Bizarre Feeling Of Extreme Evil In Los Angeles

What I notice is that my IQ drops by 10 points during every descent onto the tarmac at LAX. You can feel the stupidity skip through your skin and sink into your bones and just sit there, the way the cold does in New York Novembers.

Eddie has been watching Mulholland Drive on a loop.

LA really is a dark place so I've been told. I keep hearing this, what makes that the case?

r3, who tells you, OP? Does it excite you to think of it as "dark"? If so, why?

Downtown LA is one of the darkest places in America. Creepy and depressing.

R2 Thanks for not posting a hobo gif.

0/10 but nice try, OP.

LA itself is harmless. It's al the fucked-up people who make it intolerable.

A breezy casual style, moderate slightly provocative detail, well trodden topic. I give it a 2/10

I don't know about evil but I always said there is no God there. It felt like the city that God forgot. Not even the churches.

I remember driving through Hollywood at 2 am with cars just going all over the place and thinking, "You are on your own here." And being very careful and relieved once I was out of the chaos. Not sure I would even brave it now.

r10 = neandertheist

Provincetown is like this. It’s due to the transient nature of the work force there. Plus, the predatory nature of the owners of hotels, stores, and things. They all have to make their money fast, from people who will be gone tomorrow, if not next week. Then the predictory nature of casual sex, too.

This is not in every instance, obviously. Just more often, as to be blindingly noticeably.

Years ago, there was a fire in a jewelry store. The cops and the fireman looted the place.

Also the usurious town taxes on their hotel rooms.

And, it is indeed a Godless town, literally. There is nothing to moor people to some basic standards of decency.

I lived there for years, before it got bad.

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OP is a fake post by the Shitshoester

“Yuck! Sorry Midwest, not a fan”

Seriously?

I have no idea what you are talking about, OP.

Maybe you're an undiagnosed schizophrenic OP. Yeah, that's it. You're a lunatic and don't even realize it.

OP you must be the only person who doesn't know that the undercurrent of evil that permeates Los Angeles is due to the fact Kris Jenner lives there.

That vibe is Scientology. Just ignore all that shit and enjoy the mountains and ocean.

It’s a direct copy-and-paste from City-Data!

It's the foreshadowing of it's destruction when the big one hits. These cataclysms and the death of millions ripples backwards and forwards through time. Most major european cities have this vibe as well. Berlin is the prime example.

It’s the boulevard of broken dreams for a reason.

Damn, should have copyrighted!

I've lived in LA for 30 years. I have never even remotely got an evil vibe. However, like any big city you need to watch your back and take care of yourself. I have a more defensive behavior and thoughts which I really notice about myself when I visit other locations outside of LA (smaller towns). When I come back I feel more tense but again never an evil vibe.

The author is just a provincial xenophobe from the sticks.

I bet he was home-schooled and beats off on Jim Bakker Survival buckets.

NOT-SO-SUBTLE LIBERAL BASHING AGAIN. ANYTHING URBAN AND EDUCATED = EVIL

It's certainly an ugly city.

r23 OP is braindead church lady

I've never been, but I already know it's far from the happiest place on earth. You just know just about everyone out there is so desperate. I'd need to take 5 showers a day just to rise off everyone's desperation and, with the water crisis the way it is there, that'd be impossible.

Well, they drive like hell there

Perhaps this video has something to do with that feeling:

Hollywood satanism is one of Poo Shoes’ obsessive conspiracy theories. She’s always posting about it. She’ll start some thread about celebs or LA and the next thing you know, all of them witches are throwing devil horn signs in publicity photos, which signifies membership in satanic pedophilia clubs.

r27, they're the best drivers in the country.

I lived on PCH for a time, sounds blissful, and my first stop every morning was the Starbucks in Pacific Palisades and it was strange -- this rich perfect section of town and EVERYONE looked so testy and unhappy. Like either they hadn't gotten what they wanted or they had gotten it and were disappointed. It was strange. Later when I heard Palisades residents Ken Olin and Patty Wettig had a heroin addicted daughter, I wasn't remotely surprised -- and thought it had little to do with them. That place was just awful. Beautiful but angry as fuck.

Believe it or not R26 not everyone in L.A. is in the entertainment business. In fact the percentage of people in that industry is actually quite minuscule compared to the overall population of greater L.A.. There are far more people who are just like people in most any other city. They work normal jobs, do normal things, and have normal lives.

That is not "evil" you are feeling. The feeling that underlies Los Angeles is a culmination of everyone's desperation. Desperation to be famous, desperation for money. It's like a bunch of rats in a barrel. If you are beyond this because you are happy with who are and what you have then you can ignore this feeling.

R20, Jesus how far the standards for Hollywood musicals have degraded. They look like they’re attacking each other. Ginger and Fred they f’ing AIN’T.

OP copied and pasted his post from City Data. The original poster on City Data mentioned a Datalounge comment about LA, which OP reprinted here.

When I think of the dark side of LA, apart from Elizabeth Short and Mulholland Drive, I recall Susan Berman, who Robert Durst is said to have killed. She was a mobster's daughter and was trying at 55 to write screenplay. She lived in an unfurnished dump in Benedict Canyon, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, hitting up Durst for rent money, but she chose the location to look better off than she was.

I have found that people BORN there are STRANGE. I used to call it "LA WEIRD".

and I've often felt it's a heartless city - there's a coldness....in spite of the weather.

R31 This is what most aspirational upmarket suburbs are like

[quote][R27], they're the best drivers in the country.

LA drivers are as inefficient and as inattentive as any other drivers, if not more so.

[quote]I lived on PCH for a time, sounds blissful, and my first stop every morning was the Starbucks in Pacific Palisades and it was strange -- this rich perfect section of town and EVERYONE looked so testy and unhappy.

I lived on PCH too and I agree. They all seem to have those worry lines between their eyebrows. A sort of scowl. Like Tucker Carlson.

