Welcome to Los Angeles, California!
1) A lot of people say that Los Angeles has a toxic atmosphere – a smog problem, if you will. Sure, it’s commonly considered faggy in LA if you don’t leave your car running while you mow the lawn, and sure, sometimes you have to cut through the smog with a switchblade in order to walk, and sure the entire city smells like Edward R. Murrow’s left lung, but we shouldn’t make out that it’s the
only place with this problem. Here in Eugene, I smell pot everywhere – the halls, the showers, the stairwells, certain professors’ offices – and in some ways, pot is worse than car exhaust, because while exhaust smells crappy the whole time, pot plays with my emotions. It’s a vile, seductive wench that starts out smelling like French fries for one fraction of a second, and then, just when I’m trying to spot the Happy Meal, I get blindsided by the full force of what marijuana really smells like: a wet fart in a can. It’s like wine – it starts out with a bold yet subtle French fry overtone which delights the senses, and then quickly degenerates into the wet fart in a can aftertaste. Now, of course, all you stoners are going to argue with me that in fact pot smells like new car and that Hot Girl You Know’s hair, but I’m sorry; you’re wrong. I have no problem with you smoking pot, because God knows it’s a lot healthier than cigarettes, and quite honestly it ought to be legal, but you’ve got to face the truth of the fact that the stuff you shill out the big bucks for and suck into your lungs smells like the product of a fat man’s gastrointestinal tract after it’s been cooped up in an old tin can for about four years. Therefore, we also need to face the fact that lots of cities smell funny: Eugene smells like pot, Paris smells like dog, El Paso smells like stupid, and Los Angeles smells like exhaust. It’s just a thing. Trust me, there are so many other reasons to hate Los Angeles, let’s not limit ourselves to this one insignificant issue.
2) What has eternally perplexed me is why people go so crazy for parties on boats. Congratulations! You’re drunk and you’re
on a boat! Do you want to go home? Too bad, you have to wait three more hours, because you’re
on a boat! and you can’t get off. The same applies to the Santa Monica pier: You’re at a crappy, overpriced amusement park…
On a pier! Sure, everything is decrepit to the point that the skeeball machines routinely fall apart when you try to use them (Mike Heater presents exhibit A, at the left), but now there’s the requisite army of schizophrenic hobos that exist in any coastal area, having been pushed to the edge of the sea by the majestic hobo’s natural predator, the mall security guard. So go ahead and enjoy your eight dollar ride on the 40 year old ferris wheel built on top of a 92 year old wooden pier – it probably won’t collapse. Probably.
3) So long as we’re talking about the Santa Monica pier, I’d like to mention that while most people who go to the pier just walk around for awhile pretending to be interested in greasy rides and avoiding greasier hobos, the Oregon Basketball Band did more than that – we pissed off
Adam Freaking Sandler. Having arrived in Southern California a full 30 or so hours before the basketball game, our director booked us a gig playing for the tourists on the pier. So that’s what we did – we played, and the cheerleaders danced, and a hobo with a keyboard snuck up
behind a cheerleader while she was getting her picture taken with some guy and scared the crap out of her (never fear – he was promptly dispatched by a flock of mall security guards), and then a harried looking woman with a pager ran up and told us to stop, because apparently Mr. Adam Sandler was shooting a movie about 100 feet away from us on the beach and he doesn’t like the unique brand of musical fusion that a drumset, bass, three sousaphones, five trombones, six trumpets, and assorted woodwind rabble can create. Fortunately, we were more or less finished playing at that point anyway, so we all just yelled some
Happy Gilmore quotes in his direction and called it a day.
4) Why is everything in LA so expensive? For one thing, there’s sales tax, and don’t even get me started on how much I hate that, but then there’s the plain and simple fact that you have to pay more for everything. Why, in a state chock full of agricultural production and cheap labor (primarily unsuccessful writers, but I hear Mexicans are important too) things ought to be
cheaper, and in Los Angeles they ought to be
paying me for patronage, the city being what it is. Where does Hard Rock Café get off charging $14 for a hamburger? I’m sure it was probably a great hamburger, but I ate a $10 salad instead because I’m morally opposed to the idea of paying $14 just so you can eat a hamburger in the same room as Wham!’s keytar.
Truman Capps is perplexed by his apparent bias against Mexico - he is bad at Spanish and hates Los Angeles and El Paso. However, by virtue of being ostensibly Mexican himself and also a big fan of Salma Hayek, he figures that he's no more racist than anybody else.
