Southern California and especially Los Angeles seem to have a problem unique from many other places equally as scummy. There is unbelievable pressure here to BE somebody, have it ALL, and be one of the .... "Beautiful People".
We are constantly barraged with commercials/billboards telling us that you MUST have a body/looks like Pamela Lee Anderson/Fabio. You MUST have the 50,000 sq-ft. house in Malibu. You MUST have the fleet of BMW's, Mercedes, Vipers, etc in your expansive garbage. You MUST own the business that brings you in the seven-figure salary.As a morning DJ around here puts it ... "You can never be too skinny or too rich".
You are measured by how many credits cards you have stuffed into your wallet. You are who you are, by who you "know". People actually look down on you if you only live in the $250,000 house instead of the $500,000 house. And God forbid that you clean your own house and do your own yardwork!!
"You mean your maid doesn't do your grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry,and take the kids to and from school for you?? How DO you find the time, you poor thing you??"
Without these things they try to make you feel as if you are a big freekin' NOBODY and a failure in life. Oh ... and by the way ... you're supposed to have all this by the time you are 35.
Nowhere will you find such an industry that pumps you full of the ideas that you must have such unobtainable things. Or such a marketplace to fill your head as to think you are somehow very less than perfect if your not shaped with plastic and looking like a Barbie Doll. Being a good, decent person in this city brings sneers of disdain and the attitude that you are somehow some sort of a "chump". Money and status is EVERYTHING in this city, and enough is never enough. You just simply HAVE to have MORE than the next guy. If your neighbor builds a pool, YOU must have a BETTER one. If your neighbor gets a new car, YOU must have bigger, better, faster, and more expensive. People are proud of the fact that their giant SUV gets worse gas mileage than yours. If your neighbors wife has a firm ass and tit's that point to the moon, your wife is off to the plastic surgeon/health club to have an ass that looks like a couple of basketballs are stuffed in her shorts, and tit's that you can serve drinks on.
Bigger, better, more ... Bigger, better, more... Bigger, better, more. That's what it's all about.
Make no mistake that HOLLYWOOD runs this place, the image of how it should be here, and all the idiocy that goes along with it. They will tell you the biggest LIES as to what Los Angeles is like, and when you suck it all in, they will chew you up and spit you out like a Presidential wad in Monica's mouth. They put forth all the glamor and glitter, and most of the country buys it hook, line, and sinker.
Teenagers from the Midwest come here looking to be the next "somebody" and end up being drug addicted prostitutes. Women who are constantly bombarded with the idea that if they don't look like Demi Moore .... commit suicide. College students under pressure to be at the top of their graduating class, less they be "losers", buckle under the stress and become dopers or jump off the top of their dorms. Regular people, who realize that they will never be more than just an "average" person, spend years in therapy going over this horrible "problem". There is no being "average" in this city ... To be "average" is to be someone else's doormat so that they might scrape off the dogshit they stepped in on you. Being "average" is to be tagged a loser.
"Hollywood" ... (and I mean that as an all-encompassing idealism) ... the "Media" ... all play up to this "California Lifestyle". Here you have 14-year-old girls begging for nose jobs and breast implants. Lyposuction is a huge industry. Health clubs with tanning booths abound like so many 7-11's. Millions of dollars are spent on clothes just to have that seasons "look". People actually pay hundreds of dollars for a haircut ... oops, I mean "style". 12 year old kids have cell phones and credit cards. Men spend thousands of dollars to have their dorks lengthened/enlarged. Men spend thousands to have flowing locks of hair. People buy cars that they can barely afford. Parents agonize over which day-care to stick Jr. into, and pay out the nose for it. Homes are outrageously overpriced, and people actually worry themselves sick over being able to live in the "right" zipcode. Idiot "celebrities" get away with pushing forth their own little personal agendas, that effect ALL of us, ... because they can. And then ... their idiot "fans" fawn all over these Celebes thinking "Gee .... They're MOVIE STARS, so they MUST know what they're talking about!"
Don't buy into this phony crap. All that glitters is not gold. When you watch the Academy Awards with all the glitz and glamour, remember that just a few blocks away homeless dregs are sleeping under the freeways. When the movie stars are getting out of their limo's and walking up that red carpet, just around the corner is some junkie crack-whore plying her trades for another "rock". When you see the gala for the newly released "whatever" film, and all the stars flocking to the Egyptian Theater, just remember that across the street lurk the freaks and degenrates that hang out at Le Sex Shoppe. For every movie star up on stage accepting an award, there are hundreds of "nobodys" that put them there. Including the freaks.
If you should ever walk down Hollywood Blvd. to look at the stars names on the sidewalk, don't be surprised at what you see. The rundown greasy tee-shirt shops and tattoo parlors. The pawn shops and the perverts. The disgusting burrito and burger joints. The smelly bums blocking your way and demanding money from you. The gang vermin who is just around the corner in an alley, just waiting to stick a gun in some tourist's face. The 14 year old runaway girls, who came here expecting to be a "star", or the 12 year old boys drawn into a life of making homo flicks just to get their daily $10.00 "spending cash" and a bowl of gruel or a cot to sleep on in a flop house, who are now slowly dying from aids because they were forced into a life of drugs and prostitution.
The rich along side of the destitute. The blessed along side of the cursed. The "Haves" taking the long side-step around the "Have-Nots". The city of plastic clip-on smiling faces. The city of "Stepford Wives" and "Bob Next Door" who wants to "DO" your daughter. The sick and the wretched. The city where insanity equals saneness.
The city of false images and shattered dreams.
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