were underserviced, underfunded, under policed, very, very poor, and for a very, very long time, the only people who could own property in, say, like Beverly Hills, Los Feliz, Santa Monica, downtown were only white people. 

Tony [00:39:06] Yeah. Which led to, for those of you who don't or who are not familiar with the overall landscape of Los Angeles, Los Angeles is actually a pretty segregated city that I was only made aware of more recently because of stuff like this redlining. Mid-City was at one point a Hispanic and African American majority neighborhood. But then this stuff like this happens... 

Andre [00:39:33] Right

Tony [00:39:33] Where people start enforcing... 

Andre [00:39:34] And you can see the legacy of that today. Los Angeles is still a very, very segregated city. I could draw a line and say everybody from the south of this street is this race. Everybody east of this street is this race. It's still like that. 

Tony [00:39:46] Yeah.

Andre [00:39:47] But Lafayette Square is unique because even back then, even in the early 20th century, the middle of the 20th century, there were successful professional, wealthy people of color in this city. Far fewer, obviously, but they created for themselves places to live equivalent to Beverly Hills and places like that. 

Tony [00:40:09] Ladera Heights. 

Andre [00:40:10] Right. Lafayette Square was one of these places. So, Lafayette Square is historically a wealthy neighborhood for people of color. And to this day, it's predominantly the vast majority of the people that live and own homes. There are wealthy people of color. 

Andre [00:40:25] Still?

Andre [00:40:25] Still.

Tony [00:40:26] Fun fact. I cannot think of his name, but there is one of the children on Black-ish. I don't know if any of you guys are familiar with Black-ish. So, there's a show called Black-ish Tracee Ellis Ross is part of the show, but one of her, the actors that plays her sons, actually lives not in maybe Lafayette, but there's another one across Venice from it. 

Jay [00:40:50] Victoria Park. 

Tony [00:40:51] That one. I've seen him just walking his dog, kind of still to speak to the affluent African Americans or people of color living in these neighborhoods. I just remember seeing them being like, oh, dang, like this. Seriously, that's a thing. 

Andre [00:41:04] Yeah. So that was a really nice revelation to make. Moving into this place and this neighborhood, I just got to tell you, like, it's magical. You know, if you have these tall old palm trees and these grand manicured central thoroughfares and, you know, all these beautiful old historic homes and all these wonderful, diverse architectural styles. It's just a fantasy of Los Angeles. And people film there all the time. It doubles from Beverly Hills all the time. And they have these big community events there. And it's just magical and I knew moving in, however long I'm here, I really want to just be aware of the fact that I get to live here and, you know, live in this big, beautiful old house. 

Jay [00:41:49] I just love that. Andre lived literally a half mile from Tony and I at the same time. And the differences between where Tony and I live vs. where Andre lived could not be more. 

Alex [00:42:02] Night and day. 

Jay [00:42:04] Yeah.

Andre [00:42:05] Yeah.

Tony [00:42:05] I'm not really going to speak on this. No, I'm gonna speak on it. It really is. It's jarring the contrast between where you, Andre, lived and where Jay and I, and now Alex are in that street cleaning is like a normal occurrence in that neighborhood. The sidewalks are clean. It's a nice place. Like you said, it doubles as Beverly Hills where we are, people just throw mattresses and leave them out on the side of the street. Random furniture on the side, the street, random shady looking characters walking down the street in the middle of the night. Whereas that neighborhood might get the occasional jogger or someone walking their pet, but like a little less shady of a character. 

Andre [00:42:50] There's this house with a big picture window, you know, the kind that you'd put a grand piano in or a Christmas tree in and around December. They have the grand piano, but on top of it is a Grammy. 

Jay [00:43:00] Oh, my God. 

Andre [00:43:01] And I was just walking by and I just saw the gold and I was like, is that a Grammy and I looked. I was like, yeah, it's a Grammy. 

Alex [00:43:08] So my first year in L.A., aside from USC, I moved into this really sketchy place about a mile and a half from campus. And the signs did say that there was street cleaning. And I did witness on the south side of the street that they do come by. On the north side of the street, they just didn't clean it like ever. So, you know, the great part about that and probably the only good part about that was that you could leave your car there as long as you wanted, and you wouldn't get a street cleaning ticket. However, the trash on that side of the street would just pile up. And even the south side of the street where the street did get cleaned, the size of the trash was also too big for the street sweeper to actually sweep away. So, I remember one of the first times my girlfriend at the time came to visit me out in L.A. and I picked her up from the airport and we got back to my apartment and I parked, and she got out of the car. And the first thing she said was there's a pair of pants on the ground. Welcome to my neighborhood. 

