L.A. is so pretty I'm crying...oh wait, that's smog

I have a certain L.A. friend who has not been to our beloved New York City in years. Ironically, while my plane brought me across to my annual Los Angeles trip, he was on a plane to New York.

Friend: Dude, you walk around the corner and wham-- a cloud of the most powerful odor. New York is so-- damn--dirty.
Me: Oh, yeah.

This, of course, is true. New York is stinky. What was also true was that while he conveyed to me his disgust with New York's smell and dirt, I was driving down the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway and into a zone that made my eyeliner run and my eyes tear up worse than a von Trier flick. Yeah, okay, it's beautiful here. But man, this west coast dirt is thick, potent and hidden... and of a toxic, ghostly nature.