lost my 5 paragraph essay.

I grew up in the 714/909. Grew up a Laker fan (5 Championships in the 80s) and Dodger fan (2 Championships in the 80s)*

I loved the Bay Area growing up. Great place to spend a weekend. Or come up for the holidays with my cousins. Sure, I didn’t like the Giants or the Niners, but we shared the Raiders with Oakland and the A’s were an American League team. I liked the Bay so much that my 1 and 1a choices for school were both here.

Generally speaking, most Angelenos I find have a similar attitude as I do – why the hell are Bay Area people so angry? And why so often at El Lay? As much as I still enjoy berkeley and the city – the Bay Area would be my THIRD choice in domicile if I were ever to move back to California – part of it is the cost of living there, but a lot of it is the slight arrogance and perpetual chip on the shoulder of supposedly the most accepting region in the world.

as for the stereotype of Angelenos as plastic and fake – that’s like 3% of the population. Sure they’re very visible due to being “in the industry” – but the LA I grew up is MORE diverse than any place in the world I’d argue. Thai, Mexican, Central American, Chinese, people from all over the states (yes many of them aspiring actors) people from all over the world – which means I find LA a lot more accepting of different cultures and food types and ideas than most any place (maybe London or New York is more diverse- but I personally don’t think so).

Summary:

• Like the Bay Area
• Love Los Angeles
• Don’t understand the anger emminanting from the Yay.
• Top Dog is better than Pink’s

Note – I grew up a Laker fan, and remained as one through 2002, however extenuating personal circumstances have compelled me to be a Houston Rockets fan since 2002. And it only has a little bit to do with Yao Ming. I won’t say any more, but 100% of the people who have asked me have agreed with my reason for switching allegiances.

…and i think it’s worth mentioning that there are many laker fans out there – myself included – that AREN’T arrogant about the team’s success (especially if you’ve been humbled by the van exel/eddie jones/elden campbell days), or give even the slightest damn about the glitz and glamour of having hollywood in our backyard.

i love norcal almost as much as i do socal, with 2 caveats:
1) i absolutely despise “hella” and “hyphy.”
2) traffic. norcalers, on average, tend to drive more slowly than do socalers. also, what the hell is up with most of the major freeways ending in “80?” also, the lack of carpool lanes in most places is irritating.

Like the other SoCal guys around here, I am totally puzzled by the overwhelming and unflinching hatred you NoCal people have toward us. It kind of boggles the mind. At first, I just thought it was a joke, and played along. Then I just figured it must be some sort of inferiority complex thing. Honestly, I still don’t get it really … maybe you just need more sun and better beaches.

In any event, all the yammering about how awful LA is seems like just more white noise from someone who either moves or visits here with an already established prejudice. You hate it because you hate it, and everything you see/experience here is seen/experienced with the worst attitude and expectations. Your confirmation of LA sucking is because you can not accept that it might not suck.

Plus, every transplant I know (almost) has a hatred of LA not because of what it is, but because of what it isn’t. Mainly their home. What a surprise! LA isn’t New York, or Milwaukee, or SF, or Miami, or Pigsknuckle, AR. Keep an open mind and allow what LA is to sink in and maybe, just maybe, you won’t hate it so much.

Lastly, the lamest arguments about how LA sucks comes from all those complaints about traffic, smog, prices, etc. Newsflash: every major city in the US and around the world have smog, traffic problems, high prices, congestion, overcrowding, crime, homeless, dirt, and so forth. Trying to say LA is the only place suffering from this, or that it is the absolute worst in terms of all of it is just silly.

That being said, Ucla totally sucks.

Go Bears!

I hail from the Glorious 209, and I’ve got to say, it is somewhat similar to Cal in terms of having both NorCal and socal people there. Since we are on both the Northern and Southern California maps, it really just depends on which area your family raises you to be more associated with. I was raised from the beginning listening to the Giants on the radio and watching the Niners on TV, and visiting my Grandma in Santa Clara and hearing her stories of going to Cal back in the day. Barry Bonds and Steve Young were my favorite players ever. I’ve always hated the dodgers with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns, but I didn’t really care that much about the rest of the socal sports scene until i started following the Kings during their run of being good, which naturally didn’t exactly cause me to like the lakers.

Both places I have lived, then, have had many of the incredibly infuriating socal bandwagon fans. The kind of people who get all excited whenever they see kobe on tv, but can’t name anyone else on the lakers, or know nothing about the dodgers other than the fact that they like their blue and white hats. I’ve known loyal, knowledgeable socal fans, and then the rivalry is more of a fun thing, because we actually know what we are talking about and can make fun of each other in a substantive way, rather than just yelling “ZOMG Kobe and Lakers are the best evair!”

As for the “where does this come from?” question, I think the root of it is the Giants/dodgers rivalry. Granted, the Universities were already established in both NorCal and socal when the teams moved out in 1954, but the Giants and dodgers had a true, heated rivalry that involved real hatred back in New York, and I think the two areas of California took that hatred and rivalry and made it their own, albeit in a probably more toned-down way, and the North-South rivalry then kind of started to permeate the other sports.

I lived in Ventura County and when I was in college the aged parents relocated to south Orange County. Ventura county was what it was as a place to live, which is to say not that exciting. I thought it got worse as they developed the space along the 101 further, frankly.

Since I was only visiting the OC, I don’t have a good view… biased by the short drive to Laguna Beach etc. But it was depressingly the same throughout, there was only one template for most housing developments. And there’s traffic jams on the El Toro Y 7 days a week.

I bailed on SoCal after I graduated in ‘92, and I’ve never had much of an inclination to return. Much as I complain about the fact that there’s nothing to see but trees on the most of the east coast, I find I miss them on the rare occasion I am in SoCal visiting friends. LA is sort of like Manhattan as far as I am concerned – liking or disliking it is almost beside the point, you take it as you find it and you’re only going to get something out of it if you really want to be there and are willing to embrace it.

What stands out when you spend time with the pretentious fancy-pants types in the DC – NYC – Boston corridor is that just as they are resolute in trying to seem smart and together, it’s almost like people in LA are trying to be anti-intellectual. I spent years defending SoCal against accusations of vapidity and stupidity until I went to a friend’s wedding in LA and the sermon largely consisted of a plot precis of a Sandra Bullock romantic comedy. You’d give up too.

But I do miss the mountains, and the sun setting over the Pacific.

Incidentally, my folks now live up in the Santa Cruz mountains, and it seems pleasant enough, but the roadways are totally inadequate to the growth that’s been permitted. And while I understand generically why people like San Francisco, I haven’t been there enough to really get a sense of it. Places like Orinda seem like Irvine with fewer berms. I instinctively liked Seattle more, not that it matters.