My kind of town

Having immigrated here from Bethesda in 1979, I've experienced every high and low this town has to offer, and I'm still here--I think part of it is that new people may be so dazzled by the physical beauty/weather that they're shellshocked when they encounter the blatant self-promotion/corruption that characterizes so many individuals/companies here. If you're not selling something, you're buying from someone who is--from it's earliest days ,LA was promoting "the promised land" . . . and it still is for some of us--as Jerry Dunphy used to say, "From the desert to the sea . . . " -- now where is Christine Lund--still in Alaska?

I got sucked into that City-Data thread, and thought you all would enjoy this post from midway down page 9:

[quote]The first problem with this thread is "I heard it at Datalounge."

That board is full of evil queens. Los Angeles is not "evil." Datalounge is.

Damn the formatting!

[quote]The first problem with this thread is "I heard it at Datalounge." That board is full of evil queens. Los Angeles is not "evil." Datalounge is.

I know the feeling the OP mentions, and I've felt it in places like SF's Tenderloin, NYC in the seventies, and in isolated small towns where you feel like if you stop you're going to end up as the main course of the community barbeque.

I've never gotten that feeling from LA during my many visits. I'd describe the vibe as more of a... general indifference. People in big crowded cities withdraw into themselves in public and don't connect with others, that feeling is stronger in LA than most places.

You want evil in LA? Try being on the 405 with a jackknifed big rig.

R43 well, their not mutually exclusive

Wow r19 I got the same vibe in Berlin. Intense. I know what you're saying. But nothing as intense as the feeling I once got standing in from of the White House several years ago. Serious juju. .

Someone should send Eddie that long-ass thread about Hollywood witches.

It's not a good idea to send things out. People use odd lingo and expressions on here.

You realize these "vibes" you speak of don't really exist, right? That they're created and live in your own head, right? That you bring your prejudices and your life experience to any place you visit, and the way you feel says more about you than it does about the city, right?

I've lived in LA for 26 years now. I love it. It's unique, and there is beauty here, and you can't beat the weather. Yes, some industry people can be tiresome, but theyre easily avoidable.

Nothing at all evil about it. It's wonderful.

I have great memories of my years in L.A. but, let's face it, it's fucking ugly. Watch "Tangerine" to see the real city, not the glossy shit they show you in those "Visit California" commercials.

I live in Bel-Air

This thread makes me think of the infamous Elisa Lam story, the girl who ended up dead in the water tank at that creepy hotel. I guess the final verdict was that she had mental issues and crawled up there herself but damn, what the hell really happened and why there? She was traveling as a tourist along the west coast. Everything was basically fine until LA.

Everyone is after a huge Hollywood career and all of that entertainment $$$$$. Basically what R33 said.

It really is a fucking rat race out there. Everyone's clamoring for international superstardom and a Kardashian lifestyle and a billion dollar bank account.

That's all it really comes down to. So glad I got mine and got out when I did.

it' s a very active seismic zone. that alone makes for the uneasiness of the place.

What about that actress who committed suicide by jumping off the "H" of the Hollywood sign back in the 1920s? I think?

That was really sad. All she wanted was to be a movie star.

There does seem to be something dark about Hollywood.

[quote]you can't beat the weather.

One long season of hot, dry weather does not a great climate make. And what's with the recent humidity?

Lana Del Rey mural on Ellison hotel overlooking Venice.

Fault line magnetism can have something to do with it. But Los Angeles is such an odd place, anyhow. It's the great junction where the fantasy of post modern culture meets the reality of the material world and that eclipsing of perspective, of sureness in reality can be disorienting for some people.

L.A. can be ugly in an almost fun house mirrors distorted, caricaturish way. But when it's beautiful, it's extreme and it is mesmerizing. This is also when L.A. can seem its most eerie and sinister: There's something unnatural about its beauty because the main industry of the region is one that has mastered capturing a record of time, of giving personalities a means of existing in the present, beyond the mortal lives of their owners. They can make the living fall in love with the dead.

This odd romantic relationship the movie industry has with death and human mortality that's pretty much unlike any other, anywhere else, permeates everything with a seemingly supernatural smoke. It's like a place that claims to want your flesh, when it really just wants your soul to dance for it for eternity. Unlike the funeral industry and its place separate from the regular routine of most people's daily lives , Hollywood isn't about putting souls to rest, it's about keeping personalities "alive" beyond the grave, locked into some perpetual imitation of life without a life. It's a place that has made reviving the "ghosts" of the past, unaware as they may be, available with the push of a "play" button.

Even the flora of the area, often included as popular ingredients in the white floral fragrances that find an inter-generational legacy in Hollywood circles are classic "spiritual", church flowers. Funeral flowers. The indoles of Gardenia, Jasmine, Ylang-Ylang and Tuberose mimic human flesh. Plumeria/Frangipani is the flower of vampires in Malay folklore. These notes are found in abundance in fragrances that have been popular in Hollywood for almost 100 years. Hollywood is drawn to these scents again and again.

Because of this, people get the sense of something unnatural about the place and when living there for long enough, that ambiance of place seeps into you, prompting a person to contemplate the very nature of existence and time, itself. It isn't an accident that Theosophy and sundry other philosophical "New Age" spiritual systems in The United States got their start there and it remains a place where such belief systems continue to flourish. When the natural and expected path of human mortality seems disrupted, it can generate an unease that won't be satisfied in the traditional ways people have dealt with mortality throughout time.

I think one of the reasons Hollywood types get along with Old Money aristocrats so well is because both essentially live with death on a regular basis, live like the World's toy figures, keepers in a virtual mausoleum of history surrounded by the ghosts of lives past, with all the figures of the World's cultural history being players in their personal and/or familial story. The figures in history and fairy stories are their ancestors. The faces of eras are their own.

I’ve lived in LA for nearly 30 years and it certainly is off in many ways, but for all of that when I watch the news it’s usually all those lovely homey suburbs across the U.S. where the daily horrific things are happening. We have our share of creepy show biz sexual predators -the rest of the country seems to have enormous amounts of loved ones murdering their family members.

The ambition and the climbing and the neediness of the people can be either energising or depressing.

R57, it was Peg Entwhistle.

