Watch it and weep, people. This is no parody.
This is so true. I love this! I forget that a lot of loving California is actually the act of getting together with like-minded people and bitching about how much we hate it. I mean, there's a lot to love about CA, but, what I love is getting together with all the people who do not seem stereotypically "Californian" and go, "Gawd, did you see that obnoxious overtanned and botoxed bimbo nearly run over a homeless person with a Hummer? Shaaa!*"
And that reminds me of my favorite Decemberists song:
Or you can do the live version accompanied by the LA Phil, which I kinda love despite the poor live quality --- the soaring, over-the-top schmaltz of the strings makes for a nice contrast with this hatesong.
* Shaw? Shaha? You might have had to be here to know how to pronounce/spell it. It's post "Fer sure!" and pre "OMG!" ---- about the same time as some of my poor unfortunate friends from the state's hinterlands were saying "cool beans." We won't even go into the hella/hecka divide, or debate the use of the "the" in front of freeway numbers.
9 comments:
Oh my god there's an entire youtube channel devoted to LA freeways. And it's kind of mesmerizing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go-ONOAspj4
(way less stressful when you don't actually have to watch for crazy merging people)
Ok, he doesn't seem to have the 1 around Big Sur or La Conchita, this is the one you want to see, the 101 crossing the Golden Gate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=i-IGuiRDg_8
wait, here's the south stretch, although it would look cooler if he was going the other way and you got a better look at the ocean:
http://www.youtube.com/user/FreewayBrent#p/search/0/fNfA6b_w3qE
That Venice Whole Foods is the best ever. They have awesome pizza...
http://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/you-know-youre-from-socal-if/
I freely admit that I haven't been there yet, but I completely fail to understand the charm of California, based on what you denizens of the place say. It sounds like one of those places that makes me think, "What a nice spot this would be if all the goddamn people here dropped off the face of the earth."
Yeah, I'm a social scientist who hates people. What?
I could only watch 20 seconds of the first video before it felt too real and I had to turn it off! I left that place for a reason. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, everyone I knew and even overheard was talking about how long until they left . I couldn't take it anymore. I left. But those people are probably still talking about how they're planning to leave in the next few years (almost twenty years later).
It's weird how cranky I'm feeling about the complaints. Yes, there's traffic and the occasional crazy. And it's crazy expensive.
But oh how I long to be back for more than a visit. I'm despairing as I think about being elsewhere into retirement.
(I'm not going to trash other areas of the country, because what's the point. CA is home to me, but not for everyone. But let's at least acknowledge that there are a lot of places that people want to leave; for those of us teaching college, people leaving is a problem in the midwest, for example.)
I *totally* know how to pronounce "shaaa" and I didn't get to the state until 1994! Thanks for reminding me of it!
I couldn't wait to get out of Hell-A, but the recent MLA made me all kinds of nostalgic for it. Weird, huh. (Well, OK, not so weird -- it was 70 and sunny in January! I ate marvelous tacos of all kinds! I walked on the beach!) But if I were there, I'd be complaining. Or talking about the best driving route from point A to B.
I love CA and love to hate it, too. It's my spiritual homeland. But it didn't love us enough to give me a job, I guess. So moving on... Still, I will always wish we hadn't had to leave. But we were forced out by money.
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