You can't imagine parlor ballads drifting out of high-rise multi-towered buildings. That kind of music existed in a more timeless state of life.

I worked at an ice cream parlor called Chadwicks. We wore old-timey outfits and had to bang a drum play a kazoo and sing 'Happy Birthday' to people while giving them free birthday sundaes. Lots of ice cream scooping and $1 tips.

The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors nor even in its newspapers or inventors but always most in the common people.

Los Angeles is like a beauty parlor at the end of the universe.