The actor who played Nellie Olsen's husband Percival, Steve Tracy, was cremated and buried under the D. Died of AIDS/family.

San Francisco is far more of a hell hole than Los Angeles. And frankly, LA isn't any worse than any other big metropolis with over a million people. No place that big is going to be pleasant to live in.

[R160] that was beautifully written. Better than "Day of the Locust."

Lovely poetic and thoughtful post, R60.

Witchcraft is widespread in Hollywood, and I'm sure that contributes to the dark and foreboding atmosphere.

I thought for a minute that I had written the original quote. I don’t remember if I did, but I always say that LA has the most haunted vibe of any city I’ve visited, even New Orleans, Paris, NY, and London).

It just feels like a lot of sketchy and tragic shit has gone down and that energy never settles. I actually kind of like that creepy feeling.

Welp, Hollywood may well have a lot to answer for. I guess we're all waiting to see how things unfold in our experimental Republic.

Thank you, R65 and R66.

For those claiming "vibes" is a concept without Scientific merit, I wouldn't be so sure about that. Pulsars and quasars impact deep space objects around them. Accelerate particles enough and they can "travel" back in time. You can change a person's, even a crowd of people's chemical brain response or responses by playing certain combinations of musical notes and tones together or in sequence. Gravity and magnetism impact a person's metabolism and mass. The energetic activity of sunlight stirs a plant to photosynthesis, to communicating sun energy, chemically. At the smallest level of measurement, we're all just atoms, movement and the space between.

Life, the nature of existence, is a lot weirder than we're comfortable remembering it is on a regular basis.

[quote] Witchcraft is widespread in Hollywood, and I'm sure that contributes to the dark and foreboding atmosphere

See?

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She can’t help herself.

R60 well said. You captured everything that is both beautiful and repellent about los Angeles. It's really a fascinating area in alot of ways, even for people who dislike it.

This documentary embodies the dark aura that surrounds LA and Hollywood.

Ridiculous woo woo, R60!

Woooooooo!

Wooooooooooo!

R68 This weird dichotomy of the creepy and the charming always being present together in LA is why I consider "Sunset Blvd." the perfect Hollywood movie, perfect for capturing the place's unique ambiance.

Hollywood is macabre, yet cozy at the same time and this marriage of things that usually don't go together is why I think the place unnerves people: It gives you the feeling you're being charmed by some beautiful and hypnotic predator, the spider that paralyzes and sedates you as it's turning you in its thread. You can't quite put your finger on it but you sense you're being lead down some path you wouldn't consciously choose to go down if you knew what you were getting into.

Thanks, R74. I've always been partial to Haiku.

My long-time partner grew-up in Pasadena and graduated from UCLA. He's level-headed, kind-hearted, and industrious. He defies that negative stereotype, and talks about California often, mostly in a good way. We live on the east coast.

OP! Type “laurel canyon” into the search bar, you’ll find lots of interesting DL discussion of the bad vibes in that LA neighborhood when it was a fashionable place in the 60s-70s.

As strange as it sounds I actually prefer places that feel slightly "creepy " and "off " to very bland Stepford suburban places with nothing unique. I always feel more alive in the weird ,sinister places and kind of flat and empty in the more normal areas. Probably says something a bit disturbing about me, lol.

El Lay is the place to be

R79 "Memento mori" personalities discover things about life that would have remained unknown, had they not had the propensity to start digging. Be yourself. Humanity needs your perspective. Believe your life and personality is no accident.

R59 nice mural . Unpopular opinion but I actually rather like Lana Del Rey and her music. Yes, she's affected in her mannerisms, but there is something very old Hollywood beautiful about her. She seems to really embody the character of Los Angeles. I appreciate she at least tries something a little different.

R81 r79 here. Thanks, I've always been a bit of an oddball and it's nice to have some reassurance.

WARNING, R59 is an automatic download.

OP has obviously never been to Reno.

R85 does Reno feel off somehow?

"Bizarre Feeling Of Extreme Evil In Los Angeles"

It's actually a scent coming from the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas.

I've never felt vibes from LA, Ptown, SF or even New York. Small town, red state America ...that's what gives me the willies. Talk about angry people.

Omg, LA is not exclusively the entertainment industry. The entertainment industry in LA is dark, but it’s only a tiny fraction of the city.

Hollywood is the entertainment capital of the world though.

Everybody comes to Hollywood!

I ❤️ LA.

It’s all in your head, OP.

There is no denying something “off”. For me it’s the complete ease which people live there when it all can change in about three minutes; the odd juxtaposition of its beauty and surroundings with the possibility it will be a smoking pile of wreckage in an instant.

It’s a dreamy place otherwise, creamy lush light in the late afternoons, and the mountains on good days with deep light and shadows with spectacular contrast.

I go there pretty much every weekend. I love it.

I think it depends on how much money you have and what your goals are. Money can insulate you from a lot of unpleasant things.

R93 that is incredibly true. A large amount of wealth can help someone do well in a place where they would otherwise be miserable.

[quote]Witchcraft is widespread in Hollywood, and I'm sure that contributes to the dark and foreboding atmosphere.

Well where the hell are all these witches? I've been here since the early 1980s and I haven't met a single one, and I would like to, damn it! For that matter, I have never felt a dark and foreboding atmosphere, either. Too much sunshine, too many palm trees to be dark and foreboding.

[quote]with the possibility it will be a smoking pile of wreckage in an instant.

And yet it never is. The east coast gets pummeled, sometimes destroyed, by hurricanes. The midwest has entire towns flattened by tornadoes. LA gets hit by an earthquake and moves on. I think it's because of California's vast seismic past - earthquake preparedness and the seismic standards for buildings are stronger here than almost anywhere else in the world.

I’ve been a naturalized New Yorker for 30 years. Every single day, I actively love my city. People used to tell me that LA is a whole different kind of city and that I’d love San Francisco. Not at all. And not that I’d want to live there EVER, but LA is more my meat. There’s a seamy underbelly that’s sort of appealing, there. It’s a place where things happen.

