To me the canyons in L.A. held the most glamour. Rustic hillsides filled with twisted oak trees, scruffy and steep, with lighter-than-light California sunshine filtering through the tangles. In the winter, the dripping rain made them look more unkempt than usual. They were also denser, more able to hide the funky, scrabbled array of houses. The canyons were eternally shaded. This was where all the interesting, seemingly non-self-obsessed types were, and where the cool musicians lived—Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young, and so on. In the hills, you could imagine you were anywhere in the world, at least during the day, when the trees and the overgrown landscaping hid the gluey sprawl just below. I listened to Joni Mitchell a lot as a teenager and always thought of her sitting up in a woody, funky, thrown-together canyon house, maybe one with a porch, with trees and vegetation dripping off the roof. She would be melancholy, looking out the window. I was in my room a few miles away, painting, smoking pot, and getting sad listening to her.
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