It was only recently that it dawned on me that the song "California Dreaming" by the Mamas and the Papas is about not being in California. When I was a kid, the line "on such a winter's day" always had a positive connotation for me, since the best days in LA are in winter, right after a storm.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Nice picture, Steve. I live in NoCal in the East Bay Area, and while it's not unusual for the top of Mt. Diablo itself to have snow, it's a rare treat to have the lower elevation foothills covered as they are right now. Beautiful.
ReplyDeletehttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/students-accused-in-facebook-ginger-attacks-could-get-counseling-along-with-their-parents.html
ReplyDeleteAlso from the LA Times. This reminds me of the danger that albinos face in Sub Saharan Africa.
Farmer F
I've lived in Southern California for 25 years, after growing up in Akron Ohio.
ReplyDeleteThe worst part of the weather in that area is not the cold temperatures or the snow. The worst part is the nearly continuous gray overcast in winter. Very depressing.
We're heading to LA on New Year's Day for the Rose Bowl. It's a takeover, an expeditionary mission by Ohio State fans! Go Bucks!
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteIt's in the '70s here in Florida and I wish it were colder!!
Timely post for me. I've been researching New York weather this evening as my husband has to go to Rochester for a week (next week) for business. He's never been north of the Mason Dixon line and has seen snow only twice. Yesterday, I called older relatives to ask for advice on how to dress, etc.
I'm excited, jealous, and yet scared as he's never experienced conditions remotely close to what is going on up there. Icy roads, what are those?!
"I've lived in Southern California for 25 years, after growing up in Akron Ohio.
ReplyDeleteThe worst part of the weather in that area is not the cold temperatures or the snow. The worst part is the nearly continuous gray overcast in winter. Very depressing."
I just recently went to Ohio and fell head over heels in love. I want to move there so badly, yet I know someone from there who moved to central Florida for that very reason: gray skies. He was born and raised there, but one day he was driving home and said he couldn't take the depressing sky. He walked in the door and announced he was moving to Florida. Within six months, the rest of his family joined him.
When I was in Ohio one of the things that stood out to me were the great complexions of the women (white). The women in my family, along with anyone seriously white, tend to get a pinkish face due to the Florida sun. The Amish girls and others were so white and with rosy cheeks!
Yes it's very anti-New York. He even mentions how if he were walking in L.A. he could be "safe" as well as warm - unlike the weather, probably not a relevant contrast today. But generally Mr. Philips was not fond of the Big Apple. From his song "Twelve Thirty":
ReplyDeleteI used to live in New York City
Everything there was dark and dirty
Outside my window was a steeple With a clock that always said twelve-thirty
One thing about the Northeast this time of year - all the leaves are not brown - they're all gone - not a leaf to be found, which makes things look even more desolate.
Well, the song 'White Christmas' is about someone living in CA and dreaming about the snows of December of his youth-the reverse of California Dreamin'
ReplyDeleteCalifornia Dreamin' was the theme song for the best-ever episode of Simon & Simon.
ReplyDeleteWow - I'm looking back at some pictures on the web of Simon & Simon [Gerald McRaney & Jameson Parker] and thinking how much the media landscape has changed in just the last two decades - trying to remember a time when a couple of heterosexual WASPs could have their own TV show is like trying to imagine life in an alternate universe.
What happened to our country?
When did we lose it?
One thing about the Northeast this time of year - all the leaves are not brown - they're all gone - not a leaf to be found, which makes things look even more desolate.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, but it also makes the contrast with spring and summer all the better. Winter in SoCal is nice, but the rest of the year, I can't take how dry everything is. I miss the lush greenery of the East, and I miss real trees. In the East, a vacant lot will be overgrown with greenery in a year or two. It will be a small forest in a decade. In the west (except the PacNW, which is also depressing in winter), it will be brown, weedy, trash-strewn dirt forever unless somebody waters it.
after growing up in Akron Ohio.
The worst part of the weather in that area is not the cold temperatures or the snow. The worst part is the nearly continuous gray overcast in winter. Very depressing.
Yes, the Lakes are terrible that way. On the mid-Atlantic coast, we get breaks - sometimes fairly long breaks - of sunny weather in the winter, and it's a rare winter without the occasional 50+ day.
