How Not To Be an LA Asshole: Funk This

Every month, Andrew Ti, the guy behind Yo, Is This Racist?, will be bringing his advice dispensing talents to the pages of L.A. Taco. Send your questions to advice@lataco.com.

Alright, everyone, welcome to the advice place. For this inaugural edition of Stop Being An LA Asshole (and, let’s face it, every subsequent edition), I’m going to be helping you people to break from your natural LA instincts and consider, maybe, not being total assholes. Let’s take a goddamn question.

my girl lives in Studio City, I live in Culver City. I drive a vintage Trans Am and I don't like to put too many miles on it. She basically drives to me, even if we go out in Downtown. She said I'm an asshole for making her drive to me... but she just has a car that is better for long trips, plus I drink a lot. Who is right here?

- Chiddles

What’s up, ya asshole! Great, uh, -ish, question!

Listen, if you’re worried about being an asshole (you aren’t really, assholes never are), or being perceived as an asshole, you need to stop being the kind of person who says shit like “I don't like to put too many miles on it,” because that shit is straight up something only wack dads say. Basically, if your solution to maintaining your vanity car is to have your girlfriend be your chauffeur, then you’re an asshole, and more importantly, if you’re worried about petty shit like that, then that means you don’t actually have what it takes to drive a vanity car.

Anyway, take an Uber if you’re really so worried about putting miles on your precious Trans Am.

Question...why is it that LA people in general has a stigma of being pretentious, flake, fake, etc. to people that live outside of LA.

To me it seems like the stigma reflects people that recently (I'm taking about anything less than a decade or so) moved to LA that brought that attitude in to our city and the same people criticizing LA are asking those out of towners and not the born and bred LA folks. What happens then is a circle of misinformation that repeats itself because of this trend. Correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks.

- Kegmasters

Before we get started, I just want to say that there really is only one true response to any sentence that opens with “Question...why is it that” and that response is, of course, Funk Dat.

Now, as to your question, the reason that LA has a reputation of being full of idiots is that our most prominent export, entertainment, is a business where it’s possible for a stupid person to become rich and famous, in a way that other industries tend not to. I’m not saying that everyone in entertainment is stupid, but, I’d bet, like, 99% of the world’s stupid millionaires are in entertainment.

You’re clearly a dude who gets really angry about this perception, but let me ask you this: why? From what I can tell, you hate the idea of people moving to LA, and what better way to keep them away than the reputation that the people here suck? It’s fine, my man, the worse the reputation LA has, the fewer “out of towners” will move here, which seems like is exactly what you want, so, win-win.

hi there, i like to go out to concerts and get crazy but my boyfriend doesn't. i don't want to stop going to shows, but i don't want a new boyfriend either. going alone seems...weird to me. what to do?

- brandi

You ever notice that any time someone refers to their own behavior as some variation of “getting crazy,” it’s always a complete nightmare doing complete nightmare shit? No one who has their shit together refers to themselves that way, but you know what, whatever. The much more important issue here is that you seem to think there’s no options available besides making your boyfriend do something he doesn’t want to do.

Look, if going to shows is something fundamental to your life, and not going to shows (or, dare I suggest, not going to shows with you getting all crazy) is something fundamental to your boyfriend’s life, that relationship is probably not going to last that long anyway, but whatever happens on that score, just be a person who can go do something you enjoy on your own, or find a person who likes the things you enjoy who isn’t your boyfriend (these people are traditionally called friends) and go to the fucking show with them.

Thanks for enjoying this first round of LA Assholes with me! Send me email at advice@lataco.com and maybe you’ll get to be an asshole next month! For July, the Asshole Of The Month is my neighbor Jenna, who has been watering some dumb-ass flowers even though we got a drought going.