Reflections from an Orange County newbie

Less MAGA and better pizza, please.

This is a guest post from Jerry Rocha, a stand-up comedian and new local. You can follow him on Instagram here.

I moved to Orange County from North Hollywood about four years ago.

I had been diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer and relocating here was the only way my insurance would work with City of Hope, a hospital I wanted to get into. It was an easy decision. My fiancée had spent a lot of her life here and her parents still lived in Ladera Ranch. So now we live in Ladera Ranch.

Before the move, I was a bit nervous about life down here. I had very low expectations. My fiancée and her parents were great, but I also knew that Orange County had … a reputation.

It could have been L.A. snobbery driving that rep, but the first time I set foot in Huntington Beach, (I’m a comedian and used to work a gig in Huntington) a dude at the bar told me, “Huntington Beach used to be the white supremacist capital of Southern California.” It was an odd answer to, “Do they validate parking here?” and after he said it, he looked dejected, very much upset by the used to. He was genuinely down that Huntington Beach seemed to have lost that title. With that, I’m assuming, he sauntered off to the beach at night to sing David Allen Coe and Lee Greenwood songs under his breath.

On our second day living here, I drove to the gym. It was only a 15-minute trip, but my heart sank every time I passed a “Blue Lives Matter” or “Let’s Go Brandon” decal on cars.

In many ways, this fucking place makes the town from Footloose look like the town from Footloose had drag shows after town hall meetings. It was instant regret.

I found myself saying, “Oh, fuck off” aloud when I gassed up and saw that some choad put a sticker of Joe Biden next to the gas prices with an “I did that!” word bubble. I’m stunned I didn’t see more “I don’t eat at Chick-Fil-A cause I like the food” T-shirts.

But then …

I arrived at the gym and parked next to a beat-up old truck. I was ready to see a, “Here are my Top 5 racial slurs” sticker affixed to the bumper, but instead the one sticker read, “Veterans for Biden.” Holy shit! I looked again. And again. Rubbed my eyes. I didn’t imagine it. It was real. Maybe this place ain’t all half bad. I almost waited for whoever drove that truck to be done with their workout so I could hug them.

The more I got to know my area of Orange County, the more I noticed (like most places) the cool people well outnumbered the shitty ones. I started to ignore all the pro-Trump shit I saw and, since the election, I’ve seen a whole lot less pro-Trump material. Is it possible some people are realizing they got conned? Hmm.

The only pro-Trump rally I’ve ever seen in Ladera was the Trump merch kiosk on Antonio. It boasted roughly the same turnout as John Turturro’s character’s funeral in Miller’s Crossing.

Okay, the other pro-Trump rally I’ve seen is when the check-out line at Stater Brothers grows more than five people long. My fiancée and I even went to a Ladera Ranch Pride gathering at a park near our apartment to show support, and it was wonderful to see how many people were there. Sure, there was a small handful of chumps walking around like the Mississippi Burning villains trying to start shit, but they were rightfully ignored, and soon took off.

The party went on.

My biggest gripe about Orange County has much less to do with the MAGA and much more to do with the sad fact that there are only, like, two places worth going to for pizza. Oh, and those damn Stater Brothers commercials, which look as if they were filmed using the Heaven’s Gate cult a week before they got ready for the comet.

I’m happy I live here now. I have no idea if Orange County could ever go blue, but I love that even if it stays purple (despite Trump’s best efforts to melt this nation), my fiancée and I are here to push back against it. We’ve found plenty of friends willing to do the same.

It feels like victory in a time when progressives need as many as they can get.