Tony [00:44:17] Man, you know what? The neighborhood that you were in, it was surprising to me that it was a neighborhood in that state that was also just that close to USC. 

Alex [00:44:28] Why does that surprise you? 

Jay [00:44:30] Yeah, the open secret here for non-L.A. people is that USC is in a. 

Andre [00:44:35] Horrible neighborhood. 

Alex [00:44:37] It's University Park is basically the neighborhood that's like just north of the campus.

Andre [00:44:42] Whereas UCLA, by contrast, is butting up against Bel Air. 

Tony [00:44:46] I mean, it actually is Westwood, Brentwood area, west Brentwood. 

Alex [00:44:51] But Westwood's still really nice too. 

Tony [00:44:54] Really nice. But USC is a really, it's a gorgeous campus. 

Alex [00:44:59] We've got fountains everywhere. And like, it's just beautiful. Yeah. 

Tony [00:45:03] But now I actually understand after visiting where you were, I would read stories of, it seemed like a lot of foreign exchange students were getting mugged or attacked around the USC area. And I didn't really understand why that was a thing. But now after visiting where you were, I'm like, okay. Yeah, this is definitely that kind of neighborhood. 

Alex [00:45:25] Yeah, the campus is totally separate from the neighborhood that it's in. 

Tony [00:45:29] Also, the street cleaning situation really should have stepped up. I remember going and being overcome by the smell of urine and trying, like legit trying to figure out, is this dog urine I smelling or is this like human urine and possibly feces that I'm smelling in this neighborhood? It was intense. 

Alex [00:45:50] That was a particularly bad day. So that was not a normal occurrence. The original plan was to go to networking events and to meet game developers and film directors and meet more people and start working on more projects. However, although I did find that I met people and I went to events, the projects were not coming as often as I thought they would. And so, I had to find some other work. After graduating school. One of my ideas was that to get some work, I would work for a composer. And although that did happen, it didn't happen until eight months after I graduated. So, one of the first things I did after finishing USC was, I interned at a copy house for about a month or two and it was a paid internship, but it was a really short stint because I ended up getting my first feature film, The Score. A month later and I just didn't have time. So, I devoted all my time to that. And then later I ended up getting a big orchestration project that sort of ran concurrently with the feature towards the second half of it. So, all of my time was spent doing those things basically until December 2017. After that point, pretty much all my work had dried up. So, I really needed some other work. And that's where the assistant gig came in. So, I started working for another composer out in Santa Monica and it was a part time job. So, I was kind of hoping for full time work because nothing else was really on my plate at the time. Aside from the occasional project, which usually was pretty low paying and maybe for students or for people who had just graduated. So, I was definitely having a rough time come the end of that year. So, it looked like things were going really well and on the up and up around July to November, December, because I had the film to work on. But then I felt this sharp contrast. I kind of was expecting the next big thing for me to work on and my expectations were not met. So, it kind of felt like a step back for me, even though it was like a kind of low budget film. It was still a feature and it was pretty crazy to start that so soon after graduating. But after being on that high for however many months to come to working part time as an assistant and really have no other work was kind of a little bit of a setback. 

Tony [00:48:29] So we've heard everyone's stories of what brought them here and the stories of the struggle of the first year. After being here for however long you guys have been here and you please state how long you've been here, in answering this question. Do you guys feel that you have grown from the experience of your first year being in L.A. to now? We'll start with you, Jay. 

Jay [00:48:54] Yes, I do. I have to say, encountering some adversity in life, having no money and, you know, for me, watching my bank, just slowly empty and having little to no solutions that were consistent with your career options. It can be a really challenging time, but it really develops a perspective for you and gives you appreciation for people who don't have as much as you or have similar challenges. You know, for me, it was I had to find extra money. I was literally burning through cash and I ended up starting driving for Lyft. And this is in. This was back in the day when Lyft was like not a hot item. It wasn't yet riding the wave of anti-Über sentiment. I remember this because I hadn't left before it happened, but there were some big protests that were happening, I think, in 2015 and 2016 when Uber like did, they had their massive surge pricing that was part of an algorithm. But everyone was like trying to Über away from this accident or some protest that happened and they were charging him like hundreds of dollars or something like that. And so, everyone was hating on Über and they all switched to Lyft. There's like a series of scandals. But this was all before that. And I was doing Lyft when it was not very popular. And I should have done both Lyft and Über. But I was committed to Lyft because I don't know, I just liked it better or something. And it just I was working at a bum job in Santa Monica and I just, I spent a lot of time talking to people like on my commute home. I tried to get lifts for my commute home. And it was really a humbling thing to, like, tell people that you. Law school and now. 

