Finding Happiness in Los Angeles

by Oliver Markus Malloy

  And in Europe you get exposed to far more music. Have you ever heard of Homeless by Marina Kaye? El Mismo Sol by Álvaro Soler? Sans rancune by Sindy? Atemlos by Helene Fischer? She's Germany's Beyoncé. Kiss Kiss by Australian singer Holly Vallance? It's her English-language remake of the platinum-selling hit by Turkish singer Tarkan.

  Germans know all the songs on the American charts, but also all the songs on the German charts, the British charts, and the French charts, the Spanish charts, the Swedish charts, and so on. Europeans know hundreds of songs from global superstars that Americans have never heard of. The same goes for movies. Germans get to see countless movies from all over the world that Americans have never even heard of.

  America is like an isolated information island. A lot of what happens in the rest of the world, a lot of the cultural exchange, never makes it to rural Alabama.

  I read in a travel guide that New York is the most European city in America. I guess that's true. There are lots of immigrants from all over the world, and they all bring some of their culture to New York. You get exposed to far more stuff than if you live in Alabama or Kentucky.

  And the more you get exposed to different things, and the more you see of the world, the more you realize that humans are all one big family, even if some of us look or sound a little different. Traveling broadens your horizon. It makes you see the bigger picture.

  The more you learn, the more you know about the world, the more tolerant and liberal you become.

  Anyway, the Asian supermarkets in Los Angeles had a lot of variety, too. And all kinds of stuff I had never seen before. Like cans of grass jelly drinks, bird's nests and white mold. I tried all of it. That's one of my favorite parts of traveling. Trying weird new stuff. Apparently Asians are not big fans of chocolate. A lot of their candies are matcha, taro or red bean flavored.

  Then Shelly introduced me to Boba. I loved it! It's Taiwanese milk-tea with these squishy honey-flavored little black balls in it. About the size of peas, with the consistency of gummy bears.

  So good!

  At some point Shelly realized something: "If you ever write a sequel, our relationship will be in it. I'll be in it! That is so weird!"

  That was weird.

  Our relationship, or story or whatever you wanna call it, started out as the real person, Shelly, liking a book boyfriend. And then the book boyfriend, Oliver, became a real person that she met in real life, after reading about him in a book.

  And then she became a character in his next book. She went from being a real person to being a character in his book! It's the same thing that happened to Oliver, but the other way around!

  Woahhh... Mind blown!

  It was kinda like that classic music video for a-ha's big 80s hit Take On Me, where a girl reads about a guy in a comic book, and then somehow she's suddenly inside the comic book with him, and then he's outside in the real world with her.

  We looked at each other for a second, and started to smirk.

  "Oh my God, when you write about our first time having sex, you gotta write it as if you were writing an erotica porn novel like Fifty Shades, but in your own personal writing style! And use the cheezy stuff they say. That would be so funny!" she laughed.

  "I love that idea!" I said. "And then in the next chapter we bring the reader in on the joke. It'll be so meta! So fourth-wall-breaking! The reader will become a part of the story too!"

  Anyway, we had a great time together in Los Angeles. I had planned to stay for two weeks, but ended up staying for a month.

  Then I flew back to Florida. But Shelly was all I could think about, so I went back to LA a week later.

  This time I drove my Mercedes to California, so I'd have my car while I'm in LA. I had a feeling I'd be there for a while.

  At the end of November 2014 Shelly and I went on a trip to San Francisco, and Shelly showed me her old stomping grounds. We visited her old college, Fisherman's Wharf, the Conservatory of Flowers, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the Asian neighborhood she used to hang out in because they had the best food.

  Of course my favorite part was Haight-Ashbury, the birthplace of the 1960s Counter Culture movement.

  I like old hippies so much more than old conservatives.

  I was never really all that into politics, until 9/11. I only lived a few miles away from the World Trade Center when it happened. I could actually see the black clouds of the smoking wreckage when I looked out my window.

  When Bush gave that speech and said "they hate us for our freedom" I thought that couldn't possibly be right. He made it sound like America is the only free country. But there are so many countries out there with just as much or more freedom. So why was no one attacking them?

  Who would believe Bush's stupid claim?

  Apparently, a whole lot of poor white Republicans did.

  They like to yell "America #1" and stuff like that. But the people who yell the loudest have never even been outside of the US. They have no frame of reference.

  How do you know America is the best country, if you have nothing to compare it to, because you have never been in another country?

  They think they know America is the best country because that's what right-wing politicians tell them all the time. But those politicians don't say it because it's true, but because it's a great way to shut you up.

