City of Industry

Last night Tiffany and I went to a friend's St. Patrick's Day party in Los Angeles. It was fine; we knew the hosts and our mutual friend Kim was in town, so we had a good time getting scrambled on one Guinness and a bunch of warm Miller Lites. Miller Lite, by the way, is swill. Three-day-old rainwater is more palatable. And even though it was the day before St. Patrick's Day, the party was dubbed as such a party and signed outside noted that those not wearing green would be raped by the host. Nonetheless, less than half of the party wore any green. This is because of two reasons: one, there isn't a large Irish influence here like there is on the East coast, and two, most of the people there were trendy "industry" posers who wouldn't lower themselves to the level of us plebeians. My gripe with these people is that they stick to well-defined cliques. If you're not clearly someone higher up on a social ladder that is defined by experience, vague connections, and name-dropping, then there is no reason these people would speak with you. I found it almost impossible to strike up conversation or break into one, and when I did engage one of these future actors/singers/failures I was given curt responses and thinly veiled scorn. The only new people I managed to talk to? Two kids out of Elon in North Carolina and two Texans, or more simply the non-LA "industry" people. The social scene, at least in Los Angeles, is much more competitive, even in a leisure setting such as a house party. That sort of snobbery is completely unnecessary.

Parties at UGA usually found me talking with new people more than I talked with the friends that came with me. Southerners seem much more friendly, more willing to speak with random people, more ready to have a good laugh and at least try a little conversation with someone, no matter what you think of them at first glance. But of course there are douchebags everywhere, and perhaps LA just has a higher concentration of douchebags than the rest of the country. I'm hoping that the douchebag concentratoion dilutes the further north you travel in California, because that is where I would like to move once I finish my schooling here. Riverside sucks.