Standing on top of the Hollywood Bowl Overlook
Looking with rare clarity at the panorama of LA
Old Abraham must have looked like this at Sodom and Gomorrah
When he bargained for ten righteous on that fateful day
Could there be a Big One, I hear myself asking
A Big One that’ll crumble the whole city to the ground
‘Cuz G-d knows the reputation this place has in the real world
And He answers in the breeze with a still small sound
All the righteousness and spirit here will keep that from happening
All the justice and mercy will reduce the ultimate cost
But every now and then you’ll feel a jolt and a tremble
A shake, rattle, and roll to remind them Who’s Boss
Well I’m a Jersey guy
A Jersey guy in LA
Feeling the earth move under my feet
And the sky threatening to come tumbling down
I’m a Jersey guy
A Jersey guy in LA
Shorts and sandals in the November heat
Nothing like this back in my hometown
Well I’m a Jersey guy
A Jersey guy in LA
A whole different planet is what this place is
La la la, hey hey hey
I’m a Jersey guy
A Jersey guy in LA
A whole different universe compared to anyplace I’ve lived
I’m alive, I’m here, what more is there to say?
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
This is the third part of the introductory suite to my projected West Coast opus, JRZguyinLA (the first part being "JRZguyinLA," the second being "east west"). It came about after a conversation I was part of during Thanksgiving dinner several months after I arrived in Los Angeles, in which another one of the guests suggested we go around the table and everyone describe an "Avraham Avinu moment," an experience similar to one of the stories told about the patriarch Abraham in the Torah. The experience I described in the first verse, in which I beheld the wide vista from the Hollywood Bowl Overlook and imagined that an Almighty hand could flatten the whole thing if desired but received reassurance that it wouldn't happen in a singular event, is the one I shared in that conversation. (The earthquake I subsequently lived through less than a year later was not a geological event.)