Are you a displaced Californian?

Please tell us something of your relationship with "california"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1353596

"california" - is a global metaphor, syn. "west coast" is the term in britain,
for all that is ultra modern and new age, yoga, reiki, hot tubs, rich executives
and posh houses... its all in the california hot gold rush...

Its a riot to hear people who've never been to california tell a california native
whats great about it, talk about irony.

I Luv California ..

I Luv Californians as long as they are out
of their Cars :think:

edited for grammar

1997. Still in SoCal. Love the weather. Love the fun at the beach. Love the proximity to fun parks, etc. Hate the traffic. Hate the smog. Hate the prices (of housing, gas, everything).

to DU! :hi:

and close to the great wine regions of California. House prices suck but that is a trade-off I can take.

I'd never ever move back to OK. No more tornadoes, ice storms, and 110 degrees with 95% humidity. Most importantly, way less of those ignorant, bigoted "Christian" hypocrites around here

Born in Detroit, spent two years during elementary school in LA Area. Moved "home" to California in 1983 and forced to leave in 2003 - due to both economic and family issues. I will always think of California as my chosen "home state."

Lived there from '80 to '84, wanted to leave sooner but it took time to get the money up for it. Lived there again from '88 to '92, didn't want to but my wife and I thought my kids should know their grandparents while young.

Costs too much, no weather (you wouldn't believe how much I missed thunderstorms), and the sky is never actually blue but an odd blueish that natives tell me is blue ;)

I can see why they like it though, sun and beaches, all kinds of resorts and places to go. If you're into sports it's the place to be. It's great if that's what you're into, but I grew up running the woods and playing in the rain and California is short on that.

but i have no desire to move there- too expensive, and too many people for my taste

Left the next day and have lived all over the world. Went to the Haight in '68 for a short while. I'm proud of California and S.F. Still a big Giants fan.

5th largest economy in the world!

the most wonderful state in the union --

cause we have the most wonderful wines!

i mean it's the greatest, strangest most outrageous state of being ever!

Spent a year in NYC (I bought the movie fantasy of being able to afford a decent apartment in Manhattan on less than 6 figures -- ha!) and moved back to Cali for the quality of life. Yes, we have to drive a lot but you can be outdoors practically year round, CA wine is MUCH cheaper than it is in NY, practically anyone can afford a place with a DECENT KITCHEN (big enough for cooking) and, entertainment industry denizens excepted, I think there's a lot less posturing and phoniness here than in the Big Apple...

when I was going through my divorce 5 years ago.

I still miss it, even though I just got back from a trip there. Saw my son graduate from Humboldt State and was there for the birth of my 1st grandbaby. I was there for 3 weeks and loved every minute there.

I've never looked back.

My great affection for California Peggy aside, I have no desire to ever live in California again.

The quality of life sucked ultimately.

I hate traffic; I hate smog; and frankly, I'm not too enamoured with the culture of real estate and cosmetics.

Arnold Swartzenegger, Ronald Raygun and Richard Nixon, Randy Cunningham, Bob Dorner, etc, etc all speak to the glib nature of California politics.

Not since Earl Warren (Republican) has California produced a decent politician of national stature.

On the bright side, I did enjoy some fabulously timed earthquakes with my wife though. :) The Landers earthquake in particular was tremendous fun for us. It couldn't have happened at a better time.

Doesn't she hold Sam Hakawawa's old seat?

There was another piece of California work, Crazy Sam. Actually I left California for the second time during crazy Sam's tenure, and for some bizarre reason, I went back. Never again.

I will say this about Boxer: What I know of her I like.

Feinstein on the other hand, is not my ideal Democrat. She is mostly notable for strenously opposing the only positive environmental issue proposed by James Watt: Blowing up the Hetch Hetchy dam.

I will say that I liked Alan Cranston, but he got his fingers caught in the S&L jar.

Then there was Pete Wilson, the xenophobic racist, who had the doublespeak gall to announce his Presidential campaign in front of the Statue of Liberty.

