My beautiful city
When my now-wife was preparing to move to LA and join me, a former lover of hers asked if I was a "surfer or a queer", since that's what all Californians were.
Large swathes of the country still think that way about my state and my city, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, and are chuckling and chortling in glee at what the illegitimate "president" is doing to my city right now. We are weak, effete "creatives", who care more about our half-caf lattes than our freedom, more concerned about our comfort than our rights.
Bring it, bitches.
Los Angeles is one of the most diverse cities in the world. Yes, the entertainment industry is what we're known for. And it really is such a minor part of who and what we are. We are a working-class city. We are an immigrant city. We are a center of research. We send spaceships to the far corners of our solar system.
Tell the vatos of East Los, or the bangers of Watts, that they're soy-drinking boys. Tell the immigrant who traversed the road from Guatemala to South Central that she doesn't know what struggle is.
LA is where the future is written. Not New York. Not Washington, DC. California is now where the nation will be in ten years. Everything good and bad comes out of my Golden State, and conquers the world. No other region in the world has the cultural, political, and scientific nous that California does.
Tell the longshoremen at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach that they're fey and don't do real work. Without them, the rest of this country would soon run out of all the cheap goods to which they have become accustomed. California is the world's fourth largest economy. We can do quite well on our own; the United States would collapse without us. So, go ahead. Try us. Fuck with us. See what that gets you.
As of this writing, the Wretch has activated 4,000 National Guard troops—illegally, without the consent or at the request of Governor Gavin Newsom—and 700 Marines to "control" the "riots". There are no riots. And LA County is ten million people strong. Good luck controlling the city with barely a brigade of troops. This will not end well for the criminal regime.
When my family moved to LA when I was sixteen, I hated it here. The freedom of movement I had in New York I did not have here, because I didn't have a car. My intent was to get accepted to Columbia or NYU and head back "home". Instead? My father didn't want me to leave. So I applied to exactly one school, UCLA, and was accepted. And, bit by bit, I shed my New Yorkerness. Bit by bit, this city seduced me. Bit by bit, I grew to know this city and this state, their beauty, their depth, their resilience. I am an Angeleno. I am a Californian. And I know I live in the best state in this Union, and in one of the best places to live in the world.
The other day I read an article listing the "250 best places to live" in the US. My wife's hometown of Noblesville, a small town about thirty minutes north of Indianapolis, was listed at number 50. No California city was in that top 50. I guess living in a town on a flat plain with no discernible culture is what now goes for "good living". No, thank you. Give me my dear, dirty Los Angeles. Give me a city where I can go to a Thai restaurant at three in the morning. Give me a city where I live cheek-by-jowl with people from all over the world. Give me a city where in the morning I can go ski and and in the afternoon I can lay on the beach. If you love your small town, I wish you all the joy it brings you. But don't mistake your "good living" as an objective reality. It is not. The world is a big place, and there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophies.
We in California pay a premium to live in this state, and we do so gladly. This is our home. This is where we live, and where we will die. We have huge problems, homelessness being paramount. We are not perfect; far from it. But no place is. And this is where I will plant my flag.
The Wretch hates us, because we hate him. Because we laugh at him. Because we know he's a weak, pathetic, little man, and let him know so at every opportunity. And now he's trying to exact his revenge. Again, try controlling a city of ten million with 5,000 troops. Troops which may refuse unlawful orders to fire on peaceful protestors. Once you've lost the military, what do you have?
LA Strong. California Love. We are angels for each other.