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L.A.’s the kind of city where, when I’m wearing my I HATE L.A. shirt, people walk up to me and say, “Hey, I like your shirt.” That L.A. is the kind of city that compels me to invest the time and money to design and print my own I HATE L.A. shirt says just about everything (but as that would make for an excessively short post, I shall expound.)
When I tell other Angelenos that I hate L.A., there’s that moment when their wilted sense of hometown pride flutters in a faint, moribund effort to rise to the defense of the city, before they reply, “Yeah, I really don’t like it either.”
I’ve lived in L.A. for almost 8 years, and that’s the first time I’ve ever even indirectly referred to myself as an Angeleno.
I’ve never met anyone in L.A. who plans to stay in L.A. Nobody’s ever said to me, “I’m looking forward to retiring to Mar Vista.”
When I tell strangers that I’m from L.A., they consistently react as if I’ve just admitted to a predilection for bestiality.
L.A. is forever making movies about an idyllic small town American life that looks uncannily like Vermont, because people who make movies in L.A. dream of living as far from this city as possible.
In L.A., you don’t go downtown to party on Saturday, like they do in every other city. You stay in your known quadrant, select an establishment based on factors of proximity, traffic density and valet availability, and then you leave your apartment an hour before you want to get there.
People refer to the part of L.A. they live in – West Hollywood, Studio City, Santa Monica – like it’s a quaint little village, but it isn’t. Areas of L.A. aren’t naturally divided by hills or streams or forests. They’re defined by the freeways that border them. I’m just west of the 405, between the 10 and the 90. It would make more sense to say that you live on the 672, or the 634, or whatever page of the Thomas Brothers Guide you’re most often referencing.
If the Intelligent Designer poured out a 55 billion gallon drum of Liquid City over the ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and it just oozed down across the Valley and the Southland, spreading it’s oily fan upon mile after mile of dull flatland, when it dried into a concrete crust, and became filled with bitterness, cars and pollution, that would be L.A.
With great self-mocking irony, we pay a premium to be part of this city. $3 gas, $10 beers, $12 movie tickets, $15 parking, and $1200 prison cell studio apartments are just a few of the inflated prices of admission to this asphalt dystopia.
It would be great form if I could now bring this around full circle and say, “Well, for all your faults, L.A. I guess I really do love you.” But I don’t. That’s not what the title says. No, there is no comfortable conclusion to the bleak pessimism, because, like this city, it just seems to go on forever, in every direction. Man, I hate L.A.
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Support Barack Obama
[...] I Hate L.A. That was the title of my first posting to yorkrules, one year ago today. Those particular sentiments haven’t changed much since then, but a lot else has. Here’s a look back at just some of what we’ve been through since yorkrules 2.0 (now yorkrules 3.0) went live: [...]
I’m from San Diego and have been in LA for about 3 and a half years and hate it more every day. It’s funny that a blog post this old fits your and my own feelings about this shit-hole megalopolis just as well now as it did then. If not more.
Get of L.A.s dick
* off
i’m stuck in this hell hole of a so called “city”…don’t see a way out…besides suicide…
Then I’d recommend you join our gay suicide death pact, Steve.
I live in LA.
I’ll die in LA.
Period.
Unless I move.
peace