I was talking to a friend the other day and he happened to mention a man he knows who has recently returned to Denver from the Los Angeles area. Apparently the guy really hated Century City in particular and California in general and I — being a California man — couldn’t resist hearing exactly why he felt the way he did. The answer was pretty shocking to me:

“There are too many fake people there.

“Now — I don’t want to slam a guy I don’t even know, and — dog knows he is entitled to his own opinion, but I’d be lying if I neglected to mention that I completely agree with him on principal: California actually does harbor a lot of fake people. The difference is this… I like them better that way. In fact everyone I grew up with was pretty fake and they still are. Donnie wanted to be the next “Steve Harris“; legendary bass guitar player from the seminal English NWOHM band “Iron Maiden”. My best friend David thought he was Asian, in spite of his snow white tan and long blonde hair. I knew a guy named Kenny who could draw complete comic book pages in fine point permanent black ink without penciling, and his stuff looked better than most professional comic book artists at the time. He could do a full page, including story and art — in about 5 minutes — and he could do it on demand. Adrianne was an actress, and had been playing leading roles since she was a small child. What most people didn’t know was that she had a talent for writing and was working on her 1st screenplay at the tender age of 19.

Skot was a painter, and a record collector who just happened to be one of the best rock and punk guitarist in the OC scene. Nobody ever heard of Rich kid “Tyler” until he scored a gig with Alanis Morissette as her touring drummer. Later — I met Robert who was a working class guy from a family of hard workers, and nurtured a secret painting ‘jones’ that blew my mind, and still does. Tim was a real gangster and not to be messed with. He is also a family man and father and one of the kindest souls I have ever known.

But this guy had recently returned from the “Golden State” and had nothing good to say about it. He had been a lighting tech trying to break into the film business, and was dismayed that every other person he met was an actor, and the rest were busy polishing their latest screenplay. Even the gas station clerks had an angle; some played in bands, and others had pretensions of owning their own chain of ultra convenience stores. To hear the story told in this way it almost sounds crazy. Just who the hell do these FN people think they are?

And that is precisely my point.

Not content to walk around for the rest of their lives in the skin they were born with, they reach and strive beyond their “natural abilities” and get their GED at 24 so they can return to school and study Film Making. They surf every morning while the rest of us sleep and parlay their love for the sport into a fairly lucrative merchandising contract and later open their own restaurant to great success off Pacific Coast Highway, overlooking the endless blue of the Pacific Ocean.

To be sure, there is nothing inherently noble about entrepreneurship or “breaking into show business.” But it sure is nice to know real people who never give up no matter what and are never content to stop growing, learning, living and making big mistakes along the way — because they know that doing so is the only reliable way to get where they really want to go.

If you are out there Mr. “back from California” I hope you will understand that while I wish you well and I hope your return to a slightly saner world works out for you — I’ll take a big dream and a grand adventure any day of the week over a comfortable life in front of the TV watching other people live their dreams for me.

Full of shit or food for thought?

What follows are transcribed excerpts of my interview with Orange County artist “Robert James”. Be sure to check out more of this fun and interesting interview in the first garbage culture podcast — to be released soon.
On file sharing, copyright and P2P:

I like to think it’s all good. Wow — great things can be done with this and look at all the possibilities…You know my mind doesn’t work that way, like oh how can I screw someone over with their art or music or whatever? I don’t think that way.

On the reactions of his family when he started sharing his art this past year:

I’ll tell you what I did because it was real recent… just this past Christmas, and it was partly because I was broke, but I really buckled down and I did a lot of paintings, and I spread them all out — to my nephews and nieces, and my brothers… I did a major painting for my little brother, and everyone just flipped out it was really rewarding, it was one of the most rewarding experiences with art in a long time.

On growing up in the OC:

I was real fortunate that the kids that I grew up with and the crew that I grew up with all really creative people, all of them — musicians and artists… and nuts and loners and comic book geeks… Just really interesting people, really creative people. Writing songs and listening to music and creating art and skateboarding. We were really cool kids who at a really young age were all doing really creative stuff and listening to a lot of great music. In fact most of my friends were musicians, and I think that art for me — that was a way for me to be involved.

On his favorite BBQ record:

There’s this record called East Autumn Grin by Mathew Ryan and it’s really just a great BBQ record.