LA Is Crap

A commenter who lives in LA, says why he hates Fresno:

First off the weather. It’s very hot in the summer. And then in the winter you have all this fog. I’ve driven though the valley before and been in a continuous blanket of unending gray for 4 hours on end. I mean I couldn’t see more than about half a block in front of me. It really depressed my mood. Fog does that to me.

Secondly, it feels more like rural Texas than California. Both in politics and general way of life.

There are no real attractions anywhere in the valley. Other than escaping to the Sierras. There’s just nothing to see or do whatsoever. The countryside itself isn’t even beautiful, it’s just endless flatness. I don’t think anybody moves to the central valley because they want to. It’s mainly because they are priced out of L.A. and S.F. But I guess if you grow up there or have been there long enough, it’s fine enough.

Yes, the weather is pretty bad, but we get along.

The part about rural Texas is true, but I kind of like these salt of the Earth types around here. I had quite enough of bourgeois SWPL idiots and hard rightwingers in LA and Orange County.

In my comments below, I refer to the entire Los Angeles – Orange County metropolitan area. I don’t know about the Inland Empire. I spent a lot of time there, but I’m not sure how I feel about it. The San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys are just LA anymore. I did used to love the San Gabriel Mountains though. I often went hiking there, especially around Mount Baldy. 20 years ago, incredibly, you could hike all day and barely see one other human being, 1 1/2 hours out of LA.

The comment about pricing is the classic bourgeois attitude about LA. It’s the land of the rich, baby! Well, whoop tee fuckin doo.

And this was one reason why I left. If you want to date a woman, she needs to know your income and your net worth. Women were trying to fix me up, but they kept telling me I did not make enough money for their grasping bourgeois friends. The Bay Area is much the same. In Orange County in 1990, it seemed like you needed to make ~60,000 a year in my crowd to be taken seriously by women. I was making $20-23 an hour working three different part-time jobs and my friends kept insulting me and telling me I wasn’t making enough money.

This bourgeois life is really frustrating. I’m glad I’ve just dropped out of it forever.

What the fuck is there to see in LA? It’s a gigantic city with millions of humans and their habitations in all directions forever. You call that scenery? What the Hell is so beautiful about that? It’s crap. The countryside in the Valley is a trip, if you don’t mind farms.

Around here though, you start driving east, and in 15 minutes you are out of the farms and into the rolling foothills, ranching lands, small streams, rivers, and vernal pools. There are coyotes, ground squirrels and hawks all over the place. It’s actually a trip. You go just a bit further, and you are into the Sierra foothills. I go through the foothills all the time.

What exactly is there “to see or do” in LA? Can someone enlighten me?

L.A.’s crap. The traffic never even ends now. The morning rush starts at 5 AM and goes until about 11:30 AM. There is a brief break, and then the evening rush starts at 2:30 PM and goes until after 8 PM. To get anywhere, it seems like you need to get on a freeway, and once you get on a freeway, it seems like the trip is going to take 30 minutes.

Plus the rent and housing prices are insane. Rent in Orange County is probably around $1000/month minimum. I know people who pay ~$2000 for a not particularly impressive apartment. That’s simply insane.

You need to be making so much money just to even survive in that region.

There are non-Whites everywhere, and if you are White, you feel like an endangered species.

Orange County now looks frighteningly like a 3rd World city like Lima or Manila. It’s really scary. I was in Garden Grove, and there was this multiracial bourgeois elite at my hotel, working for corporations, mostly yuppie Vietnamese, Koreans, Blacks and Whites with tons, I mean tons of money.

I went outside my hotel and started walking around, and it was depressing. There were some old White bars from the old White working class Garden Grove, but most of it was non-White. I went into store after store where there were no Whites. One store would be all Thais. The next would be all Viets. Another would be all Chinese. Many others would be some kind of Hipsanic. Often a lot of the folks in there didn’t even seem to speak English, and they acted hostile towards me, like I was an alien.

I went to eat in a Denny’s and there was the old Garden Grove working class serving me at my table, looking more wasted, burned out and beaten down than I’ve ever seen them. I don’t even know how they survive.

A drive along Garden Grove Boulevard feels like a teeming and impoverished Third World. A few blocks away is the elite sunning by the pools of their fancy hotels.

We went for a drive to Irvine for a wedding. We passed through Santa Ana along the way, and it was horrible. Nothing but the worst Mexico for miles and miles, all signs in Spanish, poverty, garage sales, clothes on lines.