The best climate is down around Hampton Roads and Piedmont NC: just enough winter so you appreciate the rest of the year; an early, gorgeous spring with flowers everywhere; a long, warm-but-not-too-hot summer; and a long, lingering fall.
I spent a bit of time in LA as a child in the early 80s. The one thing I did not like was the weather. It was always hot and sunny. Such lack of diversity made the place boring and bland.
ReplyDeleteI moved to Chicago from California - find there to be surprisingly many bright sunny days, even in winter.
ReplyDeleteRe: Simon and Simon:
ReplyDeleteWe lost our country before the 1980s, or we lost control of its future before the 1980s, but back then there were still enough of us that the media had to pay attention to us. Now the media elite know that they can get away with anything so they don’t even bother to program for the historic American nation. They think we are history, in the sense that we are the past and don’t count going forward. Proving them wrong will be a lot of fun, if we can pull it off.
There are climates to work, and climates to sweat.
ReplyDeleteRe: Simon and Simon, that was when men still watched TV. Now it is all gays and women. Hence, "Fattest Loser" and other stuff.
ReplyDeleteAs a California Native, having been to many other places, I still love it. SoCal is a delight, yes very much so in Winter, the light angling through the sky, low, makes everything particularly around the beach, beautiful. Its an open sky, not having much trees, filled with possibilities. The sea and the mountains dominate, giving you a sense always of where you are. The desert is a remote, other place, filled with mystery. The mountains, beautiful and steep, being young and still violent. SoCal was the most beautiful place in the world, but was ruined by too many people (and far too much illegal immigration). Watch any episode of the Rockford files with nearly empty freeways, and you'll see.
Damn straight ... June can be kind of gloomy, but Xmas weekis almost always bright and sunny!
ReplyDelete"What happened to our country",,,
ReplyDelete"When did we lose it",,,,
Offhand, I'd say 1965 and Teddy Kennedy is a really good place to start. California was still 80% Caucasian as late as 1970.
Reminds me of Marina del Rey . . .
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the nice part of Los Angeles. It does not get too hot there (we're not talking about Steve's precious valley)
ReplyDeleteSorry, but there's simply no argument against the weather of coastal California from San Diego to Santa Barbara.
As for the response that you like snow or whatever, Los Angeles is a moderate drive away from better skiing than anything on the East coast.
ReplyDeleteMy favurite theme song for taking walks in Chicago.
ReplyDeleteI recently came across my wife's fifth-grade class photo, circa 1972.
ReplyDeleteIndividually, I asked my three kids -- 18, 15 and 13 -- what they noticed when they looked at the picture. Each one said, without hesitation, "All the kids are white!"
I've lived in the NE, SE, and CAL, and only visited NC but I have to concur with Wood's assessment. A great thing about the mountains is you can change latitude (and therefore climate) very quickly (can also get very different weather just by changing which side of the mountain you're on).
ReplyDeleteThe thing I found most surprising about CAL (Sac'to) was the effect of humidity. 110 was more comfortable for me in CAL than 90 is in the Low Country. In CAL you can be roasting in the sun, then you step into the shade and it's like you've got air conditioning. And you can lay out in the sun for 30 minutes and you're roasted. If you have water and sunscreen/hat California "heat waves" are a cakewalk.
ReplyDeleteCompare with Queensland. "For four months of the year it's too nice to work and for eight months it's too hot."
ReplyDelete"One thing about the Northeast this time of year - all the leaves are not brown - they're all gone - not a leaf to be found, which makes things look even more desolate."
ReplyDeleteEarly November in NYC could certainly have felt like winter to Phillips, and there are plenty of brown leaves then. It would have been just as easy to write "All the trees are bare, and the sky is gray. I went for a walk, on a winter's day"; it has no effect on the rhythmic or melodic flow.
The big question is, did he say "You know the preacher lights the coals, he knows I'm gonna stay" or did he say "You know the preacher LIKES THE COLD, he knows I'm gonna stay". The later version makes no sense, since the preacher would have to associate the cold with this no account drifter type showing up, and what preacher worth his salt would do that? But then again, lyrics then and now don't necessarily have to make a whole lot of sense so the latter interpretation could well be correct.
And does anyone feel safe in LA these days? I can see warm, but safe?
I'm sure that seagull is from across the border.
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