The other day I was writing a list of do’s and don’ts for The Graduate, who has never been to America before. At the top of the list was:
DO: expect to be faced with some
of the most wide-eyed sincerity you’ve ever encountered. It’s not a joke. Californians
actually are that happy.
I’ve been puzzling over this ever
since I moved out here and started living through these beaming smiles and excitable
moods. I was initially convinced the entire country was trying to subtly mock me, and spent the first month staring over my shoulder to check I wasn't walking around with my dress tucked into my knickers. A while later, and with no underwear situation presenting itself I had to uncertainly arrive at the conclusion that actually, this is just a happy place.
I’m not saying I haven’t seen stress or the occasional attack of rage while out here. Particularly around the campus people like to push themselves to their limits, and it often shows. But as a general rule I’d say everyone seems around sixty percent happier- at face value- than they do in dear old Blighty. Take last weekend, for example. I went to the 14th annual How Weird Street Fair, a peace and love fest that was a veritable orgy of glitter and dancing and nudity. There were thousands of people of all ages, out enjoying the sunshine together; there was a big sequinned dragon, face-painting, several accordions and an art bus driven by a six-foot transvestite. The fair crossed four different streets, and all afternoon the vibes were just... very positive.
We do have festivals in the UK: there are all
the big music numbers- Glastonbury, Reading, Latitude- where people go to swim in a lake of mud for four days... There’s Gay Pride in the
Summer, and the famous Notting Hill Carnival. But it’s much less of a common
thing to have a couple of thousand adults, kids and dogs casually get together
to have a dance to some weird folk music- especially for free. Next to the financial
district of the city.
 |
| GLITTER DRAGON |
I’m not saying I haven’t seen stress or the occasional attack of rage while out here. Particularly around the campus people like to push themselves to their limits, and it often shows. But as a general rule I’d say everyone seems around sixty percent happier- at face value- than they do in dear old Blighty. Take last weekend, for example. I went to the 14th annual How Weird Street Fair, a peace and love fest that was a veritable orgy of glitter and dancing and nudity. There were thousands of people of all ages, out enjoying the sunshine together; there was a big sequinned dragon, face-painting, several accordions and an art bus driven by a six-foot transvestite. The fair crossed four different streets, and all afternoon the vibes were just... very positive.
 |
| Dancing at the How Weird Street Festival |
The sun evidently has something
to do with it. I know this because the Laconic Australian doesn't find the infusion of endorphins radiating from the Americans we meet nearly so unusual as I do. And yes, London is not quite as accommodating of joy as San Francisco. It’s much harder to cavort around in a bikini and body glitter
when it’s grey and sleeting outside your sitting room window. No-one wants to
smile at a stranger when the hems of their trousers have just been soaked
with filthy rain water by a passing bus.
But there's still more to California Happiness. Perhaps it's all the easy-access dope that people consume. On 4/20, (which I now correctly know as ‘weed day’), the Laconic Australian and I
went out to watch several hundred Berkeley students gather in Memorial Glade,
light up several rounds of joints and create one enormous communal hotbox*. The
campus security trundled mildly around the scene in their little golf carts,
but otherwise everyone was more or less left to take most of their clothes off, and get on with it.
Perhaps it’s just that Californians exercise more, and across the board
there’s subsequently more of a natural endorphin kick.
In conclusion, I’m still figuring it out. I know for a fact that the people of England could do with some more sunshine. Perhaps all Londoners just need to get a little bit more naked, share a big old spliff**; throw on the odd glitter-infused unicorn horn and go hula-hooping in Trafalgar Square every couple of months.
Maybe we all just need to chill out.
*I know an open-air hotbox is a useless device.
*In case the idea of my open-air hotbox didn't convince people, then for all and
any current professors or prospective employees who are reading this, I don’t
smoke dope. Even if I wanted to I wouldn’t know where to begin with that kind of enterprise. I am famously inept at such things.
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