But I absolutely did perceive the fine edge of evil there. New York has it, too. Hasn’t stopped me from loving it and raising my children here.

r45 That's really strange - I felt the same thing with the Tenderloin, but also parts of New Orleans, Taipei, Phnom Penh, Ekaterinberg, rural New Zealand, areas in Berlin - just a dark weird feeling.

As someone described like an acid trip coming on and you know it isn't going to be good.

It's all Babylon. L A, NYC, SF, DC... I've lived in all of them. You just have to actively avoid bad people doing bad things

R52 you can find ugly areas in every city. LA has a ton of natural beauty, and awesome neighborhoods.

R67 how does it feel to be a complete fucking idiot?

R60, what a gorgeous post. Are you a writer? You should be.

Thank you so much, r102!

R95, The foreboding starts as soon as the sun sets. Hollywood keeps its witchcraft secret, of course, but it's practiced by some top stars and execs. It's no different than the other cults and celebrity churches that are popular in Hollywood.

"I thought for a minute that I had written the original quote. I don’t remember if I did, but I always say that LA has the most haunted vibe of any city I’ve visited, even New Orleans, "

LA doesn't feel at all haunted to me, in fact, it feels like a place without a past. Or if there is a past, it's universally ignored.

I just visited Charleston, South Caroline, and THAT place feels haunted! The past hangs over the place like a storm cloud, as if ghosts of the slaves who built the place are still there and still pissed off. LA's got nothing on that shit.

Well then, if Charleston has the ghosts of pissed off slaves hanging over it, then LA has the brokenness of the multitude of young hopefuls seeking stardom only to get lost in drugs, prostitution, pornography, death and murder, etc. Over a hundred years worth.

The real evil of moral decay and barbarism is in places like rural Georgia.

The Bible Belt. That's where the real scum-suckers and swamp people are. DRAIN THE SWAMP!

I know some queen who works as a PR lackey at a major studio. His Instagram is non-stop photos of him smiling at his own company's premieres and events and his other PR lackey's events. It's like one long shining happy premiere party. To me, the whole thing is like the banality of evil.

R105, ha! Come to Richmond. Our main claims to fame were slavery and tobacco. Talk about karma.

The most haunted place in America is actually Savannah georgia.

I know this because it's my hometown and it's been listed as a fact.

Do your research.

its americana on steroids, meaning its all about status, money, what you drive, your body fat index, your looks, your house, especially your house..........also, LA is a place people go to try and fulfill their dreams and make it happen and if it doesnt happen it is horribly depressing.

If you can ignore all that, there is plenty to like, great weather, etc

R110, what kinds of things did you encounter living there?

To the idiots who keep yelling "BULLSHIT", it's not bullshit, it's normal human perception.

Yes, areas have a "vibe", and perceiving that is not supernatural, it's normal. Humans are social animals and humans with sense will pay attention to each other and pick up on the moods and attitudes of people near them. There's a big difference between walking across a college campus where most people are stable and hopeful, or walking down the streets of Deplorable Creek, NB, where the local boys have nothing better to do that to look for "fags" to beat up. If you have any sensitivity to other people's feelings and your own, you will feel very different in each environment, you will feel secure and able to go about your business on the campus, and on the verge or fight-or-flight in Deplorable Creek. That's a "vibe".

Of course the perception of a city's vibe is more generalized and vague because there are so many more people to sense, but cities do have a vibe as well. New Orleans has a different culture and history and population than Los Angeles, so the vibe is different.

Even if only half of it is accurate, it's hard to imagine Scotty Bowers' Full Service happening anywhere other than Los Angeles

D.C. R114

At the start of the 20th century the population of L.A. was around two thousand people. Motion picture business people hoping to evade levies for using film cameras filmed as far from detection by the east coast movie camera manufacturers as possible, building a city based on theft, deception, greed and bullshit. When I visited I didn't sense any particular evil. Beverley Hills was the area that gave me the most overpowering feeling, and it was one of of almost serene dullness.

R112 Savannah is a lot like Charleston south carolina in the scenes that it has that lingering vibe of the past which is of course slavery and the fact that the past still isn't resolved and never will be.

The same with new Orleans a very strong slave history. A lot of wrong took place in the past and a lot of restless souls hang over these southern cities. Which will most likely haunt these places indefinitely.

The south is definitely way more haunted then los Angeles could ever be. So many horrible things have happened in the american south unfortunately. The legacy of slavery and Jim crow etc etc.

The south will always Trump Hollywood anytime it comes to haunted history and evil undercurrances. No matter how many young people come out to Hollywood looking for fame and fortune. But end up on the blvd of broken dreams and fall into a world of pain drugs and death.

That's just the nature of the beast.

Donald Sutherland and Jackie Earle Haley in a horrifying clip from 'The Day of the Locust'.

You can feel vibes, but they're due to your own perceptions and prejudices. Why is it that women and gays buy into the notion of shit being haunted? Ugh.

I promise you, if you were taken to Charleston or LA blindfolded without being told where you were, the "vibes" would only come when you found out where you were. The vibes are in your simple heads.

I'm gay, btw.

R115 DC and LA are both incredibly shallow places. With LA it's all about looks, but in DC they are obsessed with who you intern for and where you went to school. At least Angelenos know how to throw a good party, unlike those uptight, boring and cold Washingtonians.

Hollywood and Washington DC will always have a strange relationship.

I've lived in LA for 18 years and have been working in the industry noless, and have never felt "extreme evil". I think the ocean negates all of that.

Now Vegas- that fucking town has a "taking" energy- takes your money, time, dreams, desires, water (everything dries up). There's a reason why mobsters were drawn there and bodies were dumped.

I love that Lana mural. And there is no shame in loving her or her amazing albums. So there.

I felt that sense of true evil in L.A. only once, when Barbra accused me of loitering in her basement mall and had security forcibly remove me from the premises.

Extreme Evil describes any place with a very high number of Republicans.

