Some stereotypes about LA are true:

1. There are swimming pools all over! In clubs, in the neighbor’s backyard, in your friends’ apartment complex. They are bright blue and when you fly into Los Angeles, you see these shining blue jello cubes from the sky and they look like misfit beings in a land of gray-brown-green.
2. How do you get there? You take the interstate. Take a few. Almost always. However, it does NOT take an hour to get everywhere; I rarely drive more than fifteen minutes to a show, or store, or friend’s house. The interstate system is glorious, progressive, fast and I love it! Please note: I work from home.
3. What time is it? Name-drop o’clock. People seriously namedrop at the table next to you at happy hour all super loud-like: “My roommate’s friend knows Leonardo di Caprio blah blah blah…” or “Oh she dated Linsday Lohan’s cousin…” Who cares? A lot of people, apparently.
4. People really up and go to Vegas for the weekend. It’s 5AM on Saturday morning in the back room of a sticky warehouse; everyone has been dancing all night long and faces wear the pallor of sweat-induced near-delirium. New friend #219 next to you gets a call: “Go outside right now. We’re driving by the party and will pick you up in 5 minutes. We’re going to Vegas.” New friend books it out the door. Who needs a shower?
5. Southern California is the land of plenty, of milk and honey, of fresh fruits and organic vegetables, of piles of drugs and boobs and vegan restaurants. It is a fertile valley of desires where all your wildest dreams (and anything you might possibly want to eat) could be right around the corner. You can feel the pop of potential energy bouncing off the asphalt. There is no floating through life in LA; it’s sink or swim.
6. The percentage of beautiful people in Los Angeles, from Silver Lake to Santa Monica, is ridiculously high. I thought every woman here was really tall until I realized that they just wear super-high heels all the time. I still get made fun of for wearing Converse, and I still don’t care.
7. When it rains, LA stays home. Promoters can lose their ass on a show if it happens to rain that Saturday night. Rain does not phase this Seattle girl, heat does not phase this Texas girl, and cold does not phase this Maine girl. Moving around a lot has its benefits; I never whine when the weather is less-than perfect (although that rarely happens in LA!)
8. There is giant amount of stupid, fake, social-ladder climbing phonies in Los Angeles- but if you dig around the clueless heaps of artifice, you will find the largest pool of talented artistic minds in the world, working together to push forward the limits of creative expression. I call them my friends.
9. LA makes the world go ’round. According to Angelenos, anyway. This is the entertainment capital of the world, and often when I check the news on my phone, the local, headline and celebrity news are all the same- and taking place ten minutes from my house. I have heard San Diego (the 9th largest city in America) referred to as BFE, and people have asked me, “Oh yeah? They listen to electronic music up in Seattle? Really?”
10. LA: Most hated city in the world? People seem to physically recoil when I tell them I am from LA, particularly those from San Francisco or New York. “How could you live there?” they ask, with a look on their face like they just sucked a sewer worm up their nose. How about the music, the weather, the huge amount of cultural activities, the art, the beaches, the freedom to be whoever or whatever you want, the endless opportunities for work and play and education, the nightlife, the museums, the energy and passion….

I am in love with this place. The City of Angels? More like the City of Freaks. AKA:

Sweet photo from MyArtSpace.com

Read Parts 1-3 of bitchsLApped: Shilo Gets Schooled by LA