Alex [00:50:37] You're a Lyft driver. 

Jay [00:50:38] You're a Lyft driver, that, you know, you're making $8 a ride or something like that. 

Tony [00:50:44] I'm not mad at the fact that you were able to make money on your commute home. If you're going to be stuck in traffic, you might as well be stuck in traffic and be making money for it. 

Jay [00:50:53] The problem was making money on the specific commute home only happened a handful of times. Usually I was driving some random other part of the city and getting stuck there, then having to drive home and only having made like $6 or something like that. The only time, at that time that you could make money in Lyft was at the bars at 2:00 a.m. And mind you, it was 2:00 a.m. when the surge pricing went in effect. If you got there at 2:15, you might as well have just not stayed up that late because the surge pricing would already have gone down by that time. You had to do it right at 2:00 a.m. Anyway, there's a lot to be said for that. And a lot of credit goes out to you, Lyft drivers out there who can relate that, I'm sure this isn't your first choice as a career, but, you know, you've got to make ends meet. And I understand that. But there's a lot to be said for growing in that kind of adversity. And you have to do it because you literally need to survive, and you need to just tread water while you're planning on taking the next step in life. All that to say, you know, I've been here for quite a few years now in a much different place. 

Tony [00:51:54] Wait, how many years have you been here? 

Jay [00:51:55] Oh what has it been? Five or six years. I'm in a much different place. I would say I'm thriving now. And there's been a lot of circumstances that have contributed to that, that are not necessarily of my doing. So, I'm very grateful for that. 

Tony [00:52:09] Alex?

Alex [00:52:10] Yeah?

Tony [00:52:10] How long have you been here and how you've grown from the experience of your first year? 

Alex [00:52:15] Sure. So, I've been here as of July 2nd. I've been here for three years. That was my moving day. And I feel definitely, that I have grown. Because I came here for mainly career reasons, I've tried to look at my growth through that lens. I think I've become more patient. I had some good expectations about, this is going to be the long haul. Like this is going to take longer than I expect to build a career out here, but for some reason I felt like it should be going faster even still. So, I was definitely impatient that first year that not everything was panning out or things just didn't happen as fast as I thought they would in general. I think, in another way I've been able to grow is seeing the big picture just kind of being able to step back and see how these small actions here may be more of an investment and that I shouldn't expect to see some immediate return on it, but that if I keep on taking the right steps in the right direction with some perseverance, that it will actually get somewhere. And I see this investment in not just career terms, but also community terms. 

Tony [00:53:29] So, Andre, how about you? How long have you been here and how do you feel you've grown from your first-year experience in L.A.? 

Andre [00:53:38] I think I've been here a total of maybe two years, but I've been here concurrently for about two months. When you start having to live with a lot less than you've ever had to live with before, you get a sense of how little you need. If you get things taken away, little by little, you run out of money. You can't do this. You can't buy that. You can't afford whatever. If you're there long enough, you realize, OK, I can still breathe. You know, I can still do this. And you kind of learn to be OK with less to an extent. I've never been homeless. 

Jay [00:54:13] Why are you laughing Tony? 

Tony [00:54:15] What?

Alex [00:54:17] I. I got the reference. He's learned to live with very little. Although he's never gone to the point of being homeless. 

Jay [00:54:24] Like Tony Tony's. 

Andre [00:54:25] I wasn't referencing your

Alex [00:54:27] He understands... 

Jay [00:54:28] Oh I thought you were.

Andre [00:54:29] I wasn't referencing Tony. 

Alex [00:54:29] ...Uh that he doesn't need as much as he initially thought he needs. 

Tony [00:54:33] Okay.

Andre [00:54:36] I wasn't thinking about you. 

Tony [00:54:38] I was like dang. 

Alex [00:54:38] It was. It was a general. It was a general statement. 

Andre [00:54:44] Yeah. So, I think in terms of growth, you learn that you don't need as much as you think you do. You learn that you can endure a lot more than you can. I think perhaps it's just discovering things that were always there that you never had to employ. 

