A Note From a Californian

The BBQ Pit
1

(This is not much of a rant, so it contains very little profanity. I don’t need any ratings, thank you.)

Okay, this will probably piss some people off, but I am getting annoyed. Over the last year or so, I have noticed a number of people complaining about all the Californians and how the don’t like all the Californians moving to Arizona or Washington, or Oregon, or New Mexico, or wherever. Most recent example is visible in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=35772

As a Californian, I have one thing to say to you whiners: piss off. First, I live in the most expensive housing market in the nation. I simply cannot afford to get my own apartment, and will probably never be able to afford a house here, unless I wake up tomorrow with mystically acquired computer engineering skills. But I’m supposed to lump it, because I’m a Californian, and wouldn’t want to offend anyone else with my horrible presence. I don’t want to hang with the other 30 million-plus people here? Oh well, I was born here, I guess I have to stay!

In addition, this is just plain old unfair. People have been coming to California from other states and countries for hundreds of years. This didn’t become the most populous state because Californians breed like rabbits. Just take a look at the (wonderful) Bay Area Dopers. The great majority of our number originate in other states. I’m hardly upset, because a great number of the people I have known throughout my entire life came here from elsewhere. So although people are allowed and sometimes even expected to come to my fair state, I can expect hostility and rudeness if I decide to relocate. Gee, that’s fair.

2

You all suck. We’re cool.

[nods to Big Black]

I am the ugly Californian – I hate what I am
I am the ugly Californian – I hate what I am
I take a picture of your founding father
I hate a picture of your local color
I hate a picture of your founding father
I take a picture of your local color
We’re so ugly, we’re so ugly
We’re so ugly
I am the ugly Californian, I am the ugly Californian, I am the ugly Californian
I hate what you are
Take a picture of your declasse
Take a picture and you only say
Take a picture of your ugly state
Take a picture and you only say
I am the ugly Californian, I am the ugly Californian, I am the ugly Californian
I hate what you are
Take a picture of your declasse, take a picture of your declasse
Take a picture and you only say, take a picture and you only say
We’re so ugly, we’re so ugly
We’re so ugly
I am the ugly Californian – I know what I am
I am the ugly Californian – I am what I am
Say you’re cultured 'cause you’ve got power?
Your little boys sleep with their sisters
I am the ugly Californian – I know what I am
I am the ugly Californian – I love what I am
[/finishes nodding to Big Black]

3

Gee, Oldie, thanks. I think.

4

I’d say you can expect rudeness from the asshole people if you relocate. I assure you we aren’t all like that. Hell personally I’d like someone from California to come to where I live and liven things up a bit it’s boring as hell here in Indiana.

5

Sure! Say that now. Wait till you get some people from Tracy or Stockton moving there.

6

Haha if you’d seen where I live you’d want ANYONE coming in to liven things up a bit. Hell I can remember the time the time boycotted the video store because it was run by two gay males. I can’t remember the last African-American that lived in my hometome. I’m so fucking glad I left for college only to realize when I got here that over 90% of the population here is white. I swear once I get done with this state I am outta here for good.

7

Ahem

Welcome to California.

Now go home.

We’ve been saying it for years. There may even be a bumper sticker or something.

8

It’s not really you guys LIVING in a certain place we hate. We actually think you guys are cool to hang out with.
If you guys would just promise not to VOTE and screw our states up as much as Cali, we could all get along:)

9

I agree completely. Go back home to Orange County, and do your voting there.

10

[righteous indignation]Well, that’s the last time I listen to a Morris Day album![/righteous indignation]

11

OMG that’s funny - I now have this mind-picture of Morris Day and the Time picketing a video store, doing their owee-o-way-o dance in their gold lame suits around the store.

12

Great, now there’s tea all over my keyboard.

13

Like turning it into the sixth largest economy in the world?

14

Okay, I live in Montana. I fully admit that it is unfair to stereotype all Californians as “Ugly Californians,” so to speak, but U.C.s do exist.

If you (generic you) want to move up here, fine with me. Do not then:

(1) Complain about how cold it is, and incessantly comment on how much warmer it is in California. (Duh.)

(2) Complain that you can’t get a decent cup of coffee up here, much less a decent newspaper. (See, it’s rural, and that means we don’t have every single little thing you think is a modern convenience. Get over it.)

(3) Bitch and moan about how low wages are, and how you could make more money back in California. (So go home.)

