Sea lions like it, but America hates it A recent survey by Public Policy polling found that California was far and away the most reviled state, leading runners-up Illinois, Utah, Mississippi and New Jersey by twenty points or more in the thumbs-down column.
Most of us Californians were devastated at the news. Many of us immediately got into our cars and got stuck in traffic, so we could work through our emotional wroughtedness in the comfort of familiar surroundings. What did we ever do to the rest of you, to so deserve your contempt? Much of what America enjoys today—sushi, cheap Mexican labor, drive-thru anything, free porn downloads and twelve-dollar six-packs of beer—were first enjoyed in the Golden State.
Not to mention our contributions to American and, indeed, world culture. Thanks to Hollywood, we all know what a car explosion, a tidal wave hundreds of feet high and an invading alien army looks like, without having to blow up our own cars, or wait endlessly on some beach or by some national monument for a stupendous wall of water or a horde of extraterrestrials to show up. The thanks we get is shot through with contempt? We can only ask why? Why?
On the national disaster front, we contribute valuable earthquakes and soul-sucking droughts. Admittedly, we don't have hurricanes that wipe out whole island chains or tornadoes that blow elementary schools into matchsticks. Our notable climate prohibits such activities. Are you blaming us for our weather?
Did I mention Katy Perry? Consider her mentioned. Katy Perry. You people are hating Katy Perry. Nobody does that.
The most humiliating aspect of the survey is the states that came in way, way ahead of us. Americans claim to love North Dakota, a giant, pointless rectangle of frozen prairie in which no one actually lives, and South Dakota, which only fills up for the Sturgis bike rally, far more than they love our sunny, surfer-babe filled beaches and snowcapped mountains. They ignore the fact that the only reason the US bothers having the Dakotas at all is to keep Mt. Rushmore from being in Canada.
Tennessee is popular. What for? Because it is the only state east of the Mississippi that it takes six hours to drive through? Come on!
Virginia, with its cemeteries full of dead Confederates and its suburbs full of government drones, whose ex-governor was recently convicted of selling his office for a fur coat and a carton of nutritional supplements, comes in ahead of California, where we are so pure that we recycle everything, including our governors. Where is your common sense, people?
Fortunately, my neighbors and I can stand apart from this controversy because we live in San Diego, which is, ironically, the most popular city in America, despite its location in the most despised state. And we stay here. Why? Because you need a passport to go south, a boat to go west, a willingness to sit in traffic for eight hours to go north and a reason to be in Phoenix to go east. Lacking any of that, we are forced to rest here by our sun-dappled harbor and enjoy the company of our sensible and attractive neighbors, our Pacific Rim/Mexican/cowboy-size steaks local cuisine and the presence of more microbreweries per capita than any other city in America.
Go ahead, hate us for it.
Most of us Californians were devastated at the news. Many of us immediately got into our cars and got stuck in traffic, so we could work through our emotional wroughtedness in the comfort of familiar surroundings. What did we ever do to the rest of you, to so deserve your contempt? Much of what America enjoys today—sushi, cheap Mexican labor, drive-thru anything, free porn downloads and twelve-dollar six-packs of beer—were first enjoyed in the Golden State.
Not to mention our contributions to American and, indeed, world culture. Thanks to Hollywood, we all know what a car explosion, a tidal wave hundreds of feet high and an invading alien army looks like, without having to blow up our own cars, or wait endlessly on some beach or by some national monument for a stupendous wall of water or a horde of extraterrestrials to show up. The thanks we get is shot through with contempt? We can only ask why? Why?
On the national disaster front, we contribute valuable earthquakes and soul-sucking droughts. Admittedly, we don't have hurricanes that wipe out whole island chains or tornadoes that blow elementary schools into matchsticks. Our notable climate prohibits such activities. Are you blaming us for our weather?
Did I mention Katy Perry? Consider her mentioned. Katy Perry. You people are hating Katy Perry. Nobody does that.
The most humiliating aspect of the survey is the states that came in way, way ahead of us. Americans claim to love North Dakota, a giant, pointless rectangle of frozen prairie in which no one actually lives, and South Dakota, which only fills up for the Sturgis bike rally, far more than they love our sunny, surfer-babe filled beaches and snowcapped mountains. They ignore the fact that the only reason the US bothers having the Dakotas at all is to keep Mt. Rushmore from being in Canada.
Tennessee is popular. What for? Because it is the only state east of the Mississippi that it takes six hours to drive through? Come on!
Virginia, with its cemeteries full of dead Confederates and its suburbs full of government drones, whose ex-governor was recently convicted of selling his office for a fur coat and a carton of nutritional supplements, comes in ahead of California, where we are so pure that we recycle everything, including our governors. Where is your common sense, people?
Fortunately, my neighbors and I can stand apart from this controversy because we live in San Diego, which is, ironically, the most popular city in America, despite its location in the most despised state. And we stay here. Why? Because you need a passport to go south, a boat to go west, a willingness to sit in traffic for eight hours to go north and a reason to be in Phoenix to go east. Lacking any of that, we are forced to rest here by our sun-dappled harbor and enjoy the company of our sensible and attractive neighbors, our Pacific Rim/Mexican/cowboy-size steaks local cuisine and the presence of more microbreweries per capita than any other city in America.
Go ahead, hate us for it.
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