Los Angeles

1. Have you ever noticed that if you live outside of California, say, Arizona or New Mexico, and you drive a Mazda Miata or a newer model Volkswagen Bug then you are simply driving a Mazda Miata or a Volkswagen Bug, but if you live in Los Angeles and you drive a Mazda Miata or a Volkswagen Bug, then you are either a young female or gay.

2. In LA, "Classic Rock" rock stations rarely, if ever, play REO Speedwagon, Sammy Hagar, UFO, or Triumph, but in Western states, those guys are popular. It's the opposite for Bob Dylan, The Doors, and Jefferson "Anything." CCR and Neil Young, unfortunately, are played everywhere.

3. Traffic is sometimes not a problem, and it is possible, believe it or not, to actually speed on the freeways in Los Angeles, as long as you're driving on a Sunday at 4:00 am.

4. Traffic in LA may be much worse than Tucson, but at least in Los Angeles people will sometimes stop at a crosswalk to let a pedestrian cross. In Tucson, you have to be in the middle of the road before anyone will even look at you. Forget about New Mexico.

5. Tucson's newspaper, The Arizona Daily Star, has a column called "Playing Poker." The LA Times doesn't have such a column. In fact, in seventeen years of living in Los Angeles, I don't recall ever seeing any type of advice in the Times about card playing. If the Times were to carry such a thing, it would be a special, probably to Thursday's expanded Calendar section, to prep the weekend Vegas travellers. Of course, that day's Calendar would be bigger than the whole Arizona Daily Star, but then LA has always been about being bigger and better. I guess that's sort of a Texas disease.

6. If you live in southern New Mexico, you're a Dallas Cowboys fan. If you live in northern New Mexico, you're a Denver Broncos fan. If you live in Arizona, you're an Arizona Cardinals fan. If you live in Los Angeles, you're #$&* out of luck. Actually, you could be a fan of anyone, since no one is truly from LA.

7. When you travel from LA to the East Coast, you're going "back east." When you travel from the East Coast to LA, you're going "out to the Coast."

8. I love LA, but there are more uptight people there than anywhere else I've ever lived. I guess that's because they're all either agents or young female actresses.

9. Hot weather in LA is 85 degrees. In Arizona, 85 is a cold snap.

10. If it rains back east, say North Carolina, it's just raining. In LA, it's the lead story of that evening's news.