(4) Patronizingly suggest that additional large tracts of land should be set aside as pristine wilderness areas, to save God’s Country for people who don’t live in it and at most drive through it once a year. (Guess what? You can’t eat the scenery, and ‘pretty’ doesn’t feed the kids. At some point the admirable desire to preserve unspoiled nature must at least acknowledge the need to have a functioning economy.)

(5) Patronizingly comment on how “quaint” and “Western” everything is, as if you are not belittling the natives and legitimately pissing them off.

(6) Drive like you own the road, shop like you own the store, talk to people as if you own them too, and generally behave in a superior “big-city” fashion that anybody but the person doing it instantly recognizes as rude rude rude.

(7) Immediately set about trying to change the state to California North. You didn’t think California was all that great, remember? That’s why you left. We do think Montana is all that and a bag of chips, and we’d like to keep it that way.

Thanks, and come back soon! (In order to come back, first you have to go home.)

15

If only they weren’t the 765th power supplier, maybe people wouldn’t be moving away:)

(it was a joke, a joke…stop hitting me)

16

**

Sorry to break it to you. Californians are expert at complaining about the weather. They do it here, they do it there, they do it everywhere they happen to be. I’ve also found that most people are like this. I complained about the weather a lot less when I was in Wisconsin than the natives.

**

It’s very hard to get a decent paper in Northern California (where I reside) either. The only one I can really think of is the Mercury News. Most Californians wouldn’t know a decent cup of coffee if it wacked them over the head. Of course, that’s what mail order is for.

**

This one is always funny. Remind them how much the cost of living was in California, and ask them if they could afford anything even resembling what they have now if they were still living in California and making the wage they were making there. I’ve known people who have accepted jobs out here because they were getting a dramatic increase in their salary, only to find out, they still couldn’t afford to live out here.

**

You’re probably getting Southern Californians. If you are getting Northern Californians, I apologize. Sorry, can’t do anything about the south.

**

Sorry. Though I suspect that people from the East coast do this more often.

**

Again, I’m guessing Southern Californian. Sorry, can’t do anything about them. We’ve been trying to get away from them for years.

**

Everyone does this, not just Californians. It’s that interesting split between disliking your homeland, and being homesick.

17

OLDSCRATCH, no need to apologize – Californians are people, too, I know. :slight_smile:

Actually, a teasing Doper-friend just e-mailed to say, given my tendency to post “Not ALL Christians are like that!” in anti-fundie threads, the appropriate response to my list would have been “not ALL Californias are like that!”

I know, I know. And some of you are so darn cute. Just remember: drive right, pass left. :wink:

18

sooooo… instead of Fundies we would be Fornies?

19

I am guilty of complaining about the Californians. Where I’m from (Wyoming), it isn’t so much the Californians themselves who are moving in, but the sheer number of them which proves to be an irritant to most.

Wyoming has the smallest population of any state, and, for whatever reason, the people here are damned proud of that. More Californians means more people at the store, more people to wait behind at the bank, just more people, damn it.

I’ve since stopped complaining about the Californians, and instead wonder why on Earth they would come to Wyoming.

20

I am a Californian. I was born in L.A. County. I complain about the weather. You know why? Because it’s always so bloody nice! I’m a private pilot. While sunny days are great for flying, I don’t fly every day. So I’d prefer the vast majority of days to have interesting weather. Weather is very cool. The movements of the systems, the dynamics, the phenomena… Jeez, I’m starting to sound like Dr. George Fishbeck! (Southern Californians who were around in the 80s will get it: He was the most enthusiatic weather person on teevee!)

Personally I can see why people don’t like Californians. To paraphrase a WWII British saying, “They’re over-paid, over-sexed, and over here!” I don’t like the atitudes of a lot of the people here. I don’t like the superficiality that reigns supreme in the L.A. area. I don’t like the traffic. I don’t like the concrete. I think that California is one of the most politically fucked-up places in the country. Everyone else I know around here, whether they are natives or immigrants, think I’m nuts. “California is a beautiful place!” It is. The deserts are beautiful. So are the beaches and the forests. But the people around here fuck it up.

So if I hate it so, why don’t I move? Just wait. I was hoping to already be gone. The time is coming soon. And the first thing I’m going to do when I move is get Washington plates! People love it here. Fine. They can have my apartment. (The Violent Femmes just popped into my head: “Day after day / I get angry and I say / That the day / Is in my sight / When I’ll take a bow / And say, ‘Good night’”)