#socal gothic

[modern-alebrije]

the marine fog hangs thick in the air

like cotton suffocating the dark

[kinningnessie]

Rural SoCal Gothic

You're on a road trip, you don't know where the final destination is, you stop at every ghost town you come across, you stop at a ghost town, you stop at a ghost town, 5 miles ahead is Calico, you stop at a ghost t-

You go riding on quads in the desert, you swerve to avoid barbed wire, you go riding down long stretches of sand, but now you are on a mountain covered in brush, you swerve to avoid barbed wire

There's an old water tower, old with a huge hole rusted in the side. You enter in through said hole, careful not to cut yourself on the edges. This used to be a water tower, there used to be water. There are needles laying about. You only ever see it used as an echo chamber. This used to be a water tower.

You were in the desert but now five minutes later you are surrounded by farms. Vegetables being grown in neat rows as far as the eye can see. The ever so familiar scent of manure. You hear cows mooing. These are not livestock farms.

A small town with a western theme to it. Murals of cowboys on every building. Trump signs in every yard.

A scorched mountain, blackened and barren. This is the mountain the WalMart is on. The WalMart is untouched, white blue and yellow among dark ashes. Eventually plants on the mountain grow back. "Oh didn't you hear? That mountain, the one with the WalMart, caught on fire again". The WalMart is untouched, the mountain is scorched.

Your... hiking? Ah, I see it now, an old fridge, half buried in the sand, bullet holes in it. There, a singular ripped couch cushion, the rest nowhere to be seen. A huge tractor tire, underneath it is a hastily buried black bag. You don't know what's in the black bag, you don't want to know.

Its Rodeo week. There's a parade for it. A day off of school. A madness descends on the town. Its Rodeo week. Are you going to the parade? Its Rodeo week. You see girl scouts guarding the entrances. Trailers filled with horses fill school campus. You Must go to the Rodeo. Its Rodeo week.

Don't go into the elfen forest. You heard about what happened to that lady. The elfen forest expands outwards from the mountain it used to stay on. There's only one oak tree in the whole forest. Its only brush and large boulders. They provide no shade, but completely block your view of the horizon. You can only see a few feet ahead. There's so much brush. The constant crunch of dirt gravel and sand under your feet as you try to escape. Its no use. You were warned.

[writerlyn]

Man, driving through the length of California at 2:45 AM is a surreal as fuck experience

[hehicular-hanslaughter-lecter]

I keep trying to find those creepy gothic posts for SoCal but every one of them is vaguely sarcastic and funny………..like give me the scary I wanna hear about the coyotes that Aren’t Coyotes I wanna hear about LA being a siren to outsiders not “traffic hasn’t moved in four years. You look at the clock. It’s been four minutes”

[prestigeformat]

“May your Winds be Pacific, not Santa Ana”

[gentlepanpirate]

southern california gothic (orange county)

enjoy.

Obey. Obey what? Obey who? Who is the mastermind behind this morbid world domination? Why is he recruiting 15 year old boys? Obey, they say. You don’t sleep for days.

Soon, your doors will be breaking down. Your hair will be force-fed down your mouth. You won’t see. They’re coming for you, they do it every year. The Reaping. The Gusts. Your car shakes uproariously as you try to make it down the 405, but you know it’s no use. The Santa Ana’s. They’re coming.

You hunger, you all do. It has been thirteen days without a cheeseburger. “In-N-Out” someone suggests, but you promptly open their car door and unbuckle them, shoving them out as they tumble across the 57 North. “Five Guys” you say. You have won. All is well.

It’s all a blur; you can’t see. You’re with your friends, or at least, you were. They’re everywhere. They’re surrounding you. You hear their laughter and the quiet chatter through the crowd. “It’s a box mod, bro” they whisper “Just try it once, dude, it’s fuckin legit”. You can’t escape them. The vapor; you’re trapped.

“$13.50?” Someone asks. You look at them, crying. Where did the tears come from? All you wanted was to park your car. All you wanted was to spend a day at the beach, soft sunlight caressing your skin. Capitalism, you think. Surely, they’re out to get you. The tears still come... $13.50... Looking around you, all you see is a CVS and a Vans skate shop. You keep driving down PCH, trying to escape. Huntington was nothing like they said. 

Suddenly, there is rain on your windshield. You panic, immediately putting your wipers on at full blast. You almost swerve. The rain is gone. You are free from this 20-second cloudy prison at last.

You see her when she emerges from the water spicket in your backyard. She sometimes sleeps under your outdoor picnic table. She’s always there, watching. Worst case scenario, she is there when you’re about to shower, silently. Her name is Widow. Black Widow. You pray to God you never see her again.

“You’ll need a jacket! It get’s cold out there!” It’s 61 degrees, Fahrenheit.

