Florida and California, on occasion, have a sort of rivalry, in the same way Chicago and New York have a rivalry.
Having grown up in the former: Florida is a miserable, sad place. It feels choked, the thick humid air feeling like a miasma. Florida is a cursed land. I think it was possible, if your vision was clear enough, to stand on its grounds a thousand years ago and see the problems of today, from Florida Man to Tort Reform. It is a land that never should've been built, the water of the swamp drained but not its black essence.
California is an Eden ruined by humanity. It is a living, 750 mile long proof that Man did not need a serpent in Eden: He could fall on His own, and Samson-like, bring down the temple with him. Every problem in California could be solved by human hands, and every problem in California is doubled, tripled, like a fractal of sin, across the state, by human hands.
Anyhow I'm a New Yorker
