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East Coast State of Mind

I’m not a native Californian.  I’m from “Back East.”  The mere fact that everyone calls it “Back East” (vs “the East Coast” “Massachusetts” or “New York”) is an indication of a pretty well-known phenomenon– no one in Southern California is actually from Southern California.  Most of us came out here to fulfill a dream, pursue a cockamamie scheme or just to live amongst our kind in the Land of Fruits and Nuts.

Once a year, I go “Back East” to pay my respects to the mothership. It’s great, I fill up on nostalgia, bagels and pizza then roll myself back to Cali where I spend the next 11 months recovering from the experience.

It’s not that bad, I mean, the people are great– plenty of unique characters.  Like this dude, who I met at Logan airport:

You know he’s not from Pasadena… I can almost smell the lobster juice from here.  But when it comes to cars, conformity rules.  I spent a week on the road with barely an interesting car in sight.  I did learn a lot about where everyone’s discretionary income is going, however:

You see, “Back East” your car serves three purposes 1) to get you from point A to B,  2) to make sure everyone knows where your kids got into college & 3) to make sure everyone knows where you like to “summer.” (yup, that’s a verb)

Whereas here in LA, your car serves one purpose– to make sure that everyone knows where your discretionary income is going:

Does that make Angelinos shallow?  Aren’t we interested in higher education? Kinda and kinda.  But all I know is that looking at a parking lot full of this day in and day out:

is enough to make my eyes bleed.  So as I sat in stop and go traffic on my way home from LAX in my filthy, over-priced, gas guzzling SUV surrounded by smog, pounding bass from the neighboring car stereo and the stench of french fries wafting from the VW Biodiesel in front, I had just one thought:

It’s great to be home.