Take L.A., Please-- Life Is Better in O.C.

Since coming to California in 1986, I’ve spent equal time in Orange and Los Angeles counties. After all these years, I’ve concluded Orange County is better.

Any discussion of California living standards has to start with roads. Granted, things are far from perfect in Orange County. If the afterlife has Purgatory, this county has the Riverside Freeway. On a quiet night in Anaheim Hills, you can hear the wails of motorists who started their trips during the governorship of Jerry Brown.

Still, road life is worse in the big bad county to the north. Consider the I-5. The Los Angeles portion usually glows an angry red on the Internet traffic maps, indicating gridlock and suggesting that the “I” in I-5 stands for “Inferno.” As you inch along the pitted pavement, billboards torment you by touting the TV shows you are about to miss because you will get home late. At one point, you pass “the Citadel.” They say it’s an outlet mall, but it looks like a military prison. Maybe that’s where they put complainers like me.

In the unlikely event that you can cross several lanes and reach your exit, you then must fight the surface streets. In the 1991 movie “Grand Canyon,” Kevin Kline put it well: “Making a left turn in L.A. is one of the harder things you’ll learn in life.” In Los Angeles County, a left-turn pocket is rarer than a Gray Davis smile. Usually, you have to wait at the light as oncoming traffic speeds through and the cars behind you honk. If you’re lucky, you can get away with careening around the corner just after the light turns red.

If you’re not lucky, you have to deal with police officers from Los Angeles or Inglewood. (Be prepared. Wear a helmet.)

Then there’s parking. Yes, Orange County has its parking problems. Rumor has it that Irvine Spectrum’s lot stretches across the Arizona state line. But parking is generally more reasonable than in parts north, particularly downtown L.A. Instead of meters, parking spaces there come with assumable mortgages.

And mortgages bring us to the issue of housing. Orange County real estate can be rather pricey compared with most of the country. But it’s a bargain compared with Los Angeles County, where they ran out of land during the Jurassic era. What Jed Clampett paid for his Beverly Hills mansion in 1962 would now buy a timeshare in a Glendale doghouse.

Defenders of Los Angeles County might reply that it has a big advantage in glamour. Yes, it’s true that bus tours of celebrity homes do not make stops in Fullerton. And it’s also true that Us magazine has no plans to profile the Orange County Board of Supervisors. To see a film legend, you have to visit the John Wayne statue at the airport.

But so what if Los Angeles is home to all the stars who still have a pulse? They spend their free time in celebrity haunts, so unless you get a ticket to a Jay Leno taping, you’ll never see them anyway. In real life, the only “industry” types you’ll meet are the fringe folks that Nathanael West wrote about in “The Day of the Locust.”

At a reception a few months ago, I sat next to a fellow who described himself as a “manager” for a celebrity couple. A few minutes of conversation made clear that “manager” meant “gofer.”

Orange County holds its own in entertainment choices. Besides its world-class theme parks, it has the Performing Arts Center. Los Angeles County does have the Hollywood Bowl, but that’s a net minus in my book. With its ghastly system of stacked parking, the wait to leave can take longer than the performance. And the place attracts annoying people the way spilled soda attracts ants. Many patrons bring picnic dinners, and their meal of choice seems to be smelly fish. A distressingly large portion of the audience is under the impression that every show is a sing-along.

Quite often, the best show in Southern California is Orange County politics. The motto of local politicians comes from Strother Martin’s classic line in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”: “I’m not crazy. I’m just colorful.” The county’s central congressional district has provided the most colorful figures: Bob “Clinton has KGB ties” Dornan and Loretta “Celebrate family values at the Playboy Mansion” Sanchez. In the 1990s, county officials added to the fun by turning government finance into the fiscal equivalent of the Indiana Jones thrill ride.

L.A. County can’t compete. Its residents have to settle for listening to Mayor Hahn on their car radios while waiting to make a left-hand turn.