All’s well that ends…
My relative absence from this site can be attributed to a very busy week last week and a weekend trip down to the City of Angels this last weekend. I was summoned by the Grammy—not the award given to musicians who have successfully sold out—but by the Real Grammy™—Poog’s grandmother. On this issue the User Manual for PremarItal RElations (UMPIRE®) is quite clear: when the Real Grammy™ summons, you go. Unless, of course, you meet the criteria specified in Chapter 6, Section VI, Paragraph B of UMPIRE®, which exempts those being summoned by a Real Grammy™ under the influence of senility, drugs, booze, Perry Como, Lawrence Welk, Richard Nixon, or Betsy Ross. UMPIRE states unambiguously in Paragraph C that should such a summons occur, the only recourse is to change your phone number.
My dislike for the state of California is legendary among the four people indiscriminating enough to consider me a friend. I’d now like to make public my dislike for Southern California.
To “fall in love” with SoCal, one must conform to no less than three of the following criteria:
- The individual must prefer wonderful weather 360 days of the year. The individual, however, must be willing (and able) to piss and moan loudly about the remaining 5 or 6 days of the year, on which light drizzling is experienced for 10 minutes during business hours or the temperature falls between 1 and 5 degrees outside its normal range of 60-72°F (15.5-22.2°C).
- The individual must be clinically insane.
- The individual must be able—at a moment’s notice— to choose correctly between any one of four Starbucks Coffee retail outlets at a given intersection.
- The individual must have a car capable of driving at least 90mph (144.8km/h) in a school zone. Both turning signal lights on the individual’s car must be permanently disconnected.
- The individual must be able to filter out the following from all visual perception: Hummer H2s, spandex shorts four sizes too small, gravity-defying breasts four sizes too large, superfluous use of fabrics such as velour, velveteen, and see-through anything.
- The individual must abhor walking and public transportation. Walking is a crime punishable by being gawked at. Attempted use of public transportation will result in many hours of waiting for one of five buses which service the entire LA metropolitan area.
- The individual must be clinically insane.
- The individual must possess criminally excessive levels of cynicism.
- The individual must wear eyeglasses which cover everything in a vertical gradient from clear to green, blue, yellow, orange, pink, or, preferably, all of the above colors. This eyewear will not be referred to as sunglasses. It will be referred to as moodglasses.
- The individual must be clinically insane.
This diagnosis of SoCal inhabitants is, of course, totally cliche. But so is SoCal. I’m increasingly frustrated by the notion that the phrase “nice place” in the U.S. (and, even more tragically, in developing countries) basically translates as “I can buy the same shit there as I can at home.” Chain retail outlets in and of themselves constitute both material and aesthetic culture in these places, and I always leave wondering how such a culture can sustain itself. It’s more than fitting that SoCal culture is the backdrop for the canned TV crap culture exported the world over.
None of this to say I had a terrible time in SoCal. I met some new friends and saw some old friends, and “friends” is a commodity trading in short supply these days (I’m in kind of a hermit phase). I ate some good food. And I took in a year’s supply of irony.
Here’s a sign found at the foot of the stairs at the hotel in which Poog, I, and the kids stayed. I’m tempted to reword it in Photoshop, but the possibilities are endless. Suggestions are welcome.
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19 responses
heisenberg
Comment posted at 19:02 on Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Fyi, a chemical known to the State of California etc., means somebody in a lab coat thinks so. Perhaps, in rat studies, or in e coli, there’s some evidence. Given fetal alcohol syndrome, I guess the sign means they have a bar. If you care, here are the Health and Safety code sections that apply:
25249.6. Required Warning Before Exposure To Chemicals Known to
Cause Cancer Or Reproductive Toxicity. No person in the course of
doing business shall knowingly and intentionally expose any
individual to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or
reproductive toxicity without first giving clear and reasonable
warning to such individual, except as provided in Section 25249.10.
25249.8. List Of Chemicals Known to Cause Cancer Or Reproductive
Toxicity.
(b) A chemical is known to the state to cause cancer or
reproductive toxicity within the meaning of this chapter if in the
opinion of the state’s qualified experts it has been clearly shown
through scientifically valid testing according to generally accepted
principles to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity, or if a body
considered to be authoritative by such experts has formally
identified it as causing cancer or reproductive toxicity, or if an
agency of the state or federal government has formally required it to
be labeled or identified as causing cancer or reproductive toxicity.
REMEMBER - YOU LEARNED IT FIRST, ON etherfarm
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hotdamn
Comment posted at 13:08 on Wednesday, February 18, 2004
ya know how they say fuck off in soCal?
trust me.
