Picking at the Scab

I moved to LA in an indirect fashion from Portland, OR. I grew up in HI and DK, my dad was from LA by way of PA. I like to think I had a broad outlook, which meant I had to leave a basically redneck state like HI. I went to the Northwest because I could study there, it was cheap, and it reminded me of Europe. Or the weather reminded me of Europe. Northern Europe. While people in Oregon sometimes say it is the most European of states in America, I don't think they know what they mean. By that I mean to say they really have probably not been to Europe. Yes, the weather is roughly similar. But it doesn't go too much farther than that. What they mean is it was settled by white people, which includes a few Scandinavian pioneers from the midwest. Who probably got to Oregon and said something like, "you know, this looks like how my mor mor described the old country." Which is to say Oregon probably does bear more than a passing resemblance to 19th century rural Sweden. I understand poverty and crop failure were the reasons the Swedes came to the US.

That said, there is very little commonality between a place like, say, Stockholm, a rich city on an Baltic archipelago, and Portland, a small town on a dirty river. It is a question of perspective and Portland is, at heart, a provincial / meat and potatoes kind of place. I have a similar criticism for San Francisco. Portland is San Francisco's less successful younger brother.

Someone (from Portland, but it is a common enough comment) once said to me that living in LA must be tough because everything and everyone is so fake. The have it wrong. The reality is, humans are pretty shallow creatures. In that sense, LA is more real than just about any other place. Embrace it.

I found some links this evening by a very good writer from England, who moved to PDX for a girl, and recently left with the girl for somewhere else. You should read this as he says it better than I ever could and is also very funny.