The rest of the country is hating on California like never before. When will they start loving us again?
—VALIDATION PLEASE
Gustavo: It’s not going to happen—and that’s OK. Frankly, the love that the rest of the United States long had for California is what messed it up for the rest of us. Think of the Missouri Pikers who massacred Indigenous people in the Sierra during the gold rush, the Midwesterners who turned vibrant Southern California into a dour, boring place for most of the first half of the 20th century, the Manhattan and Brooklyn hipsters who are still moving to our cities and complain that we don’t have good bagels, pizzas, public transit, or bodegas. Leave California to us native-born and to immigrants from across the world, who offer nothing but love and gratitude and aren’t whining about what California used to be from their new shitty homes outside Austin.
This article appears in Issue 32 of Alta Journal.
SUBSCRIBE
Stacey: Your question should strike terror in the heart of any true Californian. Never in our history has anyone raised the notion that we should (a) care about what the rest of the country thinks or (b) try to earn its love. I don’t know where you’re getting these crazy ideas. Being a Californian means never having to say “Is that OK with you, Connecticut?”
Jerry Brown and Linda Ronstadt. Ramona and Alessandro. Gavin Newsom and the First Partner, Jennifer. Who’s your pick for Best California Romantic Couple of Them All?
—BRING BENNIFER BACK
Gustavo: I was going to say Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, but they split…wait, in 2009? Wasn’t it last year? Man, where the hell have I been? But if we expand the idea of love to include agape—the Greek concept that Martin Luther King Jr. famously espoused and defined as “a love in which the individual seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor”—then no one beats Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Think about it: Two twentysomething radicals meet near the tail end of McCarthyism and commit themselves to a lifetime of platonically working together for the betterment of farmworkers and the working class—and make it happen. Sí se puede relationship goals!
Stacey: Tim and Susie broke up? Well, I guess I can cancel that Smash the Patriarchy dinnerware set I ordered for them. I don’t know if they were the best, but my favorite Couple of California Past is Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. They were only together from 1967 to 1974, but it was when both they and their hair were at the height of their powers. Still, my pick for Golden State Golden Couple is Kurt and Goldie. He was a young star, and she’s an eternal one who has the word gold right in her name. They’ve been together for, like, 80 years and still aren’t married, because, according to Goldie, it would cost too much to get divorced. If that’s not love, what is? In the California yearbook that we don’t have, they’d win Best Couple every year. And Best Hair.
For years, I’ve told myself to put together a go bag in case of the Big One, but I have no idea what to put in it besides the basics. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
—HALF IN THE BAG
Stacey: The basics? You mean Sanpellegrino and Frizz Ease? Because that’s all I’ve got, and I’m pretty low on both. Part of my contract with the universe is to never be prepared for anything.
Half-Bag, I suspect the reason you’ve gone without an earthquake-
preparedness kit is that you share this spooky brand of knowledge of mine, and you know that nothing disturbs fault lines like people driving to and from big-box stores to assemble their emergency supplies. Luckily, there are companies that do all that for you. There are kits you can get on Amazon for under $200, and I advise you to get the biggest, best one you can for when I come by. You might have to resort to reading actual books until help arrives. If you’ve got room, Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time will keep you busy for a while. Another great choice that isn’t as long but might feel that way is My Name Is Barbra, Barbra Streisand’s newish, 1,000-ish-page memoir. Society should be back up and running by the time she starts dating Elliott Gould, and if it’s not, you’ll hardly notice.
Gustavo: The cool thing about having a copy of My Name Is Barbra handy after the Big One is that it can double as currency—I’ll trade you tales from the set of Yentl for a charcoal filter, please! The universe doesn’t like me, alas, so the kit that I currently have holds gauze, Band-Aids, scissors, a flashlight, gauze, aspirin, batteries that are probably defunct, and more gauze. That doesn’t include a pantry full of canned and jarred food, the massive machete under my bed, a magnum of Evan Williams, and a copy of Candide, by Voltaire.•
Have a question about life in California? Email our columnists at advice@altaonline.com and sign up for the Ask a Californian newsletter at altaonline.com/newsletters.
Stacey Grenrock Woods is a regular contributor to Esquire and a former correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She writes and consults on various TV shows, and has a recurring role as Tricia Thoon on Fox’s Arrested Development. Her first book is I, California.
Gustavo Arellano is the author of Orange County: A Personal History and Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. In 2025, Arellano was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He was formerly editor of OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County, California, and penned the award-winning ¡Ask a Mexican!, a nationally syndicated column in which he answered any and all questions about America’s spiciest and largest minority. Arellano is the recipient of awards ranging from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Best Columnist to the Los Angeles Press Club President’s Award to an Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and he was recognized by the California Latino Legislative Caucus with a 2008 Spirit Award for his “exceptional vision, creativity, and work ethic.” Arellano is a lifelong resident of Orange County and is the proud son of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.
