[redpoll]

>>>I have a reason for disliking California: I spent 50 years there and despite everything I tried to do to prevent it, the place slipped slowly into total disarray and debasement.<<<

I only spent 10 months there and came out of the experience disliking it as well. (Mendincino County, by the way... the most physically beautiful place I’ve ever lived... with the worst neighbors, community, and school I’ve ever seen. My garden was spectacular, though.)

California reminds me of a women who was stunning in her youth, surrounded by suitors, but has since glided through life on her reputation, plastic surgery, and pharmecuticals, all the while insisting in a slurred, raspy, drunken voice that she is still the most attractive girl at the party. A shame.

[BelegStrongbow]

I think of Mystery Babalon, as John the Divine described her. California could easily be that Jezebel, don’t you think?

[Little Bill]

I have a lot of family members that lived there, one was a Mayor in 1853, most left.

[Regulator]

California reminds me of a women who was stunning in her youth, surrounded by suitors, but has since glided through life on her reputation, plastic surgery, and pharmecuticals, all the while insisting in a slurred, raspy, drunken voice that she is still the most attractive girl at the party. A shame

Exactly. A tarted up old babe who hasn't figured out that time passed her by.

The simile is not abstract. The elderly baby boomers who still think it's 1965 here look and act like that. It's comical: once in the vanguard of culture, now they're just relics driving aging V-dubs belching smoke, surrounded by Asians in BMW's.

[Osage Orange]

California reminds me of a women who was stunning in her youth, surrounded by suitors, but has since glided through life on her reputation, plastic surgery, and pharmecuticals, all the while insisting in a slurred, raspy, drunken voice that she is still the most attractive girl at the party. A shame.

Pretty good description......

[Theodore R.]

California reminds me of a women who was stunning in her youth, surrounded by suitors, but has since glided through life on her reputation, plastic surgery, and pharmecuticals, all the while insisting in a slurred, raspy, drunken voice that she is still the most attractive girl at the party. A shame.

Very shrewd observation, redpoll