We made it to the fancy restaurant, and it was full of these yuppie Whites who were positively swimming in money. I mean big bucks upper middle class here, smiling and happy and ordering kill your wallet drinks. The wedding was full of Viets and Whites. A lot of the Whites were physicians. The Viet girls were all trying to marry White physicians and attorneys. No other White men need apply. The wedding could not have been over soon enough.

I got out of LA 20 years ago, and I have not looked back. I went back once in 1992 and again in 2005. Both times I was sorry. I would not mind if I never set foot in LA again.

The project to create this insane gap between the haves and have-nots has been ongoing now for 30 years at least, with the full support of both the Republican and Democratic Parties, including Obama’s Administration.

The opposition to Obama is nuts. He’s not a socialist or Communist at all. He’s actually sort of a rightwinger.

Like the Republicans, Obama is totally controlled by finance capital. Everything for finance capital and their allies and nothing for anybody else. Or better yet, take from the the bottom 8

The only difference is that while continuing the wild wealth redistribution project (as their class benefits), the Obama Democrats to believe in safety net retention or even possibly expansion. That’s at the same time that they are impoverishing us by taking from us to give to them. So they’re really limousine liberals. That’s marginally better than the Democrats, but not much.

The Tea Party loons and the entire Right in the US is for the top 2

After that trip to Orange County five years ago, what I saw reminded me of Jakarta, Mumbai, La Paz, Quito, Rio or Bogota. This isn’t going to work. Long-term, it looks like a revolutionary situation of some sort.

There’s no way around it; history has a logic that cannot be defied or terminated no matter how many Berlin Walls fall.

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47 thoughts on “LA Is Crap”

  1. Have you spent much time on the East coast? I’m curious as to what you think of it, and if you like any areas in particular.

  2. The only difference is that while continuing the wild wealth redistribution project (as their class benefits), the Obama Democrats to believe in safety net retention or even possibly expansion.

    No they don’t! You’ve heard about the Catfood Commission, haven’t you? Obama is talking about “tough choices” surrounding “entitlements”. He’s going to finish Clinton’s job of destroying what’s left of the safety net, and further enrich the banksters and warmongers at the working class’s expense.

    http://unsilentgeneration.com/2010/02/19/obamas-stealth-entitlement-commission/

    Less than a month after the Senate rejected a proposal for a bipartisan entitlement commission, President Obama has created his own version by executive order. It is not, of course, called an “entitlement commission”–that unsavory term has been banished from the political lexicon, since it clearly frightens the geezers. Instead, it is called the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. (Who wouldn’t support that?) The shorthand names are the “deficit commission” and the “debt panel.” This last term is remarkably similar to the much-maligned “death panels”–which seems appropriate, since its primary purpose is to pull the plug on old-age entitlements. Despite protestations to the contrary, the commission exists primarily to make cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

    The pwoggies like Matt Yglesias would never stand for a Republican gutting Medicare and Social Security. They will accept it from a Democrat, because the only thing they really care about is being the party in power. They wage a slightly more genteel form of class warfare. They will frighten the base into voting Democratic by scaring them with visions of Sarah Palin and her savage fundie hordes.

    The long and the short of this situation is that the Democratic administration, along with a small group of conservative Democrats in Congress, may make considerable headway toward doing what neither Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush was able to pull off. They will likely make cuts to Social Security, while at the same time advancing Obama’s government-subsidized “automatic IRA” scheme, which would divert people’s earnings into 401K-style retirement accounts. These, of course, would be invested by Wall Street, helping to rebuild the finance industry. So in the end, we could see a de facto privatization of a portion of Social Security–the ultimate conservative dream, brought to us by the Democrats.

    By the same token, the Democratic-led health care reform is likely to bring about some cuts to Medicare and Medicaid–the only single-payer health care this nation has ever known. It will do so while preserving the power and wealth of the health care profiteers who are largely responsible for skyrocketing costs. The corporations, once again, are set to emerge victorious.

    Meanwhile, the old, sick, disabled, and poor, who rely on entitlement programs, will bear the weight of the national debt. The low- and middle-income people still reeling from the recession–who need more, not less, government spending–will be left out in the cold, victims of what the Center for Economic and Policy Research calls “the deficit hawks who distract the public and policy makers from the policies necessary to bring the economy back to full employment.”

  3. “So they’re really limousine liberals. That’s marginally better than the Democrats, but not much.”

    They’re the kind of liberals that can push their crazy agenda because they have enough money to avoid the results of their insane social experiments.