Either you get 'vibes' or you don't, I guess. DL is a place where we can share our personal experiences. I've never felt the need to disparage anyone who doesn't experience those types of experiences ('vibes'), but I don't understand discounting another person's experiences. I don't recall ever seeing a UFO, but many people have posted of their encounters: it's an unknown to me, so I have no authority to add to those threads, although I read them. I do get 'vibes', although I've never been to LA. I've been to places that definitely left me feeling very uncomfortable, despite the lack of obvious warning signals. Many people who've experienced personal danger have reported feeling fright before anything concrete has happened to them. I don't think it's some huge conspiracy theory.

R126 what are some of the places that you felt uncomfortable?

I travel alone sometimes, and because of that I'm trying to get more sensitive to vibes.

Yes, traveling alone makes you more vulnerable, but it also gives you complete freedom to back away if you just don't like the feel of something. The thing is, "vibes" is how a human brain processes a lot of information about a place or group of people, it's the cumulation of a million tiny observations that are processed below the conscious level of thought. Sometimes I can tell why I don't like a place, like sketchy guys hanging around a parking lot that has big "DON'T LEAVE VALUABLES IN YOUR CAR" signs. Sometimes I never know, I mean, I can be out in the middle of nowhere and the scenery is gorgeous and there are no other humans or cars in sight... and sometimes it's awesome, and sometimes I just don't like the place and I go no further. I never know if those feelings are warning me about grizzly bears or insane survivalists lurking in the brushes or unquiet spirits or are the random effects of insomnia, but I usually listen to the feelings because I have nothing to lose but my own time.

R12, I have to say... the worst 'vacation' I ever had was Provincetown. I was there with some friends and a bunch of strangers (their friends whom I didn't know) all renting a house together for a week. And it was literally the worst week. I came back just feeling emotionally awful, frazzled, stressed, depressed, angry, with free-floating angst. I hated it. I wanted to leave after the second day but I obviously couldn't. And I can't give any specific reason WHY. I like my friends, and most of the other guys were nice. There wasn't any bad event, I wasn't mugged, or anything. The whole place just rubbed my psyche/spirit/soul wrong. I never felt a moment of peace or relaxation or fun.

I will never EVER go back there.

R127, I've felt it several places: my relatives own a funeral home, and my feelings were pretty sporadic there. But, on the other side of the state, I made a visit to the Moonville Tunnel, in Appalachian Ohio. Vinton County is the least populous county in Ohio, that still hosts rattlesnakes. You have to cross the road over Raccoon Creek to visit the tunnel: I believe they've since built a bridge over the creek, but I felt overwhelmed when I located the location, in the middle of the Zaleski State Forest. I was by myself, and I was trembling with fear and sadness. Those coal-miners had miserable lives, so I understand the sadness, but I can't explain why I was trembling with fear. It was involuntary.

Couldn't resist.

I think it's telling that Meghan Markle bragged about coming from LA in the sneering interview recently posted here.

What’s with the sad queen who is so desperate to crown Charleston as champion of evil?

[quote]I think it's telling that Meghan Markle bragged about coming from LA in the sneering interview recently posted here.

Telling WHAT, Frau?

R60 made this thread for me. That post gave me chills!

I love this thread. More more more!

(I've always been obsessed with all things southern CA, and I will never visit there, because I suspect my fantasy would be dashed)

Than you, r135!

No thank you R60. You are a wonderful writer. And you nailed it and said some hard truths in a beautiful way.

Frank you, R60!

You fixted my LA!

I lived in LA for several years.........I guess I had a feeling of continual lushness, time moving faster than normal, the weather lulls you into a contented zone........constant surprise and possibilities around every corner....its hard to summarize.......there is an energy....

I will say the several times I was in Benedict Canyon in close proximity to the Tate/Manson house location I got weird vibes but it just could have been the fact that I was hyper aware of the history. Additionally that area is rumored to be built on old Indian burial grounds of some sort.

I guess I need to go back and read r60 because of all the googly eyes it's getting. Weird how the author is always next in line after some flowery flattery with an obligatory 'Aw shucks' though.

Regarding LA, I sensed more of a self-centered vibe than an evil one. It's the only place I visited where not one single person asked me about me. I had plenty of conversations, but always about the other person. After I noticed, I rolled with it to see if I was imagining things. I wasn't.

R140 You're giving the side-eye to someone typing "Thanks!" in response to others complimenting his post, suspecting it's all part of an elaborate self-promotion plot.

Your claim of time spent in L.A. : Confirmed!

LA isn't evil unless it's the banal part of the banality of evil. I prefer Boston, San Francisco and, for a smaller town, Santa Barbara.

As for the "witchcraft" bullshit, there are just as many "witches" in Des Moines.

[quote] OP copied and pasted his post from City Data. The original poster on City Data mentioned a Datalounge comment about LA, which OP reprinted here.

OK so that explains the influx of dumber than dirt troglodytes.

OP you should be burned at the stake. You are the only witch.

The OP included a link from City Data, so it's not like he was hiding anything. Some of you need to read the attached source article before casting accusations.

[quote]I prefer Boston, San Francisco and, for a smaller town, Santa Barbara.

Have you been to San Francisco lately? It's really awful, at least the city proper is. The homeless and filth on the streets, and the stranglehold techies have taken on the housing market have turned it into a shithole..

Santa Barbara is one of those "paradise" small cities, but it really took a hit during the fire/flood dual catastrophes last winter.

Yes, I've been to San Francisco lately and we had a wonderful time, as always. I loved living there and I'd be happy to live there again. Yes, it's pricey, but every city worth living in is pricey.

Santa Barbara and Montecito are recovering nicely from last year's Survivor California Fire and Flood tv series, thank you.

r67 = Poo shoes

"...emotionally awful, frazzled, stressed, depressed, angry, with free-floating angst."

Some of you bitches are just manopausal.