  You're not gonna ask for things to get better, if you think that this is as good as it's gonna get and there is no possible way for improvement. They don't want you to know that other countries have stuff that's better than what we have.

  But when you actually visit other countries, and talk to the locals there, you realize that they have all kinds of things that we don't have in America. They even have more freedoms than we do!

  Lots of other countries are better than America in all kinds of ways. Broadband internet is much faster in South Korea than in America. Life expectancy is higher than in America in dozens of other countries. And their infant mortality rate is lower, because they all have universal healthcare. Public transit is infinitely better in every European country. Europeans get months of paid maternity leave. And they get months of paid vacations!

  I could go on and on. It's simply not true that America is #1, unless you're talking about how much money America blows on the military.

  And mass shootings. America is by far the #1 in mass shootings. No other country even comes close. No other country is even on the same scale. You are 250 times more likely to get shot in America than in Japan.

  In America, people with pre-existing mental health issues have access to firearms but not healthcare. Thanks, Republicans!

  Daily mass killings are a uniquely American problem, because in America every halfwit can get his hands on a gun. You know what angry halfwits do in other countries? They throw potatoes.

  But if you try to tell poor white Republicans that, they lose their shit and hate you for even suggesting that it's insane to fill a country with millions of guns.

  If you are a Trump-voting, gun-toting, bible-thumping redneck, you probably hate me now for speaking out against guns.

  Then again, the chance that you are a Trump voter is pretty slim. Trump voters hate my books. They can't stand it when a book makes them think. Most of them didn't even make it through the first book. As soon as they read that I'm a liberal, they stopped reading because they have been brainwashed by right-wing propaganda to hate liberals.

  If everything Fox News says about liberals were actually true, I'd hate liberals too.

  Hating liberals is actually a pretty good indication that you've been brainwashed. According to the Bible, Jesus was a bleeding-heart, soft-on-crime, free-healthcare, anti-gun, socialist liberal.

  If you like Jesus, you like liberals.

  If you think you hate liberals, it's because someone told you all kinds of lies about them.

  But let's get back to guns for a minute:

  Why ban guns? Let's give everyone rocket launchers! What could possibly go wrong?

 
If you try to make a gun nut actually think about the absurdity of letting every idiot have a gun, they will not think for themselves.

  They will mindlessly repeat propaganda catch phrases that were spoon-fed to them by the NRA. Like: Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

  Oh yeah? Then why is heroin illegal? If guns don't kill people, then heroin doesn't kill people either.

  "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is to gun nuts what "Jesus died on the cross for our sins" is for bible-thumpers: A mantra you mindlessly repeat, until it sounds true.

  The NRA is not what you poor white Republicans think it is. The NRA is no longer a club of responsible gun owners. A few years ago it was hijacked by weapons manufacturers. They want to sell as many guns as possible, and they simply don't care how many people die so that they can make billions of dollars in profits.

  Time Magazine reported: "In 2016, there were more than 38,000 gun-related deaths in the U.S. - 4,000 more than 2015, the new CDC report on preliminary mortality data shows."

  The NRA kills more Americans than Muslim terrorists do.

  Republicans don't like that. So what did they do? They banned the CDC from collecting gun fatality data. Nice.

  When you take drugs, your brain releases dopamine and you feel good. And you feel less pain. Studies have shown that an addict's brain even releases some dopamine in anticipation of the next high, when they only think about their drug.

  A compliment from your loved one feels really good. Because it gives you a dopamine kick. And when they whisper "I love you" in your ear, it doesn't just feel good, it makes you feel better about yourself and all your problems seem a little less important. Life feels a little less shitty. Just like when you take a feel-good pill. Studies have shown that hugs release dopamine and its cousin, oxytocin. A hug can reduce stress and decrease pain. Just like a pill.

  Anything that feels good can become addicting, including cigarettes, coffee, food, sex, love, porn, hope, astrology, conspiracy theories, collecting stamps, social media likes, compliments, tattoos, plastic surgery, body building, video games, and shopping.

  Our brain is designed to seek out things that give us little dopamine kicks. Basically we are all addicts. Every last one of us. We all have that one thing we can't live without because it makes us feel good. When you're in love, you're addicted to your sweetheart.

  For some people it's heroin. For others it's sports. Or patriotism. Or guns. Or religion.

  Thinking about God, and thinking that he loves them, gives them a dopamine kick, just like a drug addict who thinks about their drug. Or like someone in love who thinks about their sweetheart. Praying makes religious folks feel better about themselves and their problems, because it releases dopamine. Religion is their drug.

  When you tell a heroin addict to get sober, they get mad at you. In their eyes you're the enemy because you're trying to get between them and their drug. From their perspective, you're trying to take away the one thing that makes them feel better about their lives.