  4. Here’s some “hard left” populist Dem. disdain for Obama.

    Can frequently be found on Ian Welsh’s site.

    http://www.ianwelsh.net/social-security-trustees-report-no-social-security-crisis/

    “What a great day in change! First, we find out that the head pr man for the establishment has been servicing corporate amerika … again … by facilitating sending more jobs overseas with federal government money.

    http://www.openleft.com/diary/19706/report-obama-launches-new-program-to-help-corporations-take-advantage-of-low-labor-costs-abroad

    http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/integration/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226500202

    And this is right after he laughingly told the afl-cio that he would CONTINUE to “fight” for efca.

    http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2010/08/04/oh-my-sides-obama-says-hell-keep-pushing-for-employee-free-choice-act/

    Just as he CONTINUES to “fight” for net neutrality …

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/google-verizon-deal-the-e_b_671617.html

    And, of course, as his catfood commission gets closer and closer to stealing people’s social security.

    Of course, we can go on and on, he’s a fucking disgrace to this country and an enemy of the american people. And his fandumb that continues to support him are absolutely pathetic and principle-less.

    In a lot of ways he’s done the seemingly impossible, the lowlife has been worse than the abominable bush.

    Z

    1. I can hardly wait until Obama’s useful idiots try to guilt-trip us into voting for him again in 2012. What a load of belly laughs that is going to be.

  5. I don’t know too much about Orange County. I just don’t go there. I live in the San Fernando Valley and have most my life. 20 minutes from great biking/biking trails in the Santa Monica mountains, 20 minutes from the beach, 15 minutes from the nightlife of Hollywood and the Hollywood Bowl, 20 minutes from downtown and nearly perfect weather all year around.

  6. Robert have you read the trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson on Orange County, Pacific Edge etc? Damn good IMHO. One’s a sort of future ecosocialist utopia, one novel (Gold Coast) is a future capitalist dystopia, and the last novel is a post nuclear war recovery scenario, with 99% of the US population wiped out and a pretty low technological level. The best of the three is probably the post nuclear war one.

  7. It cums down to getting laid; by spreading the money around the women start spreading their legs around, instead of just in the direction of the well-off guys. Isn’t this the main reason why guys like socialism?

  8. I know how you feel. I just left the Bay Area a couple weeks ago and I don’t know if I’ll ever go back. I’m moving to Europe for a while on a teaching job, so I’m kind of lucky, but I feel like I’ve lost my home to the combination you speak of: a teeming underclass of poor minorities and an overclass of super-wealthy elite from all groups.

    In SF, I couldn’t manage to make rent and go out, which meant I had to be super frugal and had no social life, which seems to entail spending lots and lots of money on drinks and shit. Didn’t people used to just have fun getting together for drinks and a BBQ or whatever? Seems like it’s hard to get that together. People would rather go out and spend, spend, spend.

    But that wouldn’t really be much of a matter if rents weren’t so damn high. I bummed around Montreal for a while and pretty much everything cost the same, except rent. I knew this girl who was paying like 200 for a nice room near the metro station. And my room cost 700 way out on the cold side of San Francisco. And that was a deal!

    Still, I think the Bay Area is a lot more livable than LA and I might go back there eventually. Pretty much everyone gets along. It’s a pretty successful story for diversity. The only really bad parts are in the East Bay and they’re nice compared to the bad parts of LA. It’s a more egalitarian culture and whites/asians still send their kids to public school, which I hear isn’t very true in LA. It seems generally more integrated, even if there are whole cities more or less dedicated to one race. And the weather is unbeatable there. Public transportation’s ok and getting better and there’s lots and lots of park space and the air is generally clean the whole place over. Lots of people though.

    1. Bay Area is ok because at least it’s highly progressive and I get the feeling that there are lot of folks who have dropped out of the middle class thing. When I was there 18 years ago, SF was swarming with hippies top to bottom, mostly young people. And in Berkeley 23 years ago, it could have been 1968. I’m not sure if it’s changed a lot since then.

      There is a heavy duty yuppie element but there is still that hippie / beatnik / punk/ counterculture / Leftwinger that’s nonexistent in Orange County. I don’t know much about LA, but it’s always been more materialistic than the Bay Area.

  9. I like LA. The burrito and pupusa mommy, daddy, children, cousins restaurants. I like eating something called a pupusa and telling people I ate pupusa for breakfast. And that it was good. I like being chill with restaurant owners that white people, because of history and, well, ahem, because they are white, are not chill with.