Tony [00:54:57] I think for me personally. There's a lot of that perseverance and endurance. To an extent, when I moved to Nashville, this was like the first time that family was further away than just an hour drive. It was not an option to go home and visit whenever I want to. So that kind of prepared me for the move out here. But it also gave me this mindset that home is not an option like I am not giving up. Going home would feel like giving up on whatever ideas I may have had or this pursuit to pursue the Lord in that way. It would've just been easy and comfortable. So, perseverance and being tested in ways that I've not been tested previously, I felt like I've grown, and I can look back at that time and say, I'm glad that I experienced it. I definitely don't want to go back, go through that again. But if I had to do it again, I know that I can and would come out on the other end much stronger and more mature in more ways than I can even think of currently. So I definitely look at all of our friends that have kind of stuck it out here versus the ones that have moved back or kind of given up on the L.A. dream and can say I can give people who are looking to move to L.A. or that are freshly transplanted in L.A. a bit of advice and say you're only going to get out of L.A. what you're willing to put up with. If you're willing to really take a look at yourself and say, is this something that I'm willing to go all out for? You're definitely going to be benefited on the back end of that in sticking it out. I don't really know or have perspective on the opposite of that. People who have moved away. I kind of go one as they lost touch with them, but I've kind of lost touch with them. It's not out of sight, out of mind thing, but it's just so hyper focused on thriving here where I am that oftentimes I can't think about what the other is. So where are you guys at? What kind of advice would you give to people freshly transplanted or looking to move to L.A.? 

Andre [00:57:13] I think the advice I would give is don't come here or anywhere thinking only about what you can take from this place. When I started to really feel comfortable and happy, here is when I started to build a community. You know, I started to get to know people at church. Yeah, especially when I started to volunteer. You guys know, I mentored with the big brothers for a while and that was really wonderful as well. It was a really wonderful opportunity to get to do, you know, just once every few weeks where you take a day or take an afternoon. And it's just not about you for a minute. It's not about, you know, achieving your life goals and hustling and improving yourself in some way. It's sort of about being in community with someone or being a good example for a young person or taking a kid to the beach. You know, it's just about that. 

Tony [00:58:06] Don't just take somebody random kid to the beach, though. 

Andre [00:58:09] But that was always really rewarding because it sort of opens you up to realizing that there are other people here in this city who need help, too, who are having a hard time, too. 

Jay [00:58:21] Yeah, I think that's probably the most rewarding part of my time here, is being able to build a community and help support people in that way. I know that people come here, and they have big dreams. And we're gonna to talk about that in our next episode. People coming in with big dreams and their strive and their goals to achieve and to become something can really put them in a hard place with respect to the relationships and having genuine friendships where nothing is on the line. I think a lot of times people use friendships and relationships in the entertainment industry to get ahead, and it's very commonplace. That's kind of a networking thing here. Meeting people who are in a similar line of work and being able to relate with them in that way and connect with them and then also share opportunities. That's a way of networking here. That's kind of unique, but it can be a very alienating thing if you don't actually like those people or if you don't feel known like nobody really knows you as a real person of thing. And in a way, like L.A. can be a really lonely place. So, I would definitely echo Andre's sentiment of that finding community. It lends itself to sustainability for the long haul here, because not all of us are going to be able to become Jennifer Lawrence in their, you know, their first or second year. 

Andre [00:59:43] I mean it took Jennifer Lawrence, a long time to become Jennifer Lawrence. 

Jay [00:59:45] Yeah, absolutely. All that to say is having a sustainable community that helps to contribute to your mental well-being and oftentimes a new tangible well-being to life, for Tony's example. That will help you go a long way. 

Alex [01:00:01] I would say in addition to that, that's really great advice having that community. That's something to always be able to fall back on into as a constant throughout your living here. But also, if you're thinking about moving here to have some sort of plan and not just kind of an aimless, you know, this seems like a really great place to go. And I'm not sure what I want to do yet, but I'll figure it out when I get there. It's already a difficult city to live in. You don't want to compound that with the difficulty of not knowing what you're doing here. 

Jay [01:00:33] True.

Tony [01:00:34] Yeah, I think that's all very great and sound advice for newbies looking to survive in L.A. The last bit of advice that I'm going to share. That was something that was given to me and it really didn't resonate until I moved here. I was in Nashville and this guy was talking to me. He said, you know, Tony, the best piece of advice I can give you is live within walking distance of your job. Or the beach.

Andre [01:01:01] Yeah, I wish. 

Alex [01:01:05] That is one of the pieces of advice that was given to me, not specifically those words, but live close to where you either go to school or work for commuting purposes. 

Tony [01:01:16] So that's our discussion on our first years in L.A. We hope you've enjoyed listening to our stories and conversation. For more, be sure to like and subscribe and join us next week as we discuss more L.A. survival guide situations. All right, bye. 

Alex [01:01:35] Thank you. 

Tony [01:01:35] See ya.

Alex [01:01:41] The L.A. Survival Guide podcast is produced by Tony Rosenthal and edited by Tony Rosenthal and Alex Capp with theme music by Alex Cap and Graphic Design by Andre Orta.