The California Exodus

I thought it was for the cheaper cocaine?

Fantastic. Leave. Because we cannot build housing fast enough.

I've had a number of friends leave California in the past five years and it's rather interesting. They all left for political reasons - they are all Republicans. For some reason they all flock to the same place - Tennessee. A number of my friends moved out there.

One of my friends couldn't wait to move out there. They liked everything about Tennessee. They liked the old houses, the people, the food, the weather.... A year later they moved back. Old houses means lots of problems. They also missed the food from California - they said it was impossible to get good Mexican food or burritos in Tennessee. The weather was a huge issue for them. Seems Californians have a hard time adjusting to so much rain and of course they hate the humidity. Then... There was the people. They started to make friends and had a few dinner parties and suddenly their new found friends started to blow them off... Their daughter came to visit them with her husband who is African American and that upset a lot of their new friends....

Another friend is a real estate agent who moved their entire business to Tennessee. Real estate agents work off of commission and houses are a lot cheaper in Tennessee... So he makes a lot less money. His wife is Hispanic and it seems no one there is willing to hire a Hispanic; She also took a huge pay cut. Now they can't move back.

I've lived in red states and I've lived in blue states.... I've never walked out of my door and thought to myself I cannot live there because of the politics. (I left Arizona because the weather there was fucking unbearable.) I'll never leave California again. It's going to be 82 degrees here with a perfect breeze. (It was 100 degrees yesterday.)

If people want to leave... Then leave. Like I said we cannot possibly build houses quick enough.

When people do this, complaining about California, my response is "Don't take California with you!"

Meaning that part of this is a state of an entitled mind. Yes, you may get a bigger house, less taxes, but you're also moving to another culture that you have to understand and respect in order to succeed and enjoy life. And I'm not just referring to Republicans vs. Democrats or Christians vs. secular.

For example, blue collar Huskers in Nebraska won't take kindly to bitching that there's no good Thai, Sushi, or Greek restaurants. Those in the bible belt won't be happy that a bunch of entitled Californians with more money than brains moved in, clogged the streets with traffic and drove up the housing prices. Swingers in Atlanta and Georgia don't appreciate their sex culture talked about outside closed doors (it's kind of like the dry towns where you can only get a drink at the fraternal lodge like Masons or Moose).

This animosity is not uncommon both ways. When I lived in Silicone Valley in California, we got really pissy when the Democratic conservatives of the bible belt moved in, joined city councils and decided that The Hiphugger, Brass Rail and Richard's Lounge/The Candid Club did not meet the standards to be in "Bill Clinton's Model City." It turned a lot of Bohemians into Republicans at the speed of light.

The people who live where you're moving to were most likely there first, and don't take kindly to being bossed around by some bougie who just got a house three times bigger than what locals are struggling to afford.

Happiness is a matter of what you do with what you've got, or to quote Tom Lehrer's uncle Hen3ry (the three is silent), life is like a sewer, what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

So gauge what your happiness is based on and make sure you're not just taking your problems with you if you move out.

One of my friends moved to Tennessee and they complained that they couldn't get a good burrito or Mexican food.

Here in California we have everything... We don't discriminate. We like everything. Lots of Mexican - LOTS of Mexican.

We need four or five times that much to leave. I will help pack

You should go back to where you came from, that would make life here so much better if all of you guys went back to where you came from.

Can you name a single city in the world that didn't see an exodus during the past 3 years?

Bueller, bueller, bueller?

Colma, CA