Gray Davis seemed like a decent guy, looking at him from here in New Jersey, but look what happened to him. Only in California could the Bush/Cheney/Lay Enron scandal get stuck on the democratic governor, and only in California could that governor, trying to do what governors do (govern), be replaced by a steroid crazed mutant molester.

…is the "requirement" that Democratic Presidential candidates be from the South.



I assume so. He was after my time here.



She is as good as it gets in the Senate these days. She spoke out on election fraud when nobody else would. She voted NO on the IWR. She has voted NO on all of **'s extremist
judicial nominations.



I agree with you there, though not for the same reasons.



I expect James Watt proposed it for the same reason that Senator Feinstein opposed it -- it would deprive San Francisco and several other communities of their only significant
source of water. All the other water in California is spoken for. There isn't any more to be had. No Hetch Hetchy means no more San Francisco.

Removing the dam would not cause the Hetch Hetchy valley to blossom forth overnight -- it's been under water for rather a long time.
You'd have dirt with no plant life to hold it, so it would all wash away downstream. Then you'd have a lot of bare rock.
Doesn't seem like much of a payback for forcing the abandonment of the a great city,
and forcing its residents to move into what would likely be much more suburban and car-dependent locations.



also before my time here.



I never could figure that one out either.



I think that is a testament to the enormous power of the media.
The fact that so much of the MSM is located here in California tends to magnify their power
and influence here, as their employees are a substantial voting block in SoCal,
and the the Rethugs play the whole Hollywood thing by running washed-up actors as candidates.

I think there is also election fraud going on in Freeperland.

edit to add, that made me a resident (pretty much) of California for over 30 years

to a person who's never been there. Be honest, please.

Depends on what part we're working on. I lived in Southern California when I was there, main impressions I had was very hot much of the year and cold rain for the rest. Smog, traffic, and so on. Wasn't great from my standpoint, but then again I did live for at least a time at the second most popular stop for the Garden Grove police department ;) Things got a bit strange at times.

For those with money though, it's a whole different world. You've got more parks and attractions than you would know what to do with, beaches, and just a short drive away mountains and snow. Most of it though if you don't water it nothing grows, the only thing green is in lawns and median strips or where otherwise tended. Lots of sports, that's what my little brother loves and he still lives there. Both do actually, but the older little brother is in Northern California and I've never been there.

Central California I've visited, gets a bit prettier and more covered with vegetation but it's still pretty short compared to eastern woods. Nice camping up there though, found a stray that ended up being my favorite dog there.

Northern I haven't seen but my wife has, impression I get is that it's a whole different story than it is in the south. More rain, more trees, I might actually like it there if I ever got a look.

It really is a differnet state, and i'm for political
separation before the south shreds the place. The desert
climate needs its own governnment so that the natural monopoly of
the water basin is maintained. The unpopulated north is really a beautiful
place and if you've only ever seen the prison state of the south, you'd
be shocked to know the north is not a prison too. California's on
target to have all of its citizens in prison or working in the prison/police
industry by 2025. Thank you drugs war and stupid term limits.

For too many people, california is nothing but a prison. A fucked up evil prison,
ruled by moralists all over the earth who reach out and put my friends and extended
family in prison through political tentacles reaching to the east coast, through
financial agencies to europe, the UK and beyond, where the country is governed as
a province returned to the monarchy as a prison for the hateful moralism of the
white man's burden that did not stop at the west coast, it got to redondo beach
and created a gazzillion nuclear missiles at the TRW factory.

When i was a child, on a malibu beach at sunset, i asked my mother what that amazing
stripe was in the sky, a very very high up missile trail, and so i learned about nuclear
missiles tested from vandenburg over the LA west sunset, just to symbollize what
we REALLY live for. That nuclear missle trail is permanently burned in to my pscyhe
in a way that i myself can't communicate. That is LA. The white men got to paradaise
and built a race ghetto and a bomb factory, and no wonder its gone to shit.

