No Exit

Trapped in California's labyrinthine bureaucracy.

I was born in Sacramento in the 1980s. On long car trips to visit relatives in Palm Desert, my family would sometimes stop to see the tar pits in Los Angeles known as La Brea. I remember silently taking in the re-creations of prehistoric mammals—mammoths, wolves, bison, lions, saber-toothed cats—trapped in the bubbling Gilsonite muck, with no hope of es…