Right On, Richard!
I found Meltzer’s description of Orange County as “horrible, worthless, awful, disgusting, miserable, ugly, horrible, heinous, despicable, awful, miserable and worthless” to be refreshingly honest and accurate. How could anyone who has ever driven down Beach Boulevard in Anaheim or ventured into the wealthy enclave of Newport Beach argue with that?
Orange County is worse even than Beverly Hills, hard though that may be to accept. What lies behind the Orange Curtain is not the American Dream, or the California Promise as real estate developers would have the public believe, but a nightmare world inhabited by consumer addicts whose denial of reality is fueled by a desperate quest for the ever-elusive “good life.”
This malaise is hardly limited to one county, indeed, most of Southern California is similarly afflicted, but in terms of sheer greed, willful stupidity and myopic complacency, Orange County has no peer. As Meltzer says, it truly is “where the race goes to die.”
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Los Angeles
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