The sign read: GATEWAY TO THE ARMPIT OF THE WORLD
–

Track #13 on Eagles of Death Metal Peace Love Death Metal states “Got this girlfriend and she’s a swinger, we make plans, and then we head out - to San Bernardino.” The song’s called “San Berdoo Sunburn”, and I first heard those lyrics on the radio while I was driving by a cell phone tower that looks like a palm tree on top of a 7-11.

1311 Kendall Drive, check that shit out.

San Berdoo breaks a lonely stretch of Hwy 15 west from Las Vegas to the greater southern California region. From the top of the valley that opens up after you exit the doldrums of the high desert, San Berdoo greats you as the “Gateway to the Armpit of the World.” Literally.

On a day it happens to be Un-Smoggy in San Berdoo, the Korean guy at your local AMPM still won’t be able to muster enough energy to recite your total, or count your change. It sucks that bad there. Just don’t get caught staring at his absurdly long pinkie-fingernail, because you don’t want to know what he uses it for. You just really don’t.

Luckily for him, San Berdoo receives an average of only four Un-Smoggy days a year - even in a leap year. Its the kinda’ place where driving in general should be outlawed. I mean, all you have to do is look up to see that all is not right.

“Hey, aren’t there mountains about a mile away?”
“Not today.”

I had the fortunate pleasure of moving to the lovely San Bernardino, California “Inland Empire” on September 12th, 2001. At the last minute, my flight got canceled, so moving became a 26 hour road trip. Highlights during The Drive on Interstates 13, 44, 40, and 15 from the Heartland to San Berdoo include red tinted asphalt around Oklahoma City, free supermarket tabloids at the Albuquerque La Quinta, and a you’ve got to be fucking kidding me traffic jam 8 miles west of the California/ Nevada border. We’re talking lines of cars piled up in a beyond desolate location.

“Ah, routine produce checkpoint…that’s new.”

N.E. Way-

Driving alone for long periods can bring about any sort of interjected reflection that could cause one to reminisce on stupid mistakes, or stupid mistakes narrowly missed. For a certain percentage of each, perception of one’s predicament and surroundings determine a mistake, from a blessing. And while the lines are never so distinct as positive or negative, up or down, good or bad, perception remains a choice throughout.

During hour six of my extended choice to tackle perceptions- I decided to stop in a lonely Nowhere’s Ville town like any other - a no services for the next 43 miles kinda place. After filling the gas tank like any good American should, I entered the shoebox sized Quick-E-Pump and noticed a country-bro in his mid twenties wearing a stained white t-shirt and sporting an ever-so-popular “rural themed” hairstyle.

He was sitting on the glass lotto case just stone-cold chillaxin. Waiting. For me.

Regardless of the fact that he didn’t seem to hold down a job at this particular Quick-E-Pump (/ anywhere?), Duffy McCrack (as I named him) exhibited fine command of the store. It was apparent I was the last weary traveler he’d seen in a good hour and a half.

From my entrance, past the nachos, and to the frosty drinks, our subject began to follow me at an unreasonably close distance. In fact, he even snuck up on me near the cooler. I almost broke his nose with the door. All I wanted was a 20oz Squirt and some sunflower seeds - no reason for blood, right?

As I continued to the cash wrap, Duffy’s behavior began quickly escalating past creepy and way into Deliverance territory. Loud breathing. Inside my personal bubble. I began to wonder if my dignity was about to be tested outside behind the giant propane cylinders.

As I paid, Duffy crooned his head toward me at an angle only indicative of requested communication. After I acknowledged him with raised eyebrow and a what exactly the motherfuckingfuck can I help you with? stare, Duffy composed himself during a painfully awkward pause for though completion, then belched out this classic:

“…you…[blink]…YOU got TWO earrings, CAT?!”

Sensing he needed assurance that his eyes in fact were not deceiving him, I offered back an absurdly slow nod and a simple, yet effective, “Yyyyyuuuup.” Willfully pleased as Duffy was, (Gorsh, I’s a tells ya! Yousa’ never knows what ‘dem big city travelereses ises up to. h-YuCK! A man with pierced ears! l’ll Be skinned alive!) I left the Quick-E-Pump and the rest of Texas in my proverbial dust and continued west for the Pacific Ocean.

Well, almost to the Pacific.

You see, San Bernardino sits about 50 miles due east of Newport Beach. The “Inland Empire” thing I touched on earlier- yeah, I didn’t make that up. Pick a spot between L.A. and San Diego, add some elevation, and back that fucker all the way up the to the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Bam! San Berdoo; queen shitter of SoCal’s Inland Empire. And mind you, I was dying to finally move there.

Many reasons could cause a perfectly healthy man to subject himself to the crudest of all environments with a passion such as I had, and all but few would border on the sane. You see, if you take a “free thinker”, tie him up with team sports and shopping malls, and then subject him to an absurdly homogenous student body that was Pick’a Midwestern State University, you will breed one of three thought processes:

1.) I need to buy a gun and climb a clock tower
2.) I am going to start a band, we’re going to create a new genera of music where we play emotional heavy metal, call it emo for short, dye our hair and wear eyeliner just over the line of homosexual, then bitch about suburbia and girls who broke up with us, or
3.) FUCK NO I don’t think the new ring tones on your cell phone make you more interesting! Ahhh! Get me outta here!

At the time, California seemed like the obvious choice. Progressives. Independents. Outdoor activities. Artists. Flyover state raised youth moves to Southern California - that’s not cliché, is it?

During my year in SoCal, the saddest stories I heard were from people who lived 20 minutes from the beach but hadn’t been in five years. My general observation of natives was they felt nary a reason to ever travel east of Las Vegas. Frustration was overwhelming.

Argg!
Get a life!
Read a book!
I’m not your fucking braaa!
Corona and Redlands are not cool!
You don’t even need 4WD drive here!
What the fuck is Rancho Cucamonga?
You’re 5′5″ and drive an 8′ tall truck-
Compensating much?!
No espanol!
Customer service, please!
Yes, it smells like a 1983 Buick catalytic converter here!
Craig Kilborn IS a prick!
-and will somebody please stop pouring concrete!
The world can only use so many Petsmarts for Christ’s sake!

Officially, I had bought into the myth that is California. No doubt the notion of an idolized California is absurd to anyone well traveled–kids from the South and Midwest by and large don’t know any better.

At least I didn’t.

After my tenure in California, the only exciting thought I can muster about that region which is purported (through urban legend) to be everything to everyone is that I would never move back. Looking inward to my perceptions concerning my whole jaunt in SoCal, I continue thinking, “What the fuck was I doing there?” Oh yeah, finding shit out. I found out…LA as a whole fucking sucks.

Glad I went.