First off, I don’t even know if you can call it a city.

There’s a downtown that is actually becoming a city. Downtown LA is actually one of my favorite places to be and to go because it actually has a pulse.

But, in Downtown LA you’re paying $1M for a lost condo that overlooks tents.

Everywhere you turn in Los Angeles there’s tents.

I live in Westwood.

I live a neighborhood where there’s $2M homes.

But, in the same neighborhoods as these $2M homes you’ve got two tent cities sitting on the outskirts.

Not only that, you can live in a $2M home in Los Angeles that is probably about $200,000 in most other places.

And, you have the benefit, or the beauty, of looking at a multi-use apartment building across the street that was built somewhere in the ’60s or ’70s and it is horrific-looking in every way, shape, and form. You’ll see beautiful homes next to repulsive architectural nightmare apartment buildings that were put together in two hours in 1958 to 1975.

Traffic in this city is one of the worst experiences you’ll ever have.

As I am dictating this, I am now 37 minutes into a drive that usually takes seven minutes.
That’s right, 37 minutes. I’ve been sitting on this one street, and I’ve made it literally from one stop sign to the next, and it took 25 minutes to go from one stop sign to the next stop sign.
Why?

Because too many people live here.

Public transportation sucks.

Everybody is in their car.

And, traffic is literally all day long.

Rush hour doesn’t exist here. Rush hour is all day long.

But yet, every single day, people move here for the weather.

They want the sunshine.

They want the blue skies.

But, for the sunshine and the blue skies comes a huge price.

You’ve got to live in a city that’s almost unlivable right now.

I’m 20 years in Los Angeles so I know what Los Angeles is like.

I want out.

I am dying to get out of this place.

You ask why I can’t?

Well, when you’re a father and you share a child with somebody else, they have to move as well, so it all comes down to everybody agreeing.

Housing in Los Angeles is almost as expensive as New York City, but you also get to pay a lot more to live here because you have to have a car. Auto insurance rates are some of the highest in the nation, and the price of gas, which is about $2.29 a gallon in Texas and Florida is $3.99 a gallon in Los Angeles; $1.70 a gallon more. Why? I call it the sunshine tax.

I believe that California’s state taxes are slightly higher than everywhere else. Not $1.70 higher, but it’s been an issue in California forever. The oil companies gouge drivers in California so they can make massive profits because there’s no other way to get around. Florida and Texas has no public transportation either, but yet gas is $1.70 lower.

The sunshine is overrated. The weather is boring.

The dry, hot weather that lasts into November causes massive fires that actually make the bad air quality even worse.

This is not Utopia, folks. People imagine life in LA to be something that it’s not.

Life in LA is annoying, it’s a nuisance, and you need to rethink it. And, as I’m dictating this, I’m driving through another tent city. Underneath the 405 I see 30 tents.

I see a woman who’s not paying attention, and she’s texting.

Los Angeles is overrated.

Sure, there’s beautiful neighborhoods.

But most of LA looks like an armpit, one ugly armpit.

So, next time you think you might want to live somewhere where it’s constant sunshine, look at your house. Look at your neighborhood. Look at the people that are around you.

Come to LA. It’s harsh. It’s not the nicest city in the world. And, it’s more expensive that just about any other one. Rethink it as you enjoy getting cold in your nice town, because I’d gladly switch places with you any day.