I don't know how you do it, but even when you're typing about something unpleasant there's something poetic about the style. Not a bad trick, wish I could do that ;)

I can't disagree with you about what happened and what California looks like today, I'm not sure that them being white had anything to do with it so much as them being powerful did. We had some pretty nasty human sacrifice cultures going on and a few other details in history that came from all kinds of places. I'm not sure it would have made a difference who was in charge, the style of abuse might have changed but I'm not so sure the abuse itself would have. Power corrupts, doesn't seem to matter who they are. Only way to control it is to limit it.

thousands of years.

I've only been to San Diego once for a few days. And we drove through the Mojave Desert when we moved to Northern California.

The people are fun, interesting, and happy. The landscape is varied and beautiful. But mostly, I notice how even the crazy people are fun - there's a realization that we all live in a weird place, so people don't get all hung up on other people looking, dressing, or acting different. And everyone here has big dreams, and a lot of the time, you can believe that they may actually achieve them.

fun, fun, fun. I like it.

built by German immigrants (like my grampa). The central valley is like all of the mid-west compressed together, the high desert is like nothing you've ever seen before. The Capay Valley is also unlike any other place you've seen. I could go on and on.

it was mellow, not crowded, and heavenly to ramble around the back roads. Raised my family in Minnesota, the only midwestern state I can imagine having enough liberal democrats on one block to make a forum for a party.

from Indianapolis. Much as Indy has become a better place over the last 15 years, my wife and I can't wait to move. Just love the vibe out there. Yeah parts do suck, we lived in South Florida during the 1980's and know all about urban nightmares. But overall, California just has a great feel to it.

and could never afford to move back.

Hated every minute of it. I'd never go back.

and ended up moving back.

I love it here, love being near family, within a couple of hours of winter snow and beaches, beautiful cities and countryside, but would leave if I could talk my husband into it. He won't budge, though.

Almost nothing about my life, past or present has anything to do with the things you mention above...wealth...hot tubs...yoga...etc.

edited to add: The reason I'd move is to get a bigger house somewhere more affordable, not because I have a problem with CA per se. Sometimes I feel like by the time we have enough money to get a house with a yard for our kids, they'll be adults.

And what cracks me up is when people back east(friends of mine), criticize CA and complain about how fucked it is.
I love it here mainly for the weather (San Diego), and the laid-back lifestyle. A lifestyle in comparison to areas in other states that is. We have our negative points too, such as dense population,high cost of living/housing, crime, earthquakes, wildfires, Ah-Nold... But compared to where I grew up, Lawrence MA, I'm im paradise.
I love it here and barring a move to Costa Rica, I'll spend the rest of my days in San Diego.

Little story here: When my parents were alive I tried to get them to move out here for years. They had been here several times but always stated that they hate it here. "Too many people, those damn freeways, earthquakes..." Then they'd tell me that they LOVE the change of seasons crap, but whenever the rain or snow was falling,or the rivers flooded, sub-zero temps, heat & Humidity, they call me up and complain to high heaven. But they still hated it here.

will move back.

left in '87, still miss the way it was then. CA was always the golden state. In the years I lived there it was said to be recession proof, not that THAT mattered much to me then 'cause I pissed it away anyway, single, carefree, just digging the Magnitude of the place, mountains, deserts, ocean, forrest, man it had it all.
South Coast basin one of the four spots in the world with Med climate out side the Med, any place you can grow figs, olives and avos is got a lot of right to it. Those old friars at the missions knew what they were doing.
Most and best of all about CA was what I call'Western Mind', an openness of spirit I cannot find East of the rockies.

In a month.

And starting law school.

I'm pretty excited. :)

BTW, you're right about people talking about California as if they know something about it. And, when they do, they usually talk about L.A.- as if THAT is California.

speak NEGATIVELY about it, and have no clue, in my experience. Frequently it's people from places like where I am (northern TX), who say the same kind of things about CA as NYC ("it's horrible, I'd never live there") and have either never been there or spent a weekend passing through.

