Hey, before we get started today, I want to let folks know that I'm feeling extraordinarily lucky in these last days. I live in Los Angeles. Our house is at the foot of Griffith Park, which is a glorious place. Just like a miracle of a thing and a gift to all of us who live in this beautiful, strange city.

Rarely has the phrase, there but for the grace of God go I, resonated more than it has in these

last several days. It is honestly shocking that some stray ember blown from the two major fires

that are still going on in our area a week later,

didn't land in the park or on our neighbor's roof,

you know, blown on the 100 mile an hour winds that blew for like 24 hours,

as so many embers did in so many neighborhoods all around us.

Friends from other places, you know places who don't live in Los Angeles

have written to ask if we are okay.

And this is a phenomenon that Angelinos know well.

There will be a fire or an earthquake or some sort of unrest

and a relative will call and ask if you're all right

and you will shrug and say yeah this city is huge that

happened miles and miles away we're totally fine um this time no one here is fine uh we know a small

handful of people who live in the palisades each one of them has lost their homes and every day

we are finding out about people we know in altadena who no longer have a place to live or to

work. If you, you know, living somewhere else are thinking, boy, this has looked terrible,

I can assure you that it is. But we are safe and this guy for the moment is clear. But our friends

and our neighbors and our city suffers and no one knows what will come next.

There is one thing that people who don't live here, who see Los Angeles from afar, never

seem to understand. And I know I was in the same boat before I moved here. It's at this place for

as spread out as it is and as diverse as it is in every way and as different as its various neighborhoods are and as crazy as its traffic is and all the things that you think about Los Angeles as a non-Angelo that are in fact true about Los Angeles.

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