Fairytale of New York

If you live in Los Angeles for any period of time, there’s a man you're going to meet. He has lived here for five, ten, twenty years. Maybe he owns a house. He might have a successful career in the entertainment business, he might be working in a bookstore. It doesn't matter. He hates it here.

Everything is better where he came from. The bagels suck, the pizza is lousy. The traffic is awful, the sports fans are fair-weather, there's no downtown, the people are phony. This guy has been everywhere, and LA is the worst.

When you ask why he doesn't leave, the answer is never the same twice. This guy holds on to a fantasy that he's going to make his strike in LA and move back to where he came from. This guy is, in a word, an asshole.

Please allow me to introduce myself.

I was that guy for the first six years that I lived here. To tell you the truth, there’s a good bit of him left in me now. Still, I got into yet another argument this past weekend when I heard some guy yapping about how great New York City is supposed to be.

(I always have to refer to that place by its full name. I grew up in Central New York, and when I first moved away I made the mistake of telling people, correctly, that I was from "New York." They asked which side I grew up on. Then I told them that it wasn't a side or borough, but a city four and a half hours away. They always laughed and said, "That's not New York!" These people are dead now.)

You see, New York City people exist in a special category of self-centeredness that falls about midway between sociopath and God. They believe that their city provides the best of everything, be it theater, art, food, architecture, or public transportation. They act as though living amongst this bounty of riches has transferred to them the blessings of the Almighty, which they carry around with them even when they travel. We should all acknowledge our inferiority to their town, the greatest the world has ever known.

And they have the Y***ees.

Baffling, though, is that with all this manna, the people of that place still seem to believe that they deserve a medal for living there. So unique is it that those of us on the outside could never understand the pitfalls of its streets, the hidden twists and dangers that they alone have adapted to. A dangerous paradise for the unworthy such as we.

This was the case laid out to me this weekend at a birthday lunch for a friend, by a guest from, yup, Out of Town. I had to respond.

First off, there's better theater, a better museum with an art scene that is just as vital, architecture unparalleled in the world, outstanding, reliable public transportation. There's better pizza and restaurants that would blow the doors off any Bobby Flay creation at half the price. Gorgeous wide open public spaces with arts opportunities such as the world's greatest symphony, old movie palaces, and a baseball stadium that make Y***ee Stadium feel like the parking lot that it is.

I finished with a smile, took a triumphant swig of beer. The guy just looked at me.

"Dude, none of that shit is in Los Angeles."

"Who said anything about LA?" I asked. "I was talking about Chicago."