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Writer & Author

ECCENTRIC CALIFORNIA
Bradt Travel Guides, September, 2005

From rooms with a skew to the quirkiest cuisine; from the oddest shops to the wackiest festivals, from the strangest tours to the most peculiar pursuits, Jan Friedman, the award- winning author of Eccentric America, takes you deep into the heart of the country’s most wonderfully weird state.

This oasis of oddity, home to one in eight Americans, is also home to a multitude of delightfully daft experiences. Where else but California will you find a freeway tunnel built just for toads or an alley whose walls are decorated with fifty years worth of gum?  Where else can you celebrate festivals like the Urban Iditarod, the Power Tool Drag Races, Moon Amtrak, or the Banana Slug Derby? Only in California can you visit a town that bans high heels and another that speaks their own language; watch an artist in residence at the city dump; eat an elegant dinner in the fields where your food is grown; and sleep in a Caddy convertible at the drive-in.  Only here can you shop at a Coroner’s Office gift store, go wine tasting in a Marge Simpson wig, and take part in a pillow fighting competition.  

As Jan so aptly points out, every country needs a fringe and quintessentially quirky California serves America admirably in that regard.

INTRODUCTION

The Nature of California Eccentricity

Defining eccentricity is like defining beauty--it all depends on who’s doing the judging. But for the one in eight Americans who live in California, the strange and the weird is just business as usual, so defining it here becomes somewhat problematic.  By definition an eccentric is someone whose behavior varies wildly from the norm and, in most cases, society is a pretty good judge of who earns such a title and who doesn't quite live up.  But in a state where eccentricity hardly registers on anyone's consciousness, in a state where it could be said that most everyone’s behavior varies widely from some norm or another, it’s hard to know whom to trust with the gavel.

California is a place where much of the population is considered off-kilter by many Americans not living there. Not that this bothers them much as they revel in the uniqueness of their collective eccentricity.  No indeed, they consider themselves to be in the enviable position of eccentrics the world over. They’re just following their bliss, allowing themselves the freedom to behave in ways that most of us would find odd or scary. They're quite blessed, really, since they don't care what others think, only needing to live up to their own expectations to be happy. They have absolute faith that their way is the right one and if you can’t see the light, well … it's your loss.

In order for eccentricity to flourish, people need the right set of circumstances, most importantly, freedom of speech and a culture that encourages individual expression without fear of negative consequence. California is such a place, a healthy society that thrives on a variety of ideas, including the far-fetched and extreme.  And no wonder.  America itself was founded by malcontents who resisted authority and social constraints.  Anxious to seize their own futures, our founders embarked on a quest for a better life, one of self-determination and self-actualization.  When the societies they’d formed became too structured, the most adventurous among them again headed west, and the cycle was repeated over and over until such rugged individualists could go no further.  California became the promised land, and it remains so to this day, filled with a never ending flow of dreamers and achievers, Former President Ronald Regan accurately dubbed it, "the land that never became, but is always in the act of becoming."

California likes to think of itself as the "I told you so" state, always first to think up unconventional ideas like Frisbees, Barbies, motels, skateboards, hula hoops, ant farms, drive-in churches, popsicles, Levi’s, McDonald's, fortune cookies, and the Jaccuzi, By the time the rest of the country enthusiastically embraces their cutting edge concepts, the trend is already over in California even if it just surfaced yesterday.  They’re also first with more serious concerns, incubators of environmental and political issues that often seem absurd at first (and sometimes for decades) until the time is ripe and some Washington politician adopts a previously ridiculed crusade as his own.

It's no surprise that eccentricity flourishes in such an environment of individualism and creativity as California enjoys. Eccentrics are non-conformists, rejoicing in being different. They’re highly creative, motivated by curiosity, and often idealistic, just wanting to make the world a better place through their contributions. By choosing to behave unconventionally, and by not needing reinforcement from others, they enjoy a freedom that eludes most of us. Happily indulging their obsessions, they'll persist at whatever makes them happy regardless of what society may think. Opinionated and outspoken, eccentrics think that if you’d just come around to their way of thinking, you’ll be as happy as they are. They’ll bend your ear for hours if you'll let them, going on and on about the virtues of their passion, be it collecting hubcaps, protecting some disadvantage species, or building a three-story mountain in God’s honor out of hay, adobe, window putty and old paint. By filtering out what is inconsequential to them, they're free to focus, usually obsessively, on their peculiar pursuit.  For them, happiness is the light at the end of a funnel.

The North vs. the South

You'll undoubtedly notice major differences—other than the weather—between northern and southern California. The Bay Area is known for their politically active and self-styled cultural elite while Los Angeles is famous for their style setting and pop culture divas.  For years there have been proposals floating around, some serious, some tongue-in-cheek, to divide the state in half, the reasoning being that the two regions are just so far apart politically that the government's infamous legislative gridlocks will never be resolved as long there's only one governor. The liberal Bay Area, politically marginalized, idealistic, and stubborn, is so out of step with the rest of the state that the most progressive among them apologize to foreigners for being American. They're like a nation unto themselves, a city-state with their own radical-chic culture and eccentricities.

Meanwhile, primarily conservative Southern California is on a very short cultural fuse, reinventing itself almost daily. They have a "look at me, aren't we quirky" mentality that both shocks and delights tourists. The eccentricities you’ll find there are obvious and meant to be observed, purple hair, nose rings and all.  Northern Californians, on the other hand, practice a quieter, gentler eccentricity by simply going about their business, not caring much whether you notice how strangely they’re behaving. Their weirdness is much less "in your face" than that of their southern neighbors who they basically consider plastic and shallow anyhow.  Says one Berkeley man with contempt, "You can always tell if a woman's from southern California—she shaves her legs."

Beyond the 800 plus entries in this book, finding the eccentricity de jour is a matter of positioning yourself so as to watch weirdness unfold before your eyes. Experiencing eccentric California is much more than a guidebook and a map.  It takes conscious awareness of what is going on around you, eavesdropping on snippets of conversation and paying attention to the kinds of businesses, décor, clothing and hairstyles you find in any particular neighborhood.  Above all, it takes an open mind, one willing to explore the endless possibilities that this most welcoming and addictive of states has to offer.