Perfect for Halloween

I lived in the flats of Hollywood near Melrose and LaBrea on Waring Ave. I'd never cared for L.A. but never felt unsafe there . . . except this one time. It was an indescribable fear that paralyzed me on the street outside my house. I can't really explain it except to say that it was about 7 pm, and, not unusual for L.A., there was nobody on the street, not even cars. As I stood there, I had the distinct feeling that something horrible and terrifying was about to happen to me. It wasn't an anxiety attack. I was just unbelievably frightened. Paralyzing. It was the feeling that somewhere nearby someone had a gun trained on me and was about to pull the trigger. I finally managed to walk back into my home. Nothing happened. The feeling passed but I never forgot it. Never felt that way before, anywhere.

I've been there a couple times and the vibe for me was like visiting a graveyard. I agree with the concept of "City of Broken Dreams"; you can feel the sad ghosts still roaming around.

I had an experience like R150's but mine ended up being funny:

Drove home from work in L.A. traffic, the usual 6 pm rush hour clusterfuck, got on the 101N towards the Valley -- and suddenly I was the only car on the freeway. In all six lanes. I truly thought some apocalypse had happened. A few more cars joined me from the entrance ramp but it stayed empty for miles. At rush hour in L.A.

I got home, still baffled, and turned on the news -- and it showed a truck had jackknifed and was blocking all six lanes. One down from where I had entered. So it went from bizarre and scary to one of my lucky days there.

San Francisco has become horrible. I finally gave up and left after twenty years there, during which time it went from beautiful and invigorating to a literal shithole, at least in the Civic Center and financial district. No where on Van Ness is safe or nice at all anymore, and that includes all the side streets.

Presidio Heights, which used to be for the rich and horrible, is now ghastly. It's just not a nice city anymore.

Horror movie filming locations in LA!

The most evil person in LA is Ryan Murphy.

This thread inspired me to read Nathaneal West for the first time. I read The Day of the Locust and then went on to Miss Lonelyhearts and A Cool Million: The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin (even more unsettling than TDOTL).

Sounds morbid

The current nexus of evil is anywhere Republicans congregate. Being a Republican today literally means you are racist, homophobic, and terrified of everything that isn't just like you. And you want to oppress the other. You are fucking mental.

There is no force of evil, anywhere. Evil only exists in the acts of man.

I agree r22. I have lived here (LA) for 30 years as well. I do notice that when I return from traveling I feel a tension creep over me that remains. I have never felt anything evil or creepy except in the entertainment business. The city of LA itself has no vibe but that tension is real.

I do know that after spending time at the beach for a few hours that tension is gone. I feel washed clean literally.

Has anyone here been to Haiti? I've heard the place described as having that sort of vibe.

Or Washington, DC. It's been two years, has the feeling of evil and doom pervaded the whole city yet?

Well, R120, just go to the right schools and you don’t have to worry, yes?

Or are you a dummy?

I find the bay area to have a most inhospitable vibe, unlike most cities.

San Francisco and Oakland feel treacherous and insincere. I've had that feeling for decades.

L.a. feels downright comfy in comparison.

I felt that dread when visiting a concentration camp site. I do not believe in spirits, but all those perished souls seem to have made their mark.

[quote] Ekaterinberg, rural New Zealand, areas in Berlin - just a dark weird feeling. As someone described like an acid trip coming on and you know it isn't going to be good.

R98 I was coming off a bad scrip in rural NZ (Motueka) in the ‘00s and almost lost my fucking mind. I’m no stranger to the provinces or the backwoods coming from. Hillbilly background but this was something else. Behind the faux-friendliness of the local population I felt some malevolent feeling. There were unrecognisable howls and animal calls coming from the bush. The humidity had an almost creeping scratching quality that got into the throat and lungs. The apples on the trees taste off, roads all seem to go nowhere. For the weeks I was there I felt agitated as if I wanted to cry for no reason, or go apeshit on someone. I had depression back at home but it turned primal and scary in NZ. Never going back.

Overactive imagination.

When I visited LA the first time, my reaction was different. It felt weird because it felt so familiar, even though I had never been there. It felt like home, but it wasn’t home. I’ve talked to other people who had the same reaction, and of course the reason is that we’ve seen so much of the city on television and in movies. The wide, straight, flat boulevards lined with strip malls and tall, dusty-looking palm trees, the smoggy brown mountains in the distance, the 10-lane freeways jammed with traffic and decorated by exit signs with familiar names – Santa Monica Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, Mulholland Drive, Ventura Boulevard. I don’t think there’s any other city in the world whose streets and neighborhoods are so familiar to people who don’t live there. We see a lot of New York and London in movies as well, but neither of those places looks like anywhere else. If you ignore the palm trees and mountains, Sherman Oaks (for example) looks a lot like the DC suburb I grew up in. It's one of the most famous cities in the world, but it's comfortable and homey. It's a disorienting but not unpleasant feeling.

I fell in love with the city – all the sprawling, endlessly suburban square miles of it – right away and wanted to move there. That never worked out, but I still visit regularly and still love it despite its having changed for the worse, in my opinion. LA is wonderful because in so many ways, it’s absolutely typically American, and yet it is so different and full of quirkiness and weirdness at the same time.

Los Angeles has one of the weirdest histories of any city in the United States; the entire thing is an artifice and was only made possible by stolen water from the Owens River Valley, which became a desert—and that's only one of numerous weird things about it. There are a lot of broken dreams there, and a lot of dark deaths that are part and parcel of the industry/culture. There is also a serious occult history, for what it's worth—I know some people don't believe in this sort of thing, but whether you do or not, the history of it in LA runs deep. My dad and his sister were born in LA and lived there until my dad was an adolescent. They left after the Watts riots and the Manson murders; my grandfather decided he'd had enough of the city. He worked for the electric company, and my grandmother worked for an insurance company in downtown LA for many years. I still have family in Southern California, but haven't been back in about 10 years now.

Everyone just needs to watch Under the Silver Lake. Practically a documentary.

OP is a fucking moron.

You’re a fucking moron, r170. It’s a post from City Data which mentions DL’s obsession with LA esoterica.

I've visited LA several times and never got a weird vibe from it. Certainly not a spooky vibe, but maybe you have to actually live in LA to really sense it if it's there. Lots of soft light and the smell of eucalyptus (I think?) trees. The only thing I felt that could be close to what OP describes is a melancholy in the early evening. The notion that overwhelmingly great things can quickly turn sad.

