When You're A Stranger

Ever since I got down here in the beginning of June, I have been trying to think of a way to describe the Valley. I have been hesitant to do so, but I think now I am ready to give it a shot. However, before I begin I would ask you to pause to put on a Doors album. I don’t think it really matters which one you choose (although “Strange Days” is titled appropriately), all you really need is Jim Morrison’s spooky voice and harmonics and his not-quite-sensical lyrics. No matter what your opinion of the Doors’ music, you will need to have it going on in the background to set the stage here.

You see, life down here is a lot like one of Jim Morrison’s songs. Nothing quite clicks. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something very inharmonic in the undercurrent of the daily rhythm. Although there are palm trees and tropical flowers, there is no beauty. There are estates and fancy cars, yet there is no wealth. The tropical flora is here to feebly cover up some sort of deep ugliness that seeps up from the core of the earth. The wealth that is here is very uncomfortable wealth. It is over extravagant because it points at the poverty and says, “I am NOT like that. I am better than that. I will never be like that.” It is nervous and showy because it is trying to be something it will never be. In fact, the atmosphere here is so strange not because it feels like a foreign country, but because it feels so self-consciously “American.” In an effort to blend in, I think the Mexicans are trying to out-American the Americans. The big chain stores are bigger, more plentiful, and better stocked. Olive Garden thrives. The whole world is covered in cement.

And now I understand why nothing clicks here. It is simultaneously familiar and exotic because it is a foreigner’s version of what America looks like. Living here is like looking at a reflection of yourself in one of those carnival mirrors. You know it is you that you’re staring at, but you are just distorted enough that you can’t take your eyes off yourself.