Spotting The So-Cal Male In The Wild

He Listens to Whiteboy Reggae Music

You can hear this music from a mile away, its polite bassline reverberating from porch side singalongs, beach barbecues, and raging keggers, alike. By the end of college, I’d fall into a Pavlovian nausea at the sound of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sublime, and especially Jack Johnson. Banana pancakes? Bubbly toes? Are those the same song?

And never will you be so attacked as when you denounce Mason Jennings, Counting Crows, or, heaven help you, The Dave Mathews Band at a party filled with So-Cal boys. Someone needs to create some type of support group for those who just don’t understand Whiteboy Dub. Until then, I’ll just express my confusion through the safety of Guidespot.

He Knows What A Shark Attack Is

Feel like drinking some bottom-shelf liquor out of a spitty fishbowl like a pig at a trough? I know I do…

He Orders Salads At Restaurants

I once dated your typical So-Cal health and fitness fanatic, and he actually told me that the thought of me drinking beer was a turn-off, because it had too many carbs.

In another very similar run-in, a young man in Hollywood informed me that did not date girls who ate after 7pm. He never seemed to consider that I might still love french-fries more than him, even after his helpful comment.

He's Convinced He Invented Beer Pong

As is every college educated male. Wikipedia says it’s from the 40s at Dartmouth. I say that your basement floor is too dirty to be cleaned by a dip in a cup of murky water.

He Talks Like A Ninja Turtle

From my experience, surfer colloquialisms have not evolved at all since the advent of the TMNTs. Words like gnarly, awesome, rad, vicious, still float around pretty frequently. And what is this “done-zo” craze?

He Wears Skater Shoes

Remember Vans?

...And Cargo Shorts

...And Shirts With Patterns On Them Like These

He Hires Day Laborers To Do His Homework

When we told young Andrew to hire a day laborer to finish his mountainous animation final in jest, never did we think he would actually drive to the Home Depot parking lot at 7am in accordance. Though the laborer’s assigned task of coloring in 600 line drawings made him oddly happy, I thought that 16-hours of coloring should have been worth more than $50 and a Domino’s pizza purchased with our meal-plan dollars.

He Used Think It Was A Good Idea To Go Drinking In Tijuana

Something about downtrodden houses, wild dogs, and the smell of landfill doesn’t exactly put me in the mood to party. Granted, I’ve only visited Tijuana on service trips, but I generally perceived it as a pretty somber town. But 18-year-old So-Cal boys seem to love to go down there and order blended margaritas until the sun comes up. Or until one of their friends gets into a fight with a poncho vendor, and he ends up having to call his mom via the American Embassy to get back over the border.

He Brings Up His Hollywood Connections

Like how he sat next to Carrot Top’s table when he went to Vegas, or how he saw K-Fed at Del Taco, etc.

He Uses The Same Hair Products You Do

Once you befriend the right people, you’ll never have to buy hair wax again.

He Owns A Guitar Whether Or Not He Knows How To Play

…Kind of like me.

He Tans Competitively

One of my old neighbors used to lay out with his legs bent like a frog, and his arms out straight like a mummy, to ensure that perfect glowing tan.

Photo by: Mark Stout

He Smells Like Sunblock & Bonfire Cinder