Californians

As a native Californian (going back 5 generations on my mom’s side), most of the annoying and crazy Californians you hear about came there from somewhere else. It used to be one of the greatest places to live. Then, people started moving there in droves from all over.

Comedian Gallager had a joke that California was like granola. What ain’t fruits and nuts is flakes.  But almost all our serial killers and weirdos, if you bother to check, came from another state originally.

The state’s move to a demented socialist experiment is relatively recent, also. So don’t blame us natives.

It’s dead inside Favorites bar this afternoon, where the propped-open door spills a bit of light onto the ancient Elvis pin ball machine and the grumpy man puffing on a cigarette in front of the video poker machine.

There’s no food here, unless you count the vending machine against the green wall. Owner Ray Medrano had to make a choice: Close the kitchen or ban smoking in the joint altogether. His customers love their smokes more than their food, so the kitchen lost.

For Medrano, there’s only one despicable group of people to blame for Nevada passing a smoking ban that eliminates smoking in restaurants and bars that also serve food: Californians.
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“California has a negative influence on our society,” he said, glancing around as cigarette smoke fills the stuffy place. “They should keep their world in their world.”

I’m a Californian who left the state 10 years ago for Nevada, but I came here to get away from the crap this guy is complaining about. I loved the fact that Nevada was old school. Very libertarian in many ways. But that has been eroded over time, and housing prices, which were once very reasonable, have gotten as almost as criminally absurd as California. I’ve railed against this to everyone who will listen to me, so I totally sympathize. It’s greedy speculators and control freaks who somehow took over in my home state. And they spread their virus elsewhere.

I remember in the 70s, how you could walk down the street and total strangers would smile and say hi to you. Everyone was nice. Crime was pretty low. If you saw that movie Annie Hall, there’s a scene where one of Woody Allen’s friends talks about how great it is in California. When people see that now they think it’s a joke. But it used to be fairly accurate.

Sure we had crime. A lot of famous crime. But most of the time, the place was wonderful.

But I watched in dismay as people started pouring in, not just across the borders, but from other states, bringing their crappy attitudes with them. Lots of New Yorkers moved there in the 70s with their “I heart NY” bumper stickers on their cars. I wanted a I HATE NY bumper sticker after listening to all these people complain about the weather and how nice everyone were. Why did you move there, then? They brought a lot of negativity and East Coast liberalism, and started getting into the state and local governments. Slowly but surely, a truly liberal state became the faux-liberal socialist republic of California.

So while I perfectly understand the sentiments expressed by some in this article, the problem goes back to control freak, fake “liberals”, aka Crypto-Marxists, who want to ban everything they don’t approve of and tax everyone to death so only elitist rich people can live decently.

Not satisfied with ruining my state, they have to try to ruin all the others nearby. I really hope there will be some kind of backlash to this nonsense. I’m really sick of it. I want my old state back. 

I was in Denver some years ago and purchased a local Sunday paper. The main article was about the growth in the Denver area. Yep, the new arrivals in the subdivisions on the outskirts of town were complaining about the “ farm “ odors from the ranches nearby. A lot of the transplants were from California.

Posted by  on  03/26  at  03:04 PM

They ain’t completely ruined Texas yet, but they’re working on it.

Posted by Mike Anderson  on  03/26  at  04:08 PM

Same with Nevada. I don’t smoke, but I think Smokers should be banned from every place. That’s pure discrimination. Especially since there really is no proof second hand smoke does anything.

Posted by  on  03/26  at  04:12 PM

I’m originally from the Bronx in NY, and still love NY (no hard feelings, Hud), but I can see why Mom wanted to leave there.  But we could never go to California (even though I’m sure it’s a wonderful place there).  When I suggested with my older brother Peter about moving to California, he scoffed and said, “Wanna’ get shot?”

And here I am, living in Richmond, Virginia for 13 years, and adapted as well as I could.

Posted by John Cassidy  on  03/26  at  06:40 PM

Richmond has it’s share of crime if I’m not mistaken.

Posted by  on  03/26  at  08:33 PM

Oh yes.  It’s not big-big like NY or CA, but yes, there are a lot of crimes.  Two of the most recent crimes to make headlines were:

-The murders of Bryan and Kathryn Harvey on New Years’ Day.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1128769047442
(I met Kathryn several times when she ran the store she created, World of Mirth, and she was a really nice person; I was surprised to find that she was the sister of actor Stephen Culp!  Mom and I were shocked to learn of her death, especially since we went Christmas shopping at WOM.)

-The murder of Taylor Behl (She was murdered by some wacko goth guy who was presumably a pedophile.)

Posted by John Cassidy  on  03/26  at  10:44 PM

The majority of NY is not like NYC, they give the rest of us a bad name.  In fact, the majority of Upstate is a lot like you describe the CA of old.

Posted by Laurie  on  03/27  at  01:06 PM

Laurie,

I’m sure all of NY is not just like NYC (even though NYC is my favorite place in NY).  I still have friends up there, living in the better parts of the state.  There are a lot of areas I liked, including Tarrytown, White Plains and others.

Posted by John Cassidy  on  03/27  at  01:15 PM

We had a new client in our clinic today.  His cell number had an area code I didn’t recognize and I asked him where he was from.  He apologized for being from California.

Posted by  on  03/27  at  05:55 PM
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