Tree of Shame

Today was my last day working in California. I like it here, I am almost smitten actually. The press seemed to like our cars. I will see when the articles start coming out in a month.

GM used twisty canyon roads to showcase the handling of the new Cadillac SRX, a crossover that is much improved over the current model, the faintest of praise. It will compete against the Lexus RX unapologetically anyway. The route we used was made up of roads that are popular for racing Porsches on. When you crash your Porsche, you are suppose to hang a broken car part on the "tree of shame" which is located off one of these twisty canyon roads. It occurred to me that I am the only kid on the block who doesn't own a 911.

I rode with Juan, a native Californian. The curiosity was killing me so I asked him where all the money comes from (since as far as I can tell, no one works in California; middle-aged men in matching kits slowly ride 13 lb. Carbon-fiber BMCs in the middle of the day). We were in Chatsworth when I asked. Juan said, with a hint of pride: "you know...Chatsworth is the porn production capital of the world." No, I did not know that.

From that point on I told myself that the people driving Porsches were apparently in the porn industry. Of course this isn't true but reality has never discouraged me from feeling smug before and it won't start now. My new insight made Porsches seem a little less like status symbols and more like trees of shame.

Bye Bye California.