What does it mean to live in Los Angeles? Is it fake tans, celebrities and lattes on Sunset Blvd? Is it bumper-to-bumper traffic and smog on the 405 freeway? Is it urban sprawl and high rises and population density? Sure, it’s all of those things, but to Mike Sonksen, AKA Mike the Poet, it’s so much more. Mike loves LA. He loves it so much, in fact, that his recently published collection of poems and his debut spoken-word album both bear the title, I Am Alive in Los Angeles. And as he guides me through downtown LA on one of his urban walking tours, spitting rhymes filled with little-known tidbits and historical anecdotes about our fair city, I realize there’s a big difference between living in LA and being alive in LA, in all of its hot, crowded, gritty glory.