    I like the Mexican gangs. Because I can talk to them, a little. And they give me space. I’m Korean and I’m cool with them. Robert probably gets this.
    And whites can hang too. If they don’t do that Arizona shit and have the Arizona attitude. Lose it or leave L.A. It’s really that simple. Full spectrum dominance for America, requires full spectrum compromise. Even idiocracy Bush, knew that.

    I think it’s cool that wild animals are returning to some of the metropolises of the U.S. It’s kind of poetic that wild animals are in Detroit. You can often see packs of wild dogs in the Mexican areas.

    I saw a sign in Koreatown in L.A. It said “the true downtown L.A.” This is more than Korean cheekiness. It reflects a state of mind, a way of thinking. If white people are ever going to have an untortured relationship with blacks and browns, Koreans will have to occupy the central position. Or at least act like they do. LOL.

    1. Yah, when I think of racial harmony in Los Angeles, I think of Koreans and Blacks, running through a field of roses together, holding hands…

      1. LOL. That was 18 years ago. Growing pains.
        There’s a sizable number of blacks doing business in Koreatown or rent office space there.
        It’s much more polished and multi-culti than you think. No, it isn’t a f*cking multi-culti Disneyland. But blacks there don’t have the murderous rage toward Koreans that they have toward whitey.

        1. haciendaBut blacks there don’t have the murderous rage toward Koreans that they have toward whitey.

          *anon closses his eyes, sticks his thumb in his mouth and sleeps soundly*

        2. I like the LA Koreans. I spent some time with them, and dated a bunch of their women somehow, don’t ask me how. Good people. I taught a mixed Korean and Salvadoran junior high in the Pico District for a while. There was this Korean chick in my teaching program, man, I should have married her. I never even took her out. Perfect woman.

        3. Robert, amen to that. I know what you mean. Korean women are great lovers! I mean that from experience. They can please a man in the bedroom like no other. God bless their little souls for that!

    2. Hey Hacienda, not sure if I told you this, but you’re a great writer. In fact, you’re a genius. You’re also very smart, but they go together. Most Koreans don’t write English spectacularly for some reason, so it’s interesting to see. Of course, your views are all wrong, but that’s ok. I like pupusas too, and I love Korean chicks.

        1. What? You studied in Israel??? But you spread all this hate against them??? What the hell?…

          Oh, and by the way. The way you write = young shit. 🙂

          Okay, this crap is kind of creeping me out now.

      1. Thanks. I found one of the secrets to writing that is engaging is having a musical awareness. Walk down a street and run a tune through your head. Preferably one that you made up. Then just play with it. Volume, pacing, accelerate, decelarate.
        And volume is key. Change in volume completely changes the tune. Try it. Try Beethoven’s 5th bahm, bahm, bahm, baaahmm. Quietly. Done quietly it’s nothing. LOL. So here’s the dramatic conclusion to why Koreans don’t write spectacularly. They are raised to be quiet. It shows in their writing.

      2. Korean women can be extremely sexy, to the point of absolute sexiness. I used to hang out in some Korean bars before the LA riots caused the police to crack down on the really seedier (but extremely hot) ones. You’ve not experienced sultry until you had experienced some of the women there. Unfortunately, these places are now mostly closed and ones left are too stiff, too regulated to be interesting. But, for we who know, our loss.

        BTW, I think white women need to be trained or acculturated to Korean (or East Asian) ways to reclaim the prized hotness they once possessed too. Rap and crap just makes them bulgy and unattractive.

        1. I was hitting on a Korean chick the other night. I put my arm around her too soon though. She was going to Law school. I acted too soon on that. Oh well. I shouldn’t have drunk so much before I went out.

          This is a meaningless comment.

        2. Alpha,

          Restraint. Subtle hints in looks, gesture. Having fun in being female, but not in the cheerleader kind of way, too brash. A turn off for most mature men. Quieter tone. Being liquid. The hottest Asian women are just waves of femininity, not having any real solid presence at all.

  10. You come across like a young man, fpy. In some ways, anyway. You don’t have some of the worst traits though – arrogance and total combativeness. I often have to ban young male commenters from the site. And in meatspace, most of the people I fight with and have conflicts with are young guys, aged 16-20 or so. Also with young women, 16-23 or so. Young guys seem to really hate me for some reason. I think it’s because I like “their” women. LOL. You know, their possessions. The young women hate me because I’m an aging lech, lol. Fuck em all. 🙂

    1. My take on it is, I respect my elders. And I’ve still got a lot to learn from those older than I. That’s why I don’t act like a complete douchebag when I’m on this blog or with anybody older in general.

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