The void is reaching out to you as you approach it. A voice in the back of your head whispering to you. Taunting you. Warning you. “Don’t use the bathrooms on the pier. Never go in the bathrooms on the pier.” You never listen. That is your demise.

[jinpqchi-inactive]

socal gothic

you see a celebrity on the street. the only way you know is by the swarms of paparazzi, dressed in something akin to riot gear. you don’t look back to find out who it is. you can’t without protection.

rich women carry small demons in their purses. they coo down at them, asking how they are, as acid drips onto designer pet clothing.

“what a drought!” your neighbor says as you walk by. “take shorter showers!” their skin is cracking, oozing from the toxic sludge that runs through the pipes now. you don’t know why you’d touch the shower anyway.

the baseball rivalries grow stronger in april. you hear chanting, chanting, screaming, and a team name from the neighbors backyard barbecue.

you receive directions to turn at the starbucks on the corner. you turn, and turn, and keep turning. hours seem to have passed yet you keep turning.

you hear screams from the theme parks, see the lights flashing. it is 3 am, and they close at midnight.

in grade school, you go on field trips to this missions. as the tour leader speaks, you see the fathers out of the corner of your eye. they are coming for you.

“rain is coming!” the screams ring out through the streets. you run, try to hide. rain is coming. 

palm trees line the pretty streets. they are waiting.

the coyotes howl as you try to sleep. don’t acknowledge them. don’t wonder who is screaming. go to sleep.

“let’s go to the beach!” your friends say. they clamber into the water as you watch from the hot, burning sand. you wonder which one of them will be taken by the kelp.

“there’s a bible verse on the bottom of in n out cups, you know.” the next time you go, you check the bottom of your cup. there is an unreadable language, letters shifting. you can feel the curse settling in. 

tourists flock to the walk of fame, but locals know not to step over the stars. out of the corner of your eye you see a hand rising, dragging an unsuspecting woman under. hollywood changes people.

you take the metro to work. your phone loses service underground, and as the lights flicker and screams ring out from the next car, you wish you could have said goodbye.

the traffic seems thicker than normal. the days change. the i-5 is hungry.

the heat makes the air shimmer, the asphalt shaking. the thermometer reaches 115 and the ground opens and swallows things whole.

“june gloom is here!” the weatherman says. the fog rolls in, and when you wake up it’s july 1st.

[throughthewildblue]

If you feel like it you should write some california gothic

Southern California gothic:

You want to score an eighth in Venice. A woman comes to you as if a psychedelic angel on roller skates. “There is no Venice,” she says. You look around, and she is right. The sand? Weed. The sea? Weed. You? You are weed.

In n Out decides it will no longer serve animal-style fries. You want to boycott them out of sheer anger, but you can’t. Three double-doubles later, you no longer know who you are. You no longer care. Strawberry milkshake. Strawberry milkshake.

The Huntington Beach pier is not made of concrete. It is, in fact, a series of bros who were cast into the ocean for not shredding hard enough. You are walking on their bones. It is okay; it’s what they would have wanted, bro.

All avocados are now wooden matryoshka eggs. The pit is wooden as well, so you cannot grow another avocado for the rest of your life (as if all of your other trees were so successful, Mikayla).

The rich beach cities converge upon the poor cities when the apocalypse comes, and depend upon us for knowledge of how to actively live by the beach rather than simply stare at it: Laguna onto Huntington, Newport onto Long Beach, etc. We are no longer free to divide ourselves. We are the Alpha Southern California. Everyone “fuckin’ hates each other.”

They are Something Corporate. They are Jack’s Mannequin. They are Andrew McMahon. They are Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. He has absorbed them. It took over ten years, but he has absorbed them all. If you’re not at his hometown show, your corporeal being escapes you. Good luck as nebulous cloud of sentience.

Venti caramel macchiato with soy, extra ice, and an extra shot. There is neither malice nor humor in this. It is simply your life.

“Welcome to CSU Long Beach,” they say, in unison. “Worship Bukowski or die.”

Your GPS no longer offers you the option of taking the inland route. You are taking PCH. You are always taking PCH. There are no other highways, no other coastlines. There is no America. There is only the Pacific.

Helicopter noise. Helicopter noise. Helicopter noise.

It is raining. God has come to spite us for our hedonism, and she is pissed. Touch the rain. Let it soak into your hair, your skin. It will not return for months. Perhaps years. This may be the last rain you ever experience.

You dig a hole in the sand to hide your beer, but you hit something hard. It is another half-empty can of beer. You try a different spot, but hit another can. There is no more sand to dig; it is all beer cans. Congratulations, we are trash.

Don’t fuckin’ call us trash, we’re fuckin’ rad.

“I am not awake enough to write a California Gothic,” you say, yawning, eyes blurry, body sore from days of walking through the baking sun.