Up In The Valley is a photo blog of the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. It focuses on the underside of things, the poor and forgotten among the glitz and prosperity. Yes, The Valley (as it is universally known by Anglenos) gets routinely bashed by those in other parts of L.A., especially by very-impressed-with-themselves Westsiders who may have never actually been there. However there’s a lot going on in this geographically isolated area with a population of 1.8 million, plenty of money, with left-behind carefully pushed out of view.
Check out this thoughtful, sarcastic, insightful piece of writing titled Girls of Slender Means. The author is an Uber driver, and sometimes drives Sugar Babies from expensive areas on the Westside back to their tiny apartments in marginal areas, using it to show the Los Angeles fixation on beauty and youth.
I pick up a lot of Uber riders who look like this, or are trying their damnedest to. Not so much in the Valley, that goes without saying. Maybe Studio City on a weekend, coming out of Black Market or Page 71. But more likely emerging from an expensive apartment building in Brentwood, going home, alone, to a modest building in Koreatown.
Frequently the name on the Uber account is male.
I’m not sure what the half-life of a Sugar Baby in Los Angeles is. I know they don’t last long in your mouth. You can suck on them for a while, but then the temptation to bite down into the chewy part overtakes you. It’s an autonomic, id-driven thing. Then you reach into the bag for another.
The Sugar Daddy calls an Uber.
Beauty is a form of Capital, until it isn’t.
FYI: I lived The Valley and the Westside for years.