Emory Holmes didn’t take to Los Angeles easily. The journalist, a Nashville native, moved to the city when he was eight years old. “I was born in the segregated South,” he said. “When I came to California, the land of cowboys and vistas and all that, I thought the South was in the South and not here. But I found all the same difficulties in Los Angeles.” Holmes took to traveling, spending time in Micronesia, Hawaii, Montreal, and New York, only to return to L.A. “The thing I needed most was here,” he said. “A sense of home.” Read more about Holmes below.
Q. What music have you listened to today?
A. Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus.
Q. What do you find beautiful?
A. Almost anything that comes forth in nature. I also find things that are ineffable, things that can’t be seen or touched, beautiful – a thought or a memory.
Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. I talk too much.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. Paris.
Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A. A painter.
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. My mother’s beautiful face.
Q. What is your favorite holiday and why?
A. Halloween, because everybody gets to put on a show.
Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. Presently, a screwdriver. A boring screwdriver.
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. Oysters and champagne.
Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. That I will master my hedonism. I love cigars and I can’t stop smoking them.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead with whom you would most want to have a drink?
A. Charles Mingus.
To read about the Mingus celebration featuring Holmes’ reading of Mingus’ autobiography, click here.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.