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  Doug Lief   Lief is a third-year psychology and English major who thankfully comes from a long line of New Yorkers. Contact him at dlief@ucla.edu.     Click Here for more articles by Doug Lief  

Wilkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome to the cabaret that is Los Angeles: the City of Angels (so called for all the people that get shot here on a regular basis).

For those of you who are uninitiated to Southern California life, it is “hella” cool, or “wicked pissah” to the three of you from Boston. Like all big cities, there is plenty to do in L.A., provided you have the right guide.

The first thing you’ll need is a crash course in So Cal geography. First, there are the don’ts. The biggest don’t is Orange County, a vast conservative suburban wasteland between L.A. and San Diego, best known for being the home of the privileged, the intolerant and the Anaheim Angels.

Running a close second to Orange County is the Valley, which has all the excitement and charm of Orange County at 119 degrees Fahrenheit. In these dank pits of despair all the houses are peach, a nod to the adobe-dwelling Mexican culture who are lucky enough to trim the hedges of said houses. There may be Spanish tile on the roof, but there’s Miracle Whip in the fridge.

  RODERICK ROXAS/Daily Bruin Once you get out of Orange County and the Valley, the places that put the South in Southern California, you can get on to San Diego. San Diego’s motto is “Hey, we’re real close to Mexico!” This is about the only advantage it has over any other major California city.

Then again, there is always the aquatic ghetto known as Sea World. Here, once proud manta rays and penguins are penned in and asked to jump and do tricks for the man. Sure you’ve heard about the black panthers, but what about the brown walrus? How can a bottle-nosed dolphin support his family with his nose in the bottle?

My friends, I have a dream that one day little black children, little white children, and electric eels will be able to walk hand in hand down the sidewalk. This is the dawning of the age of aquariums! Free at last, free at last! Thank God almighty, Willy, you are free at last!

All of these places are interesting, but they are not the real Los Angeles. What sets L.A. apart from other cities is that it is the entertainment capital of the world.

It is one of the few places on Earth where celebrities frequent the streets. This means that there are plenty of celebrity-related sights to see. You can drive by the corner where Hugh Grant was caught with a prostitute. Or, you could drive by the corner where Eddie Murphy was caught with a prostitute. Or you could even drive by the corner where Charlie Sheen was caught with a prostitute. The possibilities are limitless.

If celebrity crime doesn’t grab your attention, perhaps celebrity homes do. “Star Maps” are available for purchase all over the city and can be your instruction manual to view the dwelling places of the rich and famous.

Drive up to the Hollywood Hills or through Bel Air and you can see the security gate in front of Barbra Streisand’s house, the security gate in front of Jay Leno’s house, or the security gate Gary Busey chews through once a month.

If I were saying this column to you out loud as stand-up comedy, I would now mention the champion Lakers. Everyone clap and say, “Wooooo!” as if you were responsible for the victory. Okay, that’s enough, you look like an idiot.

You can also visit the human menagerie that is Venice Beach. Here you can see black militant Jews, lesbian militant fisherwomen and militant crazy militants. You can buy spoons with Jesus painted on them, or you can see Jesus playing the spoons.

Perhaps the best part of the area is Muscle Beach. This is where homo sapiens gather to lift weights until that classification no longer applies. Yes, these mighty creatures the homo-phobians can be seen all over Los Angeles, excluding West Hollywood.

These are just a few things to do around the city, but what you really want to know is ‘How do I become an L.A. socialite?’

First, sell your soul. Trade it in for a cellular phone and set the ringer from “Annoying” to “My God, make it stop!” Because there is no discernible public transportation here, you will also need a car. You can get a used one real cheap from the movie studios, but they’re usually the kind that explode on impact, so watch it going over speed bumps. Now buy some really skanky clothes and you’re ready to hit the town.

When it comes to nightlife, all major cities all over the world are exactly the same. There are buildings, some of which are restaurants, some of which are bars, and some of which are clubs. They all play the same music and serve the same booze as every other gin joint in the world. Soon you’ll be drinking the same Long Island iced tea and dancing to the same Thong Song as the one you left at home. It’s a never-ending prom out on the Sunset Strip.

So what separates L.A. nightlife from other cities? The distance. Most cities are planned into cells, which, like the cells that make up your organs, are specialized into functional districts such as residential, commercial and industrial. Los Angeles, however, is the cancerous tumor, sprawling without pattern, reproducing at random and doing its best to spread poison.

The result of L.A.’s carcinogenic structure is that no two places you’ll want to go will be within walking distance of each other. If you want to go to a bar, you’ll need a car. Should that bar not live up to the expectations of you young hipsters, you might try a club, but you’ll have to drive to get there, and pay for valet parking (a wonderful service for those who are simply too busy to turn off their cars themselves).

After getting out of your vehicle, do the famous “turn your head and coif” test to see if your hair has maintained structural integrity. Now it is time to pretend you are somehow involved with the entertainment industry.

The best way to accomplish this is to neither make eye contact nor smile at anyone, unless of course they are not smiling or making eye contact with you. In this case it is permissible to wink, but only if the person is currently on their cellular phone, drinking something large and blue, or kissing someone incredibly attractive. Still, this can only be done on odd days of the month with a T in them.

These and many other L.A. social rules will ensure that you never actually interact with another person. Of course, you could just strike up a conversation with someone, but unless you’re really interested in hearing someone talk about how their shirt is meant to complement their earth tones, I strongly advise against it.

Are there good things about L.A.? Of course there are. You can always find good food from almost any culture imaginable, even cultures that are currently starving to death in their home countries. In fact, a good portion of Angelenos belong to their own starving culture, Anorexians (a small country folk nestled between Greece and Italy).

If you want to be trendy, you can go to see the celebs munch at Spago (an old Czech word meaning “wallet rape”). Your best bet is to head over to the corner of La Brea and Melrose and grab a hot dog at Pink’s.

So welcome to Los Angeles, a place with most of the benefits and flaws of any other big city. Don’t think it’s all big and bad. It’s really just the Matrix; none of it is real, but if you keep in mind there is no spoon, you will be on your way to really enjoying yourself. Whoa.

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