You know what always surprised me about Oakland is how easily I slipped right into it. I remember after six months of living there I had so many friends and jobs were got easily because I just hung around with people. God, dude. I was there for almost three years and although a lot of the time I was broke and sad, I still did so god dang much. It was real varied, too! I hardly ever did the same thing twice.

The Bay Area kind of sucks because it feels like being trapped in a Red Hot Chili Peppers song, but it is this big huge place where a lot of different kinds of people live. And though native Californians were so damn wishy-washy, a lot of perfectly nice strangers invited me into their homes and took me to parties and walked around with me late at night. When I was writing a long essay about the Bay, I realized how much I missed all those weird little experiences and all those nice people I knew for only one night. That was real cool.

I think people on the East Coast tend to be stiff and square and closed-off and career-driven. Over there people were just Down For Stuff. Yeah.