5 Reasons Why Los Angeles Dominates New York

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To clarify, I–like most residents of this city–am not originally from Los Angeles. I’m not defending my hometown, I’m defending the city I chose to move to. To be honest, this is often easier because you pick the city you live in for a reason, whereas your hometown could easily be a turdpile. No offense to JayTas or all the other people who decided to live in New York, but you made a huge mistake.

1. Climate

I know. Everyone’s sick of hearing how great the weather in L.A. is. Hell, I was sick of hearing about it before I moved here, but that’s because I simply didn’t understand. The daytime temperature fluctuates from high 60s to low 90s, depending on the time of year. To simplify the explanation, it’s basically 75 degrees every day, which people say sounds monotonous. I’d say that, too, if I wanted to delude myself, I suppose. You know what I don’t miss about Texas? Sweltering summers and freezing winters. Why have that in my life? The best thing about the weather isn’t even necessarily the warmness as it is the consistency. You don’t realize how much thought you put into weather until you don’t have to anymore. It becomes one more thing you don’t ever have to think about, freeing your brain to make all sorts of decisions and come up with creative ideas.

2. Geography

Los Angeles is spread out, and traffic is terrible. I don’t dispute that. Traffic IS terrible and gas is pretty pricey. But you know what I’d rather do all day? Sit in my car alone listening to podcasts or carpooling with a friend, rather than cram into a metal tube with masses of people trying to get their days going. Would I prefer that our subway system was more extensive and that our highways were better planned? Sure. But you know what makes all of it better? The area it takes up. Within 90 minutes, starting from of any location in Los Angeles County, you could be surfing at the beach, skiing in the mountains, hunting in the forest, or hiking in the hills. The sunsets out here are pure insanity. In fact, you know what’s the most annoying thing about L.A.’s geography? The number of sunsets that pop up on my Instagram feed around 7 p.m. every day. Yeah, I saw it too, guys.

I suppose it could be worse. I could live in the shadow of colossal buildings that block all aesthetically pleasing light from reaching my window.

3. Food

New Yorkers, shut up about your fucking pizza already. Pizza is like sex. Even when it’s shitty, it’s still pretty good. You might have hundreds of phenomenal pizza places, but you know how many I need? One. A single good pizzeria within delivery distance is completely sufficient. Anything else is overkill. Seriously, how much time do you people waste debating which hole in the wall joint has the best slice? You know what I could do with all the argumentative energy y’all dummies expend yelling about pizza? Inform you about how woefully inadequate you are at almost every other type of food.

You guys win at Italian, that’s a given. But L.A. murders in absolutely every Asian category, save possibly Chinese, which I would call even. Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Indian? L.A. all day. I had never tried Thai food until I moved here, and now I can’t live without it. I’ve had Thai on several occasions while visiting New York since. It was embarrassing. Let’s talk about sushi now. An actress friend of mine from New York came to stay out here here for the few months that make up a pilot season (even your entertainers still come out here to make money). She tried to tell me that New York wins the sushi game, and I almost herniated a disc from laughter. I took her to the place down the way from me. It blew her away, and she immediately changed her mind. And guess what? It was mediocre sushi. I only took her there because it was cheap and close, so what does that tell you?

On top of that, we have Mexican food that’s rivaled only by TexMex. We have places in South Central (which is not Murderland, it’s actually quite lovely) that have the best fried chicken I’ve ever tasted that wasn’t made by someone’s grandmother. The best falafel, shawarma, and kebab place I’ve ever tasted is half a block down from my apartment. Plus the fusion restaurants, gastropubs, high-quality food trucks, and microbreweries are fantastic. There are even a couple barbecue joints that don’t completely offend my Texan sensibilities. I refuse to mention In-N-Out, because it’s wildly overrated–and Whataburger absolutely annihilates it–but if that’s your thing, we have that, too.

You can keep your stupid pizza.

4. Cost Of Living

Look, compared to Texas and the Midwest, people living in New York and Los Angeles all look like idiots for how much we pay for rent, gas, food, and entertainment. However, in the context of these two cities, L.A. cleans up. I actually don’t pay much more rent now than I did back in Texas, and I have my own room in a three bedroom place with vaulted ceilings, a dishwasher, and central air (not that we ever need it) in a complex that has a common area with grills, a pool, and free parking in the garage. I have friends in Brooklyn who share a room in an apartment a fourth the size of mine who barely have a kitchen. They also have a window air unit that never works, and the apartment is on the fifth floor with no elevator. They pay triple what I do. Plus, restaurants, groceries, gas, movies, and hookers are all more expensive. In what world is that preferable?

5. Women

Let me tell you something. There is something magical about Texas women. The most beautiful ones are so attractive that they seem impossible. And you know what? Most of them end up moving to Los Angeles, along with the most attractive women from every other place in the United States. You want to sleep with the hottest girl from [fill in the blank]? Come to L.A. In fact, you want to sleep with the hottest girl from New York City? Come to L.A. This place is a magnet for hot women who want to chase their 15 minutes of fame. In the words of one of my screenwriting idols, Shane Black, “it’s literally like someone took America by the East Coast and shook it, and all of the normal girls managed to hang on.” Granted, the character speaking the words was referring to crazy girls, but the two often go hand in hand.

I’m not saying that any of these women are particularly special aside from their looks (pitchforks down, feminists, I’m going somewhere with this). A lot of them won’t even give you the time of day unless you have money, producer credits, or both. But it would be a fallacy to think that’s the case for all of them. The fact is, it only seems like Los Angeles is filled with a bunch of shallow, attractive women with awful personalities because there are so many attractive women here in the first place. It stands to reason, statistically, that some of them will be terrible humans. Many of them, however, are quite lovely. Some of them will even agree to go out with you despite your abject poverty. My roommate’s girlfriend is a very successful actress who makes more money shooting one episode of television than his entire yearly salary, and she’s a delightful human being.

The funny thing is that I hear much more Los Angeles versus New York arguments from New York people. You know why? Because most people in Los Angeles don’t even consider the rivalry. New York people hole up in their impossibly tiny apartments and huddle for warmth during the winter, angrily watching the news, knowing that there are people on the beach at that very moment. The people actually on the beach have no concept of the person shivering in Williamsburg. To sum it all up, it’s like I told my buddy the other day: “It’d be cool to stay in Manhattan every year just for the month and a half that fall actually happens in between the sweltering heat and ice storms. Other than that, New York can fuck itself forever.”

Love you guys.

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