[quote]The only thing I felt that could be close to what OP describes is a melancholy in the early evening. The notion that overwhelmingly great things can quickly turn sad.

Agreed.

LA is rapidly becoming what NYC used to be. The energy there is unparalleled anywhere else in the country.

The OP is too long for me to read.

sorry -

R105 R117 Do you feel the vibes of pissed off slaves when you visit Rome or Egypt, or any of the various other places where slavery existed, which is most of the earth? I've never understood why the South has such a reputation for slavery, as if it is the only place to have ever practiced it. 95% of African slaves shipped to the Americas went to Latin America and the Caribbean, not the US. Do you feel the specter of slavery hanging over Brazil, the last country in the Americas to practice slavery? What about when you go ashore during a Caribbean cruise? I love visiting Charleston, New Orleans, etc... and I don't forget the slaves but marvel at their artistry and craftsmanship which was responsible for creating some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The fact that they could create such beauty, which is still standing, in spite of their enslavement, is a testament to their strength and should be celebrated.

Back to LA, I haven't felt anything sinister when I have visited, aside from when I rode by the Celebrity Center.

I feel a vibe when I go there. Laurel Canyon and Benedict Canyon have a definite creepy feel to them, but I can handle it in short doses. Couldn’t live there long term though. It’s a gross city with gross people.

Not really evil, but different from NYC. I think the pleasant weather has something to do with it. I have lived many places in the USA, and definitely recommend those with no snowfall, hurricanes etc. Heating your house is less expensive and in some temperate areas a/c isn't needed. I noticed a lot of posturing in LA. Women wearing cowboy boots and hats, men with major scarves around their neck on a warm day. So yes, you will never be in a place where there are so many wannabes. The normal people have nothing to do with this rabble or the Kardashians - gasp. They defy description - "hi, nice to meet you k, k, and k - how are your breasts, your wigs, boobs, your children who are raised in this milieu?"

I happen to like New York

Real evil isn't subtle.

I don't know about evil but many parts of LA feel seedy, especially to people not from here.

For being the second largest American city, it's also massive and sprawling, so it's easy to feel isolated in certain nooks and crannies.

[quote]Do you feel the vibes of pissed off slaves when you visit Rome or Egypt, or any of the various other places where slavery existed, which is most of the earth?

I have in Gettysburg and at the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest. Also in several Red Light districts.

I'd be weary of City-Data. My experience of that site is that it's filled with what used to be referred to here as Freepers -- lots of scaredy-cats spreading false or bad information about places they don't actually know much about.

The Evil was too strong, even for us. We had to get out of there.

I felt this feeling in Bucharest.

Gives credence to Kanye’s assertion that LA is run by satan

There's that flat dust bowl of suburbs leading to the mountains and oceans. And its always busy.

LA has a lot more personality than NYers imagine, precisely because its not a playground for the rich.

All historical places are dark vortexes. So much awful stuff happens in those places and the negative energy accumulates and accumulates and poisons the area. L.A. is such a historical place and such a hotbed of dark history that of course there's a feeling of extreme evil around it. It's just another vortex.

Did you ever hear about the Lizard People of LA?

How about the UFO battle over LA in 1942?

I've always had this feeling about L.A., but I know it's true about New Orleans, especially post-Katrina. Going there as a kid, there was always something spooky about it, but going back as an adult after Katrina was somewhat terrifying. There was a vibe in the air that was really creepy and you start thinking everyone on the street could do you harm.

Motel money murder madness...

Los Angepes is forever cursed because it lives on water stolen from the Owens Valley.

[R46]

"Jackknifed Big Rig" is the name of a strain of cannabis. Recommend.

Bump

R5 THAT is 100% true!

OP has never been to Fresno.

Since they demolished the Ambassador Hotel the evil is not as extreme.

Nikki Sixx still lives in LA, right? It’s probably his energy OP is picking up.

If he dark elements are what make Los Angeles appealing to me. I love a city with some real darkness.

Id rather live in Chicago: Im one of those gays that likes cold weather.

California is where dreams go to die. Lots of unhappy ghosts

Tracii I think I read that Nikki moved to Montana or Idaho or something-

R198: Dark and evil or just scary?

I stayed at the Ambassador once, close to the end - late 80's. I have never, before or since, been a guest in a hotel and moved the dresser to block the door.

Eddie might be on to something.

What was the Ambassador like when it was around?

L.A. has pleasant weather, R178?

When?

R205 Where to begin? The hotel's coffee shop, a Paul Williams redesign from the 1950s looked like the interior of a 1956 Lincoln Continental if Dorothy Draper had been involved: beautiful upholstery and giant palm frond wallpaper. There were signs everywhere saying "Tagalog Spoken Here" which seemed off - the hotel was in Koreatown.

They were using the Coconut Grove for filming, and I think it had been done over more recently than the coffee shop, but it looked nothing like the original version. The pool area was deserted, the water in the pool wasn't crystal clear, they'd removed the diving board, and an enduring memory is that of an empty Coke can rolling in fits and starts across the cracked concrete pool apron. The lobby was huge (no hotel would "waste" that much space today) and it didn't look like any of the furniture, drapes, carpets, plumbing fixtures, etc. in the public areas or guest rooms had been replaced in the twenty years since Bobby Kennedy was shot there. The kitchen was off-limits, too.

It was something like $60 a night for the room, and we switched to the Marmont (which back then wasn't that much better) the next day. The Ambassador was on its last legs when we were there.

The hotel was owned by the Schine family until 1971. The owner's son, David Schine, was allegedly once Roy Cohn's boyfriend.

Thanks for capturing the way I feel about every gay bar I ever set foot in.

A WAVE OF DARK BROWN FECES

I found the people who feel that way often are wanna be entertainers-thats a sure fire way to feel disposable and get in touch with unsavory characters.

The people with the best lives in entertainment start out doing other things and a media career is an offshoot of the talents they already have OR people at Pixar who work long hours but draw and take meetings about imagination.

