No Place Like L.A. is our new series that asks L.A. transplants and immigrants: "When was the moment you felt that Los Angeles was truly home?"
This is the story of David King from West Los Angeles.
I'm from Topeka, Kansas.
In a small place like Kansas, I didn't really fit in too well. I was always a little "artistic," I'd like to say. I think most folks would say I was a little headstrong.
I started playing music in bands and people would say, "Oh, he's a musician," and they'd all nod their heads like, "Yeah, that meant something different."
I was 28 when I got this little apartment down towards Long Beach, and the first morning I was living there, I wake up, make my coffee and look out the window.
My next door neighbor is in his slippers and his bathrobe walking down the street with a cigarette. And he goes down to the corner and buys his newspaper.
I thought, "Oh my god! If this was Kansas, there'd be a riot! People would be calling the police, like, 'There's this guy in his bathrobe on the street!'"
I just smiled! I thought, oh my god, I'm home. Nobody's going to bother me at all for being different.