  When you tell a religious nut that there is no God, they get mad at you for exactly the same reason. They perceive you as the enemy who's trying to get between them and their feel good drug, religion.

  The problem with being addicted is that it makes you vulnerable. You can be manipulated into doing stupid things to get your next kick.

  Religion is divisive. People kill because of it. I think one day religion will be seen as just as intolerant and wrong as racism.

  Many fundamentalist Christian Evangelicals are racist because religion and racism are two sides of the same coin. Both are nothing more than primitive tribalism: Us vs Them thinking. That's why religious nuts and racists can so easily be manipulated into hating someone who is different from them.

  Even racism is addicting. When someone tells you that the things in your life are not your fault but the fault of the devil, or black people or Mexican immigrants, it feels good. It makes you feel better about yourself: My life may be shit but it's not my fault. It's those damn immigrants' fault. And my life may be shit but at least I'm better than a Mexican.

  If you try to get between a racist and their racism, they don't like you. You're the enemy who's trying to get between them and the one thing that makes them feel a little bit better about themselves.

  That's why racists hate liberals. Liberals keep talking about how stupid it is to hate other races, and that we should all be nice to each other, because mankind is just one big family of brothers and sisters.

  You know, pretty much word for word what Jesus said.

  If Jesus came back today he most definitely would not be a Republican. He would absolutely hate what the Republicans have done to America. Jesus would be the kind of guy who hangs out with an old hippie like Bernie Sanders.

  Did Jesus charge a copay when he healed the lepers? Would Jesus build a wall? Or would Jesus invite the immigrants in and feed them with free bread and wine?

  A lot of Christians outside of the US believe that Christianity in America has been perverted into an abomination: All that worshipping of the flag and mixing patriotic with religious symbolism. It betrays the memory of both, Jesus' teachings, and America's Founding Fathers.

  Remember, Founding Fathers were adamant about separating church and state. They didn't want religious nuts to be in charge of the country. And they were against having a standing army. And yet, here we are, glorifying militarism instead of feeding the poor, as Jesus preached.

  Prosperity Gospel, the quest for wealth by way of God, is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing, according to Jesus: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." (Mark 10:25)

  People who're addicted to guns flip out when they think you're gonna take their guns away. You're the enemy. You're trying to get between them and the one thing that makes them feel better about themselves.

  Guns make losers feel like winners. That's why people who suck at life don't want to give up their guns.

  But of course that's not how they see it. They honestly believe that they need guns to be safe. Because everyone is out to get them. At least that's what the NRA keeps telling them. Be afraid! Be very afraid! You need a gun, no ten guns!, or they'll getcha! Booga booga!

  If you're afraid to leave the house unless you're armed, you don't need a gun, you need a psychiatrist.

  Hundreds of millions of people, in places like Japan, Europe or Australia, feel perfectly safe without guns. Because they don't have corrupt, wormtongued gun makers whisper diabolic lies into their ears to scare them into buying guns.

  People in other countries don't feel the need to be armed to the teeth. The idea that you need a gun to protect your home from invaders is a fantasy that virtually never happens. It's a lie the NRA tells people to sell more guns.

  What happens thousands of times more often is that someone kills himself with his gun, either by accident or on purpose. Or he kills his wife in anger. Or a criminal steals the gun and commits crimes with it. Or the "law abiding" gun owner has mental health issues and suddenly goes on a shooting spree.

  That's what guns really do. That's why America has gun violence rates that are hundreds of times higher than in other countries. You are much much safer living in a gun-free country.

  Every time there's a mass shooting in America, the NRA claims the answer is more guns. Not because that's actually true, but because they want to sell more guns.

  They say the answer to school shootings is putting more guns in schools and arming the teachers. That's like saying: Oh, we have a problem with kids getting poisoned at school. Let's put more poison in schools.

  Everyone can see how stupid that is, except for the gun nuts who are addicted to their guns. They get angry and irrational when you try to get between them and their drug.

  Guess what? All those other countries, where guns are banned, have zero school shootings.

  Gee, I wonder why that is.

  Here's a li
ttle riddle for ya...

  Imagine two countries:

  One that is full of flame throwers.

  And a country where there are no flamethrowers.

  What do you think, which of these two countries has more flamethrower-related fatalities?

  Another absurd propaganda talking point the NRA spreads is: If you take guns away from law abiding citizens, only criminals have guns.

  That sounds like something that would be true, especially if you keep repeating it often enough. Except other countries that did ban guns after mass shootings, like England and Australia, haven't had any mass shootings since.