Crazy charmer

From my balcony, I catch two views of Los Angeles. Well, three, counting the towers of Downtown looming in the near distance. But on the street, two floors below, it's rubbish day and a huge truck with a front-loaded forklift rumbles down, hoisting enormous bins of garbage up and over its head. Like a lot of things about America, it's loud and slightly terrifying.

- BY COLIN HOGG

But, like a lot of things in America, there's an order to it. A little earlier this morning, pickup trucks suddenly appeared on the street, scooting up behind the apartment blocks and forklifting out those big bins we've all been biffing our leftovers in for the past week, and clanking them down on the roadside. Then come the middle men.

The bin pickers, the bin divers, out of nowhere come shabby dudes with dirty old bags for their dirty bounty — refundable bottles, cardboard for tonight's sidewalk bed down the hill in the badlands under the freeways. And lord knows what else. My half-eaten burger? Then comes that terrifying rubbish truck. The timing is tight.

And there's the other view, just a half turn of the head, to the steep street corner that affords a splendid backdrop of Downtown for Instagrammable, TikTokable photo ops. Almost always, there's a rich boy lining up his muscle car at a sexy angle in the middle of the street for a selfie, the city hazy in the distance behind him. Sometimes, the rich kids come in immaculate little gangs. Sometimes, they bring a girlfriend to video them. Meanwhile, those bins shimmer just down the road, a mere whiff away.