LA is the core of the new california, it is the political future due to
population density, resource drainage, and unsustainable growth of the neoliberal model.
I truely beleieve LA is the cesspit from which we need to derive a new economic model,
as it is itself the fucked up mess nightmare of american racism, fascism, overpopulation,
overdevelopment and all that other shit rolled up in to one big sausage, and if it can't
get sorted out in the LA basin, then the whole planet earth is FUCKED... not a fucking prayer.

LA is the future, a degenerate asset-stripped futrue, ruled by far away financial fingers pulling
strings from across the planet, manipulating the little slice of california, internet, surveillance,
oracle, TRW, Loral, Cal Tech, Vandenburg AFB, Lawrence Livermore california. It is so valuable it is
* o w n e d * from somewhere else, just like fucking scotland.

LA is hate, i've never seen a culture of hatred like it anywhere on earth, the lowest
fallen on the low, when people turn in to rats, and i've only seen it in LA, surely it
exists in every major cesspit on the planet, but seeing it in LA tells me if it can't get
sorted on that mythical west coast, if there can't be race equality and wealth on that
west coast, then the entire manfest desiny postmodernist meta-narrative is busted broken wide open
to rule the planet from beyond the grave.

Lotta folks i knew in LA couldn't afford to take lotsa trips out of town. Poverty and the underclass
are in LA, a new world for america, in case you've not visited. Worth walking on your own 2 feet
around downtown LA to see the future of the country. Its not in washington DC, its in the booming
metropolis of the west that is sold planetwide as the zion of the new megaculture, hollywhood forpeets sake.
Oh, reach out and buy your little piece of the new zion, and its like the knockon effect of all the
zionistic attempt to purchase the high ground results in political awakening for those displaced.

I was born in Los Angeles city and live since then in LA County and know no other California, it's CA as far as I'm concerned. :rofl: Just kidding with you. ;-) Haha! I wish I could get out of here to at least another county, I think I'm stuck here till I die. :banghead:

Never thought I'd want to move but L.A. was too pricey and way too overcrowded.

Love the NW, and have never looked back, or been back.

I do miss the Eucalyptus and mockingbirds.

I liked San Diego, and loved San Francisco, but we left the country altogether this spring.

Cost of living was a factor, but not the only one by a long shot.

If I could time travel back to the 1970's, there would be no other place I'd even consider living. But living there in anything resembling the US norm is beyond most people's means today.

BTW, when I lived there, I never did any of the new age stuff, nor did any of my friends.

"Its a riot to hear people who've never been to california tell a california native
whats great about it, talk about irony."


No, what's a riot is hearing from people who've never been there tell you how much it sucks, or asking if I've been buggered on the street (because, you know, EVERYONE in SF is gay.) :eyes:

and hubby has spanish-mexican & yaqui blood in him to name a few, that established the mission trail so...it's all about the cali goodness here :thumbsup:


http://www.oneheartbe.com

will probably die here. :popcorn:

I'm a NYC native now living in NC. California started downhill when Ronnie was Governor. Too many people, nobody wants to pay taxes, freeways are ridiculous in L.A. And having grown up on the East Coast, I love the change of seasons.

I would never live there again. I love Chapel Hill.

I was born in North Carolina, moved to San Francisco in my early twenties. I lived in that wonderful city for twenty years, but had to move after an injury left me unemployable.

I live in Oregon now, but am very homesick for my city.

Btw, California is actually two states - Northern California and Southern California.

three years ago and it's very different now.

And yes, Northern/Southern California are worlds apart.

plus I want my ashes scattered on Mt Tamapalas

I love Mt. Tam.

was one of the first times I was sure there is a divinity in the universe, God if you will. That nothing could be so stunning without purpose.

