I have always loved when it rains in Los Angeles. Rain reminds me of my childhood. Yet, the cold downpours Angelenos grit their teeth through a few times a year – often alongside loudly-shouted reminders that we need this, we’re in a drought – are nothing close to the spooky, otherworldly thunderstorms of Texas I experienced in my youth.
I grew up at the tail end of Tornado Alley, a strip slicing through the middle of the U.S. where severe weather is a given. Professional storm chasers are always in business. All my schools had fire drills and tornado drills. Storm-spawned power outages were not uncommon, and in high school, were celebrated. They meant you and your friends with cars could fuck off and hang out at Whataburger or somewhere with good video games for the afternoon.
I remember the first time I saw the sky turn green. Not the vibrant green you might associate with witch’s skin; more of a pea-soup green, an ominous shade of olive. A kid in gym class said this meant tornadoes were on the horizon. Sure enough, when I got home, the weather radio was be crackling away. There was a Tornado Watch on. That meant we had to keep our ears peeled to hear if things changed for the worse. The warbling, static-y emergency broadcast was always tough to hear amidst the boom and crackle of thunder and lightning that sounded like it was practically inside your head.
Occasionally we wound up in Tornado Warning territory, which meant the whole family would have to huddle in the smallest, most centrally located bathroom in the house. Since it didn't have windows, and was cushioned by other rooms, we were least likely to be in danger here. I don’t know how scientifically accurate this is; if there’s anything I’ve learned from The Wizard of Oz, it’s that tornadoes don’t discriminate. But I took what I was told as gospel.
Somehow, we would squeeze me, my sister, my mom, occasionally my dad – though he was more likely to be sheltering at work, or, in one notable, possibly mis-remembered instance, driving home from work while the tornado was in his rearview mirror – and whatever number of pets we had at the time into this tiny bathroom. We would just sit, and sit, and wait, and wait, until we got the all-clear to cut loose and go back to our rooms.
The meteorological concept of atmospheric pressure explains a little about how weather works. In simple terms, low pressure brings bad weather, high pressure brings good weather. The way my highly unscientific mind understands it, Dallas experiences these fluctuations much more regularly than Los Angeles. Things in the air out there are more even-keeled on average, despite starker peaks and valleys. L.A., on the other hand, is almost in a year-round state of high pressure. We get to experience the almost daily joy of, as David Lynch loves to say, beautiful blue skies and golden sunshine. It’s an easy backdrop to project your dreams onto.
I spend New Year’s Eve weekend doing shows in San Diego, which means I get to have one of my favorite recurring moments in comedy: the late-night drive back to Los Angeles. L.A. at night is one of the parts of the city I fell in love with before I even moved here, thanks to the eternally cool opening sequence from 2011’s Drive. It came out almost a year to the day before I exited the 101 at Melrose for the first time as a resident. I get to experience this subtle thrill often, since so much of doing comedy in L.A. means long nighttime drives. You should all be proud of me for having resisted the urge to buy Ryan Gosling’s cool scorpion jacket for over a decade.
The drive back from San Diego usually is even sweeter, since you skip all the traffic you were inevitably stuck in on your trip down. It’s usually just me and the (relatively) open road. It’s practically a moving meditation.
Of course, the winter storms making their way to California really fuck up my serenity. There are multiple wrecks on the 5 that snarl the highway until it resembles the inescapable rush hour of the early afternoon. I have to be extra-attentive to keep cool during occasional hydroplaning, to navigate the flooded underpasses as I near Long Beach. Thankfully, the combo of energy drink-chemicals and the adrenaline of having good sets all weekend is more than enough to keep me alert. The trip is not the easy-breezy two hour drive I’m used to, but I make it home in one piece. It’s nice to be able to sleep in my own bed, even though it means my cats think that because I’m awake at 3 AM, that means its dinnertime once again. Or maybe an early breakfast. I’m not sure how their concept of meal times work.
The major difference in L.A. rain versus Texan rain is psychological. The rain in Texas felt potent, powerful. Like it could hurt you if you weren't careful. One year in middle school, during a thunderstorm, a lightning bolt struck my friend Spencer's house. It went down his chimney like a supercharged Santa Claus, striking the gas line. His house exploded. His family came back from vacation to find smoldering wreckage. Maybe that's why religion works so well on Texans. It's easy to believe in an all-powerful God when you're regularly in danger of catching an errant lightning bolt.
The rain in L.A., on the other hand, is easy to write off as a mere inconvenience. It’s more annoying than dangerous. Despite the constant warnings that we're getting now about being in a bomb cyclone or an atmospheric river, the flash flood alerts that are surely crackling on weather radios owned by concerned parents, most people don’t seem worried. Everyone just sighs and puts on a hoodie – not even a raincoat! – before grinning and bearing it.
Of course, the rain is dangerous, after all. It unsettles dry soil, leading to mudslides, uprooted trees, sunken foundations, houses falling down hills. I have already spent one overcast evening in 2023 righting a massive cactus that fell over in my front yard after a few days of rain. The soil could no longer hold this poor waterlogged beast of a plant that’d been growing next to my front porch for who knows how long.
It’s easy to be eroded by L.A. The city is built on inconveniences. Traffic, parking, street sweeping, overpriced coffee, underpaid assistants, bearing the weight of putting a price on your dreams – you name it, we've got it. And just like that shitty, pissy rain, the city chips away at your psyche drop by drop. If you don't keep things up to code, you'll find yourself splayed out on Laurel Canyon in the mud next to some rich studio exec's new putting green, surrounded by caution tape, waiting to be cleaned up.
"It's like Seattle with lip filler," my friend Danny says, from the stage. We're both on a show in a Pasadena tiki bar tonight. The crowd is sparse but not nonexistent. The rain hasn't helped. But we are making do.
I was up a couple of comics before Danny, and let me tell you, it was not good. There's this old bit I really like, and want to revive, but I don’t put much thought into it before taking the stage. I find myself meandering through the old bullet points, trying to whip up some fervor, but it’s difficult to tighten up on the fly. I wrestle with it on stage, to polite silence, and off stage, while the comic after me brings the room back to life by talking about how unfuckable I look. I scribble down some thoughts in my joke book and leave them to simmer.
There is a break in the storm when I’m walking back to my car, which means I can keep my umbrella closed and my mind open. The bit is half-cocked and needs more finessing. It comes from a tricky point-of-view, and I need to clarify my stance a little more. I need to put it into words instead of hoping I can find the words.
Bombing in the rain feels right. It’s a reminder to make sure my foundation is sound. That the holes are plugged.