Post #619116 by Saint Tiki on Thu, Dec 29, 2011 11:54 AM

Here's thing about California. If you were a kid in, say, the 60s, 70s or 80s and you were growing up in Peoria or Cleveland or Louisville or Saint Louis pretty much everything you know about California you learned through the television. It's a weird, weird thing. I can't even explain to you the weirdness that might form in a kid's mind pertaining to California. It's like this crazy mental mixture of games shows, porn, Brady Bunch, cop shows, Dragnet, hippies, LSD, surfers, cars on the freeway, movie stars, mountains, Charles Manson, paradise, Kerouac, cults, Sanford and Son, sprawl, Mexicans, The Rose parade, the list is ENDLESS and on top of that it LOOKS nothing like anything the kid might have ever seen.

Personally, I have about 100 different visions of what "California" means.

Problem is that now, at 41, California ultimately feels like Paradise Lost to me (and maybe lots of other people).

But even to this day the word CALIFORNIA conjurs many a wonderful and frightening thing. Note, I've been to LA twice (it rained buckets both times) and San Diego. No SF yet. I've been busy....