how does "Get A Long Little Doggies" work in?
OK, I'll go slower for ya. Places that are the most tolerant, are also the most (in the words of the song) inclined to believe that "it's your misfortune and none of my own" - or in language a bit plainer: "your problems might be important to you, but they ain't nothin' to me, so don't even think about bothering me with them." So sure, you can have an almost limitless amount of "freedom to be me" in places like the Bay Area without the interference of others. But you are also getting the freedom to live in a doorway and wake up every morning in a puddle of your own urine, and no one is going to interfere with/or care about that either (other than how it effects the property values, which, obviously, are a hell of a lot more important than then the 'freedom casualties' are - because failure of that sort is just part of the price to pay for level of success available - can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs you know).
And that level of freedom and total personal responsibility takes a lot of training to be able to successfully navigate your way through. And, not incidentally , such places are frequently sought out by people who have a lot of drive, experience, education and discipline and a freakish work ethic. So it scares me - or at least informs me to issue a slight warning (because I have to deal with and watch these sad cases traipse past me all the time) - that you better have the means to be successful in that environment or it's going to eat you alive. You show up in SF or Seattle with no work history, no money, and a high school diploma, or worse, a GED or less, you are pretty much guaranteed to be standing on a street corner waiting, hoping, and praying for some gross old man to drive by, pick you up, cram his penis down your throat and shoot pecker snot all over your tonsils for twenty bucks so you can eat something because it's been days since you've had any real food. That's a reality. And once you get to that place the only solace available is the bottle, the crack pipe, or the needle and the spoon.
The other reality is that places that are sought out by people working overtime to succeed are very expensive and highly competitive. I think that all things considered, that New York City, particularly Manhattan, comes across as the most tolerant place ever. But it's tolerant not out of values, but because most of the people in NYC are so busy working to succeed, and succeed in the biggest possible way, on the biggest possible stage, precisely because Frank was right when he sang: And if I can make it there, I'm gonna make it anywhere... well, people like that have a thousand things to do before they even begin to notice you, much less care about you. You know, they got 99 problems but you ain't one.
Of course if that's not your cup of tea, then there are places like Iowa. Ahh Iowa.
Iowa, the land between two rivers, a place where the most exciting state slogan is "Plenty of Free Parking?" A state that features two of the worst weather climates known to mankind, where the winter is bitterly cold with a high wind and the summer is so hot and humid that you wake up and you're already drenched in sweat? And to add insult to injury the cost of heating a house in the winter is balanced out by the enormous air conditioning bill in the summer? That Iowa? The Iowa where the capital city Des Moines is a lot like the capital of Indiana? You know what Kurt Vonnegut said about Indianapolis? "There are 364 days, then there is a race, then there are 364 more days." Well Des Moines is just like that. Minus the race.
Iowa has one great deal going on (well two if you're into meth, because they make it and consume it like crazy) - and it's this. A couple of world class universities in a place where the nearest excitement is at least a three to five hour drive from where you are going to school. Iowa is so dull that going to the library to study all night is actually the most attractive option for fun. So it's easy to get a very high quality education. But, having a very high quality education makes you way, way, way overqualified for any job in the state so people graduate from those schools with their cars packed and idling in the parking lot and they leave as fast as they can. In droves.
As a direct result of that, Iowa is the oldest (in terms of the age of the population) state in the United States and no doubt leads the nation in the sales of products for the incontinent. The funeral business is pretty brisk too. So people into water sports and/or necrophilia or Hot Granny Sex are pretty happy there.
That's it's very Christian conservative, elderly and provincial makes it one of the least tolerant places I've ever been. And in terms of "nonjudgmental" no atmosphere is more judgmental than isolated small towns where everyone feels that they not only have the right, but an obligation gossip about your life. Though you can take some small comfort in the knowledge that - 'god willing' - they'll be dead soon.
There is, as I noted, a huge meth problem among those people who are too slow, too dumb or too dull to find a way out and who are not old enough to die yet. And for some, a large population of people on meth - who as result of the drug are total sexual deviants when their not in some psycho/paranoid killing rage - make it easy pickings to find people willing to engage in totally degrading activates on a near constant basis if your willing to overlook the constant twitching and rotting teeth.
If you were my worst enemy - I mean if you were the absolute worst person I've ever met in my life, I still wouldn't wish Iowa on you unless you're going there to study or as a very weird and kinky sex tourist.