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Comment posted at 19:27 on Wednesday, February 18, 2004
I think you also have to have a healthy lust for Ryan Seacrest
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Comment posted at 01:27 on Thursday, February 19, 2004
I don’t quite recall who Ryan Seacrest is, but I do remember reading something funny in a local paper about him: “Ryan Seacrest, who looks like he was born in a test tube and raised by a Marketing Focus Group.”
Never having seen him (I think), I’m guessing he looks like just about every other guy in SoCal. Well—except you, Greg.
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Comment posted at 17:08 on Thursday, February 19, 2004
You mean you don’t watch American Idol? That’s also a requirement for living in SoCal—honestly believing you have enough talent to make it on network television and/or are consumed by the idea of fame and fortune.
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Comment posted at 12:18 on Friday, February 20, 2004
Aw c’mon…
While there is some truth (and a lot of irony) in your post, we’re not all the same down here! 
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Comment posted at 07:21 on Saturday, February 21, 2004
I’m from Alabama, but I’m spending a month with Noah Grey in SoCal… seeing things with an outsider’s eye, I’d say that list is pretty spot on… he said, with a bit of a grin. Oh, and I’ve seen that sign in a couple of places now, including the building I’m calling home at the moment. Courage.
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heisenberg
Comment posted at 11:33 on Saturday, February 21, 2004
I googled Ryan Seacrest, and of the first two hits, there is one site where you can access what the guy who does his hair has to say (with a link to the stylist’s own site). The other starts out talking to me, and I can’t close the window quick enough. I close the window, and the audio buffer still trails off, like Hal in 2001. They mustn’t drill oil in southern California, just exude as much of it as they feel they need. These Hollywood folks are doing their best to fufill the prophecy - the web as a vast, limitless ocean an inch deep. It makes you appreciate the warmth and genuineness of the local dog catcher or the clerk down at the lumber yard - they do not have their hair done, just cut, from time to time. The barber has no website, either.
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Comment posted at 11:13 on Sunday, February 22, 2004
To be fair, arnold, no, you’re not all the same.
You’re all insane in your own unique, special way. 
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Comment posted at 17:58 on Sunday, February 22, 2004
I got three out of ten - being clinically insane - before I ever set foot here … no wonder I fell in love with SoCal within my first five minutes.
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Comment posted at 01:43 on Monday, February 23, 2004
I’ll accept that
Your characterization strikes me as more Hollywood than California.
Granted you’ll see a lot of what you described applies pretty readily to parts of Los Angeles and maybe San Francisco. Orange County is a whole other place. All the little desert towns are completely different again. Napa, Eureka and San Marin… different, different ,different. And certanily no one is going to say Fresno and Baskersfield are Hummer and spandex country.
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Comment posted at 18:40 on Tuesday, February 24, 2004
You correctly diagnosed my clinical insanity.
I would amend your statement about normal temperature ranges, though. These people I live amongst literally fall apart if the temperature is above 72 or below 68. You know how some aquariums have those little digital thermometers that tell you if the tank temperature is in the “green” area (hence acceptable temperature) or if the temperature is too high or too low? SoCalians operate under the same delicate balance and have no idea how to cope outside of this normal range. I lived in the South (heat and humidity) and on the East Coast (cold/damp) so no temperature variance or weather condition here in SoCal bothers me. I taunt the native SoCalians unmercifully as a result of this exalted weather tolerance position.
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Comment posted at 18:44 on Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Seriously, what part of SoCal did you visit? Because I rarely experience these things (the spandex type stuff) outside of the Westside. In fact, I see more spandex and fake breasts and things like that on midwestern tourists walking around Hollywood…
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Comment posted at 00:41 on Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Those midwesterners you describe walking around Hollywood are merely Californian actors and actresses auditioning for parts as midwestern tourists.
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paul
Comment posted at 14:17 on Thursday, February 26, 2004
So, not to be a prick or anything, but if you hate it so much, why don’t you leave?
Seriously, I remember what it’s like to hate where you come from—I grew up in Illinois—and I got the hell out of there as fast as I could. At a certain point, you have to either take action to make your situation better… or admit that your unhappiness is your own fault.
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Comment posted at 20:25 on Thursday, February 26, 2004
teast
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Comment posted at 01:40 on Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Paul, I have professional and personal obligations here. As much as I’d love to pack up and move elsewhere, I’ve got a few years left on what I came out here to do.
Thanks for the aphorism, though.
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Maryellen
Comment posted at 20:26 on Tuesday, April 27, 2004
I grew up in southern California and I am the first to admit that I’m a complete and utter weather baby. I don’t even remember owning a winter coat as a child. Now I live in northern California, where there are bizarre microclimates so that you can drive 20 miles and have the temperature change by twenty degrees. Even so, obviously it is fairly temperate. My husband (from the East Coast) makes fun of me whenever I check the weather. He says, “The weather will be the same today as it was yesterday.” Usually he’s right.
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