You know I can only think of one Californian that I’ve met.
I think its all in your head.
[slight hijack]
All this reminds me of the intense whining that was characteristic of anyone from the New York / Long Island area attending one of the many colleges in Buffalo.
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“I can’t get a decent bagel at two AM on a Sunday morning!”
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“The subway stops running at one AM! It’s not a real subway – it’s too clean!”
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“There’s no decent dance clubs here.” (No, because in Buffalo, we drink like blue collar men, without any of that foo-foo dancing stuff.)
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“There’s no good pizza here.” (Uhhh, we’re talking Buffalo style pizza, a totally different animal than those thin roofing shingles sitting under heat lamps you call pizza back home.
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“There’s no good delis here!” (Duh! That’s because Buffalo is Iroquois for “really, really Catholic.” Hoiw about a fish fry or some wings instead of an Irving Berlin sandwich on rye or whatever.)
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The finale, heard from an old-school princess while moving nto her dowm at Buff State – “I just broke a nail! They don’t have my brand of nails here! You can get them at Pathmark in Great Neck, but not in Buffalo – what’s wrong with this place?”
In Colorado, there aren’t too many Noo Yawkers, and those living here probably weren’t dragged kicking and screaming, so there’s little of the whining that you encounter from Saaaaarah in Buffalo or Rochester. Still, the Californians – it’s not thet they’re whiners, but rather they’re “upscaling” the place. Smooth jazz, “trattorias” and “bistros,” getting an SUV to realize some internalization of the “Colorado lifestyle” only to crash it a few months later because you didn’t realize they can’t stop as fast in snow as they can accelerate, complaining about women who don’t wear makeup, complaining about the weather, complaining about the Mexican food, complaining about the lack of In and Out Burger, and so on.
What really irks me about people who trash on Californians is that many think we have it so easy and laid back here. It’s not cheap to live in California. Even in my city which is considered low income for the most part houses still sell for on average $185,000. Apartments are even fairly pricey. The lowest i’ve seen is $400, $800 a month is much more common (even in the sleaziest of apartment buildings in my town). We are laidback, but we also work our asses off too. If the weather wasnt so mild, you can bet that we’d all probably be quite mean and rude ;). It’s not an easy life to live in California. Most people I know struggle and work their asses off just to stay here (while i know for a fact relatives in Kansas have it much easier than we do.
As with Kyla, it annoys me that people complain about us moving to other states. Sorry, but we dont make it a point to harp on people who move in from other states (and there are a lot in the Monterey area, who moved here because they fell in love with the area and wanted to stay). We welcome new changes, we dont complain when something new comes into our culture. But i’m not saying it’s polite for those who move from here to complain how it’s not like California.
But, i understand how it is, it’s common for people to try and pull back relatives who make something of themselves 
Ummmm, you wanna tell me where the derogatory connotation of “Okies” came from? Funny how a sense of history puts things in perspective.
Oh, yeah, how’s that electricity thing going?
People from anywhere who move & then constantly bitch about how much cooler it was where they used to live or all the stuff they used to be able to do/get are just annoying. I don’t know any Californians who whine about that stuff (all the transplanted Californians I know are really cool), but if I did, I’d hate them.
I DO hate Southern California, though. When my BF’s grandmother died, he asked if I’d go to Santa Monica with him for the funeral. I untruthfully claimed that I’d feel uncomfortable there since I’m not actually family rather than go with him. I’d follow him to the ends of the Earth, but I draw the line at the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
It’s because of that same attitue that we have places like Golden Gate NRA, and other greenspace preservations. It’s really a good idea, even though by chopping it all down and building tract housing we may get some sort of short-term benefit.
Big Black did a song about Montanans, too.
You probably don’t want to know.
Aw, bullshit. The differences are:
(1) Golden Gate and other places like it were deemed to be good ideas by the people who actually live there and supported them – i.e., Californians. Aside for the issue of open spaces, which I support in a reasonable-to-liberal way, ask yourself how happy you would be to receive dictatorial advice from New Yorkers on what parts of your state should be preserved, regardless of the cost to the inhabitants.
(2) The issue out here is not whether trees should be cut down for tract housing, but whether trees should be cut down to build factories or farms or for timber – mainstays of our economy. (Granted, another mainstain of our economy is tourism, which fortuitously provides a strong incentive for natural preservation, but that decision still ought to be made by us and not by you.)
(3) There is no short-term or long-term benefit to having a state that is so agrarian and rural that it cannot compete economically with other states in the region. Wholesale preservation of the entire state is misguided because it fails to take in the needs of the residents – including the need to be economically competitive. It also serves to keep the state poor by blocking access to one of our greatest assets – natural resources.
I am not saying “burn it down and pave it over.” I am just saying that difficult decisions regarding stewardship of the land and governance of the state belong in the hands of its residents – not in the hands of people who have no stake in it because they don’t even live here.
This comes from the perspective of someone who moved from Kentucky to the LA area for college:
First of all, I do find Californians nicer and more polite than East Coast preps. I like the way that some areas, such as my city of Claremont have preserved a small-town atmosphere (in contrast to my birthplace of Lexington, Ky., which has now covered most of 2 counties with hideous suburban sprawl.) As for Californian’s environmental extremism, I belive this is a side-effect of life under a year-round blanket of smog.
It is true, however, that all CA natives need a crash course in what weather really means.
People in Nevada and New Mexico wish no one would arrive after them.
In this regard they resemble the French, and the Romans, and the ancient Egyptians, and the Indus Valley Civilization.
