Focal Point of Blah

So, I haven't been particularly in the frame of mind to blog much of late, as I've been a tad funky for a little while. Maybe if I grease the wheels of creativity a bit, the flow will increase and I'll be able to up the productivity a little.
Recently, I had a unique experience. Well, not so much that what happened was so extraordinary, but it was new for me. See, a friend of mine from back east was in town, and really for the first time, I was in the position of being an L.A. "host," in the sense of, "I'm the guy who now lives in L.A. so I'll be able to show a newbie the ropes. I've had visitors since I've been here, (my sister Bef, my sister in law Jenny, and the Felz), but none in a while, and I would say that I was more the defacto host then, as opposed to now, when I'm more of a veteran of the L.A. process. And that feels wierd to me, the fact that I've been here long enough to be a "veteran."
Anyway, I've learned since I've been here that location wise, it was a remarkable throw of the darts at the board as to exactly where we ended up. We really are smack dab in the middle of it all, though I didn't know it when we flew out here on a whirlwind tour to find an apartment in 4 days in October '06. We knew we wanted to be in Hollywood, but didn't know just how centralized it actually is. So when my man came out I was like, "where are you staying?" "Over near Griffith Park." "Cool. That's a stone's throw from me. What would you like to do?" "I want to check out the shopping on Melrose." "Cool. That's walking distance from me." The Sunset Strip? Walking distance. The beach? 30 minutes by car. Etc.
We ended up taking a little tour of the Sunset Strip (which he was largely unimpressed by), before doing a little window shopping on Melrose. Once on Melrose, Oren reiterated what I'd already suspected. Namely, that for all the hipness and trendiness aspired to in the shops, it's remarakably homogenized. Like, all of the designers are trying to be so unique and different, yet they all look the same (think Ed Hardy). I've yet to properly verbally quantify the style, but there is this one underlying line of thought, shared by all of the "radical" designers. And all the hep cats sport the same accessories in the form of the haircuts, rings, jewelry, and tats. So much so that I feel like I'M the radical because I'm tattoo-less, sport no products in my hair, and really no accessories at all.