50 Reasons Los Angeles Is the Best Effing City in America
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| Colin Young-Wolff |
17. Weather? Fine, how about 329 days of sunshine? Every. Year.
16. Dodger Stadium. By sheer force of will, this is now the third oldest ballpark in the majors. Come for the sunset views, stay for the Doyer Dogs. The team? Meh. Maybe next year.
15. Institutes of higher learning: USC, UCLA, CSULA...etc etc. Who says Angelenos don't read? There's more books here than in Washington, D.C. and more students to read them.
14. The beaches. Yes. All of them. (L.A. is also the only city in America where you can start your day skiing and end it surfing.)
13. Movies. TV. Web series. We make them. That chick next to you at the coffee shop? She's writing one. The guy on the other side? He's in one. The dude who served you the coffee? He wants to be in one. Everyone else in the shop? We've lit them, shot them, edited them, gaffed them, lived and breathed them. Every single one of them came here to create stuff to entertain you (and get rich and famous too).
12. Shorts. It's OK to wear them at dinner here, even at Spago.
11. We're swimming in a sea of theme parks and you don't have to navigate trailerparks and swamps to get to them. Just the 5. In traffic.
10. Seriously, we do drive everywhere, which is why we have some of the nicest, flattest and cleanest freeways in the country. Take that, Mass Pike.
9. We have the best one-hour commute in the country. Only lucky Angelenos get to gaze out at oceans, canyons and semi-arid landscapes while stuck in traffic. Everyone else has to jockey with pissing hobos and terrible buskers, or driving through rusted-out has-been suburbs.
8. Amazing parking. What was that, Mr. Lennon? Yeah, we do have some great parking. Good luck finding that in SF, NY, Boston, Chicago or Philly.
7. Weekend island hopping: Catalina Island and the Channel Islands , to name a few.
6. A myriad of ethnic enclaves: Chinatown, Filipinotown, Koreatown, Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia, Tehrangeles, Little Tokyo and Thai Town, and that's just the beginning. Hundreds of languages, hundreds of cultures, hundreds of ways to turn all of those national cuisines into tacos or burritos.
5. In-N-Out Burger. We invented fast food, then we perfected it. Again, you're welcome.
4. 16 NBA Championships? Done. And if you root for the underdog? We've got that too: The Clippers have only had 6 winning seasons in nearly 30 years.
3. The Sunset Strip. (Rejoice, hair metal fans.)
Timothy Norris
2. We're the home of the modern surfboard.
1. Weed... er, medication.
Many thanks to L.A. Weekly staffers Dennis Romero, Amy Scattergood, Jill Stewart, Ben Westhoff and Simone Wilson for their help with this list.
See also:
*Our Best of L.A. issue and our Best of L.A. app
*Best L.A. Novel Ever: The Tournament
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
*10 Best Stand-Up Comedy Shows in Los Angeles
Follow @PaulTBradley and @LAWeeklyArts on Twitter.
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