Yes, California has red areas. It's a big state and has room for pricks, too. :)

San Francisco became an impossible place to live, in the middle of the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. Rent was ridiculously expensive and hard to find. Rent ate up all my paycheck, and there was no money left for fun. I could no longer afford to enjoy SF. :(

by the time our family left in the late 90s, I felt like I was livin most of my life sitting in my car on the freeway! :(

It was a great place to grow up in the 60s & 70s, but by the 80s it started to go downhill. I wanted to leave for YEARS but with family there and the great weather which made daily life there so damn easy; I could never quite kick myself in the butt to get the hell out even though I always had the vague sense of knowing and feeling that there had to be someplace better, prettier and more "real." No doubt about it, Southern California certainly has a surreal feel to it-all that endless concrete and blacktop gives it an "other" planet, "other" worldly feel.

However, once hubby and I got married, it didn't take us long to read the writing on the wall that we would probably never afford a house there-or in a decent neighborhood that is. So we got the hell out in the late 90s which was BEFORE the prices went totally insane and doubled and tripled! Go figure, we coulda made a fortune if we could have just qualified for a mortgage-however this was pre-ARMs/creative financing.

All in all it was a good decision for us because we LOVE LOVE LOVE the area of the Pacific Northwest where we now call home. It wasn't easy, and quite a sacrifice in fact since good paying jobs are scarce up here (as they are in most of the U.S). We lived here as the working poor up until a couple of years ago. But the best part is that we finally got our own house. :)

Sometimes though, I miss So Cal and all the friendly and laid back people. People here are slower, quieter and more reserved and sometimes I am too damn friendly, too damn garrulous and talk to damn fast for my own damn good! LOL!

The weird part is that there are days here that I forget that all that concrete and blacktop is not just outside my front door and that I can't go out into that bright light and hit the great flea markets which I adore and probably miss the most. :shrug:

A crisp, clear day at Newport Beach
A walk thru Montgomery Woods in Ukiah
Sit on top of Mt. Lassen and look over to Mt. Shasta
Walk thru Bidwell Park, Chico on a warm summer evening - the sweet smells
Beaches - oh the beaches...
Navarro
Doheny
CDM
Avila

I wouldn't live anywhere else...

I remember the Venice canals when they were clean. Spent summers there at aunt and uncles house. You could eat the fish you caught. Swim to the buddy's house next canal down.
Playa del Rey Marina wasn't there. That was a big tide pool. Had an amusement park on it's northern shore. Woowee. Hughes Aircraft on the hill. Clean beaches. No tarballs. No red tide.
Mom and Dad settled in Burbank my grade school years. Dad fresh out of the Marines got a job at Lockheed. Mom had worked some there during WWII while Dad was away.
Fond youthful memories.
I remember riding my bike to a park and running right smack into my first solid wall of gray/brown air and having instant trouble breathing.
I remember riding the electric trolley from Burbank, to Glendale then down through Chavez Ravine to the Red Line terminal where we transfered from the trolley for our Red Car to the Amusement park in Long Beach. Woo Hoo watta roller coaster that was.
I remember several earthquakes. As I grew older with wife and kids we lived out at the western end of the San Fernando valley that got just wasted in '71 (or was that '72{limited hard drive space up here in the memory banks}).
The final straw for me in California was having my first CalVet financed house severly damaged.
Yard saled and fled. The world was in the same predicament as now politically. Corrupt politicians. An illegal war. Unrest in the streets. Gang wars.
We weren't alone in leaving city life.
Mass exodus. The hippie communes forming north of Spokane, up toward the Canadian border, caused the local DMV license plate exchange facility to fill up a 55 gallon drum of mostly Cali plates once a month there for a couple of years.
Some of those hippy folks are still there having lived throught the land value inflation that occurred because of the migration. And the loss of revenue from the decreased logging that that part of the state relied on as it's financial base. That town lost me to Portland, Oregon where I've settled in '84 and love it here. Even with it's quirky problems and classist ways.

Does that count? I moved to California from the midwest as a 7 yo. I grew up, went to school, married and divorced twice, had babies, finished college, started a career, worked the whole time, and became a grandmother in California.

