"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
29 November 2005Tales of 90265I've been to Malibu a couple of times, though not since 1988 or so; but I have no reason to think it's changed much in the intervening years, and the QC Report confirms:
Malibu is a place with absolutely no sense of proportion. The scenery isn't just lovely; it's perfect — except during the fires and mudslides, which are biblical in their scope. The discretionary income isn't merely large; it could fund malaria treatments in up to twenty developing nations — which is something best not to dwell on as you window shop on the Coast Highway. The people aren't lovely; half of them are the physical definition of beauty — the other half are the definition of what kind of bank statement it requires to breed with the physical definition of beauty.
During my brief stint as a Legal Californian, I almost always felt like a fish out of water, and not a particularly attractive fish at that, and it didn't help that the few people I actually knew out there apparently derived their entire awareness of Oklahoma from The Grapes of Wrath. Still, I had to appreciate the place for its sheer gorgeous insanity:
Malibu is proudly inconvenient; it seems to derive perverse pleasure in having only two major routes of entry, both of which have been known to close due to the aforementioned fires or mudslides.
Me, I spent a lot of time farther down the coast, lost in the labyrinthine streets and coves of Palos Verdes. (This is one of the few times in my life when I actually bought lottery tickets on a semi-regular basis, perhaps hoping I could buy my way into California — not the state, which had already issued me the appropriate identification, but the sheer idea of it.) And I have no doubt I could relate to this:
[T]his is small-town parochialism at its worst. Small-town insularity wearing a six-carat yellow diamond for a Sunday afternoon soy latte.
I suppose I could have grown to hate the place. But someday I'll go back for a while, secure in the knowledge that I won't have to stay there. For now, my old California license plate (expired 5-90) has a place of honor — which means, basically, that nothing else is hanging in front of it — on my garage wall. (Via The Happy Homemaker.) Posted at 10:58 AM to Almost Yogurt |