Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Californians, how do we hate thee?

Scott Dickensheets

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1998 | 9:11 a.m.

WHEN I READ recently that more than 915,000 California households rake in six-figure incomes, I immediately thought, Another reason to hate Californians. I added it to an already long rap sheet.

God, those people are everywhere! That car puttering well below the speed limit -- California plates, all right. Tourists moseying around for something "out of the way" while "doing Vegas." Go poke along on your own streets! Those boats clogging the lake on a three-day weekend -- visitors from Cal. Go ruin your own beaches!

I'm not alone on this. How do we hate them? Let's count the ways. We hate their affluence. We hate their influence. We hate their cultural primacy. We hate their real estate values. We hate their colonialism. We hate their natural bounty -- should one state have all those beaches and Yosemite and Big Sur? We hate their gentle damn sunshine. And we hate the sense of entitlement, that we're-living-the-good-life vibe that all of the above confers.

I need look no farther than my immediate circle to plumb this sentiment. My father-in-law refuses to travel to California on the sensible theory that it's full of Californians, many of whom drive, all of them badly. A friend, a boating fanatic, grimaces when he thinks of summer weekends at Lake Mead. "You're writing about hating Californians?" he asked the other day. "I could talk to you for an hour!"

It's an attitude not without reasons. Californians are affluent -- almost nine percent of households earn six figures, well above the national average of six percent; it's the state's fastest-growing income bracket. Influence? California's most notable export, entertainment, rules much of the world -- this really is Planet Hollywood -- and its Silicon Valley brain trust rules the rest. The state has enough electoral votes to swing presidential politics, making our paltry input hardly worth the effort. And how many screwy trends -- EST, anyone? Valley-girl speak? -- were incubated on the left coast before annoying the rest of us?

Then there's California colonialism: "Las Vegas is a suburb of Los Angeles," a Cal native informed me recently. This isn't new, or limited to Vegas; nearly 20 years ago, Oregon residents worried about "7 million Californians salivating at the border," according to one magazine story. It's a common grumble in the picturesque West: Influxes of ex-Golden Staters first drive up property costs, then result in yogurt shops. Locals in such places call this "Californication," the unpleasant sexual overtone conveying just how they feel about it. It's gotten so bad in Montana I'm surprised the state hasn't closed its borders to movie stars.

Yet, I suspect there's a deep ambivalence in our feelings toward Californians. We mock their lifestyle pretensions but secretly envy their lifestyles -- who doesn't want an all-year tan and easy beach access? I sometimes find myself wishing I could be as mellow as I imagine Californians to be. And, really, it's only a few specific models of Californian we dislike -- the white suburban Angeleno, the Marin Countyite. Extra hate points if he has a ponytail or drives a Volvo. The real-life typical Californian is just as likely to be Hispanic, probably doesn't make $100,000 a year, and struggles with the same hassles I have, only in better weather. Logic says it's wrong to blame individual Californians for the sins of California -- that ponytailed Volvo driver probably didn't have anything to do with subjecting me to years of the phrase, "Gag me with a spoon." I suppose Californians would be OK if they'd just stay in California!

Only leave your money here. Because the great irony -- in Vegas, anyway -- is that while we love to hate them, we also need them. Imagine the Las Vegas Strip, the great economic engine of Southern Nevada, without the foolishly spent discretionary income of Californians: They account for 28 percent of this city's visitor volume. I'm not sure it justifies slowing me down in the fast lane, but it does give one pause. Californians -- maybe we can't live with 'em, but we can't live without 'em. Gag me with a spoon.