Everybody always says “I got mine by elbowing my way to the front, so now everyone else stay the hell away from the watering hole.”
It was ever thus.
The-Maxx, that sounds like my uncle. He lives in Oregon and is always and forever complaining about the Californians moving up there. I ask him, “But didn’t you move up from San Diego?” He never answers.
(FWIW, he’s been up there 20 years, and lived on my grandparent’s place out in the woods for a while. Grandparents retired to Oregon in 1960 or 1961 from So. Cal. – originally from Nebraska.)
Cogent point. It’s all the same old goin’ around/comin’ around dizzying mess. I can remember when my uncouth midwestern self might as well been stamped “USDA Dweeb” in CA. (On the East Coast they don’t even bother spitting on you until you grovel and try to pass as a “native”. Then they’re just disdainful until you have the good sense to die–preferably with the body shipped elsewhere for burial.)
Can’t say I precisely liked the anti-CA bumper stickers, etc. in WA, OR, etc. but it was a refreshing change not to be the target. The weary “and where are you from” litany was almost funny in a twisted way when my flat drawl and slow, prarie manners were greeted with something that almost passed for enthusiasm.
Not defending regional sterotyping but not above being tickled by it either.
Veb
I moved to the Napa valley about five years ago and I love it. I hope to live in California for some time to come although grad school might interrupt my, like, blissed out Cali stay. I love the unusual flora (I grew up in Boston, freeze thaw freeze thaw, slush, 400 foot cloud cover, then you die), but Jodi has a point. But it is too specific. It isn’t just Californians, it is everyone everywhere. Just look at a crowd sometime. Things haven’t changed much. People are still rude, pushy, ignorant. It’s all over. They are fat, they wear bad clothes, and they never read books. Americans are ugly. I don’t say that in a value laden way. They just are. It wouldn’t matter where they came from, if it was the states. Not that there aren’t these types everywhere (so don’t even bother), but the US is especially good at breeding them. My neighbor is a case in point. She belittles her child in the backyard for the whole neighborhood to hear it and she weighs about 220. She sells Avon with a sign to that effect on her front door and next to it, there is a bigger sign saying “No solicitors”. She’s a full blown Fundy, too. She is utterly average. Regionalism is even more parochial and myopic than nationalism. Melting pot my chapped Irish ass.
Personally, I wish more people would stop moving IN to California. All them damn hicks keep shootin their shotguns and lettin their chicken’s run amuck in the neighborhood.
But seriously, California gets just as many people from other states that complain about everything, and are generally worse drivers than Californians (Weren’t Californian’s rated the best drivers in the US or something like that?)
I would love more people to move out of the LA area. Maybe a few hundred thousand or so…that should just about do it.
Ho ho ho. Have you any idea how expensive accomodation in London is?
Wow, i seem to have touched a major nerve in you ::rolleyes::. Gee, i’m good about that I guess. Maybe next time i’ll put a disclaimer that i’m talking primarily in present, and in general. Yes, i do know about the okies, and I do know that not everyone in the state is very welcoming of immigrants, such as Mexican laborers (i never said there were NO objections to immigrants). I am well aware of my states history about immigrants, thank you very much. Next time i want to learn my state’s history, i’ll ask you since i guess you know so much.
I would apologize for your sensitivity, but well, that’s your problem.
Oh and the electricity is fine. What does that have to do with my opinion? I guess it was a cheap shot, right, because i dont see what the hell was the point in adding it.
Kabbes said:
Well, the fact that my city has a population of 17,000 residents, and it’s not a very prime spot, i’d say that was pretty damn expensive for what my town is (not to mention my point was that even in small towns along the coast it’s expensive to live, in case you missed the point totally). San Francisco on the other hand has rent as high as $2,000 a month for a small apartment (in some spots). Perhaps you would care to enlighten us about how expensive it would be to live in an English town of 17,000 residents? Would that be more comparable for you?
YIHA! A pissing match! Even Okies know that Okies are, well, Okies. You know what I mean?
As for Londres, it is more expensive where they have a fashionable underbite.
YIHA! A pissing match! Even Okies know that Okies are, well, Okies. You know what I mean?
As for Londres, it is more expensive where they have a fashionable underbite, isn’t that right?
From a parody of Baz Luhrman’s Everyone’s Free to Wear Sunscreen:
That about sums it all up, folks.
Well Doobious (and I didn’t know you were going to get so worked up over this), in my parents village of around that populace, which is about 20 miles north of London, the average 3 bedroom semi-detached is about £250,000, or about $375,000. There are many 5 or 6 bedroom detacheds priced at the £1 million mark (about $1.5 million).
But the commuter towns outside London do have a lot of variety in price. Their village is quite expensive. My town is more typical.
In my town (in the 25000 - 50000 inhabitants range I would guess) the average cheap 1 or 2 bedroom appartment will cost you about £600 per month, which is about the $1000 mark. Of course there are plenty of average to good appartments that will cost you a great deal more than that.
The average 3 bedroom semi will cost about £180,000 to buy - about $270,000.
London itself is of course much more expensive - the more so the closer to the centre you get.
Now, really, my original intent with that comment was actually to be light-hearted - you Yanks do tend to complain about your “high” prices whilst being blissfully unaware of prices elsewhere ($1.50 per gallon for fuel? Do us a favour. Try $5 per gallon). I was at the same time trying to make a self-deprecating comment about what our tabloids term “rip-off Britain”. Honestly. I’d be the last to claim that high house prices are good!
Please don’t let’s make it anything more.
pan