After braving the Lackawanna snow and a lass-free New Year’s Eve, I kicked off 2008 with a business trip to Los Angeles, Calif. I was traveling with the college’s women’s basketball team to a tournament at Whittier College.
As a professional, despite my youthful looks and low pay rate, I would like to be treated as such. From the get-go, I was being referred to as a game manager — a student worker who does all of the bitch work for the team — and could only travel about the B.W.I. Airport with a “buddy,” which meant one of the students. This was a never-ending struggle, since I hate people treating me as a child just because I look young. (I still get carded for video games, rated-R movies and even once on a Greyhound to prove I was old enough to ride a bus without a parent. Mind you, I’m turning 23 in a few months). Inevitably, the self-righteous Ukrainian and hot-headed Irish in me came out and I flipped out on my superior co-worker. Notice I didn’t say I regretted it.
I was not impressed with Los Angeles as a city. In the12-mile stretch from La Cienega to Whittier, I saw the neverending slums of Little Havana (or it could have been Little Mexico but, then again, all of Los Angeles seems like Little Mexico. Zing!) Hollywood was a craphole, too. I never saw such a large tourist attraction as dirty as Hollywood & Vine. Bleak!
Whittier, a suburb of Los Angeles, wasn’t that bad. I only wished I hadn’t dropped my ID in B.W.I. or else I could take in the wonderful “scenery” Southern California has to offer. I’m pretty sure I could easily make those open-toed socialite dames cry. It’d be effortless on my part.
I didn’t get to see as much of Whittier College as I planned on. I wanted to scope the place out for a statue of Richard Nixon, an alumna of Whittier, so I could thrown a bucket over its head and take a photo of me with it for Facebook.
Speaking of former presidents, read The Onion’s fake column written by Jimmy Carter:
Funny thing about me: I actually fucking know shit! Not like these goombas trying to weasel their way into the White House. I practically wrote the book on collapsing bridges, inflation, and the working poor, fuck-o. I even got a degree in nuclear engineering or some shit. You know how easy I could swoop down right now like a guardian angel and solve all your fucking problems? Snap. Bam. Do it in my fucking sleep. Just fucking try me….You had your chance with Jimmy Carter, and you fucking blew it. So get fucked. Fucking country.
Rodeo Drive and Beverley Hills was probably more depressing than Little Havana. I said to a twentysomething from the O.C. who sat next to me on the LAX-to-Nashville flight that I thought that one of the many problems with Southern California is the disparaging gap between the elitist scum of Orange County and the impoverished city of Los Angeles and the upper class’ ignorance to the cause. I told him that Los Angeles can’t flourish because the working middle class doesn’t exist. It can’t exist. I made a reference to the movie Escape from L.A., in which Los Angeles breaks apart from the United States and the U.S. keeps all of its residents there as a prison state. I’m pretty sure he didn’t like my social commentary. Cross-apply Los Angeles disses in Annie Hall, the Die Hard series, Tom Waits albums and East Coast rap for the win.
I also went to a Lakers game while I was down there. I’ve never been to an NBA game and expected better from the supposed No. 1 basketball franchise’s fans. Except for the guy who sounded like Ozzy Osbourne in the beginning of “Crazy Train,” they were quiet. The Latino man sitting in front of me and I got a “Ta-co! Ta-co!” chant to substitute the “De-fense”cheer and then a “Let’s Go Taco!” chant in place of “Let’s Go Lakers” that resonated throughout the arena once the Lakers were close to holding the Pacers to under 100 points. Comment if you know of a Jack in the Box I could get two free tacos from.
I’m listening to: The Decemberists’ “Los Angeles, I’m Yours”
