Paradise Found
I’m in California for Coachella, and I think I’m in love with this corner of the country. It’s not just the In-N-Outs, it’s not the wonderful dry heart, it’s not even the fact that everyone is gorgeous — actually, I’m kind of alarmed by how everyone is tattooed. This is the narrow prejudice of my class talking, I realize, but I was a little surprised to find that even “genteel” types were thoroughly tattooed. Among my acquaintances, I think I know two women with enormous tattoos, both of them gorgeous, both of them self-consciously bohemian. When I made note of this to my crony, a California native, she said, “Yeah, but the thing is that everyone is half-naked here.” Which is true. It could be that everyone I know has elaborate tattoos covering the parts of the body normally obscured by LDS undergarments.
But I digress. No, I think I love it here because … wait, it’s a combination of all of the reasons above. I’m also fascinated by the ethnic composition of the crowd, and the ease of the cross-class ethnic intermingling. This is a commonplace among elite-educated types, but here it seems like more of a general way of life. In itself this is neither here nor there, yet I still find something extremely cool about the Near Eastern hippies, the Latino hipsters, and the Asian frat types getting along so smashingly well. The ubiquity of the tan blurs the picture further. Yes, California as the future is a tiresome cliché, and all is not well in paradise. But as I wander through the crowds, catching a lot more than I had ever hoped music-wise, I feel very optimistic.
I realize that it makes very little sense for me to move here, and my car-free lifestyle is looking smarter by the day. All the same, as I laze around I am sorely tempted to become an aging sun-loving bum. I’ll have something more substantive to say music-wise later. For now, gosh, I feel strangely exhilarated.
There certainly is something about California — it is cosmopolitan and wealthy enough that many raised there are fortunate enough to travel the world, live in different cities, pursue careers wherever the opportunities are greatest… yet so many of us Californians in exile are constantly plotting our eventual return as though we’re in a Joni Mitchell song: “So I bought me a ticket back on a plane to Spain, went to a party on a red dirt road — there were lots of pretty people there reading Rolling Stone, reading Vogue. They said, “How long can you hang around,” I said a week, maybe two, just until my skin turns brown and then I’m going home… to California.”
As it happens Santa Ana winds gusting from the deserts out to the coast prop the waves up in California, forming these perfect hollowed out waves whose faces are broad and sleek, so that you can surf across them for lifetimes, or so it seems… and these same winds lash sparks into brushfires that consume dry sage brush, scorching hillsides, menacing Malibu homes… and an iconic image, one that always captures something particular about California, are the photos taken out beyond the breakers of ecstatic surfers wearing broad smiles as they straddle their boards, thrilled by the best waves of the year, thrilling in their best day all year… and oblivious to the walls of fire and smoke wreaking havoc in the backdrop, apocalyptic and strangely beautiful.
Anyhow, I certainly plan an eventual return, and a West Coast compound where you’d of course be a welcome guest or children’s music writer in residence. Or something. It’s California. It hardly matters.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 26, 08:32 PM · #
What kind of got dam conservative are you anyway?
— cw · Apr 27, 05:36 AM · #
Oh wait. I just read the preceeding post where you explain exactly what kind of conservative you are. Infosocialism + free market. That message combined with your mesmerizing video presence might just qualify you for a cult leader gig. California is the perfect place to explore this further. Find some teenaged runaways and do your Elvis Costello impersonation and see it it translates in person.
— cw · Apr 27, 05:45 AM · #
You only know two women with tattoos, and they are “self-consciously bohemian”, whatever that means in 2008? I guess it’s true, DC really is a dull, wonkish town. And I don’t even have any tattoos myself.
— Mark in Houston · Apr 28, 02:13 AM · #
Mr. Salam, please take down the link to the LDS garment page. I’m sure you intended no harm, but you are making light of something that Mormons consider very sacred.
— MC · Apr 28, 06:28 PM · #
California embraces Reihan. Your fanclub is strong here, O Master.
— D Dalrymple · Apr 29, 04:43 PM · #