Ive been to LA a lot and it has a dreamy quality due to the hazy smog and dry heat along with its glamour and seediness. I really love it and only surround myself with very normal people-people without heirs and people not trying “to make it happen”. THOSE are the people in NYC and LA who bring that evil nature. My ex cheated on me with an inspiring actor and that was the most terrible human Ive come into contact with-evil vibes. Anyone trying to garner outsize attention to themselves without another talent has some trauma that extends to everyone around them.

Ive even considered moving to LA despite the traffic because Im an old bitch at 30 now and done with caring what others think or hanging out with any “cool gays”-most cool gays are boring and the most fun people are random Electricians and Account Managers-who can let loose and be human.

Oops ** aspiring actor and **airs I haven’t had my coffee(i just say that because then I tell you that I’m actually smart and just haven’t had -my coffee Agnes my COFFEE I MUSTG HAVE MY COFFEE TO REACH MY GENIUS-)

It's not the city that is evil, it's simply that LA attracts weirdos. I too have been to most every major city in America and LA by far has the most strange and crazy people I've ever seen.

The book My Dark Places by James Elroy really captures this not James in Los Angeles but all around it. It also made me want to explore the San Gabriel valley

I felt an extreme and desolate sadness in NYC in 1986, but of course AIDS was on my mind at the time. Las Vegas is always full of desperate people. LA has its share, particularly 1991 when 27% of the job losses in the whole country were in LA County......just before Rodney King....but for true evil Miami is just in a different league than all these other places.

R214 Care to expand on Miami?

I've been to LA about ten times over the years. I have always loved it. People were always nice to me. Easy to talk to. Even the gays in WeHo were easy to talk to and friendly to me. In the city where I live, I had a Persian friend who grew up in Beverly Hills (went to high school there too) and he hated LA and thought they were horrible. His excuse for why they were nice to me was that IT WAS ONLY because I am nice and friendly and easy to approach. I think if you lived and grew up there you'll have a different opinion than those of us who just visit. BTW. He got beaten to within an inch of his life at BH High. So that tarnished his view.

I feel this way about San Francisco. I don't intend to go back.

I'm not American. I've visited LA several times and enjoyed it, and I'd be happy to go back. This is not going an LA bashing exercise but here are the things I didn't like:

* Downtown can be frightening, there are people there you know would kill you for $5, in broad daylight, if they had the chance. Then you've also got the widespread decay from its decline years, before the recent, patchy revitalisation.

* The desperate characters you see, especially at tourist sites, trying to scam money and get by after their acting dreams failed.

* I went to an open mic comedy night at one of the gay bars in WeHo and literally ever desperate wannabe comedian/actor who got up to do their set did a ritualised denouncement of their whiteness. It was very Maoist revolution/struggle session. The cult thinking and ideologization presumably fills the void in their empty lives, like Scientology did to the generations of desperados and losers who arrived in LA before them.

If OP attended an east coast school he would be brett easton ellis.

I wonder if r216 is from the east coast. Every time I leave the east coast and visit another part of the country I'm struck by how friendly and relaxed people appear.

San Francisco was the worst for me. I felt a despair like a crack whore dying of AIDS in an alley.

R221 What era were you there?

<- I visited in 1988. It chilled this Flyover to the bone, and not just the weather.

The movie Barton Fink captures creepy LA perfectly for me

It’s just part of the rightwing social media and lamebrained conservative tv “news” to smear cities. They were all fainting because 6 people were killed over a weekend in a place that has the population of 7 other states combined. Funny they never heard of Fort Apache, Hell’s Kitchen, The Five Corners, the Draft Riots, La CosaNostra, Murder, Inc, the Westies and the entire history of NYC that was more violent than NYC is today.

You see, elections are coming. Cities have the most voters. Rural areas don’t. But the rural morons want to rule. The rightwing has been exhorting it’s following to build arsenals for years. They tried a coup but there weren’t enough of them to keep it going. Because rightwing fascists are a minority in the US. They’re Biffs. They want to rule by the fist, not by the brain. So now the plan for minOriya rule is to infiltrate state boards of election and give state legislatures the power to overturn elections. Since most non-fascist votes came from cities, the idea is to demonize cities. Cities are violent. Cities are burning! They’re burning to the ground! They’re murdering EVERYBODY. They have GANGS. The have people with African blood in their veins. When elections come, state legislatures and electors are going to to “There were voter irregularities in the cities. We know this. We know for a fact evil lives in the cities. The blacks are born violent and the white liberals are Satanists. We’re calling our own special investigators and we may have to void all of the cities’ votes because the machines are contaminated. The blacks and their white devil-worshipping allies deviously messed with the votes, so we’re overturning the election.”

And everyone outside the cities will believe it because they’ve been propagandized on tv, in print on video, in podcasts to believe the cities are violent & satanic

There’s the distinct air of occultism and deviancy in LA. The films of Kenneth Anger and Fred Halsted capture those elements beautifully. It can also be achingly romantic, as evinced by the theme to Chinatown.

I only lived there for 3 years but I knew after only a few months that it was only a matter of time before I went back to NYC. It’s such a strange, off-kilter city. It’s the last place I’d want to die in, aside from Haiti.

Mrs. Moe Howard's tuna casserole was the embodiment of evil.

It's because Hollywood is a literal Satanic cult. Laugh if you want but there is a massive cult of Satan worshippers amongst the global elite. Hollywood appears to be the center of it. Where the worst abuses occur.

R218 is a (not so) stealth Russian troll post.

[quote] [R218] is a (not so) stealth Russian troll post

R229, I just read r218’s response. The only question is, are you mentally ill?

Back on topic - have service industry workers been priced out of LA County?

LA is the largest Catholic diocese in the country. It's where Helter Skelter happened, where all 4 of the 5 victims at Cielo were Catholic. Nicole Simpson was Catholic and butchered. There's something in the Holy Water.

The world would be better off if Eddie took a leap off the Hollywood sign. But, make sure TMZ is there to film it.

Who uses city-data anymore?