I moved out a year ago. Not because I was priced out. I took a 1/3 paycut to make the move to a place that costs just as much to live.

I was sick of Arnold. I was sick of the republican stronghold I'd spent 25 years in. I was sick of the heat, the wind, the smog, the traffic. I was sick of my employer's destructive policies. I was sick of living invisibly in the same community with my ex.

I longed for trees, for cool weather, for open spaces, for less crowding, for more dirt than concrete. My family in another state needed me. So I left.

Rush, rush, rush to get anywhere, even the convenience store down the street (which you drive to)

Ride a bicycle, take your life in your hands (unless you're lucky enough to be able to ride on one of the few bike trails)

Sweet smell of eucalyptus and orange trees (until they're bulldozed for yet another housing tract)

Housing that is so expensive that even the really crummy areas (and there are lots of them) are out of range

Water, water, nowhere, but that doesn't stop the land developers

East of Yucaipa, desolate moonscape (and hot as hell in summer)

Spend a leisurely hour on the 101 freeway going from the Hollywood entrance to the Downtown LA exit

If you want to look for a job in LA, don't bother with the help wanted ads, since the vast majority of advertisers are just looking for resumes

Go to Big Bear Lake on the weekends, but stay clear of the weekend hunters from Pasadena, who think that anything on four legs is a deer, and anything on two legs is a deer on its hind legs

although I lived and traveled abroad for 12 years.

The stereotype of California as Disneyland, movie stars, sunny beaches, Hollywood, surfing, endless summer, etc. is an image of SOUTHERN California.

As some people have said, California is two (at least) different states, with different cultures, realities, customs, geography, mindsets (although, of course, there is some overlap).

I'm partial to Northern California, which is where I'm from, with counterculture emanating from San Francisco and Berkeley and Santa Cruz, the great liberal megalopolis of the Bay Area, the Wine Country, the Gold Rush country, the Redwood country, our plentiful water which the South sucks away, the hyperkinetic innovation of Silicon Valley, and our great agricultural land (although disappearing) and temperate climate.

Actually, I'm from the Central Valley (in the north), which probably has more in common with the Midwest or fringe Southern states like Missouri and Oklahoma than it does with Marin County or Haight-Ashbury.

This is my home.

For the most part, I grew up in California although I did live in Oregon for a couple of years in there. I moved away in 1980 and have been back to Tahoe a few times. I'd like to go to Yosemite, San Francisco and the Redwoods again; otherwise I don't miss it.

would I ever live there. Even turned down job offers in San Fran (quite a lovely city) to stay in the Chi-town area.

Also, he smog just KILLED me in L.A. (I have athsma). And ya just can't get good pizza out there! And that's damn important! ;)

Can't say I've seen the rest of the state, though.

I miss it until I realize I now don't rent, can sail and can drive across town without taking a couple hours or having to drive another hour to park my car, which might get broken into...

I live in the state of three seasons. Fire, earthquake and mudslide. And have experienced all three. Lucky me. ;)

so I could finish college-even then it was too expensive to live out there without 2 incomes. We lived in LA county.

Demographically, it's a lot like home, but the weather's a 10000% better. I love me some California. Been here eight years now - would have been here sooner if I could have been.

Lived near Sacramento, and my son still lives there in old town. I miss it!!!! Hubby gets transferred everytime there's a restructuring of his company. We still have neighbors from California ask us when are we going to move back home? (we haven't lived there for over 12 years) We had great neighbors, had neighborhood parties all of the time, and everyone would lend a hand when needed. Went to UC Davis, and College of the Redwoods, both, beautiful campuses. I miss it!!!! Been to Alcatraz twice for the sunrise ceremony--it's quite an experience. And, we also have lived in Ferndale near Eureka and in Modoc County by the Oregon border. I LOVE CALIFORNIA!!!!

Only other place I would want to live is Europe, either Germany or Belgium.