---
title: "I Live in California"

meaning: "Big Hug opener: Ohio kid performing California: beach selfies, fake surf cred, swim in unaffordable weed, waiter dead on CSI, vegan holistic AF with cocaine weekends."

year: 2021
release: "Big Hug"
releaseType: "album"

artist: "Scoobert Doobert"
artistId: "#scoobert"

credits: "Written, performed, and mixed by Luke Francis Walton. Mastered by Riley Knapp."

spotify: "https://open.spotify.com/album/3dW4LbP8381fYkKBdBxiFn"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGywF3QeCuc"
officialVideo: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGywF3QeCuc"
apple: "https://music.apple.com/us/album/big-hug/1585121212"

press:
  - outlet: "slackcitybitch — New Music Friday pick"
    url: "https://www.instagram.com/p/CRZ7ruPB4-d/"
    desc: "July 16, 2021 — @slackcitybitch review of I Live in California (alternative/indie); pop hooks, funky guitar, California-sun blunt energy, psychedelic summer song."

themes: ["California", "Big Hug", "class", "satire", "midwest", "wellness"]

isrc: QZHNC2182458
isrcSource: soundexchange
lyrics: |
  Ima
  Ima take a selfie hanging at the beach in
  Winter
  Rub it in my hometown's face

  Ima
  Ima tell my family
  I surf like every  day
  Though I never even caught a wave

  Yeah I'm from
  Ohio
  From Cali back to Cleveland
  I am never leaving
  No

  Ima take you down to California
  We can swim in the marijuana
  That no one can afford yeah
  We all live with our momma

  Take you down to California
  We can cruise in a beat up Honda
  We all do what we gotta
  To live in California

  I'm a waiter on the westside
  Got cast in an episode of CSI
  Yeah, I play a dead guy
  What about it

  I'm holistic AF
  Got a crystal for that good energy
  Tell everyone I'm vegan
  Cocaine on the weekend

  Ohio
  From Cali back to Cleveland
  I am never leaving
  No

  Ima take you down to California
  We can swim in the marijuana
  That no one can afford yeah
  We all live with our momma

draft: false

---

The [*Big Hug*](/albums/big-hug/) opener is a thesis in one joke: performing California while the math doesn't work. Luke solo, October 2021. An Ohio kid takes a selfie at the beach in winter and tells his family he surfs every day, though he never even caught a wave, then loops back home anyway. *From Cali back to Cleveland, I am never leaving.* The *no* reads as a defiant stay, not an escape fantasy.

The chorus sells the state as bargain-bin paradise, where you *swim in the marijuana that no one can afford* and everyone still lives with their momma: legal-weed glamour against the rent crisis, hustle as regional identity. The westside waiter cast as a dead guy on CSI, the crystals, the vegan posting, the *cocaine on the weekend*: same good-vibes hypocrisy as *High Society* on [*KŌAN*](/songs/high-society/) a year later.

It sets the table for the record. Approachable post-pandemic weirdness rather than dread, the California myth as a softening device and not just camouflage. Pairs with [*Heffalumps and Woozles*](/songs/heffalumps-and-woozles/) and [*I'm an Idiot*](/songs/im-an-idiot/) ([*Big Hug* album essay](/albums/big-hug/)).

---